Leo Frank was a Brooklyn-born Jew who’d relocated to Atlanta in 1908 to help manage his uncle’s pencil-making business, the National Pencil Company. He acted as the factory’s superintendent.

The horror of Adolf Hitler is not that he was a demon shot out of a portal of Hell but that he was a human creation, born of human parents, whose character was formed out of historical circumstance. He was a product of a particular time and place. This fact renders his monstrous behavior all the more real, all the more evil—and, therefore, all the more demanding of historical study.

I reckon everyone has at one time or another considered a wish list of mysterious disappearances they’d love to see resolved. Lost things found. The mental discomfort of not knowing the whereabouts of ‘vanished’ people or things can vex one’s equilibrium to the point of obsession.

“I can say with confidence there has never been a man or woman—not me, not Bill, nobody—more qualified than Hillary Clinton to serve as President of the United States of America.”

Pres. Barack Obama, July 27, 2016 at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

In the late 1950s, rock ‘n’ roll was not only big news but a big problem to most adults. Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Elvis, Buddy Holly…the roster of teenage music heroes was growing as long as Jason Momoa’s hair. Parents, teachers, civic officials, religious leaders, even the neighborhood policeman—all the usual stop signs of public order and decency—were at wit’s end trying to grapple with its growing popularity and influence. Was it the work of Satan? The Kremlin? The Elders of Zion?

Located roughly 150 miles southwest of St. Petersburg sits the city of Novgorod, or as it was called by its inhabitants in medieval times, Lord Novgorod the Great. Long a Baltic outpost of Kievan Rus’ and an appendage of its rotational system of princely rule, the citizens of Novgorod decided to ditch their Kievan-selected prince, Vsevolod Mstislavich, in May 1136 and establish for themselves an independent republican regime.

For nearly 60 years Judy Blume has shown what literature for young people could be. Never condescending or judgmental, always honest, authentic and encouraging. Quite often provocative. Her books were not peopled with heroes and villains but human beings…

The “Black Pope” and Founding Father of the Church of Satan, Anton Szandor LaVey, was born of Jewish parents Michael and Gertrude Levey in Chicago, Illinois, on April 11, 1930. The family moved to San Francisco when Howie was an infant. Some would contend he pretty much remained as such throughout his theatrical life (d. October 29, 1997).

Circus magazine called The Tubes “the bull-goose loonies of the San Francisco scene.” Although originally comprised of Arizona musicians, the band was really an outgrowth of the outrageous theatrical rock scene…

On January 2, 1979, in Beverly Hills, California, Iranian protesters congregated outside the home of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The shah’s mother and sister, who’d been staying there, grew increasingly apprehensive as the protest outside their doors escalated into violence.