Normans History

It is hard to find an island on the map more central than Sicily. Located at the crossroads between Europe and Africa, and between the eastern and western Mediterranean, Sicily has rarely been governed as an independent, unified state. Nonetheless, the island has always occupied a front-row seat to some of the most important events in history.

How did Iran get to where it is today, at the forefront of global affairs? The history of Iran and the theme of Persian conflict with the West stretches back thousands of years, and it is a unique history of empire, culture, art, pride, and religious nationalism. The History of Iran from Ancient Persia to the Ayatollahs comprehensively and descriptively covers this history, progressing through a timeline dating back to antiquity and examining all of the different religious, political, foreign, and military issues that affect Iran and are affected by Iran today.

Britain was the first country to ever suffer a ballistic missile attack from beyond its borders. This book tells the story of that attack. During 1942 and 1943, confusing rumours circulated about the German development of a 'giant rocket'. Most experts, including Winston Churchill's own scientific adviser Lord Cherwell, declared that such a weapon was impossible. It was only after the patient sifting of European intelligence that the most influential doubters were convinced such a weapon was being built. Then on 8 September 1944, the first V-2 landed in Chiswick. Between then and the final rocket impact on 27 March 1945, more than a thousand landed on British soil, killing nearly three thousand people and seriously injuring more than six thousand.

The Frozen Chosen is an account of the breakout from the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea by the First Marine Division from November to December 1950, following the intervention of Red China in the Korean War. Fought during the worst blizzard in a century, it is considered by the US Marine Corps to be the Corps' finest hour. Fourteen Medals of Honor, a record for any American battle, and 85 Navy Crosses attest to the intensity of the battle.

Are you interested in Caribbean history? More specifically, in the Arawakan people? One of the indigenous tribes of the Caribbean, the Arawakans are a fascinating study in how culture and social order can be disrupted and wiped out by one historical event - the colonizers’ arrival. This account explores the Arawakan people and their culture in detail, together with an exploration of the events surrounding Christopher Columbus’s arrival and what followed - the Arawakans were forced to change their social institutions and forget. Explore their culture and social institutions:

Timothy Snyder opens a new path in the understanding of modern nationalism and 20th-century socialism by presenting the often overlooked life of Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz, an important Polish thinker at the beginning of the 20th century. During his brief life in Poland, Paris, and Vienna, Kelles-Krauz influenced or infuriated most of the leaders of the various socialist movements of Central Europe and France. His central ideas ultimately were not accepted by the socialist mainstream at the time of his death.

"Apollo's history is a confusing one," said the renowned poet and mythologist Robert Graves. This notion is also illustrated in a quote from the sixth century BCE Homeric Hymn to Apollo, which gives the listener a brief glimpse into the confusion surrounding Apollo's multi-faceted nature.

Norman MacLean spent the last 14 years of his life determined to sift through grief and controversy in search of the truth behind the Mann Gulch tragedy, one of the worst disasters in the history of the Forest Service. Young Men and Fire is the culmination of his investigations. It is a story about honor, death, compassion, and the human spirit.

We Band of Angelsis the story of women searching for adventure, caught up in the drama and danger of war. On the same day the Japanese Imperial Navy launched its surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, it also struck American bases in the Far East, chief among them the Philippines. That raid led to the first major land battle for America in World War II and, in the end, to the largest defeat and surrender of American forces.

In 1871, an entire fleet of whaling ships was caught in an arctic ice storm and destroyed. Though few lives were lost, the damage would forever shape one of America's most distinctive commodities: oil. New Bedford, Massachusetts, was fertile ground for this country's first multimillion-dollar industry. Founded by assiduous Quaker merchants seeking refuge for their austere religion, the town also lent unparalleled access to the high seas.

Nothing to Fear brings to life a fulcrum moment in American history - the tense, feverish first 100 days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's presidency, when he and his inner circle completely reinvented the role of the federal government.

In this powerful reassessment of the postwar order in Europe, Norman Naimark suggests that Joseph Stalin was far more open to a settlement on the continent than we have thought. Through revealing case studies from Poland and Yugoslavia to Denmark and Albania, Naimark recasts the early Cold War by focusing on Europeans' fight to determine their future. As nations devastated by war began rebuilding, Soviet intentions loomed large. Stalin's armies controlled most of the eastern half of the continent, and in France and Italy, communist parties were serious political forces.

On November 29, 1909, police were called to a ramshackle home in East Orange, New Jersey, where they found the emaciated body of 24-year-old Oceana "Ocey" Snead facedown in the bathtub - dead of an apparent suicide by drowning. There was even a note left behind. But it would not take authorities long to discover that Ocey's death was no suicide. And Ocey's own mother and two aunts were far from the sorrowful caretakers they appeared to be.

OSS Against the Reich presents the previously unpublished World War II diaries of Colonel David K.E. Bruce, London branch chief of America's first secret intelligence agency, as he observed the war against Hitler. The entries include eyewitness accounts of D-Day, the rocket attacks on England, and the liberation of Paris....

In Spy Watching, Loch K. Johnson explores the United States' travails in its efforts to maintain effective accountability over its spy services.

After the unprecedented destruction of the Great War, the world longed for a lasting peace. The victors, however, valued vengeance even more than stability and demanded a massive indemnity from Germany in order to keep it from rearming. The results, as eminent historian Norman Stone describes in this authoritative history, were disastrous. In World War Two, Stone provides a remarkably concise account of the deadliest war of human history, showing how the conflict roared to life from the ashes of World War One.

In this essay, Emma Goldman refers to the negative image of anarchism in the public mind. She explains why anarchists on principle oppose the organization called the state, and argues that once free from the restrictions of extraneous authority, men will enter into free relations and bring about a free society.

Norman Fine tells the relatively unknown story of radar’s transformation from a technical curiosity to a previously unimaginable offensive weapon. We meet scientists and warriors critical to the story of radar and its pressure-filled development and implementation. Blind Bombing brings to light two characters who played an integral role in the story as it unfolded: one, a brilliant and opinionated scientist, the other, an easygoing 21-year-old caught up in the peacetime draft.

Forgotten Patriots is the first-ever account of what took place in these hellholes. The result is a unique perspective on the Revolutionary War as well as a sobering commentary on how Americans have remembered our struggle for independence---and how much we have forgotten.

Soon after its debut at the time of the Civil War, the Gatling gun changed the nature of warfare and the course of world history. Discharging 200 shots per minute with alarming accuracy, the world's first machine gun became vitally important to protecting and expanding America's overseas interests.