A concise guide to the Japanese attack on Hawaii that plunged America into WWII, with facts, maps, historical significance, and more.As America prepared for WWII, everything changed on December 7, 1941—described by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a "date which will live in infamy"—when Japan launched a successful surprise attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor. The devastating attack crippled the fleet, while showing the world the new dominance...

A concise guide to the Normandy invasion with facts, maps, historical significance, strategies, and more.Operation Overlord, commonly referred to as "D-Day," was the Allied invasion to secure a foothold in northern France to enable the final offensive into Germany. The Normandy invasion would be the largest combined air-sea assault landing in history. This massive feat would finally enable the Allies to deploy forces on the continent, of sufficient size and scale, t...

Get facts, maps, historical significance, strategies, and more in this concise summary of Andrew Jackson's, and America's, War of 1812 triumph.The War of 1812 was not going particularly well for the United States. The British were blockading America's coasts, damaging commerce, and thwarting any hopes for U.S. territorial gains in Canada. After two years of fighting, Americans were further humiliated when, in August of 1814, the British burned the U.S. Capitol. The ...

A concise guide to this resounding American victory in the Revolutionary War, with facts, maps, historical significance, and more.In 1781, after six years of fighting, the future of the American colonies was far from resolved. The British were still dominant on land and sea, and except for a few bright spots like Trenton and Saratoga, the Americans had been unable to match the skills of the strongest army of the time. Against this backdrop, the brilliantly executed ...

Stealing the Show is a study of African American actors in Hollywood during the 1930s, a decade that saw the consolidation of stardom as a potent cultural and industrial force. Petty focuses on five performers whose Hollywood film careers flourished during this period—Louise Beavers, Fredi Washington, Lincoln “Stepin Fetchit” Perry, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, and Hattie McDaniel—to reveal the “problematic stardom” and the enduring, interdependent patterns of performance and specta...

The Battle Digest summary includes all the key aspects of the campaign and battle, including maps, images, and lessons learned. After his early success in the Civil War's Western Theater, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant moved south to capture the key railroad hub at Corinth and further cut into the Confederate hold on the Tennessee and Mississippi River Valleys. But Confederate Gen. Albert S. Johnston wasn't playing by Grant's script. Instead of waiting for Grant to combine armies with Maj. Gen...

A concise guide to this dramatic Revolutionary War campaign with facts, maps, historical significance, and more.In 1777, the British had the confidence to launch a plan to divide the Colonies along the Hudson River. After a promising British start, however, the Saratoga campaign would grind to a halt before turning into a stunning American victory. The battle rejuvenated the cause of independence while sowing the first seeds of doubt in Britain's Parliament. Most si...

The Battle Digest summary includes all the key aspects of the campaign and battle, including maps, images, and lessons learned.In the autumn of 1862, Lincoln’s new commander, Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside, promised swift action by moving south against Fredericksburg to open a route to the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. With Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Confederate army divided, Burnside believed he could do it all before Lee could react. But when his pontoon bridg...

Jeremy's girlfriend is pregnant, and he returns home to the mountains to tell his drunken, ne'er-do-well father. The only thing Jeremy's dad was ever good at was hunting angels, a dangerous pursuit but a profitable one, often netting thousands of dollars to the hunter for the sale of a single "rack," (the wings.) Since the angel hunt was outlawed more than a decade ago, Jeremy's dad has slid steadily downhill. With the news of Jeremy's impending fatherhood, he and his dad engage in one fin...

Get facts, maps, historical significance, strategies, and more in this concise summary of the notoriously bloody Civil War battle.During the late summer of 1862, Confederate forces launched their first invasion of the North. When Union forces met them near Sharpsburg, Maryland, along Antietam Creek, the result was the "bloodiest day" in American military history. Although the battle of Antietam was a tactical draw, Union Gen. George McClellan stopped Lee's invasion....

Walking Dead meets Attack on Titan in this post-apocalyptic YA graphic novel about a world overrun by nightmarish, parasitic giants, and the extreme lengths humans must take to fight them.The world belongs to the dead now.Long ago, humanity thrived and the earth was populated by eight billion people. But then came the manticore: giants with insatiable hunger who feed by assimilating corpses into their body. These giants were once ordinary ...

A concise summary of the fight that sparked the American Revolution, with key facts, maps, images, historical significance, and more.Tension between Britain and her North American colonies had been building for years. After numerous protests and acts of defiance, things took a serious turn after the December 1773 Boston Tea Party, when an irate King George III and Parliament took more drastic action to teach their rebellious citizens in Massachusetts a lesson. After...