In 1970, a 27-year-old lawyer named Henry Bushkin was in a car with Johnny Carson and two private detectives, heading to break into a Manhattan apartment. Carson’s second wife, Joanne, had quietly…
The photograph from 1970 was never published, and almost nobody has ever seen it. It shows a small Manhattan apartment late at night, taken by a private detective while the most trusted man in America stood against the wall of that room and wept. Johnny Carson’s four marriages were messier than his television persona, and … Read more
On June 20th, 1947, Benjamin Siegel sat in his girlfriend’s Beverly Hills living room reading the Los Angeles Times when gunfire erupted through the window, killing the man who had built Las Vegas…
On the evening of June 20th, 1947, Benjamin Siegel settled onto the chintz sofa in the living room of Virginia Hill’s house on North Linden Drive in Beverly Hills. He had just returned from dinner with his friend Allen Smiley, a Los Angeles mob associate, at Jack’s at the beach, one of his regular haunts. … Read more
In the spring of 1340, the priest of a small Rutland village stood inside his own church tower, shooting arrows through its openings at the king’s off…
In the spring of 1340, the men of the king’s justice finally cornered Richard Folville in the church tower of his own parish in Tay, Rutland. Richard was the rector there, a man who had said mass and baptized children in that village for years, and he was also one of the most wanted criminals … Read more
In 1897, a 19-year-old Danish princess boarded the royal yacht Dannebrog and waved desperately at Copenhagen until her homeland shrank to a thin gray line. Princess Ingeborg was leaving everything…
The silence in the room felt like a physical weight. The telephone receiver hung in Ingeborg’s hand, the voice on the other end still speaking, though the words had already stopped making sense. A car accident. The king injured. The queen dead. Astrid, her youngest, her Benjamin, the daughter she had waved goodbye to on … Read more
In 1888, a bloodstained silk shawl was allegedly taken from the scene of Catherine Eddowes’ murder, kept unwashed in a family drawer for generations. Over a century later, scientists pulled…
The night of September 30, 1888, was the night the killer did not stop. At around one in the morning, Elizabeth Stride was found with her throat cut in a yard off Berner Street. Less than a mile away and roughly forty-five minutes later, the same hand fell on Catherine Eddowes. But this time it … Read more
In April 1945, as Soviet forces closed in on the Austrian Alps, Nazi official August Eigruber ordered eight 500-pound bombs placed deep inside the Altaussee salt mine, disguised as marble…
On May 8, 1945, when the American Monuments Men arrived at the Altaussee salt mine in the Austrian Alps, they did not know whether they would find a treasure hoard or a tomb. For weeks, rumors had swirled through Allied intelligence about what the Nazis had hidden deep inside the mountain. The officers who climbed … Read more
In June 1858, Sir John Shelley walked into the House of Commons, sat down, and immediately walked back out. The smell rising from the River Thames that morning had made the world’s most powerful…
In June 1858, a member of Parliament named Sir John Shelley walked into the House of Commons, took his seat, and walked straight back out. The smell rising from the River Thames that morning was so strong that the most powerful legislative chamber in the world had become unusable. He was not alone. Within days, … Read more
On April 29th, 1945, photographs of Benito Mussolini’s body, hung upside down at Piazzale Loreto in Milan, reached the world within hours. His wife Rachele had refused to flee with him and was…
On the afternoon of April 28th, 1945, a partisan named Walter Audisio, operating under the alias Colonel Valerio, stood outside the gates of the Villa Belmonte in the small village of Giulino di Mezzegra and shot Benito Mussolini dead. Minutes later, Clara Petacci, the mistress who had refused to leave his side, was killed as … Read more
On November 20, 1943, the tide at Tarawa refused to rise as the charts promised, and the landing craft grounded on the reef half a mile from shore. Fi…
On the morning of November 20, 1943, the tide around Betio Island in the Tarawa Atoll refused to rise the way the charts said it would. “From here on you can walk in,” a boat officer told the fifteen men crouched behind him, and the ramp went down five hundred yards short of the sand. … Read more
On January 8th, 1945, General Omar Bradley sat in his Luxembourg headquarters reading newspapers from Belgium, and his face turned red. British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery had just told…
The telephone sat on the desk, heavy and black, and Omar Bradley’s hand was already reaching for it. His face had gone red while he read. The newspapers had arrived that morning from Belgium, and every line of them burned. Around him in the Luxembourg City headquarters, the men could see something was wrong. According … Read more