Here in Chicago, on Maxwell Street, everything was for sale. Place was a walk-in junkyard, they said, but you could find whatever you...

Early on the morning of 14 July, 1789, an air of reckoning and vengeance hung over Paris. Thick clouds rolled across the sky. Parisians...

The horse racing at Ascot had been simply wonderful, and King George VI had invited many representatives of the Commonwealth to attend....

There could be no dictatorship without propaganda; no strength without diversion. ‘Bread and games,’ they called it in Roman times – the...

Earlier this afternoon on Wall Street, in the great hall of the New York Stock Exchange, the brokers had been on high alert, watching the...

Arthur Conan Doyle was studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh, and during his spare hours – which were few – he wrote short...

Outside Hollywood there were few who knew the name Hattie McDaniel, and yet this African-American lady had appeared in no fewer than...

Adrianne was a proud Alaskan. Her region’s name means “great Earth”, and many of its inhabitants fondly call it “the land of the midnight...

Tonight, a scarlet moon hung over the seaside resort of Amity Island, New England. On the beach, a group of young hippies were dancing...

“You got tail on the brain! I can see in your eyes you’re hiding something from me. Running round the streets like a damn dog in heat...

Marlon Brando was one of the most famous movie stars of all time, famed for his commanding screen presence and artfully slurred manner of...

The character of Señor Zorro  was created by author Johnston McCulley, and appeared for the first time in 1919 in a novel serialised in...

Despite the Great Depression that had engulfed the USA since the Wall Street Crash of 1929, despite the flailing economy, and despite...

Dwight was a truck driver for Coca-Cola, and he was in a hurry. He pressed on the gas; it was seven in the morning, and it was his job to...

Frank Sinatra left an indelible mark on the American music scene. His career, spanning over half a century, had earned him nicknames...

A man had sold the world, and made it uninhabitable. A capitalist, a man with neither faith nor law, an unfeeling man. Who was that man?...

Nobody knows exactly who invented the skateboard, or when. We know it came from California, America’s surfing mecca. The surfers wanted a...

Madonna had become a legend not only because of her music, but also because of her provocative style. She was an icon, a symbol, a muse...

“Along a limpid stream a sipping dove Beheld an ant, which, bending o'er its brink, Had fallen in whilst stooping there to drink. To...

The lights went down, and the heavy curtain of the Scala opened. “How marvellous!” thought Maria Callas as she walked onto the stage, for...