A surveyor named Creswell Purnell rode into the western edge of what is now Greenbrier County, West Virginia, in the spring of 1873 and never came out the same. He was working for a timber consortium out of Pittsburgh, tasked with mapping ridgelines and marking which slopes could be cut. In the back of his … Read more
In February 1981, in the middle of downtown Philadelphia, a car pulled onto the sidewalk at Broad and Walnut Streets, right beside a group of police officers. The driver threw open his door and ran. In the back seat was a man named Jimmy DiGregorio, a methamphetamine cook for the Pagans motorcycle club, who for … Read more
In December 1944, near Arlon, Belgium, the Third Army Evacuation Hospital was overflowing. Snow piled against the canvas walls, and the air inside smelled of ether and wet wool. In a narrow, drafty hallway, Staff Sergeant Calvin Simmons lay on a low stretcher, a chest wound seeping through heavy bandages as he shivered in the … Read more
On December 19, 1930, a cold Friday on Maggodee Creek in Franklin County, Virginia, two brothers were driving two cars loaded with locally distilled liquor. Forrest Bondurant, 29 years old, was behind the wheel of one of them, a man whose reputation in the county was whispered rather than spoken: people said he could not … Read more
Ethel Kennedy, who died October 10 at 96, was canonized by a grieving nation in June 1968 and spent the next 56 years controlling every word written about her husband, her marriage, and her children — a feat of image management that a growing body of biographical evidence now shows was built on firings, unpaid … Read more
On the night of June 27, 1982, Frank Fiala stood outside the Plaza Suite disco at 2937 86th Street in Gravesend, Brooklyn. He was 37 years old, surrounded by nightlife patrons and the glow of a club he believed was about to become his. He had arrived in a Rolls-Royce. The real estate closing was … Read more
In February 1945, in Germany, a corporal named Ray Tipps was facing a court-martial on a charge of stealing military property. The charge was specific. He had taken food from the Third Army supply depot on three separate occasions over the previous two weeks. The items included canned goods, bread, and powdered milk. Their total … Read more
By the spring of 1945, German officers were discovering that their army had lost one of the oldest advantages in warfare. Inside their own borders, they found that American troops were moving across Germany with maps of German territory that were more accurate and up to date than the maps the German army possessed of … Read more
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Barbara Mandrell, the two-time Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year who once ruled country music, television and sold-out arenas across America, has been living a quiet, deliberate life far from the spotlight for nearly three decades, and those closest to her say she has never once looked back. The legendary performer, … Read more
LOS ANGELES — The storage lockers have long been sealed, the gavels have fallen silent, and the cameras stopped rolling years ago, but the cast of A&E’s “Storage Wars” is still writing headlines in 2025 for reasons that have nothing to do with dusty units and hidden treasures. A stunning new retrospective of the franchise’s … Read more