Brendan i. koerner

Like many of his fellow skyjackers, 49-year-old Arthur Gates Barkley was motivated by a complicated grievance against the federal government. In 1963, the World War II veteran had been fired as a...

The first outbreak of America's 11-year skyjacking epidemic occurred in the summer of 1961, when four planes were seized in the nation's airspace. The last of these incidents, involving 16-year-old...

Barkley was the first of many American skyjackers whose primary interest was money; by 1972, the majority of the nation's hijackings would involve demands for ransom. Barkley himself was declared...

Mystical groups such as the Theosophical Society and the Rosicrucians turned tarot into an American fad during the early 1900s. Many American tarot practitioners use a set of cards known as the...

Monorail tracks are prefabricated and can be erected relatively quickly: Simply dig a hole every 120 feet or so, plop down a column, and lift the track into place. Because the systems operate above...

Particularly during the late 1960s, a large number of American skyjackers earnestly believed that Fidel Castro's Cuba was an egalitarian, post-racial utopia.

A surprising number of American skyjackers were not yet old enough to drink or sometimes even drive. These adolescents were generally inept at planning their crimes, and few of their capers met with...