Greg Daugherty

In the competition for worst Roman emperor ever, certain names stand out. Caligula, for example, whose debauchery and perversion are legendary to this day. Or Nero, who became renowned for his cruelty and who, by popular legend, did nothing but strum his lyre while Rome burned to ...read more

Anthony Comstock knew obscenity when he saw it, and the famous anti-vice crusader saw it everywhere. From the 1870s into the early 20th century, the dry goods salesman-turned-self-appointed-censor was a man on a mission—to impose his sense of morality on what Americans read, saw ...read more

When the giant German dirigible Hindenburg burst into flames over Lakehurst, New Jersey, on May 6, 1937, it left 36 dead, a pile of charred wreckage and one enduring mystery: What could have caused the horrific disaster? Even before the ashes had cooled, rumors were flying. ...read more

To Americans of the 1920s and ‘30s, he was the notorious gangster Scarface Al, Public Enemy No. 1. But when he arrived at Alcatraz in late August of 1934, Alphonse “Al” Capone took on a more humbling name: Prisoner 85. As Prisoner 85, Al Capone led a very different life from his ...read more

In the earliest days of the telephone, people couldn’t dial one another directly. They needed an intermediary—a telephone operator—to manually relay their call on a central switchboard connected to subscribers’ wires. It was a crucial new service that helped a revolutionary new ...read more

If there’s one image of Henry VIII that lives on in the popular imagination it’s of a portly ruler with a bushy red beard, covered in furs and jewels and chowing down on a king-size turkey leg. (If we remember anything else about him, it’s probably that he had six wives and ...read more

The credit for America’s greatest inventions is often a matter of controversy. The telephone: Alexander Graham Bell or Elisha Gray? The radio: Guglielmo Marconi or Nicola Tesla? The airplane: Gustave Whitehead or the Wright Brothers? Add to that illustrious list: the potato ...read more

When the RMS Titanic went down on the night of April 14-15, 1912, people on both sides of the Atlantic frantically awaited further news. The newspapers pieced together what little information they could obtain from wireless telegraph messages sent by the Titanic and other ships ...read more

No one knows exactly where Captain E.J. Smith was at 11:40 p.m. on Sunday, April 14, 1912. But witnesses said he appeared on the bridge of the Titanic just moments later, asking what the storied ship, making its maiden voyage across the Atlantic, had struck. “An iceberg, sir,” ...read more

In his decade as a professional actor, 26-year-old John Wilkes Booth played some of the most prestigious theaters in the United States. But the assassin of Abraham Lincoln delivered his final, and perhaps most memorable, performance in a tobacco-curing barn near Port Royal, ...read more

When the RMS Titanic disappeared beneath the dark waves of the North Atlantic in the early morning hours of April 15, 1912, it left many mysteries in its wake. One of the most puzzling, even now, was the behavior of the passengers and crew. Why did so many people on board act so ...read more

From his early days as a cattle rustler to his later career as a bank and train robber, Butch Cassidy was a desperado with a difference. Unlike many of his grizzled, gun-happy counterparts, Cassidy (born Robert LeRoy Parker) cultivated an image as a latter-day Robin Hood, ...read more

For four days in November-December 1943, as World War II raged, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin met in secret in the Iranian capital of Tehran. Code named Eureka, the Tehran Conference was the first time all three Allied leaders had ever been face to ...read more

When influenza began to sweep through the U.S. in 1918, a frightened nation looked to an unproven but familiar remedy: whiskey. There was just one problem. More than half the states had passed Prohibition laws by then, making liquor difficult, sometimes impossible, to legally ...read more

For decades after his death in 1885, Ulysses S. Grant suffered a reputation as one of the nation’s worst presidents, consistently ranking in the bottom 10 in polls of historians. But in more recent years, historians have taken another look at the Civil War hero. Popular ...read more

When the influenza pandemic hit the U.S. between 1918 and 1920, Americans wanted answers. Their questions weren’t limited to what caused the pandemic or might prevent the next one. They struggled with more eternal concerns, such as what happens to us after we die and whether it’s ...read more

From America’s vantage in 1889, the Russian influenza posed little cause for concern. So what if it had struck with a vengeance in the Russian capital of St. Petersburg that fall, infecting as much as half the population? Or that it had raged swiftly westward across Europe, into ...read more

The British prison ships that dotted the Eastern seaboard during American Revolution have been gone for more than two centuries. But the horrors they left in their wake are unlikely to be forgotten: starvation, disease, cruelty and a death toll that may have exceeded 11,000 men ...read more

To some, he was a prophet. To others, a laughing stock. Even today, more than half a century after his death, George Adamski remains one of the most curious and controversial characters in UFO history. Adamski had multiple claims to UFO fame. Starting in the late 1940s, he took ...read more

How did the silent-film star Marie Empress, billed as “the most beautiful woman in pictures,” disappear from the ocean liner R.M.S. Orduña, unnoticed by more than 1,000 passengers and crew?  Had the popular singer, dancer and actress jumped, fallen or been pushed overboard? Or ...read more

Battle Creek Sanitarium, America’s most popular medical spa of the early 20th century, may be best known as the birthplace of the cornflake. But some might say that the biggest flake to come out of Battle Creek was the man in charge: John Harvey Kellogg, the dapper doctor who ...read more

It began as a routine naval training exercise. But it would soon become one of the best-documented—and most baffling—UFO sightings of the 21st century. Witnesses included highly trained military personnel—among them several deeply experienced radar operators and fighter ...read more

It was the trial of the century. Or so it seemed in April 1915, when ex-President Teddy Roosevelt and one-time New York Republican Party boss William Barnes squared off in a Syracuse, New York courtroom. Barnes was the plaintiff, Roosevelt the defendant. The charge was libel, ...read more

Roxas v. Marcos was a classic David and Goliath tale, a battle between two wildly mismatched opponents. Goliath in this case was the ruthless Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, a man with a personal fortune estimated in the billions of dollars and an army of thugs and ...read more

The Knights Templar were revered throughout medieval Europe as the fiercest, wealthiest and most powerful military order of the era. So how were they obliterated with such devastating swiftness? Lies, spies and torture—lots of torture—masterminded by a power-hungry, money-mad ...read more

A power-mad dictator sends agents to kidnap the pope, plunder his palace and force him to resign in disgrace on trumped-up charges. That may sound like the plot line of a contemporary action thriller. But it actually happened in 1303—a real-life drama featuring King Philip IV of ...read more

In retrospect, it seems odd that Henry Woodhouse got away with as much as he did for more than half a century. After all, it wasn’t every day that a paroled murderer with no discernible education became a darling of America’s burgeoning aviation elite—heralded as a renowned ...read more

It’s September 1947, and the U.S. Air Force has a problem. A rash of reports about mysterious objects in the skies has the public on edge and the military baffled. The Air Force needs to figure out what’s going on—and fast. It launches an investigation it calls Project Sign. By ...read more

When John McCain made his first bid for public office in 1982, running for a House seat in Arizona, critics blasted him as a carpetbagger, pointing out that he’d only lived in the state for 18 months. “Listen, pal, I spent 22 years in the Navy,” the exasperated candidate ...read more

Whatever occurred at 2:45 a.m. on the morning of July 24, 1948 in the skies over southwest Alabama not only shocked and stymied the witnesses. It jolted the U.S. government into a top-secret investigation—the results of which were ultimately destroyed. The skies were mostly clear ...read more

When World War I ended on November 11, 1918, General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing, leader of the United States forces, had every reason to believe that his next stop would be the White House. From George Washington in the American Revolution to Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812 ...read more

Whatever else he may have been, Richard M. Nixon wasn’t generally known as a comedian. So many American TV viewers were surprised 50 years ago to see the Republican presidential nominee pop up on the hit comedy show “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In.” The date was September 16, 1968, ...read more

For an inanimate object weighing just a tiny fraction of an ounce, the postage stamp can sometimes stir up a whole lot of trouble. Throughout U.S. history, stamps have often caused controversy, usually for reasons the post office never anticipated. Here are 11 of the most famous ...read more

In August 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt issued an order from his summer residence in Oyster Bay, New York, that would soon be the talk of Washington—and the world beyond. Addressing himself to the government printer, Roosevelt decreed that all documents issued by the White ...read more