The History Press

Pittsburgh is synonymous with winning. From the Penguins and Steelers to the Pirates and Panthers, the Steel City knows championships.

There must be something special in the water to make Pittsburgh so particularly gifted with its sports teams. The most famous teams in the city's history would most likely be the 1970s Steelers, known as the Steel Curtain for obvious reasons, and the Penguins who raised the Stanley Cup five times. Names such as Lemieux, Crosby, Roethlisberger, Bradshaw, Clemente and Stargell are legends of American sport and members of Pittsburgh's most cherished franchises, but for every sports legend and multi-million dollar franchise, there are a dozen more talented players and long-past teams that have been forgotten to history; the Negro League's Crawford and Homestead Grays are too often overlooked in the city's sports history but were as talented as any team that has played there. Author Dave Finoli ranks the fifty greatest teams that won trophies, brought glory and lifted the hearts of Pittsburgh's devoted sports fans.

Visit the alleys of Philadelphia's Kensington and Fishtown neighborhoods for stories from the Speakeasy War and more.

The docks and alleys of Philadelphia's riverward neighborhoods teem with forgotten stories and strange histories. In the overlooked corners of Kensington and Fishtown are the launching of the Industrial Revolution, the bizarre double suicide of the Rusk twins and the violent Cramp Shipyard strike. With a collection of his "The Rest Is History" columns from the Fishtown Star, local historian Kenneth Milano chronicles little-known tales from the Speakeasy War of 1890 to stories of seldom-recognized hometown hero Eddie Stanky, who went on to play for the 1951 New York Giants. Join Milano as he journeys into the secret history of two of the city's oldest neighborhoods.

Historian Thomas Keels tells many ribald stories in his book, ""Wicked Philadelphia: Sin in the City of Brotherly Love,"" including various methods of body snatching and murder. --Marty Moss-Coane, WHYY-FM

Prim and proper Philadelphia has been rocked by the clash between excessive vice and social virtue since its citizens burned the city's biggest brothel in 1800. With tales of grave robbers in South Philadelphia and harlots in Franklin Square, Wicked Philadelphia reveals the shocking underbelly of the City of Brotherly Love. In one notorious scam, a washerwoman masqueraded as the fictional Spanish countess Anita de Bettencourt for two decades, bilking millions from victims and even fooling the government of Spain. From the 1843 media frenzy that ensued after an aristocrat abducted a young girl to a churchyard transformed into a brothel (complete with a carousel), local author Thomas H. Keels unearths Philadelphia's most scintillating scandals and corrupt characters in this rollicking history.