In 1717, sixteen-year-old Paula Teresa da Silva entered a Lisbon convent as a nun—then caught the eye of King John V of Portugal. The king was a frequent visitor to the monastery of Saint Denis,…
On the eighth of September 1720, a young nun named Paula Teresa da Silva e Almeida gave birth to a son inside the Monastery of São Dinis in Odivelas, near Lisbon. The father was King John V of Portugal, and the child would be called José. The king did not hide the boy away. He … Read more
In 1930, Princess Alice of Battenberg was taken from her home by men in white coats, sedated with a drug hidden inside an orange, and driven across the border to a Swiss asylum. She was deaf, a…
In the spring of 1930, a princess vanished. Men in white coats came for her, and by nightfall she was gone, drugged and carried across a border she had not chosen to cross. Her name was Princess Alice of Battenberg, and she was the mother of Prince Philip. The men who took her had a … Read more
In 2008, in a Siberian cave, a researcher picked up a bone fragment so small it could rest on a fingertip. It belonged to a child’s pinky finger. For decades, the cave had yielded bones…
In 2008, deep inside a cave in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia, a researcher picked up a tiny fragment of bone, so small it could rest on the tip of a finger. It was a sliver from the little finger of a child. At first, hardly anyone paid it any attention. The cave had … Read more
On September 27, 1864, a 24-year-old guerrilla leader in a silk shirt embroidered by a woman’s hand waited at a Missouri depot with 80 men in stolen Union blue. Human scalps hung from his horse’s…
Bloody Bill Anderson stopped the morning train at Centralia on September 27th, 1864, and ordered his men to drag the passengers out onto the platform. The small depot town on the North Missouri Railroad had a population barely worth counting, and now its platform held a line of frightened travelers under the guns of eighty … Read more
On 22 January 1901, hours after Queen Victoria died at Osborne House, her ladies-in-waiting carried out secret instructions she had left years earlier. While the new king waited outside the room,…
On the night of 22 January 1901, after Queen Victoria’s body had been placed in its coffin at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, her ladies-in-waiting carried out instructions she had left years before, while the Prince of Wales remained outside the room. In her left hand, hidden beneath a carefully arranged bouquet of … Read more
In 1957, a young actor born Eugene Maurice Orowitz took the lead in a film called I Was a Teenage Werewolf, then changed his name to Michael Landon anNaN
On October 31, 1936, in Queens, New York, a boy named Eugene Maurice Orowitz was born to Peggy and Eli Orowitz, both of whom worked in show business. Peggy was a dancer, Eli an actor. From those modest beginnings, the child who would one day become Michael Landon grew into one of the most recognizable … Read more
In 1911, Archduke Ferdinand Karl, a Habsburg general and third in line to the Austro-Hungarian throne, laid his sword and the Order of the Golden Fleece on Emperor Franz Joseph’s desk. He had…
Franz Joseph looked up from the dossier and went very still. He did not scream. He did not throw the paper across the room. He simply froze, the way a man freezes when he understands that something he believed solid has been rotting for years. The report on his desk, assembled by the meticulous Colonel … Read more
In 1886, a teenage girl known across America as the Camel Girl walked away from the circus and chose school instead. Ella Harper was twelve when her backward-bending knees turned her into a paid…
The midwife took one look at the newborn boy and threw him into a fire. He was born in Bengal in 1783 with a second head attached upside down above his own, and the woman who had helped bring him into the world was so horrified by what she saw that she tried to destroy … Read more
On July 21, 1865, in Springfield, Missouri, Wild Bill Hickok faced Davis Tutt in the town square over a gambling debt and a gold watch. Each man fired once. Tutt did not survive. But what happened…
At dawn on July 21, 1865, in Springfield, Missouri, two men walked onto the town square. James “Wild Bill” Hickok and Davis Tutt faced each other, and each fired once. Tutt did not survive. What happened next ran contrary to every image of a lawless frontier: Hickok was arrested and tried for manslaughter. The dispute … Read more
In 1551, Barbara Radziwiłł died in agony just five months after her coronation, and all of Europe immediately blamed her mother-in-law, Bona Sforza. TNaN
In the winter of 1551, a young queen died in terrible pain just months after a coronation that had torn the royal family apart. The sudden, horrific death of Barbara Radziwiłł instantly cast suspicion on her greatest political rival: her mother-in-law, the formidable Bona Sforza. Because the queen mother had waged open war against the … Read more