News & Opinion

Your daily brief on culture, current events, technology, business, health and the world, produced in partnership with the team at RealClearLife.

Virginia Hall is in the spotlight. (Getty Images)

Why CIA Spy Virginia Hall Has Captured Pop Culture’s Attention

She is the subject of three books and two new movies.

A letter from the doomed Titanic is up for auction. (Getty Images)

Titanic Victim’s Letter Surfaces Recalling Near-Collision as Doomed Liner Left Port

Ernest Hemingway

Meet the Female Writer Who Influenced Hemingway’s Wartime Fiction

Wally Funk Mercury

Honoring the Mercury 13: Astronaut Women in the Shadow of NASA’s Men

Alexander Nevsky. From a private collection. (Getty)

Epic “Battle of the Ice” Rivaled the Casualties of “Game of Thrones”

President Harry S. Truman signs the North Atlantic Pact (CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

Truman to Trump: NATO Turns 70

Civil rights leaders meet with President John F Kennedy in 1963. (Getty)

The Day the Government “Solved” JFK and MLK’s Assassinations

Gazing at the cosmos 160 years ago yielded a mystery planet that wasn't there. (Getty Images)

Vulcan-mania: Discovering the Planet That Wasn’t There

melissa virus

How the Melissa Virus Changed the Internet

John Lennon

Revisiting John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Bed-In 50 Years Later

The title page of 'The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament' by Thomas Clarkson. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Why Our Congress Couldn’t Stop Slavery, But UK’s Parliament Could

UNITED STATES - CIRCA 1931: On the stage - in person, Hardeen, brother of Houdini, handcuffs and jails will not hold him: the greatest mystery show of all times. Also with mentalist supreme, Princess Yvonne, the mystery girl. (Photo by Buyenlarge/Getty Images)

How Houdini’s Brother Kept His Act (and Legacy) Alive

GOP anniversary

10 Great Contributions of GOP Presidents on Republican Party’s 165th Anniversary

"Pat Lyon at the Forge," an 1829 portrait by John Neagle. Lyon was falsely accused of perpetrating the first bank robbery in the United States in 1798. (Photo credit: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts)

What Not to Do After Robbing a Bank: Put the Money Right Back

5th December 1973: Cars queuing for fuel during the oil crisis of 1973. (Evening Standard/Getty Images)

Could the US Be Barreling Toward Another Oil Crisis?

Princeton, New Jersey: Physicist Albert Einstein (1879-1955), seated in book-filled office. (Getty Images)

How Einstein Found the Formula for Failure

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Caricature of Ulysses S. Grant inebriated. (Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)

How Ulysses S. Grant Came to Be Seen as a Failure

Ebenezer D. Bassett (1833-1908) was an African American who was appointed United States Ambassador to Haiti in 1869. He was the first African-American diplomat. (Getty Images)

How America’s First African-American Diplomat Saved Thousands of Lives

ALEXANDRIA, : Former senior Central Intelligence Agency office Aldrich Hazen Ames is led from U.S. Federal Courthouse in Alexandria, 22 February 1994, after being arraigned on charges of spying for the former Soviet Union. Ames' wife, Mari del Rosario Casas Ames, was also arraigned on the same charges. Ames and his wife were charged with spying for the former Soviet Union since 1985 and receiving more than 1.5 million USD. (Getty Images)

How the CIA Caught One of the Worst Russian Spies in History

A giant bull skeleton that turns out to be a softie in 'The Book of Life.'

Fingerprinting: How Studying These Unique Patterns Forever Changed History

Lithograph with the caption 'Awful explosion of the Peace-Maker on board the US Steam Frigate Princeton on Wednesday, 28th Feb 1844.' On 28 February, she departed Alexandria, Virginia on a pleasure and trial trip down the Potomac with President John Tyler, his Cabinet and hundreds of guests on board. Upon the final firing of Stockton's Peacemaker, the defective gun at last burst, instantly killing Secretary Upshur; Secretary Gilmer; Capt. Beverly Kennon, Chief of the Bureau of Construction, Equipment and Repairs; Virgil Maxcy; David Gardiner of New York, the father of Julia Gardiner who later married President Tyler; and the President's valet, a black slave named Armistead. It also injured about 20 people, including Capt. Stockton. When Julia Gardiner, who was aboard, found out her father had died in the explosion she fainted into President Tyler's arms. Alexandria, Virginia, USA, 28 February 1844. (Photo by Fotosearch/Getty Images).

The Explosion That Almost Killed a US President (and Likely Saved His Love Life)

park ranger

The Grandest Part of “America’s Best Idea” Turns 100

Charles Burke Elbrick (left), U.S. Ambassador to Brazil, confers with Secretary of State William P. Rogers at the State Department. Afterwards, the 61-year-old diplomat told a press conference he expects to return to Rio de Janeiro despite his recent kidnapping by opponents of the Rio Government. (Getty)

Taken: Why an American Ambassador Was Kidnapped 50 Years Ago in Rio

Chairman Mao Zedong and US President Richard Nixon met for talks on Feb.21, 1972. (Sovfoto/UIG via Getty Images)

When President Nixon Met Chairman Mao

In front of the entrance to the main building of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universit√§t (LMU) at Geschwister-Scholl-Platz the leaflets of the resistance group "White Rose" are embedded in the ground as a monument in 2018. (Photo by Sven Hoppe/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Death of the White Rose: When Nazis Turned to Guillotine to Execute Students

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882 - 1945), the Democratic politician and 32nd President of the United States of America. (Getty Images)

When Franklin D. Roosevelt Escaped Death by Inches

UNITED STATES - FEBRUARY 01: Police reenactment of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, also known as the Moran Gang Massacre, when reputed members of the Al Capone gang disguised themselves as policemen and murdered members of the George 'Bugs' Moran gang in a garage at 2122 North Clark Street in the Lake View community area of Chicago, Illinois. Dr. Herman N. Bundesen, Cook County Coroner, is standing next to the men holding the rifles. (Photo by Chicago Sun-Times/Chicago Daily News collection/Chicago History Museum/Getty Images)

In Cold Blood on a Frigid Chicago Morning: The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre

General George Washington leading the attack at the Battle of Monmouth, New Jersey. June 28, 1778.

Pancakes vs Patriots: The War Over Remembering the Revolutionary War

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