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Fifty years ago tonight, a young woman lost her life in a car accident in Massachusetts.

Her name was Mary Jo Kopechne. She was 28 years old. She was the passenger in a car that drove off a very narrow bridge and ended up in the water. She was trapped inside, and drowned.

The driver of the car: Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy.

The scene of the accident was a small island called Chappaquiddick.

Many believe the Chappaquiddick incident influenced Ted Kennedy’s decision not to run for President in 1972 and 1976,

In the late 1980s, journalist Leo Damore succeeded in breaking through a years-long wall of silence about Chappaquiddick, in a New York Times bestselling book called “Senatorial Privilege.” I talked with him in 1989.

This story ends in more tragedy.

Just six years after this interview, Damore was broke, depressed, about to be evicted from his home. He shot and killed himself in 1995 at the age of 65.

Sen. Ted Kennedy died of brain cancer in 2009, at the age of 77.

Who doesn’t love a good chocolate chip cookie?

One of the best was the original “Famous Amos” cookies, created by Wally Amos, who, as a young man, used to bake cookies with his aunt. He took her recipe, added some unusual ingredients, and .. presto.

But nearly three decades ago, Amos lost his company — and was then actually sued over the use of his own name, when he tried to start a new cookie company.

He explained igt to me in our 1994 conversation.

Twenty years ago today, the nation was shocked by the tragic news of the death of John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn Bessette, and his sister-in-law Lauren Bessette in the crash of their small plane in the waters off Martha’s Vineyard. He was 38 years old.

A dozen years later, a book came out, by JFK Jr’s onetime executive assistant, gatekeeper, and confidante, RoseMarie Terenzio. She told me in a 2012 interview that her five years working with Kennedy at “George” Magazine was like a fairy tale.

Jim Bouton died last week.

The former major league pitcher compiled a very respectable record playing for the Yankees, Pilots, Astros, and Braves.

But what really put Jim Bouton on the map, as it were, was his 1970 insider’s book called “Ball Four.” It was kind of outrageous at the time — probably awfullu tame by today’s standards — but it established Bouton as somebody more than just another jock.

I met him 25 years ago this week, after he’d published a baseball novel called “Strike Zone.”

Perhaps no toy of the 20th century in America was more iconic, more popular, and more widely known than the ubiquitous Barbie doll.

do you know the doll was named after a real girl named Barbie? Her mother was a woman named Ruth Handler, who was a co-founder of the Mattel toy company.

Handler told her story in a 1994 book. And that’s when I talked with her.

Was your mom a fan of the long-running CBS soap opera “As The World Turns”?

My Mom sure was. And one of the characters she — and the nation — were most captivated by was a wily, love-her-and-hate-her woman named Lisa Miller Grimaldi Hughes Eldridge Shea Colman McColl Mitchell Chedwyn.

Lisa was a fixture on “As The Wirkd Turns” for 50 years, played all those years by the very talented Eileen Fulton.

I know my mom would have busted her buttons If she’d lived long enough to see me interview Eileen Fulton in the spring of 1988 about a novel she had written, a murder mystery.

It’s not often that a two-year-old toddler makes the cover of Time Magazine.

But 26 years ago this month, the magazine reported on the story that by that point had the entire nation’s attention. She was known as “Baby Jessica,” the subject of an exceptionally bitter custody battle, pitting her birth mother against the couple who had legally adopted her.

That couple, Jan DeBoer and Roberta “Robby” DeBoer, eventually lost in court, and were forced to return Baby Jessica to her biological parents, Dan Schmidt and Cara Clausen.

A year later, the DeBoers wrote a book. That’s when I met them.

It’s the midsummer classic, major league baseball’s All-Star Game.

And no player ever appeared in more All-Star games than the legendary and once home run king Hank Aaron.

Now, when I was growing up, Ernie Banks of the Cubs was my main man, but Hank Aaron was right up there – and not just because we share a birthday.

I got the chance to meet Hammerin’ Hank in the spring of 1991…

Some sad news about “Mad” Magazine the other day, when the iconic publication announced it will effectively end its 67-year run this fall.

After August “Mad” will be sold only via subscription and in comic book stores, and each issue will only include articles previously published.

For decades, one of the msot prolific and popular “Mad” writers was Dick DeBartolo, sometimes known as “Mad’s Maddest Writer” He was hired by founder Bill Gaines in 1962.

And .. if you ever wondered who thought up those crazy questions on “The Match Game” or “Family Feud,” he’s the guy.

I talked with DeBartolo in 1994. He had just come out with a book, celebrating the life of “Mad”:

America is 243 years old today.

And while, naturally, the founding fathers get most of the press on the Fourth of July, let’s not forget that over those two and ahalf centuries, the United States has produced some great letter-writers.

In the 1990s, a young author and historian named Andrew Carroll undertook a very ammbitious task: he set out to find, and publish, hundreds of extraordinary letters that actually span over 350 years of American history.

I talked with him in 1999: