Hourly History

While these are ancient events, they do have direct relevance to the world in which we live today. Scientists have spent a great deal of time looking at the Great Ice Age, principally because understanding it could help us understand the complex web of linked factors that lead to climate change.

William the Conqueror invaded England in 1066, permanently changing the landscape of the English countryside and the course of English history. No one debates his importance; whether the influence was good or bad is a much more involved conversation....

The archetypal starving artist, Vincent van Gogh died at 37 by his own hand, poor, isolated, and, in his eyes, a failure. Yet, in Vincent’s life story we can see the evolution of a boy becoming a man becoming a great artist, whether his contemporaries could see it at the time or not....

The Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union lasted for more than 40 years. In general, this was a war of spies and subterfuge, of covert action and espionage. There was always a danger, however, that an error of judgment could suddenly cause the Cold War to turn red-hot....

Violent confrontation between armed groups over the supply of illegal narcotics is something we commonly associate with criminal gangs in modern cities, but in the mid-nineteenth century Great Britain went to war with Imperial China....

Step into the world of Albert Einstein in this book and find out what was so extraordinary about him. Find out why Einstein valued creativity and freedom as the foundation stones of a good life, and how these two traits would inspire him and help to transform the world....

In the 27 years that Kurt Cobain walked this earth, he crafted the songs and the narrative that would become the anthem of a generation. Yet, it was never anything that Cobain set to do deliberately; if anything, he could be called an accidental genius....

Wyatt Earp was one of the most famous lawmen that the Wild West ever produced. He was also one of the longest-lived. Considering the fact that he lived all the way up until his 80s while many of his contemporaries never made it out of their 30s, this in itself was quite a feat.

From his humble beginnings as a farmhand working on tribal Iraqi land to becoming the president of Iraq for more than two decades, Saddam Hussein’s life story is nothing short of extraordinary. Hussein is one of the key figures of the late 20th and early 21st century....

Discover the remarkable life of Virginia Woolf.... Virginia Woolf ranks among the most influential writers of the 20th century. Embracing the Post-Impressionist times in which she lived, her novels reflect the artistic shift from romanticism to abstract....

Explore the triumph and terror that existed in France during the French Revolution. Review the causes and the lasting effects brought about during this tumultuous time period when the common people of France struggled to remake their world upon the cornerstone of liberty....

Creativity is in our bones. It is found in our very DNA, something not known to Leonardo da Vinci or anyone else who lived in his day and time. All he did was to uncover the hidden genius which lay within himself....

When the establishment of the State of Israel was announced on May 14, 1948, it seemed to many people that the new nation could not survive for long.

This is the extraordinary story of how a king who once hid in the swamps became the man who saved Christian civilization in England.

Pablo Picasso, born on October 25, 1881, in Málaga, Spain, was one of the 20th century’s most prolific and successful artists. A natural-born prodigy, he began painting at the age of two and never stopped until his death at the age of 91....

The Russian Revolution in 1917 was a moment in time when the will of the people put an end to a system of government that had been in place for centuries....

Discover the remarkable history of the Falklands War...The Falklands War, which erupted in 1982, was a conflict between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Argentina over sovereignty of the Falklands, a group of largely uninhabited islands in the South Atlantic....

The Industrial Revolution, which took place in Great Britain between the middle of the 18th century and the middle of the 19th, transformed British industry and society and made Great Britain the most powerful nation in the world....

Prior to December 1941, Great Britain commanded an empire that stretched across the globe....

Amy Winehouse was one of the most iconic voices of her generation. Born in London in 1983, she rose to fame with her soulful, jazz-inspired music, and became a household name with hits like “Rehab” and “Back to Black"....