Long live the automat, the Philly-made marvel that turned dining into an assembly line

The first one opened on Chestnut street, eventually spawning 150 coin-operated diners across the U.S. — and a short-lived children's show.

Remembering Frank Palumbo, the Philly restaurateur who chilled with Sinatra, DiMaggio, and Rizzo

His legacy stretches from Hollywood to South Philadelphia, where a high school now bears his name.

The Philly-area televangelist who attempted to broadcast from a pirate ship

Carl McIntire was a conservative talk radio preacher who went toe-to-toe with the FCC.

The 1980s Philly sweepstakes charlatan who swindled folks out of $2 million in prizes

After a federal indictment, Chuck Seidman went on to gain Donald Trump as a client.

That time KYW Philadelphia booted Richard Pryor from primetime TV, one of just two major stations to do so

One of the skits execs felt was problematic involves Pryor playing the first Black president and talking about dating white women.

That time Bookbinder’s was raided for $50k in contraband

It was the early stages of Prohibition when federal agents discovered 358 cases of alcohol in the Old City bar.

Remembering an acclaimed Doylestown poet whose interracial marriage was denigrated as ‘an experiment’

Though his works are often categorized as part of the Harlem Renaissance, Jean Toomer did not often identify himself as Black.

Stadium deja vu? Remembering the opposition to the long gone Veterans Stadium

The former home of the Eagles and Phillies made South Philly neighbors bristle in the 1960s, when the stadium's future relied on an election.

The first woman police officer in Philadelphia history was a prudish ‘dance cop’ afraid of jazz

Marguerite Walz was part of a racist 1920s movement worried jazz would erode "decency" and encourage race-mixing and promiscuity.

How a little-known novel set on the Main Line inspired one of the 20th century’s most prolific authors

James A. Michener, who won a Pulitzer Prize for "Tales from the South Pacific," credited his start to a title published in 1930.

The civil rights legacy of Horace Mann Bond, Lincoln University’s first Black president

Bond's research helped make school segregation illegal, and his son would go on to co-found the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Remembering Ruffhouse Records, the ’90s Philly music label behind hits like Cypress Hill, The Fugees, and ‘Jump’

One of the era's biggest recording powerhouses was founded in Northern Liberties.

The Philadelphia Quaker who invented modern work’s relentless drive for efficiency

Frederick Taylor began experimenting with "scientific management" at Nicetown's Midvale Steel.

A first in 1922: Two Pa. women secure major party nominations for Congress

One was a professor, while the other was related to Ben Franklin.

How a North Philly-born blind boxer rose to welterweight fame, then was forced to quit

Joe Harris hid his vision impairment through two dozen bouts, but when it discovered, the news cost him his career.

How the construction of the Vine Street Expressway uncovered lost Black burial grounds

The highway runs over a pair of cemeteries run by the First African Baptist Church, which served a congregation of free Black people in the pre-Civil War era.

Baseball history: The Phillies and the A’s faced off in the ‘City Series’ for over 50 years

The Athletics usually won, but in 1915 the Phils took the first game — and went on to win the National League.

Cheeky 1937 caricature depicts one of Philly’s best-known art collectors as a circus ringmaster

Lou Hirshman does Albert C. Barnes.

Lani Guinier, the Penn law prof who was an early advocate of expanding voting rights

She eventually left Philadelphia to join the faculty at Harvard — but not before a now-famous colleague.

Transit workers in 1910 sparked a general strike that brought Philadelphia to a standstill

Upwards of 75k people walked off the job.