William Haines was one of the biggest movie stars in America in the early 1930s, a top-five box office attraction whose on-screen persona of the arrogant young man humbled by the final reel had made him a favorite with audiences. Born Charles William Haines on January 2, 1900, in Staunton, Virginia, he had been fascinated … Read more

In 1943, Princess Alice of Battenberg sheltered Rachel Cohen and members of her family inside her home in occupied Athens. The Cohens were Jewish, and the German occupation had placed them in mortal danger. Under Nazi rule, hiding Jewish people carried a punishment that could include death. Alice, a British-born princess living alone in a … Read more

The phone rang in a Massachusetts home, and when James Major picked it up, his son Bill was on the line. They had not spoken in months. James had agreed to make this call at the request of a detective who wanted a confession, and he did not plan to waste the opportunity. “I keep … Read more

For nearly a century and a half, the government of the United States was funded by a single source of revenue. Not income tax, not payroll tax, not corporate tax, none of which existed in any meaningful form. Instead, the Treasury in Washington depended on customs duties: taxes paid at American ports on crates, barrels, … Read more

In the spring of 1980, Henry Hill was a man surrounded by helicopters and shadows. The cocaine that had once fueled his rise now corroded his judgment, and the drug network he had built across the northeastern United States was growing beyond his capacity to control it. On May 11, 1980, investigators in Nassau County, … Read more

The photograph survives, the body laid out and numbered for a room full of doctors. A specimen to be studied, not a man to be greeted. The world came to know him by a cruel nickname, the elephant man, but the documented record of his life begins somewhere far darker. He was starved, beaten, robbed, … Read more

One child never drew a breath. Another, the heir to a German duchy, died at twenty-four in circumstances officially recorded as chronic cerebral disease, though rumours insisted a shot was fired during a family celebration. A third became the most beloved queen Romania ever had. A fourth married a Russian grand duke, lost everything to … Read more

In the autumn of 1929, as the great bull market reached its dizzying peak, a chorus of the most respected voices in America insisted that the old rules of economics no longer applied. This was a new era, they proclaimed, one of permanent prosperity, where the business cycle itself had been tamed by modern management … Read more

In 1958, the same year Marjorie Morning Star reached movie theaters, its star appeared in a magazine advertisement wearing jewelry made to accompany the film. Her name was Natalie Wood. The rhinestones caught the studio light. The necklace sat high on her collarbone. The line beneath the photograph promised the pieces were very elegantly yours. … Read more