l2910 On August 24, 1814, the White House—then called the President’s House—stood ready for a dinner that would never be served. The table was set for three o’clock, linens and silver in place, wine chilling. President James Madison’s household expected government officials and military officers that afternoon. But a few miles away at Bladensburg, Maryland, American … Read more
On the first day of the Battle of Shiloh, roughly 40,000 Confederate soldiers launched a surprise attack on Union forces near Pittsburgh Landing, Tennessee, and began driving them back. It was the largest offensive in American history up to that point, and the Union army was in chaos. When Ulysses S. Grant arrived at the … Read more
In the early 1960s, the Colombo crime family was torn apart by an internal war, and at the center of that conflict was an alleged contract on the life of Larry Gallo, the leader of the rebellious Gallo crew. The Gallo gang had risen up against family boss Joseph Profaci, and the violence that followed … Read more
In August 1881, in the New Mexico Territory, a sergeant with the Ninth Cavalry reined in his horse at the edge of a dry creek bed and stared at the ground. The tracks he had been following for three days had simply stopped. Six Apache warriors had entered a stretch of rocky ground, and none … Read more
When Genghis Khan divided his empire, he passed over his four famous sons entirely. The lands he handed to them were not the crown of his domain—they were open grassland, deliberately placed far from the treasury and from one another. The beating heart of the world economy never went to them. Instead, the great Khan … Read more
Abraham Lincoln’s bid for a second term in 1864 unfolded while the nation was torn apart by civil war, making it the only presidential election ever held during active national conflict. With roughly 4 million voters heading to the polls, the choice before the Northern electorate was stark: stay the course and finish the war, … Read more
Ich wollte meiner Tochter mit einem Blumenladen helfen, nachdem ihr Mann gestorben war. Sie sollte sich dort wiederfinden, sich aufrappeln, einen neuen Sinn im Leben entdecken. Aber als ich an jenem Donnerstagnachmittag im August den Laden betrat, den ich ihr geschenkt hatte, da weinte sie. Ihre Schwiegermutter hatte das Geschäft übernommen, zwang sie zu den … Read more
John F. Kennedy Jr. was not instrument-rated, a fact that would prove fatal on the night of July 16, 1999, when his single-engine Piper Saratoga plummeted into the Atlantic Ocean about seven and a half miles off Martha’s Vineyard. The crash killed Kennedy, 38, his wife Carolyn Bessette, 33, and her sister Lauren Bessette, 34. … Read more
John Madden built one of the greatest teams in NFL history, won a Super Bowl, and created plays with names like “The Immaculate Reception,” “The Sea of Hands,” and “The Ghost to the Post. ” But when NFL Films asked him years later to name the proudest moment of his coaching career, he did not … Read more
An American colonel was stirring a pot over a fire beside the Dobodura airstrip when a young Australian officer found him. The Australian, Lieutenant Colonel Robertson, was the senior liaison officer to General Edmund Herring, who commanded New Guinea Force. He had come looking for the American front line and found the division commander had … Read more