Charles River Editors
1) Shays' Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion: The History and Legacy of Early America's Domestic In
Author
Language
English
Description
Even as the young United States successfully secured its independence, the new nation was beset by problems. The drafters of the Articles of Confederation had deliberately avoided giving the national legislature the power to tax, because Parliament had so abused that authority against the colonies, but this proved to be a severe limitation on the national government. Besides hampering the Continental Army, the inability of the national government...
Author
Language
English
Description
Spanish accounts and Mesoamerican ruins have ensured that 500 years later, people remain fascinated by civilizations like the Maya and Aztec, as well as sites such as Chichen Itza and Tikal. What is often overlooked is that the Maya and Aztec established kingdoms on lands that had been inhabited for millennia before them, and ancient cultures had not only left ruins but also influenced the civilizations that came after them. Thus, while sites like...
3) The Diadochi: The History of Alexander the Great's Successors and the Wars that Divided His Empire
Author
Language
English
Description
On his deathbed, some historians claim that when he was pressed to name a successor, Alexander muttered that his empire should go "to the strongest". Other sources claim that he passed his signet ring to his general Perdiccas, thereby naming him successor, but whatever his choices were or may have been, they were ignored. Alexander's generals, all of them with the loyalty of their own corps at their backs, would tear each other apart in a vicious...
Author
Language
English
Description
The Third Reich's Luftwaffe began World War II with significant advantages over other European air forces, playing a critical role in the German war machine's swift, powerful advance. By war's end, however, the Luftwaffe had been decimated by combat losses and crippled by poor decisions at the highest levels of military decision-making, and it proved unable to challenge Allied air superiority despite a last-minute upsurge in German aircraft production.
When...
Author
Language
English
Description
Most scientists believe the evolution of humans has a history nearly as long as life itself. Anatomically modern humans and all other life that has existed on the planet first came about from the single-celled microorganisms that emerged approximately 4 billion years ago. Through the processes of mutation and natural selection, all forms of life developed, and this continuous lineage of life makes it difficult to say precisely when one species completely...
Author
Language
English
Description
The annals of world history are filled with intriguing, although often outlandish stories of lost cities and kingdoms, and in addition to Atlantis, there are also Hyperborea, Shambhala, and Aztlan, to name just a few. Besides being cities and kingdoms that have been lost, often through some sort of catastrophe, all of these places are mentioned in religious texts or as part of a peoples' national history. They play a major role in the identity of...
Author
Language
English
Description
Animal and plant domestication first began during the Neolithic Period around 12000 BCE in the swath of land known as the Fertile Crescent, which included all of Mesopotamia and then arched in northern Mesopotamia/Assyria, before covering most of the Levant, which is roughly equivalent with the modern nation-states of Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria. The process from nomadic hunter-gatherer societies to sedentary, agriculture-based societies...
Author
Language
English
Description
He was the only sitting member of the House of Representatives elected President to date, but he served only about half a year in the office. He was the second president in less than 20 years felled by an assassin's bullet. Yet James A. Garfield, a man little known outside his own party before his "dark-horse" nomination by the Republican Party in 1880, was significant in a number of ways. Garfield's short term marked the first entrance of a "reformist"...
Author
Language
English
Description
"They have soldiers. We only have arguments." — French Foreign Minister Théophile Delcassé Near the end of the 19th century, Otto von Bismarck, the German chancellor, brought the plenipotentiaries of all major powers of Europe together to deal with Africa's colonization in such a manner as to avoid provocation of war. This event, known as the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885, galvanized a phenomenon that came to be known as the Scramble for Africa....
10) Ancient Indus Valley Civilization's Biggest Cities: The History and Legacy of Mohenjo-daro, Harappa
Author
Language
English
Description
When one thinks of the world's first cities, Sumer, Memphis, and Babylon are some of the first to come to mind, but if the focus then shifts to India, then Harappa and Mohenjo-daro will likely come up. These cities owe their existence to India's oldest civilization, known as the Indus Valley Civilization or the Harappan Civilization, which was contemporary with ancient Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt and had extensive contacts with the former, making...
Author
Language
English
Description
One September day, New York City suffered a devastating act of domestic terrorism, but that day was not the 11th, and the attack took place over 80 years before the most notorious terrorist attack on America. In 1920, an explosion in the Financial District of New York City killed 38 people, injured hundreds more, and caused damage that is still visible on some of Wall Street's most famous buildings today. Although the attack has largely been forgotten,...
12) The Great Railroad Strike of 1877: The History and Legacy of the Protests Across America Over Wag
Author
Language
English
Description
When trains were introduced as a popular means of transportation, some of the first tracks laid terminated in New York, and the expansion of railroads led to the birth of train stations across the country. In general, these were small buildings where passenger could buy tickets and wait for their trains to arrive, and according an article written by Samuel Dunn around the turn of the 20th century, "The first Manhattan terminal was opened in 1832 at...
Author
Language
English
Description
Much has been written about the Space Race, which is still taught across America today, but the story of human space exploration is mostly one of cooperation. Even in the summer of 1969, the Soviets had given the United States the flight plan for its Luna 15 mission, allowing Apollo 11 to avoid it.
That was the first of many examples of cooperation in space between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and ultimately, their research...
Author
Language
English
Description
Samurai Sasaki Kojiro was growing increasingly impatient as he waited on the beach at Funa Island in Kokura. An undefeated master swordsman, he was tense and his anger was getting the better of him. He was on the small island for a duel, a clash of steel between two swordsmen where a man's life could end in seconds. The duel was the ultimate test of the swordsman, and Sasaki, one of the best in Japan, was known as "The Demon of the Western Provinces."...
Author
Language
English
Description
As Earth entered the Cambrian Period, there was a relatively sudden increase in life form diversity throughout the oceans. Completely new forms of life, more complex and more diverse than anything that had been seen before, began to spread. This acceleration in the evolution of new forms of life was so dramatic that this has come to be known as the "Cambrian explosion."
Although new species in the Cambrian explosion developed almost entirely in the...
Author
Language
English
Description
At one point in antiquity, the Achaemenid Persian Empire was the largest empire the world had ever seen, but aside from its role in the Greco-Persian Wars and its collapse at the hands of Alexander the Great, it has been mostly overlooked. When it has been studied, the historical sources have mostly been Greek, the very people the Persians sought to conquer. Needless to say, their versions were biased, and attitudes about the Persians were only exacerbated...
Author
Language
English
Description
The Netherlands has had a complex and turbulent history involving the interplay of multiple political entities, ethnicities, and languages. The term "Netherlands" (Nederland in Dutch, Pay-Bas in French) refers to the low-lying topography of the region and today is used specifically to describe the country bordering Germany and Belgium, but historically it referred to the entire region occupied by Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. In English, the...
18) Jacobites: The History and Legacy of the Movement to Restore the Stuart Dynasty to the British Thron
Author
Language
English
Description
The Jacobites conjure up many images to 21st century Britons, including romantic heroism, the Outlander series, and Bonnie Prince Charlie as the doomed hero of the cause, but Jacobitism was a cause that had far reaching consequences across 18th century Europe. The Jacobites were not only supporters of the exiled Stuart monarchy, but also against the political and religious settlements agreed to across the British Isles. As Jacobite historians such...
Author
Language
English
Description
New Spain was established in the aftermath of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in 1521, and as the most spectacular conquest and the richest province, New Spain quickly became the focus of Spanish America. The Viceroyalty of New Spain was established in 1535, comprising a vast region of what is now the American Southwest, all of Mexico and Central America, the various Spanish held islands of the Caribbean, the "Spanish Main," and the Spanish...
20) Ma Barker and the Barker-Karpis Gang: The Controversial History of the Criminal Gang During the Grea
Author
Language
English
Description
Among America's most infamous "Public Enemies," perhaps the most unique and controversial was Kate Barker. With her prominent, hawk-tipped nose and plump, doughy face, framed by a classic dark curly coif and frilly day dresses to match, Ma Barker was as non-threatening as they come. Nary a second glance was given to this grandmotherly figure by those who crossed her path, perhaps at most a polite tip of the hat. Of course, as the age-old adage goes,...