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At Ghent five Americans—divided and far from home—held firm for a treaty that won their nation new respect, and began a lasting alliance Read >>
Marooned on the coast of Texas, he wandered for eight years in a land no European had ever seen Read >>
Rugged, versatile, and nearly indestructible, this four-wheel substitute for the horse has become one of World War II’s enduring legends Read >>
Lord Jeffery’s name is “known to fame,” but it was the five years he spent in America that rescued him from obscurity Read >>
That splendid flower of New England— the town meeting—wilts under the scrutiny of a native son Read >>
In Alaska a much-abused Secretary of State saw a fabulous bargain, and what might have been a Russian beachhead became instead our forty-ninth state Read >>
So the lookout’s cry resounded while Yankee whalers roamed the seas. Their perilous, arduous trade spanned three centuries Read >>
So the Bible said, but American missionaries found Hawaii a paradise where pleasure reigned, and the sense of sin was difficult to teach Read >>
How far back in American history can we find the old shell game in operation? Alas, pretty far. Read >>
A noted newspaperman writes of his birthplace, a community in which time stood still—and then started backwards Read >>
Weary of his humiliating job—American pay-off man to the piratical Arab states—this bold Yankee civilian raised his own army and won our strangest foreign war Read >>
Tribute to the Barbary States, 1785-1802 Read >>
The bizarre career of “The Turk,” an ingenious mechanical chess player that defeated Frederick the Great, George III, and Napoleon (whom it caught cheating) and nearly fooled all America Read >>
The crumbling headstones of New England’s Puritan burying grounds honor the dead) warn the living, and promise a bright resurrection Read >>
The “conversion” of Arthur Vandenberg, told by a former Secretary of State, his sometime adversary but also his friend Read >>
Chief Washakie earned his battle scars in the service of the Great White Father, who—for once at least—kept faith with an Indian Read >>
Three times John Glover’s Marblehead fishermen saved Washington’s army; in a final battle, the “amphibious regiment” rowed him to victory across the Delaware Read >>
John Reed was as American as apple pie and store cheese. Yet he was one of the founders of the Communist International, and his ashes lie under the Kremlin wall Read >>
Surprised and almost overwhelmed, he stubbornly refused to admit defeat. His cool conduct saved his army and his job Read >>
In Pierre Landais the Continental Navy had its own real-life Commander Queeg. His tour as master of the Alliance was a nightmare wilder than any a novelist could invent Read >>
For a provincial belle from Natchez, the Grand Tour was a priceless introduction to Europe’s art, its feudal pomp, and its tourist trade Read >>
Three Americans created the art of the motion picture, and made it the universal language of the twentieth century Read >>
It was thirty miles offshore, and stormy, but the daredevil swimmer plunged into the Atlantic with a crisp “Goodnight, ladies and gentlemen!” Our author recalls bold Captain Boyton, a mixture of Jules Verne, Tom Swift, and a bit of Walter Mitty. Read >>

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