How an illiterate fishmonger became king of London’s gambling scene

William Crockford was born in 1776, in a run-down area of London called Temple Bar. His father was a fishmonger, like his father before him, and Crockford carried on in the trade for a while. This being the 1700s, and his family being dirt-poor, he was given very little education. By every imaginable standard, he […]

Károly Takács, the One-Handed Olympic Sharpshooter

The 2016 Paralympic Games opened in spectacular fashion last night, which means it’s the perfect time to talk about an athlete that’s, for my money, one of the greatest in history. Károly Takács, a sergeant in the Hungarian Army in the 1930s, was a world-class pistol shooter who dreams of competing in the 1940 Olympics were […]