"Alas by what small ways and means are great affairs brought to destruction," mourned Claudius, the Latin epic poet.

"A trifle manes a dream—a trifle breaks," sang the English poet Tennyson some fifteen hundred years later. And buried away in half-forgotten archives are musty records which deal with "great affairs" that would have changed the history of the world had they not been brought to destruction by some "small ways and means" —dreams of Empire on Earth that were broken by some trifle and became only "Empires of the Moon"—unsubstantial as the moonbeams.

The American Weekly begins on this page today a series of feature fact-fiction stories dealing with these tremendous trifles—a woman’s kiss, an open window, a fallen glove—swerving from their course conspiracies which would have changed history.

They have been painstakingly and vividly dramatized from old records, documents and letters by the brilliant novelist, H. Bedford-Jones. They are historical fact in fiction form, written as some gifted onlooker of the time might have told them.

1. Aaron Burr and the Maid of Half-Way Hill

2. "The Duchess of Hell"

3. The Gorgeous Wench

4. The False Hathor, Goddess of Love

5. The Dagger of Cellini

6. King of the World

7. Almost an Empress

8. Knights of the Golden Circle

9. Light of the Earth

10. The Motto of the Cornaros

11. The Shadow of the Corsican

12. The Arrow Sinister

13. Dream of Youth