Crime
Reckless Breeding of the Unfit: Earnest Hooton, Eugenics and the Human Body of the Year 2000
A future America, populated by horse-faced, spindly giants with big feet
February 12, 2013 |
By Matt Novak
The Candor and Lies of Nazi Officer Albert Speer
The minister of armaments was happy to tell his captors about the war machine he had built. But it was a different story when he was asked about the Holocaust
January 08, 2013 |
By Gilbert King
The Children Who Went Up In Smoke
A tragic Christmas mystery remains unsolved more than 60 years after the disappearance of five young siblings
December 25, 2012 |
By Karen Abbott
The Day Henry Clay Refused to Compromise
The Great Pacificator was adept at getting congressmen to reach agreements over slavery. But he was less accommodating when one of his own slaves sued him
December 06, 2012 |
By Gilbert King
The Fight that Wouldn’t Stay Fixed
How an apparent misunderstanding led to a brawl that turned into a donnybrook that became a legend
November 15, 2012 |
By Gilbert King
Geronimo’s Appeal to Theodore Roosevelt
Held captive far longer than his surrender agreement called for, the Apache warrior made his case directly to the president
November 09, 2012 |
By Gilbert King
A New Great Depression and Ladies on the Moon: 1970s Middle School Kids Look to the Year 2000
The ideal future according to a ten-year-old: shorter school days, lower taxes, and lots and lots of robots
October 12, 2012 |
By Matt Novak
The Silence that Preceded China’s Great Leap into Famine
Mao Zedong encouraged critics of his government—and then betrayed them just when their advice might have prevented a calamity
September 26, 2012 |
By Gilbert King
The Copper King’s Precipitous Fall
Augustus Heinze dominated the copper fields of Montana, but his family's scheming on Wall Street set off the Panic of 1907.
September 20, 2012 |
By Gilbert King
The Blazing Career and Mysterious Death of “The Swedish Meteor”
Can modern science determine who shot this 18th century Swedish king?
September 17, 2012 |
By Mike Dash
The Ugliest, Most Contentious Presidential Election Ever
Throughout the 1876 campaign, Tilden’s opposition had called him everything from a briber to a thief to a drunken syphilitic
September 07, 2012 |
By Gilbert King
“Murder Wasn’t Very Pretty”: The Rise and Fall of D.C. Stephenson
The Grand Dragon of the Klan and prominent Indiana politician had a vicious streak that had horrifying consequences
August 30, 2012 |
By Karen Abbott
The Smoothest Con Man That Ever Lived
"Count" Victor Lustig once sold the Eiffel Tower to an unsuspecting scrap-metal dealer. Then he started thinking really big
August 22, 2012 |
By Gilbert King
Daughters of Wealth, Sisters in Revolt
The Gore-Booth sisters, Constance and Eva, forsook their places amid Ireland's Protestant gentry to fight for the rights of the disenfranchised and the poor
July 10, 2012 |
By Gilbert King
The High Priestess of Fraudulent Finance
Her claim of being "the Heiress to $15,000" was just one of the many falsehoods that carried Cassie Chadwick from city to city and bounced check to bounced check
June 27, 2012 |
By Karen Abbott
Surgery, Security and Sales: The Future of Closed-Circuit Television
Just as people were experimenting with the potential uses of broadcast TV in the 1930s, so too were they envisioning ways to utilize closed-circuit TV in the 1950s
June 26, 2012 |
By Matt Novak
The “Latin Lover” and His Enemies
Rudolph Valentino fought a long battle against innuendo about his masculinity right up until he died. But now he seems to have won
June 13, 2012 |
By Gilbert King
The Ax Murderer Who Got Away
One hundred years ago this week, a family of six were murdered by ax in the little town of Villisca, Iowa. Might those killings be linked to as many as nine other multiple ax murders that occurred across the North-West and Midwest in 1911-12?
June 08, 2012 |
By Mike Dash
The Romneys’ Mexican History
Mitt Romney’s father was born in a small Mormon enclave where family members still live, surrounded by rugged beauty and violent drug cartels
May 2012 |
By Héctor Tobar
The Case of the Sleepwalking Killer
The evidence against Albert Tirrell was lurid and damning—until Rufus Choate, a protegé of the great Daniel Webster, agreed to come to the defense
April 30, 2012 |
By Karen Abbott
