On January 17, 1899, Italian immigrants Gabriele and Teresa Capone welcomed a baby boy in their newly adopted home city of New York. They named him Alphonse Gabriel Capone but to his friends--and later the world--he was simply known as Al. Even from an early age, Al was trouble. Although he showed promise as a … Continue reading Two Inevitable Things: Death and Taxes

When World War II came to an end in 1945, a pair of Allied peace conferences at Yalta and Potsdam convened to determine the fate of Germany’s territories. After much discussion, they decided to split the former Axis power into four “allied occupation zones”: The eastern part of the country went to the Soviet Union, … Continue reading When The Wall Came Down

On July 16, 1945, the United States conducted a test of the world's first nuclear weapon, an event now known as Trinity. It came about after months of tireless research and development by a group of scientists living and working in Los Alamos, New Mexico, who had been authorized by President Roosevelt, in response to … Continue reading Come Down (or Up) Somewhere?

History Friday is back! And I can think of no better way to kick it back off than diving right in to another fascinating but tragic episode in American history... By the mid 1800's, the United States was bursting at its seams. A rapidly growing population needed, well, room to grow, and the U.S. government … Continue reading A Legacy of Resistance

By the spring of 1934, public adoration for the "Lethal Lovers," Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, was waning. Long seen as heroes of romanticism and social justice, the trial of bodies littering their wake was getting harder and harder to ignore. An Easter Sunday shoot-out that resulted in the cold-blooded murder of two highway patrolmen … Continue reading “Well, We Got Them.”

Thomas Blood was an Irishman, born in County Clare in the Kingdom of Ireland (at the time a client state under English rule) in 1618. He was the son of a successful blacksmith of English descent, who owned lands in Counties Clare, Meath, and Wicklow. His grandfather, too, was a well-respected "to-do" in the area, … Continue reading Blood in the Tower of London

President Franklin Roosevelt passed away on April 12, 1945, just weeks before the end of World War II in Europe, leaving his Vice President, Harry Truman, to gather the reins of the presidency and steer a reeling nation through what promised to be several tumultuous months. The Allies were advancing on Berlin, but victory wasn't … Continue reading One Man’s Decision

The first “official” flag of the United States was “the Continental Colors,” also known as the “Grand Union Flag.” It consisted of thirteen red and white stripes with the United Kingdom’s flag in the upper-left-hand corner, also known as the canton. It was the same design as the flag for the British East India Company … Continue reading Which Flag?

It started with a possible murder and pig-stealing. It ended, almost thirty years later, with a wedding. The McCoy family, headed by patriarch Randolph McCoy, lived on the Kentucky side of the Tug Fork River. They were a lower-middle-class family, owning a 300-acre farm and subsisting mainly from its bounty. On the other side, in … Continue reading Hogs, Bitterness, and Blood