History by the Week July 1, 1863--Union and Confederate forces collided at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The Battle of Gettysburg lasted three days before General Lee retreated to Virginia. July 2, 1937--Amelia Earhart and navigator Frederick Noonan disappeared while...
History by the Week Here is what happened in history during the past week. June 24, 1948--The Soviets blockaded West Berlin, cutting off rail, road, and water access to the western sectors of the city. This led to the Berlin airlift, in which the U.S. and its allies...
The Civil War Followed Him From Beginning to End "The war began in my front yard and ended in my front parlor,"Â said Wilmer McLean. And he was right. The First Battle of Bull Run on July 18, 1861, technically was not the first battle of the Civil War, but it is...
Long Before The Beatles, There Was Elmer Just prior to the firing on Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, triggering the Civil War in 1861, one of the most famous men in America was Elmer Ellsworth. Never heard of him? In 1861, everyone knew his name. This...
Why Is Brezhnev Kissing Honecker on The Berlin Wall? It's called "The Kiss"Â or "The Kiss of Death."Â And it is perhaps the most famous image that appears in Berlin's East Side Gallery--a nearly mile-long mile stretch of the Berlin Wall. What's left of the Wall,...
The Puzzle People and the Trouble with Trabis The votes are in, and East Germany's Trabant has been named the 9th worst car of all time, according to Edmunds.com. Much of my new novel, The Puzzle People, takes place in East Berlin during the Cold War, so the Trabant...
Bill Bryson Shines a Light on Rats and Other Pests in His History of the Home One of the scenes in my new novel, The Puzzle People, features an escape through the Berlin sewer system--a scene based on an actual escape that took place on October 12, 1961. In my version...