On February 8, 1943, in the town of Bosanska Krupa, German forces executed a 17-year-old girl named Lepa Radic. She was led to the gallows barefoot, wearing only thin wool socks, with her hands bound behind her back with telephone wire because the Nazis had run out of rope. Before the execution, a German officer … Read more
On the morning of May 2, 1972, J. Edgar Hoover was found dead on the floor of his bedroom in Washington, D.C. He was 77 years old. He had served as director of the FBI for 48 years, outlasting eight presidents and 16 attorneys general. The official cause of death was heart disease. But within … Read more
In August 1997, the world was captivated by photographs of Diana, Princess of Wales, and Dodi Fayed embracing on a yacht in the Mediterranean. The romance seemed like a fairy tale ending for the princess. But a woman in Los Angeles was watching those same images with a very different perspective. Four days after the … Read more
The world knew Wallis Simpson as the woman who cost a king his throne. The American divorcee for whom Edward VIII gave up his crown. But the people who served her in a rented house on the edge of Paris remembered something colder. They were told to curtsy to a woman the law said held … Read more
Barbara Pierce arrived in Rye, New York, in 1925, into a world of manicured lawns and country club Sundays. Her father ran McCall’s Corporation. Her mother was beautiful and cold, and called Barbara her chubby daughter, the plain one next to her prettier sister. Affection was scarce. Praise was something other children received. Barbara learned … Read more
On August 25, 1942, a Royal Air Force flying boat disappeared into thick Scottish fog. Thirty minutes after takeoff, it slammed into a remote hillside and erupted into a massive fireball. Of the 15 men aboard, 14 died instantly. Among the bodies pulled from the burning debris was a prince. His identity bracelet told the … Read more
On December 17, 1972, Rodolfo “Cheyenne” Cadena stepped out of his cell at Chino Reception Center in California. He knew what was waiting for him. The Norteños had been taunting him for days, and word of multiple threats had reached him the night before. He could have stayed inside. Instead, he buttoned his shirt, walked … Read more
On April 15, 1945, a British soldier pushed open a gate in northern Germany and stepped into a place that should not have existed in the modern world. What he found there would haunt him for the rest of his life. Thirteen thousand corpses were left to rot in the open air. Sixty thousand human … Read more
In the remote hollows of the Missouri Ozarks, two widows named Cordelia May Thorn and Magdalena Crow were celebrated for their Christian hospitality, offering shelter and scripture to lonely travelers. Behind that pious reputation, investigators eventually uncovered a criminal operation that turned their isolated cabin into a prison and killing ground. Deputy Marshal Thaddeus Blackwood … Read more
In late September 1945, General Dwight Eisenhower sat in his headquarters in Frankfurt and read a transcript that would end the career of his oldest friend. The war in Europe had been over for four months. The killing had stopped. But the harder work of governing a defeated Germany had just become far more complicated. … Read more