Scientology was borne from Dianetics, which L. Ron Hubbard conceived in 1950. Recently released files show that Hubbard wrote to the FBI in 1951 to inform them that Communists had infiltrated his organization. He offered the Bureau data on his own followers including their fingerprints. He also claimed that Communists…

Boris Yeltsin was Russia’s president from 1991 to 1999. He and US President Bill Clinton had a cordial relationship. They met 18 times, more than any other American and Russian presidents. Yeltsin was a raging alcoholic. During his first trip to Washington, DC in 1994, Yeltsin got shitfaced and was…

1962: Liverpool native Malcolm Evans was 27 years old, married, and working as a telephone engineer. He and his new bride had an infant son. Evans — better known as Mal — became a fan of the Cavern Club’s house band, the Beatles. To make extra cash, Evans moonlighted as…

Howard Thurston was the most prestigious magician of his era, and he competed for attention with Harry Houdini. His most amazing trick involved levitating a woman, a novelty that astonished audiences. To this day stage magicians perform many of Thurston’s original pieces. Louis L’Amour was a prolific 20th Century author…

One of the most popular musical recording artists of the 1960s was Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. Their pop/Latin/jazz sound, almost exclusively instrumental, could be heard on radio and television all across America. The band featured Alpert on lead trumpet with a rotating group of studio musicians on trombone…

The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven was a nonfiction bestseller in 2010. The book sold over 1 million copies. It told the story of young Alex who died in a car accident and was revived. In 2004, six-year-old Alex and his father, Kevin, went to church. Alex’s mother, Beth…

Mikhail Gorbachev took power in the former Soviet Union in 1985. He ushered in a new era of economic reform called perestroika. In one early act of change, a joint Soviet/American business venture began in Moscow. It was called Astro Pizza. …

E. Howard Hunt, Jr. grew up in a suburb of Buffalo, NY and graduated from Brown University. During WWII, he entered the US Navy and joined the OSS, which later became the CIA. During the war and for decades thereafter, Hunt wrote novels in his spare time. Most were spy…

1928: Two ships filled with supplies sailed up a tributary of the Amazon River. The boats docked at a newly constructed town that resembled an American suburb and looked entirely out of place in the rainforest. The town was named after the man who had envisioned it, Henry Ford. The…