War Years

Summer, 1851. Racial tensions in America were higher than ever. The year before, President Millard Fillmore had passed the Fugitive Slave Act to return runaway slaves to the South. In February, Congress had established the reservation system, forcing Native Americans to leave their homelands. White Americans were strengthening dominance over people of color across the continent. In Oregon City, one biracial man named Jacob Vanderpool found himself in the crosshairs of this racist discrimination.

Die Zeitzeugengeschichte 1941-1948: Die sieben längsten Jahre meines Lebens handelt von den persönlichen Erlebnissen eines jungen Mannes im Krieg und in Gefangenschaft von 1941-1948. Als 18-jähriger 1941 zum Reichsarbeitsdienst einberufen, macht er erste Erfahrungen mit dem Krieg im Ostfeldzug. Später dient er in der Waffen-SS und erlebt verschiedene Stationen im Russlandfeldzug und in Frankreich. Bei Kriegsende gerät er in amerikanische und französische Kriegsgefangenschaft und ist nach mehreren Fluchtversuchen Ende 1947 endlich wieder zu Hause.

Tomie keeps hearing the phrase, "For the duration." Gas is being rationed "for the duration." The Fourth of July fireworks will be the last show "for the duration." So many things will be different as long as the war goes on, but much of Tomie's life goes on as usual. He's excited about starring in a dance recital, taking the bus around town all by himself, and having his first Communion. But Tomie is also still getting over his cousin's death in the war, and he has to say good-bye to his uncle as he ships off to basic training.

"The Last of the Mohicans" is a historical novel set during the Seven Years' War, when France and Great Britain battled for control of North America. It is striking, suspenseful and fast-paced, and has been widely considered the first Great American Novel. James Fenimore Cooper's classic follows an intrepid group of frontiersmen and Native Americans as they navigate the rugged terrain of both the landscape and their racial differences, striving together to deliver Colonel Munro's two daughters to safety.

It was a watershed year for Canada and the world. 1945 set Canada on a bold course into the future. A huge sense of relief marked the end of hostilities. Yet there was also fear and uncertainty about the perilous new world that was unfolding in the wake of the American decision to use the atomic bomb to bring the war in the Pacific to a dramatic halt.

It has been famously pointed out that the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, but it was also not an empire in the sense people expect when hearing the term. In theory, the emperor was the highest prince in Christendom, and his dominion extended the length and breadth of Western Europe. The empire had been created by the papacy in 801 when Pope Leo III famously crowned the supposedly unwitting Charlemagne in Saint Peter’s Basilica, intending to recreate the Western Roman Empire.

Escritas durante el destierro que Napoleón Bonaparte impuso a la autora, estas memorias registran con acuidad, ironía y elegancia los vaivenes sociales, políticos y militares de Europa durante el ascenso y apogeo del emperador francés.

Las tres historias que componen este libro tratan sobre la búsqueda. De esposos, padres e hijos que durante la sombría dictadura militar fueron detenidos, torturados y hechos desaparecer. De madres, esposas e hijas que decidieron no callar y que, mediante huelgas de hambre, recursos de amparo y protestas en la vía pública, nunca dejaron de ir tras los pasos de los responsables. De mujeres que bailaron la cueca en soledad, que no tuvieron miedo de los mecanismos de la represión, que decidieron decirle al mundo lo que ocurría en el país.

On VE Day in 1945, Edward Lyme was one of the many soldiers who thronged London's Piccadilly Circus to celebrate the end of the long war in Europe. Having been captured during the Defence of Calais in 1940, he had spent the previous five years in another sort of circus - the stalags of Germany and Poland. But Edward Lyme was not passive during his captivity and made several escapes. He scavenged for food and hid in barns - he was even incarcerated in a chimney for several days. One escape led him to finding himself nearly enrolled by a gang of Eastern European desperados.

Caballeros y batallas, princesas y castillos, asedios y profetas guerreros que lideran el camino hacia la victoria sobre relucientes caballos blancos: todo parece ser parte de mitos y leyendas. La historia de esta guerra se vuelve fascinante por su entorno, pero es inspiradora por sus personajes. Jóvenes reyes y audaces reinas, prisioneros que creen en el honor, tormentas de granizo que detienen luchas enteras y la historia de una joven campesina que cambió el curso de la historia.

Not everyone sensed it right away, but after McClellan was dethroned in the fall of 1862, the focus of the war had shifted ever so subtly. Before that, the war was about reconciliation and bringing the two sides back together - with or without slavery. After Antietam and the Emancipation Proclamation, there was no going back. The purpose of the war had changed. It was no longer about reuniting the two sides but about total victory, crushing the South, and eliminating slavery.

At the end of the First World War, the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 stripped Germany of her overseas colonies and imposed a massive reparations bill for the damage and destruction caused to France and other countries. The people of Germany, hit by hyperinflation in 1923 and by mass unemployment in 1929, desperately looked for a way out of the crisis. In these circumstances, an obscure ex-corporal with a gift for scathing oratory, Adolf Hitler, was able to lead the extremist Nazi Party was to power in 1933.

At the end of the First World War the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 stripped Germany of her overseas colonies and imposed a massive reparations bill for the damage and destruction caused to France and other countries. The people of Germany, hit by hyperinflation in 1923 and by mass unemployment in 1929, desperately looked for a way out of the crisis. In these circumstances an obscure ex-corporal with a gift for scathing oratory, Adolf Hitler, was able to lead the extremist Nazi Party was to power in 1933.

World War II rises in its vastness and complexity over the rest of human history. This diary of the Second World War has been able to cover all facets of the conflict and is a fundamentally empirical work, which narrates events as they occurred, rejecting value judgments, and therein lies its value: It is an insurmountable encyclopedia as an audiobook. This audiobook includes the year 1945 till the end of WW2 and a one-hour special, "Defendants in the Courtroom", which includes the Nuremberg Trials and more.

Este Diario de la Segunda Guerra Mundial es el fruto de años de trabajo, de tenaces investigaciones, que han hilado una madeja de incontables sucesos para darnos una imagen amplia de la totalidad de la guerra. No solo es extraordinario el alcance de esta obra, que cubre seis años de un conflicto que se extendió por los cinco continentes, también lo es el método que emplea para capturar de manera concisa sus distintos aspectos. Este audiolibro contiene los 12 meses del año 1944.

In hindsight, we can say no one man or event served as a catalyst for the Civil War. It was not the John Brown Raid, no matter how many historians say it was the pivotal event. It was not the election of Abraham Lincoln, and the war was not about slavery - not in the beginning anyway. The Civil War got its start 73 years earlier when the Founding Fathers set aside the hot potato that was slavery - so they could ratify the Constitution. The signers knew they were passing the issue on to a future generation. Their hope was their progeny could answer the questions they could not.

A harrowing account of Afghanistan's notorious Pul-e-Charkhi prison, written by its longest-serving Western inmate. Former soldier Rob Langdon was working as a security contractor in Afghanistan when he was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death in a case that would have been ruled a clear miscarriage of justice in the British legal system. His sentence was commuted to 20 years in jail, and he served his time in Kabul's most notorious prison, Pul-e-Charkhi.

It is the plain matter-of-fact story of Belgian life under German rule. People might forget that, besides the 150,000 to 200,000 heroes who are now waging war for Belgium on the Western front, there are 7,500,000 heroes who are suffering for Belgium behind the German lines, in the close prison of guarded frontiers, cut off from the whole world, separated alike from those who are fighting for their deliverance and from those who have sought refuge abroad.

One rain-swept February night in 1809, an unconscious man is carried into a house in Somerset. He is Captain John Lacroix, home from Britain's disastrous campaign against Napoleon's forces in Spain. Gradually Lacroix recovers his health but not his peace of mind - he cannot talk about the war or face the memory of what happened in a village on the gruelling retreat to Corunna. After the command comes to return to his regiment, he sets out instead for the Hebrides, with the vague intent of reviving his musical interests and collecting local folk songs.

The most defining voices and sounds from World War II. Hear the voices of Winston Churchill, General Eisenhower, Vera Lynn, President Truman, Neville Chamberlain, and more.