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A toddler was heard singing from deep underground. On October 14, 1987, 18 month old Jessica McClure fell into an 8 inch...
10/09/2026

A toddler was heard singing from deep underground. On October 14, 1987, 18 month old Jessica McClure fell into an 8 inch wide abandoned well in her aunt's backyard in Midland, Texas, and became stuck about 22 feet below the surface. The world soon knew her as Baby Jessica.

Rescuers could not simply pull her out, so oilfield workers drilled a parallel shaft through hard rock while firefighters, police and medical teams worked around the clock. TV networks showed much of it live. After 58 hours, paramedic Robert O'Donnell crawled through a tunnel, freed her and handed her to another paramedic who carried her to the surface.

Jessica needed several surgeries and has a scar on her forehead, but she recovered, and well wishers donated to a trust fund for her future. Her rescue remains a reminder of what a whole community can do to save one child.

Fred Hollows once called them the most expensive pieces of plastic in the world. He meant the tiny artificial lenses use...
10/09/2026

Fred Hollows once called them the most expensive pieces of plastic in the world. He meant the tiny artificial lenses used in cataract surgery, which cost over $200 each and kept sight out of reach for millions of people in poorer countries. Hollows, a New Zealand born eye surgeon who worked in Australia, refused to accept that.

In the 1980s he traveled to Nepal, Eritrea and other countries, treating patients and training local doctors. Instead of importing expensive lenses, he raised money for lens factories in Nepal and Eritrea, which opened in 1994 after his death and cut the cost of a lens to as little as $7. A cataract operation can now cost as little as $25.

Fred died of cancer on February 10, 1993, after helping found the Fred Hollows Foundation. Today it works in more than 25 countries and says it has restored sight to over three million people.

"All they had to do was test the gun," Anthony Ray Hinton said when he walked out of an Alabama jail on April 3, 2015. H...
10/08/2026

"All they had to do was test the gun," Anthony Ray Hinton said when he walked out of an Alabama jail on April 3, 2015. He had spent nearly 30 years on death row for the 1985 murders of two fast food restaurant managers. The only evidence tying him to the crime was a ballistics claim about his mother's revolver.

Attorney Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative took his case 16 years earlier and fought for the gun to be retested. Three independent experts concluded the bullets could not have come from it. In 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Hinton's trial lawyer had been deficient, and prosecutors later dropped the charges.

Hinton said he would keep praying for the victims' families. He later wrote the bestselling memoir The Sun Does Shine and has traveled the world sharing his story. The truth can survive even decades of waiting.

South Africa's rugby captain, Francois Pienaar, never imagined what he would see before the 1995 World Cup final. The Sp...
10/08/2026

South Africa's rugby captain, Francois Pienaar, never imagined what he would see before the 1995 World Cup final. The Springbok team had long been seen by many Black South Africans as a symbol of apartheid. Yet when President Nelson Mandela walked onto the field at Ellis Park in Johannesburg, he was wearing a Springbok jersey and cap.

The jersey carried Pienaar's number 6. Mandela, then 76, smiled as the mostly white crowd of about 65,000 began chanting his name. After a tense match that went into extra time, South Africa beat New Zealand 15 to 12, and Mandela handed the trophy to Pienaar.

Pienaar later said the team felt the support not of 65,000 fans, but of 43 million South Africans. The moment became a lasting symbol of reconciliation. When Mandela thanked him for what he had done for the country, Pienaar replied that it was Mandela who deserved thanks.

It began with a casual chat at a yoga studio. In 2011, Rick Ruzzamenti, a 44 year old man from Riverside, California, he...
10/08/2026

It began with a casual chat at a yoga studio. In 2011, Rick Ruzzamenti, a 44 year old man from Riverside, California, heard the studio clerk had donated a kidney. Impulsively, he decided to do the same and offered his kidney to anyone who needed it, expecting nothing in return.

His kidney became the first link in a chain managed by the National Kidney Registry. After his gift, each recipient's friend or relative who was not a match for them donated to a stranger instead, keeping the chain going. Over four months, it grew to 30 donors and 30 recipients across 17 hospitals in 11 states.

The chain ended with Donald Terry, a 47 year old government worker who had spent four hours a day on dialysis. The registry has since set an even longer chain of 35, verified by Guinness World Records in 2015. One yes can start a miracle.

Thirteen days later, an ordinary government office worker was sitting next to the First Lady at the State of the Union a...
10/08/2026

Thirteen days later, an ordinary government office worker was sitting next to the First Lady at the State of the Union address. On January 13, 1982, Lenny Skutnik had been on his way to work in Washington, D.C., when Air Florida Flight 90 struck the 14th Street Bridge in a snowstorm and plunged into the frozen Potomac River.

Only a few people survived the crash. As a helicopter lowered a line to them, passenger Arland Williams kept passing the line to others instead of taking it himself. When Priscilla Tirado became too weak to hold on, Skutnik stripped off his coat and boots, dove into the icy water, and swam her to shore.

Williams did not survive, and the inbound span of the 14th Street Bridge now carries his name. President Reagan honored Skutnik in that speech, starting a tradition of inviting everyday heroes to sit in the gallery.

The shoes he brought to Rome were worn out from training, so Abebe Bikila decided to run the Olympic marathon barefoot. ...
10/08/2026

The shoes he brought to Rome were worn out from training, so Abebe Bikila decided to run the Olympic marathon barefoot. He was not even supposed to be there. The Ethiopian only joined the 1960 team at the last moment, after a teammate was injured.

Running at night along the ancient Appian Way, he pulled away late in the race and crossed the finish line at the Arch of Constantine in 2:15:16.2, a new world best. He became the first Black African to win an Olympic gold medal, and his victory inspired generations of African distance runners.

Four years later in Tokyo, just weeks after having his appendix removed, he won again, this time in shoes and in another world record time of 2:12:11.2, becoming the first person to win two Olympic marathons. A car accident in 1969 left him paralyzed, but he took up archery and other sports.

Her daughter heard a scream from the garden and thought something terrible had happened. In October 2011, Lena Paahlsson...
10/08/2026

Her daughter heard a scream from the garden and thought something terrible had happened. In October 2011, Lena Paahlsson had been digging up the last carrots of the season at her home near Mora, Sweden, when she pulled up a tiny one and nearly threw it away. Then she saw something shiny around it.

It was her wedding ring. She had designed the white gold band, set with seven small diamonds, herself, and lost it in 1995 while doing her annual Christmas baking. The family searched the kitchen, and even pulled up the floor during a renovation, but never found it.

After 16 years, the carrot had grown through the ring. The family thinks it probably ended up in compost spread over the vegetable patch, though Ola suspects the family's sheep may have played a part. The ring no longer fits Lena's finger, but she plans to have it resized so she can wear it again.

More than 240,000 compounds had been tested as possible malaria drugs, and none had worked. In 1969, a 39 year old resea...
10/08/2026

More than 240,000 compounds had been tested as possible malaria drugs, and none had worked. In 1969, a 39 year old researcher named Tu Youyou was appointed to lead a secret national research program called Project 523. She searched ancient medical texts and found a reference to sweet wormwood, a herb used in China around 400 AD for fevers.

Her first extracts failed, so she suspected that boiling destroyed the active ingredient and switched to a low temperature method. The new extract worked in mice and monkeys. Before human trials, Tu and two colleagues tested it on themselves. It then worked on 21 patients in Hainan.

The compound, artemisinin, became the foundation of modern malaria treatment. In 2011 the Lasker Foundation called it arguably the most important drug advance in half a century, and in 2015, at age 84, Tu shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. She credited her team.

It all started with a request typed on a computer screen. In 1977, Rick Hoyt, who was born with cerebral palsy and could...
10/08/2026

It all started with a request typed on a computer screen. In 1977, Rick Hoyt, who was born with cerebral palsy and could not speak, asked his father to take part in a 5 mile charity run for a paralyzed lacrosse player. Dick Hoyt had never run a race, but he agreed and pushed Rick the whole way.

They finished next to last, but Rick told his dad that when he was running, it felt like his disability disappeared. That became their mission. Team Hoyt went on to finish 32 Boston Marathons between 1980 and 2014, six Ironman triathlons, and a 3,000 mile cross country journey in 45 days in 1992.

In all, the pair completed more than 1,000 races, and Rick earned a degree in special education from Boston University in 1993. Dick died in 2021 and Rick in 2023, but their message lives on: yes, you can.

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