Showing results by publisher "Charles River Editors" in Historical

The Third Reich's Luftwaffe began World War II with significant advantages over other European air forces, playing a critical role in the German war machine's swift, powerful advance. By war's end, however, the Luftwaffe had been decimated by combat losses and crippled by poor decisions at the highest levels of military decision-making, and it proved unable to challenge Allied air superiority despite a last-minute upsurge in German aircraft production.

Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, known to the world as Che, has led two lives. In the first of these lives, the Argentine-born revolutionary was a remarkable and flawed doctor-turned-guerilla who left behind a highly controversial political legacy. In the second, he was - and is - first and foremost an image. Specifically, he is one particular image in which he appears as a wavy-haired, bearded young man with a beret and an intense gaze.

Peter Skene Ogden was a Canadian fur trader and explorer. As a zealous member of Canada’s North West Fur Company, his vicious campaign against Hudson’s Bay Company members marked him as one of the most dangerous personalities on the continent, unpredictable and capable of the lowest tactics for unseating the great British power.

"The golden age of piracy" generally refers to the era when history's most famous pirates roamed the seas of the West Indies from 1670-1720.

In the autumn of 1911, an eye-watering mass of French citizens gathered around a churchyard in the heart of Rouen to celebrate the millennial anniversary of Normandy. A suspenseful hush fell over the congregation as a city official strode to the front of the crowd, placing his hands upon the large cloth draped over the mysterious statue. With a flick of his wrists, he unveiled an exquisite marble effigy of a handsome warrior. The statue was of none other than Rollo the Viking, father of the Duchy of Normandy.

At the start of Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, the Soviets were so caught by surprise at the start of the attack that the Germans were able to push several hundred miles into Russia across a front that stretched dozens of miles long, reaching the major cities of Leningrad and Sevastopol in just three months. The first major Russian city in their path was Minsk, which fell in only six days. In order to make clear his determination to win at all costs, Stalin had the three men in charge of the troops defending Minsk executed for their failure to hold their position.

Little may have been known about Musashi at the time, but centuries later, he is the most infamous and renowned warrior in Japanese history. As a veteran of the Battle of Sekigahara (1600), Naiwa (1615), and the Shimabara Rebellion in Hizen (1637-1638), Musashi was a seasoned battlefield soldier, who went undefeated in over 60 duels, and authored an essential book on strategy Go Rin No Sho (The Book of Five Rings).

When William Randolph Hearst was in his late 50s and at the height of his power, journalist Robert Duffuss observed, “His career is unique in American history, or, for that matter, all history. Compared with him the Bennetts and even the Pulitzers are small...his acquaintances...credit him with personal charm, but do not deny his ruthlessness in business operations. Shopkeepers and his nearest rivals are simply not in his class. Here is success on a dizzying and truly American scale. Here is journalism as large as the Rocky Mountains or the Painted Desert.” 

Contrary to how the libidinous legend is often seen through the rose-tinted lenses of Hollywood, the real Giacomo Casanova did not have Heath Ledger's strong, chiseled jaw or the piercing, lagoon-blue eyes of Richard Chamberlain. Rather, portraits of the actual Casanova show a plain, somewhat forgettable face, with a doughy jaw, a prominent, faintly crooked nose, and close-set, protruding eyes. In essence, while he was certainly not unattractive, he was far from someone who would be envisioned as synonymous with womanizing. Nonetheless, Casanova engaged in hundreds of trysts, and whatever the man lacked in aesthetic appeal, he indisputably made up for in charm, mystique, and raw, animal magnetism. He was also quite matter of fact about it all: "Real love is the love that sometimes arises after sensual pleasure: if it does, it is immortal; the other kind inevitably goes stale, for it lies in mere fantasy."

Dred Scott was an unlikely candidate to become the impetus and rallying cry of a brand-new political party in the mid-19th century. He was sold to US Army doctor John Emerson in St. Louis, Missouri. Emerson's commission brought him to the Wisconsin Territory in 1836, which was free territory where slavery was illegal. By 1840, Dred Scott had married another slave of Emerson's, and the couple had a child. Desperate to shake off the yoke of slavery, Scott sued for his freedom in Missouri, arguing that once he had entered free territory he could no longer be a slave.

Like many historical figures, Harun al-Rashid’s biography has become part reality and part myth. A real individual and the fourth caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate, Harun al-Rashid is best known to many individuals because of his role in famous literature like One Thousand and One Nights, not necessarily because of his policy decisions. This is unusual because Harun al-Rashid was perhaps the most influential of the Abbasid caliphs due to his role in bringing economic prosperity.

Alan Turing: The Life and Legacy of the English Computer Scientist Who Became World War II’s Most Famous Codebreaker looks at the life of one of World War II’s unsung heroes. You will learn about Alan Turing like never before.

Over 1500 years before Leonardo Da Vinci became the Renaissance Man, antiquity had its own in the form of Archimedes, one of the most famous Ancient Greeks. An engineer, mathematician, physicist, scientist and astronomer all rolled into one, Archimedes has been credited for making groundbreaking discoveries, some of which are undoubtedly fact and others that are almost certainly myth.

The Third Reich's Luftwaffe began World War II with significant advantages over other European air forces, playing a critical role in the German war machine's swift, powerful advance. By war's end, however, the Luftwaffe had been decimated by combat losses and crippled by poor decisions at the highest levels of military decision-making, and it proved unable to challenge Allied air superiority despite a last-minute upsurge in German aircraft production.

Gunsmiths in early 19th-century America were helped along by noted artisans from Germany, Switzerland, and other European powers, but despite advances made in the European and American musket, the requirement of an exterior spark and percussion to ignite powder for a single-shot discharge remained the paradigm. Similarly, the era was unable to move past the cumbersome weapon that required at least half a minute to reload. The military compensation for such an ungainly and vulnerable process was the alternation of troop lines, in which one fired while the other reloaded from behind.

By the golden age of the mountain man in the mid-19th-century, there were perhaps only 3,000 living in the West. Their origins were disparate, although they included many Anglo-Americans. A good number hailed from wilderness regions of Kentucky and Virginia and throughout the newly purchased Louisiana Territory, which occupied the entire central section of the continent. French Canadians traveled from the north to work in the fur trade, while Creole-Europeans represented approximately 15 percent of the men known to be living the isolated mountain life.

Sulla had become renowned in Rome as a general during the Jugurthine, Social, and Mithridatic Wars, but naturally he is now remembered for the gruesome acts committed during his tenure as Rome’s first lifelong dictator. Sulla’s unprecedented period of one-man rule is viewed by many historians as a means of re-establishing peace and order in Roman politics while safeguarding the Republican system from abuse by powerful individuals.

Lord Byron’s very name conjures up visions of the Romantic movement and outlandishly dressed bohemians, for if Alfred, Lord Tennyson was the poetic darling of the masses, Byron was the hero of the hedonists. While the traditional English literary hero was a nobleman rescuing a damsel in distress, Byron created the antihero, a man plagued by self-doubt and hidden sorrow. At the same time, his hero was also capable of facing reality once he had wrestled through his own angst, and even of occasionally acting nobly in the great tradition of the author’s Puritan forebears. 

Saladin is widely considered one of the greatest generals in history and one of the most famous leaders of the Middle Ages, but he remains a paradox, both in personal and in historical terms. A military genius, he first served other generals and was overshadowed, late in life, by his greatest rival, Richard I of England. He was far more admired by his Christian enemies, who extolled his chivalry, than some of his Muslim rivals, who fought him for control of Egypt and Syria in the 12th century.

More than eight centuries after his death, Saladin's life and reign represent the pinnacle of the Arab world's glory. Saladin is widely considered one of the greatest generals in history and one of the most famous leaders of the Middle Ages, but he remains a paradox, both in personal and in historical terms. A military genius, he first served other generals and was overshadowed later in life by his greatest rival, Richard I of England. He was far more admired by his Christian enemies, who extolled his chivalry, than some of his Muslim rivals.