History

The window in the Hotel Donnlatt was open on the morning of June 6th, 1874, and the curtains were fluttering in the warm breeze. By noon, a servant was knocking on the door of the suite, afraid to disturb the countess’s fragile temper, afraid to stay silent. There was no answer. When the door was … Read more

It is nine-fifteen in the evening, May 1939, and inside Quarters Eight at Fort Myer, Virginia, two men sit in a living room on the bluff above the Potomac, with the lights of Washington glittering across the river. The host is a cavalry colonel, fifty-three years old, wearing riding boots, with a voice too high … Read more

On August 8, 1928, a cover letter and a typewritten résumé went out from Cleveland to the men of the local chamber of commerce. The name at the top of the page was Louis Chevrolet. He was forty-nine years old. He was looking for investors in an airplane engine, and he was writing down his … Read more

On December 9, 1945, General George Smith Patton was riding down a misty road near Mannheim, Germany, when an army truck emerged from the fog and collided with his staff car. Within seconds, the most aggressive combat commander in American history was paralyzed from the neck down. Twelve days later, he was dead. The official … Read more

The cage had no bars. That was the worst part of it. Two boys sat on cushions stitched with silver thread in chambers where the air smelled of cardamom and crushed rose petals. Trays arrived without asking. Honeyed pistachios, lamb pulled apart by saffron and slow fire. Tutors filed in at dawn with scrolls on … Read more

In the winter of 1897, a crew of forty-one loggers entered the forests east of the Cascade Range. When the spring thaw came, the camp was empty. The saws still hung in their places. The stoves were still full of cold ash. None of the forty-one men were ever seen again. That part of the … Read more

The year was 1903, and the Ozark Mountains were about to surrender one of the most troubling chapters in their recorded history. It began with a discovery along the Current River, roughly fifteen miles from the small settlement of Eminence, when a mail carrier named Thomas Whitley, forced onto an alternate route by flooding, stumbled … Read more

The tent flap opened, and the room went cold before a single word was spoken. A young aide crossed the headquarters floor with a pale face, clutching a telegram in his trembling hand. The red border around the paper meant one thing: immediate operational intelligence. Montgomery took the message from him and read it once, … Read more

The Reichstag Fire Decree was four pages long, and it suspended indefinitely most of the fundamental civil liberties guaranteed by the Weimar Constitution. The right to personal liberty was suspended. Freedom of expression was suspended. Freedom of the press was suspended. The right to free assembly was suspended. The secrecy of postal and telephone communications … Read more