Showing titles in 19th Century

Who was Inspector Frederick Abberline, the lead detective in the Jack the Ripper case? Why did he and his fellow policemen fail to catch the most notorious serial killer of Victorian England? What was he like as a man, as a professional policeman, one of the best detectives of his generation? And how did he investigate the sequence of squalid, bloody murders that repelled - and fascinated - contemporaries and has been the subject of keen controversy ever since? Here at last in M. J. Trow’s compelling biography of this preeminent Victorian policeman are the answers to these intriguing questions.

In a single definitive narrative, City of Sedition tells the spellbinding story of the huge-and hugely conflicted-role New York City played in the Civil War. No city was more of a help to Abraham Lincoln and the Union war effort, or more of a hindrance. No city raised more men, money, and...

In 1895, nine American heiresses travelled across the Atlantic to bag themselves husbands and titles. For the English gentlemen the girls married it was a way to secure their estates. For the girls who came from new money, marriage was a means to obtaining social prestige. The Transatlantic Marriage Bureau tells the stories of these nine heiresses and the remarkable women who made it happen - the unofficial marriage brokers Lady Minnie-Paget and Consuelo Yzanga, Duchess of Manchester.

15 settembre 1864: a tre anni dall'unificazione, la capitale del nuovo Stato fu trasferita da Torino a Firenze. Città provinciale e cosmopolita, Firenze fu vista come una buona mediazione tra le rigidità piemontesi e la sfida che si voleva portare a Roma, ancora saldamente nelle mani del papa. L'evento ebbe un forte peso istituzionale e un significativo impatto simbolico. Anche se per Firenze fu solo una reggenza di pochi anni (fino al 20 settembre 1870, quando capitale d'Italia diventò Roma), gli effetti sulla città furono tutt'altro che lievi.

The fascinating true story of how a group of visionary attorneys helped make American business synonymous with Big Business, and Wall Street the center of the financial world “Entertaining.”—The Wall Street Journal “Fast-paced history.”—Library Journal “Insightful and...

In 1884, 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.

December 1862 drove the United States toward a breaking point. The Battle of Fredericksburg shattered Union forces and Northern confidence. As Abraham Lincoln's government threatened to fracture, this critical moment also tested five extraordinary individuals whose lives reflect the soul of a nation. The changes they underwent led to profound repercussions in the country's law, literature, politics, and popular mythology. Taken together, their stories offer a striking restatement of what it means to be American.

For generations of Americans, the word Antietam - the name of a bucolic stream in western Maryland - held the same sense of horror and carnage that the date 9/11 does for Americans today. But Antietam eclipses even this modern tragedy as America's single bloodiest day, on which 22,000 men became casualties in a war to determine our nation's future.

Ask google Who discovered gold in Australia? and you'll promptly get 'Edward Hammond Hargraves'. Hargraves has for decades (and decades) received the fame, fortune and adulation from all corners of the country, but did he earn it? This is the story of an oversized layabout who received years of accolades and free lunches, despite lumbering from one embarrassment to another, and of those who spent decades trying to expose him and seek their share of the glory.

D'Ajaccio à Sainte-Hélène, en passant par le Grand-Saint-Bernard, Austerlitz, Moscou, Waterloo, l'île d'Elbe, André Castelot a mis ses pas dans ceux de Napoléon Bonaparte pour respirer et restituer le décor de son prodigieux destin. Exploitant et mettant en valeur, avec son art célèbre du récit qui visualise les événements, les lieux et les personnages, une immense masse d'archives, de mémoires et de correspondance parfois inédits ou oubliés, il a écrit cette monumentale biographie si vivante, si colorée, si passionnante que depuis trente ans, son public se renouvelle sans cesse.

The bloody two-day battle of Shiloh changed the course of the American Civil War. The conflagration at Shiloh had its roots in the strong Union advance that resulted in the capture of Forts Henry and Donelson in Tennessee. The offensive collapsed General Albert S. Johnston's advanced line in Kentucky and forced him to withdraw to northern Mississippi. Anxious to attack the enemy, Johnston began concentrating Southern forces at Corinth, a major railroad center just below the Tennessee border.

In the last 50 years, life has been simplified by the awe-inspiring advancements that have been achieved in the world of computer science and technology. In 1976, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak unveiled the Apple I, the first-ever computer that operated on a single-circuit board, just five years after a team of IBM engineers introduced the “floppy disk,” which revolutionized data-sharing.

In the fading light of August 28, 1862, an untested Union brigade of Wisconsin and Indiana men fought an unexpected 90-minute stand-up clash with the Confederate veterans of Stonewall Jackson on the Virginia farm fields of John Brawner. The Rebels recalled a Wisconsin man that day “yelling like demons [in] a roaring hell of fire.” Despite its fascinating origins and far-reaching consequences, surprisingly little has been penned about this remarkable engagement.

A riveting narrative about America's ferocious drive towards empire during the Gilded Age, told by one of our most acclaimed historians. On February 15, 1898, the American ship USS Maine mysteriously exploded in the Havana Harbor. News of the blast quickly reached U.S. shores, where it was met...

The dramatic untold story of Eugénie de Montijo, the woman who created haute couture, fought for women’s rights, opened France’s schools to girls and ruled the country as its last empress, yet today remains almost unknown. Although a nineteenth-century woman, her almost twenty-first-century...

From George Washington's reluctant oath-taking through George W. Bush's leadership challenges after September 11, 2001, we view ambitious and fallible men through the new lens of the 21st century. Where did they succeed? Where did they fail? And what do we know now that we could not have known at the time?

J. E. B. Stuart: The Soldier and the Man is the first thoroughly scrutinized study of the life and service of the Civil War's most famous cavalryman. James Ewell Brown Stuart led the Army of Northern Virginia's cavalry to the all-but-complete satisfaction of his superiors. Being human, Stuart occasionally underperformed.

Listeners will be taken on a marvelous journey of discovery as author and engineman Clive Groome delves into the past and present of Britain's rich railway heritage. Each of the regions are described, from the conception of their rail network to the locomotives that ran on them, followed by a look at the region's preserved. Interspersed throughout are special profiles on some of the most notable locomotives ever built with in-depth discussion on their design and performance.

From the wooden “walking machines” of the 1800s to today’s electric torque rockets, the motorcycle has traveled a long, dangerous, brilliant road. This book tells the entire story. From Pedals to Pistons is the definitive history of how the humble bicycle evolved into one of the most iconic machines ever created. Blending gripping storytelling with rich historical detail, Kevin L. Whitworth traces the full 200-year saga of two-wheeled innovation—the inventors, the rebels, the racers, the engineers, and the cultures shaped in their wake.

Un instantané sonore du 27 avril 1844: ce numéro de L’Illustration, Journal universel, déroule l’histoire de la semaine, un Courrier de Paris vif, et le troisième article du Salon. On y croise la Chambre valaque, un portrait de lord Abinger, et des paysages — étangs près de Saint‑Mitre, arcade de Hunes aux Cévennes, vue générale de Nazareth en Galilée. Les figures du temps s’y révèlent: le baron Pasquier et le comte de Rambuteau, saisis par Horace Vernet et Henry Scheffer, ainsi que Valentin de La Pelouze par Uzanne.