March 5th is the anniversary of what became known as the “Boston Massacre.” While that title is familiar to many Americans, the event may not have gotten its due over the years, perhaps because there was a … Read the article
I came to Heiresses by accident, during the course of researching another book. As I scanned letters and diaries by the usual suspects—Nancy Mitford, Cecil Beaton, James Lees-Milne—in search of information, I found myself intrigued by certain … Read the article
Captivating, yellow flame sought escape through broken windows of the Greyhound bus five miles outside of Anniston, Alabama. Billowing columns of bulbous black smoke heaved heavenward. My friends were on that bus. A segregationist mob trapped my … Read the article
We teamed up with the Unknown History podcast on Quick and Dirty Tips to bring you their latest series based on Giles Milton’s Checkmate in Berlin. Episode 9 discusses the Soviet siege of Berlin, which started with a series of rather smaller … Read the article
There are King Kong, Godzilla, and Bigfoot, all powerful, mythical creatures, but they suffer from the same weakness—none can predict the weather. And that’s where Pennsylvania’s most famous critter shines—the Marmota monax, better known as the woodchuck, … Read the article
Quick, think of a poison…
There’s a good chance that you came up with arsenic. Arsenic was first isolated by the famous alchemist Albertus Magnus in the thirteenth-century city of Cologne. By a strange coincidence, Cologne was named … Read the article
We teamed up with the Unknown History podcast on Quick and Dirty Tips to bring you their latest series based on Giles Milton’s Checkmate in Berlin. Episode 8 discusses General Alexander Kotikov, a person Western allies in post-war Berlin had … Read the article
We teamed up with the Unknown History podcast on Quick and Dirty Tips to bring you their latest series based on Giles Milton’s Checkmate in Berlin. Episode 7 discusses Winston Churchill’s seminal 1946 speech in Westminster College, which gave not … Read the article
I first came across the name Smedley Butler in Haiti, shortly after I’d moved there to be the correspondent for the Associated Press in 2007. He was in a painting of three Marines in old-fashioned khaki … Read the article
The following is an excerpt from Carl Bernstein’s Chasing History, a triumphant memoir recalling his beginnings as an audacious teenage newspaper reporter in the nation’s capital—a winning tale of scrapes, gumshoeing, and American bedlam.… Read the article