Crime

Shocking and forgotten Crime stories from American history.

8 stories with citations. All stories · Watch videos

• The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire: 146 Garment Workers Locked Inside a Burning Factory

  Young women jumped from windows; the tragedy sparked labor law and fire exit reforms.

• The Bath School Disaster: When a Board Treasurer Bombed Michigan Children

  Andrew Kehoe killed 38 elementary students and six adults — America’s deadliest school attack for decades.

• The Osage Murders: When Oil Wealth Made Native Headrights Worth Killing For

  Dozens of Osage citizens died under suspicious circumstances in 1920s Oklahoma — a conspiracy for oil money.

• The Ludlow Massacre: When Colorado Militia Killed Striking Miners’ Families

  A tent colony burned; two women and eleven children died underground; and labor war erupted across the coalfields.

• MOVE: When Philadelphia Police Dropped a Bomb on a City Block

  A helicopter-delivered explosive killed 11 people and burned 61 homes in West Philadelphia.

• The Tulsa Race Massacre: When a Prosperous Black District Was Destroyed

  Greenwood burned for days; hundreds died; and the story was buried for generations.

• The Radium Girls: The Factory Workers Whose Jaws Fell Off — and Changed American Labor Law

  In the 1920s, young women painting watch dials with radium were told to lick their brushes. Their employer knew the paint was deadly. They found out when their bones started crumbling.

• The Johnstown Flood: When the Rich Killed 2,209 People and Paid Nothing

  In 1889, a private fishing club owned by Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick let a dam collapse — the flood destroyed a city. No member was ever held responsible.