Science Nonfiction History

Before their experiments, inventions, and discoveries that changed the world, the world’s most celebrated scientists had regular-kid problems just like you. Stephen Hawking hated school and preferred to spend his free time building model airplanes, inventing board games, and even building his own computer. Jane Goodall got in trouble for bringing worms and snails into her house. And Neil deGrasse Tyson had to start a dog-walking business to save up money to buy a telescope.

Featuring 18 trailblazing Black women in American history, Little Leaders educates and inspires as it relates true stories of breaking boundaries and achieving beyond expectations. Among these biographies, listeners will find heroes, role models, and everyday women who did extraordinary things - bold women whose actions and beliefs contributed to making the world better for generations of girls and women to come.

The Scots are one of the world's greatest nations of emigrants. For centuries, untold numbers of men, women, and children sought their fortunes in every part of the globe, from the British Empire to the United States, in cities and on prairie farms, as traders, bankers, missionaries, soldiers, politicians, and engineers.

Most Holocaust survivors who came to the US after WWII settled in big cities, but some chose an alternative way of life on American farms. More of these accidental farmers wound up raising chickens in southern New Jersey than anywhere else. Speaking Yiddish to Chickens is the first book to chronicle this chapter in American Jewish history when these refugees—including the author's grandparents—found an unlikely gateway to new lives in the US on poultry farms.

Almost 7,000 fans eagerly packed into the Ringling Brothers big top on July 6, 1944. With a single careless act, an afternoon at the "Greatest Show on Earth" quickly became one of terror and tragedy as the paraffin-coated circus tent caught fire. Panicked crowds rushed for the few exits, but in minutes, the tent collapsed on those still struggling to escape below. A total of 168 lives were lost, many of them children, with many more injured and forever scarred by the events.

Travel to Mexico. Find out the facts about this country in North America.

Did you know Toll House Cookies were created accidentally in an old Toll House in Massachusetts by a woman hurrying to make a tasty snack for her patrons? And did you know that Liquid Paper® (or white-out) was invented because of one small typing mistake? Often overshadowed by famous male inventors, women have also made many significant contributions to science and industry.

She Persisted, She Persisted Around the World, She Persisted in Sports, and She Persisted in Science each give listeners a collection of remarkable, diverse, and tenacious women. Chelsea Clinton's words and narration bring the women to life, showing how they struggled and ultimately persevered, inspiring and empowering people across the US and the entire world. Now together for the first time, this collection is a perfect gift for feminists of all ages.

You’ve heard of the space race, but do you know the whole story? The most ambitious race humankind has ever undertaken was masterminded in the shadows by two engineers on opposite sides of the Cold War - Wernher von Braun, a former Nazi officer living in the US, and Sergei Korolev, a Russian rocket designer once jailed for crimes against his country - and your textbooks probably never told you. From Amy Cherrix comes the extraordinary hidden story of the space race and the bitter rivalry that launched humankind to the moon.

When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the lunar surface in July of 1969, they wore spacesuits made by Playtex: 21 layers of fabric, each with a distinct yet interrelated function, custom-sewn for them by seamstresses whose usual work was fashioning bras and girdles. This book is the story of that spacesuit. It is a story of the triumph over the military-industrial complex by the International Latex Corporation, best known by its consumer brand of "Playtex" - a victory of elegant softness over engineered hardness, of adaptation over cybernetics.

Following the events of September 11, 2001, the governor of New York gave the navy a steel beam that was once inside one of the World Trade Towers. Seven and a Half Tons of Steel tells the story of what the navy did with it.

On the eve of the American Revolution, the British army considered the case of a chaplain, Robert Newburgh, who had been accused of having sex with a man. Newburgh's enemies cited his flamboyant appearance, defiance of military authority, and seduction of soldiers as proof of his low character. His opponents claimed that these supposed crimes against nature translated to crimes against the king. In Vicious and Immoral, historian John McCurdy tells this compelling story of male intimacy and provides an unparalleled glimpse inside eighteenth-century perceptions of queerness.

This essay comes from the NPR series This I Believe, which features brief personal reflections from both famous and unknown Americans. The pieces that make up the series compel listeners to rethink not only what and how they have arrived at their beliefs, but also the extent to which they share them with others.

First scientists thought it was for balance, but the tail helps the kangaroo to be able to move the fore and hind legs together. Trivia helps to inform and educate people. Experts say trivia aids to keep the mind sharp and engaged, a plus for all occupations and people from all walks of life that require no amount of energy. Knowing Obscure Facts Is Good for Our Mental Health.

Experience Earth from the big bang to the dinosaurs and beyond in this beautifully written, vibrant overview of our home planet's journey from creation to our time today.

Flight. Loneliness. Fear. Danger. Courage. Charles Lindbergh considered all these things and more when he set out for Paris on the morning of May 20, 1927, with only two compasses and the stars for his guides. Experience all the drama of Lindbergh's history-making flight with startling intimacy as you travel along with the first pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic, and follow the courage and endurance of one man who dared to make his dream come true.

On the trail of Soviet infiltrator Agent Blériot, Svetlana Lokhova takes the reader on a thrilling journey through Stalin’s most audacious intelligence operation. On a sunny September day in 1931, a Soviet spy walked down the gangplank of the luxury transatlantic liner SS Europa and into New York. Attracting no attention, Stanislav Shumovsky had completed his journey from Moscow to enrol at a top American university. He was concealed in a group of 65 Soviet students heading to prestigious academic institutions. But he was after far more than an excellent education.

This essay comes from the NPR series This I Believe, which features brief personal reflections from both famous and unknown Americans. The pieces that make up the series compel listeners to rethink not only what and how they have arrived at their beliefs, but also the extent to which they share them with others.

This essay comes from the NPR series This I Believe, which features brief personal reflections from both famous and unknown Americans. The pieces that make up the series compel listeners to rethink not only what and how they have arrived at their beliefs, but also the extent to which they share them with others.

La philosophie intrigue ou effraie ceux qui ne la connaissent pas. Elle passionne, depuis vingt-cinq siècles, beaucoup de ceux qui ont pris la peine de l'étudier, à commencer par certains des plus grands génies de l'humanité, qui ont fait son histoire et sa grandeur. C'est cette passion que le présent ouvrage veut rendre compréhensible. Il explique ce qu'est la philosophie, comment elle a évolué à travers les siècles, enfin quels sont les grands courants, dans chaque domaine, qui la traversent ou s'y affrontent.