American History Tellers

Early in the Revolutionary War, Major General Benedict Arnold built a reputation as a courageous commander. He was a favorite of George Washington’s. But he also revealed a fragile ego and a penchant for holding grudges. As the war went on, Arnold’s temper, ambition, and greed would turn him from hero to villain...

On the night of April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth stepped into the presidential box at Washington’s Ford’s Theatre, raised a pistol at President Abraham Lincoln, and squeezed the trigger. Lincoln would soon die of his wounds, making him the first president to be assassinated in American history. As the nation plunged into mourning, the hunt for Lincoln’s killer began. But authorities soon revealed a conspiracy much bigger than just one man...

In September 1949, the world was shocked to learn that the Soviet Union had conducted its first nuclear weapons test, just four years after the United States dropped the first atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. U.S. authorities thought there was only one way the Soviets could narrow the nuclear arms gap so quickly -- by stealing atomic secrets from the U.S...

On June 13, 1985, Aldrich Ames packed up six pounds of top secret documents into a plastic bag and walked out the door of the CIA headquarters. He drove to lunch, where he gave the documents to a Soviet diplomat. They contained the identities of America’s most important spies within the Soviet Union. Not long after, the Soviets told Ames that $2 million had been set aside for him. Ames had become the highest-paid American spy of the Cold War, and his betrayal would soon prove disastrous...

Not every case of treason is open and shut. With some accused traitors, questions of their guilt or innocence can linger for generations. That’s certainly the case with Mary Surratt. Even before she was hanged in 1865 for her alleged role in the plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln, many argued that she was an innocent widow convicted on false testimony. After her death, she became a martyr to the Confederate cause...