On 15 November 1997, in a private London hospital room, a 49-year-old woman lay dying of septicemia. She had been paralyzed for 18 months, ever since a fall from a rehabilitation clinic window….
The infection had already entered her bloodstream by the time the family gathered in the private London hospital room. On the 15th of November, 1997, Dale Harper lay dying at 49. She had spent the previous 18 months in a wheelchair, paralyzed after a fall from the window of a rehabilitation clinic. Plastic surgery had … Read more
On May 6, 1944, a convoy of Japanese transports sailed straight down a route drawn by hand, a secret line through the Celebes Sea that no American chaNaN
The secret route did not exist on any chart the Americans had captured. Officers of the Third Southern Expeditionary Fleet had drawn it by hand in the spring of 1944, a fresh line bending south through the Celebes Sea, chosen for one reason: no submarine was supposed to be able to find it. On the … Read more
In February 1976, a photographer with a long lens waited on a private Caribbean beach, hunting a single image. Princess Margaret, the Queen’s sister, was 45 and married. Beside her sat Roddy…
On a beach on a private Caribbean island, a woman of forty-five sat in the sun beside a man of twenty-eight, sharing a drink, laughing, entirely at ease. She was the sister of the Queen of England. He was a gardener, seventeen years younger, with no title and no fortune of his own. And yet … Read more
In 1903, the railroad sent Opal Winterbourne to a dying station at Monfvale, Ohio, where three night operators before her had quit, vanished, or been removed. She was a thirty-four-year-old…
The fog came up from the creek and out of the ground itself, filling the cut like something poured, and it did strange things to light and to sound. The old trackwalker hated it more than any storm, because in fog the tunnel mouth seemed to shift, the cut seemed to draw breath, and a … Read more
In 1931, a gaunt, pale woman with dyed blonde hair lay on a bed in a cheap room, looking like she had been through hell. Across from her sat veteran HNaN
By 1931, Mary Nolan lay on a bed in a cheap room, a thin, pale figure with dyed blonde hair. She looked as though she had been through hell, and that was a fair description of her life. Once worshipped as one of early Hollywood’s goddesses, she was now infamous rather than famous. She had … Read more
In June 1931, a road crew unloaded their tools at the base of a 1,600-foot granite cliff in Carbon County, Montana, and looked up at terrain no graded road had ever crossed. They were there to cut…
The drill team went back over the edge of the cliff at dawn. One man lowered himself on a rope scaffold against the granite face, pressed his boots into the rock, and held the steel. The second man, above him on the ledge, swung the hammer. The steel bit in an inch at a time. … Read more
In July 1969, on Chappaquiddick Island, Ted Kennedy drove his car off a narrow bridge into a tidal pond. He escaped. The young campaign worker beside him, Mary Jo Kopechne, did not. He waited…
The photograph shows a beautiful blonde woman in a bright coat, smiling on a rainy afternoon, standing close beside the most powerful man in the room. The cameras loved her. The country called her gracious. For more than twenty years, she was the loveliest wife in Camelot, the one who opened the rallies by playing … Read more
On March 2, 1960, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz stood on a soundstage and played a married couple one last time. The cameras rolled, they said their lines, and the most-watched marriage in America…
On the 2nd of March 1960, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz stood on a sound stage and played a married couple one last time. The cameras rolled. They said their lines. The most watched marriage in America finished its final scene. Two days later, on the 4th of March, she drove to a courthouse in … Read more
In 1945, at a Manhattanville College social gathering, Ethel Skakel was introduced to Robert F. Kennedy, the brother of her friend Jean. The handshake seemed casual, but it connected two devout…
The ballroom at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles erupted in celebration just after midnight on June 5, 1968. Robert F. Kennedy had just won the California Democratic presidential primary, and the crowd that packed the room believed they were witnessing the beginning of something tremendous—another Kennedy ascending toward the White House. Ethel Kennedy stood … Read more
In 1963, Marshal Georgy Zhukov, the Soviet general who had defended Moscow and captured Berlin, spoke privately with a journalist. He did not know the KGB was recording him. The Soviet Union,…
In 1963, Georgy Zhukov, the most celebrated Soviet general of the Second World War, the man who had defended Moscow, retaken Stalingrad, and led the final assault on Berlin, sat down for a private conversation with the writer Konstantin Simonov. He did not know that the KGB was recording him. Eighteen years after the war’s … Read more