Showing results by author "The History Hour" in All Categories

Initially presiding over an oligarchic one-party regime that governed by plurality, Joseph Stalin became the de facto dictator of the Soviet Union. Stalin raised funds for Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction via robberies, kidnappings, and protection rackets. To eradicate those regarded as "enemies of the working class", Stalin instituted the "Great Purge" in which more than a million were imprisoned and at least 700,000 were executed from 1934 to 1939.

Hosted by Dr. Sarah C. Schaefer (Assistant Professor, Art History, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee) and Dr. Tina Rivers Ryan (Assistant Curator, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY).

Is everything about Henry Ford good? This is a man who was more than liberally doused in dogma. Ford was a man whose existence changed the way we live. With the Ford Model T, he brought affordable, flexible transport to the masses. Henry Ford opened up the world. Here is the story of a man of contrasts - genius and pendant, pacifist and supporter of thuggery, social liberator and Orwellian Big Brother. Whatever we conclude about Henry Ford, he is undoubtedly a man about whom we should know more.

Cook, an 18th-century explorer, lived during a time when humankind was yet naive and inexperienced in terms of understanding their environment. His legacy is quite astounding, given the fact that mankind had only begun to develop instrumentation. The people from Europe had never before seen Hawaii, Tahiti, Australia, New Zealand, Antarctica, nor crossed the Antarctic circle.

Unlike most artists, Van Gogh developed very slowly, beginning with work as an art dealer that exposed him to many great works. He undertook this work for several years, after which he spent time as a missionary for the Dutch Reformed Church. Thereafter, he drifted for several years before returning home to his parents’ house, where he took up painting, largely self-taught with books on anatomy and painting. His great works all date from the later years of his life.

As you begin to listen to this audiobook, you will undoubtedly feel that Queen Marie Antoinette and King Louise XVI led spoiled lives. You will be right in what you think; but you will also find out that with their parents arranging their marriages at a very young age, neither of them was ever able to experience the feelings of young love. You will see what horrors and terrors that Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, their children, and Louis’ sister had to suffer through for four years before their deaths.

Frida Kahlo was ahead of her time. She was bisexual and would have fit in perfectly in the time we live in now. Her disabilities would be acceptable in our society of today and her husband, Diego would probably be run out of town by the Real Housewives of “Cheaters”. Frida came with a lot of baggage in her life starting when she was only six years old and even more baggage piled on when she was in high school. Her suffering was more than anyone can imagine but she kept her head held high and forged her way forward.

It goes without saying that Eleanor of Aquitaine was a force of nature. She was the wife of kings, the mother of kings, a duchess in her own right, and a tool of no man. She was headstrong and independent in an age when women were essentially to be seen and not heard.

Did Christopher Columbus discover America or a route to the Far East? He was an Italian explorer, navigator, and colonist who had a singular goal toward which he was driven. His courage was astounding, as he and his three small ships set sail across the Atlantic Ocean. Columbus and his men took precarious and dangerous journeys toward a blue horizon. All they had to depend upon were nautical charts, an astrolabe, and a quadrant. The maps he used were developed by more ancient astronomers such as Ptolemy and Eratosthenes – men who had never sailed the great sea.

Caligula was born into the first ruling family of the Roman Empire, conventionally known as the Julio-Claudian dynasty. He is described as a noble and moderate emperor during the first six months of his rule. After this, the sources about the reign of Caligula focus upon his cruelty, sadism, extravagance, and sexual perversion, presenting him as an insane tyrant.

Was Giacomo Casanova one of the most prolific lovers in history? Casanova’s description of himself suggests a hero, a lover, a charmer, an intellectual genius, and a man of intense creativity who was able to turn every adversity into a triumph. Yet equally one modern perspective views as an amoral misogynist, a rapist, and sexual predator driven by his selfish desires, a chancer who got lucky more times than he deserved.

Isaac Newton’s main body of work was as a physicist and mathematician. He was a part of a scientific revolution in the 17th century, which would fundamentally change the way that people would see the world. In the field of optics, he would advance our understanding of light and how we saw it.

Albert Einstein was an outstanding physician and mathematician of the 20th century. He was a pure genius who created a formula that would build a bomb capable of killing thousands at a time. Albert learned to play the violin. He could play a few notes on the piano or the violin, and then he would jot down notes on some theory. Einstein won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1922.

In the 20th century, the nation had come of age, a brand-new political landscape was taking shape. It was during the 20th century that the US president became not just the leader of the United States but the Leader of the Free World. The US essentially inherited this hegemony from the British Empire at the close of World War II and retained it for the remainder of the century, which gave the country’s presidents a whole new set of problems to deal with. While the Monroe Doctrine had long dictated concern for events in the Americas, the US now became the policeman of the entire world.

Throughout his life, Houdini performed first in carnival sideshows and then in vaudeville, where he would share the stage with all manner of entertainers, and later, in his thrilling show, where he became the greatest magician and escape artist of all time. A brilliant showman deeply interested in human psychology, his life and work reflect it and kept many interested in his magic acts. He must have known the cachet being born in America would give his act. More than a little daredevil, Houdini performed feats never matched by any other person.

The Maya recorded their history and ritual knowledge in screen fold books, of which only three uncontested examples remain, the rest having been destroyed by the Spanish. The Maya developed a highly complex series of interlocking ritual calendars and employed mathematics that included one of the earliest instances of the explicit zero in the world.

Discover the lives and poltical history of German politician and demagogue Adolf Hitler - leader of the Nazi Party, chancellor of Germany, and führer of Nazi Germany - and Joseph Stalin, dictator of the Soviet Union.

The following book introduces the listener to the biographies of four key figures who led the American Revolution against the Kingdom of Great Britain: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin.

Patton’s life was a patchwork of a hard-driving leadership style, a colorful and sarcastic personality, and a series of dire political missteps. His image is often contradictory. On one hand, he was a hot spark who could often fly off the handle and say and do things that were injurious to himself and others. On the other hand, he was a gifted orator whose capacity to inspire his troops was second to none. Reconciling those elements of his being can sometimes be a tricky proposition.

Marcus Aurelius was an outstanding person and Emperor of Ancient Rome. He was far more concerned with ways of thinking than with warfare. Being a small boy he applied himself to task with education. Marcus preferred others over himself, putting his own welfare aside for the good of other people.