It was while looking into the rumors concerning Princess Louise’s illegitimate baby that I came into contact with the Locock family. I read newspaper accounts of two court cases, in … Read the article
Queen Charlotte of Mecklenberg Strelitz, the wife of George III, has never enjoyed a particularly good press. During her lifetime, and in the nearly two hundred years that have elapsed since her death in 1818, she has … Read the article
One evening ten years ago I started to read Homer in English. With an old friend, George Fairhurst, I had just sailed from Falmouth to Baltimore in southwest Ireland, 250 miles across the Celtic Sea. … Read the article
When you think of the history of con artists, what images come to mind?
Perhaps it’s the dashing “sharpie in a fedora” stereotype that hearkens to the Roaring Twenties. Maybe it’s the juxtaposition of financial ruin with … Read the article
This book owes its genesis to a provocative history teacher and to a scandalized grandmother. The first tried to stimulate independent thought in his fourteen-year-old pupils by describing Winston Churchill as … Read the article
THE CASTRO DYNASTY
There is nothing ordinary about Fidel Castro. He is unique, special, and different. One thing in particular, among all the others, marks him out from all his compatriots: he cannot dance the … Read the article
It’s no secret that FDNY firefighters are among the best in the world, but here’s a little-known fact about New York’s Bravest: a black woman was among the city’s earliest black firefighters. Her name … Read the article
AFI president George Stevens Jr., uttered the following words when he introduced Orson Welles on the February 1975 evening that the great director received the AFI’s 3rd Life Achievement Award.
“A Great man never reminds us of others,” Stevens said. … Read the article
With only 43 different presidents, (44 to account for Grover Cleveland’s two non-consecutive terms), there’s a natural tendency to compare and contrast our chief executives. The presidential rating game is alternately fun, silly and even potentially … Read the article
If Senator John F Kennedy in office was faced with the U.S. Senate of 2015, he would not recognize it with its frequent filibusters, fierce partisanship, and increasingly homogenous political parties in which few conservative Democrats and … Read the article