Anyone who has spent time in Syracuse, New York, knows that basketball season is the most wonderful time of the year. And while the local popularity of the sport is known nationwide, the region also has a long and rich basketball history. Sports historian Mark Baker traces the evolution of Syracuse's "hoops roots,"? beginning in the early days, when local, national and college basketball organizations were primitive institutions. It was during this time that one of the first teams to gain ...

Discover true stories of daring and deceit in 18th century Connecticut in this history of American Revolutionary espionage.Covert intelligence played a critical role in the American Revolution, and Connecticut produced an extraordinary number of spies on both sides of the conflict. The infamous traitor Benedict Arnold was born in Norwich, while the Patriot Nathan Hale, who was executed by the British for espionage, was originally from Coventry.Spying during...

Canastota, New York, at the epicenter of Upstate New York's rich boxing heritage, is home to the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Having produced some of boxing's most prominent pugilists, including Carmen Basilio and Billy Backus, the area has also hosted many legendary fighters, including Jack Britton, Harry Greb, Sam Langford and Tommy Ryan. Many boxing dreams have come true here through title fights and epic ring rivalries. Author Mark Allen Baker tells the story of those "thunder go...

See the Conch Republic through Hemingway's eyes.

Some of the most prominent families of the American Revolution proudly hailed from Connecticut. Committed to the pursuit of freedom, men like Major General David Wooster led troops into battle, while Samuel Huntington and others risked it all by signing the Declaration of Independence. Women might have stayed at home, but they played a vital part by producing goods for soldiers while also taking care of their property and children. In the wake of war, Sarah Pierce started the Litchfield Fe...

With the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Empire of Japan on December 7, 1941, and the United States' entry into World War II, our nation turned to Connecticut--as it did during World War I--for munitions, clothing, and other goods. And Connecticut answered the call: Manchester Mills increased silk production, Waterbury brass producers altered their manufacturing lines, and Bridgeport's Remington Arms--which had produced 50 percent of the US Army's small arms cartridges in World War I--increa...

Born Luigi d'Ambrosio, Lou Ambers grew up in Herkimer, New York, during the Great Depression. He and his nine siblings watched their father lose his business. Then they lost their father. Taking to the ring as a "bootleg" boxer to support his family, "The Herkimer Hurricane" soon became an undefeated contender, losing only one of more than fifty fights in his first three years as a professional. A keen judge of distance with prodigious hand speed, he worked just within punching range, busi...

 Inside Madison Square Garden, the City Ring was the altar of pugilism from 1925 until 2007. Hosting countless championship fights, historic main events and memorable undercards, it was center stage of boxing history.The ring now rests at the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, New York--its 132 assembled pieces memorializing a key facet of 20th century American life. While many books have been written about great fistic contests that took place at Madison Square Garde...

Oscar "Battling" Nelson (1882-1954) was perhaps the toughest professional boxer ever to enter the ring. Although a Hall of Fame inductee, Nelson remains a lesser known great of boxing lore. From the beginning of his career at 14, the Danish immigrant presented himself as a man of integrity who never smoked, drank or took a dive.In the ring and in public, Battling Nelson crafted a Renaissance man image as a lightweight champion, reporter, entertainer, real estate mogul, entrepreneur...

At age 23, Tony Canzoneri already had three division titles under his belt and was widely considered one of the pound-for-pound best fighters in the world. Holding victories over Johnny Dundee, Charles "Bud" Taylor, Benny Bass, Jack "Kid" Berg, Kid Chocolate, Billy Petrolle, Lou Ambers, and Jimmy McLarnin, Tony earned induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990, and later pursued a successful career in entertainment. This work chronicles Canzoneri's life, starting from his...

Among the best pound-for-pound fighters of all time, Willie Pep (1922-2006) was a virtuoso of the squared circle. A two-time World Featherweight Champion, his International Boxing Hall of Fame professional record stands at 230 wins, 11 losses and one draw, with 65 knockouts and two winning streaks of more than 62 victories--each longer than most modern fighters' careers. During his 26 years in the ring, he appeared on cards with everyone from Fritzie Zivic to Joe Frazier. A scientific boxe...

For six decades the World Colored Heavyweight Championship was a useful tool of racial oppression--the existence of the title far more important to the white public than its succession of champions. It took some extraordinary individuals, most notably Jack Johnson, to challenge "the color line" in the ring, although the title and the black fighters who contended for it continued until the reign of Joe Louis a generation later. This history traces the advent and demise of the Championship, ...