Ebooks de historia, página 2 de 7

La vertiginosa carrera por el desarrollo de las armas de destrucción masiva.«Un relato trepidante y electrizante.» Booklist «Preston explica hábilmente los momentos clave de la era preatómica y tej

Una historia de los golpistas en la ciudad de Zaragoza que retrata el perfil humano de los perpetradores que se sublevaron el verano del 36.Conocemos a los grandes protagonistas del 18 de julio de 1936 que pusieron en jaque al Gobierno de la Segunda Republica con su golpe de Estado y la guerra civil resultante de este. Sin embargo, detras de Mola, Franco o Queipo de Llano hubo muchos otros oficiales intermedios e incluso civiles que contribuyeron a la victoria del bando sublevado. Esta obra pone nombres y apellidos a quienes lo hicieron posible en Zaragoza, ciudad a partir de la cual podemos comprender mejor lo que ocurrio en la España golpista. David Alegre aborda la logica y el funcionamiento de la campaña sistematica de asesinatos desplegada por el bando golpista en la ciudad entre el verano y el otoño de 1936, que acabo con la vida de unos 3.500 civiles de toda la provincia. Tras un exhaustivo proceso de investigacion analiza quienes fueron los principales perpetradores de las ejecuciones, desde las reuniones al mas alto nivel hasta el pie de la fosa. El publico lector tiene ante si la oportunidad de adentrarse en las vidas y las motivaciones de dos generaciones de hombres, todos ellos atravesados por los acontecimientos clave de su tiempo, desde la perdida de Cuba hasta los miedos generados por el periodo republicano. Asi pues, esta obra trasciende con mucho la Zaragoza de 1936 para ofrecernos una amplia panoramica de los profundos cambios sufridos por la sociedad española en la primera mitad del siglo xx.

Nature artist Jane Smith has been fascinated by wildlife communities and ecosystems her whole adult life. Starting from her own garden in Argyll, she travels to ten locations in the west of Scotland - from the towering cliffs of St Kilda and the peatlands of Lewis to the Solway estuary and the urban sprawl of Glasgow - to explore the interaction of people and wildlife in a variety of diverse settings. On her journey she discovers a number of communities who are taking on the job of regenerating their own landscapes and meets a host of fascinating people whose lives are inextricably bound up with questions of sustainability, conservation and landownership. Contents Includes: Western Isles (peatlands) * North Uist (machair) * Islay (farmland) * Loch Arkaig (woodland) * Knapdale (wetland) * Dumfries and Galloway (river and estuary) * Jura (coast) * St Kilda archipelago (sea) * Glasgow (urban landscapes) *Eigg (community ownership)

Through most of eight hundred years, Somerled of Argyll has been variously denounced as an intractable rebel against his rightful king and esteemed as the honoured ancestor of the later medieval Lord of the Isles, but he can be recognised now as a much more complex figure of major prominence in twelfth-century Scotland and of truly landmark significance in the long history of the Gael. In this book individual chapters investigate his emergence in the forefront of the Gaelic-Norse aristocracy of the western seaboard, his part in Gaeldoms challenge to the Canmore kings of Scots, his war on the Manx king of the Isles, his importance for the church on Iona, and his extraordinary invasion of the Clyde which was cut short by his violent death at Renfrew in 1164. Perhaps most impressive is the books demonstration of how almost everything that is known of or has been claimed for Somerled reflects the same characteristic fusion of Norse and Celt which binds the cultural roots of Gaeldom. It is this recognition which has led its author to his proposal of Somerleds wider historical importance as the personality who most represents the first fully-fledged emergence of the medieval Celtic-Scandinavian cultural province from which is directly descended the Gaelic Scotland of today.

A fresh look at Labours greatest ever Prime Minister

In 1999 my expedition found George Mallorys body on Mount Everest. The intense public interest in his tragic fate obscured the other actors in that dramatic story.The pioneers who attempted the first climbs in 1922 and 1924 knew nothing about the mountain other than its height. They had to learn the hard way about the lack of oxygen, the jet-stream winds, the illnesses of altitude, and the vital importance of the Sherpas. They fought cerebral oedema, frostbite, hypothermia and raging thirst in the cold, thin air. They had to find a route, avoid avalanches, and work out what to do when confronted by an insuperable rock climb at extreme altitude. Many of them died.Howard Somervell was Mallorys closest friend on the mountain in 1922 and 1924. He was an exceptionally gifted man: he had a double first at Cambridge, he was a talented artist and an accomplished musician. He served as a surgeon at the Battle of the Somme during the First World War and was one of the foremost alpinists of the day when he was invited to join the 1922 Mount Everest expedition. After Everest he was awarded an Olympic gold medal for Alpinism in 1924. But in India he will be remembered as a surgeon who dedicated the remainder of his life to healing the sick.Those pioneers showed the way. Somervell took part in the first attempt to climb the mountain, and his oxygen-free height record in 1924 stood for over 50 years. On his descent he sat down alone suffocating from a frost-bitten larynx. He prepared to die, but at the last moment performed a medical manoeuvre which cleared his airway. He survived to struggle back down.Howard Somervell was my cousin, and I am one of the last Everesters left alive to have spoken with a climber from George Mallorys party.

Titanic represents a microcosm of the world in 1912. It was a mans world in many respects, across law, land ownership, voting rights, family structures and religious hierarchies. The stories we know about those involved that fateful night are as varied as the people aboard the ship, but many of them revolve around the roles and actions of the men. This new book from Melinda Ratchford delves into the world as it was for women in 1912, and presents a selection of womens stories, including a variety of women who travelled aboard Titanic, from rich to poor, and well-known to largely forgotten, and also stories of some women who didnt travel but whose lives were inextricably linked to the tragedy and changed forever. This collection of stories presents the lives of these women before, during and after the tragedy that irrevocably changed their world, and ours.

On 13 March 1996 Thomas Hamilton walked into the gym hall of a primary school in Dunblane armed with four legally owned handguns and in less than four minutes fired 105 bullets, killing 16 young children, their teacher and injuring many more. It was a crime that first shocked the world then changed the nation.Based on original archival research and exclusive interviews with parents, politicians and police, One Morning in March tells for the first time the incredible and powerful true story of how, in their darkest hour, a band of parents used their grief as fuel in a fight to forever ban handguns in Britain, and create the tightest gun laws in the world.

Whilst the war raged across Flanders fields, an equally horrifying and sometimes more dangerous battle took place underground.Beneath Flanders Fields tells the story of the tunnellers war, which still remains one of the most misunderstood, misrepresented and mystifying conflicts of the Great War.A wealth of personal testimonies reveal the engineering, technology and science behind how this most intense of battles was fought and won. They speak of how the tunnellers lived a relentless existence in the depths of the battlefield for almost two and a half years, enduring physical and mental stresses that were often more extreme than their infantry counterparts. Their lives were reduced to a complex war of silence, tension and claustrophobia, leading up to the most dramatic mine offensive in history launched on 7 June 1917 at Messines Ridge. Yet, Messines was not the end of their story, which continued with the crafting of a whole underground world of headquarters, cookhouses and hospitals, housing the innumerable troops who passed through this part of the Western Front.Here, this extraordinary, hidden world is revealed and the fragile legacy it has left behind on Flanders fields is brought to light.

Published ahead of the centenary of the Queens birth, this beautifully illustrated book uncovers the hidden history of the Crown and how it survived a tumultuous era and two world wars. **Features over 100 sumptuous images**From the birth of the house of Windsor in 1917, its leading women - Queen Mary, the Queen Mother, the Duchess of Windsor and Queen Elizabeth II - faced abdication and assassination, revolution and the rise of fascism, the threat of invasion and all-out war. Their sartorial decisions, alongside those of their royal husbands, projected power and perpetuity, diplomacy and defiance. In this cinematic story of espionage and exquisite couture, Justine Picardie reveals the undercover lives of the creators behind the facade - including Hardy Amies, Cecil Beaton, Norman Hartnell and Edward Molyneux - and traces the ways in which visual iconography safeguarded the monarchy even when their reign seemed to be hanging by a thread.Drawing on original research in the Royal Archives and her own experiences at Balmoral, Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace, Picardie explores the family feuds and international conflicts that challenged the Crown, and how royal fashion is wielded as a weapon.

During the golden age of science, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, there was a dedicated drive to accurately categorise nature and explain the natural world. Many enthusiastic naturalists, amateur and professional, set off to collect and classify plants and animals across the New World, and many of these finds still bear the names of those who discovered them today.The Noble Quest, previously Sightseers & Scholars: Scientific Travellers in the Golden Age of Discovery, features a new introduction that considers the growing catastrophic trend in species extinction today. The nine important individuals featured in the book encompass early naturalists William Bartram and Alexander von Humboldt; inquisitive aristocrats Charles Waterton and Prince Maximilian of Wied; professional collectors David Douglas, John Kirk Townsend and John Richardson; and last field naturalists Henry Walter Bates and John Wesley Powell. All faced great adventures and hardship, as they undertook their groundbreaking work.

Vikings over-wintered in England for the first time in 850. Twelve years later Harald Fairhair is born to a regional Norwegian. Young Harald battles through all of Norway becoming its first king.Alfred the Great saves Wessex from Viking invaders. His son Edward the Elder pushes the Vikings back into northern England. Athelstan, Edwards son, becomes the first King of England in 927 and, routing Irish Vikings and Scots in Englands bloodiest battle at Brunanburh in 937, his dominance is complete.Eric Bloodaxe succeeds his father becoming Norways second king. However, Harald had fostered his youngest son Hakon with Athelstan who backs Hakons challenge for Norway. Eric is overthrown and Hakon becomes third King of Norway.Eric flees to Britain where Englands third king, Edred, allows him the throne in York. Eric soon loses that crown yet four years later he becomes King in York for a second time. In 954 Eric is slaughtered in an ambush in Cumbria. There will be no more kings in York.A 100-year Game of Thrones as kings rise and fall around the North Sea.

Examines the barbarians from Europe and beyond who harassed, eroded and eventually caused the disintegration of the Roman Empire. It includes the Huns, Mongolian horsemen who swept into Europe to form a short-lived empire from the Urals to the Rhine; the Visigoths, or western Goths, who sacked Rome in 410 and ruled Spain from Toledo until the Moorish conquest in 711; the Ostrogoths, or eastern Goths, who ruled Italy from 493 until the Emperor Justinian drove them out in 534; the Franks, a group of Germanic tribes who came to rule France under the Merovingians; and the Vandals, fierce Arian Christians who invaded Gaul and Spain around 400 and sacked Rome in 455. As the authors show, some, such as the Vandals in North Africa, had shortlived periods of supremacy and relatively insignificant effect on the areas they settled; others, such as the Franks, adapted to Roman ways to create the strong foundations of medieval and later nations. Throughout the text, the authors reconstruct the volatile world of pitched battle and invasion.

Paying for a peerage - an illegal practice - feels like a very modern form of corruption, one that both the Labour and Conservative parties have been happy to indulge in at times during the early twenty-first century. Except, of course, it was happening almost a century ago.Meet Maundy Gregory, actor, journalist, publishing proprietor, conman, embezzler, MI5 spy - and the man you went to see if you had the money to pay for a peerage in the post-First World War years.Cutting a dash across high society of the 1920s - he was in attendance at the wedding of the future George VI - the immaculately oiled and overdressed Gregory would happily pockets thousands for playing Mr Fixit for wannabe knights and lords, and swell the coffers of Lloyd Georges Liberal Party to millions of pounds.Business was brisk, and business was brazen. Visitors to his lavish office on Parliament Street, with a direct line to Number 10, would be wined and dined and, after paying up, leave satisfied that they would be next on the list for a knighthood or barony. Nothing could be guaranteed, of course, and it was a strictly no refunds business.But Gregory was also suspected of being something else, to add to his impressive list of accomplishments: a murderer. As the political winds changed, the debts mounted up and the walls closed in around him, he somehow managed to inherit his mistresss not inconsiderable savings when she scribbled a new will on the back of a menu and was suddenly taken ill ...In The Man Who Sold Honours, Stephen Bates lifts the lid on the truth about this long-forgotten character who remains the only person ever to be successfully prosecuted under the sale of honours act of 1925. A powerful preview of the scandals to come in Britain in recent years, this is the story of the original honours tout - a riches-to-rags tale of greed, corruption and murder in the interwar years.

Filled with sparkling anecdotes and tales of living life to the full, featuring previously unseen photographs from Lady Glenconners personal collection.Lady Anne Glenconner, Lady-in-Waiting to Princess Margaret and Maid of Honour at the Queens Coronation, returns with a rich, sparkling memoir told through an A to Z of her life. From affairs of the heart and Basils Bar to dinners with the King and the art of entertaining each chapter reveals a vivid moment of joy, mischief or resilience.Whether offering tips on getting out of the bath with grace, or how to lose at cards with Princess Margaret, she shares wisdom and memory in equal measure. This book is a love letter to a disappearing world and a reminder that life, at any age, should be faced with laughter, a stiff upper lip, and the odd vodka tonic.

East Cork was a particularly violent area during the War of Independence with many IRA ambushes and attacks on Crown Forces. The first major success nationally for the IRA was the capture and destruction of Carrigtwohill RIC Barracks near Midleton. The IRAs worst tragedy was at Clonmult, also near Midleton, when the East Cork flying column was wiped out. During the war, twenty-two members of the IRA, ten RIC and Black & Tans, thirteen British soldiers, and nine civilians lost their lives violently in East Cork.This book presents a balanced history of the war between the IRA and Crown Forces in East Cork, covering all areas of the district. Featuring extensive lists of participants and a rich collection of photographs and maps, this book uses original primary sources, contemporary newspapers and documents to provide real, personal accounts of the action in East Cork.

Fascinating, rigorously researched and vividly told...[a] groundbreaking biography. - Dr Anna WhitelockPrincess Louise played a crucial role in rise of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, but while her son Albert entered history, she was removed from it. Based on a decade of original research, this is the first English-language biography to explore her life and legacy and the scandal the royal family tried to bury.Married off to the older Duke Ernst Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Louise bore two sons, Ernst and Albert, but her unhappy marriage led to her banishment, divorce, and loss of her children. She died alone at just thirty-one, her reputation destroyed by court gossip and political intrigue. Was she a fallen woman, or a victim of royal machinations? And was Prince Albert truly Ernsts son?Louises story is one of scandal, tragedy, and secrets that shape the House of Windsor today.

Padstow boasts a rich history spanning nearly 5,000 years. Here, its legacy is compiled through the centuries, from the legend of St Petrocs arrival on the north Cornish coast to build his famed monastery, through the expansion of Padstows port during the medieval period and the rise of the shipbuilding industry in the early nineteenth century, to the arrival of the railway in 1899, which marked the beginning of a thriving tourism industry in Padstow.Today, modern Padstow remains a working fishing port, and the spectacular views of the Camel Estuary, the attractive harbour, narrow winding lanes, old cottages and the beautiful ancient church add to its charm. Padstonians are a close-knit community, some families having lived there for generations, who work to keep Padstows traditions alive for many years into the future. Padstow: The History of a Cornish Town collates this long history, preserving the tale of a fascinating, resilient town.

Remembered only as a wife and mother, Elizabeth Boleyn has been overlooked for centuries. However, she had a long and illustrious court career before her daughters Mary and Anne ever caught the kings eye. Serving as Katherine of Aragons lady-in-waiting for eleven years, Elizabeth was at the heart of Henry VIIIs early reign, and she bore witness to the dramatic rise and downfall of her family.In this first narrative biography of Elizabeth Boleyn, her story is finally told. Beginning with her familys dramatic flight from Norfolk to London after the Battle of Bosworth, this book charts Elizabeths life at the early Henrician court, follows her as her family rise to the pinnacle of their power, and ends with her tragic death just a couple of years after two of her children were brutally executed. This is the story of the Boleyn family and the dramatic events of Tudor England from an entirely new perspective.

Searing heat, political turmoil, revolution in popular culture: relive the scorching year of 1976 in all its glory.On the political scene, Harold Wilson abruptly resigned as prime minister; Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe resigned in advance of his arrest and sensational Old Bailey trial for conspiracy and incitement to murder; and the Tories elected Milk Snatcher Margaret Thatcher as their party leader. The IRAs long-running demands for the reunification of Ireland exploded into a campaign of wholesale terrorism on the British mainland.Meanwhile, the Black Panther was finally arrested and brought to justice, and the curious case of John Stonehouse, the UKs last Postmaster General, came to its climax.Throw in the fact that Southampton defied 500:1 odds to win the FA Cup, and the irresistible rise of punk rock, triggered by the iconic moment when the Sex Pistols were let loose on an unsuspecting teatime-television audience, and 1976 proves itself a truly pendulum year that divides the old from the new - recaptured here in fully living, human detail.Inside 1976:Season-by-season account of the events of this bumper year Stories from across the UK, USA, Europe and the Soviet UnionPolitical rivalries in a Cold War era, including the early rise of Margaret Thatcher and the demise of Harold Wilson Celebrities of the era, including David Bowie, Sid James and the Sex Pistols, ABBA and the Bee Gees Massive breakthroughs in criminal justice, such as the arrest of the Black Panther, and the conclusion of the case of postmaster general John StonehouseLeaving no stone unturned and no story untold, *1976* is a book of pure nostalgia for those who lived through it, and an eyeopening experience for those who didnt: a page turner right to the end.