In March 2024, a construction worker removing damaged masonry in the basement of the Beaumont Mansion in Charleston, South Carolina, noticed a small wooden box wedged deep inside a cavity in the wall. The mansion was undergoing extensive restoration after being purchased by a historical preservation society. Inside the box, wrapped in oilcloth that had … Read more
The partnership between General Omar Bradley and General George Patton was one of the most complicated and tension-filled collaborations in American military history. For years, Bradley regarded many of Patton's proposals as the impulsive daydreams of a man chasing headlines. He was frustrated by Patton's theatrical persona and shameless self-promotion, and he believed his own … Read more
In October 2024, Dr. Rebecca Hayes was cataloging donations at the Boston Heritage Museum when she found a photograph that would not let her go. The image, tucked into the bottom corner of a box from the estate of Eleanor Whitmore, showed a Black family posed in an elegant parlor. A label on the back … Read more
In the spring of 1847, the small Ozark settlement of Briar Ridge, Missouri, lost its entire population overnight. Roughly 200 people vanished without a trace, leaving behind stocked shelves, unfinished work, and homes so meticulously prepared that the disappearance defied all logical explanation. The only person left behind was Jasper Quincy Holloway, a 43-year-old wheelwright … Read more
When the guns fell silent in May 1945, the name Hermann Göring was already infamous around the world. As Reichsmarschall, head of the Luftwaffe, and one of Hitler's closest confidants, he had risen higher than almost anyone else in Nazi Germany. But as the Allies closed in, his family's lives were torn apart just as … Read more
Edda Göring was born in Berlin on June 2, 1938, the only child of Hermann Göring and his second wife, Emmy. Her father was then one of the most powerful figures in Nazi Germany, and her birth was treated as a national event. The Reich received some 600,000 messages of congratulation from around the world. … Read more
A discarded coffee cup at a Washington casino finally gave investigators the break they needed in a murder that had gone unsolved for nearly half a century. The case involved 20-year-old Jody Loomis, an engaged artist who was shot to death in 1972 while riding her bike to visit her horse. Jody Loomis was born … Read more
On the 22nd of February 1918, the badly decomposed body of James Barkley was uncovered beside a creek at the remote Wonnangatta cattle station in the Victorian Alps. The 49-year-old station manager had been shot in the back of the head and partially buried. His murder, along with the later discovery of his suspected killer’s … Read more
On the afternoon of April 14, 1865, a widow named Mary Surratt traveled from her boarding house in Washington to a tavern in Maryland, carrying a package for a lodger she trusted. She asked no questions. By nightfall, Abraham Lincoln was dead. That errand appeared ordinary at the time, but it became the detail that … Read more
Hanna Reitsch was born on March 29, 1912, in Hirschberg, then part of the German Empire. She grew up in an upper-middle-class family, with her father a doctor and her mother a member of the Austrian nobility. She had a brother, Kurt, and a sister, Heidi. From the age of four, Reitsch thought of little … Read more