On December 22, 1853, a new steamship left New York on its maiden voyage. The San Francisco—perhaps the finest ocean-going vessel of its time—had been chartered by the U.S. Government to transport the
Magic, both benevolent (white) and malign (black), has been practiced in the British Isles since at least the Iron Age (800 BCE–CE 43). “Curse tablets”—metal plates inscribed with curses intended to h
Captain George N. Bliss of the First Rhode Island Cavalry survived some 27 actions during the Civil War. Midway through the war, he served nine months at a conscript training camp in Connecticut, wher
Hollywood studios were once eager to bring stand-up comedy king Richard Pryor’s dynamic humor to the big screen—so much so that studio executives gave him full access to available resources and creati
James Gunn—one of the founding figures of science fiction scholarship and teaching—wrote in 1951 what is likely the first master’s thesis on modern science fiction. Portions appeared in the short-live
Part sports journalism, part history, part memoir, this many-sided narrative follows one season with the Blue Devils of Moscow, Idaho—a rural American Legion baseball team. Showcasing baseball’s endur
Formed in 1916, the U.S. Army 31st Infantry Regiment—known as the Polar Bears—has fought in virtually every war in modern American history. This richly illustrated chronicle of the regiment’s century
Operating outside the commercial boundaries of Hollywood cinema, alternative and independent filmmakers have much to offer the discriminating viewer. Yet they struggle for a place in the popular cultu
Though Charles Chaplin is commonly remembered as a silent film comedian, it is not widely recalled that he continued to make movies long after the introduction of sound. His sound films have often bee
Over the past 60 seasons, the Los Angeles Dodgers have risen to the pinnacle of Major League Baseball, winning 21 National League pennants and 6 World Series titles. Amid the backdrop of Hollywood gli
What are the titles of the largest and smallest books in the world? Which is the library with the largest budget? When were the first 10 university libraries in Asia founded? Where can one find the ol
Nineteen-twenty was a crucial year not just for the Chicago White Sox but for the game of baseball, in the aftermath of the 1919 World Series scandal. This work is both a collective biography of four
Since her first appearance in 1991, Harley Quinn—eccentric female sidekick to the Joker—has captured the attention of readers like few new characters have in eight decades of Batman comics. Her bubbly
In 1962, a unique transport aircraft was built from the parts of 27 Boeing B-377 airliners to provide NASA with a means of transporting rocket boosters. With an interior the size of a gymnasium, "The
First used to gauge New England's ever-changing weather, now viewed as American folk art, historic weathervanes have been a part of the region's skyline for more than three centuries. Focusing on exam
In the spring of 1916, an unknown photographer captured the heart of Prescott, Arizona. For decades the fruits of that labor, a collection of glass plate negatives, lay largely forgotten in the local
Thomas Burr Fisher was one of five brothers who served, between them, in the Fourth and Eleventh Tennessee Cavalry Regiments, Confederate States Army, with remarkable devotion. Using Fisher’s two memo
Drawing from a large number of college course syllabi, Nevins limits each author to two novels in order to include as many different canonical authors as possible within the space allowed. She aims to
