On this day in 1992, 18-year-old Michelle Knapp (above) is watching television
in her parents’ living room in Peekskill, New York when she hears a loud
crash in the driveway. Alarmed, Knapp ran outside to investigate. What
she found was startling, to say the least: a sizeable hole in the rear end
of her car, a 1980 Chevy Malibu (above); a matching hole in the gravel
driveway underneath the car; and in the hole, the culprit: what looked 
like an ordinary, bowling-ball–sized rock. It was extremely heavy
for its size (it weighed about 28 pounds), shaped like a football and
warm to the touch; also, it smelled vaguely of rotten eggs. The next day,
a curator from the American Museum of Natural History in New York City
confirmed that the object was a genuine meteorite and is estimated to be
4.4 billion years old.

.

A portion of the Peekskill meteorite in the National Museum of Natural History.

The 9/11 memorial and ground zero today.

The anchor of the USS Monitor, from the American Civil War, was retrieved by divers on this day in 1983.

The USS Monitor was the first ironclad warship commissioned by
the Union Navy in February of 1862. It was lost at sea, December
31, 1862. The wreck was located August 27, 1973.

Model of USS Monitor.

Charles Wilson Peale’s portrait of Washington commemorating the victory at Princeton.

(FoxNews) – The storied blue sash worn by George Washington (above) during
the Revolutionary War has gone on display at Philadelphia’s Museum of the
American Revolution. The sash, on loan from Harvard’s Peabody Museum of
Ethnography and Archaeology, was rediscovered several years ago by Dr.
Philip Mead, chief historian and director of curatorial affairs at the Museum of
the American Revolution. Mead found the artifact at the Peabody Museum,
where it had essentially been hidden in plain sight for decades. He spent years
studying the sash before concluding that it was indeed the one worn by
Washington.

The sash (below) which is on display until Oct. 9, is featured with a 1776 portrait
of Washington by Philadelphia artist Charles Willson Peale, which depicts him
wearing the sash. The portrait is on loan from the Brooklyn Museum.

Washington’s uniform sash.

George Washington depicted in the Battle of Princeton.

(FoxNews) – A stunning artifact from the Revolutionary War – General George Washington’s field tent – will go on display when the Museum of the American
Revolution opens its doors in April.

Dubbed “the first Oval Office,” the canvas tent will be the cornerstone of the Philadelphia-based Museum’s collection of approximately 3,000 Revolutionary
War-era artifacts.

The museum’s opening on April 19 will be the first time in decades that the tent
has been on public display.