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 corn flake. 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

Flappers in the Roaring Twenties may have shocked the public with their independent attitudes, hip flasks and petting parties. But they were only following in the footsteps of the youth a decade earlier, who scandalized the nation with a now-forgotten craze known as “animal ...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