History's Greatest Mysteries ─ and the secrets behind them

In this age of information, a seemingly limitless body of knowledge comes easily to hand. With the internet and 24-hour rolling news, scientific breakthroughs and technological innovations, DNA analysis and CCTV cameras, we may fool ourselves into thinking that we know all there is to know. Such hubris is, of course, an illusion. In reality the world is full of grey areas and enigmas, of unsolved mysteries and unresolved stories—mysteries that can fascinate, intrigue, and occasionally annoy us in equal measure.

History’s Greatest Mysteries delves into these grey areas to examine the imponderable and sometimes unlikely stories of actual events and real people. From the gruesome murders committed by Jack the Ripper to the whereabouts of Lord Lucan, and from the loss of an entire continent to the case of a missing racehorse, we take a canter through history in an effort to shed a little light on to questions which, in all honesty, are never going to yield definitive answers.

Some of the stories related in the following pages are deadly serious, some rather less so. There are cases of determined individuals who have struggled against the odds in an attempt to unravel the truth, while in others people have not let the facts get in the way and have made up any old nonsense by way of an explanation. Sometimes the answer to the riddle is tantalizingly just out of reach. More often it defies any sensible or rational approach--which hasn’t stopped some people from trying. But, in the end, it is exactly this sense of mystery, of the unknown and the unknowable, which attracts us to these unfinished stories in the first place. After all, a world in which everything is transparent and where nothing remains uncertain would be a very dull place to live indeed.

Bill Price is a freelance writer and seasoned traveller currently working and living in North London. For fifteen years he worked in various areas of the book trade, but more recently he has built a reputation as a specialist in travel and history writing and has become a regular contributor to a large number of ?international publications as well as popular reference books. His published works include Charles Darwin: Origins and Arguments, Tutankhamun: Egypt’s Most Famous Pharaoh, Winston Churchill: War Leader, Landmarks of the World, Great Modern Buildings, Celtic Myths, and History’s Greatest Mysteries.