 The ruin of Troy. 
Above, a cover from On the Q.T., May 1962, with curious editors asking if Hollywood heartthrob Troy Donahue beat his girlfriend, Swedish actress Lili Kardell. She said yes. He said no. A lawsuit resulted and Donohue settled out of court. As far as we know, the question of whether he actually beat her was never answered, but curiously, none of his four marriages lasted long, including a union with Suzanne Pleshette that endured a mere three months. Suffice it to say Donahue had trouble in relationships, probably due to his admitted booze and drug problems, yet there were always women willing to take the leap. He was engaged to be married for a fifth time in 2001, but died of a heart attack that September. Elsewhere in this issue readers are told the story of British socialite Caroline Lindsay-Flynn, who posed for "THOSE" pictures—supposedly hundreds of nudes that eventually were sold under the counter all over the UK. On the Q.T. claims Lindsay-Finn had been compelled to pose for the shots by her boyfriend Arthur Pritchard, but when she discovered they were being sold en masse ran to her millionaire father for help. Father said he'd buy up all the negatives, but that she had to dump her boyfriend. She refused, and that's where On the Q.T.'s account ends. Sounds like typical tabloid fantasy, but amazingly we found a reference to the tale in the German magazine Der Spiegel, where Lindsay-Finn is labeled a "fallen star of English society" and a "call-girl." And we also discovered that she and Pritchard were arrested in January of 1963 and charged with obscenity for distributing the photos. She was acquitted of the charges, but we don't know what happened to her afterward. Very possibly she'll pop up in one of our other tabloids down the line. Scans of Donahue, Lindsay-Finn, French bikini pants and more, below. And more from On the Q.T. later.           
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1986—Otto Preminger Dies
Austro–Hungarian film director Otto Preminger, who directed such eternal classics as Laura, Anatomy of a Murder, Carmen Jones, The Man with the Golden Arm, and Stalag 17, and for his efforts earned a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, dies in New York City, aged 80, from cancer and Alzheimer's disease. 1998—James Earl Ray Dies
The convicted assassin of American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., petty criminal James Earl Ray, dies in prison of hepatitis aged 70, protesting his innocence as he had for decades. Members of the King family who supported Ray's fight to clear his name believed the U.S. Government had been involved in Dr. King's killing, but with Ray's death such questions became moot. 1912—Pravda Is Founded
The newspaper Pravda, or Truth, known as the voice of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, begins publication in Saint Petersburg. It is one of the country's leading newspapers until 1991, when it is closed down by decree of then-President Boris Yeltsin. A number of other Pravdas appear afterward, including an internet site and a tabloid. 1983—Hitler's Diaries Found
The German magazine Der Stern claims that Adolf Hitler's diaries had been found in wreckage in East Germany. The magazine had paid 10 million German marks for the sixty small books, plus a volume about Rudolf Hess's flight to the United Kingdom, covering the period from 1932 to 1945. But the diaries are subsequently revealed to be fakes written by Konrad Kujau, a notorious Stuttgart forger. Both he and Stern journalist Gerd Heidemann go to trial in 1985 and are each sentenced to 42 months in prison. 1918—The Red Baron Is Shot Down
German WWI fighter ace Manfred von Richthofen, better known as The Red Baron, sustains a fatal wound while flying over Vaux sur Somme in France. Von Richthofen, shot through the heart, manages a hasty emergency landing before dying in the cockpit of his plane. His last word, according to one witness, is "Kaputt." The Red Baron was the most successful flying ace during the war, having shot down at least 80 enemy airplanes. 1964—Satellite Spreads Radioactivity
An American-made Transit satellite, which had been designed to track submarines, fails to reach orbit after launch and disperses its highly radioactive two pound plutonium power source over a wide area as it breaks up re-entering the atmosphere.
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