Normans History

This strong and beautiful bird is a symbol for an entire country. It is the bald eagle, and Americans made it their national emblem more than 200 years ago. Join Bill the bird keeper to see how this bird lives and how it became a symbol of the United States.

The history of the Normans began a long time before 1066. Originating from the 'Norsemen' they were one of the most successful warrior tribes of the Dark Ages that came to dominate Europe from the Baltic Sea to the island of Sicily and the borders of Eastern Europe. Beginning as Viking raiders in the eighth century, the Normans not only changed the landscape of Europe but were changed by their new conquests.

This volume, Combat Veterans’ Stories of the Vietnam War, contains 11 autobiographical stories. The first begins in October 1966, and is told by a Marine infantry forward observer who was in 13 operations. The final story in this volume is told by a Marine machine gunner that was in multiple skirmishes and ambushes, in I Corps, including the battle for Hue. Other stories in Volume 2 include those told by a marine infantry officer who was awarded the Medal of Honor for heroism and leadership in fighting at villages named Dai Do and Dinh To.

England in the Age of Chivalry … and Awful Diseases covers the events, personages, and ideas most commonly known as “medieval.” This includes Geoffrey Chaucer, the peasants revolt, the Scottish Wars of Independence, the Great Famine of 1315, the Black Death, and the 100 Years War. Central to this time is King Edward III, who started the 100 Years War and defined the concept of chivalry, including England’s order of the garter. His legacy continues to shape our view of England’s history and is crucial in understanding the development of Europe.

Two years ago, Graham Robb moved to a lonely house on the very edge of England, near the banks of a river that once marked the southern boundary of the legendary Debatable Land. The oldest detectable territorial division in Great Britain, the Debatable Land served as a buffer between Scotland and England. It was once the bloodiest region in the country, fought over by Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, and James V. After most of its population was slaughtered or deported, it became the last part of Great Britain to be brought under the control of the state.

Much of what we know about the greatest medical disaster ever, the Black Plague of the fourteenth century, is wrong. The details of the Plague etched in the minds of terrified schoolchildren the hideous black welts, the high fever, and the final, awful end by respiratory failure are more or less accurate. But what the Plague really was, and how it made history, remain shrouded in a haze of myths.

The massacre at Mountain Meadows on September 11, 1857, was the single most violent attack on a wagon train in the 30-year history of the Oregon and California trails. Yet it has been all but forgotten. Will Bagley's Blood of the Prophets is an award-winning, riveting account of the attack on the Baker-Fancher wagon train by Mormons in the local militia and a few Paiute Indians.

The period following the Civil War was one of the most controversial eras in American history. This comprehensive account of the period captures the drama of those turbulent years that played such an important role in shaping modern America.

In the Lasta Mountains of northern Ethiopia, high on an arid plateau in the foothills, the settlement of Lalibela slumbered for centuries as little more than a pilgrimage site at the end of a long and weary footpath. The ancient trade routes between the Eritrean coast and the central highland redoubts that would later coalesce as the imperial capital of Addis Ababa passed 50 miles to the east of Lalibela, and from the early 13th century, after the passing of Gebre Mesqel Lalibela himself, the site slipped into decline.

In The Temple and the Lodge, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh reveal the survival and evolution of a world-changing order through the birth of the Masonic lodge. Recounting the brutal events in the 14th century that led to the sudden disappearance of the Knights Templar - a powerful military and banking order founded in 1119 and active in the Crusades - the authors document the Templars' reappearance in the court of excommunicate Scottish king Robert the Bruce.

Sundown Towns examines thousands of all-white American towns that were - and still are, in some instances - racially exclusive by design.

Naples '44 is an unflinching autobiographical account of a year in Naples after the armistice and Allied landings in Sorrento in 1943. Working as a British counterintelligence officer under the Allied occupation, Lewis documents the rich pageant of life in the city and its surrounding areas. There is suffering and squalor: Criminal gangs are on the rise, along with typhus and black market commerce, and the female population is forced into part-time prostitution. But there is farce and humor, too, witnessed in the Roman uncle paid handsomely simply to appear at funerals.

The Apocrypha of the Bible examines the history of the books excluded from the Bible, the characters and events told by the books, and the discoveries that have influenced Biblical studies in the last few centuries.

Situated about 25 miles off the Tanzanian coast, Zanzibar, with its sultans and spices, merchants and mosques, dhows and doorways of richly carved timber, has captured the imagination of travelers and writers for hundreds of years. It has long evoked a romantic mystique, calling up images of an island paradise in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean. Its gleaming Muslim Swahili town, built of white coralline limestone, can trace approximately 1,000 years of maritime trading.

The ubiquitous picture of the Vikings as horn-helmeted, brutish, hairy giants that mercilessly marauded among the settlements of Northern Europe is based on a smattering of facts combined with an abundance of prejudicial historical writing by those who were on the receiving end of Viking depredations. At the same time, much of the popular picture of the Vikings is a result of the romantic imagination of novelists and artists. However, the Vikings' reputation for ferocious seaborne attacks along the coasts of Northern Europe is no exaggeration.

Fighting for justice, for freedom of speech, and sometimes even for their own lives, some of history's most significant figures demonstrate the finest resources of language in the service of the most dramatic issues of their day.

In this ground-breaking work, Norman Cantor explains how our current notion of the Middle Ages—with its vivid images of wars, tournaments, plagues, saints and kings, knights and ladies—was born in the 20th century. The medieval world was not simply excavated through systematic research. It had to be conceptually created: it had to be invented, and this is the story of that invention.

If history really belongs to the victor, what happens when there's more than one side declaring victory? That's the conundrum Norman Davies unravels in his groundbreaking book No Simple Victory. Far from being a revisionist history, No Simple Victory instead offers a clear-eyed reappraisal, untangling and setting right the disparate claims made by America, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union in order to get at the startling truth.

Jacob Fugger lived in Germany at the turn of the 16th century, the grandson of a peasant. By the time he died, his fortune amounted to nearly 2 percent of European GDP. Not even John D. Rockefeller had that kind of wealth. Most people become rich by spotting opportunities, pioneering new technologies, or besting opponents in negotiations. Fugger did all that, but he had an extra quality that allowed him to rise even higher: nerve.

In 1832, 17-year-old Otto von Bismarck had just entered university and was already rejecting the republican indoctrination of his grade school years. Unlike so many of his day who had championed representative government, Bismarck longed for the glory of a nation he believed would only be found under a single, strong leader. Though his early university days showed him he would be isolated by this thinking, he strongly believed not only in the ideal of a national German state, but in its possibility.