On April 29, 1945, American soldiers entered the gates of the Dachau concentration camp in Germany. What they found stopped them cold. There were piles of bodies, thousands of skeletal prisoners barely alive, gas chambers still warm from use, and the smell of death everywhere. In one corner of the camp, about 50 SS guards … Read more
In March 1961, a CIA operative placed an envelope on a table at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach. Inside were poison pills and $10,000 in cash. Across the table sat three of the most dangerous men in America: Sam Giancana, boss of the Chicago Outfit; Santo Trafficante Jr., Florida's most powerful mobster; and Johnny … Read more
In April 1945, outside Frankfurt, Germany, the war in Europe was nearly over. The German military was collapsing, and thousands of German soldiers were surrendering every day. General George S. Patton was inspecting a prisoner-of-war processing center. Rows of German prisoners stood in line as American soldiers checked them, took their weapons, and recorded their … Read more
Few photographs in American history are as disturbing or as revealing as the one taken in the quiet Louisiana countryside on May 23, 1934. In that single frozen moment, the violent careers of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow came to a brutal end. The image does not glamorize their legend the way Hollywood later would. … Read more
On the evening of November 10, 2010, in the Cartierville neighborhood of Montreal, an 86-year-old man named Nicolo Rizzuto sat down to dinner with his wife Libertina and his daughter Maria. The table held soup, bread, and a glass of red wine. Outside, behind a row of cedar trees, a sniper waited with a rifle … Read more
Frank Peter Balistrieri died the way he lived: quietly, privately, and on his own terms. On February 7, 1993, the 74-year-old collapsed from a heart attack in his living room on Milwaukee's east side. There were no bullets, no handcuffs, and no federal agents kicking in the door. After three decades running one of the … Read more
On September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland, igniting the Second World War. After the defeat of the Polish army, the Germans imposed a repressive occupation regime. In the weeks and months that followed, German special forces, police, and army units targeted thousands of Polish civilians, while millions of others faced persecution, forced labor, deportation, … Read more
Camp David, Maryland — In a secluded Aspen Cottage overlooking the Catoctin Mountain range, two men who represented opposing generations of American power sat together on April 22, 1961, confronting the wreckage of the most catastrophic foreign policy failure of the young Kennedy presidency. Dwight David Eisenhower, the five-star general who commanded Allied forces in … Read more
On September 18, 1980, at 12:15 in the afternoon, a black Chrysler Imperial was traveling south on Interstate 55, just past the Reavis Barracks exit in St. Louis. Ten sticks of dynamite detonated beneath the floorboard. The blast lifted the car four feet off the pavement. It tore through the chassis and through the driver. … Read more
On September 17, 1944, at 14:23, a German 88mm shell destroyed a British Horsa glider at 200 feet above the Arnhem bridge in the Netherlands. The aircraft disintegrated before impact. Inside, 32 paratroopers of the British 1st Airborne Division never knew what killed them. The wreckage burned for six hours. Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery watched … Read more