On the night of June 5, 1944, 155,000 men waited aboard ships along the southern coast of England. They knew they were going to France. They did not know that the man who had ordered them there was sitting alone in a small room in a Hampshire country house, writing a letter that began with … Read more
The transcript contains factual material about the disappearance and murder of Amanda “Millie” Dowler, a 13-year-old English schoolgirl, in 2002. Key facts include her disappearance on March 21, 2002, the discovery of her remains on September 18, 2002, the investigation, the eventual conviction of Levi Bellfield in 2011, and his later confession to her murder … Read more
METZ, France — A U. S. military judge erased six Black eyewitnesses from a court-martial record in December 1944, ruling their testimony legally worthless because of their race, until Lt. Gen. George S. Patton Jr. personally intervened and ordered the trial restarted before sunset. The case, long buried in the personal files of the Third … Read more
Vrátil jsem se z kardiologa. Bylo úterý a pan doktor Hendricks mi řekl, že mé srdce je na mého věk v pořádku, že bych měl omezit stres a víc spát. Když jsem v půl třetí odpoledne otevřel dveře, našel jsem v obýváku kolébku. Dva kufry opřené o zeď, kterou jsem na jaře vymaloval. A ženu … Read more
Bourbon Street in New Orleans was alive with music on the evening of January 9, 1965. Five men walking past an open doorway stopped to listen. Among them was the largest player in professional football that year—a 6’9″, 315-pound defensive lineman whose reputation for physical force was already well established. The group decided to check … Read more
In April 1945, a field hospital in Western Germany held 87 wounded American soldiers. They were men who could not walk, could not fight, and were protected by every rule of war. When American forces moved in to evacuate them, German engineers sent a message through a nurse. The building was wired. Every door, every … Read more
Recordings made by authorities in the 1980s and 1990s captured several senior Mafia figures in New York expressing harsh and often dismissive views about the younger generation of mobsters rising through their ranks. The opinions of these veteran gangsters, which surfaced through government wiretaps, reveal deep frustration with the conduct, training, and judgment of those … Read more
Barbara Hutton died of a heart attack on May 11, 1979, in a suite at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles. She was 66 years old and had spent her final months in bed, surrounded by half-empty glasses of Coca-Cola and stacks of books. Only ten people attended her funeral. At age 21, she … Read more
Inside a modest Santa Monica apartment in November 1981 lay the body of William Holden, one of Hollywood’s golden age most beloved movie stars. The Midwestern boy who became an Academy Award winner had a dazzling smile that concealed tumultuous passions and dark secrets. His all-American image began in an appropriately all-American setting, but that … Read more
Newly examined testimony and forensic records are forcing historians to confront a disturbing conclusion about one of the most notorious episodes of the Second World War: Magda Goebbels, the woman Nazi propaganda celebrated as the Reich’s ideal mother, personally directed and carried out the murder of her six children in Hitler’s bunker on the night … Read more