In Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley, the Roman temples of Baalbek sit on a platform containing three limestone blocks—the Trilithon—each weighing roughly 800 tons. They’re 64 feet
The Ark of the Covenant is the rare mystery with detailed specs. Per the Book of Exodus: acacia wood overlaid with pure gold, about 4
After the Battle of Shiloh in April 1862, wounded men lay out in the mud through a cold, rainy night waiting for help that was
John Lincoln Clem ran away from his home in Newark, Ohio, and joined the Union Army as a drummer boy. He was supposedly nine years
Puma Punku sits in the Bolivian Andes at nearly 13,000 feet, part of the Tiwanaku site. Its stonework is what draws the attention: granite and
Everything we know about Atlantis traces to one source: Plato, writing around 360 BCE in the Timaeus and Critias. A circular island empire beyond the
Salem, 1692. The image everyone carries is women tied to stakes and flames going up. Not one person was burned at Salem. Nineteen people were
In 1992, a farmer in China’s Zhejiang Province drained what he thought were ponds. They were the flooded upper levels of enormous artificial caverns—24 caves
Eat your carrots and you will see in the dark. Every child hears it. It is the most successful piece of nutritional advice in the
My mother worked in the Empire State Building during World War II. Fortunately she wasn’t there on 28 July 1945. It was a Saturday. Normally
The Nazca of southern Peru carved a hummingbird 300 feet long, a spider 150 feet across, and a condor with a 440-foot wingspan into the
On July 17, 1864, Jefferson Davis relieved General Joseph Johnston of command of the army defending Atlanta and replaced him with John Bell Hood. It
We think of the South when we talk about American slavery. In 1703, New York City ranked second in the colonies by percentage of enslaved
Between roughly 800 and 1000 CE, the great Maya cities of the southern lowlands—Tikal, Calakmul, Copán, Palenque—were abandoned. Populations dispersed. The jungle took the monuments.
In November 2006, former Russian intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko drank tea in a London hotel bar. Three weeks later he was dead. The weapon was
The bluestones of Stonehenge weigh four tons each and came from the Preseli Hills of Wales—150 miles from Salisbury Plain. The builders had no metal
We remember Sherman as the man who never lost. That’s not quite the record. On June 27, 1864, he ordered a frontal assault on entrenched
Every army trails a shadow. Sherman’s army called their foragers bummers—detachments sent out to strip the countryside of food and forage, which was policy. But
Before the High Line was a park, it was a solution to a body count. The first rail tracks on the lower west side ran
Here’s a piece of Andersonville history most people don’t know. The greatest immediate danger to a prisoner in the summer of 1864 wasn’t the guards.
On 15 June 1904 the *General Slocum* left a Manhattan dock carrying 1,358 passengers plus crew to a church picnic on the north shore of
On a ridge in southeastern Turkey stands the oldest known monumental architecture in the world. Göbekli Tepe dates to 9500-8000 BCE. That’s six thousand years
On November 15, 1864, Sherman marched out of a burning Atlanta with about 62,000 men and cut himself off from his own supply line—a thing
By the early nineteenth century, the streams and ponds that once covered Manhattan had mostly been filled in and built over. What remained was overused
The Great Pyramid of Giza contains an estimated 2.3 million stone blocks averaging 2.5 tons each. Conservative estimates say it was built in twenty years.
In August 1996, Dartmouth chemistry professor Karen Wetterhahn spilled a small amount of dimethylmercury on her latex glove. She was working in a fume hood,
On the morning of June 30, 1908, something exploded over the Siberian taiga with a force of 10 to 15 megatons—about a thousand Hiroshimas. It
I’ve visited a lot of Civil War sites. Battlefields have a terrible dignity to them. Andersonville is different. It’s not a battlefield. It’s a prison,
Everybody knows the moment. First Bull Run, July 1861. Confederate General Barnard Bee sees Thomas Jackson’s brigade holding firm against a Union assault and shouts,
Is it just me, or did anyone else call it Hells Gate? I did, for years. It’s Hell Gate. It’s where the East River meets
On the morning of April 6, 1862, a Confederate army came out of the woods at Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee, and by nightfall more Americans had
In 524 BCE, Persian King Cambyses II sent 50,000 soldiers across the Egyptian desert to destroy the oracle of Amun at Siwa Oasis, which had
Easter Island—Rapa Nui to its people—holds nearly 900 monolithic statues carved between roughly 1250 and 1500 CE. They average 13 feet and 14 tons. The
The man who saved the United States was named U.S. Grant by a clerical error. He was born Hiram Ulysses Grant in Ohio on April
At Los Alamos there was a sphere of plutonium-239 that killed two men in nine months. Afterward, they called it the Demon Core. The first
It has stained glass, tiled vaults, and brass chandeliers. It’s been closed since 1945. The City Hall station sits under City Hall Park, and it
At 4:30 in the morning on April 12, 1861, Confederate guns opened on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor and the Civil War began. The shot
In 1974, Chinese farmers digging a well near Xi’an broke into the tomb complex of Qin Shi Huang, China’s first emperor, dead since 210 BCE.
Yale’s Beinecke Library holds a 240-page book written in an alphabet no one has ever identified, illustrated with plants that don’t exist. Radiocarbon dating puts
I grew up in the Bronx. I went to City Island plenty of times, rode my bike out to Orchard Beach, learned to drive in
On the Fourth of July, 1826, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died within hours of each other, fifty years to the day after the Declaration
In 1901, sponge divers working off the Greek island of Antikythera found a shipwreck. Among the statues and pottery was a corroded lump of bronze
According to Douglas S. Freeman’s biography, the oath Lee signed on September 25, 1825 upon admission to West Point read: “I, Robert E. Lee, a
FREE today through the 21st. I wrote The Jefferson Allegiance in 2013, but it is truer than ever. Jefferson and Hamilton, enemies, united in one
Housed in Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library sits what may be the world’s most mysterious book. The Voynich Manuscript, named after the
Here are a few ancient mysteries covered in The Little Black Book of Ancient Mysteries: This first one was the basis of my Road of
There is a post making the rounds that cadets didn’t want to shake Trump’s hand at graduation and that’s why he left early. It doesn’t
A single event can have strange historical ripples. In 1702 a yellow fever epidemic wiped out 10% of the population in less than three months.
[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”] [et_pb_row admin_label=”row”] [et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text”] The streets of Southern Manhattan, including areas like the Financial District and the Village, are seen as disorganized
Introduction In the middle of nowhere on the way to nowhere is the way I describe Area 51 in my books. Nestled in the remote
Who Are Patience and Fortitude? My two favorite lions guard the front entrance of the main branch of the New York Public Library. Long before
Every disaster requires seven things to go wrong. Six Cascade events leading to the 7th event, the disaster. At least one of the Cascade events
On July 29, 1976, serial killer David Berkowitz – who would become known as the Son of Sam – committed the first of his murders
The first rail tracks on the lower west side of Manhattan were laid along 10th and 11th Avenues south from Penn Station. The problem was,
I love writing fiction that finds amazing fact and “coincidences” of history and weaves them together into a thriller. These are facts: On the 25th
In 2019 the Whakaari Volcano erupted. Briefly. For just a couple of minutes. 22 people died. Tourists. Visiting an active volcano that had erupted twice
A conference held on the southwestern tip of Staten Island, New York on 11 September 1776 A.D. in the Billop House, which still stands. This
I remember watching Led Zeppelin’s last concert in the current Garden from ‘Blue Heaven’. Also attending the Millrose Games when they were held at the
If you fly into or out of LaGuardia, coming in or going out over the Bronx—which a plane seemed to do every two minutes while
I tracked down his grave while doing research for a book, The Jefferson Allegiance, which has as the premise that Hamilton and Jefferson brokered a
NEW YORK CITY’S LITTLE BLACK BOOK Today is publication day! It’s in Kindle Unlimited so feel free to thumb through and check out all this
Prison ships in New York Harbor. More American soldiers and sailors died in prison ships (primarily Wallabout Bay in the East River, now Fort Greene
Part of the history of the north-east Bronx, but more recently, was the short lived amusement park, Freedomland. It was a theme park built in
The Battle of Long Island on 27 August 1776. We lost. George Washington, fresh from his victory pushing the British out of Boston, came south,
On the Ides of March, 1783 George Washington gives a dramatic speech, halting a coup by his officers against Congress and saving the fledgling United
One of the things I had to memorize as a plebe at West Point, besides esoteric stuff such as ‘How’s the Cow’ was an interesting
“Should hostilities once break out between Japan and the United States, it would not be enough that we take Guam and the Philippines, nor even
I’ve been in Tennessee a while now and never really thought about the state’s name. I assumed it was Native American, but figured it might
Today we remember fallen comrades. I think of two team-mates, Jim and Dave, who were KIA on deployments but didn’t know it until years later
Basic Facts: Length: 5,500 miles (8,850 kilometers) With all branches included, it measures 13,171 miles (21,196 kilometers) Started: Various walls were initiated as early as
Officially known as The Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Kwantung Army in Manchuria. Realizing that they would be behind the west in
The Warren Commission determined in 1964 that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. In the half a century since, polls have never indicated more than 30%
Over 4,500 years ago, the Great Sphinx was carved out of a quarry on the Giza Plateau. It has the body of a lion and
Could the Revolution Have Ended in 1776? Travel back in time to Staten Island, New York on 11 September 1776 A.D. The day Benjamin Franklin
Propane doesn’t smell. It’s odorless in its natural state. But if there is a leak, you smell a nasty odor. Ever wonder why? It wasn’t
It’s an island off the Bronx in New York City, not far from where I grew up. It’s not very big. Roughly a mile long
In the late 1960’s, scientists face a fundamental question regarding computing. In what direction will the future go? The big corporations, IBM and others, want
How does the United States go to war? It’s not as clear cut as many think. And it’s been a while since we’ve done it
Operation Paperclip was an OSS, Office of Strategic Services, program which brought over 1,500 Germans to the United States after World War II. The OSS
Explorer, soldier, poet, translator, diplomat, spy, linguist, writer, cartographer, fencer, and more. A great and enigmatic person in history. Burton traveled the world, going to
We tend to think of the south when we discuss slavery in America. In 1703, New York City had the second highest percentage of slaves
‘Wanted: Women With Degrees in Mathematics . . . Women are being offered scientific and engineering jobs where formerly men were preferred. Now is the
When we turn a light on, or plug in any device, we owe a debt to Nikola Tesla for his contributions to the design of
“The point in history at which we stand is full of promise and danger. The world will either move forward toward unity and widely shared
“Have you heard of a ship called the good Reuben James, Manned by hard fighting men both of honor and fame?” The USS Reuben James
“A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do.” This is one of the first things imprinted on New Cadets when they
This is excerpted from The Green Beret Guide to Seven Great Disasters II which is free today, 7 December. “Should hostilities once break out between
I’d never heard of the Reuben James even though Woody Guthrie wrote a song about it. Here is what happened:
In 1929, the 29th of October is the day the Great Depression officially began. The stock market had been going down, but this was the
Sounds like a reverse Man in the High Castle. I had never really considered it until I saw a book in the Fort Campbell library
It seems like a headline from a current newspaper but this was 1969. And one of those was the commander of the Fifth Special Forces
I’ve examined the balance of power in the United States in several of my books because the Founding Fathers never intended their work to last
First off, if it had worked, many of the big problems in our Constitution that had to be incorporated to allow slavery wouldn’t exist and
First interesting piece of trivia: William Tecumseh Sherman was the first president of the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy, which eventually became
I recently noticed the Secretary of State weighing in on his review of a movie. Which is odd, to say the least. I watched The
And it wasn’t the Caine. I went to the Military Academy, founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1802. Although Jefferson tended to be anti-military, he accepted
Most disasters require 7 things to go wrong; my rule of 7. Whether it be a plane crash or a military disaster. Pearl Harbor was
It began as nothing more than a routine training flight. At 2:10 p.m. on December 5, 1945, five TBM Avenger torpedo bombers took off from
This past week when my grandsons were visiting we went to the Worlds Fair Park here in Knoxville. Not far from the infamous Sunsphere, is
That was the question at the core of one of the missions for the Time Patrol, Independence Day. I was trying to think of an
