Showing results by narrator "Bill Hare" in All Categories

The people who have lived outside the boundaries of normal societies and refused to play by the rules have long fascinated the world, and nowhere is this more evident than the continuing interest in the pirates of centuries past. As the subjects of books, movies, and even theme park rides, people continue to let their imaginations go when it comes to pirates, with buried treasure, parrots, and walking the plank all ingrained in pop culture’s perception of them.

World War I, also known in its time as the "Great War," or the "War to End all Wars," was an unprecedented holocaust in terms of its sheer scale. Fought by men who hailed from all corners of the globe, it saw millions of soldiers do battle in brutal assaults of attrition which dragged on for months, with little to no respite. Tens of millions of artillery shells and untold hundreds of millions of rifle and machine gun bullets were fired in a conflict that demonstrated man's capacity to kill each other on a heretofore unprecedented scale.

Jim Bowie is one of 19th century America's most famous names, even if what's known about the man is more legend than fact. Like Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett, Bowie has come to represent the pioneering spirit of the frontier, along with the masculinity, machismo, and swagger that earned him a reputation for fighting. And like any good legend, he is perhaps best remembered for his death at the Alamo than for any aspect of his life. Bowie's death and the defenders' defeat at the Alamo, did not have a decisive impact on Texas' War for Independence.

Miletus was an ancient city located on the west coast of present-day Turkey. It was the main city in the land of Ionia, a territory that stretched over 2,000 square kilometers of western Anatolia. With its four great harbors and a strategic location, Miletus became one of the most important coastal cities of western Anatolia, linking the Hellenistic world with the great civilizations of Babylon, Egypt, and eventually, Persia. Over time, Miletus was ruled by the Minoans, Mycenaeans, Hittites, Ionians, Persians, Seleucids, Attalids, Romans, Byzantines, Seljuk Turks, and Ottomans.

He was a pioneering film director who had 518 films to his credit. His work spanned the silent and sound eras. Most of his films were completed in a span of 15 years. But today he is known only for one of his films, one considered by historians to be a landmark in cinema as well as the most controversial ever made. He could not escape the controversy of this one film before he died in relative obscurity, his contributions to the motion picture industry forever marred.

The man known to most of the world as Emperor Hirohito ruled during some of the most tumultuous years in Japanese history. When he came to the throne in 1926, he inherited control of a country which had only recently emerged as a major industrial and world power. Through the aggressive expansion and wars of the 1930s, Hirohito was at the head of one of the world’s foremost powers. Throughout the maelstrom of World War II, he remained in power, a distant and, to most outsiders, inscrutable factor in the rise of the Japanese Empire.

The Byzantine Empire existed for over a thousand years, with a history spanning from the division of the Roman Empire in 395 until the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453. It was formed from the previous Eastern Roman Empire, and during its long existence, the Byzantine inhabitants were very proud to call themselves Romans. However, many things changed during the long lifespan of the Byzantine Empire, starting with a Hellenization in the sixth century.

The Silk Road and the Incense Trade Route have been heavily investigated in recent decades, but the Amber Road trade network dominating northern Europe has been given far less attention. Perhaps even more interesting than the movement of the amber is regarding shifting trade operations from government controlled systems to private merchant enterprises to monopolies of guilds and orders, a return to government control, and finally, the selling of the trade to individual countries.

The belief in lycanthropy is far older and more complex than most people suspect, dating all the way back to antiquity, and werewolves were once assumed to be very real. Indeed, people were even put on trial and executed because the courts of law were convinced they could change their form and kill innocent people. For thousands of years, werewolves have represented a strange and ancient tradition that still echoes through culture to this day.

Samuel Colt entered the pool of visionaries in search of the invention that would tip the power balance in favor of those who possessed it. Samuel Colt: The Life and Legacy of the Man Who Invented America’s Most Famous Guns looks at the individual and firearms that helped shape the nation in the 19th century.

The most famous battle of the 19th century was undoubtedly Waterloo, and the biggest battle of the Napoleonic Wars was Leipzig, but neither one of those legendary battles was the biggest of the century. That distinction instead belongs to the Battle of Königgrätz, a little known, but decisive conflict in a war between Prussia and Austria. Though it lasted only seven weeks and only had one truly decisive battle, the Austro-Prussian War nonetheless changed the political outlook in Europe forever.

The modern day city of Guangzhou is located in the mountainous region of south China. Near the Baiyun Mountains that rise from the edge of the city and the eastern banks of the Pearl River (Zhujiang), the city today covers approximately 7, 400 square kilometers. The location of the city provides it the opportunity to oversee the delta of the Pearl River, which is China’s third largest river.

Today, streets, bridges, monuments, and even neighborhoods bear Tadeusz Kościuszko’s name across the country, and in Polish communities, he is often hailed as a hero equal to General Washington himself. Tadeusz Kościuszko: The Life and Legacy of Poland’s Most Famous General profiles one of the Revolutionary War’s most important figures.

Hong Kong: The History and Legacy of Asia’s Leading Financial Center chronicles the turbulent history of Hong Kong, and how it became one of the wealthiest places in the world despite its challenging political environment.

When he died in 1820, King George III had presided over the longest reign by a monarch in England’s history and ruled the British Empire during one of its most turbulent and important periods, but he was remembered by the unappealing sobriquets "The Mad King” and ”The King Who Lost America".

In the summer of 1866, Colonel Henry B. Carrington set out from Fort Laramie to establish a series of forts along the Bozeman Trail with the goal of protecting migrants moving along the trail. The Bozeman Trail ran through the Powder River country, which included the traditional hunting grounds of Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho peoples. Carrington had about 1,000 people in his column, of which about 700 were soldiers and 300 were civilians, likely soldiers' families and migrants.

As one of the most influential men of the 20th century, there is no shortage of adjectives to use when describing Woodrow Wilson's two terms as president of the United States. Wilson was a pioneer of the Progressive movement both before and during his presidency, becoming a populist champion a generation before Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal.

Along the way, listeners learn of a man once consumed by rage who learned, through time and practice, as well as the influence of several important mentors, to rein in his anger and use it to change the world. Though born in a sharecropper’s cabin, he corresponded with presidents. Growing up in the shadow of an Olympian older brother, he found his own place in the sun, and, more importantly, Jackie Robinson smoothed the journey to success for countless others.

Making History: The Life of Barack Obama chronicles the amazing life story and Obama's path to the presidency from his unique roots to his unique victory, but it also looks at his first term before the 2012 election. You will learn about Obama like you never have before, in no time at all.

Nowadays, the pope is synonymous with unparalleled piety, compassion, and benevolence. To many, the pope is the embodiment of godly love in its purest form. This is a far cry from how things were just a few centuries ago. Back in the day, the most notorious of popes were nothing more than power-hungry dictators and cutthroat political experts. Indeed, by the late 14th century, tensions within the Church reached a breaking point, resulting in the infamous split of the Catholic Church, one that saw multiple popes fighting to knock the others off their thrones.