Diamond Bessie was the popular name given to Bessie Moore, née Annie Stone, a prostitute whose murder in the woods outside Jefferson, Texas, propelled her to the level of local legend. She was killed by a single gunshot wound to the head, allegedly by her husband, Abraham Rothschild.
John André was a major in the British Army and head of its Secret Service in America during the American Revolutionary War. He was hanged as a spy by the Continental Army for assisting Benedict Arnold's attempted surrender of the fort at West Point, New York, to the British.
Louis Jeremiah Abershawe, better known as Jerry Abershawe, was an English notorious highwayman who terrorised travellers along the road between London and Portsmouth, England, in the late eighteenth century.
Jack Sheppard, or "Honest Jack", was a notorious English thief and prison escapee of early 18th-century London. Born into a poor family, he was apprenticed as a carpenter but took to theft and burglary in 1723, with little more than a year of his training to complete. He was arrested and imprisoned five times in 1724 but escaped four times from prison, making him a notorious public figure, and wildly popular with the poorer classes. Ultimately, he was caught, convicted, and hanged at Tyburn, ending his brief criminal career after less than two years. The inability of the notorious "Thief-Taker General" Jonathan Wild to control Sheppard, and injuries suffered by Wild at the hands of Sheppard's colleague Joseph "Blueskin" Blake led to Wild's downfall.
The privilege of peerage is the body of special privileges belonging to members of the British peerage. It is distinct from parliamentary privilege, which applies only to those peers serving in the House of Lords and the members of the House of Commons, while Parliament is in session and forty days before and after a Parliamentary session.
Silver Bullet is a 1985 American horror film based on the 1983 Stephen King novella Cycle of the Werewolf. It stars Corey Haim, Gary Busey, Everett McGill, Megan Follows, Terry O'Quinn, Lawrence Tierney, Bill Smitrovich, Kent Broadhurst, David Hart, and James Gammon. The film is directed by Dan Attias, written by King and produced by Dino De Laurentiis. The film is now considered a cult classic.
The National Magazine Awards, also known as the Ellie Awards, honor print and digital publications that consistently demonstrate superior execution of editorial objectives, innovative techniques, noteworthy enterprise and imaginative design. Originally limited to print magazines, the awards now recognize magazine-quality journalism published in any medium. They are sponsored by the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) in association with Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and are administered by ASME in New York City. The awards have been presented annually since 1966.
Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories is a picture book collection by Theodor Seuss Geisel, published under his more commonly known pseudonym of Dr. Seuss. It was first released by Random House Books on April 12, 1958, and is written in Seuss's trademark style, using a type of meter called anapestic tetrameter. Though it contains three short stories, it is mostly known for its first story, "Yertle the Turtle", in which the eponymous Yertle, king of the pond, stands on his subjects in an attempt to reach higher than the moon—until the bottom turtle burps and he falls into the mud, ending his rule.
The Seven Lady Godivas: The True Facts Concerning History's Barest Family is a picture book of the tale of Lady Godiva, written and illustrated by Dr. Seuss. One of Seuss's few books written for adults, its original 1939 publication by Random House was a failure and was eventually remaindered. However, it later gained popularity as Seuss himself grew in fame, and was republished in 1987 by "multitudinous demand".
The Cherokee Kid is a 1996 Western television film, directed by Paris Barclay for HBO. The film's stars were Sinbad, James Coburn, Burt Reynolds, Gregory Hines, A Martinez, Ernie Hudson, Dawnn Lewis and Vanessa Bell Calloway.
Elevator to the Gallows, also known as Lift to the Scaffold (UK), is a 1958 French crime thriller film directed by Louis Malle, starring Jeanne Moreau and Maurice Ronet as illicit lovers whose murder plot starts to unravel because of a malfunctioning elevator. The scenario was adapted from a 1956 novel of the same name by Noël Calef.
Smuttynose Island is one of the Isles of Shoals, located 6 miles (10 km) off the coast of New Hampshire, but actually in the state of Maine, in the United States. It is part of the town of Kittery, in York County. It was named by fishermen, seeing the island at sea level and noticing how the profuse seaweed at one end looked like the "smutty nose" of some vast sea animal.
Sasha Frere-Jones is an American writer, music critic, and musician. He has written for Pretty Decorating, ego trip, Hit It And Quit It, Mean, Slant, The New York Post, The Wire, The Village Voice, Slate, Spin, and The New York Times. He was on the staff of The New Yorker from 2004 to 2015. In January 2015, he left The New Yorker to work for Genius as an executive editor. Frere-Jones left Genius after several months to become critic-at-large at The Los Angeles Times. Frere-Jones left the Times in 2016.
Joseph Ferdinand Gould was an American eccentric, also known as Professor Seagull. Often homeless, he claimed to be the author of the longest book ever written, An Oral History of the Contemporary World, also known as An Oral History of Our Time or Meo Tempore. He inspired the book Joe Gould's Secret (1965) by Joseph Mitchell, and its film adaptation (2000), and is a character in the 2009 computer game The Blackwell Convergence.
Le Juge is a Lucky Luke comic written by Goscinny and Morris. It is the thirteenth album in the Lucky Luke Series. The comic was printed by Dupuis in 1959 and by Cinebook in 2010 as The Judge. The story is inspired by the historical Justice of the peace Roy Bean. As usual, Lucky Luke does not interfere unless injustice is done, or one party acquires an unfair advantage over the other. Siding with Bean takes place only for that reason, to the level that things are fair game again. The unsung side-kick of the Judge is Jacinto, a diminutive Mexican, who lightens up several details of the story.
John Kewish Jr. was the last person executed in the Isle of Man. He was convicted and executed for the crime of patricide.
Shanghai Chest is a 1948 American film directed by William Beaudine and featuring Roland Winters in his third appearance as Charlie Chan.
George Lane, better known as Clubfoot George, was an alleged outlaw who was hanged on January 14, 1864 in Virginia City, Montana. Lane was later alleged to have been a member of a criminal gang known as the Gang of Innocents and sentenced to death. The execution was carried out by the Montana Vigilantes, a committee which functioned during Montana's gold rush in 1863 and 1864.
Kalief Browder was an African-American youth from The Bronx, New York, who was held at the Rikers Island jail complex, without trial, between 2010 and 2013 for allegedly stealing a backpack containing valuables. During his imprisonment, Browder was in solitary confinement for two years.
Richard Stephen Sackler is an American billionaire businessman who was the chairman and president of Purdue Pharma, a company purchased by his late father Raymond Sackler, and whose connection to the opioid epidemic in the United States was the subject of multiple lawsuits and fines.
