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Sir Alan Lascelles, universally known as Tommy, spent a lifetime learning that royal people making up their own minds could be extremely dangerous. By the summer of 1946, Princess Elizabeth had made up her mind about Philip. Lascelles noticed both facts. He was not a romantic man by profession. He served as King George VI's … Read more

When Aristotle Onassis died in Paris on March 15, 1975, he had spent much of his final year trying to end his marriage to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis as painfully as the law would allow. The wedding photographs from Scorpios told a different story. So did the public statements. The documentary record tells the truth. The … Read more

When Jacqueline Kennedy stepped onto the private Greek island of Skorpios on October 20, 1968, the world saw a fairy tale. The most photographed widow on earth was marrying Aristotle Onassis, a shipping magnate 23 years her senior. The wedding was treated as a cultural phenomenon, a merger of American political fame and Greek commercial … Read more

On the morning of November 8, 1965, Mark Sinclair, Dorothy Kilgallen's personal hairdresser, let himself into the five-story townhouse at 45 East 68th Street on Manhattan's Upper East Side using a key she had given him years earlier. He went to the third floor, where he had always done her hair. He found her sitting … Read more

On the afternoon of October 20, 1968, on a small island in the Ionian Sea, a Greek Orthodox priest prepared a candlelit chapel for a wedding. The most photographed woman in the world had told almost no one she would be there. The chapel was called Panagitsa, the little church of the Holy Virgin. Rain … Read more

On April 17, 1961, CIA Director Allen Dulles sat in his office at Langley reading the first cables from Cuba. For three years he had kept a secret from the American public: the training of 1,400 Cuban exiles to invade their homeland and overthrow Fidel Castro. He had also kept key details from the new … Read more

On July 14, 1960, at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, John F. Kennedy had just secured the Democratic presidential nomination. Now came the biggest decision of his political life: choosing a running mate. Behind closed doors, Kennedy's team debated. His brother Bobby, JFK's closest advisor, campaign manager, and enforcer, wanted Stuart Symington of Missouri, … Read more

On April 24, 1954, outside St. Thomas More Church on Manhattan's Upper East Side, 3,000 spectators pressed against police barricades hoping for a glimpse of American royalty. The press framed it as a fairy tale, a union of Hollywood glamour and political aristocracy. Patricia Kennedy, the polished and deeply religious daughter of former Ambassador Joseph … Read more

At Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, a floral circlet now marks the space the hospital calls trauma room number one. It was here that President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was rushed on November 22, 1963, and here that he was pronounced dead at 1:00 p.m. despite the efforts of the physicians who fought to save him. … Read more