Don Nardo

Explores the history and culture of Ancient Egypt. Eye-catching photos, fascinating sidebars, and a "Contributions" special feature that guide's readers through the rise and fall of this great civilization, focusing on the people and accomplishments that made it unique.

World War II was in its early days when brutal German dictator Adolf Hitler paid a visit to Paris, the capital of France. Only days before, on June 14, 1940, German soldiers had overrun the city, shocking the world. Hitler now viewed the city's cultural treasures as his own. He posed for a photo in front of the Eiffel Tower, the beloved symbol of France and the country's free, democratic people. The photo, taken by his personal photographer, Heinrich...

An attack at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games would produce one of the defining images of international terrorism. The chilling photo of a hooded man peering from a balcony in the Olympic Village would be viewed worldwide as a horrific symbol of global terrorism. The man wearing a mask with cutout slits for his eyes was a member of the Palestinian terrorist group Black September. He and his fellow terrorists had seized 11 members of the Israeli Olympic...

Afghanistan has long been one of the world’s most war-torn countries. Beginning in ancient times, one invader after another tried to conquer it, but only a few succeeded. And even those who did seize the country did so with tremendous difficulty. In part, this is because the Afghans are tough, independent-minded folk who do not like being told what to do by foreign intruders. Indeed, they are proud of their traditional customs, including their main...

Everyone makes mistakes, but they're not often on display for the whole world to see. These blunders in battle have gone down in history and will never be forgotten.

Abraham Lincoln and the American Civil War are forever linked. The bloody conflict began in 1861, the year Lincoln was elected president. It ended in 1865, the year he was struck down by an assassin's bullet. During those years the admired and despised 16th president served as a brilliant commander in chief, ultimately keeping the nation together and freeing thousands of its enslaved people.

Every four years, the world celebrates one of the most exciting contributions of the Ancient Greeks: the Olympic Games. That, of course, is not all this great civilization left behind. From theater to democracy, discover how the Greeks' ancient inventions and philosophies evolved into objects and ideas we know and treasure today.

Mathew Brady recognized that the new art of photography could be more than just a means of capturing people's likenesses in portraits. Beginning with the First Battle of Bull Run in 1861 and continuing through the entire Civil War, Brady and his employees chronicled the long, bloody conflict, bringing images of war directly to the people. Brady knew the photos would create valuable historical records for later generations. More than any other photographer...

Greek mythology has the strangest creatures, plucked from the most fertile imaginations in the history of storytelling. Discover figures half-human and half-goat, horrendous giants with 50 heads and 100 arms, and massive one-eyed brutes known as Cyclopes. See how fearless Greek mortals pitted their wits against the ugliest and most monstrous forms known to humans.

This fascinating volume focuses on the women's movement, featuring quotations from sources such as diaries, public records, and contemporary chronicles. Author Don Nardo explains the ordeal of being an American woman in days without rights. He then details the long road to the ballot box, and the emergence of a new, powerful public woman. The gender equality struggle is richly chronicled here.