On the morning of January 20, 1983, a Cadillac Coupe DeVille sat in the parking lot of the Vera Boat Club in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. Snow covered the windshield. The temperature was 11 degrees. The car was registered to Roy Albert DeMeo, a 42-year-old soldier in the Gambino crime family. A tow truck arrived, followed … Read more
Dale Elizabeth Harper was born in Melbourne on January 3, 1948, with spina bifida. She did not take her first steps until she was nine years old. That single fact frames everything that followed. A woman later known for physical restlessness — fishing wild rivers, running four fashion collections a year, giving dinner parties every … Read more
ATLANTA — A 36-year-old enslaved cook named Esther was executed by hanging before a crowd of hundreds in a public square here on the morning of August 15, 1855, condemned for orchestrating one of the most audacious and disturbing acts of vengeance in the history of American slavery: the secret preparation and service of human … Read more
Shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968, a 17-year-old bus boy named Juan Romero knelt on the concrete floor of the Ambassador Hotel pantry in Los Angeles and cradled the head of a dying senator. Bobby Kennedy lay on his back beneath fluorescent lights, blood pooling beneath him, a set of rosary beads pressed into … Read more
On December 19, 1944, a jeep pulled up to the main gate of Supreme Headquarters in Versailles, France. Inside were three men in American military police uniforms, with correct insignia and perfect English. The guard raised his hand and asked for the password. The driver smiled and answered, "Patton." But something felt wrong. The uniforms … Read more
Gudrun Himmler was born on August 8, 1929, in Munich, Germany. She entered the world as the National Socialist movement was entering its prime. Her father was Heinrich Himmler, the leader of the SS and one of the most important men of the Third Reich. Her mother was Margarete Siegroth, a nurse. Gudrun was the … Read more
Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis treated jewelry as more than ornament. Every brooch, pearl strand, and diamond carried a story of love, ambition, grief, or quiet rebellion. Her collection remains one of the most scrutinized and celebrated in American history. The drama began with an engagement ring. When John F. Kennedy proposed in 1953, Jackie's left … Read more
A newly surfaced investigation into the life of Rose Kennedy, the matriarch of America’s most storied political dynasty, has reignited explosive questions about the family’s darkest secret and the woman at its center. Drawing on her own 1974 memoir, declassified medical records, and decades of biographical reconstruction, the account paints a portrait of a mother … Read more
When "State of Grace" arrived in theaters on September 14, 1990, critics praised its grit and audiences left shaken. The film starred Sean Penn, Gary Oldman, and Ed Harris, and it has since been reappraised as a forgotten classic of the gangster genre. But the movie softened a story that was far worse in real … Read more
For more than fifty years, Clint Hill carried a burden he rarely discussed in public. As the Secret Service agent assigned to Jacqueline Kennedy, he stood closer to some of the twentieth century's most defining moments than almost anyone else alive. Only later in life did he begin to speak openly about what he witnessed … Read more