HISTORY DETECTIVES is devoted to solving historical mysteries, searching out the true facts (and falsehoods) behind local folklore, family legends and interesting objects.

Using traditional investigative techniques, modern technologies, and plenty of legwork, the History Detectives team of experts discovers that artifacts, buildings and stories can give us new (and sometimes shocking) insights into our national history.

See episode description below.

WWII DIARY
A man in Lexington, North Carolina has a poignant diary written by a World War II pilot. He inherited the diary 20 years ago from his father, who said it once belonged to a close friend he fought with in WWII, until the war took his friend’s life in 1944. Keeping the last thoughts of this fallen solider is now too great a burden for the contributor. Can we return it to a living relative? The stakes are raised as the diary pages reveal the story of a young American pilot stationed in England, racing against time and against all odds to return home before the birth of his first child. HISTORY DETECTIVES host Wes Cowan heads to Florida on a quest to reunite the diary with the pilot’s surviving family.

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HISTORY DETECTIVES is devoted to solving historical mysteries, searching out the true facts (and falsehoods) behind local folklore, family legends and interesting objects.

Using traditional investigative techniques, modern technologies, and plenty of legwork, the History Detectives team of experts discovers that artifacts, buildings and stories can give us new (and sometimes shocking) insights into our national history.

See episode description below.

CAMP DAVID LETTER
Maryland’s Camp David has served as a Presidential retreat for more than 60 years and is possibly best known for the Camp David Accords, the famous Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement signed there in 1978. A self-styled dumpster diver in San Francisco has recovered a windfall of memorabilia that reveals a story of Camp David’s beginnings. The salvaged items appear to have once belonged to a three-generation Navy family headed by John H. Kevers. Among photos, dog tags and epaulets, one letter in particular caught our contributor’s attention: It’s from Ronald Reagan to Kevers’ widow, stating "…Captain John H. Kevers gave many years of service to Presidents, starting with Franklin D. Roosevelt…Because of Captain Kevers, we have the enjoyable facility of Camp David…" In Los Angeles and San Francisco, HISTORY DETECTIVES host Wes Cowan searches Presidential archives and Naval history to pinpoint Kevers’ connection to the secret mountaintop hideaway that was FDR’s "Shangri-La."

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HISTORY DETECTIVES is devoted to solving historical mysteries, searching out the true facts (and falsehoods) behind local folklore, family legends and interesting objects.

Using traditional investigative techniques, modern technologies, and plenty of legwork, the History Detectives team of experts discovers that artifacts, buildings and stories can give us new (and sometimes shocking) insights into our national history.

See episode description below.

LINCOLN FORGERY
A woman in Portland, Oregon owns a bound volume of 19th century sheet music. The book contains several "Abraham Lincoln" signatures on random pages. At the end of one of the compositions, a handwritten notarized inscription claims the music is a gift from President Lincoln’s widow, Mary Todd Lincoln, to Lincoln’s former coachman, William P. Brown, in 1866. Could the sheet music really be from Lincoln’s personal library? HISTORY DETECTIVES host Wes Cowan travels to Chicago and Springfield, Illinois to explore the years after Lincoln’s death and to illuminate the true origins of these curious documents.

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HISTORY DETECTIVES is devoted to solving historical mysteries, searching out the true facts (and falsehoods) behind local folklore, family legends and interesting objects.

Using traditional investigative techniques, modern technologies, and plenty of legwork, the History Detectives team of experts discovers that artifacts, buildings and stories can give us new (and sometimes shocking) insights into our national history.

See episode description below.

BONUS ARMY STAMP
A collector in Hawaii has a postage-sized stamp with an illustration of a World War I "doughboy" solider and the words "PAY THE BONUS." Our contributor, whose grandfather was a World War I soldier, thinks the stamp is linked to the "Bonus Army" veterans. A bill was passed in 1924 promising WWI veterans a payment 21 years later -- dubbed a "bonus" -- in 1945. When the Great Depression hit, veterans organized to demand early payment of the bonus. They organized a protest march on Washington in 1932, demanding pay for their combat, and approximately 20,000 veterans camped out in the Capitol following the march. Weeks went by until Herbert Hoover ordered General Douglas McArthur to force the vets out. Two veterans were shot and killed, thousands were tear gassed. What role did this political stamp play in the veterans’ movement? HISTORY DETECTIVES host Wes Cowan heads to Hyde Park, NY and Washington, DC to reveal the stamp’s connection to the veteran’s struggle.

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HISTORY DETECTIVES is devoted to solving historical mysteries, searching out the true facts (and falsehoods) behind local folklore, family legends and interesting objects.

Using traditional investigative techniques, modern technologies, and plenty of legwork, the History Detectives team of experts discovers that artifacts, buildings and stories can give us new (and sometimes shocking) insights into our national history.

See episode description below.

USS OLYMPIA GLASS
The door of a farmhouse in Eastern Nebraska has an etched glass window with a depiction of a ship cruising through open waters, smoke pouring from its stacks. The home’s owner believes the ship is the USS Olympia, the cruiser commanded by Commodore George Dewey when he defeated Admiral Montojo’s Spanish Squadron at Manila Bay in 1898, beginning the Spanish-American War. The farm’s been in the family for over half a century, and a 1977 letter from the USS Olympia Association states that etched glass windows may have adorned Admiral Dewey’s own stateroom. HISTORY DETECTIVES host Wes Cowan travels to Fremont, Nebraska and Philadelphia to find whether the unique window can serve as a portal into a turning point in American foreign policy.

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HISTORY DETECTIVES is devoted to solving historical mysteries, searching out the true facts (and falsehoods) behind local folklore, family legends and interesting objects.

Using traditional investigative techniques, modern technologies, and plenty of legwork, the History Detectives team of experts discovers that artifacts, buildings and stories can give us new (and sometimes shocking) insights into our national history.

See episode description below.

MANKATO SPOON
A woman in Portland, Oregon has a curious spoon that once belonged to her grandmother. It’s known in her family as "the spoon of atrocities." An eerie scene is etched into its sterling silver bowl: wagons, buildings and a crowd of spectators gathered before a gallows with figures hanging from them. A disturbing message is inscribed: "Hanging 38 Sioux In 1862 Mankato, Minn." What is this tragic scene, and why has it been etched into what looks like a collectible, commemorative spoon? HISTORY DETECTIVES host Wes Cowan travels to Mankato, New Ulm and Minneapolis, Minnesota to explore the clash between white settlers and the Dakota Sioux in the mid nineteenth-century -- and a struggle that led to the largest mass execution in American history.

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