On April 20, 1933, Adolf Hitler had been chancellor of Germany for less than four months. He was weeks away from his 44th birthday, and as was his custom he came out of his Bavarian residence near Berchtesgaden to greet the well-wishers and admirers gathered at the security gates. The house would be rebuilt two … Read more
Ruth Sylvia Gill entered the world on October 2, 1908, at Delhi House in Bieldside, just outside Aberdeen. Her father, Colonel William Smith Gill, owned Scottish land and wore a military uniform, which in that world amounted to roughly the same badge of status. Her mother, also named Ruth, came from the Littlejohn family, a … Read more
In July of 1962, Marilyn Monroe was photographed on a beach, barefoot in the sand, wrapped in a white blanket, laughing as the wind moved her hair. She was still working, still talking about what might come next. Three weeks later, she was dead. Most people believe they know the story of August 4, 1962. … Read more
Dorothy Kilgallen was found dead on the morning of November 8, 1965, in a third-floor bedroom of her Manhattan townhouse. A hairdresser with a standing appointment let himself in and discovered her in a bed she famously hated, in a room she had not slept in for years. She was cold and stiff. She was … Read more
MADRID — A new historical examination of Eugenia Martínez Vallejo, the Spanish girl taken from her rural home at age six and displayed before the court of King Charles II as a human curiosity, has renewed attention on one of the most disturbing chapters in European royal history, in which a child was stripped of … Read more
The winter of 1944 arrived in Europe not just as a change in weather, but as a punishing adversary in its own right. General George S. Patton's Third Army had spent the summer tearing across France, pushing shattered German forces back toward their homeland. American morale was high, and many soldiers believed the war would … Read more
ENNIS, Indiana — A farmer’s plow struck something in a northwestern Indiana cornfield on the morning of June 23, 1986, and uncovered the brutal end of the most feared mob enforcer in Las Vegas history. Two bodies lay in shallow graves, stripped to their undershorts, their faces beaten beyond recognition. Dental records would confirm what … Read more
On the morning of November 8, 1965, a hairdresser let himself into a Manhattan townhouse and walked into a scene the world would quickly label an accident. Dorothy Kilgallen, one of the most famous journalists in America, was lying in a bed she famously hated, in a room she had not slept in for years. … Read more
On November 22, 1963, inside a wood-paneled bedroom at a Texas hotel in Fort Worth, a tall, imposing man in a tailored suit stood over his wife. His voice cut through the humid morning air. Lyndon Baines Johnson was escalating. He berated her about her clothes, mocked her weight, and issued rapid-fire orders about how … Read more
In the early hours of March 22, 1945, near the small town of Oppenheim on the Rhine, there was no bombardment, no barrage from thousands of guns, no airborne drop, and no smoke screen laid down hours in advance. Nothing at all signaled to the Germans on the opposite bank that something was about to … Read more