History is replete with them. To start a debate all you have to do is say “John Wilkes Booth” or “DB Cooper” or “JFK.”
And sometimes it takes someone with the analytical mind of a great fiction writer to unravel them.
And so it was in 2013 that bestselling author Brad Meltzer published a book called History Decoded, In which he set out to find the truth behind the ten greatest conspiracy theories of all time.
So Are you ready for some debunking? Here now, from 2013, Brad Meltzer .
Brad Meltzer is 54. He and his family live in Florida. His most recent novel was 2022’s The Lightning Rod.
Sixty years ago this week the Beatles performed in concert – notable because it was their very first concert in the United States.
On February 11, 1964 the Beatles entertained a crowd of about 8,000 at the Washington Coliseum in Washington, DC.
After that concert, as they embarked on their 1964 U.S. tour, along with them was young journalist Larry Kane. He was, in fact, the only broadcast journalist who was with the band at every stop on both the’64 and ‘65 American tours
Kane has written three books about the Beatles, including his 2014 book When They Were Boys. So let’s take a few minutes to revisit this milepost in American culture. Here now. from 2014, Larry Kane,
Larry Kane is 81. He is a special contributor to Philadelphia’s KYW radio.
It has now been 60 years since the assassination of President John F Kennedy in Dallas.
And yet his death remains the subject of widespread conspiracy theories.
But 30 years ago, there was a definitive book written that reached the same conclusion that the Warren Commission did in the 1960s. That conclusion: Lee Harvey Oswald killed the president, and acted alone.
The author of that book, called Case Closed, was investigative journalist Gerald Posner. Using technology completely unheard of in the 1960s, Posner reached the same conclusion.
So here now from 1993 Gerald Posner.
Gerald Posner is 69. HHs most recent book was a 2020 volume about big pharma.
From a very early age, Caroline Kennedy was taught to appreciate the beauty and power of poetry.
No surprise, really. Her parents were both very well red. Her father was a famous author, her mother was an author handbook editor.
Of they were better known, perhaps, as President John F Kennedy and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy.
One of their enduring legacies to their children was a love of literature. So, no surprise, in 2011, Caroline Kennedy published a poetry anthology.
It was not the first time I had met and interviewed Caroline Kennedy, but it was the first time that we talked about something as personal and meaningful as poetry. Especially since both of us had recently passed the half-century mark.
If you’re of a certain age, you remember where you were when something big and historical happened. For my parents, it was Pearl Harbor. For my children, it was the Challenger explosion.
For me, it was the John F Kennedy assassination, on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas.
We all know what happened. John and Jackie Kennedy arrived in Dallas for a early campaign visit. They drove to Dealey Plaza, rounded the corner, and Lee Harvey Oswald fired shots from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository building.
The rest is history.
But in the intervening decades, members of the president’s Secret Service detail rarely spoke about that day, even among themselves. That changed in 2010, when Gerald Blaine, a senior member of the detail, wrote a book about their common experience.
Among the agents whose story is told in the book is Clint Hill, the agent seen in a million photos and videos of that day, sprinting forward to the First Couple’s limousine after the shots were fired. You’ve seen him in photos, spread-eagled across the Kennedys.
I met Gerald Lane and Clint Hill in 2010, when they came to Washington to talk about their book.
So here now, from 2010, Gerald Lane and Clint Hill.