Charles River

*Includes pictures *Includes the musicians' own quotes about their lives and careers *Includes a bibliography of each for further reading Born in Mississippi, a young kid named Elvis Presley came to Memphis as a teenager and changed music forever. Fusing country and rhythm and blues with rock, Elvis brought traditional African-American sounds to the forefront of music in the 1950s, but he did so as a handsome white man before the height of the Civil Rights Movement. On top of that, his famous stage fright led to the hip gyrations that would make him the envy of young girls and the scorn of their parents. What followed was rock music's perfect storm. Managed by Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis became the biggest music act in the world, producing holiday classics, love ballads, and up-tempo rock songs that all hit the top of the charts in the late '50s. Elvis merged the quintessential rock star looks with success, scoring nearly 20 #1 singles. With live broadcasts on TV appearances and movie roles, Elvis became a pop culture fixture and a music icon that made even The Beatles giddily nervous to meet him. America has always celebrated its star entertainers, but Frank Sinatra remains a unique American legend. A pop culture fixture for over half a century, Sinatra's music is still cherished, and his persona remains its own archetype of the quintessential American star. Sinatra transcended genres to the extent that his music stands alone as its own kind of American music, with songs like "New York, New York," "Chicago," and "Come Fly With Me" instantly recognizable among all Americans. Of course, there was also the life that went with the music. The cultural identity of the Rat Pack, epitomized in the 1960 film Ocean's Eleven, further contributed to his fame, and everyone knows and appreciates the image of easy living, smooth voice and exuberant starpower that Sinatra represents. Johnny Cash, "The Man in Black", is among the most recognized and iconic vocal artists in the history of blues, country and gospel singing. During the second half of the 20th century, he produced a prolific and rarely-equaled career in the country genre as a singer, songwriter and guitarist, despite numerous struggles with alcohol and drug addiction. His trademark bass-baritone voice is instantly identifiable to listeners today, and his "parlando" style (combining an unaffected singing tone with a speech-like rhythm and pacing) has been taken up by the generation following his death in the early 21st century. Like Elvis Presley and other renowned artists who would later gather at Sun Records in Memphis during the 1950s, Johnny Cash emerged from the South and its blues and gospel traditions, and although his path to discovery took a more circuitous route, he came to join the biggest stars of his era, leaving a lasting mark on the industry and on American culture in the process.

*Includes pictures *Includes historic descriptions of Niagara Falls written over the centuries *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents "All trembling, I reached the Falls of Niagara, and oh, what a scene My blood shudders still, although I am not a coward, at the grandeur of the Creator's power; and I gazed motionless on this new display of the irresistible force of one of His elements." - John James Audubon "It's Niagara Falls. It's one of the most beautiful natural wonders in the world. Who wouldn't want to walk across it?" - Nik Wallenda North America is full of natural wonders, but few inspire as much awe as Niagara Falls, the continent's most famous waterfalls. Comprised of three separate waterfalls (Horseshoe Falls, American Falls, and Bridal Veil Falls), Niagara's falls can boast of the fastest flow rate in the world, dropping 6 million cubic feet of water every minute from as high as 185 feet. Situated on the border between the United States and Canada, Niagara Falls is not just a prime tourist spot but a source of hydroelectric power that attracted scientists like Nikola Tesla who hoped to harness the waterfalls' energy. In fact, Niagara Falls is so powerful that it is eroding the ground under it, to the extent that it will cease to exist in about 50,000 years. Niagara Falls is a byproduct of glaciers receding about 10,000 years ago, and it has been amazing people for as long as the area has been inhabited. It's widely believed Niagara is a word derived from the Mohawk tribe, but the most famous people now associated with the waterfalls are those who have dared to ride down the falls one way or another. The falls have seen both amateurs and professional stuntmen ride over it in barrels, some successfully and others fatally, and a local museum has even preserved some of the barrels used in the attempts. Just as daringly, others have tried to walk tightropes across the falls. Niagara Falls: The History of North America's Most Famous Waterfalls traces the history of the region and its establishment as a park. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Niagara Falls like never before, in no time at all.

*Comprehensively covers their most famous fights "To prove I am great, he will fall in eight." - Muhammad Ali "Everybody in boxing probably makes out well except for the fighter." - Mike Tyson The sports world has never suffered from a shortage of self-promoters, but none have ever walked the walk and backed up the talk like Muhammad Ali, boxing's greatest icon and possibly history's most famous athlete. Indeed, even referring to Ali just as a boxer does a disservice to the transcendent figure he has become around the world as a living legend. Of course, the legend of Ali begins in the squared circle, where a young, brash kid named Cassius Clay rose to the top of the boxing world with a style so unorthodox that anyone else attempting it would all but assure he'd get knocked out. But Ali became the heavyweight champ by keeping his hands low, "floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee", and outboxing heavyweight champions like Sonny Liston, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, and Floyd Patterson. Though he was both loved and hated during his career, since his retirement, Ali has remained one of sports' greatest icons across the globe, and he has been honored with too many awards to count. Held in awe just about everywhere, Ali has lit the torch at the Olympics, received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and received the Presidential Citizens Medal, among other honors. Iron Mike Tyson was one of the most feared opponents to ever step into a boxing ring. With unbelievable power that floored or stopped all but two of his first 28 professional opponents, Tyson began an unprecedented ascent to the top of the boxing world, becoming the youngest champion in history with a second round TKO over Trevor Berbick, the last man to box and defeat Muhammad Ali. That victory, in November 1986, prompted one British sports reporter to write, "The noble and manly art of boxing can at least cease worrying about its immediate future, now it has discovered a heavyweight champion fit to stand alongside Dempsey, Tunney, Louis, Marciano and Ali." Tyson became one of the biggest names in sports during the 1980s and could literally do no wrong in the ring, compiling a 37-0 record with 33 KO/TKOs. Unfortunately, as everyone knows today, the unprecedented nature of his rise is rivaled only by his stunning fall from grace. In February 1990, Tyson was knocked out by Buster Douglas in one of boxing's greatest upsets. Though he won his next few fights, his career was derailed by his conviction for raping Desiree Washington, landing him in prison for 3 of his prime fighting years. When Tyson got out of prison, his career simply became surreal. After winning a few belts back, he lost two bouts to Evander Holyfield, infamously biting part of Holyfield's ear off out of frustration during the rematch. He had another stint in jail before the end of the '90s, and his odd comments before his loss to Lennox Lewis ensured that the man once billed as an all time great was now more of a one man circus than anything else. In 2003, near the end of a career that had netted him $300 million, Tyson declared bankruptcy, hitting rock bottom. Today Tyson is nostalgically remembered as one of boxing's great heavyweights, but that shares the pedestal with his controversial quotes and antics. Boxing Icons chronicles the lives, careers and legacies of both fighters, from their unprecedented highs to their infamous lows. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events in their lives, you will learn about Ali and Tyson like you never have before, in no time at all.

*Includes pictures. *Includes the stars' own quotes about their lives and careers. *Includes suggested playlists and analyses of their music. *Includes bibliographies for further reading. It is rare in the world of music for a general consensus to form over who was the best at anything. Many would call The Beatles the greatest rock band, but it's easy to find strongly opinionated dissenters. However, when it came to playing a guitar and laying the soundtrack for the psychedelic era, just about everyone agrees there was Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970) and then there was everyone else. Anyone arguing otherwise either never heard his music or saw him perform. In fact, Jimi Hendrix is one of the few musicians known primarily for his sound and what he could do with a guitar than for his discography. A part of that is due to his untimely death and entry into the 27 Club, but it is also due to the fact that he was so revolutionary with the use of an electric guitar and so skilled at playing it that the effects have largely not been duplicated since. It was heavy, loud, and completely raw, and yet he was a pioneer in genres as varied as blues and heavy metal. As Pete Townshend famously put it, "With Jimi, I didn't have any envy. I never had any sense that I could ever come close." The life and career of Janis Joplin marks such a stark departure from the blues, rock and soul traditions as American society has come to know them that her brief and tempestuous career defies artistic analysis, if only because there is so little precedent aside from the great African-American blues and jazz singers that influenced her. For a woman born in 1943 and coming into her professional prime in the 1960s, Joplin stood as a mesmerizing and baffling foil to the female tradition in non-classical music, which had previously been symbolized by pure, mellow voices singing thoughtful texts. The American music scene was entirely unprepared to witness the emergence of a white woman who could sing the blues with such authenticity, force, and depth of feeling. Of course, for all the mention of Joplin's career, there is nearly as much focus on her untimely death at the age of 27, particularly because she died just a few weeks after Jimi Hendrix's death at the age of 27 and was followed in death by Jim Morrison at the age of 27 less than a year later. Those three all died as a result of alcohol and drug abuse, and they formed the starting point for the legendary "27 Club", which memorializes rock stars who died at the age of 27. Morrison, the charismatic poet/musician of The Doors, helped to transform the subgenre of rock n' roll as a stylistic flavor into the full-fledged institution of Rock Music, and he accomplished all of this by being extreme, in every sense of the word. His poetry was assaultive, blatant and graphic, a sign of the times, and his voice was mystical and haunting, lacking any sense of what was previously or typically considered vocal beauty. Whether intentional or not, Morrison also led the charge of excessive defiance toward anything hierarchical or rule-laden, and the acting out of his subconscious urges on public stages around the world amazed and shocked everyone who saw or heard about it.

*Includes pictures *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents "When I am dead and opened, you shall find Calais' lying in my heart." - Mary I Queen Mary I ruled England and its conquered territories in Wales and Ireland for only five years, from 1553 to 1558, yet she has been remembered for nearly 500 years as Bloody Mary, the Catholic oppressor of a Protestant country. The truth, as usual, is more complicated than the myth. The oldest surviving child of King Henry VIII, she grew up in an era of religious and political turmoil, both in England and abroad, and though united in its Christianity, the continent was divided in how it approached that faith. A growing wave of protest and dissent had been met with brutal suppression in the 15th century, only to emerge like a phoenix from the flames in the form of Protestantism. With religious faith and political practice deeply intertwined, countries were being torn apart in a growing conflict between Catholics and Protestants. Mary's life was shaped by her experience of this, and by the twisted family politics of her father, Henry VIII. Henry VIII's lone mail heir, his young son Edward, was a strong Protestant but a sickly teen, and as it became clear he would not survive to adulthood, Edward did not want his crown to pass to Mary, a zealous Catholic whose brutal reign would include 280 "heretics" being burned at the stake during the "Marian Persecutions". However, Edward could see no constitutional, or indeed non-arbitrary, way to pass over Mary and instead choose the younger sister, Elizabeth. Hence, in his typical schoolboy penmanship, Edward's will attempted to override the Succession to the Crown Act 1543 (advocated by his father and passed by Parliament), bar both Mary and Elizabeth from the succession, and instead declare as his heir Lady Jane Grey, who was the granddaughter of Henry VIII's sister Mary. Lady Jane was proclaimed queen by the Privy Council, possibly under duress, but her support soon waned after her own close blood relations distanced themselves from her, and she was deposed after just over a week. Given this background, it is hardly surprising then that her reign epitomized an extreme reaction against these upheavals. Mary's behavior was rightly viewed with fear and anger by many but in hindsight, it is hard not to pity the woman who took these terrible steps. Emotionally betrayed by her father, her husband and even her own body, Mary's life is one of the great tragedies of the English crown. It also hasn't helped Mary's legacy that she was succeeded by one of England's greatest monarchs, her younger sister Elizabeth. Elizabeth I was the last Tudor sovereign, and she would improve upon her predecessors' successes and mitigate their failures. In the process, she would lend her name to the Elizabethan Age and set Great Britain on its future imperial course. Bloody Mary: The Life and Legacy of England's Most Notorious Queen traces the life of Mary and the history of her short reign. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Bloody Mary like never before, in no time at all.

*Includes pictures *Explains the appeasement of the Nazis in Czechoslovakia and Austria, and reactions to it *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents "My good friends," the mustached, bony man with thick eyebrows and large, strong teeth somewhat reminiscent of those of a horse, shouted to the crowds from the second-floor window of his house at 10 Downing Street, "this is the second time in our history, that there has come back to Downing Street from Germany peace with honor. I believe it is peace for our time." (McDonough, 1998, 70). The man addressing the crowd, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, had just returned from the heart of Nazi Germany following negotiations with Adolf Hitler, and the crowd gathered outside the English leader's house on September 30, 1938 greeted these ringing words with grateful cheers. The piece of paper Chamberlain flourished exultantly seemed to offer permanent amity and goodwill between democratic Britain and totalitarian Germany. In it, Britain agreed to allow Hitler's Third Reich to absorb the Sudeten regions of Czechoslovakia without interference from either England or France, and since high percentages of ethnic Germans - often more than 50% locally - inhabited these regions, Hitler's demand for this territory seemed somewhat reasonable to Chamberlain and his supporters. With Germany resurgent and rearmed after the disasters inflicted on it by the Treaty of Versailles following World War I, the pact - known as the Munich Agreement - held out hope of a quick end to German ambitions and the return of stable, normal international relations across Europe. Of course, the Munich agreement is now notorious because its promise proved barren within a very short period of time. Chamberlain's actions either failed to avert or actually hastened the very cataclysm he wished to avoid at all costs. The "Munich Agreement" of 1938 effectively signed away Czechoslovakia's independence to Hitler's hungry new Third Reich, and within two years, most of the world found itself plunged into a conflict which made a charnelhouse of Europe and left somewhere between 60-80 million people dead globally. Many people hailed Chamberlain's "success" at defusing Nazi aggression by handing over Czechoslovakia tamely to Hitler's control, but others remained dubious. douard Daladier, the French prime minister, "later told Amery that he turned up his coat collar to protect his face from rotten eggs when he arrived in Paris." (Gilbert, 1963, 179-180). A Foreign Office man, Orme Sargent, was disgusted, and he later said bitterly, "For all the fun and cheers, you might think they were celebrating a major victory over an enemy instead of merely the betrayal of a minor ally." (Gilbert, 1963, 180). Winston Churchill, the deal's most famous critic, bitterly remarked, "England has been offered a choice between war and shame. She has chosen shame, and will get war." Munich is widely reviled today and is held up as the epitome of appeasement, but historians still debate its effects on the Second World War, as well as Neville Chamberlain's character and motivations. Some believe the attempted appeasement of Nazi Germany hastened, or even caused, the mayhem occupying the next seven years. Others believe that the pact merely failed to alter war's inevitable arrival in either direction. Historians and authors alternately interpret Chamberlain as a bumbling, arrogant fool, a strong-willed statesman who simply miscalculated the nature of Hitler and Nazi Germany, or even a man with dictatorial ambitions surreptitiously inserting himself into the Fuhrer's orbit and prevented from further damaging democracy only by his fall and death from bowel cancer. Another possible interpretation, with considerable documentary support, asserts Chamberlain wished to enlist Germany's aid against the state most Europeans perceived as the true threat of the era, the Soviet Union

*Includes pictures *Discusses theories attempting to explain the mysteries *Includes bibliographies for further reading *Includes a table of contents On the Salisbury Plain, only a few hours from the hustle and bustle of Central London, remains one of the greatest surviving relics of humanity's ancient past: the mighty stone circle of Stonehenge. Stonehenge is one of the most well-known ancient sites in the world, and an image of it raises numerous associations and emotional responses. Its impressiveness comes not only from its size and remarkable level of preservation, but more so because of the incredible precision with which it was constructed during an era of simple technology and social organization. Obviously, it is a place of great importance-then and now. Of course, Stonehenge has long fascinated the rest of the world too, as people continue to try to understand every aspect of the site and the underlying purpose of it. This involves an understanding of why Stonehenge is located where it is, what the materials consist of, and what archaeology has uncovered about the people who built it. On top of that, Stonehenge is a center of mythology and folklore that has evolved over time, establishing the foundation for a unique spiritual belief system that both celebrates Stonehenge as a "living temple" and challenges the official guardians of the place. One of the oldest and most famous statues of the world, the Great Sphinx at Giza has fascinated people for thousands of years. While the sphinx was a well known mythological creature among various ancient civilizations, the Egyptian statue that is now most famously associated with the creature is full of mysteries that have been endlessly debated throughout the centuries and continue to be hotly contested among scholars. The famous "Riddle of the Sphinx", told by Sophocles in his play Oedipus Rex in the 5th century B. C., characterized the sphinx as a clever and powerful creature, and even today young kids learn about the story. But the mysteries of the Egyptian statue were discussed even among the ancient Romans; Pliny the Elder, the famous Roman author and philosopher killed in Pompeii during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A. D., wrote in his Natural Histories that contemporary Egyptians considered the Sphinx a "divinity" and "that King Harmais was buried in it". In antiquity, the Hanging Gardens, like the Great Pyramid of Giza, were considered both a technological marvel and an aesthetic masterpiece. Ancient historians believed that the Hanging Gardens were constructed around the 7th century B. C. after the second rise of Babylon, which would make them the second-oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. However, in 1993, British Assyriologist, Stephanie Dalley, proposed a theory that they were ordered built by an Assyrian king at Nineveh.

*Includes pictures of the boxers and important people in their lives. *Includes the boxers' most colorful quotes. *Discusses the facts, legends, and controversies surrounding their most famous fights. "A champion is someone who gets up when he can't." - Jack Dempsey "To prove I am great, he will fall in eight." - Muhammad Ali "Everybody in boxing probably makes out well except for the fighter." - Mike Tyson During a time when America's heroes were recognized for toughness and strength, Jack Dempsey was the prototypical "golden boy" of the Roaring Twenties. Just as Babe Ruth, Red Grange, Bill Tilden and Bobby Jones were the signature figures for their respective sports, Dempsey personified the sport of boxing. Dempsey's aggressive style in the ring and the punch he packed made him the heavyweight champion by 1913, and by the time Dempsey lost the title to U. S. Marine Gene Tunney in 1926 and retired following their controversial 1927 rematch (a fight known as "The Long Count"), he was one of the most popular and richest athletes in history, and he parlayed that into success in everything from owning a restaurant to authoring books. The sports world has never suffered from a shortage of self-promoters, but none have ever walked the walk and backed up the talk like Muhammad Ali, boxing's greatest icon and possibly history's most famous athlete. Indeed, even referring to Ali just as a boxer does a disservice to the transcendent figure he has become around the world as a living legend. Of course, the legend of Ali begins in the squared circle, where a young, brash kid named Cassius Clay rose to the top of the boxing world with a style so unorthodox that anyone else attempting it would all but assure he'd get knocked out. But Ali became the heavyweight champ by keeping his hands low, "floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee", and outboxing heavyweight champions like Sonny Liston, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, and Floyd Patterson. Though he was both loved and hated during his career, since his retirement, Ali has remained one of sports' greatest icons across the globe, and he has been honored with too many awards to count. Held in awe just about everywhere, Ali has lit the torch at the Olympics, received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and received the Presidential Citizens Medal, among other honors. Iron Mike Tyson was one of the most feared opponents to ever step into a boxing ring. With unbelievable power that floored or stopped all but two of his first 28 professional opponents, Tyson began an unprecedented ascent to the top of the boxing world, becoming the youngest champion in history with a second round TKO over Trevor Berbick, the last man to box and defeat Muhammad Ali. That victory, in November 1986, prompted one British sports reporter to write, "The noble and manly art of boxing can at least cease worrying about its immediate future, now it has discovered a heavyweight champion fit to stand alongside Dempsey, Tunney, Louis, Marciano and Ali."

*Includes pictures *Includes Kissinger's own quotes about his life and career *Includes online resources, footnotes and a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents "There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full." - Henry Kissinger "The longer I am out of office, the more infallible I appear to myself." - Henry Kissinger 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. The latter half of the 20th century was privy to one of the greatest displays of ongoing international diplomacy seen in American history, but to say that Henry A. Kissinger's career as an American diplomat was purely American would be short-sighted and simplistic. The diplomatic atmosphere, particularly in the 1970s, was far from the image of a public official manning an office in Washington, D. C., greeting foreign dignitaries, and traveling on occasion to sign foreign agreements. In the post-World War II environment, old allies became new enemies, and a series of crises appeared almost simultaneously around the world, involving virtually every nation in the world, on every continent. From Richard Nixon's opening of relations with China to the ensuing conflict with Taiwan, as well as the potential benefits of d tente with the Soviet Union, a fellow nuclear power, Secretary of State Kissinger had his hands full. In addition to that, he had to deal with the churning of leadership changes and military rule in South America, the seething tension between the newly-founded Israel and its surrounding Arab states. The diplomatic demands on the United States as a central and powerful presence were profound and ongoing. As the man who would become the 56th American Secretary of State, Kissinger presided over a vast network of partnerships, rivalries, cultural obstacle courses, and world ideologies. His dealings with every section of the globe were conducted in parallel regimens of public and private negotiations, and power plays in both natural and purposefully manipulated scenarios. As a staunch devotee of the "Realpolitik" concept, which espouses a dispassionate, amoral approach to all conflict, based on ultimate practicality and circumstantial realism, Kissinger, with his deeply embedded pragmatic streak, has been hailed by some as the Archimedes of Diplomacy, a diplomatic genius. Others, on both the left and right, refer to him overtly as a war criminal, with some still insisting that he be brought to justice decades after the zenith of his career for surreptitious policies that interfered with the normal progression of foreign governments. All, however, agree that Kissinger was a master of power plays and superb rhetorical influence; whether ruthless or gentle, he was a diplomatic artist who could inexplicably "manufacture opportunities out of chaos." Through his work with the Nixon administration, Kissinger ultimately became the most celebrated foreign diplomat since Thomas Jefferson, and for a time, he was, according to a national Gallup Poll, the most popular and admired man in America. The highest ranking Jewish official in the history of the United States, even Egyptian politicians sitting across the desk in direct and vehement opposition referred to him behind closed doors as "the magician." American Legends: The Life of Henry Kissinger explores the life and career of one of America's most famous diplomats. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Kissinger like never before, in no time at all.