Resultado de "Hourly History" em Todas as categorias

Peaky Blinders is a popular BBC television series about an organized crime family in post-World War I Birmingham, England, but does this series depict the factual history of Birmingham? As it turns out, there were Peaky Blinders in Birmingham, and they terrorized those streets long before World War I. The Peaky Blinders rose to prominence in the overcrowded and unsanitary conditions of late Victorian Birmingham in the 1870s. Their ranks were composed of the working poor.

The Wars of Scottish Independence were a series of conflicts between Scotland and England that spanned more than 60 years during the 13th and 14th centuries. These wars led directly to the establishment of Scotland as an independent, sovereign country and to the emergence of two of Scotland’s best-known national heroes, William Wallace and Robert the Bruce. Yet these wars are much more than a simple struggle on the part of Scotland to free itself from English incursions.

The Assyrian Empire was the largest, most powerful, and longest-lasting in the ancient world. It included lands that comprise modern-day Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, Kuwait, Jordan, Bahrain, and Cyprus, as well as large parts of modern Saudi Arabia, Libya, Turkey, and Iran. The Assyrian army was the most effective, most highly trained, and best equipped in the ancient world, and few nations dared to stand against it. This force was used with ruthless brutality by Assyrian kings to ensure that potential foes were terrified of losing a battle with the Assyrians.

Discover the remarkable history of the Maya Civilization...For more than one thousand years, the Maya people dominated areas of Central America and modern-day Mexico and made important advances in architecture, astronomy, mathematics, and medicine. Then, after the Spanish occupation in the 16th century, Maya culture and thinking were deliberately suppressed. Only in the 20th century did scientists appreciate just how advanced these people had been and how important they were in the history of Mesoamerica.

Paul Newman lived the life of a legend. He was not only a jack of all trades but in many cases a master of all trades. During his tenure on planet Earth, he was an award-winning actor, a philanthropist, a founder of a food company, a race car driver, and even an owner for the Indianapolis 500. Just about anything Newman put his hand on turned to gold. Even over a decade after his death, much of what he achieved is still being discovered. In this book, we bring to light the accomplishments of one of the greatest actors of all time, Paul Newman.

Jefferson Davis - was he a rebel for a bad cause, or just a greatly misunderstood man? Davis was certainly lambasted as the ultimate evil during the American Civil War since he was the leading statesman of the Southern Confederacy. But what do we really know about Jefferson Davis? What motivated him and what made him tick? What inspired him to lead a cause that very nearly ripped the United States asunder? Davis was a statesman and politician for sure, but he was also a soldier, a husband, and a father.

J. R. R. Tolkien, an orphan in love with words, spent most of his life as an unassuming Professor of Literature at Oxford studying and teaching old languages. During his time there, he created his very own languages and a mythological world, Middle-earth. Middle-earth was inhabited by Hobbits, Dwarves, Elves, and other fascinating creatures. It was a world that became almost more real to Tolkien than the one he lived in. Tolkien’s two masterpieces, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, have set the standard in mythological literature.

George Orwell, the son of a British civil servant, spent his life promoting social justice and equality, while fighting against totalitarianism and elitism. His two best-known novels 1984 and Animal Farm depict the ultimate horror of a totalitarian government. Orwell wrote with passion about what he believed. Eighty years after their publication, his novels are as relevant as ever. Citizens are spied on by CCTV cameras. Smartphones track people’s movements and activities.

Bette Davis didn’t fit the usual Hollywood image of beauty, but by sheer force of will she became one of the most famous and prominent actresses of the twentieth century. Her entire life was focused on her six-decades-long career. This invariably led to the loss of three husbands and estrangement from her oldest daughter. Still, Bette Davis lived with few regrets. Her most famous movies, Jezebel, All About Eve, and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? are still considered classics, discovered by a generation that wasn’t even born when the movies were made.

As the sole legitimate child of Lord Byron, Ada Lovelace was the progeny of literary royalty. Many might have naturally expected her to go into the field of her father, but instead of delving into poetry, she delved into the hard sciences of mathematics and analytic thinking. Even so, Ada still had the imagination of a lyricist when writing scientific treatises, at times referring to her own work as nothing short of “poetical science”.

In every war, there are those battles that mark a turning point, after which everything is different. These are the battles that help determine how the war will proceed. The Battle of Bunker Hill was one of those battles in the American Revolutionary War. While it was a battle that the American rebels lost, it was significant because it showed that a rag-tag band of civilian soldiers could in fact stand up to the best trained and most experienced military in the world at that time.

Whether you approve or disapprove, globalization is an inescapable feature of the modern world. Trade between nations and continents is now commonplace, and this exchange of goods is inevitably accompanied by the exchange of ideas and cultures. This is not, as you might expect, a new phenomenon. A series of trade routes which were first established almost 2,000 years ago provided one of the first examples of intercontinental trade.

Until 1939, World War I was known as “the war to end all wars”, but when Nazi Germany capped its mounting aggression against its neighbors by invading Poland, Europe was plunged into a second global conflict. It threatened the entire continent as well as the far-flung colonial possessions claimed by the French, the British, and the Dutch. German triumphs saw nation after nation fall, until only Great Britain remained defiant against Hitler’s dreams of conquest.

This audiobook is for anyone that enjoys crucial turning points in history. Napoleon was an unremarkable man who managed to change the entire landscape of the world 200 years ago. He has been hailed as a military genius, and his victories are still studied by international armed forces to this day. Through military exploit and the Napoleonic code, he was a man who came out of nowhere and changed the world. This audiobook describes not only how he did it, but why he did it; delve into the psychology of one of the most heroic despots ever known - Napoleon Bonaparte!

There are many versions of Queen Elizabeth I of England; the beautiful young Tudor Queen courted by all the princes of Europe; a fearless virgin warrior in white velvet, rousing her troops on the battlefield; an irascible old woman in a powdered wig, surrounded by fawning young men. A formidable woman, Elizabeth I ruled alone at a time when Europe was a hotbed of conflict, dominated by empire-seeking Kings with opposing religious beliefs.

Since his death in the year 1547, King Henry VIII has been celebrated as a chivalrous pioneer and reviled as a brutal tyrant, but he has never been ignored. Henry was responsible for the separation of the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church, the ramifications of which reverberated through subsequent centuries of European history. Domestically, Henry revolutionized the English Constitution, elevating his own status to that of a God.

Galileo Galilei began his career as a mathematician. Yet as fate would have it, he became far more than a numbers whiz. Here was a true Renaissance man; one who was greatly educated and a genuine lover of the arts. He was a fan of poets and a fine lute player. When in 1609 Galileo created his first telescope and turned his attention to the skies, everything changed.

To the average American, there was nothing out of the ordinary about Edmund Kemper before 1973. Standing at six-foot-nine, the young man was a giant, but he was gentle, soft spoken, and shy. He lived with his mother into his mid-20s and frequented local bars, cozying up to police officers. This was one reality of Kemper's life - the reality he wanted those around him to see. There was another side to the man though, a much darker side. Kemper's actions in his life shocked America, who dubbed him the Co-Ed Killer for his urge to murder and violate co-ed girls in Northern California.

According to history books, the Roman Empire ended in 476 CE with the fall of Rome. But if you asked most people alive at that time, they would have pointed you to what they considered the continuation of the Roman Empire - the civilization we now call the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantines, however, were more than just a remnant of Roman glory. At its geographical peak, the Byzantine Empire stretched out across the Mediterranean world.

In the midst of World War I, the Easter Rising took place in Dublin and throughout Ireland in April 1916. The revolutionary movement faced many problems from the beginning, including splintered leadership, disorganized support, opposition from moderate supporters of home rule, and prepared retaliation from the British.