In September 1870, a horse-drawn carriage raced through Paris with Empress Eugénie hidden beneath a thick veil, beside her an American dentist and her lady-in-waiting. National Guardsmen had just…
A carriage drawn by horses tore through the streets of Paris at a frantic pace, desperate to escape. Inside sat Eugénie, Empress of France, her face hidden beneath a thick veil. Beside her were the American dentist Thomas Evans and her lady-in-waiting. Then, suddenly, barriers appeared. Armed National Guardsmen blocked the exit from the city. … Read more
In the spring of 1551, King Sigismund Augustus ordered his own city gate torn down, stone by stone, so a special wagon could pass through. The wagon was built wide and low so his dying wife,…
Workmen arrived at one of Kraków’s city gates in the spring of 1551 carrying tools and royal orders to tear it down. They pulled the gate apart stone by stone while townspeople stood around watching, wondering what had gotten into their king. The reason was a wagon. Sigismund Augustus had commissioned a special carriage, built … Read more
In August 1984, a bloated and dying Truman Capote stepped off a plane in Los Angeles and into the care of Joanne Carson, the ex-wife of Johnny Carson.NaN
In the summer of 1984, Truman Capote was dying, and the man who had once conquered New York society knew exactly where he wanted to spend his final hours. Not in a hospital. Not in the East Coast literary world that had banished him. He called Joanne Carson, the woman waiting in Los Angeles, and … Read more
In October 1982, record store shelves across America displayed the new Kiss album Creatures of the Night, its cover showing four men in full makeup, iNaN
Fans kept the photograph. October 1982, the cover of Creatures of the Night. Four men in full makeup stared out from record store shelves across America. One of them was Ace Frehley, the original Spaceman, with his silver face and everything that went with it. What the cover did not show was that Ace had … Read more
In 1864, Charlotte of Belgium left Europe as the wife of Archduke Maximilian, brother of Emperor Franz Joseph, bound for a throne in Mexico that Napoleon III had offered. She had urged Maximilian…
Spring 1864. A young princess left Europe full of hope. She was the sister-in-law of Empress Elisabeth and the wife of Maximilian, brother of Emperor Franz Joseph. She had no way of knowing that this particular journey would change her fate forever. This is the story of Charlotte of Belgium, the future Empress of Mexico. … Read more
In 1799, a 14-year-old Russian grand duchess was married off to a German prince, uniting the Romanovs with a small Protestant duchy. Helena Pavlovna, daughter of Tsar Paul I, left glittering St….
The Great Duchess Helena Pavlovna of Russia was not yet nineteen years old when the life went out of her, far from the palaces of Saint Petersburg, in a small Protestant duchy on the Baltic coast. She died on 24 September 1803, in the castle of Ludwigslust in Mecklenburg-Schwerin. She had been the daughter of … Read more
In the 1870s, a crew of just 27 men with hand tools could raise a 100-foot railroad bridge in ten days, using nothing but local timber and a wagonload of iron bolts. Fully loaded freight trains…
The signal came with a shout. Six men, sometimes more, hauled on the ropes while the foreman watched the gin pole, and the bent—the great upright frame of green pine—lifted clear of the ground. It swung slowly, deliberately, toward the gap in the ravine. A rigger balanced on a temporary platform caught it, guiding the … Read more
In 1783 Bengal, a boy was born with a second head fused upside down to his own. His midwife tried to burn him alive, but he survived, scarred and silent. His parents took him to Kolkata and began…
The Fiji mermaid was never a creature, but for a time it was the most famous thing in America. It was a crude mashup, the dried torso of a monkey sewn onto the tail of a fish, and under the dim light of P. T. Barnum’s museum it looked real enough to start a national … Read more
In January 897, a dead man was carried into a Roman courtroom. Pope Formosus had been in his tomb nine months when his successor, Stephen VI, had the NaN
In January 897, the corpse of Pope Formosus, dead for nine months, was carried into a courtroom in the Lateran Palace in Rome. Someone had gone down into the crypt of St. Peter’s, opened the tomb, lifted out what remained of the former pope, dressed it in the vestments of his office, and propped it … Read more
In 1545, Maria of Portugal gave birth to a son named Carlos, then died of bleeding. The boy grew up cruel and unstable, reportedly enjoying torture and once ordering a servant whipped for his…
On the night of January 17, 1568, King Philip II of Spain walked into his son’s bedchamber wearing full armor, surrounded by armed men. The prince, Don Carlos, was twenty-two years old, heir to the most powerful throne in Europe, and by every account dangerously unstable. Philip told his son that he was now a … Read more