Americas
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Hatfield – McCoy Family Feud
When thinking of great family feuds most would think of the Wars of the Roses but for Americans, The Hatfields and Mccoys feud is notorious. The Hatfields of West Virginia were led by William Anderson “Devil Anse” Hatfield while the McCoys of Kentucky were under the leadership of Randolph “Ole Ran’l” McCoy. Those involved in the feud were descended from Ephraim Hatfield and William McCoy. The majority of the Hatfields lived in Mingo County (then part of Logan County), West Virginia and fought for the Confederacy in the American Civil War; most McCoys, lived in Pike County, Kentucky, also fought for the Confederacy; with the exception of Asa Harmon McCoy,…
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Jean Lafitte
Little is known of Lafitte’s early life, but records show that by 1809 he and his brother Pierre appeared to have established themselves in New Orleans, Louisiana. They started a blacksmith shop that was actually serving as a depot for smuggled goods and slaves brought ashore by bands of privateers. From around 1810 to 1814 this group probably formed what would become Lafitte’s illicit colony on the secluded islands of Barataria Bay south of the city. Holding privateer commissions from the republic of Cartagena (in modern Colombia), Lafitte’s group preyed on Spanish commerce, eventually disposing of its plunder through merchant connections on the mainland. Barataria Bay was a very important…
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Pat Garrett
Patrick Floyd Garrett was born in Cusseta, Alabama, and grew up on a Louisiana plantation near Haynesville in northern Claiborne Parish, just below the Arkansas state line. His parents were John Lumpkin Garrett and Elizabeth Ann Jarvis. Garrett would always stand out because he was well over six feet tall. He is probably most famous for being the man who killed “Billy the Kid”. Garrett left home in 1869 and found work as a cowboy in Dallas County, Texas. In 1875, he left to hunt buffalo. In 1878, Garrett shot and killed a fellow hunter who charged him with a hatchet during a disagreement over buffalo hides. As he lay…
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Jayne Mansfield
Vera Jayne Palmer was born on April 19, 1933 in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. She was the only child of Herbert William Palmer and Vera (Jeffrey) Palmer. She was an American actress in film, theatre, and television and was also a nightclub entertainer, a singer, and one of the early Playboy Playmates. She was a major Hollywood sex symbol of the 1950s and early 1960s and 20th Century Fox’s alternative to Marilyn Monroe who came to be known as the “Working Man’s Monroe”. She was one of Hollywood’s original blonde bombshells. Mansfield became a major Broadway star in 1955, a major Hollywood star in 1956, and a leading celebrity in 1957.…
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Robert F Kennedy
Robert Francis Kennedy was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, on November 20th 1925, the seventh child of nine, to Joseph P Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald. His father was a prominent Politician, and his maternal grandfather, his father’s main political rival. Robert’s great grandparents on his father’s side were all Irish Catholic immigrants to America, fleeing the 19th Century potato famine. Kennedy’s family have since become synonymous with American politics, his older brother John was US president until his 1963 assassination, his younger brother Edward was a US senator until his death from brain cancer. The oldest Kennedy son, Joseph Junior was the only one of the sons who did not enter…
