Monday, October 7, 2024

In today’s true-crime History newsletter, we examine cold cases from New York, the Tower of London, and England’s first American colony. Plus, a giant spider invasion, Caligula’s long shadow.

PHOTOGRAPHED WITH PERMISSION OF THE CROATOAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY

For generations, Americans were told there was only a single, puzzling clue to the disappearance of a fledgling English colony in what is now North Carolina.  But there are more clues to the vanished Roanoke Island colony, launched two decades before other colonists landed in Jamestown. What do we know?    

Other mysteries from our, um, morgue:

- These 19th-century explorers searched for the Northwest Passage. They vanished.

- Who killed the little princes in the Tower of London? 

- What happened to this missing New York heiress?

- Once thriving, how did this Phoenician civilization simply disappear?

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC IMAGE COLLECTION 

PHOTOGRAPH BY STUART CAHILL/MEDIANEWS GROUP/BOSTON HERALD VIA GETTY 

Big, scary, harmless but .... The giant joro spider looks frightening. The arachnid found its way to Georgia and spread through the South but now is making its way north. Where has it been spotted?

A. Baltimore
B. Boston
C. Montreal
D. Philadelphia
E. B and D 

Today’s Soundtrack: Spiderwebs, No Doubt

Tomorrow: All around the world, people are struck—and often killed—from this cause. It’s happening more often. Why? 

Today’s newsletter was curated and edited by David Beard and produced by Amanda Williams-Bryant. Missed yesterday’s Photo of the Week? Here it is. And consider signing up for next week’s edition, or tomorrow’s Health newsletter.