They say that you should set a thief to catch a thief as no one else understands the criminal mind better. Perhaps the most shining example of this idiom is Vidocq, the man who is now hailed as the father of modern criminology. He went from a life of crime spent either on the run or in the prisons of France to establishing a national detective police force that served as the model for Scotland Yard and others that followed it. He employed proto-forensic techniques such as ballistics and casti...| Biographics
If there’s one thing Americans love, it’s an underdog story. And the story of a son of immigrant parents, raised in the rural backwoods of America, orphaned as a teenager, who not only rose to the heights of respectability, but to the very pinnacle of American politics, the Presidency? That is one of the all-time underdog stories. For Andrew Jackson, this wasn’t merely a story, however: this was the remarkable story of his own life. For many years, Andrew Jackson was considered among th...| Biographics
In June 323 BC, Alexander the Great was in Babylon, at the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar, when he fell suddenly ill and, just like that, the greatest conqueror the ancient world had ever seen was on his deathbed. Alexander did not have an heir. His son, Alexander IV, was born after his death, so since nobody knew if the child would be a boy or a girl, the question immediately arose of who would succeed as the new ruler of the Macedonian Empire. Alexander’s closest advisors and generals gathere...| Biographics