Claudine Longet shot her boyfriend dead in 1976, was convicted of a misdemeanor, and paid a fine of just $250. Before she finished serving her 30-day weekend jail sentence, she flew to Mexico with her defense attorney, who left his wife for her. Longet was born in Paris in 1942 and began dancing for tourists … Read more
Steve Harvey rose from poverty to become one of the most recognizable faces on television, hosting shows like Family Feud and his own talk programs while earning millions with his signature laugh. But behind the polished image and bright stage lights lies a far more painful story of homelessness, failed marriages, public humiliation, and health … Read more
A routine appendectomy in 1979 turned fatal for actress Darla Hood, the former star of “Our Gang,” after a contaminated blood transfusion destroyed her liver within days. The 47-year-old died from heart failure triggered by severe liver failure, a complication unrelated to the surgery itself. Rather than fading away after appearing in 50 episodes of … Read more
A trapper named Elias Vance walked down off Cusk Mountain on the morning of the ninth day after a snowslide buried him, and the men of Sorrel Gap who saw him said he should not have been standing. He was 41 years old in the autumn of 1874 when he carried his outfit up the … Read more
On March 15, 1939, six months after the annexation of the Sudetenland, Nazi Germany invaded and occupied the Czech provinces of Bohemia and Moravia in violation of the Munich Agreement. Adolf Hitler arrived in Prague, and on March 16 he established the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia by proclamation from Prague Castle. Konstantin von Neurath, … Read more
On March 12, 1938, German troops crossed the Austrian border without resistance. By morning, armored columns were moving through the streets of Vienna, greeted by cheering crowds throwing flowers. Swastikas appeared on buildings overnight, and independent Austria ceased to exist, absorbed into the German Reich in what Adolf Hitler and Nazi propaganda called the Anschluss. … Read more
When the German Army launched Operation Barbarossa on June 22, 1941, its invasion of the Soviet Union presented a situation unlike anything it had faced in Poland, France, or the Low Countries: female combatants among the enemy ranks. The war on the Eastern Front was an ideological conflict, with German National Socialism on one side … Read more
When the war in Europe ended in 1945, there was an almost unseemly scramble for the secrets of the defeated Nazi regime. The obvious prizes, such as scientific experts and technology, are well known, with Britain, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union competing directly as the Cold War began to unfold. But there … Read more
When the war in Europe ended in 1945, there was an almost unseemly scramble for the secrets of the defeated regime. Scientific experts and Nazi technology were obvious prizes, and Britain, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union competed directly as the Cold War began to unfold. But there was also a scramble to … Read more
Joachim Peiper was born in Wilmersdorf, Germany, on January 30, 1915, into a middle-class family. His father had served as an officer in the German Imperial Army in Africa and, during World War I, in the Ottoman Empire. After the war, Peiper's father was active in Freikorps paramilitary groups, including the suppression of the Polish … Read more