l2910 In September 1942, a 29-year-old man walked into the gymnasium of St. Cecilia High School in Englewood, New Jersey, to meet the football team he would coach for the first time. His name was Vince Lombardi. That same month, American men his age were shipping off to military service across the country, with the draft … Read more
Ralph Wagner described a moment that stayed with him for decades, recalling a conversation with Vito Genovese that ended with a kiss and a warning. Wagner said Genovese compared a situation to buying a barrel of apples, noting that one touched apple must be removed before it spoils the rest. After making that point, Genovese … Read more
The Widener family had already booked their return passage on the Titanic when Harry Widener wrote home with excitement about the new ship, the largest and most luxurious vessel ever built. He was looking forward to the return crossing. Eleanor Widener, his mother, had just completed Miramar, the family’s new summer estate. She had not … Read more
Meline Khan was one of comedy’s most brilliant performers, a woman who could command a stage with a single raised eyebrow and whose untimely death left a hole in the world of entertainment that has never quite been filled. Yet behind the laughter she provoked, Khan wrestled with deep insecurities and private demons that stood … Read more
On the night of December 26, 1860, Major Robert Anderson made a decision that would echo through American history. Without orders from Washington, he moved his small Union garrison from the vulnerable Fort Moultrie to the more defensible Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. This clandestine move, carried out in the darkness, may well have been … Read more
In 1869, Joseph Campbell and Abraham Anderson opened a small canning operation in Camden, New Jersey, packing tomatoes, vegetables, jellies, and minced meat. Anderson left within a few years, and by 1894, Campbell himself had retired, leaving the presidency to a man named Arthur Dorrance. The business was stable and profitable, but nothing about it … Read more
On June 9, 1942, the American submarine Trout was running on the surface west of Midway when lookouts spotted an oil slick spread wide across the water, littered with debris. In the middle of it floated a large wooden hatch cover, and on that hatch cover were two Japanese sailors, still alive. They were survivors … Read more
The USS Missouri buried an enemy pilot with full military honors on April 12, 1945, a day after his Zero fighter slammed into the battleship’s hull during the Okinawa campaign. The plane’s bomb failed to detonate, and no American aboard was killed, but the wreckage brought part of the pilot’s body onto the deck. Captain … Read more
For decades, one line has defined Hollywood’s golden age: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. ” But the story behind the making of *Gone with the Wind* is far more turbulent than anything audiences saw on screen. The production of the 1939 epic was marked by nervous breakdowns, firings, dangerous working conditions, and … Read more
On one of the darkest nights of his life, just days before Richard Nixon became the only president in American history to resign from office, his 26-year-old daughter left a handwritten note on his pillow. It read simply that whatever he decided to do, she would stand behind him completely. Long before she ever set … Read more