On the afternoon of July 29, 2016, a 23-year-old college student named Felix stood in the break room of the industrial manufacturing company where he worked in Northwestern Germany. He poured cereal into a bowl, took his carton of lactose-free milk from the communal fridge, and sat down at a table with two of his […]
A Normal Afternoon Turns Dark On July 27, 2019, at approximately 3:30 PM, 22-year-old college student Nicole logged into her gaming computer from her bedroom in North Carolina. She had spent the morning and early afternoon studying, but now it was time to relax and play her favorite game—Perfect World, an online multiplayer combat game
At 5:30 a.m. on July 16, 1945, 13-year-old Barbara Kent was sleeping inside a cabin in Ruidoso, New Mexico. She was attending a summer dance camp when suddenly, a loud booming sound shook the entire cabin, jolting her awake and even causing her to fall out of bed onto the floor. Barbara, feeling confused, looked
A Journey to the Frozen Continent At around 1:00 p.m. on November 28, 1979, Peter Mulgrew, a 52-year-old tour guide, stood at the front of the cabin of Air New Zealand Flight TE901. As he gazed out the window, he saw a breathtaking expanse of white, reflecting the afternoon sun. Excited by the view, he
On the evening of December 29, 1986, California Highway Patrol Officer Craig Py was driving his cruiser down Interstate 15 in San Diego, California. With him were an NBC news reporter in the back seat and a cameraman in the passenger seat. They were filming a segment about highway travel safety, scheduled to air on
At 5:00 p.m. on May 12, 2005, an 18-year-old college student named Simon sat in his bedroom in the New York City apartment he shared with his sister, Sharon. Simon was supposed to be doing homework, but instead, he was engaged in something he truly loved—blogging. Simon wrote on his blog almost every single day,
On a late winter afternoon in 1985, a Canadian border security guard stood at the checkpoint between New York State and Ontario, Canada. As he looked out at the dozens of cars lined up before him, he felt an enormous sense of responsibility. For him, working in border security wasn’t just about checking passports—it was
On the evening of March 27, 2013, a 45-year-old doctor named Marcelo Gaga dug through a supply cabinet in the clinic he owned in southeastern Spain. He grabbed an IV needle, anesthetic drugs, and a scalpel before walking into the operating room at the back of the clinic, where his patient was already lying on
On a spring afternoon in 1883, a young woman named Sarah was tidying up her farmhouse in the tiny settlement of Eagle Creek, Arizona. While Sarah cleaned, her sister Elizabeth took a bucket outside to fetch water from their outdoor spring. The two sisters lived together in this farmhouse along with their respective families. The
One afternoon in the spring of 1990, a young mother was tidying up her family’s living room in Pingyang Township, a small rural community in southern China. She was nearly finished when she suddenly heard her three-year-old twin daughters crying. This took her by surprise because, despite their age, her daughters—Shai and Shiung Wu—almost never
