Showing results by author "Charles Rivers" in All Categories

The legendary Pablo Picasso once paid a visit to the legendary Altamira Caves, located near the town of Santillana del Mar in Cantabria, Spain. There, he viewed the ancient cave paintings, deemed to be among the most sophisticated examples in the world. He summarized the visit by saying, “After Altamira, all is decadence,”[1] suggesting a purity in early man that modern people have apparently lost. Other lesser-known artists, psychologists and various scientists have dismissed even the best of the Paleolithic cave painters.

Born to a father plagued by bouts of drinking and depression, and surrounded by siblings with similar ailments, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, grew up believing that he must be a victim of hereditary illness, to the point that he believed he must never marry or father children less he perpetuate the suffering on future generations. With these thoughts always in his head, he turned his mind towards a near worship of romantic love, while at the same time repeatedly painting a tragic ending for his most cherished characters, many of whom seemed to die of a broken heart.

On August 1, 1945, a month before the formal end of World War II, the British War Office announced the disbanding of a small, eclectic unit, the Long Range Desert Group. Since its founding five years earlier, in June 1940, the LRDG had pioneered and refined the concept and tactics of deep penetration, covert reconnaissance in the North African desert, and later as a more varied special forces operations unit in the Aegean, Italy, and the Balkans.

People’s timeless captivation with those supposedly endowed with supernatural powers - these gifted individuals oftentimes regarded as gods walking among everyone else - is a fascinating phenomenon in itself. Soothsayers and clairvoyants were particularly revered in past centuries, even by royals, nobles, and other influential figures, who placed oracles, mediums, and mystics in their retinues and sought counsel from them on a regular basis.

The Kingdom of Alashiya: The History and Legacy of the Ancient Trading Kingdom on Cyprus during the Bronze Age examines the mysterious kingdom and its relationships with various other kingdoms nearby. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about ancient Cyprus like never before.

The OSS and CIA: The History of America’s Intelligence Community during World War II and the Establishment of the Central Intelligence Agency looks at the agencies’ organizational characteristics, historical inception, early Cold War growth, and recent influence. You will learn about the OSS and CIA like never before.

At the conclusion of World War I, a once promised unified Arab state, which was to include the modern Hejaz, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine/Israel, Jordan and Iraq, did not materialize. Instead, the territories were divided between the French and British, but the British did reward the Hashemites by putting local leaders on the thrones of Iraq and Jordan....

Machu Picchu is one of South America's best tourist spots, and the ruins have even been voted one of the Seven New Wonders of the World. But even though Machu Picchu is now the best known of all Incan ruins, its function in Incan civilization is still not clear. Some have speculated that it was an outpost or a frontier citadel, while others believe it to be a sanctuary or a work center for women. Still others suggest that it was a ceremonial center or perhaps even the last refuge of the Incas after the Spanish conquest.

Mount Athos: The History of the Greek Mountain and the Center of Eastern Orthodox Monasticism looks at the unique region and what life has been like there since medieval times. You will learn about Mount Athos like never before.

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, and established language and art that spread across the known world.

Fought over bitterly cold flecks of rock and tundra scattered across the remote waters marking the boundary between the Bering Sea and the Pacific Ocean, the Aleutian Islands campaign represented one of the strangest encounters of World War II. Curving southwestward from the southwest coast of Alaska like the tail of a stingray, the rugged, volcanic Aleutians belong to both the United States and Russia.

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.

Welcome to the Middle East conflict, a conflict that is technically 63 years old and counting but has its roots in over 2,000 years of history. With so much time and history, the peace process has become laden with unique, politically sensitive concepts, like the right of return, contiguous borders, secure borders, demilitarized zones, and security requirements, with players like the Quartet, Palestinian Authority, Fatah, Hamas, the Arab League, and Israel. Over time, it has become exceedingly difficult for even sophisticated political pundits and followers to keep track of it all.

The Celts are one of the most well-known groups in Europe and one of the least understood. Depending on which classifications are used, the Celts are also one of the oldest civilizations in Europe. In the centuries before Christ, the Celts were spread out across much of continental Europe, and though they are mostly identified with Gaul, evidence suggests they also spread as far as Portugal.

Nearly 2,000 years before Homer wrote his epic poems, the Minoan civilization was centered on the island of Crete, a location that required the Minoans to be a regional sea power. And indeed they were, stretching across the Aegean Sea from about 2700-1500 BCE, with trade routes extending all the way to Egypt.

Among America’s most infamous “public enemies” and, perhaps, the most unique and controversial was Kate Barker. With her prominent, hawk-tipped nose and plump, doughy face, framed by a classic dark, curly coif and frilly day dresses to match, Ma Barker was as nonthreatening as they come. Nary a second glance was given to this grandmotherly figure by those who crossed her path, perhaps, at most a polite tip of the hat. Of course, as the age-old adage goes, appearances are often deceiving.

The largest structure ever built was not made by humans, but by incredibly tiny organisms known as coral polyps. Over the course of tens of thousands of years, these small organisms have put together a collection of nearly 3,000 reefs, known as the Great Barrier Reef, which form a collective stretching across 130,000 square miles. Scientists have counted about 1,500 different fish species that use the reef, and it's estimated that 1.5 million birds use the site.

The magnificent monolith the locals call “Uluru”, situated in the heart of Australia, hovers over a patchy bed of desert poplars and spinifex grasslands. The pleasant, but otherwise unexceptional, surroundings of the spellbinding sandstone landform only further accentuates its majesty - one that can be appreciated from a variety of angles.

For much of the 20th century, South American governments in large part lived under a system of military junta governments. The mixture of indigenous peoples, foreign settlers and European colonial superpowers produced cultural and social imbalances into which military forces intervened as a stabilizing influence. The proactive personalities of military heads and the rigid structures of such a hierarchy guaranteed the "strong man" commanding officer an abiding presence in the form of executive dictator.

During the first half of the first millennium CE, an empire arose in Persia that extended its power and influence to Mesopotamia in the east, Arabia in the south, the Caucasus Mountains in the north, and as far east as India. This empire, known alternatively as the Sasanian Empire or Sassanid Empire, was the last of three great dynasties in Persia before the rise of Islam. In fact, many scholars consider the Sasanian Empire to be the last great empire of the ancient Near East.