World Tragedies

During the height of the blizzard of 1978, the tanker Global Hope floundered on the shoals off the Massachusetts coast. The Coast Guard dispatched a patrol boat, but was soon in as much trouble as the tanker. Then pilot boat captain Frank Quirk, hearing of the Coast Guard's troubles on his radio, decided to act.

Novelist and prizewinning historian Winston Groom's gripping history of the four-year battle for Ypres in Belgian Flanders, the pivotal engagement of World War I that would forever change the way the world fought - and thought about - war. This is Groom's account of what would become the most dreaded place on Earth.

Lusitania: She was a ship of dreams, a microcosm of the last years of the waning Edwardian Era and the coming influences of the 20th century. When she left New York on her final voyage, she sailed from the New World to the Old. Yet an encounter with a primitive German U-Boat sent her and her gilded passengers to their tragic deaths.

Ray Norman spent most of his life living in far-flung corners of the globe, working on long-term development projects and living out his calling as a Christian professional. By the time he arrived in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania around the turn of the millennium, he was veteran of life as...

From the shores of Peleliu, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, the Second World War left a profound mark on this sheltered corner of the globe, which would be felt for decades to come. Caught in the center of a vicious struggle between two superpowers, these islands would form an unconventional battleground for the Allied forces and the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy.

Set against the backdrop of the turbulent late 1960s and early 1970s, this compelling audiobook provides the first comprehensive history of the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, notorious for the abduction of Israeli Olympians by Palestinian terrorists and the hostages' tragic deaths after a botched rescue mission by the German police. Drawing on a wealth of newly available sources from the time, eminent historian David Clay Large explores the 1972 festival in all its ramifications.

Au XIème siècle, en Espagne, à la cour de Castille, un drame humain se noue. Don Rodrigue et Chimène s'aiment. Mais le Roi Don Ferdinand confie l'éducation de son fils à Don Diègue, le père de Rodrigue, ce qui provoque la jalousie et la déception de Don Gomès, le père de Chimène. Celui-ci donne une gifle à Don Diègue, le provoquant ainsi en duel. Le père de Rodrigue demande à son fils de laver son honneur, et Rodrigue se voit obliger de combattre le père de sa bien-aimée.

A shocking and riveting look at one of the most dramatic and disastrous presidencies in US history, from Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner Tim Weiner Based largely on documents declassified only in the last few years, One Man Against the World paints a devastating portrait of a...

Uden for velhaverreservatet DEN FRIE VERDEN lever de fattige, de desperate, den billige menneskelige arbejdskraft.

Loa er vokset op midt inde i smørhullet med store mansions, frugtsmoothies fra egen avl, sexpositivitet og yogatrænede forældre med protestantisk arbejdsmoral og god pH-balance. Og som bonus: en kolerisk mormor, der i ny og næ vågner fra sin periodiske dvale og fremfører en vred politisk monolog, inden hun igen forsvinder ind i søvnen.

From award-winning author Tim Jeal comes a vivid examination of the six larger-than-life men and one extraordinary woman who set out to find the source of the White Nile in the 19th century.

Crimes That Changed Our World explores some of the most important trigger cases of the past century, revealing much about how change comes to our modern world. The exact nature of the crime-outrage-reform dynamic can take many forms, and Paul and Sarah Robinson explore those differences in the cases they present. Each case is in some ways unique but there are repeating patterns that can offer important insights about what produces change and how in the future we might best manage it.

Does time heal all wounds? Or do some last forever? Pennsylvania, 1971: Graham Davidson is a young man with survivor’s guilt after the death of three siblings. Estranged from his father and seeking a direction in his life, Graham learns about vision quests from a Crow Indian. He secures seasonal employment in Yellowstone National Park and embarks on a spiritual journey. Wyoming Territory, 1871: Under a full moon at a sacred thermal area, Graham finds himself in Yellowstone a century earlier - one year before it was established as a national park.

The world's first programmable computer was the legendary ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), built by John Mauchly and Presper Eckert. Based on original interviews with surviving participants and the first study of Mauchly and Eckert's personal papers, ENIAC is a dramatic human story and a vital contribution to the history of technology, and it restores to the two inventors the legacy they deserve.

On the News gently introduces young children to the realities of natural disasters, terrorism and other forms of tragedy. In age-appropriate language and tone, Dr. Roberts explains what tragedy is, the feelings it may create and how to manage those feelings. She also emphasizes the good that can come out of tragedy, looking at how people help one another in caring, compassionate and heroic ways.

As the First World War takes hold, a young girl comes of age in a troubled London. Capturing the longing, excitement and poignant comedy of adolescence, The Beautiful Visit is the debut novel from the beloved author of the Cazalet Chronicles, Elizabeth Jane Howard. 'She helps us to do the...

In 1819, the 240-ton Essex set sail from Nantucket on a routine voyage. Fifteen months later, in the farthest reaches of the South Pacific, it was repeatedly rammed and sunk by an 80-ton bull sperm whale. Its 20-man crew, fearing cannibals on the islands to the west, made for the 3,000-mile-distant coast of South America in three tiny boats. During 90 days at sea under horrendous conditions, the survivors clung to life as one by one, they succumbed to hunger, thirst, disease, and fear.

An eloquent call to draw on the lessons of the past to address current threats to international order The ancient Greeks hard-wired a tragic sensibility into their culture. By looking disaster squarely in the face, by understanding just how badly things could spiral out of control, they sought...

Five million steps. 157 days. 2,200 miles. From the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of Chesapeake Requiem comes a gripping rumination on life, nature, and tragedy as the author recounts his two through-hikes—33 years apart—of the Appalachian Trail and a haunting, life-changing...

In the wake of two foiled assassination attempts while Donald Trump was campaigning for President, many of his supporters claimed Trump's survival was an act of Divine intervention, and a sign that Trump was favored by God. In his victory speech, Trump alluded to this. But his survival prompts other questions: Why did God spare Trump, but not the retiree sitting behind him? Why couldn't God have spared everyone that day? And if God is truly omnipotent, why do so many children die in gun violence every year?

The SS City of Benares was born in the optimism of the interwar years. Launched in 1936 for the Ellerman Line, she embodied reliability, elegance, and the promise of safe passage between Britain and its empire. With her sleek twin funnels and polished interiors, she seemed destined to carry families, officials, and traders eastward in comfort. Yet within only four years, her name would be etched into the darkest chapter of Britain’s wartime history—not for her design or her service in peacetime, but for the lives of the children she carried on her final voyage.