On July 22, 1934, outside the Biograph Theatre in Chicago, federal agents shot and killed John Dillinger, ending the brief but spectacular criminal career of Americas first Public Enemy Number One. His death marked the culmination of an intensive manhunt and signaled a new era in American law enforcement. John Herbert Dillinger had emerged from…
On December 18, 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was officially adopted, formally abolishing slavery throughout the nation. Secretary of State William Seward certified the amendment after it received ratification from the required three-fourths of states, bringing a legal end to an institution that had shaped American society, economy, and politics since…
On the morning of August 21, 1911, an Italian handyman named Vincenzo Peruggia committed what would become one of the most famous art thefts in history: he walked out of the Louvre Museum in Paris with Leonardo da Vinci Mona Lisa hidden under his coat. The theft would transform the relatively obscure Renaissance portrait into…