This true account of a German submarine on the Massachusetts coast was called "an action-packed page-turner" by Sen. John McCain.On the morning of July 21, 1918—the final year of the First World War—a new prototype of German submarine surfaced three miles off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The vessel attacked an unarmed tugboat and its four barges. A handful of the shells fired by the U-boat's deck guns struck Nauset Beach, giving the modest town of Orleans ...

Considered one of the city's most notorious industrial slums in the 1940s and 1950s, Brownstone Brooklyn by the 1980s had become a post-industrial landscape of hip bars, yoga studios, and beautifully renovated, wildly expensive townhouses. In The Invention of Brownstone Brooklyn, Suleiman Osman offers a groundbreaking history of this unexpected transformation. Challenging the conventional wisdom that New York City's renaissance started in the 1990s, Osman locates the origins of ge...

The Spanish Civil War, 1936–39, was the curtain-raiser to World War II, and the major international event of the 1930s.It was the first great clash of 20th-century ideologies, between the rebel Nationalist army led by General Franco (right-wing, and aided by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy), and the Republican army of the government (left-wing, and aided by the Communist Soviet Union and many volunteers from liberal democracies). Three years of widespread campaigns ...

When Frederick II (later known as Frederick the Great) came to the throne in 1740, he had three advantages for which he owed thanks to his father: a modern, well-organised state; full coffers; and a properly trained and equipped army.Under a leader as renowned as Seydlitz, the Prussian cavalry achieved the nearest to a state of perfection that it was ever going to. So great was its reputation in the Seven Years' War that Napoleon made a special point of warning his...

Stories of New England soldiers who perished in this bloody battle, based on their diaries and letters.The Battle of Antietam, in September 1862, was the single bloodiest day of the Civil War. In the intense conflict and its aftermath across the farm fields and woodlots near Sharpsburg, Maryland, more than two hundred men from Connecticut died.Their grave sites are scattered throughout the Nutmeg State, from Willington to Madison and Brooklyn to Bristol. He...

Far from the glistening waters and gray-shingled villages of Cape Cod were the bloody front lines of the American Civil War. During this era, Cape Cod recruiting officers often urged soldiers to �raise the right arm of the old Bay State.� Learn about the Cape�s first casualty of war, Philander Crowell Jr. of Yarmouth, who was a member of the First Massachusetts Regiment; discover how local fishermen made money both by catching fish and by enlisting in the army; and read about the four bloo...

The Granite State has a remarkable record of service during the Civil War. It supplied a total of 10,657 recruits for the infantry, cavalry and field artillery divisions in 1861, with the majority of these first recruits enlisting for three years of service. Historian Bruce Heald lets the soldiers and sailors tell their stories in their own words by weaving together the letters to those left behind--families in Portsmouth and Nashua and sweethearts in Concord and Manchester. Heald includes...

Pres. George Washington authorized Springfield Armory to begin manufacturing small arms for the US military in 1794. Over nearly two centuries until its closure in 1968, the government armory at Springfield, Massachusetts, became legendary, not only for the arms provided to soldiers during conflicts such as the War of 1812, the Civil War, and World War II, but also for the way in which those arms were crafted. The drive to produce firearms of high quality and quantity for the nation's mili...

Discover within these pages little-known facts about the USS Albany, the U.S. Navy's oldest commissioned warship, USS Constitution, and the WWII destroyer, USS Cassin Young.The photographs in this exciting new volume illustrate the history of the Charlestown Navy Yard from the late nineteenth century through the twentieth century. Founded in 1800, the yard was oneof the first military shipyards in the United States.Charlestown Navy Yard celebrates the...

The Portsmouth Naval Prison, now vacant, sits on Seavey Island on the Maine and New Hampshire border. Discover its intriguing history and fearsome reputation. For over a century, "the Castle" or "the Rock," with its deceptively appealing exterior, has kept both visitors and New Hampshire residents in its thrall. Since its opening in 1908 to its decommissioning in 1974 and into the present day, myth and lore have surrounded this iconic building. For the 66 years it functioned, any prisoner ...

Through firsthand accounts, interviews with survivors and a gripping collection of vintage photographs, author Michael Skidgell attempts to make sense of one of Hartford's worst tragedies. Almost 7,000 fans eagerly packed into the Ringling Brothers big top on July 6, 1944. With a single careless act, an afternoon at the "Greatest Show on Earth" quickly became one of terror and tragedy as the paraffin-coated circus tent caught fire. Panicked crowds rushed for the few exits, but in minutes, ...

The founder of Seaside Shadows Haunted History Tours sheds light on the supernatural stories of the Constitution State.Bloody battlefields and raucous taverns in Connecticut served as the backdrop for pivotal figures and bold actions vital to the American Revolution. Nathan Hale is said to still conduct lessons in New London and East Haddam, and many suspect that George Washington occasionally visits the Shaw Mansion and Fairfield's Sun Tavern. The presence of noto...