December 1960

Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes asserted “a slight claim on the gratitude of mankind” for inventing a cheap and handy device for viewing three-dimensional photographs. History is still in his debt for the craze he started and the pictures it has left behind

When Jane Addams opened Hull House for Chicago’s immigrants, she began asking questions a local politician preferred not to answer

How folklore, the Reformation, and three inventive New Yorkers turned a dimly known Near Eastern saint into a jolly, secular Santa Claus

Marooned on the coast of Texas, he wandered for eight years in a land no European had ever seen

Rugged, versatile, and nearly indestructible, this four-wheel substitute for the horse has become one of World War II’s enduring legends

Lord Jeffery’s name is “known to fame,” but it was the five years he spent in America that rescued him from obscurity

In Alaska a much-abused Secretary of State saw a fabulous bargain, and what might have been a Russian beachhead became instead our forty-ninth state

So the lookout’s cry resounded while Yankee whalers roamed the seas. Their perilous, arduous trade spanned three centuries

At Ghent five Americans—divided and far from home—held firm for a treaty that won their nation new respect, and began a lasting alliance

That splendid flower of New England— the town meeting—wilts under the scrutiny of a native son