For more than six decades, the official story has been remarkably simple. A troubled young man with communist sympathies walked into a building in Dallas, Texas, aimed a rifle from a sixth-floor window, and changed the course of American history. No one saw it coming. No one could have stopped it. Lee Harvey Oswald was … Read more
John Wayne introduced James Arness to American television viewers on September 10, 1955, before the first episode of Gunsmoke aired. Wayne told the audience the western was honest, adult, and realistic, then made a prediction about the 32-year-old actor standing beside him. “I predict he’ll be a big star. ” Arness certainly looked built for … Read more
Thirty-two German prisoners of war dropped their shovels and refused a direct order at a U. S. Army camp in the Third Army sector, triggering a disciplinary crisis that reached Gen. George S. Patton’s headquarters within hours and ended with the transfer of the camp’s most defiant prisoner before the week was out. The standoff … Read more
On May 10, 1945, a single photograph reached the desk of General Dwight D. Eisenhower. The Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces looked at it, and according to the account, his blood ran cold. The image did not show a battlefield or the horrors of a concentration camp. It showed a captured German field marshal … Read more
On July 22, 1943, George Patton stood in his command tent in Sicily, reading a report that made his jaw clench. Terry Allen's 1st Infantry Division had just disobeyed a direct order again. Patton had ordered the division to halt and consolidate its positions. Allen's men were 12 miles beyond the halt line, chasing retreating … Read more
On April 17, 1961, Allen Dulles sat in his office at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, at 6:14 a.m., reading the first cables from Cuba. For three years, he had kept a secret from the American people. He had trained 1,400 Cuban exiles to invade their homeland and overthrow Fidel Castro. He had withheld essential … Read more
Am 26. Dezember 1944 hing das Schicksal von 10.000 amerikanischen Soldaten an einem einzigen Mann: General George Smith Patton. Ohne ihn wären diese Männer nicht gefangen genommen oder zur Kapitulation gezwungen worden – sie wären ausgelöscht worden. Patton, den sie „Old Blood and Guts" nannten, raste gegen die Zeit, gegen den schlimmsten Schneesturm seit Jahrzehnten … Read more
LÜNEBURG, Germany — Three women who served as guards at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp were hanged at Hamelin Prison on December 13, 1945, becoming the first women executed under British military law in the aftermath of World War II, as the world received its first unfiltered glimpse into the industrialized horror of the Holocaust. The … Read more
On December 30, 1944, Brigadier Francis de Guingand sat at Allied Supreme Headquarters in Versailles and read a message Dwight Eisenhower had drafted but not yet sent. It was addressed to Churchill and the Combined Chiefs of Staff. In precise, measured language, it stated that the situation between Eisenhower and Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery had … Read more
On January 20, 1953, the winter air in Washington, D.C., was freezing, but the hatred felt colder. As Dwight D. Eisenhower's inaugural parade began, a suffocating silence descended on Union Station. Harry S. Truman, clutching the handle of his suitcase, walked away from the presidency without a backward glance. There was no fanfare for the … Read more