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Women have contributed to almost every facet of life, from sports and science to art and politics. While some female role models are starting to get more recognition, we still tend to gloss over history’s supporting female characters — women who broke their own glass ceilings while serving others, smashing records, and pursuing personal passions. Here are a few stories you may have missed in history class.

First Known Female Postmaster in Colonial America

Mary Katharine Goddard was among the first female publishers in the U.S., a socially precarious venture for a colonial woman during the country’s fight for independence. Working with her mother, Sarah, and brother, William, Mary Katharine founded multiple publications starting in the 1760s. William frequently traveled between cities to establish new papers, leaving the bulk of news collecting and printing to his sister. In 1774, he appointed Mary Katharine to run The Maryland Journal while he focused on other pursuits (such as lobbying for a national postal service) and served time in debtor’s prison. During the height of the Revolutionary War, Mary Katharine made a name for herself with fiery anti-British editorials. In 1775, she was appointed Baltimore’s first postmaster — likely the first woman to hold such a position in colonial America — and in 1777, Congress commissioned her to print copies of the Declaration of Independence. (Surviving copies feature her printer’s mark at the bottom.) Despite her success, however, Mary Katharine was pushed out of both roles at the war’s end. In 1784, William rescinded her title as publisher, creating a lifelong rift between the siblings. Not long after, she was also removed from her postmaster job on the basis of sex. She wrote to George Washington asking to be reinstated, but the President passed her complaint to the postmaster general, who left her plea unanswered.

First Woman Surgeon and Female Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient

Dr. Mary Edwards Walker was the second U.S. woman to receive a medical degree (following Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell), but she became known as the country’s first female surgeon. Following her medical school graduation in 1855, Walker went into practice with her husband and fellow doctor Albert Miller, though the Civil War would change the course of her career. Despite having a medical degree, Walker was denied work as a military surgeon in the Union Army because she was a woman. Instead, she volunteered at field hospitals in Washington, D.C., and Virginia until 1863, when Tennessee accepted her medical credentials and designated her as the Army’s first female surgeon. Walker’s proximity to battlefields put her at risk — in 1864, she was captured by Confederate troops and spent four months at the notoriously brutal Castle Thunder prison, where she suffered injuries that plagued her for the rest of her life. At the war’s end, Walker was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for Meritorious Service, an honor that Congress revoked in 1917 on the grounds that her medical work was not directly on the front lines. She refused to return the award for the remaining two years of her life and was posthumously re-awarded the medal in 1977. More than 100 years later, Walker remains the only woman to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.

First Female TV Game Show Host

Actress Arlene Francis found her footing in entertainment as a radio host, but it was a TV first that catapulted her career to new heights. In 1949, Francis became the first woman to host a television game show in the United States. On Blind Date, a show Francis originally hosted over radio airwaves, male contestants competed for an all-expenses-paid outing with women hidden behind a wall, the obvious catch being that they couldn’t see their prospective dates and had to answer a litany of questions with the goal of being picked. Francis hosted the show for three years before moving on to films and Broadway stages, but her best-known role was a 25-year stint as a panelist on What’s My Line?, another TV game show.

First Native American Woman to Argue a Supreme Court Case

Lyda Conley’s legacy was preserving that of her ancestors — specifically their final resting place. Conley acted as a staunch (and armed) defender of the Wyandot National Burying Ground, a Kansas cemetery at risk of sale and destruction some 60 years after its creation. The cemetery was established in 1843 following typhoid and measles outbreaks that took hundreds of Wyandot lives; the loss was a particular blow to an Indigenous community that was forcibly relocated thanks to broken treaties with the U.S. government and the cruel Indian Removal Act of 1830. In 1890, Kansas senators introduced legislation to sell the burial ground; although it failed, the effort encouraged Lyda Conley to attend law school to defend the very cemetery in which her own parents, siblings, and grandparents were interred. Conley was admitted to the Missouri Bar in 1902, and within four years put her legal skills to work as the federal government moved to sell the cemetery. Conley and her sister Lena began a legal and physical siege for its protection, building an armed watch station called Fort Conley on the grounds and warning, “woe be to the man that first attempts to steal a body.” In 1910, her legal fight made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where she became the first Native American woman (and third woman ever) to argue a case before the judges. While the court ruled against her, years of media coverage about the cemetery worked in her favor. In 1913, the Kansas Senate passed legislation protecting the cemetery, which was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2017.

First Woman to Break the Sound Barrier

Aviator Jacqueline Cochran set more than 73 flight records during her lifetime, most for altitude and speed. In 1953, she also snagged the title for first woman to break the sound barrier. Her success was a product of her determination, which may have been honed during a difficult childhood; raised in Florida by a family with modest means, Cochran began working in a cotton mill at just six years old. At 10, she struck out on her own, working in salons for several years before launching her own cosmetics company in the mid-1930s. Around this time, in 1932, Cochran pursued her pilot’s license with the goal of more easily reaching cross-country clients and business partners. Instead, she found a new passion that led her to compete in air racing, where she began setting speed records. When World War II started a few years later, she shifted her focus again to find ways to put her talents to practical use. In 1941, Cochran recruited two dozen female pilots for the Air Transport Auxiliary, a World War II program that utilized civilian pilots to transport military planes. That same year, she became the first woman to fly a bomber across the Atlantic Ocean. And by late 1943, she was commander of the Women’s Air Force Service Pilots. Cochran continued flying after the war, with a renewed focus on speed; her reputation gained her access to military jets that helped her break records — including the sound barrier feat.

First Woman to Win Three Track-and-Field Olympic Gold Medals in a Single Year

No one would have guessed that Wilma Rudolph would be known as the fastest runner in the world by age 20 — most doctors believed she’d never even walk as an adult. After contracting scarlet fever, pneumonia, and polio when she was young, Rudolph lost much of her mobility, then slowly recovered with the help of leg braces she wore for several years. By the time she was nine years old, the determined future athlete had regained her ability to walk and began playing basketball; in high school, she was scouted by coaches for her speed on the court. One of those coaches invited Rudolph to train at Tennessee State University, where she refined her high-speed sprinting skills. She and her track teammates made two trips to the Olympics — first in 1956, when she was still in high school, and again in 1960. It was at the 1960 Games in Rome that Rudolph claimed three gold medals in track-and-field: one each in the 100-meter and 200-meter races, and another in the 4×100-meter relay. She became the first U.S. woman to do so at a single Olympics, simultaneously breaking three world records for speed. Rudolph retired from sports two years later but took up coaching and became a goodwill ambassador to French West Africa. Her Olympic achievements helped pave the way for the Black female athletes who would eventually break her records.

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The struggle for workers’ rights in the U.S. is a fight that’s existed since the nation’s founding. The first Monday in September is a celebration of and memorial to the many workers, unions, and activists past and present who’ve secured hard-earned wins to help make America a prosperous nation for all its citizens. At the same time, the holiday is also often a nationwide end-of-summer bash. These six facts explore the history, meaning, and myths behind one of the most-loved holidays on the calendar.

Labor Day Started as a New York City Parade

On the morning of September 5, 1882, some 20,000 union workers marched through lower Manhattan. According to one newspaper report, the crowd was filled with “men on horseback, men wearing regalia, men with society aprons, and men with flags, musical instruments, badges, and all the other paraphernalia of a procession.” The parade celebrated the labor of the city’s union workers, who actually had to sacrifice a day’s pay in order to attend the celebration — but what a celebration it was. After the parade, 25,000 union members and their families filled Wendel’s Elm Park at 92nd Street and Ninth Avenue for a post-parade party, where beer kegs were “mounted in every conceivable place.” On September 5 the next year, New York’s Central Labor Union celebrated its second Labor Day parade, and the late summer holiday became a tradition.

The Holiday Was First Recognized by Oregon in 1887

Although New York held the first parades and even introduced the first legislation recognizing Labor Day, Oregon was actually the first to officially recognize the holiday, on February 21, 1887 (though the state reserved the first Saturday in June for Labor Day, rather than early September). Within the same year, Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York followed suit. It wasn’t until 1894 that Congress solidified Labor Day as a national holiday — the legislation was signed into law by then-President Grover Cleveland.

Most Countries Don’t Celebrate Workers in September

While reserving the first Monday in September for Labor Day hearkens back to the holiday’s New York origins, the decision was also designed to distract from a more unsavory moment in the history of U.S. labor relations. Most countries around the world actually celebrate unions and workers on May 1, otherwise known as International Workers’ Day. This international holiday actually has its origins in the U.S., when a clash between Chicago police and workers in 1886 left several dead and dozens injured. Known as the Haymarket Riot, the event went on to inspire International Workers’ Day in 1889. Uneasy honoring such a bloody moment in U.S. history — especially one that inspired widespread vitriol against labor unions — Congress and President Cleveland opted for a different date entirely.

There Was a Labor Day Before There Was a U.S. Department of Labor

Although the 19th century gave birth to what eventually became Labor Day — along with many other important historical moments that defined the worker’s struggle in both America and the world — the U.S. Labor Department wasn’t established until more than three decades after that first parade down New York City’s streets. Although the U.S. did establish the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 1884 and the Department of Commerce and Labor in 1903, the modern U.S. Department of Labor wasn’t created until 1913, when lame duck President William Howard Taft reluctantly signed it into law. Taft had such strong concerns about the bill (he thought it would hinder efficient administration) that he only signed it into law mere hours before his successor, Woodrow Wilson, took office. Today, the Department of Labor oversees labor laws, guarantees workers’ rights, and ensures safe working conditions. In 1933 — two decades after its creation — the department also became the first to be led by a woman, Secretary Frances Perkins (who was later recognized as a saint in the Episcopal Church).

137 Million Americans Traveled for Labor Day in 2022

According to a survey conducted by The Vacationer, 53% of Americans traveled on Labor Day weekend in 2022, which equates to some 137 million people. This figure narrowly surpassed both Memorial Day and the Fourth of July as the busiest travel weekend in the U.S. Although most of that travel (about 36%) occurred via car, airports also tend to see a serious uptick of Americans traveling to popular domestic locations, such as New York, Los Angeles, or San Francisco, or even catching international flights to London, Rome, or Tokyo. In 2022, the Transportation Security Administration screened 8.76 million travelers — exceeding pre-pandemic numbers — with Friday marking the busiest day of the weekend.

Yes, You Can Definitely Wear White After Labor Day

The color white has its advantages during the summer, as it’s the best hue (or combination of all hues) to reflect the sun’s rays, but why is there an informal rule forbidding the color after summer is over? The roots of the rule date back to the 19th century as a means for upper-class women to distinguish themselves. The idea was that white clothes were only appropriate for weddings and resort wear, and because Labor Day stood in as the unofficial end of summer (though the astronomical end occurs weeks later), white shouldn’t be worn after Labor Day. If you’re looking for logic, there isn’t any — it was just an arbitrary rule meant to exclude those who didn’t have well-established fortunes and were less in the know. Somehow, this arbitrary rule survived more than a century, though it isn’t really recognized today — even if that doesn’t stop some people from still mentioning this pernicious piece of class warfare.

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From the comfiest of sneakers to the highest of stilettos, shoes are a key component of any wardrobe. But while loafers and clogs may seem like just another accessory to some, footwear has a rich and fascinating history dating back millennia. So lace up your boots and take a stroll through this list of six incredible facts about shoes.

Chuck Taylor All Stars Were the First Signature Athletic Shoes

Long before Jordans and Kobes hit the market, the first athlete to lend his name to a signature shoe was Chuck Taylor, a semiprofessional basketball player from Indiana. Converse created its All Star sneaker in 1917 with the sport of basketball in mind, and by 1921, Taylor had signed on to help sell the shoes out of the company’s office in Chicago. Taylor wasn’t a celebrity in the same way that today’s NBA players are, but as part of his job, he organized promotional basketball clinics for Converse and worked with coaches and athletes all over the country. He became so closely associated with the brand that people started referring to All Stars as “Chuck Taylor’s shoes,” even before his name was physically affixed to the sneakers in the early 1930s.

Within a few decades, other signature shoes followed. In 1958, Celtics star Bob Cousy worked with a company called PF Flyers to design a shoe that sold 14 million pairs in its first year. And in 1973, Puma released the Puma Clyde, named for New York Knicks star Clyde Frazier. Of course, the biggest names in the signature shoe game are Nike and Michael Jordan, who teamed up on the Air Jordan I (the first of many releases) in 1985. Jordan is undoubtedly Nike’s most successful signature athlete, but he wasn’t the company’s first. That title belongs to Wayne Wells, a freestyle wrestler who won gold at the 1972 Olympics. Wells signed a contract with Nike that same year and helped design a wrestling shoe to which he lent his name, paving the way for future athletes to sign on with the brand.

Neil Armstrong Left His Shoes on the Moon

After Neil Armstrong took one of the most consequential steps in human history, the boots he used to do so were discarded on the moon. In fact, both of the Apollo 11 astronauts who walked on the lunar surface — Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin — left behind their overshoes, along with their portable life-support systems. Leaving the gear wasn’t a symbolic gesture; it helped to offset the added weight of collected moon rocks that the shuttle would be taking back. And the astronauts didn’t return to Earth barefoot, either. The treaded overshoes they abandoned were worn atop flat-soled pressure boots (which they kept) for added traction while traversing the moon’s rocky terrain.

The First Slip-On Elastic Boots Were Made for Queen Victoria

In the early 1800s, boots were a popular style among both men and women, though tying them with rudimentary laces and buttons made putting them on difficult. English inventor Joseph Sparkes Hall realized there had to be a better way, and in 1837, he designed the first pair of elastic-sided boots, which he presented to Queen Victoria that same year (the year she ascended to the throne).

This new slip-on boot provided the comfort of slippers with the stability of laced shoes, and became well known thanks to Victoria’s blessing. As Sparkes explained in The Book of the Feet, written in 1846, “Her Majesty has been pleased to honor the invention with the most marked and continued patronage; it has been my privilege for some years to make boots of this kind for Her Majesty, and no one who reads the court circular, or is acquainted with Her Majesty’s habits of walking and exercise in the open air, can doubt the superior claims of the elastic over every other kind of boot.” Hall’s patented design would go on to inspire the modern-day Chelsea boot, which has been worn by everyone from the Beatles to the Stormtrooper characters in Star Wars.

High Heels Were Originally Worn by Horseback Riders

Though they’ve since become a symbol of high fashion, high-heeled shoes originally had more of a practical use. They were commonly worn throughout horseback-riding cultures around the 10th century, and were particularly popular in Persia, where the cavalry found that 1-inch heels added extra stability in stirrups when they stood up to fire their bows. Persia later sent a delegation of soldiers to Europe in the 17th century, which in turn inspired European aristocrats to add high heels to their personal wardrobes. Heeled boots became all the rage among members of the upper class throughout Europe, and in 1670, France’s Louis XIV passed a law mandating that only members of the nobility could wear heels. In the 18th century, the style became increasingly gendered as heels grew in popularity among women. By the start of the French Revolution in 1789, men of the French nobility had largely given up on the trend in favor of broader, sturdier shoes.

One Brand Is Particularly Popular Among U.S. Presidents

Though there’s no exclusive contract, Johnston & Murphy serves as the unofficial footwear provider of U.S. Presidents, having designed shoes for America’s commanders in chief since the company was established in 1850 by William J. Dudley, who offered to make shoes for President Millard Fillmore. (Dudley called his business the William J. Dudley Shoe Company, but his partner James Johnston renamed it after Dudley died and he brought on William Murphy as a new partner.)

In the decades since, Johnston & Murphy has been tasked with crafting a wide variety of presidential kicks, with the smallest being a size 7 for Rutherford B. Hayes and the largest a size 14 for Abraham Lincoln. Some of the more famous styles have included black lace-up boots for Lincoln, black wingtips for President Kennedy, black cap-toe shoes beloved by Ronald Reagan, and black oxfords for Barack Obama, which came in a handcrafted box of Hawaiian-sourced wood.

Ancient Greek Actors Wore Different Footwear for Dramatic and Comedic Roles

In addition to their narratives, ancient Greek tragedies and comedies could often be distinguished by the type of footwear the actors wore. Dramatic actors wore a style known as a buskin, a boot with a thick sole believed to be anywhere between 4 and 10 inches high. This set them apart from comedic actors, who wore just thin socks on their feet. It was thought that buskins gave serious performers a more prominent stage presence compared to their humorous counterparts.

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For millennia, lighthouses have guided wayward ships away from hazardous waters, providing safety during powerful storms. Lighthouses still help seafarers today, though modern sailors have many more navigational tools at their disposal, from GPS to detailed nautical charts, buoys, and radar beacons. These days, many lighthouses have become romantic relics of another era, one in which people set sail with only the power of the wind and looked toward lighthouses to guide them back home. These seven illuminating facts about lighthouses include just a few reasons why these structures continue to fascinate us and remain popular tourist destinations today.

Antiquity’s Most Famous Lighthouse Is One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

The Lighthouse of Alexandria, also known as the Pharos of Alexandria, was built during the reign of Ptolemy II of Egypt, around 280 BCE. For centuries, it was one of the tallest structures in the world, with reports estimating that it reached about 350 feet high. The lighthouse stood on the island of Pharos in the harbor of Alexandria, named after Alexander the Great and the capital of the Ptolemaic Kingdom (which lasted from 305 BCE to 30 BCE).

Sadly, frequent earthquakes in the Mediterranean region badly damaged the lighthouse, and it was completely destroyed by the 14th century. However, the lighthouse served as an archetype from which all other lighthouses derived, and its importance is embedded in many Romance languages — for instance, the word “pharos” is sometimes used in English to mean “lighthouse.” In 1994 French archaeologists discovered remains of the famous lighthouse on the seabed, and UNESCO is working to declare the area a submerged World Heritage Site.

The U.S. Has More Lighthouses Than Any Other Country

The United States’ first lighthouse was built in 1716 on Little Brewster Island near Boston, Massachusetts. Lighthouses were so important to early America that in 1789 the first U.S. Congress passed the Lighthouse Act, which created the United States Lighthouse Establishment under the Department of the Treasury. Today, the U.S. is home to over 700 lighthouses — more than any other country in the world. However, the state with the most lighthouses isn’t located on the coast of the continental U.S. Michigan — surrounded by four of the five Great Lakes — is home to 130 lighthouses, including the remote lighthouse on Stannard Rock, nicknamed “the loneliest place in North America.”

The Romans Built the Oldest Surviving Lighthouse

In the first century CE, the ancient Romans built the Farum Brigantium, known today as the Tower of Hercules — the world’s oldest lighthouse that is still functional. The lighthouse continues to guide and signal sailors from La Coruña harbor in northwestern Spain. An 18th-century restoration of the tower thankfully preserved the original core of the structure while improving its functionality. Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Tower of Hercules is the only Greco-Roman lighthouse from antiquity that has retained such a high level of structural integrity, and it continues to shine its light across the Atlantic to this day.

“Lightships” Once Sailed the Seas

Although lighthouses were originally designed as immovable land structures, in 1731 English inventor Robert Hamblin designed the first modern lightship and moored it at the Nore sandbank at the mouth of the Thames River. As its name suggests, the ship had a lighted beacon and was used to provide safe navigation in areas where building a land-based lighthouse was impractical. The U.S. had its own lightship service, which began in 1820 and lasted 165 years. The country’s last lightship, the Nantucket, retired in 1985 after being replaced by more modern technology such as automated buoys. Today, the United States lightship Nantucket (LV-112) is registered as a National Historic Landmark.

An 1819 Invention Gave Lighthouses a Major Upgrade That Still Exists Today

In the early 19th century, lighthouses weren’t particularly good at steering ships away from land, as the most common lenses used in lighthouses at the time, known as Lewis lamps, were not nearly powerful enough. Enter French inventor Augustin-Jean Fresnel, who in 1821 introduced his eponymous lens. The Fresnel lens used a series of prisms to focus all the light from a lamp in one direction and magnify it into a much more powerful beam. Soon, Fresnel lenses were installed in lighthouses all over the world. Not only did they offer vastly improved functionality, they were also stunningly beautiful. The Fresnel lens was so revolutionary that the technique is still used today in flood lights and professional lighting equipment.

The U.S. and Soviet Union Experimented With Nuclear-Powered Lighthouses

In 1964, the Baltimore Harbor Light, which sits at the mouth of the Magothy River, became the first — and last — nuclear-powered lighthouse ever built by the United States. Originally constructed in 1908, the Baltimore Harbor Light operated as a far more typical lighthouse for 56 years, until it became the subject of a Coast Guard experiment. The U.S government installed a 4,600-pound atomic fuel cell generator,  and the lighthouse ran on nuclear power for a year before the project was dismantled (thankfully with no signs of nuclear contamination).

Although the U.S.’s experiment with nuclear lighthouses was short-lived, the Soviet Union embraced them more enthusiastically, building 132 nuclear-powered lighthouses along the notoriously inhospitable Northeast Passage, a shipping route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans along Russia’s Arctic coast. After the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Russia abandoned the upkeep of these lighthouses. But, being nuclear-powered, they kept shining their light for years afterward.

A Remote Scottish Lighthouse Was the Sight of an Enduring Mystery

The Flannan Isles Lighthouse is located on the remote, uninhabited island of Eilean Mòr in northern Scotland. From the outside, the lighthouse is remarkably similar to many other lighthouse structures built around the turn of the 20th century — so you might not guess that it was the setting of a notorious unsolved disappearance that inspired the 2018 film The Vanishing starring Gerard Butler.

On December 15, 1900, the transatlantic steamer Archtor noticed the lighthouse wasn’t lit while traveling to the port town of Leith. A team from the local lighthouse board visited the island a few days later and discovered no sign of the three lighthouse keepers who were supposed to be on duty. The table was set for dinner, and an oilskin (a type of raincoat) was still on its hook. A preliminary investigation concluded that two of the lighthouse keepers likely traveled to the west platform to secure a supply box during a storm and accidentally tumbled into the sea. When the last keeper went to investigate (without his oilskin), he likely met a similar fate. Rumors on the mainland posited more fanciful explanations, including mythical sea serpents or even murder. While those explanations have been largely dismissed, it’s unlikely we’ll ever know for sure what happened at Flannan Isles Lighthouse.