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On January 14, 1979, Tommy DeSimone walked out of his house in Queens, climbed into a car with two men he knew, and vanished. He was twenty-eight years old. He believed he was on his way to be made a member of the Lucchese crime family. Instead, he was driving to his own execution. His … Read more

In the spring of 1892, a land surveyor named Aldous Mercer Fenn received a single testimony that would consume the rest of his life. The account came from a source he never fully named, and it described a place that no longer existed on any map, a valley called Harrow Hollow, removed from official geography … Read more

In the autumn of 1947, the world was invited to watch a Greek prince marry the woman who would become Queen of England. Kings and queens came to Westminster Abbey, the scattered royalty of half of Europe gathered to celebrate. But three women who had helped raise that prince were left off the list: his … Read more

In July 2008, August Busch IV sat down and signed a document that ended 156 years of family history. With that signature, Anheuser-Busch, the company that produced Budweiser, the beer they called the King of Beers, ceased to be an American-owned company. It was sold to a foreign conglomerate for 52 billion dollars. Here is … Read more

On July 4th, 1876, Lieutenant Charles Varnum sat in camp on the Yellowstone River and wrote to his parents. He was one of the few surviving officers of the Seventh Cavalry. Days earlier, the regiment had been shattered at the Little Bighorn. In his letter, he tried to explain what had happened. The campaign had … Read more

On June 25, 2009, the world learned that Michael Jackson was dead. The King of Pop, the most famous entertainer on the planet, had been found unresponsive in his Los Angeles home at the age of fifty and pronounced dead from acute propofol intoxication. The news triggered an immediate global outpouring of grief. Fans flooded … Read more

Ma belle-fille a dit à mon fils que j’étais un fardeau financier, et ils ont arrêté de nous appeler. Six mois plus tard, leur prêt immobilier arrivait à échéance et j’étais le seul qui pouvait les aider. Je m’appelle Gary Fenwick. J’ai cinquante-neuf ans. J’ai passé trente et un ans à diriger le service d’entretien … Read more

In the autumn of 2023, Margaret Thompson inherited a collection of family photographs from her grandmother’s estate. Among the faded documents lay a silver-framed wedding photograph dated 1910, showing her great-great-grandparents, Eleanor and Thomas Mitchell, on their wedding day in Chicago. At first glance, it was a typical Edwardian portrait, a young woman in an … Read more

On the cold, quiet morning of April 9, 1865, in a modest brick parlor in the Virginia hills around Appomattox Court House, Robert E. Lee was preparing to surrender his Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses S. Grant, effectively ending the bloodiest conflict the American continent had ever seen. Forty miles to the east, in … Read more

Dorothy Walpole was born on the 18th of September 1686 at Houghton Hall, a country house in Norfolk, England. Her father, Robert Walpole, was an influential Whig politician and a colonel in the militia, and her mother was Mary Burwell. The couple had nineteen children, and many of them went on to lead notable lives. … Read more