Curated playlist
United States Army officers
- F. Scott FitzgeraldF. Scott Fitzgerald sold fewer than 23,000 copies of The Great Gatsby in its first year, and the novel posted tepid sales for the rest of his life. He died in 1940 believing his life was a failure and his work forgotten. The few critics…
- Ronald ReaganRonald Wilson Reagan was born on the 6th of February 1911 in a rented apartment above a bakery in Tampico, Illinois, the younger son of a dreaming salesman and a devoted churchwoman. By the time he died on the 5th of June 2004, he had been…
- Theodore RooseveltTheodore Roosevelt was shot in the chest on the 14th of October 1912, while on his way to give a campaign speech in Milwaukee. The bullet passed through his eyeglass case and a 50-page folded copy of his speech before lodging in his chest…
- William McKinleyWilliam McKinley stepped onto the front porch of his Canton, Ohio, home in the summer of 1896 and met the world. Delegations arrived by train, marching through the streets to hear him speak. The railroads had subsidized the excursion rates…
- John Foster DullesJohn Foster Dulles died on the 24th of May, 1959, at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, having resigned as Secretary of State just weeks earlier as bone metastasis consumed what remained of his health. He was 71. Funeral services were held…
- Jefferson DavisJefferson F. Davis was born on the 3rd of June, 1808, in a village his father had established in Kentucky, and he died in a borrowed New Orleans home on the 6th of December, 1889, at the age of 81, holding his wife Varina's hand. In the…
- John F. MarszalekJohn F. Marszalek has spent a career doing what most historians only dream of: getting close enough to a great figure that his own name becomes inseparable from theirs. Marszalek grew up in Buffalo, New York, earned his bachelor's degree…
- Caspar WeinbergerCaspar Weinberger spent six years and ten months as Secretary of Defense under Ronald Reagan, longer than anyone except Robert McNamara and, more recently, Donald Rumsfeld. That tenure placed him at the center of one of the most…
- James LongstreetJames Longstreet was born on the 8th of January 1821 in Edgefield District, South Carolina, and by the end of the Civil War he had become the man Robert E. Lee called his "Old War Horse". That nickname captures the paradox at the center of…
- Earl Van DornEarl Van Dorn died not on a battlefield but at his own desk, shot in the back of the head by a doctor who accused him of seducing his wife. It was the 7th of May, 1863, in the Spring Hill mansion where Van Dorn had made his headquarters,…
- Shelby FooteShelby Dade Foote Jr. was born on the 17th of November 1916 in Greenville, Mississippi. His father worked for Armour and Company, moving the family from Greenville to Jackson and then Vicksburg before settling in Mobile, Alabama. When…
- Edwin HubbleEdwin Hubble grew up in Marshfield, Missouri, known more for his athletic prowess than his intellect, a boy who won seven first places and a third in a single high school track meet in 1906. He earned good grades in every subject except…
- Adolphe MenjouAdolphe Menjou was voted Best Dressed Man in America nine times. That statistic tells you something important about how the world saw him - not just as an actor, but as an ideal. His career stretched across five decades, from silent…
- Robert EttingerRobert Chester Wilson Ettinger was shot in Germany during World War II, left for dead in the field, and spent several years recovering in a Michigan hospital. He survived. And then, for the rest of his life, he could not stop thinking…
- P. G. T. BeauregardP. G. T. Beauregard ordered the first shots of the American Civil War fired from Fort Johnson in the early hours of the 12th of April 1861. A 34-hour bombardment followed, and when the smoke cleared over Charleston Harbor, the general who…