Unsolved Mysteries of American History : An Eye-Opening Journey through 500 Years of Discoveries, Disappearances, and Baffling Events

by Paul Aron

• ISBN13: 9780471153696
• ISBN10: 0471153699
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1997-09-01
• Publisher: Wiley

Summary

"A lively tour through our past and an ingenious primer in the art of historical detection." --Robert A. Gross, author of The Minutemen and Their World Did Leif Ericsson beat Columbus to America? What happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke? Did Pocahontas really save John Smith? Did Davy Crockett die at the Alamo? What really happened to Amelia Earhart, and was she a spy? Who killed JFK? Unsolved Mysteries of American History re-creates the most mystifying events of our past, following some of our greatest historians as they search for the elusive answers. Spanning more than five centuries--from Leif Ericsson and Columbus through Watergate and Iran-Contra--Aron makes sense of all the latest discoveries and speculations. Here is everything you could ever want from a detective story: dramatic twists and turns, intellectual challenges, frustrating dead-ends, murderous mayhem, and thrilling espionage. "Stimulating and pleasurable, fair and objective . . . recommended for both the history buff and the fan of true-life mysteries."--Kirkus Reviews "Everyone loves a mystery and a history mystery best of all. Aron has assembled an impressive array of 'whodunits.'" --Ivor Noel Hume, former director, Department of Archaeology, Colonial Williamsburg author of The Virginia Adventure "A welcome gateway for historical exploration." --Booklist "Aron performs something of a minor miracle: He zeroes in on the very core of historical mysteries and provides new insights for reconsidering mystifying events." --Allan W. Eckert, author of Sorrow in Our Heart

Author Biography

PAUL ARON is a reporter for the Virginia Gazette. He was previously editorial director at Leo Douglas Publishers, executive editor at Simon & Schuster, and an editor at Anchor Press/Doubleday. Mr. Aron lives in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix	(2)
Introduction	xi
1 When Did the First People Arrive in America? Even Native Americans weren't truly native; they had to come from somewhere.	1	(8)
2 Did Leif Ericsson Discover America? A twentieth-century Norwegian's quest to prove that the Norse found--and settled in--America, five hundred years before Columbus.	9	(6)
3 Why Did the Anasazi Abandon Their Cities? The Anasazi ruins still awe visitors to the deserts of the Southwest. But the civilization that built them seems to have vanished into the sands.	15	(7)
4 Where Did Columbus Land? Columbus thought he'd reached India. But where, precisely, was he?	22	(6)
5 How Did Cortes Conquer the Aztecs? How a few hundred men, fourteen horses, and three cannons toppled an empire of 200,000 soldiers and 25 million subjects.	28	(9)
6 What Happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke? Before Jamestown or Plymouth Rock, there was Roanoke--until all 116 colonists disappeared. The only clue: the letters CROATAN carved on the fort's gate.	37	(8)
7 Did Pocahontas Save John Smith? The Indian princess threw herself between Smith and the tomahawks--or so the story went. Hardly anyone believed it...until some twentieth-century revelations prompted historians to look again.	45	(7)
8 What Caused the Salem Witch-Hunt? Something possessed the town of Salem, even if it wasn't the devil.	52	(7)
9 Was Daniel Boone a Traitor? It was one thing to hunt and track like an Indian, quite another to turn over the fort to the Shawnees and their British allies.	59	(6)
10 Why Did Benedict Arnold Turn Traitor? How one of the Revolution's greatest heroes became its arch villain. Was it money--or revenge--or love?	65	(6)
11 Was Sally Hemings the Mistress of Thomas Jefferson? The Federalist press had a field day with the charge that Jefferson had a long-running affair--and five children--with one of his slaves.	71	(8)
12 Was Meriwether Lewis Murdered? Three years after his epic journey across the continent, he was dead. Was it suicide--as his partner William Clark and his sponsor, Thomas Jefferson, concluded--or murder?	79	(6)
13 Was Rachel Jackson a Bigamist? So charged Andrew Jackson's opponents during the 1828 presidential campaign. Jackson denied it, but his story had a lot of holes in it.	85	(7)
14 How Did Davy Crockett Die? No one on the American side lived to tell what happened at the Alamo. Reports from the Mexican side, however, indicate Crockett did not go down fighting.	92	(7)
15 Why Did Lee Order Pickett's Charge? Robert E. Lee was a brilliant military strategist. But at Gettysburg he ordered a suicidal attack on the Union's strongest point.	99	(8)
16 Who Was to Blame for Wounded Knee? The final battle of the Indian wars left 250 Sioux dead--and also left a great many disturbing questions. So did another bloody confrontation at the same site, 85 years later.	107	(8)
17 What Destroyed the Maine? When the Navy determined its battleship had been blown up by a Spanish mine, the U.S. went to war. Others were not nearly so sure the Spanish were to blame.	115	(7)
18 Were Sacco and Vanzetti Guilty? Were they murderers? Or were they framed because they were radicals and immigrants in a world which tolerated neither?	122	(8)
19 Who Kidnapped the Lindbergh Baby? Did the state of New Jersey--in its eagerness to solve the most highly publicized crime of the time--execute an innocent man?	130	(7)
20 Did Babe Ruth Call His Shot? With 51,000 witnesses, you'd think it would be a cinch to tell whether Ruth pointed to center field before hitting a crucial World Series home run. You'd be wrong.	137	(5)
21 Was Amelia Earhart a Spy? Does that explain her disappearance in the middle of her recordbreaking, round-the-world flight?	142	(8)
22 Who Was to Blame for Pearl Harbor? With the entire Pacific Ocean ready to boil over, how could our army and navy be caught sleeping? Some said FDR was so eager to get us into the war that he betrayed his own forces.	150	(7)
23 Why Did Truman Drop the Bomb? To save all the American lives that would have been lost invading Japan, he said. But others claimed that the Japanese were ready to surrender--before Hiroshima--and that Truman knew it.	157	(7)
24 Were the Rosenbergs Guilty? Were they Russian spies, or victims of anticommunist hysteria? Or both?	164	(7)
25 Who Killed JFK? Among the accused: the CIA, the KGB, the FBI, the Mafia, Fidel Castro, anti-Castro Cubans. Not to mention Lee Harvey Oswald.	171	(9)
26 What Happened at the Gulf of Tonkin? The battle which led America to escalate the Vietnam War may never have taken place.	180	(7)
27 Who Killed Malcolm X? The authorities concluded the assassination was the work of Black Muslims--but some suspected the authorities themselves.	187	(8)
28 Who Was to Blame for the Kent State Killings? Did national guardsmen shoot antiwar protesters out of self-defense? Or panic? Or because someone ordered them to teach the students a lesson?	195	(6)
29 What Did Nixon Known About Watergate? What were the Watergate burglars after? Who ordered them to get it? And who erased the 18(1/2) minutes?	201	(8)
30 What Did Reagan Know About Iran-Contra? Oliver North was very good at following orders. But whose orders were they?	209	(10)
Index	219