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…

June 4, 1968: While campaigning to become the Democratic nominee for President of the United States, Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated. The crime took place in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. (That hotel is now long gone.) The shooter, Sirhan Sirhan, an American whose family was…

Five years before Superman was created, and six years before Batman, the first American superhero appeared in pulp fiction. His name was Doc Savage. Unlike Superman, Doc Savage wasn’t an alien with amazing powers. Part Batman and part Sherlock Holmes, he was a wealthy scientist, inventor, and adventurer with great…

Arnold George Dorsey was born in India in 1936. His father was a British military officer. The family moved to England when Dorsey was ten years old. During the late 1950s when Arnold was in his twenties, he tried to become a pop singer to limited success. Arnold lived in…

After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, the United States entered World War II. Airplane manufacturing ramped up to help win the war. Several of the nation’s aircraft factories existed on the West Coast. Douglas Aircraft had a plant in Santa Monica, CA. Boeing had a plant in Seattle…

Asia Minor in the 4th Century BC: The kingdom of Phrygia, located in the western region of Anatolia (today’s Turkey), had no king. Townspeople consulted an oracle and asked who would lead them. …

The Ed Sullivan Show was famous for introducing rock and roll performers to American television audiences, most notably Elvis Presley and the Beatles. But not all musicians were thrilled with Ed Sullivan. His show and network had a reputation for censorship. May 1963: Bob Dylan was all set to perform…