For fifty years, the most senior field marshal of the German army was the fixed point of a small family unit that would be utterly destroyed by the outcome of the war he served. Gerd von Rundstedt, a decorated officer whose career spanned the German Empire, the Weimar Republic, and the Third Reich, outlived both … Read more
On April 9, 1894, inside a chapel at Schloss Ehrenburg in the small German duchy of Coburg, 19-year-old Princess Victoria Melita stood beside a cousin she did not love and married him anyway. She did it because her grandmother asked her to. Her grandmother was Queen Victoria of England, and in the family she ruled, … Read more
On a September morning in 1988, a 40-acre field in rural Minnesota appeared to be nothing more than an ordinary cornfield. But hidden behind the outer rows, in tightly packed, disciplined lines, stood shoulder-high marijuana plants heavy with resin—enough to fill a semi-truck and enough to send the four men working there to federal prison … Read more
Glen Campbell lived two very different lives. On stage, he was country music’s golden boy, a guitar virtuoso who played with Frank Sinatra, the Beach Boys, and Elvis Presley. Behind the scenes, a string of failed marriages, turbulent romances, and substance abuse drove him toward collapse. Born Glen Travis Campbell in a small Arkansas town, … Read more
When the Duke of Argyll broke into his wife’s locked cabinet while she was away in New York, he found a stash of Polaroid photographs that would destroy her reputation forever. One image showed the Duchess naked except for her signature three-strand pearl necklace, alongside a man whose identity was never confirmed. The discovery triggered … Read more
In the winter of 1974, a young woman stood behind the door of a London apartment while a crowd of photographers waited on the pavement for her to become the future Queen of England. She was the daughter of the Duke of Wellington. The bookmakers had already decided her fate, and so had the newspapers. … Read more
The 1968 epic Once Upon a Time in the West opens with a tense scene at a remote train station where three armed men wait for a mysterious stranger known as Harmonica, portrayed by Charles Bronson. Among the trio is a character nicknamed Knuckles, played by Canadian actor Al Mulock. During production in Spain, Mulock … Read more
In February 1945, a private named Ray Tibbs was facing a court-martial for stealing military property. The charge was specific. He had taken food from an army supply depot on three separate occasions over the preceding two weeks. Canned goods, bread, and powdered milk, with the total value substantial enough to make the offense serious … Read more
On May 5, 1945, one of the most unlikely battles of the Second World War unfolded on the rocky slopes beneath Castle Itter in the Austrian Alps. An American captain, a Wehrmacht major, and a former SS officer fought side by side, firing at attacking Waffen-SS troops along the same castle walls. They were defending … Read more
In 1929, Joseph Stalin consolidated his control over the Soviet Union and launched an aggressive campaign to transform the agrarian country into an industrial power. Farmers were forced into state-controlled collective farms, and those who resisted were branded enemies of the socialist system, stripped of their property, and sent to the Gulag labor camps. Grain … Read more