During the U.S. Civil War, Cornelius Vanderbilt donated his largest and fastest steamship, named the Vanderbilt and built for around $1 million, to the Union Navy. The vessel was used to chase down Confederate raiders. In 1813, Vanderbilt married his cousin Sophia Johnson, and the couple eventually had 13 children.
Scientists drilling off the coast of West Antarctica have found the fossil remains of forests that grew in the region 90 million years ago - in the time of the dinosaurs.
