Around the Fourth of July, you hear a lot about the “Founding Fathers.” In between the BBQ and fireworks this weekend, you may even hear your own father recount what he learned back in his school days about the forging of our nation, from George Washington’s grand military strategies and Thomas Jefferson’s lofty democratic ideals to Alexander Hamilton’s visionary financial system, which is still in use today. In her book, Obstinate Daughters, author Denise Kiernan reveals some lesser-known stories of how women shaped the colonies’ departure from British rule.    Portrait of Revolutionary War heroine Molly Pitcher at the Battle of Monmouth by Edward Percy Moran.Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons Some of the most incredible, tide-turning acts of bravery came from women whose names have slipped through the cracks of history. And if there is one name you need to know on the cusp of America’s 250th birthday, it’s Margaret Corbin.  From frontier struggles to the front lines Tragedy shaped Corbin’s life long before she stood on the battlefield. Born Margaret Cochran on the Pennsylvania frontier, she was orphaned at age 5 after her father was killed and her mother was taken captive during an attack by Native Americans, according to the National Museum of the United States Army. In 1772, she married John Corbin. He enlisted in the Pennsylvania State Artillery just a few years later. Margaret followed him into the fight. Like many women of the time, she became a “camp follower,” traveling with the Continental Army and working in a support role. She cooked, mended clothes, and cared for the wounded. As her husband manned a cannon, Margaret observed and prepared. The moment she made history by not backing down On November 16, 1776, the Battle of Fort Washington was underway. British and Hessian forces launched a ferocious assault on the American encampment. Margaret was on the front lines, tossing buckets of water onto blistering-hot cannons to help cool them. Tragedy struck again when British artillery fire hit and instantly killed her husband, John. His cannon was left unmanned. View of the attack on Fort Washington by Thomas Davies.Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons Margaret could have retreated in grief or run for cover. Instead, she stepped directly into John’s role. Having watched the artillery crews for more than a year, Margaret began loading and firing the cannon in his place. By all accounts, her speed and precision stunned the soldiers around her. Her efforts helped keep the British at bay, if only for a while. The fort was under relentless siege, however, and Margaret did not come away unscathed. An artillery strike severely wounded her jaw, chest, and left arm. A revolutionary legacy worth remembering Though the British ultimately captured the fort, Margaret’s unmatched bravery was widely reported, and she survived her battlefield injuries. She lost the use of her left arm for the rest of her life. Now a wounded veteran with no family left to support her, she faced immense financial hardship. Thankfully, her country did not forget her sacrifice. In 1779, the Continental Congress recognized her extraordinary service, making her the first woman in American history to receive a lifelong military pension.  Today, her legacy reminds us of all the brave people who risked life and limb for America’s independence. Margaret is the only female American Revolutionary War veteran with a monument at West Point Cemetery. Her story reminds us that the fight for freedom wasn’t forged solely by the Founding Fathers in “the room where it happened.” Everyday heroes gave everything they had to build a more perfect union. The post Margaret Corbin is the only woman honored with a monument at West Point. Every American should know her name. appeared first on Upworthy.

Here is a question you probably never asked in the shower: who invented shampoo? Surprisingly, the name isn’t a big-name brand or chemist in a laboratory. Even stranger, the word itself—“shampoo”—once had nothing to do with hair at all.  It meant a massage.  A woman with shampoo, as we know it today, in her hair. Photo credit: Canva Today, you’ll find bottles and bottles of the stuff at retailers like Target. Each claims to work a different miracle. There are shampoos that cure dandruff, maintain bleached hair, and add volume to your strands. Shampoo can be dry. Shampoo can, supposedly, both clean and condition hair, then be used to wash your body. How did we get here?  The answer begins with an Indian immigrant and a seaside town in England. More than 200 years ago, this man taught Britain how to “shampoo” for the first time. He’d never guess that his methods would one day catch on all over the world. This is the story of Sake Dean Mahomed. First, a 4,000-year head start  Before we get to Mahomed, give humanity some credit. Long before shampoo came in a bottle, people on nearly every continent had already figured out how to get their hair clean, usually turning to whatever nature handed them. Around 4,000 years ago, in the Indus Valley (a stretch of South Asia that now spans Pakistan, India, and parts of Afghanistan), people boiled soapberries with dried Indian gooseberries (amla) to produce a gentle, foaming wash for their hair.  @maryjanetravels_ The Yao Women of Guilin, China They have the worlds longest hair that never turns gray. They use their centuries old rice water to grow their hair long and keep it from aging. What do you guys link! Save this incase you take that trip around china I keep suggesting!! #china #yaowomen #guilin #gunagxi ♬ original sound – Maryjane Elsewhere, that same instinct took wildly different forms. The Yao people of southern China washed their famously long hair with rice water. Ancient Egyptians reached for soapwort. Indigenous peoples in North America combined yucca roots with aloe vera. And in Rome, olive oil did the job, along with a curved metal scraping tool called a ‘strigil.’ The word “shampoo” used to mean something else  The word “shampoo” entered the English language around the mid-18th century, borrowed from the Hindi “chāmpo” (or its root, “champna”) meaning to “press, knead, or soothe.” Etymologists trace the word back even further to Sanskrit’s “capayati,” placing “shampoo” firmly in the world of physical care: scalp massages, body rubbing, kneading muscles, and medicinal bathing. In other words, “shampoo” started life as a massage: a full-body, knead-your-cares-away treatment. The “wash your hair” meaning didn’t get recorded until much, much later. That’s when Sake Dean Mahomed entered the picture.  Mahomed was born in Patna, India, in 1759. He grew up to serve in the army of the British East India Company — then left it all behind to follow his friend and commanding officer to Ireland. There, he fell for a local woman named Jane Daly, eloped with her, and moved with her to Brighton in the early 1800s. At the time, Brighton was a fashionable seaside destination full of aristocrats chasing the latest health cures. So, Mahomed opened a bathhouse.  Mahomed’s bathhouse in Brighton. Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons He was an entrepreneur, certainly. Earlier, Mahomed launched the Hindoostane Coffee House in London, often credited as the first Indian restaurant in England. When he was 35, he wrote an autobiography entitled The Travels of Dean Mahomed, becoming the first Indian author to publish a book in English. Although the restaurant eventually failed, Mahomed never gave up — and his second act is the one history remembers.  “Dr. Brighton” and his famous baths  Inside, Mahomed’s bathhouse in Brighton was a whole sensory event: rooms thick with herbal steam, the warm smell of Indian oils, the hushed calm of the curtained Ladies’ Baths. Everyone came for his signature offering, “shampooing” — an invigorating Indian therapeutic massage, paired with vapor baths and aromatic oils that, he claimed, could ease everything from rheumatism to stiff joints. Getting the public on board—and into his bathhouse—proved surprisingly difficult. Personal hygiene in the Victorian era left a lot to be desired: women were actually warned against washing their hair daily, in fear that it would fall out. Dirty hair was the norm, and so were powdered wigs. It was the fashionable fix to an unglamorous problem. Dirty hair? Just cover it up. @thehistorygossip The consequences of getting done diddled one too many times Source: The V Museum Podcast Season 1 April 10th with Dr Kate Lister: Hair and Back Again: A Pube’s Tale #history #historytok #victorians #learnwithtiktok #historytiktok #historytime ♬ original sound – The History Gossip “It is not in the power of any individual to give unqualified satisfaction, or to attempt to establish a new opinion without the risk of incurring the ridicule, as well as censure, of some portion of mankind,” writes Mahomed in his 1826 book, Shampooing: Or Benefits Resulting From The Use Of The Indian Medicated Vapor Bath. “So it was with me,” he continues, “in the face of indisputable evidence, I had to struggle with doubts and objections raised and circulated against my Bath, which, but for the repeated and numerous cures effected by it, would long since have shared the common fate of most innovations in science.” Word caught on fast, and Mahomed’s clientele list eventually climbed all the way up to the throne. He was appointed “shampooing surgeon” to both King George IV and King William IV, and locals took to calling him “Dr. Brighton.” In 1824, a Polish princess reportedly traveled to Brighton just for his baths — and gifted him and his wife with an engraved silver cup, as a token of her gratitude.  After years of struggle—war, a new country, a failed restaurant—Mahomed had finally succeeded, far beyond his expectations. Together with Jane, he’d made it.  Did he actually invent shampoo?  Tiny dog, lots of shampoo. Photo credit: Canva Not the bottle in your shower — that came later, with German chemist Hans Schwarzkopf’s powdered shampoo in the early 1900s and the liquid versions that followed in the late 1920s. What Mahomed did was arguably more impressive. He brought a practice from his home culture, dropped it into a country that badly needed it—and eyed it with suspicion anyway—then stuck it out until he’d won enough to make “shampoo” a household word across the English-speaking world. Not bad for a man whose first business had gone under. Legacy, on heads around the world  Mahomed died in Brighton in 1851. He was in his early 90s. Then, for more than a century, he was largely forgotten, until scholars revived his story in the 1970s and ‘80s. In 2019, Google honored him with a Doodle; his Brighton headstone was restored in 2025. Two centuries later, Mahomed’s legacy lives on, in a product the whole world uses on its heads.  The next time you reach for the shampoo, thank our ancestors all over the world, who, for centuries, washed their boiled berries or olive oil. Now, you get to use Aesop, and it’s largely because of one determined immigrant who showed an empire a new way to feel clean. The post An Indian immigrant taught Britain how to wash its hair 200 years ago and invented shampoo, as we know it appeared first on Upworthy.

Hear just those beginning flutes of “My Heart Will Go On,” and you are instantly transported to James Cameron’s Titanic. It’s one of the many things that make the film endlessly iconic.  But this beloved anthem likely would have never made it into the movie at all, had it not been for a series of small miracles, some well-intentioned deception, and one seemingly fated misunderstanding.  James Cameron never wanted a closing ballad Though Jack and Rose’s romance was central to the story, Cameron didn’t want a commercially-friendly love ballad playing over the credits to act as marketing gimmicks that would ultimately cheapen his artistic vision.  And yet, composer James Horner believed that audiences needed an emotional release to encapsulate the tragedy they witnessed for over 3 hours…and ultimately, the hope that love indeed survives in our memory.  A happy misunderstanding in the editing room So, Horner was experimenting with this song in secret. Eventually, he came upon a melody, which he sent to Cameron for review. He titled it, “sketch,” implying the piece of music was, essentially, still a rough idea of what the theme song could be. Thinking Horner meant this tune for the scene where Jack sketches Rose, Cameron played the song over it, and was enamored.  That audible sketch, as we know, stayed in the film, connecting that first glimmer of Jack and Rose’s budding infatuation with the enduring love older Rose keeps in her memory. The music matches this journey beautifully—at first simple and unorchestrated, later more complex and powerful. Finding the right words Still, Horton would need lyrics to better convey this message. For which he brought on lyricist Will Jennings, known for  “Up Where We Belong”, “Higher Love,” and “Tears in Heaven”, among others. For weeks, Jennings tinkered with lyrics that refrained from teen love and instead centered around love from an older person’s perspective.  Also, there needed to be a voice powerful enough to bring these epic themes to life.  Céline Dion almost passed on the song There was no doubt that Dion, already an internationally known name, could handle the task. The issue was…she didn’t want to do it.  She already had several movie songs under her belt, and had even already won an Oscar for Beauty and the Beast. Understandably, doing another movie score felt like a career-stalling move.  And yet, Dion’s husband-slash-manager, René Angélil saw potential. He coaxed Dion to at least recording a demo.  Showing up only half warmed up, her vibrato sped up by the black coffee she had just sipped, Dion did an initial pass. By the time she was finished, everyone started to cry, and it was clear there was a classic in the making. In fact, they never re-recorded it, the demo is what was used in the film. And a perfect example of what makes Celine Dion one of the greatest singers of all time…but that’s neither here nor there.  And now…for approval The final piece of the puzzle, of course, would be securing Cameron’s blessing. Horton knew he had to find the right time, so he secretly carried the tapes around for weeks, waiting for the opportunity to present itself. One day, when Cameron appeared to be in high spirits, Horton showed him the tape, and the rest is award-winning, chart-topping, career-defining cinematic history.  All great movies are made up of a series of chance encounters and seemingly small decisions just like these. It’s part of what makes movies so magical.  Looking back, it’s remarkable how many moments had to line up for one song to become inseparable from one of cinema’s biggest blockbusters. More than two decades later, “My Heart Will Go On” remains as unforgettable as the film it almost never accompanied. You can watch the full story of “My Heart Will Go On,” courtesy of Behind the Track, below:  The post James Cameron never would have agreed to use ‘My Heart Will Go On’ in ‘Titanic.’ One mistake changed everything. appeared first on Upworthy.

In one of Australia’s premier wine regions, a woody tourist icon closed for 3 years has reopened to the relief of locals. The second-tallest “fire-lookout tree” in the world, climbing the Gloucester Tree is something of a rite of passage for locals and visitors to Australia’s far southwest. Not far from the massive land-locked coastal […] The post The Majestic ‘Gloucester Tree’ Reopens to Climbers in Australia After 3 Years of Repair appeared first on Good News Network.

Approximately 1 million people gather in New York City on December 31 to watch the iconic Times Square Ball drop. The midnight drop serves as the official kickoff of the new year and a time-honored tradition for millions of Americans. On July 4, 2026, the United States of America will officially turn 250 years old. To celebrate the monumental occasion, America250 has something special planned for New York City. The iconic Times Square Ball will drop eight times beginning on July 3. View this post on Instagram A post shared by America250 (@america250) The Times Square Ball Drops Will Coordinate with All Time Zones According to a news release from America250, this will be the first time the Times Square Ball has dropped in July. The event will be similar to New Year’s Eve. “For the first time in history, the Times Square Ball will drop not once, but eight times — marking midnight in every American time zone, each with its own special Ball design, beginning in Guam and culminating in American Samoa — creating a nearly 24-hour celebration as the nation counts down to its 250th birthday,” America250 explained. “The celebration begins at 10:00 a.m. EDT with the first Ball Drop for the Chamorro Time Zone covering the American territories of Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, followed by a rolling series of special moments and musical performances across Puerto Rico and the continental United States, building to a signature New York City countdown at 11:59 p.m. EDT, before continuing west through Central Time, Mountain Time, Pacific Time, Alaska Time, and Hawaii-Aleutian Time, with the final ball drop at 7:00 a.m. EDT for American Samoa,” the release explaiens. Rosie Rios, chair of America250, said this celebration will be like nothing we’ve ever seen. “This is more than a countdown. It’s a moment that brings the entire country together, one time zone at a time,” she said. “From Guam to New York to Alaska to American Samoa, we are creating a shared experience where every American can see themselves in this celebration and be part of something bigger than any one city or moment.” This story’s featured image is by Gary Hershorn/Getty Images