Americans have a love-hate relationship with immigration. We love to talk about when our families moved here and we love the cheap labor provided by immigrants. But we are often suspicious of immigrants, especially during times of war, recession or political upheaval. The Emergency Quota Act – which took effect 100 years ago Wednesday – and the Immigration Act of 1924 – which became law 97 years ago this month – are examples of the winds of change in American immigration policy.

Eighty years ago Saturday, Joe DiMaggio of the New York Yankees hit a run-scoring single o pitcher Eddie Smith of the Chicago White Sox. The Yankees didn’t score again for the rest of the day, losing 13-1. But DiMaggio’s single began what would become a streak of 56 consecutive games in which “Joltin’ Joe” recorded a hit. The record still stands and is considered by baseball experts to be an unbreakable record.

What does it take to portray a strange visitor from another planet who came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men? Like all fictional characters, Superman has had to change with the times. Here’s a look at various incarnations of the Man of Steel, on the big screen and the small one.

At the 93rd annual Academy Awards ceremony last month, Frances McDormand earned her third Oscar for Best Actress. That puts her one behind the all-time champion for winning that category, Katharine Hepburn.

Forty years ago today, reggae singer and songwriter Bob Marley died of a rare form of melanoma. He was 36 years old. July 3 will be the 50th anniversary of the death of Jim Morrison (Age 27), July 16 will be the 30th anniversary of the death of Harry Chapin (Age 38) and July 23 will be the 10th anniversary of the death of Amy Winehouse (Age 27). All of these musicians were loved by their fans, yet – for various reasons – saw their lives and careers cut short.

On this date 80 years ago, actor and comedian Bob Hope took his NBC radio show on the road to an Army air field near Riverside, California, to entertain the troops there. It would be the first in a long list of shows Hope would go on to give for military personnel in the U.S. and around the world over the next 49 years.

While we, as a people, are divided by things like politics, vocation, money, personal preferences, favorite sports teams and so on, there’s one thing that binds most of us together: Our love for our pets. About 67% of U.S. households own pets, the American Pet Products Association says – that translates into 84.9 million homes.

"The clock has started." Those were the words Alan Shepard used 60 years ago Wednesday to note his cockpit timepiece had begun running. This meant his Redstone rocket booster had left the ground sending him and his one-man Mercury spacecraft for America’s first trip into space.

Sixty years ago this week, a group of Black and white activists boarded buses for a journey in and around the Deep South. The intent of the group, which called itself “Freedom Riders”: To protest segregated bus terminals and “whites-only” facilities at bus terminals – facilities that were supposed to be integrated after a 1960 Supreme Court ruling.

Saturday’s Kentucky Derby is just the first of three huge horse racing events in the U.S. that make up the Triple Crown. In 102 years, only 13 horses have won that Triple Crown.

Any sports fan who grew up in the 1970s or 1980s could watch baseball or football on TV multiple times a week. But it was on Saturday afternoons that we were exposed to some of the lesser-known sports like boxing or bowling or track and field or auto racing or ski jumping. This was thanks to an anthology program that debuted 60 years ago today: ABC’s “Wide World of Sports”

Thirty-five years ago Monday, April 26, a reactor at a Soviet nuclear power station 60 miles from Kiev exploded. Much of the radioactive core was vaporized, thrown into the atmosphere and spread across Europe. Nearly a quarter-million people were forced to resettle elsewhere from land that will be poisoned for centuries.

These days, the medical world has a number of ways to treat a heart that’s not functioning properly. But the path to developing those methods has been one that’s taken at least 130 years. Here’s a look at the development of heart surgery and healthy hearts.

Computers have been around since the end of World War II. In order to use most of them, you had to learn fancy computer languages or use stacks of cards with holes punched into them or reel after reel of coded magnetic tape. All that changed 40 years ago, when an obscure experimental gadget was turned into the ultimate computer accessory that just about anybody could use.

Here’s your ‘Do you feel old yet?’ moment: The Cartoon Network series “Dexter’s Laboratory” – featuring an 8-year-old mad genius with a strange accent running all sorts of high-tech experiments in his secret lab tucked away behind his bedroom – turns a quarter-century old Wednesday.

On this date five years ago, representatives from 171 nations gathered at the United Nations headquarters in New York City to sign what had come to be called the Paris Agreement – an effort to keep the rise in global average temperature to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius, which would reduce the impact of climate change caused by the emissions of greenhouse gases from industrialized nations.

It’ll be two months after its usual time of year – thanks again, coronavirus – but the 93rd annual Academy Awards will be awarded Sunday. Here’s a look at some of the most notable numbers and oddities in the long history of Oscar:

At what point did getting vaccinated for COVID-19 become a political issue? Rumblings about who’s lining up for jabs and who’s running away from them solidified last week when three different national polls showed that more than a third – and nearly half – of Republicans said they don’t plan to be vaccinated. This could have a negative impact on efforts to guide the nation toward “herd immunity.”

Singer, songwriter, record producer and flamboyant businessman Prince Rogers Nelson – yes, believe it or not, Prince was his real name – died five years ago in his combination home, music and movie studio complex near Minneapolis. He was 57.