North America History

Let’s learn from the story of Sir Frederick Banting, who was never satisfied with knowledge. It was Sir Frederick who first mentioned a bodily substance that might be the cure for diabetes. He spent years looking for an answer until he, together with his lab partners, discovered insulin. Sir Frederick’s story is that of an unrelenting pursuit for knowledge. Listen to his story today.

Ervin's stories from down home in North Carolina, his reciting literary passages ranging from Shakespeare to Aesop's fables, and his earnest lectures in defense of civil liberties and constitutional government contributed to the downfall of President Nixon and earned Senator Ervin a reputation as "the last of the founding fathers.

Ona Judge wanted more than the best job an enslaved person could have, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman challenged why some people are masters and others enslaved, Ida B. Wells exposed post-slavery brutality, Martin Luther King Jr. was the key voice to overturn Jim Crow, and Barack Obama changed modern-day racial attitudes. For author Ray Anthony Shepard A Long Time Coming is highly personal, a chronicle of the times of his grandparents, parents, and himself.

Black Americans who have shaped their country and beyond: We are familiar with a handful of African Americans who are mentioned in American history books, but there are also countless others who do not get recognized in mainstream media. Their actions may not have appeared to shake the world, but their contributions to shifting American culture were just as groundbreaking.

Based on a true story originally written by one of the survivors, Neta Lohnes Frazier's account of seven children traveling westward still has the power to astonish. In the 1840s, the Sager family set off on the Oregon Trail, a dangerous and adventure-filled journey. Tragedy struck when both the mother and father succumbed to fever, orphaning the youngsters - one just a newborn. The entire wagon train adopted them, until they arrived at the Whitman Mission in Oregon.

With 2016 promising to be an interesting and hotly contested election year, Votes of Confidence offers young listeners an essential guide to the past, present, and future of American elections.

This groundbreaking study of agriculture's role in the war defies long-held notions that Northern industrialization and urbanization led to clashes between North and South. Huston argues that the ideological chasm between plantation owners in the South and family farmers in the North led to the political eruption of 1854-1856 and the birth of a sectionalized party system.

Being a Fan of Disney: The Book is about my fandom, my incredible luck in being able to teach a class and host a podcast about Disney fandom, and how Disney influences our lives. I share stories about growing up a fan of Disney, returning to the parks after a long hiatus, meeting and making friends through teaching the class and hosting Being a Fan of Disney: The Podcast, and other tales.

A riveting narrative about the biggest earthquake in North American recorded history - the 1964 Alaska earthquake that demolished the city of Valdez and swept away the island village of Chenega - and the geologist who hunted for clues to explain how and why it took place.

From Massachusetts to Florida to Washington to California, 50 Great American Places takes you on a journey through our nation's history. Sharing the inside stories of sites as old as Mesa Verde (Colorado) and Cahokia (Illinois) and as recent as Silicon Valley (California) and the Mall of America (Minnesota), each essay provides the historical context for places that represent fundamental American themes.

We know - and love - the story of the American Revolution, from the Declaration of Independence to Cornwallis' defeat. But our first government was a disaster, and the country was in a terrible crisis. So when a group of men traveled to Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 to save a nation in danger of collapse, they had no great expectations for the meeting that would make history.

Stories provide the connective tissue of the South. The intrepid Pamela Petro drives from the Carolinas to the Appalachians to the Atlantic seaboard, from Virginia's valleys to Louisiana's swamps to meet the mesmerizing guardians of its history: the storytellers, who often double as local, or national, treasures. A gifted listener, Petro records how stories originate as well as how they are passed down. She paints vivid portraits of the tellers while compiling tales about Jack the trickster, boo-hags and plat-eyes, ghosts, and singing turtles.

You need to work to live. That’s the truth for most people, and plenty of people in power have been abusing that truth for centuries. Long before the first labor unions were formed, workers still knew what exploitation looked like. It looked like the enslavement of Black people. It looked like generations of children dying in dangerous jobs. It looked like wealthy people hiring private militaries to attack their employees. But workers have always found a way to fight back.

Formaldehyde, borax, salicylic acid. Today these chemicals are used in embalming fluids, cleaning supplies, and acne medications. But just over a hundred years ago, they were routinely added to all kinds of food by unregulated and unethical companies. Noted science and history writer Gail Jarrow introduces listeners to the relentless work of U.S. government chemist Dr. Harvey Washington Wiley, who mounted a thirty-year campaign to protect consumers from harmful food and drugs. As part of his research, he tested food additives by serving them to a squad of volunteers—the poison eaters.

On the night of September 11, 2012, the American diplomatic mission at Benghazi, Libya, came under ferocious attack by a heavily armed group of Islamic terrorists. The prolonged firefight, and the attack hours later on a nearby CIA outpost, resulted in the deaths of four Americans, including the American ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, the Information Officer, Sean Smith, and two former Navy SEALs, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, working for the Central Intelligence Agency.

What do famous people love to do during their free time in Los Angeles? Angelenos and other notables have their rituals that connect them to the city in a unique way: favorite restaurants, museums, beaches, parks, markets, landmarks, haunts, and hideaways. The activities are as diverse and eclectic as the city itself. My City, My Los Angeles gives listeners something truly unique - a chance to experience LA the way the city's most notable luminaries do.

Bring history back to life through Jim Hodges' historically accurate, exciting, and edifying audio recordings. If you want facts about our forefathers, get any history text; this book is more interested in the personalities and character traits and family histories that contributed to the development of the great men who built our nation. It's a phenomenal addition to the audio library of any who would like to hear stories that honor the founders and shapers of the great United States of America.

This is the inspiring life and legacy of vocal artist and civil rights icon Paul Robeson - one of the most important public figures in the 20th century - adapted for young adults by the acclaimed Robeson biographer. Featuring a foreword by multiple award-winning author Jason Reynolds, Paul Robeson: No One Can Silence Me will introduce listeners in middle and high school to the inspiring and complicated life of one of America’s most fascinating figures, whose story of artistry, heroism, conviction, and conflict is newly relevant today.

Following the Civil War, the Reconstruction era raised a new question to those in power in the US: Should African Americans, so many of them former slaves, be granted the right to vote? In this vivid portrait of the systematic suppression of the African-American vote, critically acclaimed author Lawrence Goldstone traces the injustices of the post-Reconstruction era through the eyes of incredible individuals, both heroic and barbaric, and examines the legal cases that made the Supreme Court a partner of white supremacists in the rise of Jim Crow.

In the 1850s, gold fever swept the West, but people had to walk, sail, or ride horses for months on end to seek their fortune. The question of faster, safer transportation was posed by national leaders. But with 1,800 miles of seemingly impenetrable mountains, searing deserts, and endless plains between the Missouri River and San Francisco, could a transcontinental railroad be built? It seemed impossible.