In 1923, the Hollister family lived in a remote log cabin at the end of an impassable road in McDow County, West Virginia. For four or five months each year, the family saw no one but themselves. Jeremiah Hollister was the patriarch, a tall, bony man with a thick beard and penetrating blue eyes. He … Read more
In March 1982, the thawing Ozark hills of Shannon County, Missouri, began to give up a secret that had been buried for over a decade. Margaret Wilson, an assistant social worker, visited an isolated cabin 27 kilometers from the nearest town, Current River. The property belonged to the Shelton family, who had lived virtually without … Read more
Lyndon Johnson once told his wife, Lady Bird, that she would soon become the most beautiful and wealthiest widow in Texas. He did not realize she was already building something that would outlive them both. Political observers expected her to quietly preserve the memory of her controversial husband. The Johnson family anticipated she would manage … Read more
Born Herman Webster Mudgett, the man who would become known as Dr. Henry Howard Holmes—or simply H. H. Holmes—was one of America’s most notorious criminals. Before his execution in 1896, he built a career of fraud, forgery, bigamy, horse theft, and murder, and faced more than 50 lawsuits in Chicago alone. On May 16, 1861, … Read more
In October 1942, a Japanese infantryman lay in the tall grass on a ridge overlooking the airfield at Guadalcanal, watching smoke clear after an air raid. The runway below had been built by his own army, carved out of the jungle by Japanese engineers and Korean laborers using shovels, hand carts, and a few machines. … Read more
In late May 1940, as German forces pushed through the Ardennes and advanced toward the French coast, hundreds of thousands of Allied troops became trapped near Dunkirk. While the evacuation of over 338,000 soldiers began, some units were left behind to hold the line and buy time. Among them were 99 men of the 2nd … Read more
From the moment of his birth in 1960, Prince Andrew was presented as a fairy tale come to life. He was the first child born to a reigning monarch in over a century, a chubby, laughing baby who captivated his mother, Queen Elizabeth II. Within the palace, he was spoiled by everyone, not just his … Read more
On November 30, 1864, a general who could no longer walk without a cane, and could only mount his horse with the help of two aides, ordered his army to march five miles across open Tennessee farmland in broad daylight, straight into the most heavily fortified Union positions they had faced in the entire war. … Read more
Gunfire ripped through the narrow kitchen corridor of the Ambassador Hotel just after midnight. A woman’s scream cut through the chaos as bodies scattered, chairs toppled, and a rack of dishes crashed to the tiled floor. While most people fled in the opposite direction, one man moved straight toward the sound. Roosevelt Grier was 6-foot-5 … Read more
In August 1940, a man who had carefully infiltrated the inner circle of exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky walked into Trotsky’s study in Mexico City, pulled an ice axe from under his coat, and struck him in the head. Trotsky died the next day. The assassin, who gave his name as Jacques Mornard, was arrested … Read more