l2910 Bourbon Street in New Orleans was alive with music on the evening of January 9, 1965. Five men walking past an open doorway stopped to listen. Among them was the largest player in professional football that year—a 6’9″, 315-pound defensive lineman whose reputation for physical force was already well established. The group decided to check … Read more
Recordings made by authorities in the 1980s and 1990s captured several senior Mafia figures in New York expressing harsh and often dismissive views about the younger generation of mobsters rising through their ranks. The opinions of these veteran gangsters, which surfaced through government wiretaps, reveal deep frustration with the conduct, training, and judgment of those … Read more
Barbara Hutton died of a heart attack on May 11, 1979, in a suite at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles. She was 66 years old and had spent her final months in bed, surrounded by half-empty glasses of Coca-Cola and stacks of books. Only ten people attended her funeral. At age 21, she … Read more
Inside a modest Santa Monica apartment in November 1981 lay the body of William Holden, one of Hollywood’s golden age most beloved movie stars. The Midwestern boy who became an Academy Award winner had a dazzling smile that concealed tumultuous passions and dark secrets. His all-American image began in an appropriately all-American setting, but that … Read more
He sold his first suits out of a single room. By the end of his life, he had built a commercial empire that defined an era, served as a powerful figure in the U. S. government, and watched a strange amount of his life’s work go up in flames. His name was John Wanamaker, a … Read more
Jag stod under de bländande ljusen i direktsänd tv med en check på åttahundratusen dollar i mina händer. Om du precis har stängt på den här historien, ta ett djupt andetag. Jag gjorde det inte för äran. I kväll överlämnar vi en check på åttahundratusen dollar till Victors familj för att finansiera nästa generation av … Read more
On April 12, 1865, four days after surrendering the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox, Robert E. Lee began his journey home to Richmond. He traveled with a small escort as a paroled prisoner of war, riding his favorite horse, Traveller, through the burned-out streets of the Confederate capital. When Lee reached the brick house … Read more
In October 1944, four months after American forces captured Saipan, German Ambassador Heinrich Georg Stahmer sent a cable from Tokyo to Berlin that marked a quiet turning point. For more than a year, his reports had painted Japan’s war situation in deliberately optimistic colors. This time, according to surviving records, he acknowledged that the Pacific … Read more
Min fästman Alex hade en affär med min bästa vän Peach, och min egen familj hjälpte dem att dölja det. Jag låtsades inte märka något ända fram till bröllopsdagen, då jag förödmjukade dem allihop efter att ha hittat den hemliga chatgruppen de använt för att hålla allt hemligt. Jag scrollade ända till början för att … Read more
On December 2, 1993, Pablo Escobar was killed on a rooftop in Medellín, one day after his 44th birthday, ending a 16-month manhunt that began when he escaped his private prison. While the world celebrated that day, his widow, María Victoria Henao, felt only terror. With her 16-year-old son Juan Pablo and 9-year-old daughter Manuela, … Read more