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The story of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and the 20th Maine at Gettysburg is one of the most celebrated moments in American military history. The desperate bayonet charge down Little Round Top on July 2, 1863, has been immortalized in books, documentaries, and the film Gettysburg. But beneath the legend lies a controversy that historians have … Read more

On June 7, 1774, her 17th birthday, Georgiana Spencer married William Cavendish, the 5th Duke of Devonshire, in a quiet ceremony at Wimbledon Parish Church. By nightfall she was the Duchess of Devonshire, mistress of one of the largest aristocratic estates in England. She barely knew the man she had married. The match had been … Read more

A young Air Force pilot spent six days hiding face down in a Bosnian forest while Serb soldiers fired into the brush just yards from his head, surviving on rainwater wrung from his socks and insects he dug from the ground. When rescue finally came, the entire country learned his name. Six years later, Hollywood … Read more

In January 1996, a 32-year-old woman stood on a small jazz club stage in Georgetown, Washington, D. C. , and sang for an audience she had personally begged her friends to fill. She had cashed out her retirement savings from her day job at a plant nursery to rent the club, and paid for a … Read more

In March 1917, one of the most powerful monarchies in history collapsed in a matter of days, not years. The Romanov dynasty, which had ruled the largest contiguous empire on Earth for 300 years, ended so suddenly that Tsar Nicholas II recorded it in his diary like a minor inconvenience. Within months, a revolutionary who … Read more

When the sun rose over the Montana grasslands on June 25, 1876, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer had already made the decision that would define Little Bighorn. He did not know it yet, and neither did the cavalrymen riding behind him. But beyond the ridges along the Little Bighorn River, thousands of Lakota and Northern … Read more