In 1912, when the First Balkan War began, Milunka Savić's brother received his conscription papers. He was ill, so 24-year-old Milunka cut her hair, put on men's clothing, and enlisted in the Serbian Army in his place under...
John C. Woods was an American Army private with a troubled background who managed to secure one of the most consequential roles of the postwar era despite questionable qualifications. He had previously been discharged from the Navy due...
When officers from Italy's Polizia di Stato responded to a welfare call involving an elderly woman living alone, they expected to find an emergency requiring immediate intervention. Instead, they discovered something far quieter and, in its own way,...
On October 3, 1993, during the Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia, three Delta Force snipers, Gary Gordon, Randy Shughart, and Brad Halling, were providing aerial cover fire over Super Six-Four, the second Black Hawk helicopter shot down that...
Max Scheler was born in Cologne in 1928, the son of philosopher Max Scheler, and trained under photographer Herbert List before being encouraged into photojournalism by Magnum co-founder Robert Capa. By the late 1950s, Scheler was working as...
In postwar Paris, philosopher Simone de Beauvoir began examining a question that would ultimately reshape Western thought: why had "woman" historically been defined only in relation to man, as daughter, wife, or mother, rather than as a complete...
Michael J. Novosel's path to that battlefield was already remarkable. A B-29 pilot during World War II, he commanded one of the bombers in the 462-aircraft flyover marking Japan's surrender aboard the USS Missouri. After the war, he...
In 2011, Shelia Fedrick was working an Alaska Airlines flight from Seattle to San Francisco when something about one passenger pair caught her attention. A teenage girl, believed to be around 14 or 15, sat by the window...
In February 1941, 33-year-old actor Jimmy Stewart stood on a scale at a draft board in West Los Angeles. At 6'3", he weighed just 138 pounds, five pounds under the Army's required physical minimum. Having just won the...
On March 16, 1860, a group of Apache warriors attacked a small travel party making its way through Arizona's Santa Rita Mountains, south of Tucson. Among those targeted was 23-year-old Larcena Pennington Page, the wife of a lumberman...
She Disguised Herself as a Man to Save Her Brother
The Fake Hangman
Police Were Called for an Emergency—They Stayed to Cook Pasta
Last Mag—Two Words Before Two Medals of Honor
Black With Coal Dust, He Waited His Turn to Be Human Again
The Book the Vatican Banned Became a Feminist Bible
Unarmed, Under Fire, He Went Back Six Times
A Note on a Bathroom Mirror Saved a Trafficked Teen
He Gorged Himself to Enlist—The Army Tried to Keep Him Safe Anyway
Rita Mountains, Arizona Territory