Showing results by narrator "Bill Hare" in All Categories

Tom Horn: The Controversial Life and Legacy of One of the Wild West’s Most Famous Gunslingers chronicles Horn’s time as a scout, cowboy, Pinkerton agent, and writer, and how he became one of the most famous folk legends.

For a couple of generations of Americans, along with Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors, there was Studebaker, and though it is no longer in existence, the Studebaker Automobile Company is still part of the popular culture. The Studebaker Brothers: The Lives and Legacy of the Family Behind the Famous Automobile Company chronicles how the family built up a manufacturing empire and made some of America’s most famous cars; you will learn about the Studebaker brothers like never before.

French Senegal: The History of the French Colony and Senegal’s Transition to Independence examines how France established the colony, and how that colony affected events in the 20th century before Senegal became a modern nation.

In 722 BCE, the Neo-Assyrian Empire destroyed the kingdom of Israel, and after a siege of three years, the city of Samaria fell to the troops of Sargon II. As was a common practice in the ancient world, the victor uprooted the inhabitants and forced them into exile, scattering the refugees throughout Asia Minor and possibly Africa to destroy them as a cohesive group and prevent them from possibly revolting. That exile brought about the end of the 10 lost tribes of Israel. Only the much smaller and less important kingdom of Judah, nestled in the arid lands of the south, survived....

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 Jim Crow South has been notorious for miscarriages of justice for decades, and cases like the Scottsboro Boys continue to be commemorated for the manner in which institutionalized racism ensured the wrongful convictions of minorities. The attention given to these cases raised nearly every potential issue implicating criminal procedure among the states. While the Bill of Rights had ensured a number of rights for criminal defendants, the states had previously been allowed to interpret those rights, leading to instances where defendants weren't provided adequate legal representation.

At one point or another, just about everyone has heard of the dodo bird, which is almost universally described as a cuddly, whimsical creature renowned for its alleged stupidity. This prehistoric avian had been known for hundreds of years, before it was made popular around the world in Lewis Carroll’s 1865 classic Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

The Chisholm Trail: The History and Legacy of 19th Century America's Most Famous Cattle Drive Route examines how the various paths were forged, the people most responsible for them, and the most famous events associated with the trail's history. You will learn about the Chisholm Trail like never before.

Despite a general dearth of African American names rising to musical prominence during the years of Reconstruction, Black talent existed in good measure for both popular and classical genres. And among the most notable musicians celebrated in the present day is composer Scott Joplin, who in his day earned the moniker “King of Ragtime”.

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.

On September 25, 1877, on a rain-soaked, muddy field in Kagoshima, Japan, a small group of proud samurai warrior rebels prepared for one last stand. It was early morning, six a.m, and the remaining 40 samurai warriors still capable of fighting prepared themselves for the glory of death on the battlefield. They had been shelled by powerful artillery guns and naval cannons relentlessly through the night, and the rebels had no real shelter or protection. Instead, they cowered like rats in small, rain-filled mud holes, showered by a torrent of steel shells and shrapnel.

As one of America's oldest and most beloved sports, baseball has long been touted as the national pastime, but of all the millions of people who have played it over the last few centuries, few have influenced Major League Baseball like Ty Cobb, whose career spanned over 20 seasons. The Georgia Peach overcame early hardships to set nearly 100 MLB records in his time as a player and player-manager for the Detroit Tigers and Philadelphia Athletics.

The Battle of Red Cliffs changed Chinese history. It marked the end of the Han Dynasty, one of the greatest in China’s history, and pushed China into the era of the Three Kingdoms, an era of perpetual warfare and chaos. Furthermore, the battle also had a dramatic effect on Chinese culture, media, and literature, and the battle and its major participants remain legendary in China.

On August 28, 1914, a British naval force of 31 destroyers, two light cruisers, and a submarine force emerged from the early morning mist on a mission deep into German home waters. Their target was Heligoland Bight, a bay on the German North Sea coastline located at the mouth of the Elbe River. Despite these obstacles, the British Navy succeeded in scoring a decisive victory. Without the loss of a single British ship, the British raid force managed to sink several German cruisers and destroyers.

There exists, an indispensable subculture based within a 500-mile radius of the coastal South Atlantic states and Sea Islands. These culture bearers, who refer to themselves as the Gullah Geechee, or the “Gullah” for short, are the descendants and rightful heirs of the once-shackled slaves who resided in these parts. As the guardians and torch holders of the incredible legacy left behind by their persevering ancestors, the modern Gullah spare no effort in preserving the inherently unique customs and traditions, complete with their own creole tongue.

Between the 18th and early 19th centuries, the West experienced massive leaps in technological, scientific, and economical advancement. This powerful period has since been immortalized as the great Industrial Revolution. With Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin near the end of the 18th century. Able to more effectively separate the cotton fiber from seeds, Whitney’s cotton gin turned the cotton industry into one of the antebellum South’s biggest cash cows, and as a result, the region became even more dependent on slave labor than before.

The War of the Spanish Succession, fought at the beginning of the 18th century, was the last major war engaged in by French King Louis XIV, the legendary Sun King, and it was also the most famous of all military conflicts during his reign. While the length and the scope of the conflict are the primary reasons why people have given so much attention to it, another reason for its historical popularity is, no doubt, the fact that its outcome humbled the French king, to the delight of his many critics. He was, after all, the one who had given himself the lofty nickname of “the Sun King".

Given the passage of time, people tend to debate how good Ruth would be today, including most recently a current MLB reliver, Adam Ottavino, who claimed he would strike out Ruth every time. That claim became even more controversial when Ottavino joined none other than the Yankees ahead of the 2019 season, which led to the reliever walking back some of the comments. But even as far back as 1929, Bucky Harris may have foreseen debates of this kind by pointing out, “These other home run hitters are neck and neck. When the Babe was doing his stuff, he was miles ahead of his field."

Gilgamesh, Hercules, Aeneas, and Lancelot are instantly recognized as mythological heroes in the West, evoking visions of Persian monsters, ghastly labors, and the founding and glorification of cities, but the name Quetzalcoatl is as mysterious as its spelling. Even those who have come across his name when learning about the history of Mesoamerica - particularly the Aztec and the god’s role in the Spanish conquest of their empire - are often unaware that the Mesoamerican deity has tales that equal any of those in the repertoire of the mythological figures mentioned above.

Given his legacy, many Americans today believe Jackie Robinson was the first black man to play in Major League Baseball, but that answer is wrong. As far back as the late 19th century, there had been professional baseball leagues that were every bit as segregated as any other aspect of society, but before that, there were, for a brief shining moment, there were teams of black and white men playing with and against each other.