Nick Poppy
The Archive
I spent movie nights with the Reagans
As the lights dimmed on the most powerful man in the world and his wife, sitting on a living room couch, the young White House staffer two seats away had...
This serial killer left a trail of dead black men from Buffalo to New York City
He didn’t immediately realize that he was bleeding. Several moments passed from when the man struck 25-year-old John Adams in the chest until Adams fell to the ground. His attacker,...
How the Vietnam war tore these brothers apart
The blast, and the gunfire that followed, flattened the column of soldiers. Twenty-one-year-old Chuck Hagel was on his back, blood bubbling out of his chest with every breath. His 19-year-old...
A beloved, cancer-stricken journalist tells his final story
Mark Mooney was in his late 20s in the late 1970s, living in The Bronx and working at a newspaper in Long Island, when he decided to quit it all....
The sunken history of this Revolutionary War 'ghost ship'
In the rock tumbler of history, the Revolutionary War produces a few well-burnished moments. Washington crossing the Delaware in small boat at Christmastime. Paul Revere galloping around Massachusetts after dark....
How a slave made off with a Confederate war ship — and became an American hero
For weeks, Robert Smalls had been watching them. Noting their comings and goings. It was risky, but it was the only way his plan would work. The year was 1862,...
How German-born 'Ritchie Boys' helped America defeat Hitler
The slight American soldier sat down across from the tough old Nazi sergeant. The German wasn’t talking. Only name, rank and serial number. The American had an idea. “How is...
How a famous engineer's son emerged to build the Brooklyn Bridge
Of all the people who worked to build the Brooklyn Bridge, none was as crucial as a man named Roebling. Those casually acquainted with the history of the bridge often...
How this 'normal' kid took over NYC's docks through murder, intimidation
For much of the 20th century, Manhattan’s West Side was a gritty, bustling central artery of the shipping trade, home to the East Coast’s busiest and most profitable port. Billions...
This woman stole children from the poor to give to the rich
Babies were snatched off the streets by strangers in passing cars. Or taken from day-care centers or church basements where they played. Or stolen from hospitals, right after birth, passed...
Inside Saddam Hussein's final days in US captivity
They hadn’t signed up for this. The squad from the 551st Military Police Company was a dusty dozen who’d enlisted out of a combination of patriotism, a steady paycheck, or...
A trip to Italy revealed the murderer in my family
There had been a murder. She knew that much, and not much more. Helene Stapinski, a writer from Jersey City, had grown up hearing stories of the killer — who...
The self-made cop who took on a notorious criminal syndicate
The terror might come in the mail, or in an envelope slipped under the door. Or a note tacked to the wall. Pay up, it would say. Give us the...
This heiress risked her life to drive cars in World War I
As the US prepared to join France and England in World War I, recruitment songs like “Over There” called out to young men: “Make your Daddy glad/To have had such...
How two badass sheriffs tamed the most dangerous town in the Wild West
Any man fool enough to look for trouble in 1870s Dodge City could count on two things: finding it, and finding himself knocked over the head by the butt of...
How the real-life 'Mrs. Sherlock Holmes' showed up the NYPD
Ruth Cruger, 18, pretty, popular, stepped out to run errands one February afternoon in 1917. But the hours ticked by and the day grew late, and Ruth was still not...