Mount Pleasant has deep American roots going back to the Revolutionary War, when local tenant farmers filled the ranks of General Washington�s Continental army. For years, travel to New York City was difficult, until the arrival of the railroad in 1846 allowed easy transportation to lower Manhattan. In 1893, John D. Rockefeller Sr. began buying land in Pocantico and built his classic Georgian mansion. The massive Kensico Dam in Valhalla was completed in 1917 to satisfy the growing thirst o...

In 2000, the National Police of Colombia reported that 25,660 people met violent deaths in that country. According to the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights in Colombia, 170 civilians were killed in the first 18 days of 2001 in massacres and selective homicides related to that country’s terrible civil war. By drawing on diverse sources of information, this work brings together the thoughts of historians, journalists, human rights activists, social scientists, military ve...

A New York Times Notable Book of the year.Acclaimed around the world and a national best-seller, this is the definitive work on Che Guevara, the dashing rebel whose epic dream was to end poverty and injustice in Latin America and the developing world through armed revolution.Jon Lee Anderson’s biography traces Che’s extraordinary life, from his comfortable Argentine upbringing to the battlefields of the Cuban revolution, from the h...

Updated With The Latest Facts And Photos"A Black history buff's dream." --EbonyFrom ground-breaking achievements to awe-inspiring feats of excellence, this definitive resource reveals over 450 "firsts" by African Americans in fields as diverse as government, entertainment, education, science, medicine, law, the military, and the business world. Discover the first doctor to perform open heart surgery and the youngest person to fly solo around the wo...

Once the center of agricultural prosperity in Alabama, the rich soil of the Black Belt still features beautiful homes that stand as a testimony to the region�s proud heritage. Join author Jennifer Hale as she explores the history of seventeen of the finest plantation homes in Alabama�s Black Belt. This book chronicles the original owners and slaves of the homes, and traces their descendants who continued to call these plantations home throughout the past two centuries. Discover why the fam...

An account of Cuban exiles, CIA informants, and cocaine traffickers in Florida by the National Book Award–winning author of The Year of Magical Thinking.In *Miami, New York Times–*bestselling author Joan Didion looks beyond postcard images of fluorescent waters, backlit islands, and pastel architecture to explore the murkier waters of a city on the edge.From Fidel Castro and the Bay of Pigs invasion to Lee Harvey Oswald and the Ke...

The name "Luneburg" was coined for King George II of England, who was also the duke of Luneburg, Germany, in 1727. The final name, Lunenburg, was probably a result of misspelling in the early records of the town. On August 1, 1728, Lunenburg was officially granted township but, as early as 1726, a variety of industries had been started and twenty-six houses had been built. In the late nineteenth century, the town returned to predominately agriculture and, today, is a rural residential comm...

First settled in 1634, and incorporated in 1640, the Town of Braintree has a long and distinguished history. �Old Braintree,� which originally encompassed what is now Braintree, Quincy, Randolph, and Holbrook, was the birthplace of John Adams, John Hancock, John Quincy Adams, and Sylvanus Thayer. Primarily a farming community for almost three centuries, Braintree was also home to a number of water-powered mills and businesses, which prospered along the banks of the Monatiquot River. With t...

North Brunswick, a large town spread over 12 square miles, has a rich history extending back to the early 1600s, when its only occupants were members of the Lenni-Lenape tribe. Some of the earliest establishments included the Black Horse Tavern building, which in 1670 was a stagecoach stop, and the Lion Tavern. By 1750, a gristmill operated near where a dam is currently located on Farrington Lake and was later joined by a snuff mill and tannery. From 1775 through 1900, the area was almost ...

Fernando Henrique Cardoso received a phone call in the middle of the night asking him to be the new Finance Minister of Brazil. As he put the phone down and stared into the darkness of his hotel room, he feared he'd been handed a political death sentence. The year was 1993, and he would be responsible for an economy that had had seven different currencies in the previous eight years to cope with inflation that had run at 3000 percent a year. Brazil had a habit of chewing up finance ministe...

Sail into New Haven Harbor and trek toward the beautiful form of the Sleeping Giant to discover Hamden, a picturesque gem nestled in the rolling hills of Connecticut. Witness the birth of the ?Industrial Revolution with the building of Eli Whitney's famous factory, wander past the buried cars in the Ghost Lot of Hamden Plaza and hear the tale of the courageous Hamden soldiers who fought in the Civil War. Journey with Eric D. Lehman as he uncovers the hidden stories of this fascinating Conn...

What began as a humble milling town became Ellicott City, part of the Baltimore metropolitan area and an important piece of Maryland history. In 1772, the Ellicott brothers purchased land and water rights in the valley along the banks of the Patapsco River for $3 an acre. They constructed mills, started the National Road, and brought the railroad to what was then called Ellicott's Mills. The newly constructed railroad in the 1830s put Ellicott City on the map, and even today, the oldest su...