Light History

In a world thrown into chaos by the rise of the Pope's authoritarian regime, Rurork stands not just as a city, but as a grim prison of despair, a testament to the regime's iron grip. Axel, a resilient and determined soul, finds himself trapped within this bastion of cruelty, where every day is a test of spirit. As Axel befriends fellow prisoners, they unearth secrets that hint at a larger resistance movement, drawing lines between those who collaborate with the regime and those who dare to oppose.

The late 19th century was a period of explosive technological creativity, but arguably the most important invention of all was Thomas Edison’s incandescent light bulb. Unveiled in his Menlo Park, New Jersey, laboratory in 1879, the light bulb overwhelmed the American public with the sense of the birth of a new age. More than any other invention, the electric light marked the arrival of modernity.

This is the story of these men and of the families who lived in the shadow of the dam: the daughter of the lawyer who filed the charter for an exclusive club on the shore of the artificially created lake; the Quaker steel mill owner who tried to stop the dam's construction; a librarian, escaping to a bustling mountain city from a loveless life in Boston; a young man determined to expose and undermine the greed and carelessness that shaped the last years of the 19th century.

Images of U.S. Marines assaulting Pacific beaches in World War II have stereotyped the service's roles and personnel for more than 50 years. This frank firsthand account of Marines sweeping over sands of a different sort in fast armored vehicles retires that popular legend and recasts the Corps as the modern, professional fighting force it was in Desert Storm. Battling a savage environment; an unknown enemy brandishing threats of nuclear, gas, and biological attacks; and a host of technological and tactical snafus, Alpha Company of the 1st Light Armored Infantry Battalion pushed forward at the "tip of the spear".

The Revolutionary War encompassed at least two struggles: one for freedom from British rule, and another, quieter but no less significant fight for the liberty of African Americans, thousands of whom fought in the Continental Army. Standing in Their Own Light restores these African American patriots to their rightful place in the historical struggle for independence and the end of racial oppression.

The medieval Catholic Church, widely considered a source of intolerance and inquisitorial fervor, was not anti-science during the Dark Ages - in fact, the pope in the year 1000 was the leading mathematician and astronomer of his day. Called The Scientist Pope, Gerbert of Aurillac rose from peasant beginnings to lead the church. By turns a teacher, traitor, kingmaker, and visionary, Gerbert is the first Christian known to teach math using the nine Arabic numerals and zero.

This book is a fascinating insight into the workings of a World War I battalion in action, from the digging of trenches to the organisation of a solid defensive position and the patrolling of no-man’s land. It's also sprinkled with occasional amusing anecdotes that show the spirit of man shining in even the most desperate of situations.

அணையா விளக்கு மேவார் ராணா கும்பாவின் பல முகங்களாய் வெளிப்படும் குணாதிசயங்களை மட்டுமின்றிப் பெண்களின் நளினம், அஞ்சா நெஞ்சம், நியாயத்தைச் சீர்தூக்கிப் பார்க்கும் தெளிவான சிந்தனை ஆகியவற்றையும் சொல்லுகிறது.

In Light of Yesterday takes the listener on a journey to better understand the events that have shaped the global economy. In Light of Yesterday is a must listen for anyone wishing to gain a deeper understanding of today’s global economic landscape, and provides insight into the question, “What can be done today, in light of yesterday, to prepare for tomorrow”?

Pursuit of knowledge, beauty, and human perception through harmonious balance between intellectual development (light) and moral refinement (sweetness)

The proud Virginian entered the war in uncertain times, and there were understandable doubts about how well he could lead soldiers, but through a combination of skill and luck, he became one of his country’s earliest and foremost military heroes. After the war, he would go on to a distinguished political career, and he would find himself caught up in civil unrest toward the end of his life.

December, 1966: Platoon leader Lt. Joseph Callaway had just turned 23 when he arrived in Vietnam to lead 42 untested men into battle against some of the toughest, most experienced, and best-trained guerrilla soldiers in the world. Callaway soon learned that most events in this savage jungle war were beyond his control. But there was one thing he could do well: take the best damn care of his troops he knew how.

FNH Audio presents this unabridged reading of the heroic story of a territorial battalion mobilised and sent overseas into the bloodiest conflict the world has ever known. They fought with distinction at the Somme and Arras through some of the most terrible and wasteful of battles. In one three month period this battalion alone lost 1,200 men and sixty officers. That it survived until the end of the war was nothing short of a miracle.This history was written by the battalions Adjutant in 1919.

This essay comes from the NPR series This I Believe, which features brief personal reflections from both famous and unknown Americans. The pieces that make up the series compel listeners to rethink not only what and how they have arrived at their beliefs, but also the extent to which they share them with others.

In three forcible disruptions, first in April 1885 and last in March-April 1886, the Knights of Labor assailed locomotive operations or stopped work on railroads which were controlled directly or influentially by Jay Gould. Though both Terence Powderly, the chief executive of the Knights, and Gould decried the strikes, they could not easily resolve their labored variance. This play is one of the Gouldium, a series of dramas on the life and times of Jay Gould. As in most of these plays there are seven scenes of dialogue and seven choral episodes.

It is a historical peculiarity of landscape painting that it begins with the artificial, and only after that proceeds towards the natural. For example, landscape paintings, and especially fanciful Nilotic panoramas, were one of the genres produced by artists in Pompeii. When, with the Renaissance, landscape painting once again started to establish itself after a long interval, the representations of the surrounding world that artists began to produce as a separate and independent genre, rather than simply as a background for human figures, were usually more fanciful than real.

The Rev. Calvin Dill Wilson (1857-1946) was a Presbyterian minister and author. His book Black Masters, first published in 1904, explores the history of wealthy free African Americans who became slave-owners. According to Wilson’s research, there were around 6,200 Black slave-holders in the years before the Civil War who owned some 18,000 slaves. By owning their families, free colored men and women could protect them against oppressive local laws.

The Rev. Calvin Dill Wilson (1857-1946) was an author and Presbyterian minister. In Black Masters of 1904, he discusses the little-known history of the free African-Americans that bought and sold slaves just like Southern white planters. Free colored men and women could own their families and in this way protect them against oppressive local laws. There was also the desire to attain a position of superiority over other blacks, an ambition to rise to the class of the masters and to be on the same level as white men.

This essay comes from the NPR series This I Believe, which features brief personal reflections from both famous and unknown Americans. The pieces that make up the series compel listeners to rethink not only what and how they have arrived at their beliefs, but also the extent to which they share them with others.

In this bold and brilliant short work of experimental fiction by the author of Grief Is the Thing with Feathers and Lanny, Max Porter inhabits Francis Bacon in his final moments, translating into seven extraordinary written pictures the explosive final workings of the artist's mind. Writing as painting rather than about painting, Porter lets the images he conjures speak for themselves as they take their revenge on the subject who wielded them in life.