Western Biography

Everyone knows the name Buffalo Bill, but few these days know what he did or, in some cases, didn't do. Was he a Pony Express rider? Did he serve Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn? Did he scalp countless Native Americans, or did he defend their rights? This, the first significant biography of Buffalo Bill Cody for younger listeners in many years, explains it all. Presenting Buffalo Bill makes the great showman come alive for new generations.

They were the first outlaws to rob a moving train. But from 1864 to 1868, the Reno brothers and their gang of counterfeiters, robbers, burglars, and safecrackers also held the town of Seymour, Indiana, hostage, making a large hotel near the train station their headquarters. When the gang robbed the Adams Express car of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad on the outskirts of Seymour on October 6, 1866, it shocked the world - and made other burgeoning outlaws like Jesse James sit up and take notice. The extraordinary efforts to take them out defined the term "frontier justice".

Lang Lang started learning to play the piano when he was three years old in Shenyang, China. Today he is one of the world's most outstanding pianists. In this engrossing life story, adapted by Michael French, Lang Lang not only recounts the difficult, often thrilling, events of his early days, but also shares his perspective on his rapidly changing homeland.

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.

A harrowing dual memoir that braids the story of a Chinese-American woman’s search for identity with the dramatic tale of her great-aunt, who was born at the turn of the century in tradition-bound China and went on to become Vice President of China’s first women’s bank.

The separation from his mother at an early age appears to have left a permanent scar on young Isaac Newton that followed him through the rest of his life. He never married or had any children and had but a few close friends. He would work frantically for days on end, seemingly without food or rest, resting only when the creative spirit left him. However, the work of this ponderous man would have a profound effect on the world as we know it today.

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.

What do a bunch of well-seasoned river gals do on river trips without their men? Everything you might imagine, and more. These stories invite you to relive experiences of women who have been running rivers for decades and find themselves back out on whitewater year after year. You'll find tales of difficult rescues and the kind of unexpected adventures western river runners love to share. Through a variety of stories, haikus, poems, and essays, this anthology goes deeper.

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.

The Literary Legacy of Rebecca West is the first book to explore the entire corpus of her extraordinary 71-year writing career. The general introductory studies of West are outdated and do not take into account her posthumous publications, or her large literary archive of unpublished letters and manuscripts. Previous scholarly books have chopped West up into categories and genres instead of following the evolution of her career.

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.

The son of devout Quakers, Richard Nixon grew up in the shadow of an older brother and thrived on struggle and opposition. -- Through high school and college, in the Navy and in politics, Nixon was constantly leading crusades and fighting off “enemies,” either real and imagined. -- He possessed the plainspoken eloquence to reduce American television audiences to tears with his career-saving “Checkers” speech, yet Nixon’s darker side hatched schemes designed to take down his political opponents which earned him the infamous nickname, “Tricky Dick.” -- This is the classic story ...

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...

Out of all of the world’s most dangerous serial killers, none are more infamous than Ted Bundy. Known as the charming, charismatic killer who stalked young women to commit his unspeakable crimes, Ted Bundy left a dark shadow on America’s history that has haunted our collective consciousness for generations. Perfect for anyone morbidly curious about the evil that lurks just out of sight, as well as fans of true crime books, Ted Bundy: The Horrifying Story of the Charming Serial Killer offers you a gritty, detailed, and unforgettable look at the monster Ted Bundy became.

John Wesley Hardin! His name spread terror in much of Texas in the years following the Civil War as the most wanted fugitive, with a $4,000 reward on his head. A Texas Ranger wrote that he killed men just to see them kick. Hardin began his killing career in the late 1860s and remained a wanted man until his capture in 1877 by Texas Rangers and Florida law officials. He certainly killed 20 men; some credited him with killing 40 or more.

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 ...

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.

Before there was Charles Ponzi, there was Jefferson Randolph "Soapy" Smith II. The famed Old West con artist and gangster's criminal career ranged from Texas to Alaska, from Denver to the Klondike. Soapy Smith: The Life and Legacy of the Wild West’s Most Infamous Con Artist looks at the controversial times and crimes of the Western huckster, and the career that led to a notorious end. You will learn about Soapy Smith like never before.

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.

Populism has become a global movement associated with nationalism and strong-man politicians, but its root causes remain elusive. Mud, Blood, and Ghosts exposes one deep root in the soil of the American Great Plains. Julie Carr traces her own family’s history through archival documents to draw connections between US agrarian populism, spiritualism, and eugenics, helping listeners to understand populism’s tendency toward racism and exclusion.