Charles River

*Includes pictures *Includes Fawcett's quotes about her life and career *Includes a bibliography for further reading "I became famous almost before I had a craft." - Farrah Fawcett "TV had much more impact back in the '70s than it does today. Charlie's Angels got huge numbers every week - nothing really dominates the television landscape like that today. Maybe American Idol comes close, but now there are so many channels and so many more shows it's hard for anything to get the audience, or amount of attention, that Charlie's Angels got. Farrah was a major TV star when the medium was clearly dominant." - Larry King 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 sensation that Farrah Fawcett caused in the 1970s can be confirmed by the fact that TIME magazine designated her as the "epitome of '70s glamour". Indeed, there was no actress or supermodel that so comprehensively captured the attention of the American public during that decade (Sherrow 128). Her career accomplishments are remarkable, considering Fawcett did not emerge into the cultural spotlight until halfway through the decade. Whereas most famous celebrities earn a reputation for themselves by their mid-20s, Fawcett did not become a household name until 1977, when she was already 30 years of age. In other words, when Farrah became famous, she defied the odds, and her continued success in subsequent decades demonstrated that women could stay glamorous well into middle age. To limit the accomplishments of Farrah Fawcett to her glamour is to diminish the cultural importance of her appearance, to ignore the significant role she played with regard to the representation of women in popular American media. After all, in order to do justice to what Farrah Fawcett meant to people, it is necessary to look beyond just how Farrah looked (while acknowledging the importance of how she looked) and acknowledge what Farrah did. It is significant to note that Farrah emerged in the cultural context of second-wave feminism and in the wake of the sexual revolution-a period in which women were breaking through the long-extant subordination of women at the hands of men, both in popular media and society more broadly. Farrah remains such an important figure because she had a tremendous impact on many entertainment platforms, from modeling (and posters) to television to cinema, particularly in her later years. It is fair to argue over whether Farrah Fawcett maintained the popularity she reached in the 1970s, but it cannot be doubted that she was able to successfully cross boundaries between cinema and television, print and electronic media. Through these ventures, she played an inexorable role in affecting not only how women were represented but also how women viewed their bodies; she pushed the boundaries of what women were capable of in American popular culture. Farrah Fawcett also is such a culturally noteworthy figure because her work is so open to diverse interpretations. While Farrah is effusively regaled for being a feminist icon (however unwittingly), it also has been argued that she was objectified in a manner that was solely designed to satisfy the male gaze. In an effort to do justice to the intricacies of Fawcett's image, this biography explores Farrah's body of work, with attention paid to the distinct interpretations of her oeuvre and public image. Fawcett's personal background also is discussed, as is her bout with cancer that ultimately took her life at the premature age of 62.

*Includes pictures *Includes descriptions of various explorations of the wreck and lawsuits surrounding the ship *Includes accounts written by participants of the dive *Includes a bibliography for further reading "The deep sea is the largest museum of the world, and as the Titanic goes so go the many lost chapter of human history that lie undiscovered beneath the waves. If we cannot protect the Titanic, then what can we protect? Modern technology is allowed easier and easier physical access to underwater wreck sites. Do we use this access to appreciate what lies there or to plunder it?" - Robert Ballard Just before midnight on April 14, 1912, the RMS Titanic, the largest ship in the world, hit an iceberg, setting in motion a chain of events that would ultimately make it history's most famous, and notorious, ship. In the over 100 years since it sank on its maiden voyage, the Titanic has been the subject of endless fascination, as evidenced by the efforts to find its final resting spot, the museums full of its objects, and the countless books, documentaries, and movies made about the doomed ocean liner. Thanks to the dramatization of the Titanic's sinking and the undying interest in the story, millions of people are familiar with various aspects of the ship's demise, and the nearly 1,500 people who died in the North Atlantic in the early morning hours of April 15, 1912. The sinking of the ship is still nearly as controversial now as it was over 100 years ago, and the drama is just as compelling. In the century since the Titanic sank, public interest in the ship and its history has waxed and waned on a regular basis. There was a flurry of activity right after it went down, as people tried to wrap their minds around what happened, but the World Wars pushed attention elsewhere. Then, during the 1950s, scientists had the time and money to become interested in it again. While there were numerous attempts to find that ship during the 1970s, the mighty ship still kept her secrets, her dead and their possessions safely at the bottom of the sea, where only strange creature comfortable in the depths could disturb them. As it turned out, the most famous wreck in the world would not be located until 1985, over 70 years after the ship sank that fateful April night. The discovery ignited a new flurry of interest in Titanic, including an interest in what the wreck still held, who those items belonged, to and what should be done with them. The 1997 blockbuster movie about the ship only stirred up more interest and controversy, both of which continue to this day. Revisiting the Titanic chronicles the underwater explanation of the wreck, the attempts to bring artifacts back up to the surface, and the legal controversies still brewing today. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the discovery of the Titanic like never before.

*Includes pictures *Includes contemporary accounts written about the revolt on the ship *Includes excerpts from the legal cases and arguments *Includes a bibliography for further reading "25,000 slaves were brought into Cuba every year - with the wrongful compliance of, and personal profit by, Spanish officials." - Dr. Richard Madden "Now, the unfortunate Africans whose case is the subject of the present representation, have been thrown by accidental circumstances into the hands of the authorities of the United States Government whether these persons shall recover the freedom to which they are entitled, or whether they shall be reduced to slavery, in violation of known laws and contracts publicly passed, prohibiting the continuance of the African slave-trade by Spanish subjects." - Henry Stephen Fox, British diplomat By the early 19th century, several European nations had banned slavery, but while the United States had banned the international slave trade, slavery was still legal in the country itself. As a result, there was still a strong financial motive for merchants and slave traders to attempt to bring slaves to the Western hemisphere, and a lot of profits to be gained from successfully sneaking slaves into the American South and the Caribbean by way of locations like Havana, Cuba. At the same time, the cruelties of the slave trade often led to desperate attempts by slaves or would-be slaves to avoid the horrific fate that they were either experiencing or about to face. In 1831, Nat Turner's revolt shocked the South and scared plantation owners across the country, while also bringing the issue of slavery to the forefront of the national debate. But just years after Turner's rebellion was quickly put down, the United States was embroiled in another similar controversy as a result of the successful insurrection aboard the Amistad, a Spanish schooner that was carrying Africans taken from modern day Sierra Leone and brought across the Atlantic to Cuba. In 1839, the Amistad was loaded in Havana with Africans who had been brought across the ocean to be made slaves, but after the ship left Havana for another location on Cuba, the Africans escaped their shackles, killed the captain, and took over the ship. When they demanded to be taken back to Africa, the ship's crew instead sailed north, and the ship was ultimately captured off the coast of Long Island in New York by the USS Washington. All of this resulted in one of the most famous maritime cases in history, and one that affected not just the international slave trade ban but also how jurisdiction over such a case was determined. While the British were interested in enforcing the ban on the slave trade, Spain wanted to protect its own rights by asserting that their property (crew and ship) could not be subjected to American jurisdiction, and that since slavery was legal in Cuba, a foreign country had no right to determine the legal status of the Africans aboard the Amistad. On top of that, both the Spanish slave traders intending to sail the ship around Cuba and the American captain who seized the Amistad claimed ownership of the Africans. The legal case proceeded all the way up to the United States Supreme Court, which eventually affirmed a lower court ruling that allowed the Africans to be returned home as free men, but not before the British and Spanish used diplomatic and political leverage to try to influence the outcome. Ultimately, the rebellion on the Amistad and the case that followed became a watershed moment in the debate over slavery and abolition in America about 20 years before the Civil War. The Amistad: The Slave Revolt and Legal Case that Changed The World chronicles the events that led up to one of history's most famous slave uprisings, and the lasting legacy of the case that determined the fate of the Africans on the ship.

*Includes pictures *Discusses Assyrian military tactics, religious practices, and more *Includes ancient Assyrian accounts documenting their military campaigns and more *Includes a bibliography for further reading "I fought daily, without interruption against Taharqa, King of Egypt and Ethiopia, the one accursed by all the great gods. Five times I hit him with the point of my arrows inflicting wounds from which he should not recover, and then I laid siege to Memphis his royal residence, and conquered it in half a day by means of mines, breaches and assault ladders." - Esarhaddon "I captured 46 towns...by consolidating ramps to bring up battering rams, by infantry attacks, mines, breaches and siege engines." - Sennacherib When scholars study the history of the ancient Near East, several wars that had extremely brutal consequences (at least by modern standards) often stand out. Forced removal of entire populations, sieges that decimated entire cities, and wanton destruction of property were all tactics used by the various peoples of the ancient Near East against each other, but the Assyrians were the first people to make war a science. When the Assyrians are mentioned, images of war and brutality are among the first that come to mind, despite the fact that their culture prospered for nearly 2,000 years. Like a number of ancient individuals and empires in that region, the negative perception of ancient Assyrian culture was passed down through Biblical accounts, and regardless of the accuracy of the Bible's depiction of certain events, the Assyrians clearly played the role of adversary for the Israelites. Indeed, Assyria (Biblical Shinar) and the Assyrian people played an important role in many books of the Old Testament and are first mentioned in the book of Genesis: "And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel and Erech, and Akkad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Out of that land went forth Ashur and built Nineveh and the city Rehoboth and Kallah." (Gen. 10:10-11). Although the Biblical accounts of the Assyrians are among the most interesting and are often corroborated with other historical sources, the Assyrians were much more than just the enemies of the Israelites and brutal thugs. A historical survey of ancient Assyrian culture reveals that although they were the supreme warriors of their time, they were also excellent merchants, diplomats, and highly literate people who recorded their history and religious rituals and ideology in great detail. The Assyrians, like their other neighbors in Mesopotamia, were literate and developed their own dialect of the Akkadian language that they used to write tens of thousands of documents in the cuneiform script (Kuhrt 2010, 1:84). Furthermore, the Assyrians prospered for so long that their culture is often broken down by historians into the "Old", "Middle", and "Neo" Assyrian periods, even though the Assyrians themselves viewed their history as a long succession of rulers from an archaic period until the collapse of the neo-Assyrian Empire in the 7th century BCE. In fact, the current divisions have been made by modern scholars based on linguistic changes, not on political dynasties (van de Mieroop 2007, 179). The Assyrians: The History of the Most Prominent Empire of the Ancient Near East traces the history and legacy of Assyria across several millennia. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the history of the Assyrians like never before, in no time at all.

*Includes pictures *Includes accounts of the Dust Bowl and dust storms by farmers, wives, and children *Includes a bibliography for further reading "People caught in their own yards grope for the doorstep. Cars come to a standstill, for no light in the world can penetrate that swirling murk.... The nightmare is deepest during the storms. But on the occasional bright day and the usual gray day we cannot shake from it. We live with the dust, eat it, sleep with it, watch it strip us of possessions and the hope of possessions." - Avis D. Carlson "How can you frighten a man whose hunger is not only in his own cramped stomach but in the wretched bellies of his children? You can't scare him - he has known a fear beyond every other." - John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath It is almost impossible to imagine today, but in the late 19th century and early 20th century, there were places where land was cheaper than food and more plentiful than water. During the homesteading period of the 1860s-1880s, the government typically offered land grants of 160 acres to any farmer who could get it cultivated within a certain amount of time. With that much land to make productive and a limited number of years to get it cleared and planted, men would do whatever it took to get their crops in. Of course, these farmers, trying to quickly carve working farms, were more concerned with speed than with the impact on the ground itself. Surviving each year itself was enough work; the future would have to worry about itself. While farmers were planting crops, the seeds were also being sown for a natural disaster once a severe drought hit the prairie land in the 1930s. Due to a lack of proper dryland farming methods, wind erosion and the drought combined to create horrific dust storms that devastated wide swathes of Great Plains and even reached cities on the East Coast like New York City and Washington, D. C. It's estimated that the dust storms affected about 100 million acres during the decade, uprooting not just soil but tens of thousands of people as their farms and families suffered. With farms failing across vast portions of Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico Colorado and Kansas, those who could no longer support themselves became migrants, moving to other states like California, but the country was still in the throes of the Great Depression. As a result, there was a unique class of suffering that was documented not only in pictures but in graphically realistic novels like John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Pictures of abandoned farms that looked like post-apocalyptic ghost towns helped drive the crisis home across the country, to the extent that the Dust Bowl is still well-known 80 years later. The Dust Bowl chronicles one of America's "Dirty Thirties," an era in which ecological disasters brought economic ruin and permanently affected millions across the country. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Dust Bowl like never before, in no time at all.

*Includes pictures *Includes Sadat's own quotes about his life and career *Includes footnotes and a bibliography for further reading On a beautiful sunny day in March 1979, as thousands of Egyptians awaited in anticipation, a plane landed in Cairo. Moments later, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat stepped out, welcomed by thunderous cheers from an overjoyed crowd. He had just returned to his country from Washington D. C., where five days earlier he had signed a historic treaty with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and U. S. President Jimmy Carter, bringing an end to three decades of war and hostilities between Israelis and Egyptians. Few moments in the history of this region were as momentous and poignant as the signing of this treaty, the first between Israel and any Arab country, and Egyptians across the country hailed Sadat as their hero and expressed pride in their leader, the bringer of peace. Egypt had good reason to celebrate the treaty. Since 1948, the country joined other Arab states and went to war with Israel on four occasions: the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the 1956 War, the 1967 Six-Day War, and the 1973 Yom Kippur War. All were ultimately unsuccessful in fully defeating Israel, and Egypt, of all the Arab states, experienced the heaviest losses, both in human casualties and financially. It was Sadat's deep-seated resolve and the will of the Egyptian people that forged the path to the unprecedented normalization of relations between Israel and an Arab country. Pride in and respect for Anwar Sadat was not limited to his people either, as much of the world touted Sadat as a great world leader and peacemaker. Together with Begin, Sadat was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1978 for their efforts in negotiating the peace treaty. Sadat was applauded by leaders of democratic nations across the world, and he opened up a new chapter of Egyptian foreign relations, establishing the country as a modernized and stable power in the historically tumultuous Middle East. As with many historic moments that inspired significant change, not everyone was supportive of Sadat's peace efforts. Only two years after the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty, President Sadat was assassinated by members of an Islamic fundamentalist group, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, in October 1981. As a president who succeeded the revolutionary Gamal Abdel Nasser and was succeeded by the long-reigning Hosni Mubarak, Sadat and his legacy are often overshadowed by the forceful prowess and authoritative legacies of Nasser and Mubarak, his presidency reduced to the peace treaty and the subsequent Nobel Prize he received. In fact, Sadat appeared to have suffered from a misrepresented image for much of his military and political career. Though the significance and true impact of Sadat and his legacy may be difficult to define, it can certainly be said that Sadat inhabits a unique place in Egyptian history. Compared to Nasser's chaotic and rallying rule and Mubarak's oppressive reign, Sadat's presidency was marked with stability, reform, and above all, a yearning for peace. The peace efforts that Sadat undertook permanently changed the political, economic, and social character of Egypt, and though he was praised as a hero by many yet cursed as traitor by some, a majority of Egyptians fell in the former group, or at least acknowledged Sadat's courage and hard work. Anwar Sadat: The Life and Legacy of the Egyptian President chronicles the life and legacy of one of Egypt's most famous presidents. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Sadat like never before, in no time at all.

*Includes pictures *Includes soldiers' accounts of the fighting *Includes bibliographies for further reading Although not as well-remembered as D-Day or even the attack at Pearl Harbor that preceded it, the Battle of Midway was one of the most unique and important battles fought during World War II. In fact, the turning point in the Pacific theater took place between June 4-7, 1942 as a Japanese fleet moved a sizable fleet intending to occupy Midway Island and draw the American navy near. Instead, American aircraft flying from three aircraft carriers that had been away from Pearl Harbor in December 1941 got a bearing on the Japanese fleet and sunk four Japanese aircraft carriers, permanently crippling Japan's navy. The Battle of Midway was one of the first major naval battles in history where the enemy fleets never actually saw or came into contact with each other. By the time the Battle of Midway was over, the defeat was so devastating that it was actually kept secret from all but the highest echelons of the Japanese government. Along with the loss of hundreds of aircraft and over 3,000 men killed, the four Japanese aircraft carriers lost, when compared to America's one lost carrier, was critical considering America's huge shipbuilding superiority. However, the Battle of Midway could also have easily turned out differently. Japan began the battle with more carriers, more and better aircraft, and more experienced crews than the Americans, and if the battle of the Coral Sea was any indication, the two sides had irrefutable proof of the dominance of the aircraft carrier in the Pacific. The implications of earlier clashes were now starkly underlined, and the fighting was now clearly about timing. The carrier fleets were incredibly powerful and crucially important, yet at the same time they were hugely vulnerable weapons systems. The protagonists at Midway were putting into practice a newly emerging naval doctrine, one which ultimately meted out a terrible punishment to the side that miscalculated. Carrier versus carrier combat had come of age. The Guadalcanal Campaign, which ran from August 1942 to February 1943, was a bitter and protracted struggle that also happened to be a strange and transitional confrontation quite unlike any other in the long Pacific War. In conjunction with the American victory at the Battle of Midway, Guadalcanal represented the crucial moment when the balance of power in the Pacific tipped in favor of the Allies, but the idea that Guadalcanal would be such a significant battle would have come as a surprise to military strategists and planners on both sides. Eventually, nearly 100,000 soldiers fought on the island, and the ferocity with which the Japanese fought was a fitting prelude to campaigns like Iwo Jima and Okinawa. The campaign would include six separate naval battles, three large-scale land clashes, and almost daily skirmishing and shelling. Not surprisingly, the campaign exacted a heavy toll, with more than 60 ships sunk, more than 1200 aircraft destroyed, and more than 38,000 dead. While the Japanese and Americans engaged at sea and in the skies, of the 36,000 Japanese defenders on the ground, over 30,000 of them would be dead by the end of the Guadalcanal campaign, while the Americans lost about 7,000 killed. By the end of the fighting, the Guadalcanal Campaign had unquestionably become a turning point in the Pacific War, representing both the last gasp of the Japanese offensive and the first stirrings of the American onslaught. The Turning Points in the Pacific comprehensively covers the events leading up to the campaign, analyzes the decisions made by the battles' most important leaders, and explains the aftermath of the American victories. Along with a bibliography and pictures of important people and places, you will learn about Guadalcanal like you never have before, in no time at all.

*Includes pictures *Includes eyewitness accounts of the disaster *Includes a bibliography for further reading "The fire was barely fifteen minutes old. What followed was a series of fatal errors that set the fire free and doomed the city to a fiery death." - Jim Murphy, The Great Fire It had taken about 40 years for Chicago to grow from a small settlement of about 300 people into a thriving metropolis with a population of 300,000, but in just two days in 1871, much of that progress was burned to the ground. In arguably the most famous fire in American history, a blaze in the southwestern section of Chicago began to burn out of control on the night of October 8, 1871. Thanks to The Chicago Tribune, the fire has been apocryphally credited to a cow kicking over a lantern in Mrs. Catherine O'Leary's barn, and though that was not true, the rumor dogged Mrs. O'Leary to the grave. Of course, the cause of the fire didn't matter terribly much to the people who lost their lives or their property in the blaze. Thanks to dry conditions, wind, and wooden buildings, firefighters were never actually able to stop the fire, which burned itself out only after it spent nearly two whole days incinerating several square miles of Chicago. By the time rain mercifully helped to put the fire out, the Great Chicago Fire had already killed an estimated 300 people, destroyed an estimated 17,500 buildings, and left nearly 100,000 people (1/3 of the population) homeless. Several other theories have developed as an explanation for the fire. Most of them center on people around Mrs. O'Leary's barn, but other have gone so far as to blame a meteor shower as the culprit that started fires across the Midwest that same night. As proof, they note that the country's worst forest fire in history took place around the same time in the logging town of Peshtigo in northeastern Wisconsin, a fire that killed thousands. Mrs. O'Leary and her barn remain a part of lore, but it also speaks to Chicago's ability to rebuild that it's almost impossible to envision a farm in downtown Chicago today. Chicago suffered a wide swath of destruction, but it had rebuilt itself within 20 years in order to host the World's Fair, evidence that it was back and bigger and better than ever. Along with that, Chicago has maintained its status as the region's biggest city and one of the most important in America. The Great Chicago Fire chronicles one of the largest natural disasters of the 19th century in America. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 like never before, in no time at all.

*Includes pictures *Includes accounts of the flood written by survivors *Includes a bibliography for further reading "The deluge released by the dam's collapse carried more than 12,000 cubic meters of debris-filled water each second. Flow rates in the Mississippi River typically vary between 7,000 and 20,000 cubic meters per second." - Sid Perkins, Science News, Vol.176 In 2005, the world watched in horror as Hurricane Katrina decimated New Orleans, and the calamity seemed all the worse because many felt that technology had advanced far enough to prevent such tragedies, whether through advanced warning or engineering. However, the failure of human engineering like that seen in New Orleans was nothing new, and it had previously had even deadlier consequences in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Although floods rarely get as much coverage as other kinds of natural disasters like volcanic explosions, the Johnstown Flood of 1889 has remained an exception due to the sheer destruction and magnitude of the disaster. On May 31, 1889, Johnstown became a casualty of a combination of heavy rains and the failure of the South Fork Dam to stem the rising water levels of Lake Conemaugh about 15 miles away. The dam's inability to contain the water and its subsequent collapse resulted in a catastrophic flood that swept through the town with virtually no warning. With water flowing at a rate equivalent to the Mississippi River, a tide of water and debris 60 feet high and traveling 40 miles per hour in some places surged through Johnstown and swept away people and property alike. The flood ultimately resulted in the deaths of over 2,000 people and destroyed thousands of buildings, wreaking damages estimated to be the equivalent of nearly half a billion dollars today. In 1889, the Johnstown Flood was the deadliest natural disaster in American history, and though it was later surpassed by other events, the unprecedented nature of the flood led to relief efforts never before seen, including by the Red Cross. The Johnstown Flood also led to a change in laws as people tried and failed to recoup damages caused by the collapse of the dam and the subsequent flood. The Johnstown Flood of 1889 chronicles the story America's deadliest natural disaster during the 19th century. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Johnstown Flood like never before, in no time at all.