Showing results by narrator "Jim D Johnston" in All Categories

Modern views of animals range from hunters who pay big money to go on safaris in Africa to vegans who refuse to use even the wool or milk from a fellow creature, and as is the case with most controversies, most people fall in the middle, not wanting to kick a dog but still enjoying a good steak. However, in the early 20th century, the standards were much different, with animals seen as strictly property to be gathered and used with little to no consideration about their health or feelings.

Throughout history, Syria has been dominated not by one great city but by two. Aside from Aleppo to the north, the religious and commercial metropolis of Damascus has been a place desired by the powerful. For thousands of years the Phoenicians, Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Christians, and Muslims all vied for control of the city.

For most of the 20th century, the name Hearst was most closely associated with one of America's most famous (and infamous) newspaper magnates, William Garrison Hearst, whose life was the inspiration for Citizen Kane. But in the 1970s, his granddaughter Patricia made headlines thanks to a series of events that would wind up being one of the most bizarre chapters of the 20th century.

Liberty was not a privilege afforded to a few. It was to be extended to build a life worth living. Calamitous unrestrained 1920s big business and culture heaped intolerable conditions on the shoulders of unseen millions in the land of the free. Politics before, during, and after the Great Depression tested his character, resolve, and faith in acting for the sake of a common humanity.

Sherlock Holmes is one of those iconic characters who have become so embedded in our culture that he transcends space and time. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the currently popular series, Sherlock, have tried to kill off the famous character. So what is it about this colorful, egocentric, brilliant, conceited man that engages the imagination? Sherlock Holmes: Bird Dragging a Broken Wing explores one possible reason why Holmes can be "killed" over and over and still survive - along with his arch nemesis, Moriarty - to become the subject of yet another story.

Many of us on Earth live in a home with a street address, city, and zip code. But we have another address, which astronomers and astrophysicists refer to as our "cosmic address": Earth, Solar System, Milky Way, Local Group, Virgo Supercluster, the Universe. Consider the vast scales that our cosmic address spans. Understandably, it's hard for our brains to truly imagine it. Our galaxy, The Milky Way, is populated with somewhere between 100-400 billion stars, one of which is our Sun, an average, run-of-the-mill star.

Most scientists believe that mankind was originally spawned in the salty waters of the seas, and that over millennia creatures managed to evolve into today's primates. If this is so, the oceans have made it abundantly clear that have no desire to take their offspring safely back; from the time of the earliest sailing ships, there have been countless accidents and tragedies where numerous lives were quickly lost.

God uses a perfect stranger to speak to a suicidal neighbor. Through her availability, He is able to communicate purpose for living. Once a successful businessman loses his team, he learns the value of having the right people in the in the right places to ensure prolonged success. Because a youngster refuses to give in to his pride, he avoids losing his life at a basketball court. As a result of second-place finish in a spelling bee, an elementary school child learns the importance of practice.

Imagine a natural or man-made disaster occurring that totally changes the world as you now know it. What would you need to have in place in order to survive such a catastrophe? How can you prepare yourself and your loved ones now for such an event? Survival Book: Everything You Need to Know Before Disaster Strikes takes a serious look at disaster preparedness and reveals 15 tasks that you can work on today that will better prepare you for survival during and following a disaster.

With both an entertainer's eye and a social scientist's rigor, Wayne Parent subjects Louisiana's politics to rational and empirical analysis, seeking and finding coherent reasons for the state's well-known unique history. He resists resorting to vague hand-waving about exoticism, while at the same time he brings to life the juicy stories that illustrate his points. Parent's main theme is that Louisiana's ethnic mix, natural resources, and geography define a culture that in turn produces its unique political theater.

You might know Ulysses S. Grant as a Civil War hero and as the 18th president of the United States, but we will introduce you to the heart and soul of the man who brought freedom and equality to a troubled America. Within this book, you'll discover how Grant motivated and inspired a nation to rise above the dark days of slavery and financial ruin and search their hearts for justice for all. You'll battle with Grant and his men at Vicksburg, and be there when General Lee surrenders at Appomattox.

By the end of D-Day, June 6, 1944, the Allies had managed to successfully land 170,000 men, with over 75,000 on the British and Canadian beaches, 57,000 on the American beaches, and over 24,000 airborne troops. Thanks to Allied deception, the German army had failed to react to prevent the Allies from making the most of their landings. Just one division, the Hitlerjugend, would arrive the following day. Despite a fearsome and bloody day, the majority of the Allied forces had achieved their objectives.

The Olympics have long been the center of attention in the sports world, but perhaps no moment in the history of the games was as poignant as Jesse Owens' performance in Berlin in 1936. Owens would finish his career with four gold medals and become known as "perhaps the greatest and most famous athlete in track and field history" (as his obituary in The New York Times put it), but nearly 80 years later, it's the context that has made his performance so memorable.

Although revered in history for their civilization and culture, the Greeks were always in a constant state of warfare amongst themselves. With the likes of Athens, Sparta, and Thebes asserting dominance over the Ionian Peninsula, none of the other city-states could amass an army strong enough to challenge their superiority in the area, much less take on all challengers and invade Persia. However, none of these other city-states had a ruler named Alexander.

Andrew Klein's book pulls no punches, defends Hoffa, and destroys the perverse and pervasive influence of the Kennedy clan. This book presents a flawed and tragic charismatic hero in Hoffa, a powerful and bullying classic villain in Robert Kennedy, and a lush backdrop of union fights, personal betrayal, and presidential assassinations.

This book is an elaborate explanation of MacArthur's life. It is written in an easy-to-follow style that makes you move with the flow of the events of the day. In the book, you will learn almost everything you ever wanted to know about the most decorated army general the US ever had. In particular, you are going to see the factors that influenced MacArthur's life, and the background against which he developed his career.

Africa may have given rise to the first humans, 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.

Preparation is one of the single most fundamental factors that will make your presentation successful! One thing that you have to realize is that a good presentation ensures that the content is well thought out. This means that you can effectively communicate to your audience with a great degree of confidence.

A series of mountain chains frame the Levantine coast, growing in height as they approach modern-day Lebanon. These provided a natural defense along the important coast, and the few passes through these mountain ranges were the focal points of movement and communication. For this reason, these locations were where many crusader castles were erected.

Joseph Stalin rose from humble roots to become the greatest madman of the 20th century. His disregard for human life dwarfs Hitler's, as does the scale of his crimes. This book by author Andrew Klein exposes "Uncle Joe" as the perpetrator of mass killings, mass incarcerations, and mass starvations across four decades. This book spares no detail and minces no words about the evil deeds of one of history's most brazen tyrants.