3 stars: Enjoyed parts of it

From the back cover: Giles Milton shows his customary flair as he delves into the little known stories from history, including when Stalin was actually assassinated with poison by one of his inner circle; the Russian scientist, dubbed "The Red Frankenstein" who attempted to produce a human-ape hybrid through ethically dubious means; the family who survived 38 days at sea with almost no water or supplies after their ship was destroyed by a killer whale, or the plot that served as a template for 9/11, in which four Algerian terrorists attempted to hijack a plane and fly it into the Eiffel tower.

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I enjoyed parts of this book. The anecdotes were generally unknown to me. I kept wikipedia on load, and found that while all of them were on some level "known", there is much debate about some of them. Notably, I ended up reading multiple websites about Stalin's death, and "assassination" is by no means agreed upon by scholars. Still, it was an engaging enough read, but one I also find I've ultimately forgotten nearly all of three months later.

A fast read for someone with an interest in history or trivia. There are references for each of the chapters where more information can be found.

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A few fun quotes/ entries I noted:

"Witold Pilecki ...volunteered for one of the most extraordinary adventures [that's a poor word choice...] of WWII, one that required him to place his life in the gravest possible danger. His self imposed mission to was to find out what was taking place behind Auschwitz, the Nazi's most notorious extermination camp.... he hoped his account would prompt an Allied air attack on the camp; this he reasoned was the best means of helping inmates escape. The British government considered the report to be grossly exaggerated and did nothing. ' [Comment--- he successfully escaped. It's an engaging read, and one I had not heard of. Ironically, he was killed in 1948 by Stalin's police, for allegedly working as a British spy].

Chapter "It'll never happen to me" -- "Smoking is confined to the smoking saloon, where all accessories for the smoker are at hand and where there are no restrictions". -- the smoking rules for passengers aboard the Hindenburg, kept airborne by 7 million cubic feet of highly flammable hydrogen gas.

[The conclusion to a section about the practice for D-Day, and the 946 Allied men who died in friendly fire]. " The massive loss of life was also highly embarassing for the Allied high command, who wanted to keep it firmly under wraps. And so it remained for many years, an episode of the war that was deliberately expunged from the records. NOt until four decades later, in 1984, was a memorial finally erected to the memory of the men who lost their lives in the practice landings for D-Day. ( )