PN1501 Mala Zimetbaum was born on January 26, 1918, in Pszczyna, today part of Poland and then part of Austria-Hungary. She was the youngest of five children of Pinhas and Chaya Zimetbaum, both Jewish. Her family had lived in Germany for several years before her birth, which is why German was the main language spoken in … Read more
On the afternoon of December 12, 1941, a telephone rang inside the headquarters of the Third Army in San Antonio, Texas. Five days earlier, Japanese bombs had turned Pearl Harbor into a graveyard of steel and fire. The man who answered was a brigadier general almost nobody outside the army had ever heard of. His … Read more
In March 1945, a message arrived at Third Army headquarters with an instruction its authors almost certainly considered reasonable. Bypass Trier. The city, according to planners at SHAEF, would require four divisions to capture. Do not commit forces to the assault. Continue the advance. The logic was sound in the abstract. Trier was a significant … Read more
Leni Riefenstahl spent more than sixty years telling a story about herself—that she was a politically naive artist who had been swept into the Nazi film world against her will and knew nothing of the regime’s crimes. It took seven hundred boxes of her own archive, opened after her death, to dismantle that narrative. In … Read more
In the last days of March 1945, four words moved through the corridors of Allied high command in France, passed between officers in the low voice men use when they are not certain they are allowed to say something out loud. Patton crossed last night. Not the British. Not the greatest river assault ever assembled. … Read more
At 6:14 a.m. on March 4, 1945, a white flag went up over a stone farmhouse about four kilometers east of Trier, Germany. An American soldier noted the time, because it looked like a marker of something. It was not a military flag. It was a bedsheet, pulled from somewhere inside the building, tied to … Read more
On November 16, 1881, during the legal proceedings that followed the gunfight near the O.K. Corral, Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday were examined after the prosecution concluded its primary evidence. The defendants were informed of their right to make a statement under section 133, page 22, of the Arizona laws approved on February 12, 1881. … Read more
Margaret Theresa of Spain was born on July 12, 1651, in the Royal Alcazar Palace in Madrid. Her father was King Philip IV, who had ruled Spain since 1621 after taking the throne at just 15 years old. He was known as "Rey Planeta," or the Planet King, because Spain's empire stretched around the world. … Read more
In December 1565, Joanna of Austria married the future Grand Duke of Tuscany, Francesco de' Medici. The event was extremely lavish, but behind the celebration lurked a dark future. It was the beginning of a cold, loveless marriage. Francesco openly sneered at what he deemed his deformed, ugly wife, setting off a series of mysterious … Read more
Precis när jag lämnade tingsrätten på Kungsholmen blockerade min svärmor dörren och väste: ”Våga inte sätta din fot i mitt hus. Försvinn! ” Jag svarade lugnt. ”Den här villan har jag sålt. Och vad gäller din chefsposition har jag precis skrivit under ditt avsked. ” Klockan visade nästan elva på förmiddagen när förhandlingen avslutades. Jag … Read more