Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love a Bad Name”? 1986. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ “Free Fallin’”? 1989. The process to create small-diameter lead shot by allowing molten lead to free-fall through a copper sieve in a tall tower into water? Patented in 1782 by plumber William Watts, who built the first shot tower as an […]
Iowa history
Posted inCommunity/News
The First Lady born in Boone, Iowa
A quaint yellow house in Boone, Iowa — a community of just over 12,000 — appears relatively unassuming from the outside. But on Nov. 14, 1896, one of the most influential women of the 1950s was born inside. Mary Geneva Doud would go on to become Mamie Eisenhower, the wife of the 34th U.S. President […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Pulitzer-winning novelist Edna Ferber’s painful time in Ottumwa shaped her as an artist and ‘a human being’
“Life can’t ever really defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for life itself is a writer’s lover until death — fascinating, cruel, lavish, warm, cold, treacherous, constant; the more varied the moods, the richer the experience. I’ve learned to value every stab of pain and disappointment.” —Edna Ferber Edna Ferber (1885-1968) was […]
Posted inCommunity/News
The Iowa Gambling Task: A 1994 decision-making experiment at UI has been revisited countless times since
You’ve heard of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. Now meet its strung-out cousin, the Iowa Gambling Task. IGT, also called the Iowa Gambling Task Experiment, is considered the gold standard for measuring cognitive decision-making. Thirty years after its debut, scientists (along with pop-science writers, podcasters and YouTubers) still continue to discuss it. In fact, […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
‘The best guy in Iowa City’: Byron Burford, mentee of Grant Wood and friend of Kurt Vonnegut, was a (ring)master of many forms
Born and raised in Mississippi, Byron Burford was drawn to the University of Iowa through an interest in one of its professors: Iowa’s Regionalism artist, Grant Wood. The American Gothic painter mentored Burford as an undergraduate, helping him hone his talents and lifelong love of circuses and carnivals into a distinctive oeuvre. Burford earned his […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Composer Bart Howard, born in Burlington, wrote the definitive song of the space program
From Mount Pleasant’s James Van Allen (“Father of Space Science”) to Beaconsfield’s Peggy Whitson (who holds the U.S. endurance record for most cumulative time in space at 695 days) to the July 2025 TRACERS mission to study space weather, developed and tested at the University of Iowa, our state has had a long and fruitful […]
Posted inCommunity/News
‘The American people must have more than a choice between evils’: Iowan Henry A. Wallace, FDR’s vice president, was an ag innovator and fierce antifascist
“The Cornfield Prophet” Henry A . Wallace, known for his pioneering work in agriculture, was a progressive statesman who championed the “Century of the Common Man.” A heartbeat away from the presidency for four years as FDR’s vice president, his supporters viewed him as the torchbearer for the New Deal, while opponents dismissed him as […]
Posted inStatewide
Historians, unions and legislators fight against the clock to save the Centennial Building and its archive
The sign on the door of the State Historical Society of Iowa’s Centennial Building, where the society’s Iowa City research facility has been located since 1956, let visitors on Wednesday know there were only a few days left to access its remarkable archival collections or even the building itself. The Centennial Building has been open […]
Posted inCommunity/News
A mile-wide meteorite left a geological ‘anomaly’ in western Iowa — and killed lots of dinosaurs
The first anomalous thing people living in Manson noticed was the water. Iowa’s groundwater typically has a fairly high dissolved mineral content, mostly calcium and magnesium, absorbed as the water passes over and through the limestone formations underlying the state. It’s considered “hard water.” But water coming from wells in the small western Iowa town, […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Inspired by a dream, Council Bluffs’ Black Angel statue was quickly tarnished by tragedy and scandal
Content warning: Suicide Ruth stands alone on a rocky shore, surrounded by a hazy sea. In the distance, a shape appears through the mist. A boat approaches, and at the bow stands a woman so beautiful she must be an angel. Right hand outstretched, left hand clutching a basin of water, the angel beckons softly, […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Dubbed the ‘gadget guy’ of jazz, Herbie Hancock used tech to change music forever. He honed his skills in Grinnell
In his last performance in Iowa City, jazz great Herbie Hancock mentioned how he felt “at home in Iowa” because of his years at Grinnell College. For most artists, a nod to their alma mater might sound like simple gratitude. In Hancock’s case, it was an understatement. His time at Grinnell did not just influence […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
‘You’re My Waterloo’: How a very 1982 tourism song became a Cedar Valley sensation
In 1982, the inaugural My Waterloo Days Festival was held as a celebration of the beginning of the summer. Replete with a parade, laser light shows and hot air balloons, it was a special event seeking to foster community bonding amid economic strife. John Deere was seeing mass layoffs, the Rath Packing Company was on […]
