Charles River

*Includes historic illustrations depicting the three women and important people and places in their lives. *Includes a profile of Anne Bonny and Mary Read from the famous English pirate history "A General History of the Pyrates". *Discusses common legends about the three women, separating fact from fiction. *Includes Bibliographies for further reading. The people who have lived outside the boundaries of normal societies and refused to play by the rules have long fascinated the world, and nowhere is this more evident than the continuing interest in the pirates of centuries past. As the subjects of books, movies, and even theme park rides, people continue to let their imaginations go when it comes to pirates, with buried treasure, parrots, and walking the plank all ingrained in pop culture's perception of them. While that explains some of the reasons Grace O'Malley's life and legacy continue to resonate, she was clearly a different kind of woman altogether. Far from being a member of an unprivileged class seeking to steal booty from any ship she could, she was both a queen and a rebel who defiantly fought to protect her home and way of life against the English. Naturally, while foreigners might remember her as a pirate and one of many famous rebels opposing the English over the centuries, Ireland has remembered her as a folk hero, and she has become the subject of all the poetry, songs, plays, and movies that come along with such a standing. 19th century writer James Hardiman may have summed up her legacy the best when he wrote, "Her name has been frequently used by our Bards, to designate Ireland. Hence our Countrymen have been often called 'Sons of old Grana Weal.'" One of the most famous pirates of all time, and possibly the most famous woman to ever become one, was Anne Bonny. The Irish-born girl moved with her family to the Bahamas at a young age in the early 18th century, which at that time was a hotbed for piracy by the likes of Blackbeard, but the redhead with a fiery temper would go on to forge her own reputation. After marrying a poor sailor who accepted clemency to give up piracy, Anne began a legendary affair with Calico Jack Rackam and became pregnant with his child, but that did not stop them from plundering the high seas aboard his pirate ship Revenge, at least until they were captured by British authorities. Anne avoided execution by "pleading her belly", getting a temporary stay of execution due to her pregnancy. Among all the pirates of the "Golden Age of Piracy", none were as unique as Mary Read, who was one of just two known women to be tried as a pirate during the Golden Age, alongside her own crewmate (and possible lover) Anne Bonny. Like Anne, Mary Read was an illegitimate child who spent some of her childhood dressed up as and disguised as a little boy through incredibly strange circumstances. But unlike her future shipmate, Mary ultimately took a liking to it, and she continued to disguise her gender to take on roles reserved for men, including in the British army. In 1720, Mary's ship was captured by Calico Jack, who already had his lover Anne Bonny as part of his crew and now unwittingly added a second female when Mary opted to join. Together the three played a legendary role as shipmates and possible lovers while continuing their piracy around the Bahamas, only to eventually be captured by authorities in October 1720. Most of the crew was executed, but Mary was able to successfully "plead the belly" and thereby receiving a stay of execution. This spared her the noose, but Mary died of illness before giving birth anyway. History's Famous Women Pirates chronicles the lives and legacies of the three famous women. Along with bibliographies and pictures, you will learn about Grace O'Malley, Anne Bonny and Mary Read like never before.

*Includes pictures. *Includes footnotes and a bibliography for further reading. On January 31, 378 AD, a massive army arrived at the gates of the city of Tikal, one of the Ancient Maya's most important settlements in the Yucatan Peninsula. The events that transpired became known by the Spanish name "Entrada" ("Entry"), referring to "the entry of Teotihuacan". While there is no clear record of the events due to the sheer scale of destruction that took place, it's clear that neither Tikal nor the Maya as a whole had ever seen anything like it because these foreign soldiers not only conquered but also subsequently ruled Tikal despite the fact they had come from Teotihuacan, located about 630 miles (1,013 kilometers) away. In the process, the Teotihuacanos not only changed Tikal but the direction of the Mayan civilization for centuries to come. At the time, Teotihuacan was the biggest city in South America and was located in the Valley of Mexico near today's Mexico City. Thriving between 100-750 AD, it was one of the largest cities in the ancient world, with a population estimated at upwards of 150,000-250,000, over three times the size of contemporary Mayan capitals. Furthermore, Teotihuacan was a supremely well-planned and efficient city that was able to field massive armies and extend its power far beyond its home base to create a unified empire unlike anything in the region before it. In fact, the city's residents seemed so sure of its power that there were apparently no walls or military fortifications around Teotihuacan. Thanks to that power, Teotihuacan not only served as a vital center for trade in Ancient Mesoamerica but also spread its architecture, art, religion, and culture, all of which subsequently influenced the famous Mesoamerican civilizations that followed, including the Aztec and Maya. Although Teotihuacan reached the height of its power and influence about 1500 years ago, the city is still an endless topic of fascination and debate, in addition to being Mexico's most toured archaeological site. The origins of the city remain mysterious (as do the city's founders), and scholars are still coming up with theories to explain the city's demise. All the while, later Mesoamerican civilizations remembered Teotihuacan, and the Aztec even considered the city's ruins a site of worship. Teotihuacan: The History of Ancient Mesoamerica's Largest City covers the history of the city, as well as the speculation and debate surrounding it. Along with pictures, footnotes, and a bibliography, you will learn about Teotihuacan like you never have before, in no time at all.

*Includes pictures*Examines the archaeology, history, and culture of both groups*Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading Nearly 2,500 years after the Golden Age of Athens, people across the world today continue to be fascinated by the Ancient Greeks. But who did the Ancient Greeks look up to? The answer to that question can be found in Homer's The Odyssey, in which Odysseus makes note of "a great town there, Cnossus, where Minos reigned." It was perhaps the earliest reference to the Minoan civilization, a mysterious ancient civilization that historians and archaeologists still puzzle over, but a civilization that renowned historian Will Durant described as "the first link in the European chain." Nearly 2,000 years before Homer wrote his epic poems, the Minoan civilization was centered on the island of Crete, a location that required the Minoans to be a regional sea power. And indeed they were, stretching across the Aegean Sea from about 2700-1500 BCE with trade routes extending all the way to Egypt. The Minoans may have been the first link in the "European chain", leading to the Ancient Greeks and beyond, but questions persist over the origins of the civilization, the end of the civilization, and substantial parts of their history inbetween, including their religion and buildings. In the wake of the Minoans, a Greek culture flourished and spread its tentacles throughout the western Mediterranean region via trade and warfare. Scholars have termed this pre-Classical Greek culture the Mycenaean culture, which existed from about 2000-1200 BCE, when Greece, along with much of the eastern Mediterranean, was thrust into a centuries long dark age. However, before the Mycenaean culture collapsed, it was a vital part of the late Bronze Age Mediterranean system and stood on equal footing with some of the great powers of the region, such as the Egyptians and Hittites. Despite being ethnic Greeks and speaking a language that was the direct predecessor of classical Greek, the Mycenaeans had more in common with their neighbors from the island of Crete, who are known today as the Minoans. Due to their cultural affinities with the Minoans and the fact that they conquered Crete yet still carried on many Minoan traditions, the Mycenaeans are viewed by some scholars as the later torchbearers of a greater Aegean civilization, much the way the Romans carried on Hellenic civilization after the Greeks. Given that the Mycenaeans played such a vital role on the history in the late Bronze Age, it would be natural to assume there are countless studies and accurate chronologies on the subject, but the opposite is true. Although the Mycenaeans were literate, the corpus of written texts from the period is minimal, so modern scholars are left to use a variety of methods in order to reconstruct a proper history of Mycenaean culture. In fact, even the name "Mycenaean" can be a bit misleading since it refers only to one locale in Greece. However, since the city was the first Bronze Age site discovered, it became a reference point for archeologists and historians to use to refer to any Bronze Age discoveries in Greece. Archeology provides the base for any study of the ancient Mycenaeans; since many of their cities were replaced and built over in classical, medieval, and modern times, excavations of the Bronze Age cities can tell modern scholars how these people lived and died. Closely related to archaeology is art history, which can be the study of any material culture including pottery, sculptures, reliefs, and jewelry. The Homeric epics also provide some information about Mycenaean culture, though Homer was a poet who lived hundreds of years after the collapse of the Mycenaean culture. Classical Greek historians and geographers also wrote about the Mycenaeans, but their works should be consulted with caution as some of their statements have proved false.

*Includes pictures *Includes accounts of the operations written by Nazi scientists and Allied forces *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents After the last shots of World War II were fired and the process of rebuilding Germany and Europe began, the Western Allies and the Soviet Union each tried to obtain the services of the Third Reich's leading scientists, especially those involved in rocketry, missile technology, and aerospace research. Naturally, this was a delicate affair due to the fact many of the German scientists were not only active Nazis but had helped the Nazi war machine terrorize the world. At the same time, by the late war period, the Anglo-American Allies formed a clear picture of the Soviet state. Though forced to ally with the USSR's dictator, Josef Stalin, the West came to understand Communist Russia represented yet another hungry totalitarian power, and thus a very real threat to an independent Europe. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill realized the menacing character of the Soviets from the Katyn Forest Massacre of Polish army officers, if not before, while the Americans only gradually shed a na ve assumption of continued Russian friendliness after the war. For their part, the Soviets retained ruthless imperial ambitions which manifested in various ways. They allied with Hitler for a time in 1939 to 1941, planning to divide Eastern Europe between their two expansionist states. They devastated the Ukrainian population with the Holomodor, an engineered, genocidal famine which claimed perhaps 3 million victims. The Soviet refusal to evacuate Eastern Europe following the war, instead retaining many formerly democratic countries as vassal states, spoke volumes about their intentions. Both the Western Allies and the Soviets knew of Adolf Hitler's V-2 rocket program, the forerunner of ballistic missiles and the space race. Each recognized the immense strategic value of these technologies and wished to secure their benefits for themselves. As the Soviets contemplated additional expansion following the "Great Patriotic War" and the U. S. military came to understand the putative allies of today would emerge as the enemies of tomorrow, the men possessing knowledge of the V-2 rockets and other Third Reich military technology programs became seen as crucial pieces in the incipient NATO versus Warsaw Pact standoff. The result was the American-led "Operation Paperclip" on the Western side, which resulted in German scientists putting their expertise at the disposal of the U. S. and other NATO members. Operation Paperclip aimed not only to obtain the benefits of German scientific advances for the United States but also to deny them to the potentially hostile Soviets, as General Leslie Groves enunciated: "Heisenberg was one of the world's leading physicists, and, at the time of the German break-up, he was worth more to us than ten divisions of Germans. Had he fallen into the Russian hands, he would have proven invaluable to them (Naimark, 1995, 207). To say Operation Paperclip had a profound impact on the Cold War and American history would be an understatement. The most well known example of the operation's "success" is Wernher von Braun, who was once a member of a branch of the SS involved in the Holocaust, would become known as the "father of rocket science" and fascinate the world with visions of winged rockets and space stations as a "new" Manhattan Project, one that NASA would eventually adopt. And in addition to the weaponization of ballistic missiles that progressed throughout the Cold War, von Braun's expertise was used for America's most historic space missions. NASA also had to develop rockets capable of first launching a spacecraft into Earth's orbit, and then launching it toward the Moon. The Soviets struggled throughout the 1960s to design rockets up to the task, but thanks to von Braun, NASA got it right with the Saturn V rocket.

*Includes pictures *Includes Autry's own quotes about his life and career *Includes a bibliography for further reading "Music has been the better part of my career. Movies are wonderful fun and they give you a famous face. But how the words and melody are joined, how they come together out of air and enter the mind, this is art. Songs are forever." - Gene Autry A lot of ink has been spilled covering the lives of history's most influential figures, but how much of the forest is lost for the trees? In Charles River Editors' American Legends series, readers can get caught up to speed on the lives of America's most important men and women in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known. In the early 20th century, Westerns were one of the most popular genres in Hollywood, and one of the young stars at the forefront was Gene Autry, a Texan whose life story made him a natural to be the country's most famous "singing cowboy". Autry would become a symbol of masculinity and morality on screen during the 1930s, but it was effortless for someone who had already grown up riding horses to school. Autry came of age at a time when the "singing cowboy" was at the apex of his popularity, and like his most famous successor, Roy Rogers, Autry actually got his start in show business as a singer. Even today, Autry might be best known for being a pioneer of country music and the author of Christmas hits "Here Comes Santa Claus", "Frosty the Snowman", and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". Autry would produce hundreds of recordings during his life, helping ensure the popularity of the country music genre and earning inductions into several related halls of fame. Of course, the popularity of Autry's music and country music in general was bolstered by the fact that he became one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. After he was discovered in 1934, Autry made dozens of films and was still one of the industry's biggest moneymakers when he went off to fight in World War II. Though his movie career had already hit its peak by the time he returned, Autry used his popularity and his skills to transition into television, and he dabbled in all kinds of other ventures, including owning a radio station and professional sports teams. By the end of his long life and career, Autry could lay claim to being the only man with 5 stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for film, television, music, radio, and live performances. American Legends: The Life of Gene Autry examines the life and career of one of America's most famous singing cowboys. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Gene Autry like never before, in no time at all.