The Italian Squad: A Group of 1920s NYPD Immigrant Detectives Who Fought the Rise of the Mafia
The story begins in Sicily, on Friday, March 12th, 1909. Three gunshots thundered in the night, and then a fourth. Two men fled, and investigators soon discovered who they had killed: Giuseppe Petrosi...
13 Jul 202328min
Conspiracy Theories Haunt the Assassination of MLK 55 Years After His Death
Doubts about James Earl Ray, Dr. Martin Luther King’s lone assassin, arose almost immediately after the civil rights leader was fatally shot on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on April 4,...
11 Jul 202328min
Early 1800s Newspaperman William Hunter Was a British Soldier’s Son Who Built Early America
In June 1798, President John Adams signed the now infamous Alien & Sedition Acts to suppress political dissent. Facing imminent personal risks, a gutsy Kentucky newspaper editor ran the first editoria...
6 Jul 202343min
Long Before Seabiscuit, a Civil War-era Racehorse Smashed Records and Sired Thousands of Colts
The early days of American horse racing in the pre-Civil War era were grueling. Four-mile races, run two or three times in succession, were the norm, rewarding horses who brandished the ideal combinat...
4 Jul 202342min
How the 1910 Return of Halley's Comet (Almost) Destroyed Civilization
Halley’s Comet visits the earth every seventy-five years. Since the dawn of civilization, humans had believed comets were evil portents. In 1705, Edmond Halley liberated humanity from these primordial...
29 Jun 202348min
The Coronation of Charles III and the Meaning Behind His Vestments, 5-Pound Crown, and the "Sovereign Orb"
Charles III was crowned king of England on May 6, 2023, the first of its kind in 70 years. He wore regalia that look straight out of a portrait of Charlemagne: the St. Edward’s Crown, which wegiths fi...
27 Jun 202352min
Why Did WW2 Advance Civil Rights When WW1 Reversed Them? Here's What WEB DuBois Said
Many of us think that we know all there is to know about W.E.B Du Bois was the early 20th century’s most significant thinker, writer, and philosopher of the U.S. civil rights movement. He saw an extra...
22 Jun 202330min
What It Was Like to be a WW2 Paratrooper
When General Douglas MacArthur fled the Phillipines in the beginning of World War Two, he swore to return, and did so in 1944 in an epic battle in which the Allies faced banzai charges, jungle warfare...
20 Jun 202348min
