War Years

When Frank Johnson arrived in Vietnam in 1969, he was 19, a young soldier untested in combat like thousands of others - but with two important differences: Johnson volunteered for the elite L Company Rangers of the 101st Airborne Division, a long range reconnaissance patrol (LRRP) unit, and he kept a secret diary, a practice forbidden by the military to protect the security of LRRP operations. Now, more than three decades later, those hastily written pages offer a rare look at the daily operations of one of the most courageous units that waged war in Vietnam.

Author Doug Beed relates his memories of the men and missions during his year (1968-69) as a combat soldier with the First Infantry Division in Vietnam. After two years of college he couldn't afford to continue, so he was forced to relinquish his student deferment and enter the draft. He tried various strategies to get a non-combat job; nevertheless, he ended up in the infantry and was assigned to Vietnam. The stories in this book depict the year Doug spent in Alpha Company, where he spent days on patrols finding and killing North Vietnamese soldiers.

Neglected by scholars and journalists alike, the years of conflict in Vietnam from 1968 to 1975 offer surprises not only about how the war was fought, but about what was achieved. Drawing on authoritative materials not previously available, including thousands of hours of tape-recorded allied councils of war, award-winning military historian Lewis Sorley has given us what has long been needed - an insightful, factual, and superbly documented history of these important years.

One rain-swept February night in 1809, an unconscious man is carried into a house in Somerset. He is Captain John Lacroix, home from Britain's disastrous campaign against Napoleon's forces in Spain. Gradually Lacroix recovers his health but not his peace of mind - he cannot talk about the war or face the memory of what happened in a village on the gruelling retreat to Corunna. After the command comes to return to his regiment, he sets out instead for the Hebrides, with the vague intent of reviving his musical interests and collecting local folk songs.

During the tumultuous Hundred Years War between England and France, a young peasant girl nicknamed "The Maid" (La Pucelle) followed her heart and came to the aid of her nation. Facing unimaginable odds, Joan's belief in her mission from God continued to propel her forward. Within months, she was directing soldiers and bravely fighting for her nation.

I led a relatively adventurous life, even before I joined the Army. I faced many of the same challenges that most people encounter on a daily basis. When I enlisted and deployed overseas to fight the global war on terror, I knew my odds of surviving depended on my preparedness, my fellow soldiers, and a lot of luck. I had a very bad day at work shortly after returning home to Fort Hood from my second deployment.

Although it ended over 550 years ago, the Hundred Years' War still looms large in the historical consciousness of England and France, even if the name of the famous war is a misnomer. Actually a series of separate conflicts between the English and French monarchies, interspersed with periods of peace, its historical image is an odd one, in part because its origins were based on royal claims that dated back centuries.

This is the story of a young man who trained as a pilot, and then flew with the Royal Flying Corps in France during the First World War, eventually becoming an ace. Hugh White flew F.E.2D Scout aircraft as a reconnaissance patrol pilot and later in the war was promoted to squadron leader of squadrons flying the S.E.5a, which was Britain's best fighter aircraft at the time. During the two years of flying, he experienced and survived a series of escapades including a dramatic mid-air collision with the enemy.

World War II is raging in Europe, and Tomie finds that life has changed in many ways. Now he has to wear an extra sweater to school because they're trying to conserve coal. Then tragedy brings the war home to the dePaola family, and all Tomie can do is ask "Why?"

In 1937, a schoolteacher on the island of Maui challenged a group of poverty-stricken sugar plantation kids to swim upstream against the current of their circumstance. The goal? To become Olympians. They faced seemingly insurmountable obstacles. The children were Japanese-American, were malnourished and barefoot, and had no pool; they trained in the filthy irrigation ditches that snaked down from the mountains into the sugarcane fields.

In early 1860, pundits across America confidently predicted the election of Illinois senator Stephen A. Douglas in the coming presidential race. Douglas, after all, led the only party that bridged North and South. But the Democrats would split over the issue of slavery, leading Southerners in the party to run their own presidential slate. This opened the door for the upstart Republicans, exclusively Northern, to steal the Oval Office. Dark horse Abraham Lincoln, not the first choice even of his own party, won the presidency with a record-low 39.8 percent of the popular vote.

The final volume of Taylor Branch's monumental, much honored, and definitive history of the Civil Rights Movement (America in the King Years), At Canaan's Edge covers the final years of King's struggle to hold his non-violent movement together in the face of factionalism within the Movement, hostility and harassment of the Johnson Administration, the country torn apart by Vietnam, and his own attempt (and failure) to take the Freedom Movement north.

Download The Hundred Years’ War Biography Bundle to experience the life of these four influential characters of Europe’s greatest war.

World War II rises in its vastness and complexity over the rest of human history. A number of victims difficult to conceive, never surpassed by any other conflict; the masses of men, women, and resources mobilized in a conflict that shook even the most remote ends of the planet; the ideological battle between totalitarianism and democracy, between fascism and communism, the passions and hatred that it aroused; the unimaginable horror and fanaticism of the Holocaust; geopolitical games; the repetition of World War I on an even more dire scale.

World War II rises in its vastness and complexity over the rest of human history. A number of victims difficult to conceive, never surpassed by any other conflict; the masses of men, women, and resources mobilized in a conflict that shook even the most remote ends of the planet; the ideological battle between totalitarianism and democracy, between fascism and communism, the passions and hatred that it aroused; the unimaginable horror and fanaticism of the Holocaust; geopolitical games; the repetition of World War I, on an even more dire scale.

World War II rises in its vastness and complexity over the rest of human history. The war was a gigantic melting pot of violence, power, and ideology that will leave an indelible scar on human history. This diary of the Second World War has been able to cover all facets of the conflict and is a fundamentally empirical work, which narrates events as they occurred, rejecting value judgments, and therein lies its value. The Second World War Diary represents a milestone in this field. This audiobook includes 12 hours, the 12 months, day by day, from January 1944 to December 1944.

World War II rises in its vastness and complexity over the rest of human history. This diary of the Second World War has been able to cover all facets of the conflict and is a fundamentally empirical work, which narrates events as they occurred, rejecting value judgments, and therein lies its value: It is an insurmountable encyclopedia as an audiobook. This audiobook includes the year 1945 till the end of WW2 and a one-hour special, "Defendants in the Courtroom", which includes the Nuremberg Trials and more.

Dark clouds cast a shadow over 17th century Europe and color the continent in a dark fog. When they break out, a deluge of blood and sweat rolls over the countries, destroying landscapes and wiping out entire cities. There has never been a more merciless war in the history of Europe. Between state-building and religious conflicts, soldiers are sent to certain death and villages are razed to the ground.

An unbelievable series of events led to the establishment of the Northwest Electro-development Laboratory, later the U.S. Bureau of Mines Albany Research Center. Though the fledgling lab had difficulty securing staff due to World War II, world-renown metallurgist William J. Kroll was hired early on as a consultant after fleeing Nazi occupation. Kroll, who had pioneered a method for producing commercial titanium, worked with his core group of associates to develop malleable zirconium, just as a need arose for the little-known metal.

At the end of the First World War, the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 stripped Germany of her overseas colonies and imposed a massive reparations bill for the damage and destruction caused to France and other countries. The people of Germany, hit by hyperinflation in 1923 and by mass unemployment in 1929, desperately looked for a way out of the crisis. In these circumstances, an obscure ex-corporal with a gift for scathing oratory, Adolf Hitler, was able to lead the extremist Nazi Party was to power in 1933.