On the night of December 26, 1860, Major Robert Anderson made a decision that would echo through American history. Without orders from Washington, he moved his small Union garrison from the vulnerable Fort Moultrie to the more defensible Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. This clandestine move, carried out in the darkness, may well have been … Read more
In 1869, Joseph Campbell and Abraham Anderson opened a small canning operation in Camden, New Jersey, packing tomatoes, vegetables, jellies, and minced meat. Anderson left within a few years, and by 1894, Campbell himself had retired, leaving the presidency to a man named Arthur Dorrance. The business was stable and profitable, but nothing about it … Read more
On June 9, 1942, the American submarine Trout was running on the surface west of Midway when lookouts spotted an oil slick spread wide across the water, littered with debris. In the middle of it floated a large wooden hatch cover, and on that hatch cover were two Japanese sailors, still alive. They were survivors … Read more
The USS Missouri buried an enemy pilot with full military honors on April 12, 1945, a day after his Zero fighter slammed into the battleship’s hull during the Okinawa campaign. The plane’s bomb failed to detonate, and no American aboard was killed, but the wreckage brought part of the pilot’s body onto the deck. Captain … Read more
For decades, one line has defined Hollywood’s golden age: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. ” But the story behind the making of *Gone with the Wind* is far more turbulent than anything audiences saw on screen. The production of the 1939 epic was marked by nervous breakdowns, firings, dangerous working conditions, and … Read more
On one of the darkest nights of his life, just days before Richard Nixon became the only president in American history to resign from office, his 26-year-old daughter left a handwritten note on his pillow. It read simply that whatever he decided to do, she would stand behind him completely. Long before she ever set … Read more
On the morning of September 13, 1982, Grace Kelly placed an armful of dresses across the back seat of her Rover so they would not crease on the drive to Paris. With no room left for the chauffeur, the 52-year-old Princess of Monaco took the wheel herself, her 17-year-old daughter Stephanie beside her, and began … Read more
In 1997, when asked if she would ever sell Foyles bookshop, Christina Foyle replied with a question of her own: “If I did, where would I get my books? ” Two years later, she was gone, and the answer to a far bigger question emerged from her will: a fortune of nearly £60 million, left … Read more
In the autumn of 1854, a man named Ambrose Kettering arrived on horseback in a place that no longer appears on any map. He was 38 years old, tall at about six feet two inches, with a lean build and hands that looked like a surveyor’s—calloused from the compass and rod, yet with long, quiet … Read more
Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll, arrived at her divorce trial in Edinburgh on February 18, 1963, dressed in a tailored black suit and three strands of pearls. Over 11 days, the court cataloged her love affairs in explicit detail, reading aloud from diaries that reportedly named 26 men. Her husband, the 11th Duke of Argyll, … Read more