Episodes

A well known actor, John Wilkes Booth used his professional access to enter Ford's theater and assassinate President Lincoln Booth, in typical garb In April of 1865, John Wilkes Booth was a very depressed 27-year old. His career in shambles, his fortune gone and involved in a volatile and passionate romantic relationship that was tenuous at best only added to his general agonizing over Confederate collapse. To former colleagues and associates he seemed perpetually intoxicated, unstable, and poss...

Charles Bukowski: Slacker, Drunkard, Misanthrope, Poet, Artist, Hero. The building where Bukowski was born in 1920, Andernach, Germany Heinrich Karl Bukowski was born in Andernach, Germany on August 16, 1920. Andernach is a small German town located on the Rhine River, between Bonn and Koblenz. Bukowski’s father, also named Heinrich Karl Bukowski was a sergeant in the US Army of occupation following World War One. He met and impregnated Bukowski’s mother Katerina Fett in late 1919 and their marr...

Charles Bukowski: slacker, drunkard, misanthrope, poet, artist, hero. Bukowski parking his Beamer at Santa Anita Although he was over sixty, Charles Bukowski was just hitting the stride of his professional life. With money rolling in, he no longer gave public readings and his life settled into a daily, rigid, if undemanding routine. He got up late and then headed out in his newly purchased, expensive, 320i BMW sedan. Opening the sunroof and tuning into a classical music station, Bukowski would h...

The ultimate American traitor, Benedict Arnold's life was much more complicated Death of Montgomery at Quebec Montgomery and Arnold spent December planning the inevitable storming of the city, a siege impossible against superior British artillery and December 31st the end of the enlistment period of many of Arnold’s militiamen. They resolved to attack central Quebec City by scaling the walls on the first cloudy night towards the end of the month. Perhaps not coincidentally an attack was ordered ...

Benedict Arnold is the ultimate American traitor, his life was actually much more complicated Peggy Shippen, sketched by John Andre During the British occupation, Peggy Shippen interacted closely with several British officers and enjoyed a flirtation with Major John Andre, a member of British commander Sir Henry Clinton’s staff. Peggy continued to communicate with Andre after the British retreat from Philadelphia and when the British officer was appointed to head Clinton’s intelligence efforts, ...

The eternal Free Bird, Ronnie Van Zant Ronnie Van Zant, In Concert Ronald Wayne Van Zant was born on January 15, 1948. His father Lacey, was a long haul trucker and his mother Marion, nicknamed “Sister”, was a part time doughnut shop employee and the fundamental caregiver of the family’s six children. Even as a young person, Ronnie had ambitions to escape the lower middle class enclave he grew up in which was literally known as “Shantytown.” Lynyrd Skynyrd, 1973. Ronnie Van Zant is second from t...

Ronnie Van Zant, the eternal Free Bird Ed King, left. Heading into the recording studio, Skynyrd added two important elements to the band. Ed King met Skynyrd when they were the warmup band for The Strawberry Alarm Clock. King had written this group’s top ten one hit wonder “Incense and Peppermint,” and jumped at the chance to be the third guitar in Skynyrd’s unique three lead guitar makeup. Skynyrd, 1977, Steve Gaines is second from right, Artimus Pyle is right behind him in the second row. Ed ...

W. C. Fields, Hollywood Legend WC Fields, Passport Photo, 1915 W. C. Fields was born William Claude Dukenfield on January 29, 1880 in Darby, Pennsylvania. His parents, James and Kate, were English immigrants of modest means, his mother a homemaker and his father appropriately enough at the time of his son’s birth, an innkeeper and bartender. Fields, in his Broadway years Fields scraped together some money, relocated and made the rounds of the numerous NY agents and bookers that funneled entertai...

W. C. Fields, Hollywood Legend Fields with Mae West in My Little Chickadee To much excitement, it was announced that Fields would next team up with Mae West. One of America’s biggest stars in the mid-thirties, West, now aged 43, had also recently been cut loose by Paramount after her popularity waned. Months would pass before a script and director would be selected, the result of Fields’ cantankerous and territorial approach to his participation. Surprisingly, the two actors were able to co-exis...

The Chicago Black Sox and the Scandal Surrounding the 1919 World Series Ty Cobb and Shoeless Joe Jackson Almost one hundred years after the Black Sox scandal, the legend of Shoeless Joe Jackson, created by disingenuous journalists and burnished by Hollywood, lives on in the American imagination. An illiterate mill hand, a country boy who escaped small town poverty and obscurity as a baseball savant, Jackson is perceived as tragically victimized by wealthy owners and slickered by hustlers and che...

The Chicago Black Sox and the scandal surrounding the 1919 World Series The Eight Chicago Black Sox "Regardless of the verdict of juries, no player that throws a ballgame; no player that undertakes or promises to throw a ballgame; no player that sits in a conference with a bunch of crooked players and gamblers where the ways and means of throwing games are planned and discussed and does not promptly tell his club about it, will ever play professional baseball." Today, almost one hundred years la...

DB Cooper, the man behind the most notorious airplane hijacking in American history The infamous sketches of DB Cooper On November 24, 1971, a man walked up to the Northwest Orient ticket counter at the Portland, Oregon International Airport. After waiting on line for a few moments, he paid $20 dollars in cash for a ticket for Flight 305 to Seattle, a scheduled 30 minute trip leaving at 2:50 PM. The actual ticket used by "Dan Cooper" to fly from Portland to Seattle He gave his name as “Dan Coope...

DB Cooper, the man responsible for the most notorious air hijacking in US history. The areas where Cooper may have landed in the state of Washington On Thanksgiving morning, A Portland FBI investigator involved in the case, Ralph Himmelsbach, took it upon himself to use his own single engine plane to fly over the area where it is believed that Cooper might have bailed out. He spends much of Thanksgiving Day flying back and forth over Vector 23, the route that flight 305 took through the area, tr...

Robert E. Lee, Valiant Hero or Misguided Traitor? Robert E. Lee, 1845, With Son Robert E. Lee was born on January 19, 1807. He was the son of Henry Lee III and Anne Carter, Henry and Ann’s fifth child. Robert E. Lee's Wife And Daughter Lee was initially assigned to assist in the construction of a fort on the Savannah River, 12 miles from the city of Savannah, Georgia itself. But construction was unsuccessful and it would be sixteen years before Fort Pulaski was completed. Long before that, Lee w...

Robert E. Lee: Valiant Hero or Misguided Traitor? Arlington House, Occupied By Federal Troops, 1864 George Parke Custis was kicked out of Princeton, left St. John’s College of Annapolis after only one semester and made a living renting out all of the various plantation properties that he had inherited. By comparison to the industrious and spartan Robert E. Lee, Custis was an indolent patrician who lived on the wealth of his ancestors. Eventually, understanding that his daughter was enthusiastic ...

Herman Melville: From obscurity to immortality Herman Melville, 1861 When he died at age 72, on September 28, 1891, Herman Melville was so obscure that those who even remembered his literary output presumed that he had passed away many decades earlier. Melville’s works were out of print, his last novel published more than thirty years before his death. The title of his epic work Moby Dick was misspelled in Melville’s New York Times obituary and one of his most respected efforts, “Billy Budd, Sai...

Herman Melville: From Obscurity to Immortality Melville's Massachusetts Home-Arrowhead Over forty, Melville need not be concerned with actually having to fight for the Union but in 1863, he and his wife decided to move back to New York City, exchanging Arrowhead, which he was unable to sell, for his brother Allan’s East 26th Street home. Herman Melville, Last Photograph, Mid-1880's Throughout this time period, Melville continued to toil away at his custom’s officer’s job. When he began working a...

Ted Ngoy, the ultimate American Dream, including donuts Ted Ngoy's First Donut Shop, La Habra, California Eventually, in 1976, one of Ted's customers showed him an ad in the local newspaper, the Orange County Register, advertising a donut shop for sale. Ngoy had meticulously saved 20,000 dollars, the seller financed the rest of the $45,000 purchase price. Ted and his wife, Suganthini, with Richard Nixon By 1985, Ted was a millionaire and a very respected member of the Cambodian community. He and...

Frida Kahlo, Mexican icon Frida Kahlo Photographed By Her Father Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo Calderon was born on July 6, 1907 in Coyoacan, Mexico. Today, Coyoacan, officially a borough of the Federal District, is part of the urban sprawl of Mexico City. But when Frida was born it consisted of open space, farm and ranch land. Although her birth probably occurred at her grandmother’s house, Frida would spend her childhood and much of her life living in the Casa Azul, the blue house built by her...

Frida Kahlo: Mexican Icon Trotsky In Mexico Since the death of Lenin in 1924, a power struggle over not only over the Soviet government but also the international Communist movement ensued with the winner Josef Stalin and the loser Leon Trotsky. But Stalin was not content with merely expelling Trotsky from the party and the country. His megalomaniac paranoia would subsequently require the physical extermination of his opponent, including Trotsky’s family. Many of Trotsky’s relatives, including h...

Ian Fleming, who proved that a great deal of fiction is factual. Ian Fleming, Naval Intelligence Ian Fleming was born on May 28, 1908, the second son of Valentine and Evelyn Fleming. Both parents came from upper crust British backgrounds, Evelyn, known as Eve, was the descendant of a solicitor paternal grandfather and a maternal grandfather who was the personal physician to Queen Victoria, both of whom would be knighted for their efforts. Valentine, known as Val, was the son of the wildly succes...

Ian Fleming proved that a great deal of fiction is factual Ian Fleming, with his first novel Casino Royal Acquiring a name for his protagonist was simple enough. When cosmopolitan visitors to Goldeneye found themselves a little bored by the repetitive, tropical languor, Fleming suggested some bird watching accompanied by the book Macmillan’s Field Guide to the West Indies by James Bond, a volume that sat prominently on a shelf near Ian’s desk. Fleming deliberately wanted a simple name for a char...

Rasputin, the wrong man in the right place. Rasputin, Early Years Grigori Rasputin was born on January 9, 1869, in the Siberian village of Pokrovskoe, one of nine children of Efim and Anna. Even the number of surviving siblings of Rasputin is a matter of dispute. Possibly all of his nine brothers and sisters died only a few days after they were born and the only sister to perhaps survive was born in 1875 and named Feodosiya. That such biographical information is unclear is due to both the disorg...

Rasputin, the wrong man in the right place. Rasputin, later years Rasputin routinely spent his summers in Pokrovskoe and June, 1914 found him back in his home town. On June 29, Rasputin emerged from his house in order to hand a telegram to his postman. He was greeted by a mysterious female stranger, dressed in black with a white kerchief over her features, only her eyes visible. She silently bowed in front of him and Rasputin paused to reach for his wallet, thinking that she was a beggar in sear...