Babe Ruth, born George Ruth, Jr., is considered by many to be the greatest baseball player of all time. Everybody knows how great a hitter Babe was and how he virtually invented the home run. Not everybody knows how great of a pitcher Babe was, even though he was one of the best left-handed pitchers…
Tyrus Raymond Cobb was born December 18, 1886 in The Narrows, Georgia. His parents named him after the ancient Phoenician city of Tyre, which stubbornly refused to surrender to Alexander the Great. From the very beginning, he took after the city and became one of baseball’s most stubborn and hated men. The Georgia Peach, so-called,…
His career started when the local paper in Västervik (the town where he was born) had an advertisement about mini-tennis in the early 70s. It said “Day of tennis”. Luckily his mother Barbro read the article and liked it. The day after she sent her son to the tennis-school for beginners. At that time she…
Jim Abbott has led an eventfully life. He brought his college team to the championship in 1985, brought Team USA to gold in 1988, and threw a no hitter against the Cleveland Indians in 1993. These achievements are not what make him so special; what makes Jim Abbott even more remarkable is that he only…
Jesse Owens, one of the eight children in his family, one of the best track and field athletes of all time. He was born 1913, on a farm in the city of Danville Alabama, under his real name, James Cleveland Owens. He went to Fairmount Junior High School. Then he went on to high school where…
The history of billiards begins in the fourteenth century. The game was invented in Europe, but there was a conflict as to what country. The French believed that the English invented the game, but at the same time, the English thought the French did. In the end, a French billiards specialist found evidence that the…
April 2, 1982, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands At 4:30 A.M., helicopters had started to land on Mullet Creek; they were the first of the many invaders from Argentina. At 6:08 A.M., an attack was at full fledge. The Argentina government had claimed that they told their men it was to be a bloodless fight,…
Tip was a man who was not bashful to call himself “a man of the house.” Thomas P. O’Neill was a person whose greatest charm was that he seemed “completely out-of-date as a politician.” (Clift) He was a gruff, drinking, card playing, backroom kind of guy. He had an image that political candidates pay consultants…
The Ute Indians were a group of Indians that lived mostly around the mountainous area of Utah and Colorado near the Colorado River. But they sometimes lived in dessert areas also. The word Ute comes from the word eutaw or yuta which means dwellers on the top of mountains. Although it is not certain where…
For seven centuries, the Samurai were Japan’s warrior class. As a class of warriors and knights, they dominated society in feudal Japan. Their code or “Way of the warrior”, bushido (History of the Samurai-www), called for a life of duty, discipline and self control, on and as well as off the battlefield (History of the…
There were many reasons for the downfall of the Middle Ages, but the most crucial ones were the decline of the feudal system, and the declination of the Church’s power over the nation-states. In feudal society, everyone had a definite place and a definite role, with the power resting in the hands of the local…
The Crusades were military expeditions planned and carried out by western European Christians. The crusades started around 1095. The purpose of these crusades was to overtake and gain control of the Holy Land from the Muslims. The Holy Land was Jerusalem and the Christians believed that gaining control of it was their fate. The pope…
The summer of 1871 had been an unusually dry one in Chicago. Between July and October, only 5 inches of rain fell. In addition to twenty-seven fires in the first week of October, on Saturday night, October 7, a blaze broke out in a planning mill on the West Side and destroyed almost every building…
Skylab was America’s first experimental space station. Some of Skylab’s program objectives were: To prove that humans could live and work in space for extended periods, and to expand our knowledge of solar astronomy well beyond Earth-based observations. Skylab made much use of Saturn and Apollo equipment. Through the use of a “dry” third stage…
When Rome established a republic in 509 B.C., two major classes developed. The patricians controlled the government with a Senate, made up of 300 elected officials. The senate chose two consuls to administer the laws of Rome. The only power that plebeians had in the government was with a popular assembly, which approved the choice…
Robert Edward Lee was born of two distinguished Virginia families. He was a devoted son, an outstanding Westpoint cadet, and an United States army officer for thirty two years. He graduated second in his class. Lee started his impressive Military career as a Lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers. His first assignment was to work…
In the summer of 1966 there was a new effort on the part of the head leaders in China to further control the actions and thoughts of the people in China. The Red Guards were the force to do it all. A group of kids who mostly in their teens and some in college were…
The area of Nicaragua is 50,193 sq. mi. The Nicaraguan highlands, with an elevation about 2000 ft, cross Nicaragua from the northwest to the southeast. Several mountain ranges, the highest of which, the Cordillera Isabelia, reaches an elevation of more than 6890 ft, cut the highlands from east to west. In the west is a…
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela is judged to be one of the greatest political leaders of modern times. Among his many accomplishments are the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize for his dedication to the fight against racial oppression in South Africa and establishing democracy there and becoming the president of South Africa in 1994 following their first multiracial…
Napoleon Bonaparte was born in 1769 and died in 1821. Napoleon was a military genius for the loyalty of his troops, and for his spectacular victories. The many change of the government in France, against the background of war, made possible the rise of a military dictator. Since childhood, Napoleon was taught strategies and tactics…
