Western Biography

Sir Walter Ralegh was a favorite of Queen Elizabeth. She showered him with estates and political appointments. He envisioned her becoming empress of a universal empire. She gave him the opportunity to lead the way. In Walter Ralegh, Alan Gallay shows that, while Ralegh may be best known for founding the failed Roanoke colony, his historical importance vastly exceeds that enterprise. Inspired by the mystical religious philosophy of hermeticism, Ralegh led English attempts to colonize in North America, South America, and Ireland.

In diesem Podcast widmet sich die dänische Journalistin und Krimiautorin Lone Theils sechs der bekanntesten und grausamsten Serienmörder, die es in Großbritannien je gegeben hat. Lone Theils Romane, wie z.B. "Die Rückkehr", sind oft von wahren Begebenheiten inspiriert, doch dieser Podcast beweist, dass die Realität noch viel grausamer sein kann als jede Fiktion.

If you are a hip hop fan and want "the real" about the "World's Most Dangerous Group" and all the players that paved the way for West Coast hip hop, this is the audiobook for you, told by the man who was there from the very beginning.

Op 1 april 2014 keren Kris Kremers (21) en Lisanne Froon (22) niet terug van een wandeling in de jungle van Panama. Maandenlange zoekacties, bemoeilijkt door het slechte weer, leveren niets op. Twee maanden later wordt er diep in de jungle een rugzak gevonden met daarin onder meer hun telefoons en camera, waarop vreemde foto's gevonden worden. Dit leidde tot wilde speculaties over de verdwijning die tot op de dag van vandaag voortduren. Zijn ze verdwaald, ontvoerd, beroofd?

Stalking the streets of 19th-century London, Jack the Ripper left a gruesome trail of terror in his wake—and then slipped away. Now, this riveting true-crime book peels back the myths and mysteries, providing a gritty and detailed exploration of the clues and theories that have plagued this long-dead criminal investigation. Retracing his most infamous murders, this book will take listeners on a thrilling journey back in time, drawing on the accounts of eyewitnesses, reporters, and detectives to paint a compelling picture of the monster who hunted in the shadows of Victorian London.

Margaret Thatcher was a British stateswoman and the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. From 1975 to 1990, she was the Leader of the Conservative Party. She was elected Prime Minister three times and served for 11 years, longer than any other British prime minister of the 20th century. Her political views, based on loose economics and individual self-realization, along with her policies, were referred to as Thatcherism, which for decades remained an influential political concept in the United Kingdom.

Dr. Robert Goddard was the first scientist who not only realized the potential for rockets for space flight but also contributed directly in making them a reality. His rare talent in both creative science and practical engineering placed Goddard well above the European rocket pioneers. The dedicated research and experimentation into the development of rockets by the modest man went largely unrecognized in the Untied States until the dawn of the space age.

On Fire is an award-winning memoir that fans are calling a heartbreaking and sometimes darkly humorous mother-daughter, coming-of-age tale written with gritty authenticity by author and award-winning journalist Steph West. In this cohesive collection of provocative stories, West details the precarious journey of raising her daughter while going through a quarter-life crisis of her own.

This is the story of the author’s two paternal great-great-grandfathers, both of whom spent over forty years helping to save lives on the Isles of Scilly: Edwin Lewis Davis as the keeper of St Agnes Lighthouse and John Grenfell Moyle as the islands’ only doctor. It also follows the mariners, miners, preachers and teachers of the Moyle and Davis families as they become part of the great Cornish diaspora. We accompany them over the seven seas aboard speedy clippers, to the Antipodes during the gold rush, to the industrial north of England, to lighthouses along rugged coastlines and to the...

Benjamin Franklin was first and foremost a public servant, but he was also a prolific writer, humorist, musician, inventor, businessman, and scientist. He was always working to improve civic society. Among many other things, he organized the first volunteer fire department and established the first lending library in America. In the 18th century, he was celebrated as a scientist, inventor, and innovator who somehow emerged from the obscurity of his modest birth to prominence.

Mark Scarbrough has been searching for something his entire life. Whether it’s his birth mother, true love, his purpose, or his sexual identity, Mark has been on a constant quest to find out who he really is, with the great Western texts as his steadfast companions. As a boy with his head constantly in a book, desperate to discover new worlds, he can hardly distinguish between their plots and his own reality.

Cameron West was in his thirties, a successful businessman, happily married and the father of a young son when he spoke these words. The “voice” he heard belonged to Davy, the first of twenty-four distinct alter personalities to emerge over a period of several months as West began to recall memories of horrific abuse he’d repressed since childhood.

The son of a Boston Congregationalist deacon, Samuel Adams was educated at Harvard and took over his father’s malt house business and failed. Adams admitted that he wasn’t good at business, revolutionary agitator was more his game. He was one of the first American patriots to call for independence from England. Thomas Jefferson wrote of Adams “truly the man of the revolution.” Adams loved to write and made a fiery newspaper editor, producing an onslaught of articles denouncing the British control of the colonies and calling for a new independent nation. A very religious man, he ...

Having honorably served for over 22 combined years in both the Navy and the Army, the author unveils true and never-before revealed military stories that explicitly beg the question, why? He shares verifiable insight derived entirely from what he has done, seen, and knows to be true about himself and the current state of young adult Soldiers today.

From the award-winning historian: the remarkable life of "the most beautiful woman of 19th-century Baltimore", whose marriage in 1803 to Jérôme Bonaparte, the youngest brother of Napoleon, became inextricably bound to the diplomatic and political 19th-century histories of the United States, France, and England.

In the enormous literature of the Second World War, there are surprisingly few accounts of fighting in the southwest Pacific, fewer still by common infantrymen. This memoir, written with a simple and direct honesty that is rare indeed, follows a foot soldier’s career from basic training to mustering out. It takes the listener into the jungles and caves of New Guinea and the Philippines during the long campaign to win the war against Japan.

In 2001, at 47, Thomas DeWolf was astounded to discover that he was related to the most successful slave-trading family in American history, responsible for transporting at least 10,000 Africans to the Americas. His infamous ancestor, U.S. senator James DeWolf of Bristol, of Rhode Island, curried favor with President Jefferson to continue in the trade after it was outlawed.

Most of us, young or old, have dreams of grand things, but it is the rare souls that sees their dreams standing before them, taller than the Statue of Liberty, with enough raw power to launch men to the moon. Wernher von Braun was such a dreamer. From a young age, he knew that rockets and space travel would be the driving force in his life; however, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime had different plans for this young man, as he would lead Germany’s development of the V-2 rocket, which at that time was one of the most advanced weapons known to man. After World War II had ravaged most of ...

"The employee is regarded by the employer merely in the light of his value as an operative. His productive capacity alone is taken into account." (Stanford) Leland Stanford: The Life and Legacy of the Railroad Executive Who Became California’s Governor and the West’s Most Famous Robber Baron chronicles the remarkable life of Stanford.

Jon Hunner’s concise account of Oppenheimer’s life and the emergence of an Atomic West distills a vast literature for students and general listeners. In this brisk, engaging biography, the author recounts how Oppenheimer helped locate the atomic weapons research lab at Los Alamos, New Mexico, and helped establish leading physics departments at the University of California–Berkeley and Caltech.