Abraham Lincoln was born to poor parents, in a log cabin on the western frontier of a young nation. The unity of the United States, which had been built on the ideal that all people are… Read More →

This expanded edition of A Game for Swallows features a new, illustrated afterword, as Abirached reflects on the meaning of her memoir's title, the graffiti that inspired it, and the future… Read More →

In 1829 Andrew Jackson became the seventh president of the United States, the first who did not come from a wealthy, east coast family. Jackson led an adventurous—some would say… Read More →

Augusto Pinochet, commander-in-chief of Chile’s army, rose to power in 1973 when he participated in a military coup to overthrow the president, Salvador Allende. Allende was a Socialist, and… Read More →

October 9, 1967. World-renowned revolutionary Che Guevara is dead at the age of thirty-nine. The charismatic Argentinian revolutionary had been leading guerilla fighters in the jungles of… Read More →

How do student loans work? What do sanctions do? Where does federal spending go, and who decides on the budget? Author and established journalist Jeff Fleischer digs into these and other… Read More →

“We want to live, we do not want to face persecution for expressing our political opinion; as women we don’t want to walk on the street with the constant horror that we could be intimidated… Read More →

This book compiles photos and life stories of fifty of the sexiest men and women from history and asks the essential question: Would you really want to date them? Some are artists, some are… Read More →

"This is the story of Carlos and Elena, the story of thousands, the story of my country . . . This is just another story." When Carlos was nineteen years old, his mother decided to leave her… Read More →

Kim Jong Il, one of the world's most infamous dictators, rose to power in the mid-1990s in the small East Asian country of North Korea. He succeeded his father, Kim Il Sung, as that nation's… Read More →

Featuring quirky horse-riding dance moves and an infectious electronic beat, an unlikely music video and its leading man made history in 2012. In December of that year, "Gangnam Style"… Read More →

In 1949, Mao Zedong came to power in China after a long and brutal civil war. He and his Chinese Communist Party immediately set out to transform their nation into a Communist state. They… Read More →

Muammar al-Qaddafi led a group of young army officers who overthrew the government of King Idris I in 1961. After the officers seized control, Qadaffi emerged as head of the ruling council.… Read More →

Omar al-Bashir came into power in 1989. Sudan was gripped by famine caused by drought as well as a devastating civil war between the north and south. Its economy was in shambles. Bashir… Read More →

"The Defiance Campaign marked a new chapter in the struggle...going to prison became a badge of honor among Africans."―Nelson Mandela, 1952 On June 26, 1952, twenty-five men and five women… Read More →

Pol Pot, one of the world’s most infamous dictators, rose to power in the 1960s in the Southeast Asian country of Cambodia. In the mid-1900s, Cambodia had been chafing for centuries under… Read More →

Robert Mugabe, one of the world’s most infamous dictators, rose to power in Rhodesia, the southern African region now known as independent Zimbabwe. As a leader in Rhodesia’s nationalist… Read More →

We love to root for the underdog, and when it comes to underdogs, few are more impressive than the world’s great revolutionaries.After all, it’s pretty hard to find a more powerful opponent… Read More →

Saddam Hussein, one of the world’s most infamous dictators, rose to power through Iraq’s powerful Baath Party and became the nation’s president in 1979. His goals included achieving… Read More →

October 31, 2011, marked an uneasy milestone for Planet Earth. On this day, the global population surpassed seven billion. What does that mean for a world that, until the nineteenth century,… Read More →

In the 1990s, Slobodan Milosevic served as president of Serbia (a republic of Yugoslavia) and then president of Yugoslavia itself. He ruled as a dictator, using his secret security forces to… Read More →

You might be a fan of Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. But did you know that real-life pirates were even more daring and charismatic? For example, Edward Teach, better… Read More →

Than Shwe was part of a military coup that took over Burma in the 1960s. The British had granted Burma independence in 1948, but the country, with its many ethnic groups, had trouble building Read More →