Articles

Colditz Castle in Saxony, Germany, sits high on a precipitous cliff face that towers above a tributary of the river Mulde. First built in the 11th century, the forbidding castle was variously used as a lunatic asylum, a sanatorium for the...

Sam Watkins was only 21 when his home state of Tennessee seceded from the Union in the spring of 1861. Swept away by the patriotic fervor and thirst for adventure that gripped an entire generation of unfortunate young men, Watkins and most...

The 1789 mutiny on the Bounty is an infamous tale of sailors being lured by the easy charms of the South Seas into casting adrift their commander and living out their days as fugitives from the Royal Navy. 'Captain' Bligh, victim of the mutiny...

"What, to the Slave, is the Fourth of July?" is Frederick Douglass' masterwork of oration, delivered on 5 July 1852 at the Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York. Also sometimes given as "What, to the Slave, is your Fourth of July?", the...

"Outlawed in my own land for having served her with courage," the Marquis de Lafayette wrote to his wife, Adrienne, "I have been forced to flee into enemy territory from France, which I defended with so much love. To the very last minute...

The New Economic Policy (NEP) of Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924), leader of Soviet Russia, was the introduction in 1921 of a limited form of capitalism in light industry and agriculture. Contrary to Marxist economic ideas, the NEP was viewed as...

With thousands of square feet of canvas capturing every breath of the trade winds, a 19th-century tea clipper was the absolute pinnacle of sailing evolution. The Cutty Sark was just such a ship, carrying tea and then wool across the far-flung...

The immense commercial trade, wealth, and sea power of the Republic of Venice was rooted in the ships built in the industrial site known as the Arsenale, or arsenal. It was first established in 1104 and continued building warships, merchant...

The long-term goal of the Bolsheviks, who took power by force in Russia in November 1917, was a fairer society where workers and peasants were not exploited by wealthy capitalists. The more immediate consequences, though, of the Bolshevik...

Slicing through tropical reefs or patrolling Arctic waters, the Calypso gained worldwide fame as the research ship of the French underwater explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau. Seen by millions on TV documentaries broadcast worldwide, the Calypso...