Wilhelm Hosenfeld was a German army officer whose name became linked to one of the most famous rescue stories of World War II. Stationed in Warsaw during the German occupation of Poland, he used his position to help persecuted Poles and Jews, including the pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman. Hosenfeld was born on May 2, 1895, in … Read more
Diana Mitford was born on June 17, 1910, in London, England. She was the third daughter and fourth child of David Freeman Mitford, second Baron Redesdale, and Sydney Freeman Mitford, whose maiden name was Bowles and who came from a literary family. Her father was known as an eccentric, and her mother held political views … Read more
On November 20, 1944, the ancient French city of Metz was a burning, shattered wasteland. For weeks, the American Third Army under General George S. Patton had thrown itself against a fortress city that military historians claimed was impregnable. The weather was arguably the worst Europe had seen in decades. Freezing rain turned the battlefields … Read more
Trevor Milton, the founder of electric truck maker Nikola Corporation, is facing years in prison after a jury convicted him of fraud charges for misleading investors about his company’s technology and business prospects. Federal prosecutors announced charges against Milton, the former CEO and executive chair of Nikola, accusing him of running a multi-billion-dollar scheme built … Read more
George Luz, the quick-witted radio operator of Easy Company whose impersonations and unshakeable nerve carried him from the beaches of Normandy to Hitler’s mountain retreat, died not as a quiet Rhode Island handyman as television audiences were told, but in a freak industrial accident that crushed him beneath a 7,200-pound laundry dryer, leaving a stunned … Read more
In the pre-dawn darkness of June 4, 1944, the most important weather forecast in history was about to be delivered. At 4:15 a.m., inside a conference room at Southwick House in Portsmouth, England, Supreme Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower sat surrounded by his senior staff. Montgomery commanded ground forces, Ramsay commanded naval forces, and Leigh-Mallory commanded … Read more
At just 21 years old, Billy the Kid had already become one of the most notorious outlaws of the American Old West. His death at the hands of Sheriff Pat Garrett in 1881 ended a short but violent life that had made him a legendary figure. Born Henry McCarty in New York City to Irish … Read more
At 11:47 PM on May 14, 1946, in Block D of Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary in Pennsylvania, 31-year-old Ben Johnson lay curled on the concrete floor of cell 217. A musician by trade and a quiet man by nature, Johnson was suffering from a severely swollen appendix and a fever near 104 degrees. His body shook … Read more
Russell Mauro, the man widely believed to have fired the fatal shots into Bonanno crime family boss Carmine Galante in 1979, was himself gunned down in May 1991. According to informant testimony, Mauro was shot to death at the Black Eagle Social Club on May 26, 1991, in a hit involving several Bonanno family mobsters, … Read more
Allied military tribunals in the chaotic months following the collapse of Nazi Germany made a decision that would echo through history: the young women who had served as guards in the concentration camps would face the same justice as the men, and for many, that justice would be death by hanging. The discovery of female … Read more