Utterly interesting

It’s hard to imagine a more unlikely secret agent than Noor Inayat Khan. She was born into a family of Indian royalty, raised in the world of poetry, music, and Sufi teachings, and even published a book of children’s tales. Yet, during the Second World War , Noor, known to her comrades by the codename Madeleine , became the first female radio operator sent into occupied France by Britain’s Special Operations Executive (SOE). Her mission ended in betrayal, imprisonment, and execution, but her courage ensured that her story would live on long after her death. A Royal and Spiritual Heritage Noor-un-Nissa Inayat Khan was born on 1 January 1914 in Moscow, into a remarkable family. Her father, Hazrat Inayat Khan, was a Sufi musician and teacher who traced his lineage back to Tipu Sultan, the Tiger of Mysore, who famously resisted British colonisation in India. Her American mother, Ora Ray Baker, later known as Pirani Ameena Begum, was a poet who had fallen in love with Hazrat while he travelled through the United States. Noor and her American Mother Ora Ray Khan The family’s early years were marked by upheaval. As the First World War loomed, they left Moscow and settled in London’s Bloomsbury. Later, when the war ended, they moved again to France, living in a house near Paris where Noor spent most of her childhood. But tragedy struck when Noor was only thirteen. Her father died, leaving behind a grieving widow and four children. Noor, as the eldest, felt the weight of responsibility for her family, a sense of duty that would shape her choices for the rest of her life. Scholar, Musician, and Writer In her early adulthood, Noor seemed destined for a peaceful and creative life. She studied child psychology at the Sorbonne while also pursuing music at the Paris Conservatory under the celebrated Nadia Boulanger. She played the harp, wrote poetry, and contributed stories to children’s magazines in both English and French. Her most significant literary achievement came in 1939, when she published Twenty Jataka Tales  in London, a collection of Buddhist fables for children. It was well received, marking the beginning of what might have been a distinguished writing career. But the outbreak of war in September of that year changed everything. Noor Inayat Khan with a vina, a stringed Indian musical instrument Fleeing France and Joining the Fight When German forces swept into France in 1940, the Khan family escaped through Bordeaux and crossed into England. At first, they stayed with philosopher Basil Mitchell, who had long admired her father’s Sufi teachings. Although Noor had been raised in a spiritual tradition that emphasised non-violence, she and her brother Vilayat both felt compelled to contribute to the Allied cause. In November 1940, Noor enlisted in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), training as a wireless operator, a role that would become central to her fate. By 1943, she was recruited into the SOE, the secretive organisation created by Winston Churchill to conduct espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance in occupied Europe. Here, she trained for a mission that few women had attempted before: to operate clandestine radios in Nazi-occupied France. Noor in WAAF uniform Training and Doubts SOE training was notoriously tough. Noor’s physical instructors doubted her suitability – she was not particularly athletic and was known for her sensitive and dreamy nature. She was subjected to mock Gestapo interrogations, parachute training, and lessons in surveillance. Some officers felt she lacked the steel for the job. Her brother, too, was deeply worried, pleading with her not to go. Her pacifist leanings, he argued, might make the strain unbearable. Even Vera Atkins, the formidable French intelligence officer who interviewed Noor in Mayfair, offered her a way out. Atkins asked if she truly felt she could handle the mission. Noor’s quiet but firm reply was: “Yes.” Yet Atkins later discovered that Noor’s anxieties were less about herself than about her family. She felt torn apart by the secrecy that forced her to lie to her mother. Eventually, Atkins devised a compromise: Noor’s family would receive reassuring letters as long as she was safe, but in the event of her death, her mother would be told only when there was no hope left. That assurance allowed Noor to leave for France. Codename Madeleine On 16 June 1943, Noor parachuted into France under the codename Madeleine . She was assigned to Henri Garry’s resistance network in Le Mans and later moved to Paris. Her role was critical. Using a bulky and dangerous radio transmitter, she sent coded messages back to London, helping to coordinate arms drops, sabotage, and escape routes. Radio operators were prime targets for the Gestapo, their transmissions could be tracked, and the average life expectancy for operators in the field was a matter of weeks. Plaque outside 64 Baker Street, Westminster, London, wartime headquarters of the SOE. For four months, Noor outmanoeuvred her pursuers. She frequently changed safe houses, disguises, and locations, the heavy radio always strapped to her back. By the autumn of 1943, she was the last active SOE operator left in Paris. Betrayal and Capture Noor was scheduled to return to England in mid-October 1943. But a month before that could happen, she was betrayed. A Frenchwoman, said to be jealous or desperate for money, revealed her whereabouts to the Gestapo. She was arrested in October and taken to Gestapo headquarters on Avenue Foch in Paris. Even in captivity, Noor resisted. She attempted escape twice, once by clambering onto a roof, but both times she was recaptured. Worse still, the Gestapo found her notebooks containing copies of her radio signals. Using these, they tricked London into believing they were still in touch with her. As a result, several more SOE agents walked into traps and were executed. Prison and Torture After her arrest in October 1943, Noor Inayat Khan was taken to the Gestapo headquarters on Avenue Foch in Paris. She was interrogated for hours at a time, and her captors quickly realised they had captured someone of value. As an SOE wireless operator, she had access to codes and procedures that could unravel entire resistance networks. Despite the beatings and threats, Noor refused to cooperate. Her spirit was noted even by her enemies: one Gestapo officer later described her as “highly dangerous,” not because of weapons or violence, but because of her quiet determination not to betray her comrades. In November 1943, she was transferred to Pforzheim prison in southwest Germany. There she was kept in solitary confinement for nearly ten months, an extraordinarily long time for an SOE prisoner. She was shackled hand and foot for much of this period, a measure normally reserved for the most violent offenders. Guards were instructed never to speak to her, and she endured repeated beatings during interrogations. Yet even under such brutal treatment, Noor held firm. She revealed nothing of operational value, and in moments of courage she tried to communicate with other prisoners. One surviving inmate later testified that Noor managed to scratch her name and her London address onto a bowl — a small act of defiance that proved she had not been broken. Dachau and Death In September 1944, with the Allies advancing through France, the Gestapo decided to move their most “difficult” female prisoners out of local prisons. Noor, along with fellow SOE agents Yolande Beekman, Madeleine Damerment, and Eliane Plewman, was taken from Pforzheim. On 11 September, they were transported to Dachau concentration camp. Unlike many prisoners sent there, Noor and her companions were not intended for forced labour or long-term internment. Their transfer was an administrative step toward execution. Witness accounts from Dachau suggest that Noor’s final hours were marked by both extraordinary cruelty and extraordinary dignity. The women were held overnight. On the morning of 13 September 1944, they were led out to a secluded part of the camp. According to post-war testimonies from camp officials and later investigations, the women were beaten savagely before being executed. Friedrich Wilhelm Ruppert Noor was singled out for harsher treatment. She was beaten by Wilhelm Ruppert, the camp’s executioner, until she was barely conscious. Even then, she is reported to have cried out one final word — “Liberté”  (“Freedom”) — before being shot in the back of the head. She was only thirty years old. The brutality of her death shocked even those who investigated it years later. The war crimes trial at Dachau after the liberation revealed the cold efficiency of the execution, but also underlined Noor’s refusal to surrender her principles. Unlike some prisoners who were broken down through torture, Noor never provided information that endangered others. Her silence cost her life but preserved the lives of many resistance members. Legacy of Courage Noor Inayat Khan’s life may have ended in brutality, but her legacy endured. In the years following the war, she was posthumously awarded the George Cross by Britain and the Croix de Guerre by France. Today, her memory is honoured across Europe. A blue plaque marks her former home on Taviton Street in Bloomsbury, London. At Dachau, a plaque commemorates her sacrifice. In 2012, Princess Anne unveiled a bronze bust of Noor in Gordon Square Gardens, close to where she once lived. Her story remains powerful precisely because she seemed so unlikely a spy – a gentle writer of children’s stories, a musician, a dreamer. Yet, as one SOE officer later reflected, it was often the most unassuming recruits who showed the greatest courage. Plaque honouring Noor Inayat Khan, Memorial Hall, Dachau Concentration Camp Sources Basu, Shrabani. Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan . The History Press, 2006. Foot, M.R.D. SOE in France . Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1966. Helm, Sarah. A Life in Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Missing Agents of WWII . Abacus, 2005. Owen, James. Nuremberg: Evil on Trial . Headline Review, 2006. (contains context on SOE operations and captured agents). National Archives UK – Special Operations Executive files (HS 9/836/5, HS 9/836/6). https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C10445448 Imperial War Museums – Biography: Noor Inayat Khan GChttps:// www.iwm.org.uk/history/noor-inayat-khan Commonwealth War Graves Commission – Noor Inayat Khanhttps:// www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/325727/noor-inayat-khan/ BBC News – “Princess who became a spy honoured with London statue” (2012) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20233898 English Heritage – Blue Plaque for Noor Inayat Khanhttps:// www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/noor-inayat-khan/ Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial – Plaques for executed SOE agentshttps:// www.kz-gedenkstaette-dachau.de/en/

Picture it: San Francisco, 1903. Automobiles were still “devil wagons” in the eyes of many, noisy, dusty contraptions that frightened horses and infuriated pedestrians. Vermont had even passed a law requiring a man with a red flag to walk in front of every car. Outside of major cities, spotting one of these machines was almost like seeing a UFO today. Into this world walked Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson, a wealthy, 31-year-old physician who had recently “succumbed completely to a primary enthusiasm for the newfangled horseless buggy.” At the University Club in San Francisco, during a lively evening of drinks and debate, someone insisted a car could never cross the United States. Jackson disagreed. A $50 bet (about $1,750 today) was made, and America’s first road trip was born. A Doctor With No Car, No Map, and No Experience Jackson, already nicknamed “The Mad Doctor”, had little driving experience, no maps, and not even a car. What he did have was optimism, and money from his wife Bertha’s wealthy family. Within days, he purchased a 20-horsepower, two-cylinder Winton touring car, nicknamed it the Vermont, and roped in a 22-year-old bicycle mechanic turned chauffeur, Sewall K. Crocker, to come along as driver, repairman, and general problem solver. The pair stuffed the Vermont with gear: spare parts, coats, blankets, a block and tackle, canteens, firearms, tools, and a Kodak camera. Jackson even strapped a single spare tire to the side of the car, blissfully unaware it would be shredded almost immediately. On May 23, 1903, they rolled out of the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, made it a few blocks to the ferry terminal, and crossed to Oakland. The first breakdown came 15 miles later, when a tire blew. “Discovering their loss, Jackson and Crocker determined that living off the countryside or starving was less to be feared than a return trip,” wrote Jackson’s friend Ralph Nading Hill in The Mad Doctor’s Drive . This set the tone for the journey ahead. Crocker washing engine oil off himself. Roads That Were Barely Roads In 1903, America had very few paved roads, and most people rarely travelled more than 12 miles from home. Outside of cities, “roads” were really wagon trails — “a compound of ruts, bumps, and thank-you-marms,” as Jackson later put it. It cost him dearly. By the time the journey was done, he had spent around $8,000 (the equivalent of over $250,000 today), scattered a trail of broken parts and discarded tools across the continent, and lost more pairs of eyeglasses than he cared to admit. Along the way, they endured endless flat tires, fuel shortages, and mechanical failures. Crocker became a master of improvisation, once convincing a farmer to part with the wheel bearings from his mowing machine so the Vermont could roll on. At one point, they had to use their block and tackle seventeen times in a single day to drag the car out of Nebraska mudholes. Jackson later remembered that day: “We worked from 5 o’clock in the morning till dark, and then we made but sixteen miles.” It was exhausting, expensive, and often demoralising — but also unlike anything America had seen before. Enter Bud, the Bulldog By the time they reached Caldwell, Idaho, Jackson decided what the trip really needed was a dog. For $15, he bought a bulldog named Bud. The alkali dust burned the dog’s eyes so badly that Jackson fitted him with his own pair of goggles, creating one of the most iconic images of the early automobile age: Bud the Bulldog riding shotgun in style. “Bud was the only one of the trio who used no profanity on the entire trip,” Jackson quipped. Newspapers went wild for Bud. From then on, he was as famous as the car itself, sometimes called “the chauffeur.” Children closed their schools just to see him roll into town. A Traveling Circus Everywhere they went, the Vermont drew crowds. Many rural Americans had never seen an automobile before. Some thought it looked like a runaway train car. Others threw up steel cables across roads to stop the “devil wagons.” Jackson recalled: “We would simply telephone ahead that we were coming, and the principals would close up the district schools in the villages so as to allow the children and others to see us go by.” But their celebrity didn’t save them from mishaps. Jackson lost his coat, along with most of his cash, and had to wire his wife to send money. They endured a 36-hour stretch without food in Wyoming before a sheepherder fed them roast lamb and corn. They also battled through what Jackson called the “buffalo wallows” of Nebraska: stretches of land so battered by rain that they swallowed car wheels whole. Horatio Nelson Jackson, Sewall Crocker, and Bud the Bulldog Against the Odds, They Made It On July 26, 1903, after 63 days, 12 hours, and 30 minutes, Horatio Nelson Jackson, Sewall Crocker, and Bud the Bulldog rolled into New York City. They had covered around 4,200 miles, burned through 800 gallons of gasoline, and won the bet that many thought was madness. Amusingly, Jackson never collected the $50. The money didn’t matter. He had proven that cars weren’t just toys for the rich. They could cross a continent. The final leg back to Vermont was classic Jackson. His car broke down 15 miles from home. His brothers came to help, and their cars broke down too. In the end, Jackson towed both of them home, only for the Vermont’s drive chain to snap at the threshold of his garage. Why It Mattered At the time, America’s frontier was considered closed. The railroads had knitted the nation together, but cars were still novelties. Jackson’s journey helped shift public perception. Roger White, curator at the Smithsonian’s America on the Move  exhibition, later called it: “A pivotal moment in American automotive history. The Jackson-Crocker trip excited people across the nation. It got people thinking about long-distance highways.” In fact, Jackson’s mad gamble paved the way (literally) for the Good Roads Movement, the eventual building of the interstate highway system, and the car culture that defined the 20th century. Motels, fast-food chains, road trips — all trace a line back to that wager in San Francisco. A Journey Remembered One hundred years later, in 2003, orthodontist and antique car museum owner Peter Kesling set out in his own 1903 Winton to recreate the journey. He admitted: “In the last three months I’ve been driving it every day in preparation for the trip and every day something breaks. That’s why I’m optimistic. Everything that can break has broken already.” Filmmaker Ken Burns was there to document it, along with author Dayton Duncan, who summed up Jackson’s legacy: “Horatio was the big guy on the road with a brand new car. He was frightening horses. Peter’s car is 100 years old, and he has to worry about semi-trucks.” That’s the contrast: in 1903, Jackson was proving that cars could move at all. Today, the roads he dreamed of are so crowded we can hardly imagine a world without them. Final Thoughts Horatio Nelson Jackson didn’t set out to change history. He just wanted to win a bet, have an adventure, and maybe prove a point. But in the process, with Crocker at the wheel and Bud riding proudly in goggles, he helped launch America into the age of the automobile. He later summed it up simply: “Fun we have had and plenty of it, and we’re looked upon as a traveling circus.” Over a century later, his circus still inspires anyone who’s ever felt the urge to pack up, hit the open road, and see just how far a little mad optimism can take you. Sources Horatio Nelson Jackson, Personal Accounts of the 1903 Journey Ralph Nading Hill, The Mad Doctor’s Drive Peter Cohan, Horatio’s Drive: America’s First Road Trip  (PBS Documentary, 2003) Smithsonian National Museum of American History, “Horatio Nelson Jackson’s 1903 Cross-Country Trip” Dayton Duncan & Ken Burns, Horatio’s Drive: America’s First Road Trip  (companion book, 2003) San Francisco Chronicle archives, 1903 & 2003 retrospective coverage https://www.pbs.org/horatio/ https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1303437

If there is a business with more books written about it than Guinness, it is hard to find. This is effectively a one product company, yet it has inspired tens of millions of words. There are at least eighteen substantial books covering the brewery, the people, the product, and the advertising, four of them by people actually called Guinness. On top of those, there are the pocket handbooks the company gave to visitors at St James’s Gate between 1928 and 1955. And yet, despite the shelves of Guinnessiana, myths and misunderstandings continue to swirl around the brand like the creamy head of a pint. For all the words written, a surprising amount of Guinness folklore still gets repeated as if it were gospel. The early years in particular are a tangle of half truths and wishful thinking. There are still confident claims about Arthur Guinness’s exact date of birth. There is still the story that the secret of Guinness was a uniquely magical family yeast that Arthur carried with him like a relic when he moved to Dublin. The brewery’s own records contradict that. As early as 1810 to 1812, and very likely before, St James’s Gate was borrowing yeast from seven different breweries. Not quite the image of a single sacred strain passed down through the ages. What makes Guinness so fascinating is that the myths sit alongside real stories that are far stranger than most people realise. There was a scandal in the late 1830s that nearly blew up the partnership. There was the managing director who suffered a sudden attack of insanity and had to be carried out of the brewery in a straitjacket in 1895. And there were later generations who lived gilded, extravagant lives in the twentieth century, rubbing shoulders with aristocracy, artists, musicians, and the Beatles. Five Guinness myths that refuse to quit Arthur Guinness was born in 1725 on 24 September in Celbridge. The Dictionary of Irish Biography gives 12 March 1725. His gravestone in Oughterard, however, records that he died on 23 January 1803 “aged 78.” That means he must have been born between 24 January 1724 and 23 January 1725. His exact birthday is unknown. Arthur Guinness Arthur’s father brewed for Archbishop Price and taught his son the craft. Richard Guinness was land steward to the future Archbishop of Cashel, but there is no evidence that he brewed. Large houses often had their own brewing operation, but that work would usually be done by servants rather than the steward. The idea of Arthur learning his trade from his father on the estate has no proof. The Archbishop’s bequest of £100 funded the first brewery. Arthur and Richard each received £100 when Archbishop Price died in 1752, but Arthur did not buy the Leixlip brewery until 1755. The bulk of the funds almost certainly came from Richard’s savings and his time running the White Hart inn in Celbridge. Guinness was always brewed with roasted barley. Unmalted barley was illegal when Arthur started brewing. Roasted barley only entered Guinness recipes around 1929–30. The dark colour of early porter came from dark malts, not roasted barley. The famous nine thousand year lease showed Arthur’s supreme confidence. It makes a good story, but the lease was almost certainly a legal workaround to avoid transferring the freehold outright. It was more property fix than prophecy. The scandal that almost ended Guinness By 1839, Arthur Guinness II, son of the founder, was in his seventies and easing out of daily control. His two sons, Benjamin Lee and Arthur Lee, had been raised to run the brewery. On paper it looked secure. In practice it was anything but. Arthur Lee lived in an apartment inside the St James’s Gate complex. He collected art, wrote poetry, sealed letters with a Greek god, and filled his rooms with Chinese furniture, knick-knacks, statues and a fountain that played into a willow tree. In the spring of 1839 the brewery hired an 18-year-old clerk, Dionysius Boursiquot. Slim, lively and handsome, he later changed his name to Dion Boucicault and became one of Ireland’s most famous playwrights. Arthur Lee became besotted. The Guinness archives suggest Arthur Lee began issuing notes on the partnership without his father or brother’s knowledge. The inference is that he was giving money to Boucicault, or was being blackmailed. Whatever the truth, the sums were serious. In a surviving letter to his father, Arthur Lee confessed with anguish: “My dear Father, I well know it is impossible to justify to you my conduct … Believe me above all that for worlds I would not hurt your mind if I could avoid it. Your feelings are most sacred to me.” Boucicault was soon paid off. By 1840 he was in London with enough money to buy a horse and carriage and entertain friends. Arthur Lee left the partnership with £12,000 to buy a home at Stillorgan Park, where he lived in flamboyant style, hosting dukes and earls while a blind harper played melodies in the garden. At one point, the scandal threatened to dissolve the partnership entirely – which would have meant the end of Guinness. Only the determination of Benjamin Lee and others kept the brewery alive. Edward Guinness, 1st Earl of Iveagh The day the managing director lost his mind By the 1880s, Edward Guinness, Arthur Lee’s nephew, was in charge. He was ambitious but enjoyed the good life, delegating the hard graft to his wife’s brother Claude. Claude was brilliant, Oxford-educated, and became managing director. Edward focused on shooting grouse in Scotland and yachting with the Prince of Wales. In 1890 the brewery floated as a public company. Edward was ennobled as Lord Iveagh and bought Elveden Hall in Suffolk. But in 1895, disaster struck. Claude suffered a sudden breakdown at St James’s Gate and had to be carried out in a straitjacket. Rumours suggested syphilis, though evidence is lacking. Within weeks he was dead at 43. The shock tore through the brewery, and Edward was forced back into direct control for decades. Some later argued that Guinness’s sluggish response to post–First World War challenges stemmed from this moment, Claude’s death cut short a more modernising path. The Guinnesses in the 20th century By 1900, Guinness was the largest brewery in the world, and the family were among Britain’s richest dynasties. Their wealth, homes, and social lives made them prominent in both Ireland and England. Three sisters: Aileen (1904-99), Maureen (1907-98) and Oonagh Guinness (1910-95) The “Golden Guinnesses” In the 1920s and 1930s, three glamorous sisters – Aileen, Maureen, and Oonagh – became known as the “Golden Guinnesses.” Aileen Guinness  married Brinsley Plunket and became a celebrated London hostess. Maureen Guinness  married Basil Blackwood and moved in Anglo-Irish political and social circles. Oonagh Guinness , perhaps the most dazzling, married first Philip Kindersley and later Dominick Browne, 4th Baron Oranmore and Browne. She presided over Luggala, her Wicklow estate, which became a haven for writers, artists, and musicians. The sisters were painted by Cecil Beaton , photographed for society magazines, and written about endlessly. They defined interwar glamour and reinforced the Guinness family’s place at the centre of cultural life. Tara Browne and Swinging London In the 1960s, the Guinness connection shifted from society salons to rock and roll. Tara Browne, Oonagh’s son, was born in 1945 and grew up amid privilege, but embraced the bohemian spirit of Chelsea. With striking looks, charisma, and sharp style, he became a central figure in Swinging London. Tara was friends with Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones , Paul McCartney, and John Lennon . He moved between Chelsea parties, Carnaby Street boutiques, and London clubs. He was known for his taste in fashion, his quick wit, and his reckless driving in his Lotus Elan. Tara Browne On 18 December 1966, Tara ran a red light in South Kensington and was killed in a crash. He was only twenty one. His death stunned London’s artistic elite. John Lennon used it as inspiration for the opening lines of A Day in the Life : “He blew his mind out in a car. He did not notice that the lights had changed.” Paul McCartney later explained that while Lennon’s words referred directly to Tara, the song became a wider meditation on news and mortality. Tara’s brief life was thus set forever inside one of the Beatles’ most enduring works. A darker modern thread: Lord Moyne and the so called curse The twentieth century also brought events that shaped a persistent narrative of misfortune. Lord Moyne Born in 1880, Walter Edward Guinness, later Lord Moyne, was the great great grandson of Arthur Guinness, a friend of Winston Churchill , and the British minister resident in the Middle East. As historian Bernard Wasserstein relates, on 6 November 1944, Moyne arrived at his Cairo residence with his chauffeur, secretary, and ADC. Two young men stood near the entrance. They attacked the party, shot the chauffeur in the chest, and fired three shots at Moyne through the car window. The driver died at once. Moyne was taken to hospital, operated upon, and died later that day. The assassins, caught while fleeing, were identified as members of Lohamei Herut Yisrael, also known as Lehi, the Fighters for the Freedom of Israel. The killing resonated across British politics and the region and is often cited as the first major modern tragedy to fuel later talk of a curse upon the family. Lord Moyne's funeral Bryan and Diana Guinness Years earlier, there had been scandal of a different kind. Bryan Guinness, son of Lord Moyne, gentle and eager to please, married Diana Mitford in 1929. They were bright ornaments of the Bright Young People , the set of aristocratic London socialites whose parties inspired Evelyn Waugh. His novel Vile Bodies was dedicated to the pair. It fell apart in 1932 when Diana met Sir Oswald Mosley, who became leader of the British Union of Fascists, and began an affair. She left Bryan and their two children, and married Mosley in Berlin in 1936 with Adolf Hitler among the guests. During the war Diana and Mosley were imprisoned without trial. The glamour of the early years curdled into notoriety. Lady Henrietta Guinness Tara Browne’s half sister, Lady Henrietta, lived a cosmopolitan life and mixed with artists and writers. She survived a near fatal car crash on the French Riviera when her boyfriend, the beatnik Michael Beeby, crashed his flame red Aston Martin. She later lived in Spoleto with Luigi Marinori and had a daughter. Treated for depression, she died in 1978 at thirty five after jumping from the Ponte delle Torri. She once said, “If I had been poor I would have been happy.” 1978 and a cluster of losses That year proved grim for the wider family. Diplomat John Guinness survived a car crash in which his four year old son Peter died. A seventeen year old member of the family died of a suspected drug overdose. Major Dennys Guinness was found dead in a Hampshire cottage after recent questioning over possible firearms offences. The sense of a run of terrible luck grew. Maureen Guinness and a troubled next generation Maureen, one of the Golden Guinness sisters, was famous for social ambition and sharpness. Her daughters often felt neglected and acted out. Lady Caroline Blackwood, her eldest, became a celebrated muse and writer. Her life was turbulent. Her daughter, Natalya Citkowitz, died in 1978 at eighteen after hitting her head and drowning while using heroin. The Independent later wrote up the pattern of addiction and instability that haunted this branch of the family. The kidnapping of Jennifer Guinness In April 1986, banker John Guinness, chairman of Guinness and Mahon and a sixth cousin of the brewery chairman, returned home in Dublin to find his wife and daughter tied up. The attackers abducted his wife, Jennifer, and demanded a ransom of 2.6 million dollars. She was rescued eight days later without payment after a major police operation. The shock did not end there. Two years later, in 1988, John died after a fall of five hundred feet while climbing Snowdon with his family. The death of Olivia Channon Also in 1986, Oxford’s Christ Church College saw the death of twenty two year old Olivia Channon, daughter of Trade and Industry Secretary Paul Channon and an heiress to the Guinness fortune. She was found dead in a student room after taking heroin and alcohol. Three people were charged for supplying heroin, among them her friend Rosie Johnston and her third cousin Sebastian Guinness, who received a short prison term for possession. The case became a stark symbol of drug use among the wealthy. The Bismarck shadow The room belonged to Count Gottfried von Bismarck. He was fined for possession and told the incident would shadow him. He later fell into a destructive spiral. After a series of wild parties, he died in 2007 at forty four with extreme levels of cocaine in his system. Though not a Guinness, the sad arc of his life became entangled with the memory of Olivia’s death. Sheelin Rose Nugent In 1998, Sheelin Rose Nugent, niece of the Earl of Iveagh, died in a freak accident while driving a horse drawn Romany caravan near her mother’s home on her mother’s birthday. Something spooked the horse and the wagon overturned. There were no other vehicles and no clear cause. She was an experienced horsewoman. The mystery only deepened the family’s sense of hard luck. Honor Uloth In 2020, nineteen year old Honor Uloth, granddaughter of Benjamin Guinness the third Earl of Iveagh, died after an accident at a family gathering in Sussex. After time in a hot tub, she took a swim alone. She was later found at the bottom of the pool with a broken shoulder and severe brain injuries. It is thought she struck her head as she entered the water. She died six days later. The family spoke of her having spent the day among people and pastimes she loved. These events do not prove a curse. They do show how a famous name becomes a lens through which chance, risk, wealth, addiction, and pressure are read. The Guinness story contains both glamour and grief, sometimes in the same generation. A last word and one good thirst Guinness is a rare thing. A single drink that became a global symbol. A family business that grew into a corporate empire while still feeling oddly personal. The truth is tangled. Some of the best known stories are wrong. Some of the least known are so human that the harp strings almost sound as the page turns. There is still plenty left to discover. The archives will always keep a few secrets. New writers will keep adding to the shelf. In the meantime, next time someone swears that Arthur signed a nine thousand year lease because he knew he would change the world, smile, take a sip and remember that good brewing and good storytelling both rely on careful work, not magic. Ten books on Guinness that are worth the pour The Guinnesses  by Joe Joyce (2009) – The best general overview of the family and the brewery, lively and thorough. Arthur’s Round  by Patrick Guinness (2008) – Excellent on the early years and the roots of Arthur Guinness I. Guinness’s Brewery in the Irish Economy 1759–1876  by Patrick Lynch and John Vaizey (1960) – A pioneering business history. Guinness 1886–1939: From Incorporation to the Second World War  by S. R. Dennison and Oliver MacDonagh (1998) – Detailed and scholarly. A Bottle of Guinness Please  by David Hughes (2008) – Packed with detail on bottling, exporting, and brewing practices. The Book of Guinness Advertising  by Jim Davies (1998) – Lavishly illustrated, covering Guinness’s long run of iconic adverts. The Guinness Book of Guinness  by Edward Guinness (1988) – A massive collection of anecdotes about the Park Royal brewery. Requiem for a Family Business  by Jonathan Guinness (1997) – An insider’s account of the decline of family control. The Guinness Spirit  by Michele Guinness (1998) – A broad look at the family beyond brewing, including missionaries and bankers. Guinness Times: My Days in the World’s Most Famous Brewery  by Al Byrne (1999) – A memoir from the inside, warm and insightful. Sources Joe Joyce, The Guinnesses  (Gill & Macmillan, 2009) Patrick Guinness, Arthur’s Round  (Liberties Press, 2008) Patrick Lynch & John Vaizey, Guinness’s Brewery in the Irish Economy 1759–1876  (Cambridge University Press, 1960) S. R. Dennison & Oliver MacDonagh, Guinness 1886–1939: From Incorporation to the Second World War  (Cork University Press, 1998) David Hughes, A Bottle of Guinness Please  (Phimboy, 2008) Jim Davies, The Book of Guinness Advertising  (Hamlyn, 1998) Edward Guinness, The Guinness Book of Guinness  (Secker & Warburg, 1988) Jonathan Guinness, Requiem for a Family Business  (Palgrave Macmillan, 1997) Michele Guinness, The Guinness Spirit  (Hodder & Stoughton, 1998) Al Byrne, Guinness Times: My Days in the World’s Most Famous Brewery  (Gill & Macmillan, 1999) Cecil Beaton portraits of the Guinness Sisters, National Portrait Gallery John Lennon & Paul McCartney, interviews on A Day in the Life  (Beatles Anthology, 1995) “The Death of Tara Browne,” The Guardian , December 1966 “The Golden Guinness Girls,” Irish Times , September 2020

Born on August 17, 1893, Mary Jane “Mae” West was a pioneer in the realms of entertainment and free speech. From her earliest years, West possessed a unique ability to captivate audiences. Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, she began performing in local theatre groups when she was just seven years old, honing her skills in front of enthusiastic crowds. By the age of 14, she joined a vaudeville tour, performing across the country. Vaudeville was a lively mix of variety acts, including songs, dances, and comedy routines, where West cut her teeth as an entertainer. Breaking into Broadway and Stirring Controversy By 18, Mae West made her Broadway debut, launching a career that would span over 15 years. She continued to sing and dance in both Broadway and vaudeville shows, but her talents weren’t confined to the stage. In 1926, West made the bold decision to write, produce, and star in her own plays. Her first self-penned production, Sex , was both a sensation and a scandal. Playing a prostitute, West pushed the boundaries of what was considered acceptable on stage. The provocative title, accompanied by garish posters proclaiming “Sex with Mae West,” sparked outrage among moral guardians, political figures, and sections of the public. After a flood of complaints, West was arrested, and the police shut down the show. She was ultimately sentenced to 10 days in jail for "corrupting the morals of youth." Not one to back down, West followed up with another provocative play, The Pleasure Man , tackling homosexuality, a taboo subject for the time. Despite her innovative work, the play was shut down after just one performance, and West faced another obscenity charge. Though the jury couldn’t reach a verdict, West’s battle with censorship intensified. Her next play, The Constant Sinner , met a similar fate, closing after just two performances under pressure from the District Attorney. Hollywood Beckons: A New Chapter Despite repeated censorship battles on Broadway, West’s daring work attracted the attention of Hollywood. At the age of 38, when most actresses were winding down their careers, Paramount Pictures offered her a contract worth $5,000 a week, a sum equivalent to about $80,000 today. In a groundbreaking move, West secured the right to rewrite her lines, allowing her to preserve her trademark wit and persona on screen. A pair of "trick" platform shoes worn by West in films to make her look taller, which also contributed to her unique walk Her first film appearance came in Night After Night  (1932), where she famously responded to a hat-check girl who commented on her beautiful diamonds: “Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie.” This playful blend of sexuality and wit would become her signature style. The following year, West starred in She Done Him Wrong  (1933), opposite a young Cary Grant in his film debut. The line “Come up and see me sometime” from this film became one of her most enduring catchphrases. Her bold portrayal of a woman comfortable with her sexuality helped make the film a massive hit. Nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award, it grossed over $2 million (approximately $140 million today) and played a key role in saving Paramount from bankruptcy. The Battle Against Censorship Mae West’s rise to fame came during an era of strict censorship in Hollywood. The early 20th century was governed by a complex web of local censorship boards, and later, the Hays Code, a set of moral guidelines that sought to sanitise the film industry. Prior to the Hays Code’s full implementation in the 1930s, local boards exercised significant control over film content, resulting in inconsistencies across different regions. What was deemed acceptable in one city could be censored in another. Despite these obstacles, West thrived, using her clever writing to skirt the boundaries of censorship. While her scripts often contained risqué material, she employed wit and innuendo to soften the impact. By leaving some of the suggestiveness to the audience’s imagination, West was able to convey powerful messages while often staying just within the limits of the censors’ scrutiny. Her ability to present taboo subjects through comedy became her signature weapon in the ongoing struggle against censorship. Her arrest for Sex  in 1926 was a turning point. West was charged with obscenity and sentenced to 10 days in jail for “corrupting the morals of youth.” However, her time behind bars only added to her mystique, and she remained defiant. In 1929, West wrote: “What few people realise is that my work has a deliberate plan and purpose… It is usually long after the death of pioneers that their work is respected and the truths they stood for recognised. Because of narrow-minded censors and silly taboos the people are unable to learn truths they are starving for… thousands of women have asked me the most personal questions about their husbands and love life… They know nothing about sex at all, for the subject is hidden from children, kept out of our books and schools and education.” This bold statement revealed the extent of her frustration with censorship and the moral restrictions of the time. West understood that by discussing topics like sex, relationships, and gender openly, she could help educate people, particularly women, about issues that were often swept under the rug. Her refusal to be silenced contributed to the gradual relaxation of censorship standards in the entertainment industry. A Lasting Legacy Mae West’s legacy as a provocateur and pioneer of free speech extended far beyond her lifetime. By the time the Hays Code era gave way to the MPAA film rating system in the 1960s, West’s earlier battles had helped pave the way for greater freedom of expression in cinema. Her influence can still be felt today, as films and television shows now tackle a wide range of topics that were once considered off-limits. Even late in her life, West’s reputation as a cultural icon remained strong. When The Beatles asked permission to feature her likeness on the cover of their Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band  album in 1967, West quipped, “What would I be doing in a lonely hearts club?” Yet she graciously agreed to the request, forever solidifying her place in pop culture history. Mae West was a woman ahead of her time—a trailblazer who dared to challenge societal norms and confront censorship with wit and humour. Her influence on free speech, especially in the realm of sex and gender, cannot be overstated. Though she passed away on November 22, 1980, at the age of 87, her legacy endures. If you believe in freedom of speech, you owe a debt of gratitude to Mae West. Through her work, she pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable, and in doing so, she helped shape a world where artists could express themselves more freely. While you're here, enjoy a few Mae West quotes. ------------- • “When I’m good, I’m very good, but when I’m bad, I’m better.” • “I generally avoid temptation unless I can’t resist it.” • “Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.” • “It’s not the men in my life that count, it’s the life in my men.” • “You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” • “I never said it would be easy, I only said it would be worth it.” • “I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.” • “Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.” • “A hard man is good to find.” • “I always say, keep a diary and someday it’ll keep you.” • “Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere.” • “Marriage is a great institution, but I’m not ready for an institution.” • “An ounce of performance is worth pounds of promises.” • “I’m no angel, but I’ve spread my wings a bit.” • “Give a man a free hand and he’ll run it all over you.” • “Don’t keep a man guessing too long—he’s sure to find the answer somewhere else.” • “It’s better to be looked over than overlooked.” • “Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly.” • “He who hesitates is a damned fool.” • “Love conquers all things except poverty and toothache.” • “Every man I meet wants to protect me. I can’t figure out what from.” • “I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it.” • “A dame that knows the ropes isn’t likely to get tied up.” • “Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?” • “I’m no model lady. A model’s just an imitation of the real thing.” • “You’re never too old to become younger.” • “When women go wrong, men go right after them.” • “I’ll try anything once, twice if I like it, three times to make sure.” • “To err is human, but it feels divine.” • “Too much of a good thing can be taxing.” • “A man in the house is worth two in the street.” • “I speak two languages—Body and English.” • “It ain’t no sin if you crack a few laws now and then, just so long as you don’t break any.” • “I never loved another person the way I loved myself.” • “His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.” Sources Eells, George.  Mae West: A Biography . William Morrow & Company, 1982. Morris, Jane Gaines.  Fire and Desire: Mixed-Race Movies in the Silent Era . University of Chicago Press, 2001. (Discusses West’s cultural impact.) Watts, Jill.  Mae West: An Icon in Black and White . Oxford University Press, 2001. Parish, James Robert, and Vincent Terrace. The MGM Stock Company: The Golden Era . Arlington House, 1973. (Covers studio conflicts and censorship battles.) American Film Institute (AFI) – Mae West film entries: https://catalog.afi.com Biography.com – Mae West profile: https://www.biography.com/actors/mae-west PBS American Masters – Mae West : https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/mae-west-about-mae-west/634/ The New York Times Archive – Mae West obituaries and features: https://www.nytimes.com Encyclopaedia Britannica – Mae West entry: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mae-West Library of Congress – National Film Registry (for films like She Done Him Wrong ): https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/

In 1971, the Attica Correctional Facility in New York became the centre of one of the bloodiest and most significant prison uprisings in American history. The Attica prison riots exposed the brutal conditions within the American penal system and ignited a national conversation about prisoners' rights, racial inequality, and state violence. Over the course of five days, the world witnessed a violent confrontation that led to the deaths of 43 people, including prison guards, staff, and inmates, and left a lasting legacy on the American prison system. Overcrowding and Brutal Conditions Attica Correctional Facility was meant to hold 1,600 inmates, but by 1971, it housed around 2,200 prisoners. This overcrowding led to rationing of essential supplies, worsening already inhumane conditions. Prisoners were allotted just one roll of toilet paper per month and permitted only one shower per week. They spent 14 to 16 hours a day confined to their cells, with limited access to reading materials, and their mail was heavily censored. Visits from family members were conducted through mesh screens, eliminating any physical contact. Medical care was disgraceful, and racism was rampant throughout the prison. As one historian later noted, "Prisoners spent 14 to 16 hours a day in their cells, their mail was read, their reading material restricted, their visits from families conducted through a mesh screen, their medical care disgraceful, their parole system inequitable, racism everywhere." These conditions created a climate ripe for rebellion, and by September 1971, the prisoners had reached their breaking point. The Uprising Begins On the morning of September 9, 1971, tensions finally boiled over. Just after dawn, as inmates were on their way to breakfast, a small group of prisoners overpowered nearby guards and made their way through a shoddy gate into the heart of the prison, known as "Times Square." The number of rioters quickly swelled to over 1,200 as prisoners from across the facility joined the revolt. Armed with homemade weapons, including shivs and clubs, the inmates attacked prison officers, severely injuring several and killing one guard, William Quinn, who would later die from his injuries. State Troopers outside the prison The inmates seized control of multiple cell blocks and burned down the prison chapel, signalling their control over the facility. Meanwhile, state police quickly regained control of most of the prison, but by the time they had done so, 1,281 prisoners had taken 39 guards and prison employees hostage and retreated to an exercise yard known as D Yard. The Prisoners’ Demands The prisoners were not acting purely out of anger; they had clear demands for reform. Soon after taking control of D Yard, they began organising themselves, forming a governing body that designated some inmates to act as security, others as medics, and still others as negotiators. They also set about drafting a list of demands, which they titled The Attica Liberation Faction Manifesto of Demands . This document outlined 33 specific requests, ranging from better medical treatment to more religious freedoms. They demanded basic necessities such as daily showers and more than one roll of toilet paper per month, and they called for an end to physical abuse by prison guards. The prisoners also requested amnesty for their actions during the uprising, a point that would prove contentious during negotiations. They called for outside observers to oversee the negotiations and ensure fair treatment. Among those invited were civil rights attorney William Kunstler, New York Times columnist Tom Wicker, Minister Louis Farrakhan, and Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale. While some, like Farrakhan, declined to participate, others, including Seale and Wicker, agreed to meet with the prisoners. The Stand-off Negotiations initially seemed promising. New York Commissioner of Corrections Russell Oswald agreed to 28 of the prisoners’ demands, and talks between the inmates and state officials moved forward. However, the issue of amnesty remained unresolved, and as time passed, the situation grew more tense. By the evening of September 12, both Oswald and New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller had decided that the time for negotiation was over. They began preparing to retake the prison by force. At 8:25 a.m. on the morning of September 13, Oswald delivered a final ultimatum to the prisoners, demanding their full surrender. The response from the inmates was immediate: they placed knives against the throats of the hostages and prepared for battle. Meanwhile, state police and National Guard troops surrounded the prison, helicopters hovered overhead, and hundreds of officers stood ready to storm the yard. The main yard during the uprising. At precisely 9:46 a.m., the helicopters dropped tear gas over D Yard, and within moments, the assault began. State police, correctional officers, sheriff's deputies, and park police officers stormed into the yard, guns blazing. Armed with shotguns loaded with buckshot and unjacketed ammunition in violation of the Geneva Convention, they unleashed a brutal assault on the inmates. Thousands of rounds were fired into the smoke-filled yard, killing 29 inmates and 10 of the hostages and wounding 89 others. The Aftermath The attack was over within 20 minutes, but the violence did not end there. Prisoners who had surrendered were subjected to brutal reprisals. They were forced to run a gauntlet of officers wielding nightsticks and ordered to crawl naked over broken glass. Some inmates were shot after they had already surrendered, and others were subjected to further abuse in the days that followed. In the immediate aftermath of the assault, state officials attempted to cover up the full extent of the carnage. Both Rockefeller and Oswald claimed that the hostages had been killed by the inmates, not by the police. They even spread false rumours that one of the hostages had been castrated by the prisoners. However, autopsies quickly revealed the truth: all 10 hostages had been killed by police gunfire. This revelation sparked outrage and led to a congressional investigation into the events at Attica. The National Response The Attica prison uprising did not occur in a vacuum. It was part of a broader wave of activism and protest that was sweeping through American prisons at the time. Across the country, inmates were demanding better living conditions, fairer treatment, and an end to racial discrimination within the penal system. The federal government viewed these protests as a serious threat, and as historian Heather Ann Thompson later uncovered, officials across the federal government were deeply involved in the events at Attica from the very beginning. On the first day of the uprising, the FBI began sending memos to various branches of the military and intelligence services, including the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, CIA, and the White House. Attorney General John Mitchell was particularly concerned about the influence of leftist activists and civil rights leaders, and J. Edgar Hoover's FBI had long been monitoring and sabotaging civil rights organisations through its COINTELPRO programme. Prisoners were strip searched after the riot President Richard Nixon was also deeply involved in the government’s response to the uprising. In taped conversations with aides, Nixon expressed support for Rockefeller’s decision to use force, viewing the Attica uprising as part of a broader “black uprising” that needed to be crushed. “You see it’s the black business...he had to do it,” Nixon remarked to his aides. He believed that the brutal suppression of the uprising would send a message to activists and deter future prison riots. A Lasting Legacy The Attica prison uprising was a turning point in the history of American prisons, but its legacy is complex. On the one hand, it brought attention to the appalling conditions inside prisons and led to some reforms, particularly in regard to religious freedoms and medical care. On the other hand, many of the prisoners’ demands were never met, and the “tough on crime” policies of the 1980s and 1990s rolled back many of the gains made in the aftermath of the uprising. The uprising also had a profound impact on public perceptions of prison reform. Before the events at Attica, there was growing sympathy for prisoners' rights, and many Americans recognised the need for reform. But the violent suppression of the uprising, coupled with the misinformation spread by state officials, led to a hardening of attitudes. Many Americans came to view the inmates not as individuals seeking justice, but as dangerous criminals who needed to be controlled by any means necessary. Decades later, the legacy of Attica continues to shape the struggle for prisoners’ rights. Inmates across the United States are still fighting for many of the same basic demands made by the Attica prisoners in 1971: better living conditions, fair treatment, and an end to racial discrimination. While some progress has been made, the struggle for justice within the American penal system is far from over. Sources: Thompson, Heather Ann. Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy . Pantheon Books, 2016. Wicker, Tom. A Time to Die: The Attica Prison Revolt . Haymarket Books, 2011. United States Congress. Attica Prison Uprising, 1971: A Retrospective on the Events and their Impact on the American Justice System . Congressional Hearings, 1972.

Imagine driving across America in a beat-up rental van, sleeping on your gear, broke, hungover, and half-frozen, all for the chance to record your first album. That’s exactly how Metallica showed up in New York in April 1983. They weren’t legends yet, just four scrappy kids with big riffs and bigger dreams. By the end of that year, they’d released Kill ’Em All , an album that would change heavy metal forever. From a Newspaper Ad to a Partnership It all started back in late 1980 when Danish émigré Lars Ulrich placed an ad in The Recycler , a small Los Angeles paper, looking for musicians into the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. He name-dropped Iron Maiden, Diamond Head, and Tygers of Pan Tang, bands most Americans hadn’t even heard of. One of the few who did know them was James Hetfield, a young guitarist and vocalist with a love for punk energy and metal heaviness. He answered the ad, and after a shaky first jam, the pair formed the partnership that would become the heart of Metallica. By 1983, after a revolving door of early members, the line-up included Hetfield, Ulrich, bassist Cliff Burton, known for his wild wah-drenched solos, and fiery guitarist Dave Mustaine. But Mustaine’s drinking and volatility made him impossible to keep, and just weeks before the studio sessions he was replaced by Exodus guitarist Kirk Hammett. Johnny Z and the U-Haul Gamble The band’s big break came when New Jersey record-store owner John Zazula (Johnny Z) got hold of their demo No Life ’Til Leather . Recognising the potential, he wired the band $1,500 to drive cross-country. “They got a one-way rental: a U-Haul van and a truck,” Johnny later said. “They had two drivers, they slept in the back with all their gear, and they arrived at my front door. It was basically, ‘We’re here. What do we do next?’” What came next was a deal with Johnny’s fledgling Megaforce Records and a crash course in survival. The band first stayed at the Zazulas’ mansion until they raided the liquor cabinet and drank the champagne Johnny and Marsha had saved from their wedding. Banished, they moved into a filthy rehearsal space called The Music Building before finally heading upstate to record. Recording Kill 'Em All Haunted Studios and Stolen Amps The sessions took place at Music America Studios in Rochester, a colonial-style building with a ballroom upstairs that was perfect for drum sounds. It was also, according to Lars, haunted. “My cymbals would start spinning for no reason,” he remembered. “I had to have someone else up there with me while I was recording. It was scary.” Meanwhile, James and Kirk hunted for the guitar tone that would set Metallica apart. The secret weapon? James’s “magical, mythical Marshall”, his first amp, tweaked for extra bite. Sadly, it was stolen from a truck soon after the sessions, becoming the stuff of Metallica legend. Equipment was scarce. Both James and Kirk had just one guitar each: James with a white Flying V, Kirk with a black one. Every take meant endless retuning and restringing. There were no roadies, no techs, just the band doing everything themselves. Chaos Off the Tape If the music was disciplined, their living habits were not. Back at the studio, they trashed the place. “We totally thrashed it,” Kirk admitted later. “There was carpet in every room, including the kitchen and bathrooms. We drank 24 hours a day. Moist places shouldn’t have rugs, but there were rugs. It was a mess.” Amid the chaos, Cliff Burton recorded his iconic bass solo “(Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth.” Standing in a loft surrounded by his amps, headphones clamped on, Cliff’s distorted, almost guitar-like lines became a highlight of the record, something no other metal band would have dared to include at the time. Kill ’Em All vs. Metal Up Your Ass Money was tight. The band had just over two weeks, from 10 to 27 May, to record and mix everything. They worked marathon sessions, then drank deep into the night. When mixing time came, producer Paul Curcio and engineer Chris Bubacz locked the band out of the studio, adding reverb and effects Metallica would later criticise. Still, the raw energy of songs like “Seek & Destroy,” “Whiplash,” and “Hit the Lights” punched through. One track, “The Four Horsemen,” came from Mustaine’s old song “The Mechanix,” but James rewrote the lyrics, swapping sleazy innuendos for apocalyptic imagery. The album title caused another fight. The band wanted to call it Metal Up Your Ass , complete with cover art of a machete bursting from a toilet. Distributors flatly refused. Cliff Burton summed up their frustration: “Those record company fuckers. Kill ’em all!” The phrase stuck, and the album finally had its name. Release and Legacy Released in July 1983, Kill ’Em All  didn’t dominate the charts right away. Early pressings were limited, and the album peaked at number 120 in the US. But word spread quickly through tape trading and the underground metal scene. Within a few years, it had sold millions and become a cornerstone of thrash. “When it came out, it was the achievement of our lives,” Kirk Hammett said. “Our first album, finally on vinyl. We knew we were onto something different, but I didn’t think we’d hit the heights we eventually did. Back then, it was just about world domination.” Today, Kill ’Em All  is recognised as one of the most influential metal albums ever made, raw, fast, unpolished, and groundbreaking. It’s the sound of four young outsiders thrashing their way into history. Sources McIver, Joel. To Live Is to Die: The Life and Death of Metallica’s Cliff Burton . Jawbone Press, 2009. Wall, Mick. Enter Night: A Biography of Metallica . Orion, 2010. Metallica, So What! Magazine archives. Popoff, Martin. Metallica: The Complete Illustrated History . Voyageur Press, 2013. Interviews with Lars Ulrich, James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett, and John Zazula in Classic Rock  and Guitar World . Zazula, Jon & Marsha. Heavy Tales: The Metal. The Music. The Madness . Crazed Management, 2019.

Picture this: you’re on a flight, the usual dull hum of the engines in the background, when suddenly a voice declares, “From now on, Islam commands the plane.”  Now imagine you’re not just a passenger, but a war correspondent with a camera in your lap. What do you do? If you’re Coşkun Aral, you take one of the most bizarre sets of hijacking photos in aviation history — where both the hijacker and the pilot are smiling. A Flight That Took a Very Strange Turn On 14 October 1980, Turkish Airlines flight 293, a Boeing 727 called Diyarbakır , was on its routine run from Munich to Ankara, with a stopover in Istanbul. It should have been a straightforward journey. Instead, four radical Islamist militants seized the aircraft, announcing their plan to divert it first to Iran and then on to Afghanistan to join the mujahideen. For the passengers, the first sign that something was wrong came when the flight dragged on far longer than expected. “It was the 17:35 flight and the aircraft’s name was Diyarbakır, ” Aral later recalled. “It takes 40 minutes to get to Ankara but after an hour and a half, we still weren’t there.” When the hijackers finally made themselves known, they gave unusual instructions: women must cover their hair, if no scarf was available, a seat cover would do. “We wish no harm to anyone onboard,” they declared. “We’re fighting against the military fascist regime.” A Reporter’s Instinct Kicks In Among the passengers was Coşkun Aral, a Turkish war correspondent used to running toward chaos, not away from it. As the situation unfolded, he did something extraordinary. He picked up his camera and began taking photos, at first blindly, without even framing the shots. One hijacker walked down the aisle, and Aral, true to his profession, asked if he could do an interview. Unsurprisingly, the man said no. But a little later, another hijacker approached him and ordered him to follow. It turned out to be the break of his career. Inside the Cockpit Aral was ushered into the cockpit where he witnessed a scene that has since passed into legend. A hijacker pointed a pistol at the pilot’s neck, grinning broadly. The pilot, instead of panicking, wore a calm smile of his own. The hijackers even told Aral how they smuggled the gun on board. Their first idea had been to hollow out a copy of the Quran, but fearing sacrilege, they instead carved out space in an Arabic dictionary. The mood was almost surreal. At one point, laughter broke out. The pilot reportedly joked to the gunman not to press the weapon against his neck, he might get tickled and crash the plane. The photographs Aral snapped captured this bizarre atmosphere perfectly: men with weapons, yet smiling; a pilot in peril, yet composed. They are among the most unsettlingly human images of a hijacking ever taken. The End of the Ordeal The drama ended when the Turkish armed forces stormed the plane and subdued the hijackers. But for Aral, the ordeal didn’t finish there. Mistaken for one of the militants, he was arrested and held for four days in a Turkish prison before finally being cleared. By then, his photos had already made their way into the world. What might have been just another grim story of air piracy became a strange, almost absurd episode in history, thanks to his lens. Why the Photos Still Resonate Hijackings are normally remembered in terms of fear, violence, and tragedy. Aral’s pictures show another side: the strange human moments that emerge even in crisis. The hijacker’s grin, the pilot’s composure, the surreal laughter in the cockpit, all captured in the space of a few clicks. For Coşkun Aral, the scoop changed his life, propelling him to international recognition. For the rest of us, it’s a reminder that history isn’t just made of grand events, but of fleeting moments, strange expressions, and the courage of someone who keeps the camera rolling when everyone else freezes. Sources The New York Times – “Turkish Plane Hijacked by Islamic Group” (Oct 15, 1980) Associated Press Archives (1980 coverage of the hijacking) BBC News – Retrospectives on Turkish hijackings and 1980 political unrest Coşkun Aral – Gördüğüm Dünya  (Remzi Kitabevi, 2015) Erik J. Zürcher – Turkey: A Modern History  (I.B. Tauris, 2004) Magnum Photos – Coşkun Aral portfolio Getty Images – Photos of the 1980 hijacking by Coşkun Aral Daily Sabah – Features on Coşkun Aral and the hijacking Aviation Safety Network – Turkish Airlines flight incident archive

When people talk about the darkest figures in American crime, Albert Fish’s name almost always comes up. Born Hamilton Howard Fish on 19 May 1870 in Washington, D.C., he grew into one of the most infamous and deeply unsettling criminals of the early 20th century. His crimes were shocking, but his life story — filled with trauma, instability, and disturbing early experiences — helps explain how someone so twisted could emerge. That’s not to excuse him, but it does give us a way of asking the difficult question: why? Early Life and Troubled Beginnings Albert’s story starts with a family that was unusual from the very beginning. His father, Randall, was 75 years old when Albert was born, a former riverboat captain and fertiliser maker, while his mother, Ellen Francis Howell, was 43 years younger. Albert was the youngest of four surviving children, alongside his siblings Walter, Annie, and Edwin. After his father’s sudden death in 1875, his mother could no longer provide for him. She placed him in Saint John’s Orphanage in Washington, D.C., where he spent much of his early childhood. There, he picked up the cruel nickname “Ham and Eggs,” which he despised so much that he chose to go by “Albert” instead. The orphanage was a brutal place. Children were beaten regularly, and Albert wasn’t spared. Worse, he began to associate pain with a kind of pleasure, an unsettling link that would later shape his disturbing behaviour as an adult. St John's Orphanage Mental illness was a recurring theme in Fish’s family. His uncle suffered from mania, a brother was institutionalised, and several other relatives were diagnosed with psychiatric conditions. Fish’s mother reportedly experienced auditory and visual hallucinations. This troubling genetic legacy and early trauma contributed significantly to his increasingly disturbed behaviour. Albert Fish's Descent into Darkness: Early Adulthood Fish’s descent into criminal and deviant behaviour began ea rly. In 1882, at age 12, Fish began a relationship with a telegraph boy. The youth introduced Fish to such practices as drinking urine and eating feces. Fish began visiting public baths where he could watch other boys undress, spending a great portion of his weekends on these visits. Throughout his life, he would write obscene letters to women whose names he acquired from classified advertising and matrimonial agencies. Fish in 1889 In 1890, Fish moved to New York City, where his crimes escalated. He became a male prostitute and began targeting young boys for molestation and rape, often those under six years old. Despite this, in 1898, his mother arranged his marriage to Anna Mary Hoffman, with whom he had six children: Albert Jr., Anna, Gertrude, Eugene, John, and Henry. While he never physically harmed his children, his behaviour was far from normal, and his perverse tendencies only grew. Escalation of Violence and the Formation of a “Monster” Fish later recounted an incident in which a male lover took him to a wax museum , where he was fascinated by a bisection of a human penis and subsequently became obsessed with sexual mutilation. Several years later, around 1910, Fish met a 19-year-old man named Thomas Bedden at work. He took Bedden to where he was staying and the two began a sadomasochistic relationship; it is unclear whether or not the sadomasochism was consensual on Bedden's part, but Fish's later confession implied that Bedden was intellectually disabled . After ten days, Fish took Bedden to "an old farm house", where he tortured him over two weeks. Fish eventually tied Bedden up and cut off half of his penis. "I shall never forget his scream or the look he gave me", Fish later recalled. He originally intended to kill Bedden, cut up his body, and take it home, but he feared the hot weather would draw attention; instead, Fish poured peroxide over the wound, wrapped it in a Vaseline- covered handkerchief, left a $10 bill, kissed Bedden goodbye and left. "Took first train I could get back home. Never heard what become of him, or tried to find out," Fish recalled. After his wife left him in 1917 for another man, Fish’s mental health deteriorated further. He began hearing voices, self-mutilating, and engaging in grotesque acts such as embedding needles into his body and lighting wool soaked in lighter fluid inside his anus. X-ray of Fish's pelvis and perineum, introduced as evidence at his trial, demonstrating more than two dozen self-embedded needles By the 1920s, Fish was committing murders. He targeted children, often choosing those who were either mentally disabled or marginalised. He referred to his tools of torture as “implements of Hell,” and his acts were driven by delusions that God commanded him to harm others as penance for his sins. The Murder of Grace Budd The case that would lead to Fish’s capture was the abduction and murder of 10-year-old Grace Budd in 1928. On May 25 of that year, Fish saw a classified advertisement in the New York World that read, "Young man, 18, wishes position in country. Edward Budd, 406 West 15th Street." On May 28, Fish, then 58 years old, visited the Budd family under the pretence of hiring Edward; he later confessed that he planned to tie Edward up, mutilate him, and leave him to bleed to death. Fish introduced himself as "Frank Howard", a farmer. He promised to hire Budd and his friend and said he would send for them in a few days. Fish failed to show up, but he sent a telegram to the Budd family apologising and set a later date. When Fish returned, he met Edward's younger sister, 10-year-old Grace "Gracie" Budd. He apparently shifted his intentions toward Grace and quickly made up a story about having to attend his niece's birthday party. Grace Budd He persuaded the parents, to let Grace accompany him to the party that evening. Fish subsequently took Grace to an abandoned house he had previously picked out to use for the murder of his next victim. There, Fish manually strangled her to death, then decapitated and dismembered her body, and ate most of the remains over the next several days. Letter to the mother of Grace Budd In November 1934, an anonymous letter sent to Grace's parents ultimately led the police to Fish. Budd's mother was illiterate and could not read the letter herself, so she had her son read it to her. The unaltered letter reads: My dear Mrs. Budd, In 1894 a friend of mine shipped as a deck hand on the Steamer Tacoma, Capt. John Davis. They sailed from San Francisco for Hong Kong China. On arriving there he and two others went ashore and got drunk. When they returned the boat was gone. At that time there was famine in China. Meat of any kind was from $1 to 3 Dollars a pound. So great was the suffering among the very poor that all children under 12 were sold for food in order to keep others from starving. A boy or girl under 14 was not safe in the street. You could go in any shop and ask for steak—chops—or stew meat. Part of the naked body of a boy or girl would be brought out and just what you wanted cut from it. A boy or girls behind which is the sweetest part of the body and sold as veal cutlet brought the highest price.John staid [ sic ] there so long he acquired a taste for human flesh. On his return to N.Y. he stole two boys one 7 one 11. Took them to his home stripped them naked tied them in a closet. Then burned everything they had on. Several times every day and night he spanked them—tortured them—to make their meat good and tender. First he killed the 11 year old boy, because he had the fattest ass and of course the most meat on it. Every part of his body was Cooked and eaten except the head—bones and guts. He was Roasted in the oven (all of his ass), boiled, broiled, fried and stewed. The little boy was next, went the same way. At that time, I was living at 409 E 100 st., near—right side. He told me so often how good Human flesh was I made up my mind to taste it. On Sunday June the 3—1928 I called on you at 406 W 15 St. Brought you pot cheese—strawberries. We had lunch. Grace sat in my lap and kissed me. I made up my mind to eat her. On the pretense of taking her to a party. You said Yes she could go. I took her to an empty house in Westchester I had already picked out. When we got there, I told her to remain outside. She picked wildflowers. I went upstairs and stripped all my clothes off. I knew if I did not I would get her blood on them.When all was ready I went to the window and called her. Then I hid in a closet until she was in the room. When she saw me all naked she began to cry and tried to run down the stairs. I grabbed her and she said she would tell her mamma.First I stripped her naked. How she did kick—bite and scratch. I choked her to death, then cut her in small pieces so I could take my meat to my rooms. Cook and eat it. How sweet and tender her little ass was roasted in the oven. It took me 9 days to eat her entire body. I did not fuck her tho I could of had I wished. She died a virgin. Police investigated the letter and although the story concerning "Capt. Davis" and the famine in Hong Kong could not be verified, the part of the letter concerning the murder of Grace was found to be accurate in its description of the kidnapping and subsequent events, though it was impossible to confirm whether or not Fish had actually eaten parts of Grace's body. Finally Captured It was this letter that was Fish's undoing. The letter was delivered in an envelope that had a small logo with the letters "N.Y.P.C.B.A." representing "New York Private Chauffeur's Benevolent Association". A cleaner at the company told the police he had taken some of the stationery home but left it at his rooming house at when he moved out. The landlady of the rooming house said th at Fish checked out of that room a few days earlier. She said that Fish's son sent him money and he asked her to hold his next check for him. Detective William King, the chief investigator for the case, waited outside the room until Fish returned. He agreed to go to headquarters for questioning, then attempted to attack King with a razor blade. King disarmed Fish and took him to police headquarters. Fish made no attempt to deny the murder of Grace Budd, saying that he meant to go to the house to kill her brother Edward. Fish said it "never even entered [his] head" to rape the girl, but he later claimed to his attorney that, while kneeling on Grace's chest and strangling her, he did have two involuntary ejaculations . This information was used at trial to make the claim the kidnapping was sexually motivated, thus avoiding any mention of cannibalism. When Fish's family learned that he was arrested for Grace's murder, they hardly reacted. His eldest son Alber t Fish Jr. told the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in December 1934, "The old skunk, I knew something like this would happen sooner or later."  Trial and Execution F ish’s trial in 1935 for the murder of Grace Budd was a media sensation. The trial lasted for ten days. Fish pleaded insanity, and claimed to have heard voices from God telling him to kill children. Several psychiatrists testified about Fish's sexual fetishes, which included sadism and masochism, flagellation, exhibitionism, voyeurism, piquerism, cannibalism, coprophagia, urophilia, hematolagnia, pedophilia, necrophilia, and infibulation. Fish's defence lawyer, James Dempsey in his summation noted that Fish was a "psychiatric phenomenon" and that nowhere in legal or medical reco rds was there another individual who possessed so many sexual abnormalities. The defense's chief expert witness was Fredric Wertham , a psychiatrist with an emphasis on child development who conducted psychiatric examinations for the New York criminal courts . During two days of testimony, Wertham explained Fish's obsession with religion and specifically his preoccupation with the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac . Wertham said that Fish believed that similarly "sacrificing" a boy wo uld be penance for his own sins and that even if the act itself was wrong, angels would prevent it if God did not approve. Fish attempted the sacrifice once before but was thwarted when a car drove past. Edward Budd was the next intended victim, but he turned out to be larger than expected so he settled on Grace. Although he knew Grace was female, it is believed that Fish perceived her as a boy. Wertham then detailed Fish's cannibalism, which in his mind he associated with communion . The last question Demp sey asked Wertham was 15,000 words long, detailed Fish's life and ended with asking how the doctor considered his mental condition based on this life. Wertham simply answered "He is insane." The prosecutor, Assistant D.A Elbert G allagher cross-examined Wertham on whether Fish knew the difference between right and wrong. He responded that he did know but that it was a perverted knowledge based on his opinions of sin, atonement, and religion and thus was an "insane knowledge". The defense called two more psychiatrists to support Wertham's findings. The first of four rebuttal witnesses was Menas Gregory, the former manager of the Bellevue Hospital, where Fish was treated during 1930. He testified that Fish was abnormal but sane. Under cross-examination, Dempsey asked if coprophilia, urophilia, and pedophilia indicated a sane or insane person. Gregory replied that such a person was not "mentally sick" and that these were common perversions that were "socially perfectly alright" and that Fish was "no different from millions of other people", some very prominent and successful, who had the "very same" perversions. Albert Fish's daughter meeting the brother of Grace Budd, Edward, from a 1935 newspaper. The next witness was the resident physician at t he Manhattan Detention Complex, Pe rry Lichtenstein. Dempsey objected to a doctor with no training in psychiatry testifying on the issue of sanity, but Justice Close overruled on the basis that the jury could decide what weight to give a prison doctor. When asked whether Fish's causing himself pain indicated a mental condition, Lichtenstein replied, "That is not masochism", as he was only "punishing himself to get sexual gratification". The next witness, Charles Lambert, testified that coprophilia was a common practice and that religious cannibalism may be psychopathic but "was a matter of taste" and not evidence of a psychosis. The last witness, James Vavasour, repeated Lambert's opinion. Another defense witness was Mary Nicholas, Fish's 17-year-old stepdaughter. She described how Fish taught her and her brothers and sisters several games involving overtones of masochism and child molestation. Fish was executed on Jan. 16, 1936. None of the jurors doubted that Fish was insane, but ultimately, as one later explained, they felt he should be executed anyway. They found him to be sane and guilty, and the judge sentenced the defendant to death . Fish arrived at prison in March 1935, and was executed on January 16, 1936, in the electric chair at Sing Sing . He entered the chamber at 11:06 p.m. and was pronounced dead three minutes later. He was buried in the Sing Sing Prison Cemetery. Fish is said to have helped the executioner position the electrodes on his body. His last words were reportedly, "I don't even know why I'm here." According to one witness present, it took two jolts before Fish died, creating the rumor that the apparatus was short-circuited by the needles tha t Fish had inserted into his body. Despite the brutality of his actions, Fish showed no remorse. His final statement, described by his lawyer as “the most filthy string of obscenities,” remains unpublished. Following his arrest, Fish was tied to the murders of Francis McDonnell and Billy Gaffney.   According to a report by the New York Daily News , a man saw 8-year-old Francis following an elderly man into the woods in July 1924. Francis was later found hanging by his own suspenders from a tree in Staten Island, badly beaten and mutilated. Fish denied involvement in the crime but a neighbor identified him as a man he had chased from his farm around the same time that McDonnell had disappeared, the New York Times reported in December 1934.   Francis' mother is credited with giving Fish the name "The Gray Man," according to the Toronto Sun. When speaking to police, Anna McDonnell gave this description of the attacker: "He came shuffling down the street mumbling to himself and making queer motions with his hands... I saw his thick grey hair and his drooping grey mustache. Everything about him seemed faded and grey," the Sun reported.  Fish was later identified as the man seen with missing 4-year-old Billy Gaffney, who had disappeared from his Brooklyn home in February 1927. Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Dodd told the New York Daily News in March 1927 that he spoke with Billy's neighbors, who reported seeing the child moments before he was taken.  "Their most remarkable disclosure was that Billy Gaffney vanished within three minutes. Mrs. Cordovez saw him playing in the fourth floor of the building where he lived at 5:30 p.m.," Dodd told the newspaper. "Not more than three minutes later, Beaton looked there and the child was gone."  At this time, mothers were afraid for their children as young boys were being taken from their homes, only to be found dead days later. Schechter told WTOP News: "He was really the living incarnation of every parent’s worst nightmare and every child’s worst nightmare. What the Boogeyman is,” Of course, Fish wasn't responsible for every disappearance. Amid the search for Billy, a 5-year-old boy was nearly kidnapped by Louis Sandman, who was then attacked by a mob of angry mothers, the New York Daily News reported in a separate March 1927 article.   "The hunt for little Billy Gaffney took new life yesterday as a mob of screaming Brooklyn mothers, for the second time in five days, sought to beat down a suspected kidnaper. Less than a mile from the Gaffney home at 138 Warren St., the women clawed and spat at Louis Sandman, 42, caught in the act of dragging 5-year-old Frank Malerba into a dim hallway," the newspaper recalled.  Billy's body was never found, but Fish was identified as a suspect by a streetcar motorman who claimed to have seen an older man forcing the boy into a trolley the night the 4-year-old had disappeared, according to a December 1934 article by the Asbury Park Press .  Fish admitted to the kidnapping and murder of Billy in sickening detail: I brought him to the Riker Ave. dumps. There is a house that stands alone, not far from where I took him ... I took the G boy there. Stripped him naked and tied his hands and feet and gagged him with a piece of di rty rag I picked out of the dump. Then I burned his clothes. Threw his shoes in the dump. Then I walked back and took trolley to 59 St. at 2 A.M. and walked home from there. Next day about 2 P.M., I took tools, a good heavy cat-of-nine tails . Home made. Short handle. Cut one of my belts in half, slit these half in six strips about 8 in. long. I whipped his bare behind till the blood ran from his legs. I cut off his ears – nose – slit his mouth from ear to ear . Gouged out his eyes. He was dead then. I stuck the knife in his belly and held my mouth to his body and drank his blood. I picked up four old potato sacks and gathered a pile of stones. Then I cut him up. I had a grip with me. I put his nose, ears and a few slices of his belly in the grip. Then I cut him thru the middle of his body. Just below his belly button. Then thru his legs about 2 in. below his behind. I put this in my grip with a lot of paper. I cut off the head – feet – arms – hands and the legs below the knee. This I put in sacks weighed with stones, tied the ends and threw them into the pools of slimy water you will see all along the road going to North Beach. Water is 3 to 4 ft. deep. They sank at once. I came home with my meat. I had the front of his body I liked best. His monkey and pee wees and a nice little fat behind to roast in the oven and eat. I made a stew out of his ears – nose – pieces of his face and belly. I put onions, carrots, turnips, celery, salt and pepper. It was good. Then I split the cheeks of his behind open, cut off his monkey and pee wees and washed them first. I put strips of bacon on each cheek of his behind and put in the oven. Then I picked 4 onions and when meat had roasted about 1/4 hr., I poured about a pint of water over it for gravy and put in the onions. At frequent intervals I basted his behind with a wooden spoon. So the meat would be nice and juicy. In about 2 hr., it was nice and brown, cooked thru. I never ate any roast turkey that tasted half as good as his sweet fat little behind did. I ate every bit of the meat in about four days. His little monkey was as sweet as a nut, but his pee-wees I could not chew. Threw them in the toilet. Sources Deranged: The Shocking True Story of America’s Most Fiendish Killer by Harold Schechter (Pocket Books, 1990) Depraved: The Shocking True Story of America’s Most Vile Serial Killer – The Story of Albert Fish by Harold Schechter (Pocket Books, 1998) The Cannibal: The Story of Albert Fish by Albert Borowitz (Norton, 1982) Albert Fish: In His Own Words by John Borowski (Waterfront Productions, 2014) – includes court transcripts, letters, and confessions “The Case of Albert Fish” – Journal of Forensic Sciences  (various retrospective articles discussing his crimes and psychological profile) Schechter, Harold. “The Fiend in the Cellar: The Story of Albert Fish.” Crime Library  (archived by Court TV/TruTV, available through Internet Archive) Trial transcripts and court documents from Albert Fish’s 1935 trial, available in New York State Archives Fish’s own letters and confessions, many reproduced in Schechter’s books and Borowski’s compilation Albert Fish: In Sin He Found Salvation  (2007, directed by John Borowski) Most Evil  (Investigation Discovery series, episodes featuring Fish) American Horror Story: Hotel  (character loosely inspired by Fish, showing his influence on popular culture) FBI Vault (digitised documents and case files): https://vault.fbi.gov/ Murderpedia entry on Albert Fish: http://murderpedia.org/male.F/f/fish-albert.htm Crime Museum overview: https://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/serial-killers/albert-fish/

In the summer of 1934, America’s most wanted man lay unconscious in a Chicago safehouse while a German-born doctor worked over his face with a scalpel. The man on the table was John Dillinger, the bank robber whose exploits had made him both a folk hero and a federal obsession. With FBI agents closing in, Dillinger was desperate to disappear. His solution was to literally change his face. This moment, bizarre, brutal, and ultimately futile, marks one of the strangest chapters in the history of crime. It was a time when desperate gangsters sought salvation not from their lawyers, but from doctors willing to mutilate them for cash. These back-alley operations, performed in smoke-filled apartments and mobster safehouses, gave rise to what some call the dark art of underworld plastic surgery. The Man Who Held the Scalpel: Wilhelm Loeser The surgeon at Dillinger’s side was Dr Wilhelm Loeser, a German-born physician who had drifted far from respectability. Loeser had once been a practising doctor in Chicago, but by 1913 he was convicted of dealing narcotics, sentenced to three years, and only served 18 months thanks to the intervention of criminal lawyer Louis Piquett. Wilhelm Loeser After his parole, Loeser fled to Mexico to escape further charges. Two decades later, in 1934, Piquett coaxed him back to Chicago with the promise of a $10,000 bribe that would secure his permanent return. In exchange, Loeser agreed to perform cosmetic surgery on John Dillinger and fellow outlaw Homer Van Meter. The setting was not a hospital but the home of mobster James Probasco. Over a grueling 48-hour session from 27–28 May 1934, Loeser, assisted by Dr Harold Cassidy, attempted the impossible: to erase two of the most recognisable faces in America. Dillinger’s Wish List Dillinger came prepared with a list of requests. He wanted several scars and moles removed, the dimple in his chin eliminated, and the depression at the end of his nose smoothed out. Van Meter, meanwhile, asked for similar alterations, plus the removal of an anchor tattoo from his right arm. Loeser’s methods were crude by any standard. He tightened Dillinger’s cheeks with kangaroo tendons and attempted to obliterate their fingerprints using a caustic chemical solution. At one point, Dillinger nearly died on the table after swallowing his tongue under general anaesthetic. When the gangsters awoke, their faces were raw, swollen, and barely changed. Their fingertips were burned but still identifiable. Both men were “mutilated and in agony,” and their fury nearly cost Loeser his life. Van Meter, bandaged hand clutching a Tommy gun, allegedly threatened to kill the doctor. Only persuasion, and perhaps the thought of needing more “fixes” later, spared him. A Costly Failure The surgery was deemed a failure, and Loeser received only $5,000 for his troubles. Piquett pocketed the rest. Two months later, Dillinger was dead, shot by FBI agents outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago on 22 July 1934. His fingerprints, scarred but still legible, confirmed his identity. Loeser’s own fate was no happier. Two days after Dillinger’s death, he was arrested in Oak Park, Illinois. He claimed FBI agents smashed his nose during interrogation. Eventually, he turned state’s witness against Piquett, but he was also sent back to prison for violating his decades-old parole on narcotics charges. He was released in 1935, his reputation ruined. Joseph Moran: The “Plastic Surgeon to the Mob” Loeser was not alone in catering to the underworld. Another name loomed larger: Dr Joseph Moran. A former US Navy surgeon, Moran had become a trusted figure among gangsters during the Prohibition era. Unlike Loeser, Moran had a measure of skill, and he successfully altered the fingerprints of Alvin “Creepy” Karpis of the Barker-Karpis gang in 1934. Karpis later admitted that the ridges of his prints never fully disappeared, but they were faint enough to cause bureaucratic headaches, especially when he later tried to obtain a Canadian passport. Still, Moran’s work was considered among the best available to criminals. Alvin “Creepy” Karpis of the Barker-Karpis gang showing what was left of his fingerprints in 1934 Gus Winkeler and the Early Attempts Before Dillinger and Karpis, other criminals had experimented with fingerprint mutilation. In 1933, August “Gus” Winkeler, an associate of Al Capone , was found with prints showing signs of cutting and slashing. One fingerprint was altered so much that it appeared to have changed pattern type entirely, from a whorl to a loop. These experiments underline a simple truth: criminals understood that fingerprints were their Achilles’ heel. Since the late 19th century, fingerprints had been recognised as unique and immutable, a scientific fact popularised by British anthropologist Sir Francis Galton. By 1911, fingerprints were convicting murderers in American courts. For a gangster like Dillinger, whose face was plastered on every wanted poster in the nation, fingerprints offered no escape. Plastic surgery became a desperate, and expensive, last resort. The Limits of Science and Desperation So why did these surgeries fail? Human fingerprints are not just surface-level marks. The ridges visible on the epidermis extend into the deeper dermis. Unless all layers of skin are destroyed, something that risks crippling the hands permanently, the prints will eventually regenerate. A 1935 article in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology  recommended removing at least one millimetre of skin to obliterate a fingerprint completely. Even then, modern forensic science has made mutilated prints easier to identify. Dillinger’s autopsy confirmed this resilience. His final set of prints showed the partially healed results of Loeser’s work. The ridges were scarred but still intact, ensuring the man once dubbed “Public Enemy No. 1” was identified beyond doubt. Beyond Dillinger: A Continuing Obsession Dillinger’s doomed attempt did not end the practice. In later decades, fingerprint mutilation resurfaced among drug traffickers, forgers, and illegal immigrants. In the 1990s, Florida police arrested Jose Izquierdo, who had sliced Z-shaped incisions into each finger and stitched the skin back together. In 2009, a Puerto Rican surgeon, Dr Jose Elias Zaiter-Pou , was convicted of charging $4,500 to mutilate fingerprints for clients hoping to evade immigration authorities. In some cases, desperation went to grotesque extremes. In 2007, a car thief in custody bit off his own fingertips in an effort to avoid identification. Another man in Florida tried the same trick in 2015, captured on patrol-car surveillance video as he chewed at his hands. Legacy of the Public Enemy Era The story of Dillinger’s surgery captures something unique about the Public Enemy era of the 1930s. It was a time when technology and law enforcement were advancing rapidly, the FBI’s use of fingerprints, improved weaponry, and interstate pursuit laws, while criminals scrambled to stay ahead. Plastic surgery offered a seductive but unreliable promise: the chance to start over with a new face and clean hands. In reality, it left men scarred, in pain, and still recognisable. For Dillinger, the gamble ended in an alleyway with federal bullets cutting him down. Today, with biometric systems combining fingerprints, facial recognition, and even iris scans, such mutilations are more futile than ever. But the legend of the gangster who tried to outwit science with a scalpel endures. Conclusion Underworld plastic surgery was a strange intersection of medicine and crime, born of desperation and greed. Figures like Wilhelm Loeser and Joseph Moran show how medical expertise could be bent to serve the underworld. Yet the resilience of human skin and the steady progress of forensic science ensured that even the most notorious outlaws could not escape their own biology. In the end, the scars left by these crude surgeries were not marks of freedom but of failure — reminders that even the most infamous gangsters could not cut away their fate. Sources Federal Bureau of Investigation archives – John Dillinger wanted posters and case records Burrough, Bryan. Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933–34  (Penguin Books, 2004) Toland, John. The Dillinger Days  (Da Capo Press, 1995) Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 1935 – articles on fingerprint mutilation FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, 2010 – reports on modern fingerprint mutilation

Some people take pictures of sunsets, flowers, and perfectly plated meals. Arlene Gottfried? She took pictures of life—raw, unfiltered, and straight from the streets of New York City . From gospel choirs to the wild antics of Coney Island , she had an eye for the weird, the wonderful, and the downright human. She was the kind of photographer who could find beauty in a bodega, poetry in a packed subway car, and grace in a gang of breakdancers spinning on cardboard. But for years, hardly anyone knew her name. It wasn’t until she hit her 50s that the world finally caught up with what she had been doing all along: documenting the soul of New York. From left to right: Arlene Gottfried, Gilbert Gottfried, and Karen Gottfried A Brooklyn Beginning Born on August 26, 1950, in Coney Island, Arlene Gottfried was raised in a place where life was never dull. The daughter of Lillian, a homemaker, and Max, a hardware store owner, she grew up above the family shop, surrounded by an ever-changing cast of neighbourhood characters. Her younger brother, Gilbert, would later become a comedian famous for his squawking voice and outrageous humour. Arlene, on the other hand, would go in a very different direction—though both siblings clearly had a knack for capturing attention in their own way. When she was nine, the family packed up and moved to Crown Heights, Brooklyn, a neighbourhood that was becoming a cultural melting pot, particularly with a growing Puerto Rican community. That vibrant energy, the music, the food, the celebrations—Arlene took it all in. Later, in the 1970s, her Jewish immigrant family settled in Alphabet City and the Lower East Side, two areas known at the time for their grittiness, artistry, and occasional flaming garbage can. The Accidental Photographer Arlene’s journey into photography was, by her own admission, something of a fluke. As a teenager, her father handed her an old 35mm camera. Like any self-respecting New Yorker, she took it to Woodstock (because, of course, she did). She later admitted, "I had no clue what I was doing," which, let’s be honest, is the perfect way to experience Woodstock. Somewhere along the way, though, she figured it out. Whether it was instinct or pure guts, she had a way of capturing people in their most unguarded, glorious moments. "We lived in Coney Island, and that was always an exposure to all kinds of people, so I never had trouble walking up to people and asking them to take their picture," she said. This fearlessness was a gift. It allowed her to photograph people with a level of intimacy that few others could achieve. Climbing the Ranks (Very Slowly) After studying photography at the Fashion Institute of Technology (where she was, rather notably, the only woman in her class), Arlene landed a job at an advertising agency. It didn’t take long for her to realise that she was not cut out for a life of selling soap and soda. She went freelance, working for publications like The New York Times Magazine , Life , Fortune , The Village Voice , and The Independent  in London. During the 1970s and 1980s, while most of the world was obsessed with disco, Reaganomics, and questionable hairstyles, Arlene was out on the streets, camera in hand. She photographed everything—block parties, salsa dancers, drag queens, bodybuilders, Coney Island characters, and people simply trying to get by in a city that was, at times, brutal. She documented addiction, mental illness, and struggle, but her photos were never exploitative. They were full of heart. And yet, despite the brilliance of her work, she remained relatively unknown for decades. Finally, the Spotlight In her 50s, the world finally started to take notice. She published her first book, The Eternal Light , in 1999, which focused on a gospel choir she stumbled upon at a festival. It turned out that photographing the choir wasn’t enough—Arlene joined them and started singing gospel herself. She also sang with the Jerriese Johnson East Village Gospel Choir, proving once and for all that she was the kind of person who didn’t just observe life but threw herself right into it. Her later books cemented her reputation as a masterful storyteller. Midnight  (2003) documented the life of a man struggling with schizophrenia. It was a raw, heartbreaking, yet deeply human portrait. Sometimes Overwhelming  (2008) was a time capsule of 1970s and 1980s New York, capturing the energy, joy, and chaos of the era. Bacalaitos and Fireworks  (2011) focused on New York’s Puerto Rican community, reflecting her deep love for the culture she had grown up around. Mommie: Three Generations of Women  (2015) was a touching portrait of her grandmother, mother, and sister. It won Time  magazine’s Best Photobook Award in 2016. Her work was finally exhibited at places like the Leica Gallery in New York and Tokyo, the Smithsonian Institution, the European House of Photography, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and the New York Public Library. It had taken a while, but Arlene Gottfried had arrived. Arlene Gottfried The Singing Photographer From New York While most photographers are content with hiding behind their cameras, Arlene had no interest in being a passive observer. She lived the life she captured. After photographing gospel choirs, she became a gospel singer. She was a regular at the Nuyorican Poets Café, soaking in the poetry, music, and performance scene. She wandered the streets, talked to strangers, and embraced the unpredictable beauty of the world around her. When people asked her about her work, she gave the most perfect answer imaginable: " My mother used to say, ‘Arlene—just don’t wander!’ Then I started wandering, but I got a camera because it gave it a little more meaning… A life of wandering is really what it all is." And really, isn’t that the best way to live? A Legacy of Humanity Arlene Gottfried passed away on August 8, 2017, at the age of 66, leaving behind a body of work that continues to resonate. Her photographs are not just snapshots—they are stories. They are moments frozen in time that remind us of the humour, struggle, and beauty of everyday life. Her legacy is one of curiosity, compassion, and a refusal to let the ordinary go unnoticed. She found the poetry in the people around her. She didn’t just photograph New York—she understood it, loved it, and lived it. And if there’s any justice in the world, somewhere out there, Arlene is still wandering, still singing, and still capturing the best of humanity with her camera. There's currently an exhibition of Gottfried's work, here

As World War II ravaged Europe, a young French boy named Marcel Ravidat ventured out for a casual stroll near his home in Montignac, a small town in the Dordogne region of France . With his faithful dog Robot by his side, Marcel had no idea that this walk would lead to one of the most significant discoveries in the history of art. On that day in September 1940, Robot fell into a hole, prompting Marcel to investigate. What began as a rescue mission for his canine companion quickly turned into a discovery that would bring to light some of the earliest known examples of man-made art – the Lascaux cave paintings. Marcel (left) with Robot. Marcel initially believed that he had stumbled upon a legendary secret tunnel rumoured to lead to a local manor house, a tale passed down through generations in the local village. Instead, the narrow 50-foot shaft opened up into a vast underground cavern. With only the dim glow of a small oil lamp, Marcel began to explore and was astonished to see large animal figures painted on the walls and ceiling of the cave. Unbeknownst to him, these images were over 17,000 years old, and he was likely the first person in thousands of years to lay eyes on them. With the oil in his lamp dwindling, Marcel and Robot quickly scrambled back to the surface. Eager to share his discovery, Marcel returned with his friends Jacques Marsal, Georges Agnel, and Simon Coencas. They, too, were mesmerised by what they saw, describing a "cavalcade of larger-than-life animals" seemingly dancing along the walls. The boys kept their discovery a secret for some time, charging small fees to local children who wished to glimpse the ancient art. Eventually, they approached a local historian, who recognised the gravity of their find and advised them to prevent any further visitors from entering the cave to avoid damage to the artwork. The discoverers kept permanent watch and set up camp by the entrance to the cave. L. Laval, M. Ravidat, J. Marsal, G.Agnel. Jacques, just 14 years old at the time, took the historian's advice seriously. With the support of his parents, he set up camp by the cave’s entrance and remained its vigilant guardian throughout the harsh winter of 1940-41. This marked the beginning of Jacques' lifelong connection to the site, where he would serve as a dedicated warden until his death in 1989. The Lascaux Cave Paintings The Lascaux caves were officially opened to the public in 1948, eight years after their discovery. However, the timing was unfortunate; during World War II, the area had been occupied by German forces, and archaeological work was delayed. Once the war ended, experts were finally able to begin their analysis of the cave. The paintings, predominantly of animals such as horses, deer, aurochs (an extinct species of long-horned cattle), and stags, soon garnered global attention. Notably, some paintings also included human figures, a rare feature in prehistoric cave art. One particularly intriguing figure depicted a man with a bird's head, which some historians believe indicates a shamanic practice. Left to right: Léon Laval, Marcel Ravidat, Jacques Marsal and Henri Breuil. The sheer number and scale of the paintings added to the significance of the discovery. The cave walls were adorned with over 600 paintings and 1,500 engravings, making Lascaux one of the most important prehistoric art sites ever found. Among the most notable artworks is an image of a bull, which measures over 17 feet in length, making it the largest known depiction of its kind from this era. Archaeological Significance One of the most remarkable aspects of the Lascaux cave paintings is the sophisticated use of pigments. Archaeological analysis revealed that the pigments contained manganese oxide, a mineral that could only be sourced from the Pyrenees mountains, some 250 kilometres south of Lascaux. This suggests that the people who created the paintings either had access to long-distance trade networks or undertook significant journeys to gather the materials they needed, demonstrating a level of organisation and culture far beyond what was previously assumed for this period. The discovery of human figures and the apparent shamanic imagery also opened new avenues of research into prehistoric belief systems. The detailed depictions of animals are thought to represent not only the fauna of the time but also cultural and religious significance. The people of Lascaux may have been engaged in rituals connected to the animals they depicted, using art as a way to communicate with or honour the natural world. The Impact of Tourism and the Closure of the Caves As peace returned to Europe after World War II, the Lascaux caves became a major tourist attraction, drawing visitors from all over the world. By the mid-1950s, over a thousand people were visiting the site daily, eager to see the ancient paintings for themselves. However, this influx of visitors came at a great cost to the cave’s delicate ecosystem. The sheer volume of carbon dioxide from visitors’ breath, along with humidity and mould growth, began to visibly damage the paintings. The powerful spotlights used to illuminate the cave also contributed to the degradation, causing the pigments to fade. In 1963, the French government made the difficult decision to close the caves to the public in order to preserve the artworks. The damage caused by years of unchecked tourism would take decades to repair, and even today, efforts to conserve the site are ongoing. In 2009, over 300 historians, archaeologists, and scientists were employed by the French government to study the cave’s condition and devise strategies to preserve the artwork for future generations. Lascaux II and Continued Legacy In 1979, Lascaux was named a UNESCO World Heritage site, which marked a turning point in its preservation. To allow the public to experience the cave paintings without causing further damage, a replica of the cave, known as Lascaux II, was created. The replica was first exhibited at the Grand Palais in Paris in 1980 before being permanently installed just 200 metres from the original site in 1983. Lascaux II is a painstakingly accurate replica, with every detail of the original cave’s artwork meticulously recreated using the same tools, methods, and pigments believed to have been used 17,000 years ago. Although modern artists crafted the replica, the experience of walking through Lascaux II is said to be nearly indistinguishable from visiting the original cave. Today, Lascaux II attracts over 30,000 visitors annually, allowing people from around the world to appreciate the majesty of prehistoric art while ensuring the continued preservation of the original site. The Lascaux cave paintings stand as a testament to the ingenuity and creativity of our prehistoric ancestors. They offer a window into the lives, beliefs, and cultural practices of a civilisation that existed long before written history began. Thanks to the efforts of conservationists and the creation of Lascaux II, these ancient artworks will continue to inspire and educate future generations. Sources: Bahn, P. G., & Vertut, J. (1997). Journey Through the Ice Age . University of California Press. Clottes, J. (2008). Cave Art . Phaidon. Curtis, G. (2006). The Cave Painters: Probing the Mysteries of the World's First Artists . Knopf. Lascaux.fr . (n.d.). The Official Website of the Lascaux Caves: History of the Lascaux Cave Discovery . Lascaux Official Website . Smith, S. (2021). Lascaux: The World’s Most Famous Prehistoric Cave .

In the summer of 2006, headlines across America blared about a group of seven men from Miami who supposedly plotted to bring down the Sears Tower in Chicago and wage a “full ground war” against the United States. They became known as the Liberty City Seven, a ragtag collection of construction workers and religious dreamers who found themselves at the centre of one of the most surreal domestic terrorism cases of the post-9/11 era. At first glance, it looked like the FBI had stopped the next 9/11. But as the story unfolded, it became clear that this “terror cell” had little more than borrowed boots, empty bravado, and a knack for being manipulated. A Warehouse in Liberty City The group operated out of a dingy warehouse in Liberty City, Miami, a neighbourhood long plagued by poverty and unemployment. They called themselves the Universal Divine Saviors, though some outsiders dubbed them the “Seas of David.” To their neighbours, they were an oddball religious sect that blended Bible study with martial arts practice. Members wore black uniforms emblazoned with a Star of David patch. Their leader, Narseal Batiste, often strutted through the neighbourhood in a robe, carrying a wooden staff, earning him the reputation of a “Moses-like” figure. His teachings borrowed from the Moorish Science Temple, the Nation of Islam, Black Hebrew Israelite traditions, and even snippets of Judaism and Christianity. As historian Juan Cole put it, they were essentially a “local African-American cult mixing Judaism, Christianity, and a little Islam” — more like confused seekers than international terrorists. How the FBI Got Involved The FBI stumbled onto the group in October 2005 after an informant tipped off Special Agent Anthony Velazquez. “Look, I have some information from an informant,” Velazquez recalled a colleague saying, “that there’s a group of guys in Liberty City conducting military training, interested in overthrowing the U.S. government, and that wanna be Al-Qaeda.” From there, the Bureau launched a sting. An informant, posing as an emissary from Yemen, offered support and money if the group pledged loyalty to al-Qaeda. Batiste and his followers played along, believing they might scam their new “ally” for as much as $50,000 to keep their struggling construction business afloat. But the FBI wasn’t playing. They recorded thousands of hours of conversations, nudging the group into expressing intentions to attack the Sears Tower in Chicago, the Miami FBI field office, and other federal buildings. Aspirational, Not Operational Despite the alarming talk, the Liberty City Seven had no weapons, no explosives, and no real plan. When offered weapons, they declined. They relied entirely on government-provided equipment: the FBI bought them boots, cameras, cars, and even paid rent on their warehouse. Deputy FBI Director John S. Pistole admitted the plot was more “aspirational than operational.” In truth, it looked like the men were being strung along by promises of cash. Locals in Miami joked that the group seemed more likely to kick down doors in their new boots than blow up a building. Still, in the fevered atmosphere of post-9/11 America, the arrests were touted as a major victory. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales held a high-profile press conference, warning of a “full ground war” being plotted from within America’s own borders. The Arrests and the Trials On June 22, 2006, the FBI raided the Liberty City warehouse and arrested all seven members: Narseal Batiste (Brother Naz, or Prince Manna) – the ringleader Patrick Abraham (Brother Pat) Stanley Grant Phanor (Brother Sunni, nicknamed “Sunny”) Rotschild Augustine (Brother Rot) Burson Augustin (Brother B) Naudimar Herrera (Brother Naudy) Lyglenson Lemorin (Brother Levi, or Levi-El) The men faced charges of providing material support for terrorism and conspiring to wage war against the United States. Yet what followed was one of the longest, most confusing legal sagas in modern American history. Across three trials: Lemorin was acquitted outright in the first trial, only to later be deported to Haiti in a civil proceeding. Two juries deadlocked in mistrials for the others. In the third trial, five were finally convicted on some charges. Batiste alone was convicted on all four counts. Sentences ranged from six to thirteen years, far less than the 70 years prosecutors once threatened. Informants and Incentives The case was also remarkable for the money paid to FBI informants. One received $40,000, the other $80,000, along with immigration benefits. The government also paid thousands for rent, travel, and equipment. This raised serious questions: were the Liberty City Seven actual terrorists, or simply hapless men caught up in an overzealous sting designed to make headlines? Public Reaction and Cultural Echoes The arrests sparked debate across the country. Some saw the case as proof that the U.S. was vigilant against homegrown terror. Others saw entrapment. Comedians, too, weighed in. On The Daily Show , Jon Stewart quipped: “If you are going to wage a full ground war against the United States, you need to field at least as many people as, say, a softball team.” Locals in Miami were equally sceptical, pointing out the government had effectively supplied everything the group had. The Legacy of the Liberty City Seven The Liberty City Seven saga highlights the fine line between prevention and provocation. On one hand, the FBI can argue it disrupted a dangerous fantasy before it became real. On the other, the case shows how vulnerable people — struggling with poverty, identity, and misplaced faith — can be lured into talking big by the promise of money. Nearly two decades on, the Liberty City Seven remain a cautionary tale: a mixture of religion, desperation, and government overreach that left behind more questions than answers. Sources U.S. Department of Justice, Press Release: Seven Indicted in Plot to Destroy Sears Tower  (June 23, 2006). https://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/2006/June/06_nsd_387.html The New York Times , “7 Men in Miami Accused of Plot to Blow Up the Sears Tower” (June 23, 2006). https://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/23/us/23plot.html The Washington Post , “7 Arrested in Alleged Plot to Bomb Sears Tower” (June 23, 2006). https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2006/06/23/7-arrested-in-alleged-plot-to-bomb-sears-tower/9e0f1a39-376f-4a4b-8d1d-d2baf11c1952/ The Guardian , “FBI arrests seven men in alleged plot to blow up Sears Tower” (June 23, 2006). https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/jun/23/usa.terrorism Democracy Now!  “The Liberty City Seven: Entrapment or Terrorism?” (June 26, 2006). https://www.democracynow.org/2006/6/26/the_liberty_city_seven_entrapment_or Cole, Juan. “The Liberty City Seven: Entrapment or Aspiration?” (commentary, 2006). https://www.juancole.com/2006/06/liberty-city-seven-entrapment-or.html Rashbaum, William K. “Miami Terrorism Case Tests Limits of Sting Operations.”   The New York Times , May 2009. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/us/13terror.html Human Rights Watch, Illusion of Justice: Human Rights Abuses in US Terrorism Prosecutions  (2014) – includes Liberty City Seven as a case study. https://www.hrw.org/report/2014/07/21/illusion-justice/human-rights-abuses-us-terrorism-prosecutions United States v. Narseal Batiste et al.  Case files, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. (Case No. 06-20373-CR). (Public records accessible through PACER: https://pacer.uscourts.gov/ )