1

Harriet Tubman secretly worked as a Union spy

Most Americans know Harriet Tubman for her leadership of the Underground Railroad, but during the Civil War, she also became a Union scout and spy in South Carolina. Working with Colonel James Montgomery, Tubman gathered intelligence from enslaved people living behind Confederate lines near the Combahee River .

In June 1863, Tubman helped lead the Combahee River Raid, guiding Union gunboats through Confederate waters filled with hidden mines. The operation freed more than 700 enslaved people and made Tubman the first woman known to lead a major U.S. military mission.

2

Julia Child worked for the U.S. intelligence agency

Before becoming television’s most famous chef, Julia Child joined the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS, in 1942 during World War II. The OSS later evolved into the CIA. Too tall to enlist in the Women’s Army Corps, Child instead classified files and overseas communications in Asia.

One of her strangest assignments involved helping researchers develop shark repellent for Navy explosives and emergency rescue kits . The repellent used copper acetate and black dye to create an odor similar to a dead shark.

3

Benjamin Franklin conducted unofficial spy work in Europe

Benjamin Franklin was more than a scientist and Founding Father. During the American Revolution, he quietly acted as an intelligence organizer while serving as ambassador to France beginning in 1776 . Franklin cultivated secret alliances, intercepted information, and used coded correspondence to support the colonies’ fight against Britain.

Operating from Paris, Franklin built relationships with French officials and helped persuade France to support the American cause with money, troops, and naval power. Historians consider his diplomatic intelligence efforts essential to the American victory at Yorktown in 1781 and eventual independence.

4

Louisa May Alcott published thrillers under another name

Louisa May Alcott became a literary icon after publishing Little Women in 1868, but few readers knew that she had already written sensational thrillers under the pen name "A.M. Barnard." These stories featured revenge, hidden identities, forbidden romance, and dramatic crime plots that shocked Victorian audiences.

Alcott used a pseudonym because publishers often expected women writers to produce respectable domestic fiction. Many of her darker stories remained forgotten until scholars rediscovered them in the 1940s. Today, titles like Behind a Mask reveal a far more rebellious side of the beloved author.

5

Maya Angelou worked as San Francisco’s first black female cable car conductor

Long before becoming a celebrated poet and author, Maya Angelou made history in San Francisco during the 1940s. At only 16 years old, she applied repeatedly for a conductor job on the city’s cable cars after seeing an advertisement that excluded Black applicants .

Angelou refused to give up despite repeated rejection. She eventually became San Francisco’s first Black female cable car conductor in 1944. Years later, she described proudly wearing the blue uniform while working long shifts across the city before launching her writing and civil rights careers.

6

Dr. Seuss created classified wartime propaganda films

Before writing Green Eggs and Ham and The Cat in the Hat , Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, worked on wartime propaganda during World War II. Between 1943 and 1945, he joined director Frank Capra’s Signal Corps unit to produce military training films for American soldiers .

Geisel also drew political cartoons supporting the Allied war effort and criticizing fascism. Some of his films were classified during the war because they contained military training material. His animated work helped explain battlefield strategy and morale issues to thousands of U.S. troops overseas.

7

Babe Ruth once played an entire game with a fever over 102 degrees

In 1925, Babe Ruth became seriously ill during spring training and collapsed while traveling by train . Newspapers nicknamed the incident "the bellyache heard around the world." Reports from the time described Ruth suffering from a fever above 102 degrees while still insisting on returning to baseball activities.

Despite his condition, Ruth’s determination became part of baseball legend. The illness hurt his performance during the 1925 season, when the New York Yankees finished seventh in the American League. Even so, Ruth rebounded quickly and helped lead the Yankees to championships in later years.

8

Harry Houdini worked with police departments

Harry Houdini’s famous escape acts fascinated police departments across America and Europe in the early 1900s. Officers regularly challenged him to escape from handcuffs, prison wagons, and locked jail cells. Houdini often invited local police to inspect restraints before his performances began.

Beyond entertainment, Houdini also worked closely with law enforcement to expose fraudulent mediums and fake spiritualists during the 1920s . Using his knowledge of locks, hidden compartments, and deception, he publicly demonstrated how many supposed supernatural tricks were actually carefully staged illusions.

9

Frank Lloyd Wright hid a private apartment inside one of his buildings

Architect Frank Lloyd Wright secretly maintained a private apartment inside his famous Oak Park Studio near Chicago, Illinois. Built in the 1890s, the studio served as both his workplace and personal retreat while he designed many of his early Prairie-style homes across the Midwest.

The hidden living quarters allowed Wright to work late into the night and host select guests away from public attention. The building itself became one of the most important centers of American architecture, producing groundbreaking residential designs that influenced modern architecture around the world.

10

Muhammad Ali quietly funded humanitarian causes for years

Muhammad Ali’s boxing fame often overshadowed his enormous charitable work. For decades, Ali quietly donated money to hospitals, food programs, children’s charities, and international humanitarian efforts . Friends and family later revealed that many of his contributions were intentionally kept private.

In 1990, Ali traveled to Iraq during tensions leading up to the Gulf War and helped secure the release of 15 American hostages. He also supported global relief organizations and Parkinson’s disease research after his own diagnosis. In 2005, President George W. Bush awarded Ali the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

1

Woolworth’s

Woolworth’s was the place to buy everything from school supplies and toys to household goods and candy—or even to grab lunch. The first store opened its doors in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1879. It was a five-and-dime shop, and the chain soon became one of America’s most recognizable retail names, with over 3,000 stores nationwide at its peak. So, why did it disappear?

With the steady rise of suburban shopping centers and large discount stores, Woolworth’s couldn’t keep up and began a slow decline in the 1960s that culminated in 1997, when it closed its final stores for good.

2

A&P

A&P used to be the spot to get everyday groceries. It began as a tea and coffee business in 1859 and later evolved into one of America’s biggest supermarkets with more than 16,000 stores in the country at its peak. But despite pioneering high-volume retailing, A&P couldn’t stick around.

Over the decades, newer competitors entered the market, and grocery shopping became more and more competitive. Walmart, Target, Aldi, Whole Foods—A&P failed to adapt and filed for bankruptcy twice, first in 2010 and again in 2015, and finally shut down in November 2015.

3

Blockbuster

Blockbuster was the go-to for movie rentals . It dominated the market with 9,100 stores worldwide by 2004, about $6 billion in revenue, and thousands of movies to choose from—it was hard to imagine Blockbuster ever falling, but it did.

The rapid advancement of technology hit Blockbuster hard, with newer options like DVD-by-mail services, Redbox kiosks, and the final blow: streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, and more. All Blockbuster corporate-owned stores closed by January 2014; however, you can still visit one holdout location in Bend, Oregon.

4

Montgomery Ward

Long before Amazon, consumers could buy almost anything from Montgomery Ward from the comfort of their homes , and the company would ship it directly to them. It felt like online shopping before the internet. So why did it vanish?

To adapt to newer shopping habits, Montgomery Ward opened physical stores and started competing with brands like Sears; but once suburban malls and discount stores became widespread in the 1980s, Montgomery Ward couldn’t keep pace and eventually filed for bankruptcy in 1997 and again in 2001.

5

Circuit City

Circuit City started in 1949 and quickly became the source for TVs, stereos, VCRs, video games, and just about every kind of electronics , especially during the 1980s. The company continued growing by the early 2000s, expanding to more than 600 stores, though one controversial decision made it trip and fall.

Circuit City was already struggling to compete with Best Buy and Walmart. And in 2007, it replaced its commissioned sales staff with low-paid hourly workers, damaging customer service—often considered one of Circuit City’s biggest strategic mistakes. By March 2009, the chain was gone.

6

Caldor

There was a time when one trip to Caldor could cover almost everything on your shopping list. Founded in 1951, it became a major one-stop discount department store . By the 1990s, it had grown to more than 150 stores across New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, but in 1995 it filed for bankruptcy. What happened in between?

Big box stores like Walmart and Target were expanding rapidly, and Caldor simply fell behind as people moved toward newer retail formats that combined department stores and supermarkets. Plus, the company took on a lot of debt in 1991, which only made things worse. Caldor finally closed for good in 1999.

7

Borders

Borders is a reminder of a time when buying a book was an experience, rather than just clicking a few buttons online. It opened in 1971 and set itself apart from other modern bookstores. At Borders, you could spend an entire afternoon browsing not just books, but music and DVDs or even grabbing a coffee.

Around 2003–2004, Borders had more than 1,200 stores worldwide , but it failed to adapt to an inevitable growing trend: online book sales. Amazon eventually took over, and Borders couldn’t stay in the game, closing its final location in September 2011.

8

G.C. Murphy

Much like Woolworth’s, G.C. Murphy was a five-and-dime store that sold a little bit of everything and had lunch counters or snack bars where people would hang out. The company opened in 1906, and it operated more than 500 stores by 1976.

But once the traditional five-and-dime model came under pressure from discount giants, G.C. Murphy was forced to adapt. The chain did make some efforts and experimented with bigger stores and different formats, but it wasn’t enough, and G.C. Murphy filed for bankruptcy in 1985.

9

Zayre

Zayre entered the market in 1956 as a classic discount department store that looked more like a warehouse . It was a no-frills, self-service shopping experience with massive stores, wide-open interiors, and exposed ceilings where you could find lots of everyday items like clothing, household goods, or appliances at low prices.

While it was pretty successful, especially across the Northeast and Midwest, Zayre struggled to keep up with giants like Target. It tried to reinvent itself by founding TJ Maxx in 1977, but eventually sold the remaining Zayre stores to Ames in 1988, and the Zayre name vanished by 1990.

10

Service Merchandise

Service Merchandise was founded in 1934 and, unlike typical retail stores, it introduced a strange new concept called the " catalog showroom " in 1960, where display floors showcased single working samples of products, and the actual inventory was stored in an adjacent backroom warehouse. Customers would look at a catalog, place an order, and an employee would bring it to them.

The concept proved successful, and Service Merchandise operated more than 400 showrooms by the mid-1990s. But Service Merchandise’s model meant longer waiting times, and traditional discount stores began offering a faster and easier shopping experience. The company tried to modernize by introducing electronic inventory systems, but it didn’t work out. By 2002, Service Merchandise was gone.

1

Measuring

This is a difference most Americans are aware of: most countries use the metric system rather than U.S. customary units, and most use Celsius instead of Fahrenheit. Countries such as the UK and Canada still use some imperial units in everyday life, but they mainly use the metric system. Another measure that confuses foreigners is the particular way ingredients are measured in American recipes, which often use cups, tablespoons, and teaspoons rather than measurements by weight.

Fun fact: The only other countries that use the Imperial system officially are Liberia and Myanmar.

2

Sales tax

Do you find having to calculate sales taxes annoying? That’s a unique American experience. In the majority of the world, the price you see is the price you pay , because it has the sales tax already added.

Why is it different in America? Sales taxes vary across states , so retailers find it easier to showcase the base price and then calculate the total at checkout.

3

Cutlery use

Many Americans abroad are surprised by the realization that not everyone uses a knife and fork in the same way they do . In fact, no one else does. While most Americans have learned the American style —also called the zig-zag or fork switching method— that involves using the fork in the left hand for cutting and then changing it to the right to pick up the food, European and Latin American countries don’t do this . It might seem like a small difference, but it completely changes the way you eat.

4

Iced drinks

Do other countries not have ice? They do, but they don’t necessarily assume everyone will want it. While serving water and other beverages with ice is customary in America, in many other countries, you need to request it —even during the hottest of summers.

But even if you get ice, many times you will need to specify the amount : the same drink that would be filled with ice cubes in America might come to you with just two or three cubes elsewhere.

5

Date formatting

The U.S. is not completely alone on this one, but there’s a difference big enough to be worth mentioning. The standardized way of recording the date in America is month-day-year , a convention also followed by some Caribbean and Asian countries. But in the rest of the Western world, the conventional format is day-month-year , which can lead to confusion for Americans. In most Asian countries , the most commonly used format is year-month-day .

6

The word ‘American’

In the English language, ‘American’ is the only way to refer to people with U.S. citizenship . Other words, such as ‘Usian’ or ‘Unitedstatian’ have been proposed, but never stuck. This is why many Americans are surprised when other countries —Latin American countries in particular— use ‘American’ for anyone in the American continent , or continents, another big difference. In most European and Latin American countries, there is a different word for U.S. citizens, such as the Spanish ‘estadounidense’ or the Portuguese ‘estadunidense’ .

7

Moving out at 18 years old

This one is not so black and white, but more like a general tendency. Compared with most of Europe, Latin America, and Asia, Americans give serious consideration to the possibility of moving out after high school. Not everyone does, and not everyone can afford it, but it's fairly common.

In other countries, young adults generally move out if their job or education requires it , but they tend to stay at home a few more years if they can.

8

Driving a car as a teenager

America is quite car-centric , especially if you live outside of the big cities. While not everyone can afford to have a personal car —even a second-hand one—, it is common for 16 and 17-year-olds to legally drive their parents’ car, or save for their own.

In the rest of the world, the chances of high schoolers driving themselves to school are much lower, as most countries don’t allow underage kids to get a driving license .

9

Solo cups

Do plastic cups exist outside of the U.S.? They do, but they are not as iconic or as widely used as Solo cups, introduced in the 1970s as a disposable but sturdy cup for parties and events. Many foreigners visiting America are surprised when they realize that solo cups are a real thing , and not something that just happens in movies.

10

Filing taxes

Taxes in the U.S. are not that different from taxes in other countries, except for how they are filed . During tax filing season, thousands of Americans direct their efforts to ensure they have properly reported their income and that their return will match the IRS’s data.

In other parts of the world, however, the one responsible for calculating and filing taxes is the government , while citizens merely corroborate that everything is in order.