Did you know that Hitler used cocaine? That Stalin robbed a bank? That some people stole Charlie Chaplin's corpse and demanded ransom? Giles Milton unfolds, with his charismatic pen, one hundred paradoxical historical snapshots, one hundred incredible stories that read like a novel, but are one hundred percent real. We will learn about Hiroo Onoda, the lone Japanese soldier who bravely fought in World War II until... 1974; about Agatha Christie, who mysteriously disappeared for eleven whole days in 1926; and about Werner Franz, a cabin boy on the airship "Hindenburg," who lived to tell his nightmarish experience when in 1937 the "Hindenburg" went up in flames. With a cast of spies, criminals, cannibals, adventurers, and slaves parading before our eyes, Giles Milton's accurate and well-documented anecdotes take us across six continents and twenty centuries, illuminating some of the darkest stories and some of the most curious and unforgettable heroes of History – both human and animal.