In 2008 the prominent Wall Street bank Lehman Brothers had 25,000 employees around the world. It carried $639 million in assets, and was the fourth largest investment bank in the United States — and one of the oldest. But when its massive portfolio of mortgage-backed securities lost value and the nation’s over-inflated housing bubble burst, […]
What is so funny about a rich and powerful man who disposes of most of his six wives – who wind up “divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived,” as British children learn to memorize in history classes? The marital track record of Britain’s King Henry VIII is not a pretty one. And it is not […]
In the winter of 1843 a novella appeared that captivated London readers. The first book run of the slim volume of 6,000 copies sold out quickly. A century later, two million copies had been purchased. And today it is hard to imagine the winter holiday season – or the American theatre — without Charles Dickens’ […]
In 1889, two remarkable institutions that became synonymous with The City of Light opened. One was the Eiffel Tower, a sky-scraping thousand-foot tall, wrought-iron structure erected for the Paris World’s Fair. It remains one of the most visited tourist attractions in the world. The other? A scarlet-colored night spot with a distinctive windmill perched on […]