Showing results by author "Charles Rivers" in All Categories

Although Genoa cannot compete in the popular imagination with some of Italy’s more famous cities, this busy port town perched above the sea once boasted a powerful empire that rivaled that of Venice. It also lasted for roughly the same time period, rising in the early Middle Ages and coming to an end at the hands of Napoleon Bonaparte near the end of the 18th century. Today, historians are starting to correct the imbalance that has focused on Venice, Florence, and Rome, and new histories are gradually introducing Genoa to the world, even as much remains to be uncovered.

The 30-year regime of Papa and Baby Doc Duvalier, who ruled between 1957 and 1986, was arguably the most repressive in the Western hemisphere. Papa Doc and Baby Doc Duvalier looks at how the father and son duo rose to power, and the results of their tight grip over Haiti.

North Americans have long been fascinated by the Inuit, but this level of interest has been matched by a general lack of knowledge about the group itself. For centuries, they have been called Eskimos, despite the fact there are distinct differences within the group and many of them find the use of the word Eskimo offensive.

Nearly a century after his death, Kafka is considered one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, despite being a virtual unknown throughout his life. In fact, Kafka never intended for his unpublished work to be released posthumously, but his wishes were ignored, and it was certainly to the world’s benefit.

Germany's North African defeat opened up the possibility of taking the war in the west to the European continent for the first time since France's lightning conquest by the Wehrmacht in 1940. The British and Americans debated the merits of landing in France directly in 1943, but they ultimately opted against it.

On February 14, 1929, members of Bugs Moran's North Side gang arrived at a warehouse on North Clark Street in Chicago, only to be approached by several police officers. The officers then marched them outside up against a wall, pulled out submachine guns and shotguns, and gunned them all down on the spot. A famous legend is that one of the shot men, Frank Gusenberg, dying from 14 gunshot wounds, told police that nobody shot him. Though Gusenberg's statement is probably apocryphal, nobody opened their mouths.

Carcassonne today is the capital of the Aude department in the Occitanie region of southwestern France, about 58 miles from Toulouse. It lies by the eastward bend of the glittering cobalt waters of the River Aude, which serves as a barrier between the two towns of the city: the Cité and the Ville Basse. It is the old Cité that attracts most of Carcassonne's visitors (three million of them each year), for it houses the historic fortress that looks like it came straight out of a fairy tale. This audiobook examines the origins of the site and its sweeping history.

In 1769, Captain James Cook’s historic expedition in the region would lead to an English claim on Australia, but before he reached Australia, he sailed near New Zealand and spent weeks mapping part of New Zealand’s coast. Thus, he was also one of the first to observe and take note of the indigenous peoples of the two islands.

In 1980, the United States suffered the deadliest and most destructive volcanic eruption in its history when Mount St. Helens literally blew its lid off, the result of seismic activity during the eruption. What made the eruption all the more remarkable was that a fair amount of preparations had gone into anticipating it, after an earthquake in the area a few months earlier alerted federal geologists to the possibility of activity there. In fact, Mount St. Helens had been the cause of the earthquake itself, the result of its own lava flows under the surface.

In 323 BCE, Alexander the Great was on top of the world. Never a man to sit on his hands or rest upon his laurels, Alexander began planning his future campaigns, which may have included attempts to subdue the Arabian Peninsula or make another incursion into India. But fate had other plans for the young Macedonian king. One night, while feasting with his admiral Nearchus, he drank too much and took to bed with a fever.

The "Five Civilized Tribes" are among the best known Native American groups in American history, and they were even celebrated by contemporary Americans for their abilities to adapt to white culture. But tragically, they are also well known tribes due to the trials and tribulations they suffered by being forcibly moved west along the "Trail of Tears".

There are two great misconceptions about Cinco de Mayo in the United States, despite the fact it has become one of the country’s most beloved days. The first misconception is that the date marks the Independence of Mexico, and the second is that the celebration was imported in relatively recent times by Mexican immigrants. In fact, May 5 does not mark Mexico's independence (which is celebrated on September 16) but the day of the most important battle in the history of the country, fought against the French.

Few Presidents are remembered for their homes, but Jefferson's Monticello is the greatest exception to that rule, and it is one of the nations most recognizable landmarks.Nobody spent more time in the thick of the Revolutionary era than Thomas Jefferson, one of the most famous and revered Americans. Jefferson was instrumental in all of the debates before the Revolution, authoring the Declaration of Independence, laying out the ideological groundwork of the notion of states' rights, leading one of the first political parties, and overseeing the expansion of the United States during his presidency.

In the wake of World War II, the European continent was devastated, and the conflict left the Soviet Union and the United States as uncontested superpowers. This ushered in over 45 years of the Cold War, and a political alignment of Western democracies against the Communist Soviet bloc that produced conflicts pitting allies on each sides fighting, even as the American and Soviet militaries never engaged each other.

Of all the legends and folk heroes who lived in the 19th century, men such as Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett, few actually accomplished as much as Kit Carson. A frontier boy who hopped onto the Santa Fe Trail as a teen, Carson became the quintessential mountain man during the 1830s and was literally a trailblazer for John C. Fremont's historic expeditions through the West in the 1840s.

Like most legends, the origins of Freemasonry are still disputed to this day. The earliest mention of the society traces back to The Halliwell Manuscript, or Regius Poem, authored sometime between the late 14th and the early 15th centuries. The Society of Freemasonry is one of the most controversial brotherhoods in the history of mankind. This book examines the origins and history of the controversial brotherhood, its expansion across the globe, and some of the most mindboggling conspiracy theories that surround the society to this day.

The rise of Chicago’s gangland can be attributed to a number of factors. First, there was the sudden explosion in its population, which saw an influx of immigrants - mainly from eastern and southern Europe, as well as Americans from neighboring and faraway states - teem into the city in search of promising job opportunities and a better life. The abrupt inundation of permanent citizens rendered the already suffering policeman to civilian ratio out of kilter, and the authorities' control of the city became further unzipped.

In 722 BCE, the Neo-Assyrian Empire destroyed the kingdom of Israel, and after a siege of three years, the city of Samaria fell to the troops of Sargon II. As was a common practice in the ancient world, the victor uprooted the inhabitants and forced them into exile, scattering the refugees throughout Asia Minor and possibly Africa to destroy them as a cohesive group and prevent them from possibly revolting. That exile brought about the end of the 10 lost tribes of Israel. Only the much smaller and less important kingdom of Judah, nestled in the arid lands of the south, survived....

The Overland Campaign that pitted Robert E. Lee against Ulysses S. Grant is one of the most famous campaigns of the Civil War, and perhaps its greatest chess match. While Grant sought to destroy Lee's Army of Northern Virginia along the way to Richmond, Lee aimed to defend his capital while staying alert for a golden opportunity to strike a decisive blow against Grant's Army of the Potomac. The result was an incredibly costly campaign that saw four major battles and near continuous fighting in May and June 1864.

When people discuss deadly maritime disasters during the second decade of the 20th century in which more than 800 people were killed, they're often talking about the Titanic or Lusitania, not the Eastland on the Chicago River. However, shockingly enough, on July 24, 1915, a ship full of sightseers out for a day on the Great Lakes capsized while still tied to a dock, sending more than 2,500 passengers into the frigid water.