Margot Kidder’s public unraveling did not begin with a single dramatic incident but with a slow, agonizing progression of internal chaos. From her teenage years, the actress, known to the world as Margot Kidder, experienced episodes that went far beyond typical adolescent turmoil. What her family and those around her would later recognize as the … Read more
Ingerborg Dönitz received the telegram every German mother dreaded in May 1943, learning that her younger son Peter, just 20 years old, had perished in the North Atlantic when U-954 was sunk with all hands on his first patrol. The loss struck the family of Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz, commander of Germany’s U-boat fleet, as … Read more
Former mob boss Michael Franzese has spent years ranking films and television shows about organized crime. In his latest ranking, he narrowed the focus to television alone, listing what he considers the ten best organized crime series ever produced. Franzese said he judged each show on two separate questions. Was it great television? And did … Read more
Am 8. Juli 1944 stand der 18-jährige Private Guy Gabaldon am Fuß der Bonsai Cliffs auf Saipan. Über ihm lagen die Höhleneingänge, in denen sich Hunderte japanische Soldaten versteckt hielten. Viele von ihnen bereiteten sich auf den Selbstmord vor, statt sich zu ergeben. Gabaldon war 1,63 Meter groß und wog rund 59 Kilogramm. Er trug … Read more
In Harlem, power rarely changes hands in a single afternoon. It leaks — one block, one business, one favor, one funeral at a time. That was the lesson four young Italian mobsters failed to learn when they decided to eliminate Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson in the middle of his secret negotiations with Lucky Luciano. They were … Read more
The trapdoor of history swung shut on General Anton Dostler at 8:11 a. m. on December 1, 1945, in a muddy courtyard in Aversa, Italy, when twelve American rifles fired as one and ended the life of the first German general executed for war crimes in the aftermath of World War II. The execution came … Read more
Somewhere in America, an 86-year-old man is living under a name that is not his. His neighbors have no idea who lives next door. His mailbox carries a name he invented, and he travels with multiple forms of identification, none of them real. He has armed security. He wears sunglasses in every public appearance. He … Read more
Am 14. Juni 1944, um 14:27 Uhr, kauerte Sergeant Gordon Harris in seinem Sherman Firefly am östlichen Rand des normannischen Dorfes Lingèvres. Vor ihm, auf offenem Feld, näherten sich fünf deutsche Panther-Panzer. Harris war 31 Jahre alt, seit acht Tagen in der Normandie und hatte noch keinen einzigen feindlichen Panzer zerstört. Die britische 7. Panzerdivision … Read more
In the late summer of 1947, a $10,000 bounty on the life of Harlem underworld figure Bumpy Johnson moved through the neighborhood faster than any police bulletin could have. The offer passed through barber shops, back rooms, numbers runners, and off-duty cops before sundown. By 8 p.m., every hired gun within thirty blocks had done … Read more
BAVARIA, Germany — The interrogation room door opened at exactly the moment General George S. Patton entered, and the prisoner inside was laughing. Not nervously, not quietly, but with the genuine, full-throated laughter of a man at a dinner party who has just heard the most amusing joke of the evening. Lt. Gen. Heinrich Kissler, … Read more