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In the spring of 1970, Inger Stevens seemed to have everything a Hollywood actress could want. At thirty-five, she had just completed a television movie opposite Burt Reynolds and was about to star in a new dramatic series produced by Aaron Spelling, set to air that fall. Her radiant blonde beauty, honed over more than … Read more

On a Thursday morning in August 1992, the newspapers reached Balmoral, the Queen’s private estate in Scotland. Downstairs at breakfast, the royal family sat flipping through the Daily Mirror. But the woman in its photographs was upstairs, a guest under the same roof. She was the Duchess of York, and the pictures had been taken … Read more

On April 9, 1865, in the parlor of Wilmer McLean’s farmhouse at Appomattox Court House, Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses S. Grant. The two generals, who had spent four years trying to destroy each other, sat across from one another while the remnants of a shattered Confederacy slipped away. … Read more

On November 30, 1986, Lucille Ball called Desi Arnaz from across the country. Their daughter Lucy, sitting in the room, heard her mother repeat the same three words five times before Arnaz replied: “I love you too, honey. Good luck with your show. ” He died two days later. Only afterward did anyone realize that … Read more

In Freeport, Maine, there is a store that never closes, staffed at four in the morning on any of the 365 days of the year. The reason has nothing to do with commerce and everything to do with a promise made by a dead man. L. L. Bean, the company that owns it, has not … Read more

Private John Martin, an Italian-born trumpeter with the U. S. Army’s Seventh Cavalry, became one of the few survivors of the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876. His firsthand account offers a rare, detailed look at the final hours of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer’s command and the chaos that unfolded on … Read more

On July 27, 1981, six-year-old Adam Walsh vanished from the Hollywood Mall in Florida. The announcement over the store’s speakers repeated every 15 minutes: “Adam Walsh, your mother is waiting for you. Please report to the toy department.” No little boy ever came. That morning, Adam had watched Sesame Street at home in Hollywood, Florida. … Read more

Scientists took DNA from the people who built the first cities on Earth and compared it, marker by marker, against nearly every living population on the planet. Most of the results made perfect sense. The strongest signals pointed directly back to Mesopotamia, exactly where you would expect to find the descendants of the world’s first … Read more

Čtyři roky jí dokázali udělat ze života peklo jen kvůli její váze. Teď se smáli naposledy. V sále Grand Plaza Hotelu zněl křik a posměch, když se Amelia Hastings třásla uprostřed tanečního parketu v záři reflektorů. Nad ní visel transparent s nápisem Tlusté prase z Crestview a z reproduktorů se ozývalo hlasité chrochtání prasat. Pět … Read more

In March of 1897, a column of men in prison stripes walked under armed guard along a two-and-a-half-mile dirt road in eastern Kansas. They made that same walk every morning for years, a seven-mile round trip before and after a full day of construction labor. At the end of the road stood an empty field. … Read more