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
Bill Clinton was ambitious, in the best sense of the word. He wanted to use the president’s bully pulpit to make history. He wanted to preserve traditional values with a liberal, open, pro-government but not big-government twist. … Read the article
Everyone knows that the New York Cosmos was the baddest, sexiest team in the old North American Soccer League, right? They had Pelé, Giorgio Chinaglia and Franz Beckenbauer. They were owned by Warner Communications, … Read the article
Perhaps the best metaphor for change and how Israelis are affected by it was provided by the second Palestinian intifada (2000–2005), during certain periods of which suicide bombings took … Read the article
Born on the Pennsylvania frontier, Margaret Cochran was orphaned when her parents were killed during the French and Indian war. The five-year-old was taken in by relatives and knew the pangs of poverty. … 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
The dollar is back. After no end of death sentences issued over the years, the greenback today still stands as the world’s premier currency for trade and finance, what economists and bankers call “the global reserve currency.” … Read the article
Romantic-era novelist Alexandre Dumas may well have created the world’s first fiction factory in Paris in the mid-1800s, a factory populated by ghosts. How many of Dumas’ hundreds of millions of readers realize that the plots and … Read the article
On a recent trip to Istanbul, I belatedly discovered a museum that I’d love to have seen before I wrote my book, Circumference: Eratosthenes and Ancient Quest to Measure the Globe. It was the Istanbul Museum … Read the article