Category: Adventure

Josephine Baker: Exotic Showgirl and Clandestine French Operative

Josephine Baker, stage girl and French Spy
Largely remembered in the U.S. as an uninhibited showgirl and glitzy celebrity, Josephine Baker secretly served as an undercover operative for the Free French movement during WWII. She was ultimately awarded the Croix de Guerre and Legion of Honor, France’s highest military honors.

Josephine Baker took Paris by storm, dancing in nothing more than a G-string hung with fake bananas. She had a diamond-collared pet cheetah named Chiquita. Ernest Hemingway called her “the most sensational woman anybody ever saw.” But she was also a French war hero, World War II spy and a civil rights activist who raised 12 children she called her “Rainbow Tribe.”

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Rose Mackenberg: Ghostbuster of Phantoms, Frauds and Flimflam Men

In the early 1900s, with the help of Brooklyn private detective Rose Mackenberg (above, right), escape artist and magician Harry Houdini (above, left) launched a national campaign to expose phony psychics and mediums who preyed on the emotionally distraught. Mackenberg’s colorful methods for ferreting out frauds made her a legend in her own right.

When it came to spiritualists and séances, Rose Mackenberg, a savvy, no-nonsense Brooklyn private eye, once said, “I smell a rat before I smell the incense.” In the early 20th century, she became a star investigator for escape artist and magician Harry Houdini, who spent the last portion of his own career debunking psychics and séances.

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Barbara Hillary: Blazing a Trail to the Top (and Bottom) of the World

A 75-year-old cancer survivor’s Incredible journey

 

A retired nurse who survived two bouts of cancer, Barbara Hillary was the first African-American women to reach the North Pole, among other trekking adventures.

In terms of sheer persistence, Barbara Hillary’s is quite a story. Determined to do what no other woman like her had done before, Hillary became the first African-American woman to reach the North Pole. Even more noteworthy, she did it at the age of 75.

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Isabella Goodwin : NYPD’s First Female Police Detective

Forgoing dreams of an opera career to become a famed law enforcement sleuth

Isabella Goodwin made history within the turn-of-the-century New York City Police Department, paving the way for female officers of the future.

As a girl, Isabella Goodwin wanted to be an opera singer. So how did this wannabe diva wind up working with the New York Police Department to nab a motley crew of bank robbers and, in the process, become the Big Apple’s first female police detective?

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A Legend of the Appalachian Trail She Helped Save: Emma Gatewood

Her first effort to conquer the Appalachian Trail was a failure that taught her lessons that brought her success as the first woman to ever accomplish the feat.

When, one hot day in July of 1954, Emma Gatewood told her grown kids she was “going for a walk,” she left out a few details. She expected the walk would take her from Maine to Georgia, cover 2,108.5 miles and go through 14 states.

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Virginia Hall – The One-Legged WWII Super Spy the Nazis Couldn’t Catch

Spy Virginia Hall and one of the war-ravaged French towns she worked in.
Although she was one of the World War II Allied Forces’ most important spies, the exploits of Virginia Hall remained unknown to the world until recently. She worked in battle-torn France for British forces and ultimately became a member of the OSS, the forerunner of the CIA.

Virginia Hall never spoke publicly about her remarkable life because she knew too many people who “were killed for talking too much.” So, until recently, her story was known only within the intelligence community, where documents were known to disappear and code names were so numerous it was hard to know who was who.

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