Lewis Lapham

Buying securities ranging from Russian railways to Malaysian rubber companies, Britain in 1913 was the money capital of the world,

When presidential candidate Woodrow Wilson wanted an expert adviser on trusts, he summoned attorney Louis Brandeis from Boston. At 20, he’d graduated from Harvard Law School as class valedictorian and in his practice had gained a reputation for legal brilliance.

Louis XV had Parisian jeweler Boehmer make a fabulous diamond bauble for his inamorata, Madame du Barry. By the time the necklace -- valued at $100 million in today’s currency -- was finished, the king was dead and the lady was banished.

The fierce World War II battle of Kursk, beginning July 5, 1943, marked the end of Nazi offensive capacity on the Eastern Front.

She was not a beauty, the Feejee mermaid, but millions paid 25 cents to enter Phineas Taylor Barnum’s American Museum to see her.

Raised in a humble Jewish home, he saw injustice and poverty living side by side with great wealth and power. He urged people to look toward the Kingdom of God, gathering disciples as he preached. For his pains, he was executed by the rulers of the Holy Land.

Charles Lindbergh, the most famous man in the world at the time, moved to Europe in 1935 to get away from the U.S. media frenzy, grown intolerable after the kidnapping and murder of his son.

“Crucify him!” shouted people crowding the courthouse as the prisoner arrived. Levi Weeks was on trial for the murder of Elma Sands, a young Quaker girl who lived in the same boardinghouse. She’d been strangled, her body dumped into a Manhattan well just before Christmas, 1799.

On November 8, 1519, just outside what is now Mexico City, conquistador Hernan Cortes attended a ceremonial dinner given by Montezuma II.

It was supposed to be an easy victory for the British. To defeat the scrappy American rebels, they had a professional army, a large navy, experienced officers, ready credit and a booming economy.

Everyone should have the same opportunities to get ahead in business, the professions and politics. It’s not happening because men reserve power and privilege for themselves.

“The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it,” said Abraham Lincoln, referring to the hallowed ground at the new Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.