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The Real History Behind the Cards

Most Lost Chapters cards show a real person, place or event. The game's frame story is invented; the history is real. Below are the history notes from the game's Archive, each linked to its card. Sourced write-ups start with the six Leaders.

Leaders

History notes by card

Nikola Tesla, Father of Electricity

Nikola Tesla (1856 to 1943) was born in Smiljan, in today's Croatia, and arrived in New York in 1884 with very little money. His alternating-current induction motor, patented in 1888 and licensed to George Westinghouse, became the basis of modern power grids. AC lit the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and powered the Niagara Falls plant. His Wardenclyffe Tower on Long Island, meant for wireless communication and power, was never finished and was demolished in 1917. He died in a New York hotel room in January 1943.

Thomas Edison, Static Hero

Thomas Edison (1847 to 1931) opened his Menlo Park laboratory in New Jersey in 1876 and became one of history's most productive inventors, with 1,093 U.S. patents. He invented the phonograph in 1877 and developed a practical, long-lasting incandescent lightbulb in 1879. In the "War of the Currents" his direct current lost out to the alternating current backed by Westinghouse and Tesla.

Alexander Graham Bell

Alexander Graham Bell (1847 to 1922) was granted a U.S. patent for the telephone on March 7, 1876. Three days later he made the first successful call to his assistant: "Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you." Bell also spent much of his life teaching deaf students, work he considered his most important.

George Washington Carver

George Washington Carver (c. 1864 to 1943) was born into slavery in Missouri and became a pioneering agricultural scientist at the Tuskegee Institute from 1896. He taught Southern farmers to rotate crops like peanuts and sweet potatoes to restore soil worn out by cotton, and developed hundreds of uses for those crops. Contrary to popular belief, he did not invent peanut butter.

Orville Wright, Brother

On December 17, 1903, near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville Wright made the first powered, controlled airplane flight: 12 seconds and about 120 feet. He and his brother Wilbur, bicycle makers from Dayton, Ohio, made four flights that day. Wilbur's last covered 852 feet in 59 seconds.

Wilbur Wright, Brother

Wilbur Wright (1867 to 1912) was the older of the Wright brothers. At Kitty Hawk on December 17, 1903, he ran beside the wing to steady the Flyer on Orville's first flight, then piloted the longest flight of the day. His public flights in France in 1908 made the brothers world famous. He died of typhoid fever in 1912.

Andrew Carnegie, Steel Hero

Andrew Carnegie (1835 to 1919) emigrated from Scotland as a boy, started work as a bobbin boy at 13 and built one of the largest steel companies in the world. The bloody Homestead Strike at one of his mills in 1892 is a lasting stain on his record. After selling his company in 1901 he gave away most of his fortune, funding more than 2,500 public libraries around the world.

John Henry, Master of Machine

John Henry is a hero of American folklore, a Black railroad worker who raced a steam-powered drill with a hammer and won, then died with his hammer in his hand. The legend is usually set in the 1870s during railroad tunnel building in West Virginia or Virginia. Historians think it may be based on a real worker, though who he was is still debated.

George Westinghouse

George Westinghouse (1846 to 1914) invented the railway air brake in 1869 and founded the Westinghouse Electric Company. He licensed Nikola Tesla's alternating-current patents in 1888, won the contract to light the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and built the AC power plant at Niagara Falls.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 to 1968) was a Baptist minister who led the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 and 1956 and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He was jailed in Birmingham in 1963, where he wrote his famous "Letter from Birmingham Jail." On August 28, 1963, he gave his "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington. In 1964, at 35, he received the Nobel Peace Prize. He was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968.

Alexander Hamilton, Advisor

Alexander Hamilton (1755 or 1757 to 1804) was born in the West Indies, came to New York as a young man and served as George Washington's aide during the Revolution. He wrote 51 of the 85 Federalist essays supporting the Constitution and became the first Secretary of the Treasury. He died after a duel with Aaron Burr in July 1804.

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe (1809 to 1849) was an American poet, short-story writer and critic. His poem "The Raven," published in January 1845, made him famous, though he earned very little from it. His 1841 story "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is often called the first modern detective story.

Robert Frost

Robert Frost (1874 to 1963) was one of America's most popular poets, known for works like "The Road Not Taken" and "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." He won four Pulitzer Prizes. In 1961 he recited "The Gift Outright" at President John F. Kennedy's inauguration.

Neil Armstrong, Space Explorer

Neil Armstrong (1930 to 2012) was a Navy pilot in the Korean War, a test pilot of the rocket-powered X-15 and commander of Gemini 8, where he regained control during a dangerous spin in 1966 and brought himself and David Scott home safely. On July 20, 1969, he and Buzz Aldrin landed Apollo 11's lunar module Eagle in the Sea of Tranquility, and Armstrong became the first person to walk on the Moon. He later taught aerospace engineering and was famously modest about his achievements.

Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson (1830 to 1886) lived almost all her life in Amherst, Massachusetts, and wrote nearly 1,800 poems. Only about ten were published during her lifetime, mostly without her name. After her death, her sister Lavinia found the poems, and she came to be recognized as one of America's greatest poets.

P.T. Barnum, Ringleader

P.T. Barnum (1810 to 1891) was a showman who ran the popular American Museum in New York from 1841 and later co-founded the circus that became "Barnum & Bailey." He was a master of publicity and spectacle. Some of his early shows exploited and mistreated people, which historians rightly criticize. He later served in the Connecticut legislature and as mayor of Bridgeport.

Rosa Parks

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a seamstress and secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP, was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus to a white passenger. Her arrest sparked the 381-day Montgomery Bus Boycott, which ended after the Supreme Court ruled bus segregation unconstitutional. She later said the only tired she was, was tired of giving in.

Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman (c. 1822 to 1913) escaped slavery in Maryland in 1849 and returned about thirteen times to guide roughly seventy people to freedom on the Underground Railroad. During the Civil War she served as a Union scout and spy, and in 1863 helped lead the Combahee River Raid, which freed more than 700 enslaved people.

Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass (c. 1818 to 1895) escaped slavery in 1838 and became one of the most powerful speakers and writers in American history. His autobiography, "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass," was published in 1845. On July 5, 1852, in Rochester, New York, he delivered the speech "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" He later advised President Lincoln and served as U.S. Marshal and minister to Haiti.

Amelia Earhart, Adventurer

Amelia Earhart (1897 to 1937) was a pioneering aviator and a tireless advocate for women in aviation. On May 20 and 21, 1932, she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, flying a red Lockheed Vega from Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, to a pasture near Derry, Northern Ireland, despite ice, a broken altimeter and a fuel leak. In July 1937, attempting to fly around the world, she and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared over the Pacific near Howland Island. Their fate remains unknown.

Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt (1858 to 1919) led the "Rough Riders" volunteer cavalry at San Juan Hill in 1898 and became the 26th President of the United States in 1901. He protected about 230 million acres of public land, including national forests, parks and monuments, and won the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize for helping end the Russo-Japanese War.

Meriwether Lewis, Captain

Meriwether Lewis (1774 to 1809) led the Corps of Discovery with William Clark from 1804 to 1806, exploring the lands of the Louisiana Purchase and reaching the Pacific Ocean. On August 12, 1805, he crossed the Continental Divide at Lemhi Pass. He kept detailed journals of the plants, animals and peoples the expedition encountered.

William Clark, Lieutenant

William Clark (1770 to 1838) co-led the Corps of Discovery with Meriwether Lewis and drew many of its remarkable maps. The Army commissioned him only as a second lieutenant, but Lewis treated him as a full co-captain throughout. York, a man enslaved by Clark, also made the journey and contributed greatly to it.

Sacagawea, River Guide

Sacagawea (c. 1788 to 1812 or later) was a Lemhi Shoshone woman who traveled with the Lewis and Clark Expedition from 1805 as an interpreter, carrying her infant son, Jean Baptiste. Her knowledge, her presence as a woman with a child, and her reunion with her brother Cameahwait, a Shoshone chief, helped the expedition obtain horses and cross the Rockies.

Squanto, Uniter of People

Tisquantum, known as Squanto, was a Patuxet man who was kidnapped in 1614 by the English captain Thomas Hunt and sold into slavery in Spain. He made his way to England and returned home in 1619, only to find that his people had died in an epidemic. In 1621 he helped the Plymouth colonists survive by teaching them to plant corn and acting as an interpreter. He died in 1622.

Daniel Boone

Daniel Boone (1734 to 1820) was a frontiersman who in 1775 blazed the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky and founded the settlement of Boonesborough. His adventures, partly exaggerated by early biographers, made him one of the first folk heroes of the American frontier.

Alexander, George's Cat

There is no record of George Washington owning a cat named Alexander. Washington did keep many animals at Mount Vernon, especially foxhounds, which he bred and named with names like Sweet Lips, Vulcan and Tipsy.

Paul Bunyan & Babe

Paul Bunyan is a giant lumberjack of American folklore, usually accompanied by Babe the Blue Ox. His tall tales were told in logging camps and were spread widely from 1916 onward through advertising pamphlets written by William B. Laughead for the Red River Lumber Company.

Davy Crockett

Davy Crockett (1786 to 1836) was a frontiersman and a congressman from Tennessee, famous in his own lifetime for tall tales, many of which he told himself. He opposed the Indian Removal Act of 1830 in Congress, a stand that helped cost him his seat. He died defending the Alamo in Texas on March 6, 1836.

Benedict Arnold, Turncoat

Benedict Arnold (1741 to 1801) was one of the Continental Army's most daring generals and was badly wounded leading the attack at Saratoga in 1777. In 1780, bitter and in debt, he plotted to surrender the fort at West Point to the British. The plot was discovered when British Major John André was captured, and Arnold fled to become a British general. His name became an American word for traitor.

Betsy Ross, American Dream

Betsy Ross (1752 to 1836) was a Philadelphia upholsterer who, records show, made flags for the Pennsylvania navy during the Revolution. The famous story that she sewed the first Stars and Stripes for George Washington comes from her grandson, who told it in 1870. Historians have found no documents confirming it, but she remains an American icon.

Marilyn Monroe, Infamous

Marilyn Monroe (1926 to 1962), born Norma Jeane Mortenson, rose from a difficult childhood in Los Angeles foster homes to become one of the most famous film stars in history, in movies like "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" and "Some Like It Hot." In 1955 she founded her own production company, a rare step for an actress at the time. She died in August 1962.

Honest Abe Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln (1809 to 1865), the 16th President of the United States, led the country through the Civil War. His Emancipation Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863, and he pushed for the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery. He delivered the Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863. He was assassinated in April 1865, days after the war's main Confederate army surrendered.

Susan B. Anthony

Susan B. Anthony (1820 to 1906) spent more than fifty years campaigning for women's right to vote. In 1872 she was arrested for voting in the presidential election in Rochester, New York, and fined $100, which she refused to pay. She died in 1906; the Nineteenth Amendment, giving American women the right to vote, was ratified in 1920 and is often called the Susan B. Anthony Amendment.

Booker T. Washington

Booker T. Washington (1856 to 1915) was born into slavery in Virginia and became the first leader of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama in 1881, building it into a major school. His autobiography "Up from Slavery" was published in 1901. He was one of the most influential Black Americans of his time, though his approach to civil rights was debated by others such as W.E.B. Du Bois.

Ulysses S. Grant

Ulysses S. Grant (1822 to 1885) led the Union armies to victory in the Civil War, capturing Vicksburg in July 1863 and accepting Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox in April 1865. He served two terms as the 18th President. Near the end of his life, dying of cancer, he wrote his "Personal Memoirs," finishing them days before his death; they are considered among the finest military memoirs ever written.

Edward Teach "Blackbeard"

Edward Teach, known as Blackbeard, was one of the most feared pirates of the early 1700s. In May 1718 he blockaded Charleston, South Carolina, with his flagship Queen Anne's Revenge and a small fleet, and released his hostages in exchange for a chest of medicine. Weeks later the Queen Anne's Revenge ran aground at Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina. He accepted a royal pardon but returned to piracy, and was killed on November 22, 1718, at Ocracoke Inlet in a battle with sailors led by Lieutenant Robert Maynard of the Royal Navy. The wreck of his flagship was found in 1996.

Bartholomew Roberts

Bartholomew Roberts (1682 to 1722), called "Black Bart," was a Welsh pirate who captured hundreds of ships between 1719 and 1722, more than any other pirate of the Golden Age. He was known for strict written "articles" governing his crew, including a ban on gambling aboard. He was killed in battle with the Royal Navy ship HMS Swallow off the coast of Africa in February 1722.

Aaron Burr

Aaron Burr (1756 to 1836) served as the third Vice President of the United States under Thomas Jefferson. On July 11, 1804, he shot Alexander Hamilton in a duel at Weehawken, New Jersey; Hamilton died the next day. Burr was later tried for treason over a plot in the western territories and was acquitted in 1807.

George Washington, Freeworld Founder

George Washington (1732 to 1799) commanded the Continental Army through the American Revolution. On the night of December 25 to 26, 1776, he led about 2,400 soldiers across the icy Delaware River and surprised the Hessian garrison at Trenton the next morning, a victory that revived the Revolution. After the war he presided over the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and served as the first President of the United States from 1789 to 1797, stepping down voluntarily after two terms.

Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin (1706 to 1790) was a printer, writer, scientist, inventor and statesman. His experiments with electricity, including the famous kite experiment described in 1752, led to his invention of the lightning rod; he also invented bifocals and the Franklin stove. He helped draft and signed the Declaration of Independence, negotiated the Treaty of Paris and signed the Constitution.

Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine (1737 to 1809) was an English-born writer whose pamphlet "Common Sense," published in January 1776, sold in enormous numbers and persuaded many colonists to support independence. That December he began "The American Crisis," opening with "These are the times that try men's souls," which Washington had read to his troops before the crossing of the Delaware.

Paul Revere

Paul Revere (1735 to 1818) was a Boston silversmith and patriot. On the night of April 18, 1775, he and William Dawes rode out to warn that British troops were marching toward Lexington and Concord. Revere was captured by a British patrol before reaching Concord, but the alarm had spread. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's 1860 poem made his ride famous.

Abigail Adams

Abigail Adams (1744 to 1818) managed her family's farm and finances through long years of her husband John's absence during the Revolution. In a famous letter of March 1776, she urged him and the Continental Congress to "remember the ladies" in the new laws. Their letters are among the most important records of the era. She was the second First Lady.

John Adams

John Adams (1735 to 1826) was a lawyer, a leader in the Continental Congress and the second President of the United States. In 1770 he defended the British soldiers accused in the Boston Massacre, believing everyone deserved a fair trial. He and his wife Abigail wrote each other more than 1,100 letters. He died on July 4, 1826, the same day as Thomas Jefferson.

Molly Pitcher, Cannoneer

"Molly Pitcher" is the legendary name for women who carried water to soldiers during the Revolutionary War. The story is most often linked to Mary Ludwig Hays, who at the Battle of Monmouth in 1778 is said to have taken her husband's place loading a cannon after he fell. Historians still debate the details.

Marquis de Lafayette

The Marquis de Lafayette (1757 to 1834) was a French nobleman who sailed to America in 1777, at 19, to fight for the Revolution. He was wounded at Brandywine, shared the hardships of Valley Forge and helped trap the British army at Yorktown in 1781. He remained a lifelong friend of George Washington and later played a major role in France's own revolution.

Chips, Purple Hearted

Chips (1940 to 1946) was a German Shepherd, Collie and Husky mix who served with the U.S. Army in World War II. In Sicily in July 1943 he attacked an enemy machine-gun nest, forcing its crew to surrender. He was awarded the Silver Star and the Purple Heart, which were later revoked because of a rule against honoring animals. In 2018 he was posthumously awarded the PDSA Dickin Medal.

John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy (1917 to 1963) served in the Navy in World War II, surviving the sinking of his boat PT-109 in 1943, and became the 35th President of the United States in 1961. That year he set the goal of landing a person on the Moon before the decade was out, and in 1962 he said "We choose to go to the Moon" in a famous speech at Rice University. He was assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

These notes are being expanded and sourced. Found an error? Report it.

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