Robert Carl Hohenberger, a convicted kidnapper and rapist born in Indiana in 1943, became the prime suspect in a series of teen disappearances and murders in Morgan City, Louisiana, in the spring of 1978. He took his own life before he could be apprehended. Hohenberger’s family moved to Riverside County, California, when he was young. … Read more
The same week the world learned of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima, America’s top fighter ace was killed during a routine test flight in California. Richard Bong, just 24 years old, had survived 40 aerial combat missions in the Pacific—a record of 40 confirmed kills that made him the most successful fighter pilot of World … Read more
History remembers the monstrous acts of tyrants and war criminals, but what became of the children they left behind? While some descendants lived in shame or obscurity, others defended their infamous parents, and a few took drastic steps to ensure the family line ended with them. Here is what happened to the offspring of some … Read more
On September 21st, 1996, 15-year-old Danielle “Danny” Houchins drove to a quiet spot along the Gallatin River in Montana, wanting some time alone. She never came home. That night, searchers found her in shallow water, with her keys and water bottle still lying on the trail. Detectives interviewed suspect after suspect, and labs ran test … Read more
In 1912, the British Raj in India was shaken by a murder case that exposed a secret romance, two poisoning plots, and a contract killing arranged by a respected doctor and the wife of a civil servant. The case ended with multiple death sentences, but one of the convicted conspirators escaped the gallows—at least temporarily. … Read more
When Ulysses Grant rode into Chattanooga on October 23, 1863, he found an army that had been reduced to eating its own horses and mules. The Union Army of the Cumberland had been trapped in the Tennessee city for weeks, besieged by Confederate General Braxton Bragg’s forces after a devastating defeat at Chickamauga Creek that … Read more
Tony Dorsett, one of the most elusive running backs of his generation, spent 12 seasons in the NFL making defenders miss. Now, the only thing chasing him is a street he can no longer recognize. Dorsett grew up in Rochester, Pennsylvania, a steel town outside Pittsburgh, as one of seven children in a family that … Read more
In March 1945, a column of prisoners was being marched along the west bank of the Rhine, north of Koblenz. Among the men was a German engineer officer, a specialist in river crossings who had spent five years destroying and constructing bridges from the Meuse to the Don. He knew the military value of a … Read more
Dendrochronology—tree-ring dating—has systematically dismantled the most beloved origin stories attached to America’s colonial architecture, and the corrections almost always run in the same direction: the buildings are younger than their plaques claim. A famous ancestor steps off a ship, two or three generations pass, somebody in that family builds in brick or stone, and then … Read more
In the summer of 1812, 43-year-old Princess Augusta Sophia wrote to her brother, the Prince Regent, pleading for permission to marry the man she had loved for more than a decade. Her family had repeatedly blocked her from marrying, and this final appeal may have been her last chance. No reply survives, and whatever became … Read more