In November 1975, Babe Paley opened the new issue of Esquire in her Fifth Avenue penthouse and found her closest friend’s betrayal in print. Truman Capote had spent two decades at her table,…
On a November afternoon in 1975, a woman sat down in her Fifth Avenue penthouse and opened the new issue of Esquire. By the time she closed it, her closest friendship was over. She did not cry. She did not call him. She read the story he had written, closed the magazine, and gave one … Read more
In 1829, at a bend in the Mississippi called Plum Point, a strange double-hulled steamboat charged at full power toward a hidden tree. The crew could NaN
In 1829, at a bend in the Mississippi River called Plum Point, a strange vessel came churning upstream at full steam. It looked like two boats joined together, and it was heading straight for a tree. The tree was submerged, nothing more than a dark stump breaking the surface where the brown current twisted around … Read more
In 1893, deep in a mountain hollow called Harrow Hollow, a woman named Mahala Sorrell followed her husband out into the killing cold to the old smokehouse at the edge of the yard. He said a hinge…
The smokehouse door swung shut, and the iron bar dropped into its brackets with a sound Mahala felt in her teeth. Inside, there was nothing but the black and the cold salt smell and her own breath. Then her husband’s voice came through the plank, muffled and close, the way a voice comes through a … Read more
In 1997, Warner Brothers executives pushed Curtis Hanson to cut two of his three lead detectives and build the film around Bud White alone, fearing auNaN
In 1997, a mid-budget crime film slipped into theaters with little fanfare, yet it would go on to challenge the biggest blockbuster of the decade and redefine an entire genre. L. A. Confidential pulled audiences into the shadowy heart of 1950s Los Angeles, where corruption wore a badge and justice came with a price. The … Read more
In 1836, with a warrant reportedly out for his arrest over unpaid debts, blacksmith John Deere slipped out the back door of his Rutland, Vermont home,NaN
In the autumn of 1836, John Deere was a thirty-two-year-old blacksmith in Rutland, Vermont, with strong hands, a sharp mind, and nothing else. The American economy had collapsed, he was drowning in debt, and in those days, unpaid debts were a criminal offense. With the sheriff reportedly on his way to arrest him, Deere did … Read more
In August 1972, Prince William of Gloucester, a pilot and former diplomat, climbed into his Piper Cherokee Arrow at Halfpenny Green airfield. He was thirty, heir to a dukedom, and widely seen as…
On the morning of 28 August 1972, the sky over the English Midlands was gray and foreboding, and Prince William of Gloucester climbed into the cockpit of his Piper Cherokee Arrow with a restless, almost reckless energy. He was thirty years old, the golden son of the Windsor dynasty, the older cousin Prince Charles worshiped … Read more
On January 17, 1989, Michael Francke left Oregon’s Capitol building at 6:45 p.m. and walked toward his car. He never reached it. Francke ran the state prison system, and he had just spent the…
The North Corridor of the Capitol in Salem, Oregon, was quiet that night. At 6:45 on the evening of Tuesday, January 17, 1989, the building was emptying out. Cars pulled away from the parking lot, office lights clicked off one by one, and the early winter darkness settled over the grounds. Michael Francke, the director … Read more
In January 1945, PFC George Kelly of Philadelphia stood near Buckenbar, Belgium, wearing a heavy coat against the winter. His unit had just survived the Battle of the Bulge, one of the bloodiest…
PFC George Kelly stands near the town of Buckenbar, Belgium, in January 1945, photographed in the final months of World War II. He is from Philadelphia. He is young in this picture, wearing a heavy coat against the Belgian winter. He is alive. His unit has just come through the Battle of the Bulge, one … Read more
In 2010, Philip Morris closed its North Carolina factory and moved every cigarette sold in America to a single site in Richmond, Virginia. That faciliNaN
On a stretch of Richmond, Virginia, just off Interstate 95, a cluster of six buildings produces roughly 600 million cigarettes every day. That output works out to about 146 billion cigarettes a year, all made at one address, all shipped from one city. Inside the factory floor, high-speed machines each run at 20,000 cigarettes per … Read more
In 1943, as Allied bombs fell on Herzogenaurach, Adolf and Rudolf Dassler scrambled into the family bunker. Adolf muttered about the bombers: the dirtNaN
In the darkness of a concrete bunker in 1943, as Allied bombers roared over Herzogenaurach, Adolf Dassler spat out a single sentence. “The dirty bastards are back again. ” He meant the Royal Air Force. His brother Rudolph, huddled nearby and poisoned by a decade of domestic hatred, heard something else entirely. He decided his … Read more