Free Republic

LONDON (AFP) - Britain's royal family forced the late Princess Diana to blood test her younger son, Prince Harry, to prove he was not the offspring of an affair with an army officer, according to a newspaper report. Diana, who died in 1997, did not tell Harry why his blood was being taken, the Sun newspaper said in extracts from a book by Simone Simmons, an "energy healer" billed as a former close friend and confidante of the princess. Senior royals, notably Queen Elizabeth's husband Prince Philip, feared that their son, Prince Charles, who was married to Diana, might not...

India in 1983 was still in its infant stages of economic development; however, like today, it was a popular destination among Westerners with its marketable poverty, a lingering sense of spirituality, mysticism and a rich history. Around 20 years after United States President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, his son, John F. Kennedy Jr., was ready to take on the world as a fresh 23-year-old history graduate from Brown University. After finishing his education, he took a working year off in which he traveled to India to spend some time at Delhi University, where he researched topics of...

Three significant anniversaries passed this week. Only two have truly been noted. First, of course, is the 50th anniversary of the moon landing on Saturday, July 20. The second was the 20th anniversary of the deaths of John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn Bessette and her sister Lauren Bessette in a small plane Kennedy was flying to Martha’s Vineyard. Only one of those deserves the hagiographic treatment both have been given, but I’ll get to that later. The third was also a 50th anniversary, one that passed just two days after JFK Jr.’s and was, in many ways, related....

Historian Steven M. Gillon recalls his friendship with John F. Kennedy Jr. on the 20th anniversary of his fatal plane crash. The life of the late magazine publisher is being chronicled in a new A&E documentary titled 'Biography: JFK Jr — The Final Year,' as well as a book by Gillon titled 'America's Reluctant Prince.' Steven M. Gillon can vividly recall when he and his pal John F. Kennedy Jr. were at a bar watching a fight on the big screen and a man pushed him aside and exclaimed “You’re John!” hugging the son of late President John F. Kennedy....

At the beginning of the new "X-Files" miniseries, two old characters can be seen exchanging some fresh banter. "It's always good to see you," Gillian Anderson’s Dana Scully says to her former partner. "It's always good to find a reason," replies Fox Mulder, the truth-seeker played by David Duchovny. That spirit of reunion might also be applied to the larger "The X-Files." The landmark series returns to Fox for six episodes beginning Jan. 24, nearly 14 years after the show was last on TV.

A declassified CIA report concludes former agency Director John McCone withheld information about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy Jr., according to a recent news story. The 2013 report, declassified last fall, concludes that McCone, who ran the spy agency when Kennedy was fatally shot in November 1963, kept information from the Warren Commission during its investigation into the assassination. The report’s author, CIA historian David Robarge, writes that McCone and other top CIA officials were part of a "benign cover-up" to keep the commission focused on what the agency believed at the time was the "best truth …...

John F. Kennedy Jr., the famous son whose life began as a fairy tale and ended as a tragedy, will be the subject of a TBS biopic to star Jacqueline Bisset and Portia de Rossi as the two key women in his life, his mother and his wife. "America's Prince: The JFK Jr. Story," from Fox TV Studios, is based on Christopher Andersen's 2000 biography "The Day John Died." Bisset will play Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, while de Rossi will portray Carolyn Bessette Kennedy. The project from FTVS' Fox TV Pictures division is in preproduction. "America's Prince" is one of two...