In March 1603, an old woman lay dying on cushions on the floor of her privy chamber, because for eleven days she had refused to lie down in a bed. WheNaN
Richmond Palace, March 24, 1603. Between two and three in the morning, an old woman lay dying on a pile of cushions on the floor of her own privy chamber, having refused for eleven days to lie down in a bed. When her attendants finally removed her jewelry, they found something on her finger no … Read more
On December 21, 1980, a woman was found face down on a marble bathroom floor in Newport, Rhode Island, four days before Christmas. Her children and heNaN
On a marble bathroom floor in Newport, Rhode Island, four days before Christmas 1980, a woman collapsed and never opened her eyes again. Her name was Sunny von Bülow, and for the next twenty-eight years, while lawyers argued about her body, her marriage, and her money in two of the most-watched trials in American history, … Read more
In June 1791, Marie Antoinette climbed into a heavy, slow-moving carriage disguised as a governess, her children hidden beside her, and fled Paris in the dead of night. A Swedish count, Axel von…
At twelve-fifteen in the afternoon, the tumbril finally stopped. Marie Antoinette climbed the scaffold steps with a steady foot, her hands bound behind her back, her hair already cut. She had dressed carefully that morning, in a simple white gown, knowing exactly what was coming. As she stepped forward, she accidentally trod on the executioner’s … Read more
In 1878, a farmer plowing a dry creek bed in western Arkansas struck something hard with his blade. He assumed it was a root. It was a Sharps carbine, its stock blackened by fire, wrapped in the…
The farmer’s plow blade struck something hard in the dry creek bed, and he assumed it was a root. It was a rifle, a Sharps carbine, military issue, its stock blackened by an old fire, its barrel warped from heat, wrapped in the rotted remains of a cotton sack. Along the inner seam of the … Read more
In February 1864, fire tore through the Colt armory in Hartford, collapsing its iconic blue onion dome and destroying the Union Army’s primary weapons supplier. Elizabeth Jarvis Colt, who had…
The smoke rose before the bells did, a black column climbing out of the blue onion dome that had come to symbolize the entire Colt empire. It was just before eight on the morning of February 5, 1864, and more than nine hundred machinists were settling into their shifts at the Hartford Armory when a … Read more
In January 1999, actress Meredith MacRae began suffering from vertigo and losing her short-term memory. Doctors blamed perimenopause, then muscle spasNaN
Meredith McCrae came into the world on May 30, 1944, in Houston, Texas, born into a family where the spotlight was already familiar territory. Her parents, Gordon and Sheila McCrae, were both celebrated singers and actors, and young Meredith stepped onto the silver screen at just eight years old, appearing in the 1953 film By … Read more
In 1902, Amos Brennan told his Kentucky neighbors he had sent his daughters Ruth and Maggie to an aunt in Cincinnati for schooling. The community believed him. Then, years later, he changed his…
The key was iron, heavy, and rusted, and it had been in Amos Brennan’s pocket when they laid him out for burial. Nobody at the funeral knew what it opened. Amos had died three days earlier, alone in his bed, with the preacher sitting beside him and the sound of his breathing filling the room … Read more
In 1995, the U.S. Mint released a silver dollar bearing the face of a living woman for the first time—a 73-year-old named Eunice Kennedy Shriver, stamped with a single word: Founder. The Citizens…
Eunice Kennedy Shriver was seventy-three years old when the United States Mint put her face on a silver dollar. The coin went on sale on May 2, 1995, authorized by Congress under Public Law 103-328, with the obverse designed by Jamie Wyeth. On one side, her profile. On the other, a rose, a Special Olympics … Read more
In March 1932, a Kentucky health inspector named Harold Jessup climbed three hours into an isolated mountain hollow to check on the Codle family, whose birth records showed five children born over…
In March of 1932, a health inspector climbing into the remote hollows of eastern Kentucky discovered something that would redefine what isolation could do to a family. The county birth records showed five children born to the Codle household over twelve years. But the inspector’s report contained a single handwritten note in the margin: all … Read more
In 1878, two men accused of rustling cattle in Custer County, Nebraska, were seized from a sheriff’s escort and handed over to the rancher Print Olive, whose brother they had fatally shot. Taken…
He lay on the floor of the Trail City saloon, bleeding, his hands thrown up in a plea that bought him nothing. The man standing over him, Joe Sparrow, had waited for this moment, brooded over it, and now he walked slowly forward and put a final bullet into Print Olive’s forehead. The man they … Read more