Normans History

University of Miami football is more than national championships, 30-game winning streaks, and being a pipeline to the NFL. It’s the Gator Flop, defeating Tulane on a fifth down, and playing three games in eight days. It’s converting third and 44 against Notre Dame, Michael Irvin talking smack with Florida State’s Deion Sanders, and Vinny Testaverde being sacked by hamburgers.

Includes excerpts from the journals of two of the Mayflower's passengers.

"By God's providence, upon the ninth of November following, by break of the day we espied land which was deemed to be Cape Cod, and so afterward it proved. And the appearance of it much comforted us, especially seeing so goodly a land, and wooded to the brink of the sea. It caused us to rejoice together, and praise God that had given us once again to see land." — Edward Winslow

"A History of the Norman Conquest" is a work by Charles Oman dealing with the history of the Celtic, Roman, and Anglo-Saxon periods down to the year AD 1066. It is a thorough examination of the subject and an engrossing history.

Drogen im Dritten Reich: Norman Ohler geht den Tätern von damals buchstäblich unter die Haut und schaut direkt in ihre Blutbahnen hinein. Arisch rein ging es darin nicht zu, sondern chemisch deutsch – und ziemlich toxisch. Wo die Ideologie für Fanatismus und "Endsieg" nicht mehr ausreichte, wurde hemmungslos nachgeholfen. Als Deutschland 1940 Frankreich überfiel, standen die Soldaten der Wehrmacht unter 35 Millionen Dosierungen Pervitin. Das Präparat – heute als Crystal Meth bekannt – machte den Blitzkrieg erst möglich.

Explorers, soldiers, and settlers of African-American heritage comprise an unfamiliar story to most students of American history. However, in the push westward, they were present in sufficient numbers to exert great influence on the nation's development. Among the earliest accounts is that of Isabel de Olvera, who settled in New Mexico around the year of 1600, and it is estimated that by 1750, 25% of Albuquerque's population shared discernible African ancestry.

The ubiquitous picture of the Vikings as horn-helmeted, brutish, hairy giants that mercilessly marauded among the settlements of Northern Europe is based on a smattering of facts combined with an abundance of prejudicial historical writing by those who were on the receiving end of Viking depredations. At the same time, much of the popular picture of the Vikings is a result of the romantic imagination of novelists and artists. However, the Vikings' reputation for ferocious seaborne attacks along the coasts of Northern Europe is no exaggeration.

This essay comes from the NPR series This I Believe, which features brief personal reflections from both famous and unknown Americans. The pieces that make up the series compel listeners to rethink not only what and how they have arrived at their beliefs, but also the extent to which they share them with others.

Possibly the most important man of antiquity, and even all of history, was Julius Caesar. Alexander Hamilton, the famous American patriot, once remarked that "the greatest man who ever lived was Julius Caesar". Such a tribute, coming from one of the Founding Fathers of the quintessential modern democracy in reference to a man who destroyed the Roman Republic, is testament to the enduring mark that Caesar left upon the world.

When Norman Eisen moved into the US ambassador's residence in Prague, returning to the land his mother had fled after the Holocaust, he was startled to discover swastikas hidden beneath the furniture. From that discovery unspooled the captivating, twisting tale of the remarkable people who lived in the house before Eisen. Their story is Europe's, telling the dramatic and surprisingly cyclical tale of the endurance of liberal democracy.

Although many have heard of the Crusades and some of the more famous orders like the Templars, few know about the Livonian Crusade or the Livonian Brothers of the Sword. This organization was one of many Catholic military orders that sprung up during the Middle Ages in response to the papacy’s call for holy war, and the Livonian Crusade is the term used to group together dozens of military actions undertaken by German knights in Eastern Europe. The order was also significant for consolidating the power of the Holy Roman Empire in Eastern Europe.

Firstborn son of a warrior father who defeated the French at Agincourt, Henry VI of the House Lancaster inherited the crown not only of England but also of France, at a time when Plantagenet dominance over the Valois dynasty was at its glorious height. And yet, by the time he was done to death in the Tower of London in 1471, France was lost, his throne had been seized by his rival, Edward IV of the House of York, and his kingdom had descended into the violent chaos of the Wars of the Roses.

The vivid and emotional story of one soldier's heroic struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder.1944: Norm Bussel, an introspective and happy-go-lucky teen from Memphis, finds himself bailing out of a burning B-17 bomber just months after his 19th birthday. Touching-down in a field outside Berlin, Norm was immediately seized by local farmhands, who were in the process of lynching him when a passing German soldier put a stop to the execution.

The Spread of HIV and AIDS: The History of the HIV Virus and the Rise of Infections across the World examines how the notorious killer became one of the most feared diagnoses in the world. You will learn about the spread of HIV and AIDS like never before.

This is a mostly polemical essay by Emma Goldman about her deportation from the United States to Russia in December 1919. It was written before disillusionment with Bolshevism, as recounted in "My Disillusionment in Russia" (1923).

During the five full years of his presidency (1964 - 1968), Lyndon Johnson initiated a breathtaking array of domestic policies and programs, including such landmarks as the Civil Rights Act, Head Start, Food Stamps, Medicare and Medicaid, the Immigration Reform Act, the Water Quality Act, the Voting Rights Act, Social Security reform, and Fair Housing.

In this work, Emma Goldman writes that anarchism stands for the liberation of the human mind from the rule of religion, the liberation of the human body from the rule of property, and liberation from the shackles and restraints of government. She claims that anarchism stands for a social order based on the free grouping of individuals for the purpose of producing real social wealth, an order that will guarantee to every human being free access to the earth and full enjoyment of the necessities of life.

Along the fertile banks of the Mississippi River across from New Orleans, planter Camille Zeringue transformed a mediocre colonial plantation into a thriving gem of antebellum sugar production, complete with a columned mansion known as Seven Oaks. Under the moss-strewn oaks, the privileged master nurtured his own family but enslaved many others.

Liberty in Eclipse is an expose and indictment of our nation's descent into the early stages of police state tyranny. Topics discussed include the militarization and federalization of law enforcement; the establishment of a quasi-dictatorial "war presidency"; the evisceration of the Bill of Rights, and due process guarantees going back to the Magna Carta; the increasingly commonplace surveillance of Americans; the institutionalization of torture; and the likely restoration of conscription, including a military draft.

To coincide with the bicentennial of Thoreau's birth in 2017, this thrilling, meticulous biography by naturalist and historian Kevin Dann fills a gap in our understanding of one modern history's most important spiritual visionaries by capturing the full arc of Thoreau's life as a mystic, spiritual seeker, and explorer in transcendental realms.

Arthur Herzog's account is no mere chronicle, and his vivid writing captures all the color and spirit which imbued the "Children's Crusade" from its first startling success in New Hampshire to the chaos and agony of the Chicago anticlimax. Much of what seemed destined to remain unknown about this unprecedented and erratic campaign is brought to life in McCarthy for President, the first authoritative account of a movement that began, in McCarthy's own words, "to give the system a test".