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| craziest events in history: Flawless: Inside the Largest Diamond Heist in History Scott Andrew Selby, Greg Campbell, 2010 Tells the story with the gripping pace of a true-crime 'Ocean's Eleven.' The New York Post • Like a diamond, this true-life caper is clear, colorful, and brilliant. Publishers Weekly ★Starred Review★ The Antwerp Diamond Center was one of the most secure buildings in the world. With hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of diamonds stored in its subterranean vault, it had to be. Located in the heart of Belgium's ultra-secure Antwerp Diamond District, it benefited from two police stations, armed patrols, extensive video surveillance, and vehicle barriers securing an area where 80 percent of the world's diamonds traded hands. But on February 15, 2003, a band of skilled Italian thieves — fronted by the charming Leonardo Notarbartolo, who spent over two years clandestinely casing the building — subverted every one of the Diamond Center's defenses and made off with a record amount of loot. Experts estimate they got away with nearly half a billion dollars in diamonds, cash and other valuables. They'd pulled off the biggest heist in history--everybody loves diamonds and they now had more than any thief before them. The robbers did it with stealth and smarts; no one was hurt or even threatened during what was quickly labeled the largest diamond heist in history. The bandits — members of a group of professional thieves known as The School of Turin — used cunning in lieu of violence, successfully evading security cameras, thwarting an array of electronic sensors, and penetrating a vault protected by a double-locked foot-thick steel door. Even when the police zeroed in on who committed the crime, how it was done remained a mystery, like something out of a heist movie or TV show. Flawless is a fast-paced global scavenger hunt uncovering the truth behind the daring Valentine's Day weekend heist. Tracking clues, sources, and documents throughout Europe — from seedy cafés in Turin, Italy to sleek diamond offices in Antwerp, Belgium — authors Scott Selby and Greg Campbell retrace Notarbartolo's careful discovery of the building's security flaws. They recreate the heist and its aftermath — detailing how the thieves brilliantly neutralized each element of the security protecting the Diamond Center's vault while inviting the readers into the secretive world of diamonds and diamond dealing. The result is a thrilling ride through the better-than-fiction heist of the century. Fans of caper books and movies will be in seventh heaven. Booklist ★Starred Review★ |
| craziest events in history: Dark Tide Stephen Puleo, 2019-01-15 A new 100th anniversary edition of the only adult book on one of the odder disasters in US history—and the greed, disregard for poor immigrants, and lack of safety standards that led to it. Around noon on January 15, 1919, a group of firefighters were playing cards in Boston’s North End when they heard a tremendous crash. It was like roaring surf, one of them said later. Like a runaway two-horse team smashing through a fence, said another. A third firefighter jumped up from his chair to look out a window—“Oh my God!” he shouted to the other men, “Run!” A 50-foot-tall steel tank filled with 2.3 million gallons of molasses had just collapsed on Boston’s waterfront, disgorging its contents as a 15-foot-high wave of molasses that at its outset traveled at 35 miles an hour. It demolished wooden homes, even the brick fire station. The number of dead wasn’t known for days. It would be years before a landmark court battle determined who was responsible for the disaster. |
| craziest events in history: 1919 The Year That Changed America Martin W. Sandler, 2019-11-07 WINNER OF THE 2019 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD 1919 was a world-shaking year. America was recovering from World War I and black soldiers returned to racism so violent that that summer would become known as the Red Summer. The suffrage movement had a long-fought win when women gained the right to vote. Laborers took to the streets to protest working conditions; nationalistic fervor led to a communism scare; and temperance gained such traction that prohibition went into effect. Each of these movements reached a tipping point that year. Now, one hundred years later, these same social issues are more relevant than ever. Sandler traces the momentum and setbacks of these movements through this last century, showing that progress isn't always a straight line and offering a unique lens through which we can understand history and the change many still seek. |
| craziest events in history: Great Events that Changed the World Richard Platt, 1998-06-30 From crusades to world wars, from ancient monuments to bloody revolutions, here is a fascinating tour of the historical events that have helped shape the world today. How did the ancient Egyptians build the Great Pyramid? How did Alexander the Great conquer so much of the world? How did the Vikings accidentally discover North America? Who led the reign of terror in the French revolution? Who stormed the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg? Who was Lawrence of Arabia? When was communism born? When did Montezuma rule? When was the Normandy invasion? With perspective, scope, and clarity to great events in history, this book answers these questions and many, many more. Great Events that Changed the World shows children the history of our amazing world in easy-to-follow panoramic tableaux and maps. Filled with superbly detailed artwork and exciting text, this is a valuable and enjoyable source book for the entire family. |
| craziest events in history: America's Best History Timeline Americasbesthistory Com, 2013-11 A timeline of historic events from the 1500's to the present day in American history, categorized by decade and year brought to you by the staff at America's Best History and americasbesthistory.com. Quick and easy to search reference guide enumerating the most important events of each year for students or anyone who wants to keep american history in context and how it unfolded at their fingertips. The editors at americasbesthistory.com has put together this timeline of American history in an easy to read fashion, which mirrors the way the website categorizes the most important events of each year. It is meant as a clear and concise account of the events in short paragraph form, without an overly academic tone. You won't find footnotes and opinion, but you will find a good starting off place to dive more deeply into each subject and as a reminder of how the events of United States history took shape, about how the population of the nation grew, about how politics and political events shaped each decade, and about our national parks and heritage that tell the stories of each. The information provided within this timeline was gleaned from various sources, as well as the knowledge and experience of the America's Best History staff, and should not be considered a scholarly work per se, but as a jumping off point for the reader to go into more detail about a particular topic of their interest. |
| craziest events in history: To Tame a River United States. Agency for International Development, 1968 |
| craziest events in history: Unbelievable Katy Tur, 2017-09-12 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “Compelling… this book couldn’t be more timely.” – Jill Abramson, New York Times Book Review From the Recipient of the 2017 Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism Called disgraceful, third-rate, and not nice by Donald Trump, NBC News correspondent Katy Tur reported on—and took flak from—the most captivating and volatile presidential candidate in American history. Katy Tur lived out of a suitcase for a year and a half, following Trump around the country, powered by packets of peanut butter and kept clean with dry shampoo. She visited forty states with the candidate, made more than 3,800 live television reports, and tried to endure a gazillion loops of Elton John’s Tiny Dancer—a Trump rally playlist staple. From day 1 to day 500, Tur documented Trump’s inconsistencies, fact-checked his falsities, and called him out on his lies. In return, Trump repeatedly singled Tur out. He tried to charm her, intimidate her, and shame her. At one point, he got a crowd so riled up against Tur, Secret Service agents had to walk her to her car. None of it worked. Facts are stubborn. So was Tur. She was part of the first women-led politics team in the history of network news. The Boys on the Bus became the Girls on the Plane. But the circus remained. Through all the long nights, wild scoops, naked chauvinism, dodgy staffers, and fevered debates, no one had a better view than Tur. Unbelievable is her darkly comic, fascinatingly bizarre, and often scary story of how America sent a former reality show host to the White House. It’s also the story of what it was like for Tur to be there as it happened, inside a no-rules world where reporters were spat on, demeaned, and discredited. Tur was a foreign correspondent who came home to her most foreign story of all. Unbelievable is a must-read for anyone who still wakes up and wonders, Is this real life? |
| craziest events in history: Day the Universe Changed James Burke, 2009-11-11 The companion volume for the award-winning PBS and BBC series from “one of the most intriguing minds in the western world” (The Washington Post). The Day the Universe Changed presents a sweeping view of the history of science, technology, and human civilization and examines the moments in history when a change in knowledge radically altered man’s understanding of himself and the world around him. James Burke examines eight periods in history when our view of the world shifted dramatically: In the eleventh century, when extraordinary discoveries were made by Spanish crusaders In fourteenth-century Florence, where perspective in painting emerged In the fifteenth century, when the advent of the printing press shook the foundations of an oral society In the sixteenth century, when gunnery developments triggered the birth of modern science In the early eighteenth century, when hot English summers brought on the Industrial Revolution In the battlefield surgery stations of the French revolutionary armies, where people first became statistics In the nineteenth century, when the discovery of dinosaur fossils led to the theory of evolution In the 1820s, when electrical experiments heralded the end of scientific certainty Based on the popular television documentary series, The Day the Universe Changed is a bestselling history that challenges the reader to decide whether there is absolute knowledge to discover—or whether the universe is “ultimately what we say it is.” “A masterful job. The result is a fascinating, focused view that boggles the mind.” —Charleston Evening Post |
| craziest events in history: The Great Cat Massacre Robert Darnton, 2009-05-12 The landmark history of France and French culture in the eighteenth-century, a winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize When the apprentices of a Paris printing shop in the 1730s held a series of mock trials and then hanged all the cats they could lay their hands on, why did they find it so hilariously funny that they choked with laughter when they reenacted it in pantomime some twenty times? Why in the eighteenth-century version of Little Red Riding Hood did the wolf eat the child at the end? What did the anonymous townsman of Montpelier have in mind when he kept an exhaustive dossier on all the activities of his native city? These are some of the provocative questions the distinguished Harvard historian Robert Darnton answers The Great Cat Massacre, a kaleidoscopic view of European culture during in what we like to call The Age of Enlightenment. A classic of European history, it is an essential starting point for understanding Enlightenment France. |
| craziest events in history: Shivaji Ranjit Desai, 2017-12-15 'The epic text of Ranjit Desai's Shriman Yogi finds new voice in Vikrant Pande's nuanced translation, an immersive narrative of the foundations of the Maratha empire and the saga of its charismatic founder.' - Namita Gokhale. Young Shivaji reaches Pune, a dying fort city, with his mother Jijabai and lights the first lamp within its ruins. While his father Shahaji Bhosle is away on deputation by the Adil Shah sultanate after having failed in a revolt against it, Shivaji learns how an empire is built from the ground up. Thus begins the life of the Great Maratha. What awaits Shivaji is nothing short of the vast scroll of history, and it takes him from Surat to Thanjavur and all the way to Aurangzeb's durbar in Agra. He dreams of freeing his land from the clutches of Mughal rule, and though he suffers many defeats and personal losses along the way he never gives up his vision of Hindavi Swaraj. Amidst political intrigue and a chain of skirmishes, Shivaji becomes a leader, a warrior and a tactician par excellence, driven by immense pride and love for his motherland. |
| craziest events in history: A People's History of the United States Howard Zinn, 2003-02-04 Since its original landmark publication in 1980, A People's History of the United States has been chronicling American history from the bottom up, throwing out the official version of history taught in schools -- with its emphasis on great men in high places -- to focus on the street, the home, and the, workplace. Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, A People's History is the only volume to tell America's story from the point of view of -- and in the words of -- America's women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, the working poor, and immigrant laborers. As historian Howard Zinn shows, many of our country's greatest battles -- the fights for a fair wage, an eight-hour workday, child-labor laws, health and safety standards, universal suffrage, women's rights, racial equality -- were carried out at the grassroots level, against bloody resistance. Covering Christopher Columbus's arrival through President Clinton's first term, A People's History of the United States, which was nominated for the American Book Award in 1981, features insightful analysis of the most important events in our history. Revised, updated, and featuring a new after, word by the author, this special twentieth anniversary edition continues Zinn's important contribution to a complete and balanced understanding of American history. |
| craziest events in history: The Pig Book Citizens Against Government Waste, 2013-09-17 The federal government wastes your tax dollars worse than a drunken sailor on shore leave. The 1984 Grace Commission uncovered that the Department of Defense spent $640 for a toilet seat and $436 for a hammer. Twenty years later things weren't much better. In 2004, Congress spent a record-breaking $22.9 billion dollars of your money on 10,656 of their pork-barrel projects. The war on terror has a lot to do with the record $413 billion in deficit spending, but it's also the result of pork over the last 18 years the likes of: - $50 million for an indoor rain forest in Iowa - $102 million to study screwworms which were long ago eradicated from American soil - $273,000 to combat goth culture in Missouri - $2.2 million to renovate the North Pole (Lucky for Santa!) - $50,000 for a tattoo removal program in California - $1 million for ornamental fish research Funny in some instances and jaw-droppingly stupid and wasteful in others, The Pig Book proves one thing about Capitol Hill: pork is king! |
| craziest events in history: Discovering the Civil War , 2010 Peels back years of accumulated analysis, interpretation, and opinion to reveal the human face of history. |
| craziest events in history: The Medieval Crossbow ELLIS-GORMAN STUART, 2022-05-30 The crossbow is an iconic weapon of the Middle Ages and, alongside the longbow, one of the most effective ranged weapons of the pre-gunpowder era. Unfortunately, despite its general fame it has been decades since an in-depth history of the medieval crossbow has been published, which is why Stuart Ellis-Gorman's detailed, accessible, and highly illustrated study is so valuable. The Medieval Crossbow approaches the history of the crossbow from two directions. The first is a technical study of the design and construction of the medieval crossbow, the many different kinds of crossbows used during the Middle Ages, and finally a consideration of the relationship between crossbows and art. The second half of the book explores the history of the crossbow, from its origins in ancient China to its decline in sixteenth-century Europe. Along the way it explores the challenges in deciphering the crossbow's early medieval history as well as its prominence in warfare and sport shooting in the High and Later Middle Ages. This fascinating book brings together the work of a wide range of accomplished crossbow scholars and incorporates the author's own original research to create an account of the medieval crossbow that will appeal to anyone looking to gain an insight into one of the most important weapons of the Middle Ages. |
| craziest events in history: Connections James Burke, 1978 |
| craziest events in history: Food for the Dead Michael E. Bell, 2013-04-16 These stories of vampire legends and gruesome nineteenth-century practices is “a major contribution to the study of New England folk beliefs” (The Boston Globe). For nineteenth-century New Englanders, “vampires” lurked behind tuberculosis. To try to rid their houses and communities from the scourge of the wasting disease, families sometimes relied on folk practices, including exhuming and consuming the bodies of the deceased. Folklorist Michael E. Bell spent twenty years pursuing stories of the vampire in New England. While writers like H.P. Lovecraft, Henry David Thoreau, and Amy Lowell drew on portions of these stories in their writings, Bell brings the actual practices to light for the first time. He shows that the belief in vampires was widespread, and, for some families, lasted well into the twentieth century. With humor, insight, and sympathy, he uncovers story upon story of dying men, women, and children who believed they were food for the dead. “A marvelous book.” —Providence Journal Includes an updated preface covering newly discovered cases. |
| craziest events in history: The Napoleonic Wars in 100 Facts Jem Duducu, 2015-05-15 Discover the history behind the facts |
| craziest events in history: The 100-year Secret Benjamin Jacobs, Eugene Pool, 2004 It's the story no one would tell. On May 3, 1945, the Royal Air Force attacked a fleet of ships carrying more than seven thousand survivors of the Neuengamme concentration camp. The war was nearly over, and the survivors had endured one of history's most hellish ordeals, only to die at the hands of their allies. The bodies, in the striped white-and-black uniforms of camp prisoners, were soon washing ashore on the beach by the town of Timmendorf, near the Baltic port of Neustadt. Benjamin Jacobs, then twenty-five, survived by escaping the hold and clinging to wreckage. He was one of only 350 survivors, and one of the last of those. Days before, Jacobs had boarded the Cap Arcona, along with thousands of other prisoners. A commandeered luxury liner, the Cap Arcona was a dilapidated wreck. Nearby, the freighter Thielbek, in similar condition, was also attacked. There is reason to believe the Germans were intending to sink the Cap Arcona themselves. Though they claimed the prisoners were headed to Sweden, the ships may have been nonfunctional. The Royal Air Force believed the ships contained escaping SS officers. Tragically, British intelligence may have known who was on the ships, which may explain why the RAF has sealed the records until 2045. In The 100-Year Secret Benjamin Jacobs collaborates with writer Eugene Pool to describe his miraculous escape from a burning transport ship that was once one of the most glamorous ocean liners of the early twentieth century, and investigates why the incident, which will have its 60th anniversary in May, 2005, appears in no history books. The governments of Germany and Great Britain continue to refuse either to discuss it or to release pertinent records, The 100-Year Secret is the first complete account in English of this horrific and suppressed tragedy. It is also the first book-length description by an actual survivor. Furthermore, it contains new information about the incident, its participants, and its perpetrators not found in previous accounts. It is both the riveting personal story of a man who refused to give up, no matter what the circumstances, and an important revision of both Jewish and world history. |
| craziest events in history: Freedom Riders Raymond Arsenault, 2011-03-11 The saga of the Freedom Rides is an improbable, almost unbelievable story. In the course of six months in 1961, four hundred and fifty Freedom Riders expanded the realm of the possible in American politics, redefining the limits of dissent and setting the stage for the civil rights movement. In this new version of his encyclopedic Freedom Riders, Raymond Arsenault offers a significantly condensed and tautly written account. With characters and plot lines rivaling those of the most imaginative fiction, this is a tale of heroic sacrifice and unexpected triumph. Arsenault recounts how a group of volunteers--blacks and whites--came together to travel from Washington DC through the Deep South, defying Jim Crow laws in buses and terminals and putting their lives on the line for racial justice. News photographers captured the violence in Montgomery, shocking the nation and sparking a crisis in the Kennedy administration. Here are the key players--their fears and courage, their determination and second thoughts, and the agonizing choices they faced as they took on Jim Crow--and triumphed. Winner of the Owsley Prize Publication is timed to coincide with the airing of the American Experience miniseries documenting the Freedom Rides Arsenault brings vividly to life a defining moment in modern American history. --Eric Foner, The New York Times Book Review Authoritative, compelling history. --William Grimes, The New York Times For those interested in understanding 20th-century America, this is an essential book. --Roger Wilkins, Washington Post Book World Arsenault's record of strategy sessions, church vigils, bloody assaults, mass arrests, political maneuverings and personal anguish captures the mood and the turmoil, the excitement and the confusion of the movement and the time. --Michael Kenney, The Boston Globe |
| craziest events in history: Marie Antoinette Antonia Fraser, 2002-11-12 France's iconic queen, Marie Antoinette, wrongly accused of uttering the infamous Let them eat cake, was alternately revered and reviled during her lifetime. For centuries since, she has been the object of debate, speculation, and the fascination so often accorded illustrious figures in history. Married in mere girlhood, this essentially lighthearted child was thrust onto the royal stage and commanded by circumstance to play a significant role in European history. Antonia Fraser's lavish and engaging portrait excites compassion and regard for all aspects of the queen, immersing the reader not only in the coming-of-age of a graceful woman, but in the culture of an unparalleled time and place. |
| craziest events in history: Military Blunders Saul David, 2012-09-06 Retelling the most spectacular cock-ups in military history, this graphic account has a great deal to say about the psychology of military incompetence and the reasons even the most well-oiled military machines inflict disaster upon themselves. Beginning in AD9 with the massacre of Varus and his legions in the Black Forest all the way up to present day conflict in Afghanistan it analyses why things go wrong on the battlefield and who is to blame. |
| craziest events in history: Whole New Religion Bob Jakubovic, 2002-01-15 When Felix Sladkey, cult writer and famous recluse, decides to write another novel after a nine-year absence, a madcap plot of counterfeit, superstardom and power ensnares everyone from the typist's teenage neighbor to the literary agent to the local bartender. First-time novelist Bob Jakubovic playfully takes aim at the publishing industry in this, his first novel. |
| craziest events in history: Roosevelt and de Gaulle Raoul Aglion, 1988 In this riveting personal history, Aglion, de Gaulle's trusted emissary who established the Free France delegation in the United States, explains the personal and political factors which bred Franklin Roosevelt and Charles de Gaulle's intense mutual animosity. Black-and-white photos. |
| craziest events in history: A Lady for a Duke Alexis Hall, 2022-05-24 From the bestselling author of Husband Material comes a lush, sweeping queer historical romance where sparks fly between childhood friends after a life-changing separation—perfect for fans of Bridgerton, Evie Dunmore, and Lisa Kleypas! When Viola Carroll was presumed dead at Waterloo she took the opportunity to live, at last, as herself. But freedom does not come without a price, and Viola paid for hers with the loss of her wealth, her title, and her closest companion, Justin de Vere, the Duke of Gracewood. Only when their families reconnect, years after the war, does Viola learn how deep that loss truly was. Shattered without her, Gracewood has retreated so far into grief that Viola barely recognises her old friend in the lonely, brooding man he has become. As Viola strives to bring Gracewood back to himself, fresh desires give new names to old feelings. Feelings that would have been impossible once and may be impossible still, but which Viola cannot deny. Even if they cost her everything, all over again. |
| craziest events in history: On This Day in History Graeme Donald, 2014-09-18 On This Day in History looks back at all 365 days of the year and provides short, riveting entries on the most significant events in history that occurred on that day. |
| craziest events in history: The Last Centurion John Ringo, 2008-08-01 Centurions were the guardians of Rome. At the height of the Roman Republic there were over five thousand qualified Roman Centurions in the Legions. To be a Centurion required that, in a mostly illiterate society, one be able to read and write clearly, to be able to convey and create orders, to be capable of not only performing every skill of a Roman soldier but teach every skill of a Roman soldier. Becoming a Centurion required intense physical ability, courage beyond the norm, years of sacrifice and a total devotion to the philosophy which was Rome. When Rome fell to barbarian invaders, there were less than five hundred qualified Centurions. Not because Rome had fewer people but because it had fewer willing to make the sacrifices. And the last Centurions left their shields in the heather and took a barbarian bride . . . We are . . . The Last Centurions. At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management). |
| craziest events in history: Berlin Diary William L. Shirer, 2011-10-23 The author of the international bestseller The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich offers a personal account of life in Nazi Germany at the start of WWII. By the late 1930s, Adolf Hitler, Führer of the Nazi Party, had consolidated power in Germany and was leading the world into war. A young foreign correspondent was on hand to bear witness. More than two decades prior to the publication of his acclaimed history, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William L. Shirer was a journalist stationed in Berlin. During his years in the Nazi capital, he kept a daily personal diary, scrupulously recording everything he heard and saw before being forced to flee the country in 1940. Berlin Diary is Shirer’s first-hand account of the momentous events that shook the world in the mid-twentieth century, from the annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia to the fall of Poland and France. A remarkable personal memoir of an extraordinary time, it chronicles the author’s thoughts and experiences while living in the shadow of the Nazi beast. Shirer recalls the surreal spectacles of the Nuremberg rallies, the terror of the late-night bombing raids, and his encounters with members of the German high command while he was risking his life to report to the world on the atrocities of a genocidal regime. At once powerful, engrossing, and edifying, William L. Shirer’s Berlin Diary is an essential historical record that illuminates one of the darkest periods in human civilization. |
| craziest events in history: Strange and Obscure Stories of Washington, DC Rowland, Tim, 2018-03-20 Strange and Obscure Stories of Washington, DC is a collection of wild but true tales about our nation’s capital. Starting in the early days of the republic and reaching into modern times, the book recounts odd and humorous events that didn’t make their way into the history books. Along the way the book introduces a host of memorable characters: • Land speculators James Greenleaf and Robert Morris, whose financial shenanigans almost took down the Federal City before it was even established • Civil War madam Mary Ann Hall, who ran the city’s most upstanding brothel and died with an estate valued at $2 million • The “Treasury Girls—the first wave of female workers, hired to cut individual bills from printed sheets of cash (with scissors), who prompted a government investigation into immoral behavior in the workplace • The NSA’s secret staff of African Americans who went to work in code rooms after Harry Truman desegregated the federal workforce • The 1960s activist who drew attention to a rat problem in poor neighborhoods by shuttling them in his station wagon to the toniest parts of Georgetown Readers will also find out how a hurricane saved the city in 1812, how a demonstration of the world’s largest naval gun nearly killed the president, and about the tree at Washington Cathedral whose origins trace back to the Holy Land at the time of Joseph of Arimathea. With Strange and Obscure Stories of Washington, DC in hand, the city will never seem the same again. |
| craziest events in history: extreme weather , 2015 |
| craziest events in history: Operation Keelhaul Julius Epstein, 1973 Twelve-year-old Margaret hardly knows whether to look forward to a chance to mingle with the famous at her cousins' country home, or dread the mess her brothers' mischief will make of the situation. |
| craziest events in history: Oh, Florida! Craig Pittman, 2016-07-05 A fun- and fact-filled investigation into why the Sunshine State is the weirdest but also the most influential state in the Union. |
| craziest events in history: An Underground Education Richard Zacks, 2010-10-06 The best kind of knowledge is uncommon knowledge. Okay, so maybe you know all the stuff you're supposed to know--that there are teenier things than atoms, that Remembrance of Things Past has something to do with a perfumed cookie, that the Monroe Doctrine means we get to take over small South American countries when we feel like it. But really, is this kind of knowledge going to make you the hit of the cocktail party, or the loser spending forty-five minutes examining the host's bookshelves? Wouldn't you rather learn things like how the invention of the bicycle affected the evolution of underwear? Or that the 1949 Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded to a doctor who performed lobotomies with a household ice pick? Or how Catherine the Great really died? Or that heroin was sold over the counter not too long ago? For the truly well-rounded intellectual, nothing fascinates so much as the subversive, the contrarian, the suppressed, and the bizarre. Richard Zacks, auto-didact extraordinaire, has unloosed his admittedly strange mind and astonishing research abilities upon the entire spectrum of human knowledge, ferreting out endlessly fascinating facts, stories, photos, and images guaranteed to make you laugh, gasp in wonder, and occasionally shudder at the depths of human depravity. The result of his labors is this fantastically illustrated quasi-encyclopedia that provides alternative takes on art, business, crime, science, medicine, sex (lots of that), and many other facets of human experience. Immensely entertaining, and arguably enlightening, An Underground Education is the only book that explains the birth of motion pictures using photos of naked baseball players. Richard Zacks is the author of History Laid Bare: Love, Sex and Perversity from the Ancient Etruscans to Warren G. Harding, which was excerpted in classy magazines like Harper's and earned the attention of the even classier New York Times, which noted that Zacks specializes in the raunchy and perverse. The Georgia State Legislature voted on whether to ban the book from public libraries. He has studied Arabic, Greek, Latin, French, Italian, and Hebrew, and received the Phillips Classical Greek Award at the University of Michigan. He has also told his publisher that he made a living in Cairo cheating royalty from a certain Arab country at games of chance, although the claim remains unverified. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, Time, Life, Sports Illustrated, The Village Voice, TV Guide, and similarly diverse publications. Zacks is married and busy warping the minds of his two children, Georgia and Ziegfield. He resides in New York City, and can be reached via e-mail at rzacks@echonyc.com. |
| craziest events in history: Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral Phillis Wheatley, 1887 |
| craziest events in history: These Truths: A History of the United States Jill Lepore, 2018-09-18 “Nothing short of a masterpiece.” —NPR Books A New York Times Bestseller and a Washington Post Notable Book of the Year In the most ambitious one-volume American history in decades, award-winning historian Jill Lepore offers a magisterial account of the origins and rise of a divided nation. Widely hailed for its “sweeping, sobering account of the American past” (New York Times Book Review), Jill Lepore’s one-volume history of America places truth itself—a devotion to facts, proof, and evidence—at the center of the nation’s history. The American experiment rests on three ideas—“these truths,” Jefferson called them—political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people. But has the nation, and democracy itself, delivered on that promise? These Truths tells this uniquely American story, beginning in 1492, asking whether the course of events over more than five centuries has proven the nation’s truths, or belied them. To answer that question, Lepore wrestles with the state of American politics, the legacy of slavery, the persistence of inequality, and the nature of technological change. “A nation born in contradiction… will fight, forever, over the meaning of its history,” Lepore writes, but engaging in that struggle by studying the past is part of the work of citizenship. With These Truths, Lepore has produced a book that will shape our view of American history for decades to come. |
| craziest events in history: The Last Battle Stephen Harding, 2013-05-07 The incredible story of the unlikeliest battle of World War II, when a small group of American soldiers joined forces with German soldiers to fight off fanatical SS troops May, 1945. Hitler is dead, the Third Reich is little more than smoking rubble, and no GI wants to be the last man killed in action against the Nazis. The Last Battle tells the nearly unbelievable story of the unlikeliest battle of the war, when a small group of American tankers, led by Captain Lee, joined forces with German soldiers to fight off fanatical SS troops seeking to capture Castle Itter and execute the stronghold's VIP prisoners. It is a tale of unlikely allies, startling bravery, jittery suspense, and desperate combat between implacable enemies. |
| craziest events in history: Murder by Injection Eustace Clarence Mullins, 2016-04-21 T he present work, the result of some forty years of investigative research, is a logical progression from my previous books: the expose of the international control of monetary issue and banking practices in the United States; a later work revealing the secret network of organizations through which these alien forces wield political power-the secret committees, foundations, and political parties through which their hidden plans are implemented; and now; to the most vital issue of all, the manner in which these depredations affect the daily lives and health of American citizens. Despite the great power of the hidden rulers, I found that only one group has the power to issue life or death sentences to any American-our nation's physicians. I discovered that these physicians, despite their great power, were themselves subjected to very strict controls over every aspect of their professional lives. These controls, surprisingly enough, were not wielded by any state or federal agency, although almost every other aspect of American life is now under the absolute control of the bureaucracy. The physicians have their own autocracy, a private trade association, the American Medical Association. This group, which is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, had gradually built up its power until it assumed total control over medical schools and the accreditation of physicians. The trail of these manipulators led me straight to the same lairs of the international conspirators whom I had exposed in previous books. I knew that they had already looted America, reduced its military power to a dangerously low level, and imposed bureaucratic controls on every American. I now discovered that their conspiracies also directly affected the health of every American. This conspiracy has resulted in a documented decline in the health of our citizens. We now rank far down the list of civilized nations in infant mortality and other significant medical statistics. I was able to document the shocking record of these cold-blooded tycoons who not only plan and carry out famines, economic depressions, revolutions and wars, but who also find their greatest profits in their manipulations of our medical care. The cynicism and malice of these conspirators is something beyond the imagination of most Americans. They deliberately mulct our people of millions of dollars each year through ''charitable'' organizations and then use these same organizations as key groups to bolster their Medical Monopoly. Fear and intimidation are the basic techniques by which the conspirators maintain their control over all aspects of our health care, as they ruthlessly crush any competitor who challenges their profits. As in other aspects of their ''behavioural control'' over the American people, their most constantly used weapon against us is their employment of federal agents and federal agencies to carry out their intrigues. The proof of this operation may be the most disturbing revelation of my work. |
| craziest events in history: Dead Famous Greg Jenner, 2021-08-19 Celebrity, with its neon glow and selfie pout, strikes us as hypermodern. But the famous and infamous have been thrilling, titillating, and outraging us for much longer than we might realise. Whether it was the scandalous Lord Byron, whose poetry sent female fans into an erotic frenzy; or the cheetah-owning, coffin-sleeping, one-legged French actress Sarah Bernhardt, who launched a violent feud with her former best friend; or Edmund Kean, the dazzling Shakespearean actor whose monstrous ego and terrible alcoholism saw him nearly murdered by his own audience - the list of stars whose careers burned bright before the Age of Television is extensive and thrillingly varied. Celebrities could be heroes or villains; warriors or murderers; brilliant talents, or fraudsters with a flair for fibbing; trendsetters, wilful provocateurs, or tragic victims marketed as freaks of nature. Some craved fame while others had it forced upon them. A few found fame as small children, some had to wait decades to get their break. But uniting them all is the shared origin point: since the early 1700s, celebrity has been one of the most emphatic driving forces in popular culture; it is a lurid cousin to Ancient Greek ideas of glorious and notorious reputation, and its emergence helped to shape public attitudes to ethics, national identity, religious faith, wealth, sexuality, and gender roles. In this ambitious history, that spans the Bronze Age to the coming of Hollywood's Golden Age, Greg Jenner assembles a vibrant cast of over 125 actors, singers, dancers, sportspeople, freaks, demigods, ruffians, and more, in search of celebrity's historical roots. He reveals why celebrity burst into life in the early eighteenth century, how it differs to ancient ideas of fame, the techniques through which it was acquired, how it was maintained, the effect it had on public tastes, and the psychological burden stardom could place on those in the glaring limelight. |
| craziest events in history: Meet Kit, an American Girl Valerie Tripp, 2000 For more than 15 years, The American Girls Collection has captivated readers with its tales of heart, hope and history. Millions of girls have fallen in love with the series' strong, appealing heroines |
| craziest events in history: Game Master: Mansion Mystery Rebecca Zamolo, Matt Slays, 2022-03-01 New York Times bestselling authors and creators of the mega-popular YouTube series Game Master Network Matt and Rebecca Zamolo return with a brand-new adventure about everyone’s favorite mystery-solving team. Rebecca Zamolo has managed to foil the Game Master’s plans before, but this time the Game Master has snake-napped Nacho, her good friend Miguel’s pet. No way is Becca going to let the Game Master get away with this dastardly plan. But when the clues lead Becca and her new friends in the direction of the one house in their entire neighborhood that none of them ever want to go near, they know they have no choice but to screw up their courage and dare to investigate, if they want to rescue Nacho. But the problem is that getting into the superspooky house is way easier than getting out. The Game Master is up to their old tricks, and Becca, Matt, Kylie, Frankie, and Miguel are going to have to face their fears and use all their smarts and strengths to solve the puzzles and games and save the day. Mansion Mystery is another action-packed adventure from New York Times bestselling authors and super-sleuthing team Rebecca and Matt Zamolo, stars of the hugely popular Game Master Network. Read the book and unlock special clues that will open exclusive content online! |
| craziest events in history: Hitler and Mars Bars Dianne Ascroft, 2008 A remarkable child and era...the moving story, simply told, of a German boy's journey through loss, loneliness, fear, uncertainty, love and hope in war-torn Germany and post-war rural Ireland. |
CRAZIEST Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
The meaning of CRAZY is not mentally sound : marked by thought or action that lacks reason : insane —not used technically.
CRAZIEST definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary
Some of my craziest nights last for days. So he embarks on the craziest scam of his life. The journey to the stadium was the craziest of all. Your mind goes to the craziest places. 9 …
Craziest - definition of craziest by The Free Dictionary
Informal Departing from proportion or moderation, especially: a. Possessed by enthusiasm or excitement: The crowd at the game went crazy. b. Immoderately fond; infatuated: was crazy …
121 Synonyms & Antonyms for CRAZIEST - Thesaurus.com
Find 121 different ways to say CRAZIEST, along with antonyms, related words, and example sentences at Thesaurus.com.
60 Most Craziest Funniest Videos Ever In The World. - YouTube
Get ready to laugh with these 60 craziest and funniest videos ever in the world! This compilation is filled with hilarious memes and moments that make you l...
the most crazy or the craziest - TextRanch
Oct 27, 2024 · However, 'the craziest' is the correct and more commonly used phrase in English. 'The most crazy' isn't grammatically incorrect, but sounds awkward. Explained by Miss E. …
What does craziest mean? - Definitions.net
Definition of craziest in the Definitions.net dictionary. Meaning of craziest. What does craziest mean? Information and translations of craziest in the most comprehensive dictionary …
craziest - WordReference.com Dictionary of English
having an unusual, unexpected, or random quality, behavior, result, pattern, etc.: a crazy reel that spins in either direction. to an extreme: We shopped like crazy and bought all our Christmas …
CRAZIEST Synonyms: 580 Similar and Opposite Words - Merriam-Webster
Recent Examples of Synonyms for crazy. In between those two explosions are several plane crashes, a spate of trigger-happy communist revolutionaries, and a homicidal argument over …
50 Absurd Facts That Will Make You Question Everything
May 18, 2020 · To help you freshen up your arsenal of fun facts, we've rounded up some truly inspiring bits of information that'll blow your mind. From how much your blood weighs to …
CRAZIEST Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
The meaning of CRAZY is not mentally sound : marked by thought or action that lacks reason : insane —not used technically.
CRAZIEST definition and meaning | Collins English Dict…
Some of my craziest nights last for days. So he embarks on the craziest scam of his life. The journey to the stadium was the craziest of all. Your …
Craziest - definition of craziest by The Free Dictionary
Informal Departing from proportion or moderation, especially: a. Possessed by enthusiasm or excitement: The crowd at the game went crazy. b. …
121 Synonyms & Antonyms for CRAZIEST - Thesaurus.com
Find 121 different ways to say CRAZIEST, along with antonyms, related words, and example sentences at …
60 Most Craziest Funniest Videos Ever In The World. - Yo…
Get ready to laugh with these 60 craziest and funniest videos ever in the world! This compilation is filled with hilarious memes and moments that …
