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Mary Ellen Pleasant arrived in San Francisco in April 1852 as the Gold Rush was pulling fortune seekers from across the country into California. She had already lived a remarkable life, though much of her early history remains uncertain. She was believed to have been born into slavery on a Georgia plantation around 1814, though … Read more

Ellen Walsh was born in England in 1838, the daughter of an Irish peddler who had fled the poverty of Ireland during the great potato famine. The family crossed the Atlantic in the early 1850s, settling first in Boston before scattering across the United States. But for Ellen, being Irish in mid-century America was a … Read more

The man at the center of it all, Lee Marvin, was a decorated Marine who had been wounded in the Pacific and had watched most of his company die on the beaches of Saipan. He carried that war inside him, and he brought it to the set of a film that would become one of … Read more

In the remote mountains of eastern Kentucky, hidden in a hollow so deep that sunlight touched the valley floor for only a few hours each day, a family had lived in near-total isolation for generations. Known to the few outsiders who ever encountered them as the Crenshaws, their existence had become a case study in … Read more

The wedding portrait arrived at Rebecca Hoffman’s Boston restoration studio on a gray March morning, shipped from an estate sale in Providence. It was a single photograph in an ornate, tarnished silver frame. Dated June 18, 1910, the portrait showed Mr. and Mrs. William Crawford in classic Edwardian style before a painted studio backdrop. The … Read more

Jmenuji se Helen Porter. Je mi sedmasedmdesát let a ten den, kdy se všechno změnilo, začal v naprostém tichu. Probudila jsem se s tím, že chci začít obyčejný den, ale místo toho jsem našla kousky sebe sama rozházené po polštáři. Stříbrné prameny, dlouhé a jemné, ostříhané nakrátko a nerovnoměrně, jako by se někdo pokusil smazat … Read more

On May 13, 1944, the Japanese submarine I-16 sent a routine signal concerning a rice shipment. Her commander, Lieutenant Yoshitaka Takeuchi, reported that he expected to reach the isolated army garrison at Buin, at the southern tip of Bougainville, on the twentieth of the same month. At Pearl Harbor, American codebreakers in the radio unit … Read more

On May 10, 1940, Nazi Germany invaded Belgium, shattering the country’s neutrality and overwhelming its defenses within weeks. By May 28, the Belgian army had surrendered, and the nation fell under Nazi occupation. While many Belgians joined the resistance, others saw an opportunity in collaboration. Among them was Louie Kolar, a young, intelligent, and ambitious … Read more

On October 6, 1958, Raymond Washington walked out of PS1 139 elementary school carrying a basketball and dreams of playing for City College. He was 16 years old, six feet tall, and had just been told by his coach that scouts were starting to notice him. His mother, Esther, worked two jobs to keep him … Read more

In May 1948, Frank Costello walked into Smalls Paradise in Harlem alone. No bodyguards, no entourage. In the world of organized crime, that was a sign of respect. Bumpy Johnson sat at his usual table. Costello had come with a message from Lucky Luciano. Luciano had been deported to Italy in 1946, but he was … Read more