Charles River Editors
1) America's Most Notorious Con Artists: The History and Schemes of Successful Cons in the United State
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The art of the confidence trick is a controversial craft that is as old as time itself. In the early years of civilization, unscrupulous folks bottled and peddled assortments of fake cures and potions. Snake oil salesmen aside, charlatans posed as mystical beings with supernatural powers, promising to end droughts and other misfortunes of the gullible with what were in reality parlor tricks and illusions.
Indeed, throughout history, unabashedly brazen...
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From approximately 3100 BCE until around 1075 BCE, ancient Egypt was ruled by 20 different dynasties. The length of the dynasties varied: some, such as those during the First and Second Intermediate periods could be quite short, while the Thirteenth and 18th Dynasties each contained more a one dozen kings and ruled over the Nile Valley for around 200 years each. Although the first 20 Egyptian dynasties varied in number of rulers and length, most shared...
3) Ottoman Empire's Greatest Sultans: The Lives and Legacies of Osman I, Mehmed II, and Suleiman the Ma
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In terms of geopolitics, perhaps the most seminal event of the Middle Ages was the successful Ottoman siege of Constantinople in 1453. The city had been an imperial capital as far back as the 4th century, when Constantine the Great shifted the power center of the Roman Empire there, effectively establishing two almost equally powerful halves of antiquity's greatest empire. Constantinople would continue to serve as the capital of the Byzantine Empire...
4) Operation Mockingbird: The Controversial History of the CIA's Efforts to Manipulate American Medi
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Freedom of the press isn't just a fundamental right in America but a key part of the democratic process. When the United States secured its independence against Britain in the War of Independence in 1783, there was no certainty about what the new country would look like in terms of national governance. In 1787, delegates from the various states convened in Philadelphia to draft a constitution that would define this.
Freedom of the press became one...
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Though history is usually written by the victors, the lack of a particularly strong writing tradition from the Mongols ensured that history was largely written by those who they vanquished. Because of this, their portrayal in the West and the Middle East has been extraordinarily (and in many ways unfairly) negative for centuries, at least until recent revisions to the historical record. The Mongols have long been depicted as wild horse-archers galloping...
6) Ely Samuel Parker and Stand Watie: The Life and Legacy of the Civil War's Most Famous Native America
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One of the best known of the six nations is the Seneca, and arguably the most famous Seneca chief was Ely Samuel Parker. Over the course of his life, he was a Seneca chief, a civil engineer, a close friend and adjutant to General Ulysses S. Grant, an advocate for the Indian peoples, and the first Native American Commissioner of the Department of Indian Affairs. His marriage to a much younger socialite scandalized Washington, and he made a fortune...
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Malta's history goes back further than many know, which can be attested to by the numerous Neolithic and Bronze Age era megaliths that dot the island of Malta proper as well as the island of Gozo to the north. Naturally, when European archaeologists began unearthing the megaliths of Malta in the 19th century, they did not know what to think, which led to a plethora of theories, many of them quite fantastic. At least 23 of these temples were uncovered,...
8) Spanish Empire in the Americas: The History of Spain's Colonization across Central America and South
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By the time Christopher Columbus started setting east from the New World, he had explored San Salvador in the Bahamas (which he thought was Japan), Cuba (which he thought was China), and Hispaniola, the source of gold. As the common story goes, Columbus, en route back to Spain from his first journey, called in at Lisbon as a courtesy to brief the Portuguese King John II of his discovery of the New World. King John subsequently protested that according...
9) Brandy Station and the March to Gettysburg: The History of the Confederate Invasion of Pennsylvania
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As Lee's army moved into Pennsylvania, Stuart's cavalry screened his movements, thereby engaging in the more traditional cavalry roles, but it's widely believed that he was still smarting over the results of June 9. As a result, many historians think it likely that he had already planned to remove the negative effect of Brandy Station by duplicating one of his now famous rides around the enemy army, much as he did to McClellan's Army of the Potomac...
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In the warm predawn darkness of June 22, 1941, 3 million men waited along a front hundreds of miles long, stretching from the Baltic coast of Poland to the Balkans. Ahead of them in the darkness lay the Soviet Union, its border guarded by millions of Red Army troops echeloned deep throughout the huge spaces of Russia. This massive gathering of Wehrmacht soldiers from Adolf Hitler's Third Reich and his allied states – notably Hungary and Romania...
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Today, roses are a sign of love and luxury, but for over 30 years, they provided the symbols for two houses at war for control of the English throne. Thousands of people died and many more were injured fighting beneath the white rose of York and the red rose of Lancaster, and the noble families ruling England tore each other apart in a struggle that was as bitter as it was bloody. Though what followed was a period of strong rule under the Tudors monarchs,...
12) Ancient Anatolia: The History of the Region's Most Powerful Cities, Kingdoms, and Empires in Anti
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During the Late Bronze Age, from about 1500-1200 BCE, the Near East was a time and place where great kingdoms and empires vied for land and influence, playing high stakes diplomatic games, trading, and occasionally going to war with each other in the process. The Egyptians, Hittites, Babylonians, Assyrians, and several smaller Canaanite kingdoms were all part of this system, which was one of the first true "global" systems in world history and also...
13) Great Patriotic War: The History of the Fighting Between the Soviets and Germans During World War
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In the warm predawn darkness of June 22, 1941, 3 million men waited along a front hundreds of miles long, stretching from the Baltic coast of Poland to the Balkans. Ahead of them in the darkness lay the Soviet Union, its border guarded by millions of Red Army troops echeloned deep throughout the huge spaces of Russia. This massive gathering of Wehrmacht soldiers from Adolf Hitler's Third Reich and his allied states – notably Hungary and Romania...
14) Guy Gibson: The Life and Legacy of the Royal Air Force's Most Distinguished Bomber Pilot During Worl
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Given the RAF's importance, it should come as no surprise that some of the pilots ranked among Britain's most recognized war heroes, and Guy Gibson remains one of the most famous and highly decorated British soldiers in World War II. His exploits in the RAF as the leader of the audacious raid to blow up German dams in May 1943 remain renowned, and for generations of British boys after the war, he served as the benchmark of a legendary hero. His tragic...
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When people think about unidentified flying objects (UFOs), they tend to think of flying discs piloted by gray beings with large heads and enormous eyes. They tend to think that these sightings only started relatively recently and that belief in UFOs is some sort of modern religion brought on, perhaps, by the very justifiable fears of a nuclear age. But a study of the phenomenon quickly reveals that humanity has been seeing UFOs since the beginning...
16) Rise of Fascism in Europe: The History of the Fascist Takeovers in Nazi Germany, Italy, and Spain
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It's easy to forget how young Italy was when Benito Mussolini was born on July 29, 1883. It is hard to conceive a territory with such a long and ancient history was once young and troubled with constant conflict and instability. Similar to Germany, Italy was unified in 1861, but contrary to its northern cousin, its previous history was one of separation. Italy had no great romantic idea of a "Great Germany," keeping it unified even during the wars...
17) Roman Empire: The History and Legacy of the Ancient World's Most Famous Empire From Julius Caesar
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Possibly the most important man of antiquity, and even all of history, was Julius Caesar. Alexander Hamilton, the famous American patriot, once remarked that "the greatest man who ever lived was Julius Caesar". Such a tribute, coming from one of the Founding Fathers of the quintessential modern democracy in reference to a man who destroyed the Roman Republic, is testament to the enduring mark that Caesar left upon the world. The ultimate conqueror,...
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The name, "Patagonia" comes from an observation made by Ferdinand Magellan, who visited the region during his historic expedition around the world. Marveled by the height of the indigenous people, he referred to the region as a "land of giants." Those giants were the Tehuelches, named by Magellan's expedition as Patagones, and the chronicles of that trip, written by Antonio Pigafetta, popularized the term "Patagones," a term that refers to their big...
19) Wild West's Most Influential Black Men: The Lives and Legacies of the Forgotten Mountain Men, Cowboy
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Space may be the final frontier, but no frontier has ever captured the American imagination like the "Wild West", which still evokes images of dusty cowboys, outlaws, gunfights, gamblers, and barroom brawls over 100 years after the West was settled. A constant fixture in American pop culture, the 19th century American West continues to be vividly and colorful portrayed not just as a place but as a state of mind.
Almost absent in the perceptions of...
20) Ancient Kingdoms of Africa: The History and Legacy of the African Continent's Most Prominent King
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Africa may have given rise to the first human beings, and Egypt probably gave rise to the first great civilizations, which continue to fascinate modern societies across the globe nearly 5,000 years later. From the Library and Lighthouse of Alexandria to the Great Pyramid at Giza, the Ancient Egyptians produced several wonders of the world, revolutionized architecture and construction, created some of the world's first systems of mathematics and medicine,...