Discovery History

Brittany, 1821. After Grand-mere Ursule gives her life to save her family, their magic seems to die with her. Even so, the Orchires fight to keep the old ways alive, practising half-remembered spells and arcane rites in hopes of a revival. And when their youngest daughter comes of age, magic flows anew. The lineage continues, though new generations struggle not only to master their power, but also to keep it hidden. But when World War II looms on the horizon, magic is needed more urgently than ever - not for simple potions or visions, but to change the entire course of history.

This classic biography should be mandatory listening for all academicians. Winsor, a historian, poet, literary critic, and fiction writer, retraces every important aspect of Columbus' fascinating life, from his family origins to his beliefs and convictions. Columbus emerges as a living, breathing human being with passions and ideas: a man possessing intellect and imagination enough to believe that the earth was round, not flat. Winsor's opus represents an honest search for the truth.

Grab a warm blanket. This audiobook puts you right into the action of the life-and-death decisions made by early Antarctic explorers. It is filled with unforgettable stories about the challenges and decisions they faced on the ice. While we might not be pulling sledges across Antarctica in the early 1900s, this audiobook also reveals valuable lessons in leadership, teamwork, and sheer grit and determination that can help all of us make better decisions in our lives today.

In We Could Perceive No Sign of Them: Failed Colonies in North America, 1526-1689, historians David MacDonald and Raine Waters tell the fascinating stories of the many attempts to establish a European foothold in the New World, from the first Spanish colony in 1526 on the coast of Georgia to the final disastrous French endeavors near the arctic.

Giovanni Caboto (John Cabot), in the service of King Henry VII of England, crossed the Atlantic and reached land in the summer of 1497. This account comprises three reports of contemporary witnesses. It seems likely that Cabot explored the coast of Labrador.

From 1890 and through the early years of the 20th century, Vienna became a dazzling beacon. The city was powered by an unprecedented number of extraordinary people - artists Klimt and Schiele, thinkers such as Theodor Herzl, and fashion icons like the glamorous Empress Sisi. The influence of early 20th century Vienna is still detectable all around us. The way we think about ourselves has been largely determined by Vienna's most celebrated resident: Sigmund Freud. Mortal Secrets is the story of Freud's life, Vienna's golden age, and an essential reappraisal of Freud's legacy.

A deeply moving story of the beauty and brutality of life, and death, on the world's most unpredictable and perilous mountain. Sitting just lower than Everest at 8,611 meters above sea level on the China-Pakistan border, the Savage Mountain claims the lives of even the most experienced climbers. Alongside severe altitude, the weather is notoriously volatile and the climb relentlessly steep. A staggering one in four attempts result in death on the mountain.

Published in 1920, America First: One Hundred Stories from Our History by Lawton B. Evans (1862-1934) is a collection of stories meant for the young, containing highlights from America's history, and biographical sketches of prominent Americans of the past. It covers the history from the first visit to North America by the Viking, Leif Ericsson the Lucky, through the conquest of the Midwest and the settlement of California and the Pacific Coast, to the end of World War I.

In the aftermath of the First World War, an idea was born for a single ‘Unknown Warrior’ to commemorate every one of the missing, and help staunch the tidal flow of national grief. Echoed most recently by the funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, each phase of his burial ceremony was choreographed with military precision, love, and respect. Former RAF Tornado Navigator and Gulf War prisoner-of-war John Nichol, retraces the Warrior’s journey home from the battlefields of Northern France to Westminster Abbey, talking to relatives of those involved and researching long-forgotten archives.

In the early 1500s, Ponce de Leon was one of the most important Spanish military figures in the Caribbean. He made his first voyage across the Atlantic with Christopher Columbus and then, after years of battle with the native Taino, became the first governor of Puerto Rico. Although the story of his search for the Fountain of Youth is entirely fictional, his noteworthy expedition to—and naming of—Florida is one of his greatest legacies.

Jefferson's America sheds new light on one of the key aspects of Jefferson's presidency. Almost everyone who has taken a US history course is familiar with Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase and the travels of Lewis and Clark, but that's not where this formative episode in American history begins or ends. In fact Jefferson sent four other expeditions west. Zebulon Pike was dispatched on two missions: first to the headwaters of the Mississippi and second toward what is now Colorado.

Benjamin Franklin was often curious about the world around him. Utilizing observation and testing of the scientific method, he was able to invent many new items that improved the world for others. These inventions include his famous bifocal glasses, lightning rod, and even a long extension arm.

In Polish: A stunning story of the trailblazing expedition into the heart of the most dangerous jungle in the world, full of venomous snakes, jaguars, and sandflies which spread infections. This is were the legendary, cursed City of the Monkey God was supposed to be. Many years of expeditions didn't show any results, until Steve Elkins, a documentalist, discoverer, and laureate of the Emmy Award, managed to find the position of the mistery Pre-Columbian city thanks to the use of modern laser technology.

Personal Narrative provides fascinating insight into the earliest clashes that were beginning to occur between citizens of the travelers from the east, Native Americans and Mexicans as United States began its great westward expansion. Pattie’s book fully explores the dangers of life as a trapper in the wilderness of the far west, including during one episode after Pattie and a group of French trappers were attacked and only three of them survived.

Best Book Awards Women's Fiction Finalist 2024 Indies Today Finalist 2024 Readers' Favorite 5 star review Toni Agosti is having a midlife crisis at age thirty-five. Unsurprising, since she hasn’t achieved her dream job of becoming a cellist in the Los Angeles Philharmonic and, instead, is trapped teaching music all day. She’s also barely surviving in her shaky marriage to former soulmate and new Mr. Condescending, uh…Christian. When she learns about her ancestor leaving Italy to reestablish his winery in early 1900s LA, she longs to awaken the freedom-filled family legacy and escape ...

At the height of their power in the ninth and tenth centuries, the Vikings seemed invincible - conquering well-armed warriors whose ships were the ultimate in seafaring technology. From island bases near the deltas of major rivers, they used the waterways to scour the countryside, looting and burning towns, plundering merchant shipments, and stripping churches and monasteries of their gold, silver, and jeweled treasures.

Originariamente publicadas como folletín, en 1870, en el diario La Tribuna, las cartas que componen este libro son el particular relato de la expedición de Lucio V. Mansilla Tierra Adentro y de su encuentro con los indios ranqueles. Con una minuciosidad por momentos cercana a la obsesión, en ellas el autor toma nota de los detalles de la geografía pampeana y describe lúcidamente los hábitos, costumbres y comportamientos del mundo indígena, ese gran Otro de la literatura argentina.

El hombre tiende siempre a inventar utopías y a perseguir quimeras, ya desde la antigüedad territorios como la Atlántida o las Islas Afortunadas, habían sido visitadas por viajeros que traían descripciones de animales increíbles y tesoros infinitos, otro tanto pasaba con regiones como la India de la que se contaban también numerosas leyendas fantásticas que fueron confirmadas, en algunos casos, por hombres que estuvieron allí, las tropas de Alejandro Magno por ejemplo.

When Johnson went to work for the US Antarctic Program (devoted to scientific research and education in support of the national interest in the Antarctic), he figured he'd find adventure, beauty, penguins, and lofty-minded scientists. Instead he found boredom, alcohol, and bureaucracy. As a dishwasher and garbage man at McMurdo Station, Johnson quickly shed his illusions about Antarctica.

In 1811, when the self-schooled daughter of a carpenter pulled some strange-looking bones from Britain's southern shoreline, few people dared to question that the Bible told the accurate history of the world. But Mary Anning had discovered the 'first' dinosaur, and over the next seventy-five years - as the science of palaeontology developed, as Charles Darwin posited theories of evolutionary biology, and as religious scholars identified the internal inconsistencies of the Scriptures - everything changed.