Prepare to be surprised and unnerved as the dark side of Charlotte is brought to life by native and longtime writer David Aaron Moore. Learn about Nellie Freeman, who nearly decapitated her husband with a straight razor in 1926. Discover how the ghosts of Camp Green infantrymen, the doughboys of World War I, still scream in the Southern night. Read about the seventy-one passengers who lost their lives as Eastern Airlines Flight 212 fell to the earth one foggy night in 1974. Come along and experience the grisly past of the City of Churches.

The history of the Pine Tree State would be bare but for the contributions of hardy and impassioned individuals--generals, governors, settlers and activists whose lives of leadership make up the story of Maine's "hidden history." Author Harry Gratwick creates intimate and detailed portraits of these Mainers, from the controversial missionary Sebastien Rale to Woolwich native William Phips, whose seafaring attacks against French Canada earned him the first governorship of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Gratwick also profiles inventors who "challenged the assumptions of their] time and place," such as Robert Benjamin Lewis, an African American from Gardiner who patented a hair growth product in the 1830s, and Margaret Knight, a York native who defied nineteenth-century sexism to earn the nickname "the female Edison." Discover four hundred years of Maine's history through the tales of its unique residents, from soprano Lillian Nordica, who left Farmington to become the most glamorous American opera singer of her day, to slugger George "Piano Legs" Gore, the only Mainer to have ever won a Major League batting championship.

Jennie Cyr disappeared in 1977. Jerilyn Towers vanished in 1982. Lynn Willette never came home on a night in 1994. Each woman had a relationship with James Hicks, who in 2000 confessed to murdering them, dismembering their bodies and burying the remains alongside rural roads in Aroostook County. This is their story.

Trudy Irene Scee follows Hicks from the North Woods to West Texas, detailing three decades of evasion, investigation and prosecution. She interviews police officers and victims families and finds Hicks at the state prison in Thomaston, where he remains silent and remorseless as he lives out his days behind bars. Thoroughly researched and carefully documented, "Tragedy in the North Woods" is the definitive history of one of Maine's most ruthless killers.

It's hard to imagine cows walking up Third Street or sheep on Innes Avenue, yet a large portion of the area known today as Bayview Hunters Point was once extremely rural. Called Butchertown by locals, the neighborhood was a source of much of San Francisco's food. Over the years, it evolved into an interesting combination of residences, businesses, and industries. The area was home to slaughterhouses, tanneries, tallow works, a saddle shop, the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, numerous boat yards including the legendary Allemand Brothers Boat Repair, and the U.S. Naval operations at Hunters Point Shipyard. Alongside these entities lived thousands of residents with unique stories and lifestyles.

The Kennebunks the phrase evokes peace, ocean breezes and small-town pride. In this captivating collection of vignettes, Kennebunk town historian Kathleen Ostrander reveals another side of the area's allure: its rich and varied past. From an account of the amateur astronomer whose name now graces the Bates College Observatory to the origins of Kennebunk's encyclopedic Walker Diaries, Ostrander offers a tour of the area's historical highlights. She notes the mysterious creature once said to live near the mouth of the Kennebunk River, treasures hidden in fireplaces and under floorboards and the scandalous murder trial of 1866, during which the wife of deceased doctor, drunk and temperance supporter Charles Swett was imprisoned on the testimony of her own daughter. Through quirky tales and serious sketches, Ostrander offers an affectionate portrait of the Kennebunks sure to charm and inform.

The beloved thoroughfare at the heart of Denver, Sixteenth Street has always been the Mile-High City's "Main Street." Sixteenth Street got its jump start in 1879 when Leadville's Silver King and Colorado's richest man, Horace Austin Warner Tabor, came to town and built the city's first five-story skyscraper at the corner of Sixteenth and Larimer Streets. In coming years, Sixteenth Street became Denver's main retail center as shopkeepers and department store owners constructed ever-more impressive palaces, culminating in the Daniels and Fisher Tower--the city's tallest building for five decades and the symbol of the city. In the second half of the 20th century, Sixteenth Street saw major changes, including the creation of one of the most successful pedestrian malls in the country, an archetype of the power of great urban places and an inspiration to other cities, large and small.

The black community in the Ann Arbor area includes Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Second Baptist Church, Brown Chapel, the Ann Arbor Community Center, the old Jones School, and other well-remembered places. The photographs representing this history follow the progress of the African American community from 1857, when the Rev. J. M. Gregory gathered together a small congregation at 504 High Street, to 1996, when Dr. Homer Neal assumed leadership of the University of Michigan as its interim president. This integral but little-known part of Ann Arbor area history is preserved in Another Ann Arbor.

Morgan Hill lies at the foot of stately El Toro Mountain in southern Santa Clara Valley. Martin Murphy Sr. settled here in 1845, and only a generation later the Murphy family had managed to acquire 70,000 acres. Martin's son Daniel owned over a million acres in the western United States when his only daughter, the beautiful Diana, secretly married Hiram Morgan Hill in 1882. Hiram and Diana inherited part of the original ranch, where they built their lovely Villa Mira Monte. Although the Southern Pacific Railroad tried to name the nearby depot "Huntington," passengers always asked to stop at Morgan Hill's ranch, a popular christening of a community surrounded by thriving orchards and vineyards. After World War II, Morgan Hill became a desirable suburb and has remained so through the birth of Silicon Valley.

When it comes to Irish America, certain names spring to mind Kennedy, O'Neill and Curley testify to the proverbial footsteps of the Gael in Boston. However, few people know of Sister Mary Anthony O'Connell, whose medical prowess carried her from the convent to the Civil War battlefields, earning her the nickname the Boston Irish Florence Nightingale, or of Barney McGinniskin, Boston's first Irish cop, who proudly roared at every roll call, McGinniskin from the bogs of Ireland present! Along with acclaim or notoriety, many forgotten Irish Americans garnered numerous historical firsts. In "Hidden History of the Boston Irish," Peter F. Stevens offers an entertaining and compelling portrait of the Irish immigrant saga and pays homage to the overlooked, yet significant, episodes of the Boston Irish experience.

America's Cup: Trials & Triumphs is a concise history of some of the most interesting of the international struggles for possession of the acclaimed Cup. But more than that, Simpson writes about the ingenuity and technical advancements made over the years in hull and sail design for swift oceangoing sailing yachts. Not satisfied by relating only the history of the America's Cup challenges and defenses, Simpson illustrates some of the interesting events that have changed commercial sailing into the popular sport of sailboat racing. A sport that was once the singular pleasure of wealthy barons of industry is now enjoyed by thousands of middle-class citizens from many nations with access to the sea. Also included in this volume are sailing techniques, maneuvers and useful nautical terminology.

?In the fall of the year one thousand seven hundred and eighty, when the American cause wore a very gloomy aspect in the Southern States, Colonels Arthur and William Campbell, hearing of the advance of Colonel Ferguson along the mountains in the State of North Carolina... formed a plan to intercept him.? ?Ensign Robert Campbell On October 7, 1780, American Patriot and Loyalist soldiers battled each other at Kings Mountain, near the border of North and South Carolina. With over one hundred eyewitness accounts, this collection of participant statements from men of both sides includes letters and statements in their original form?the soldiers? own words? unedited and unabridged. Rife with previously unpublished details of this historic turning point in the American Revolution, these accounts expose the dramatic happenings of the battle, including new perspectives on the debate over Patriot Colonel William Campbell's bravery during the fi ght. Robert M. Dunkerly's work is an invaluable resource to historians studying the fl ow of combat, genealogists tracing their ancestors and anyone interested in Kings Mountain and the Southern Campaign.

The people who lived at Brant's Ford, or in the countryside around it, have made a considerable contribution to Canadian history. Since Joseph Brant first established himself and the Indians of the Six Nations, there in 1784, the region has been affected by, and has reacted to, great events in Europe and North America, and in the process has grown from a precarious pioneer settlement to a well-developed agricultural and industrial society. This book is an account of nearly two centuries of economic and social change in the Brant area. The author records the effects of these changes on Indian and non-Indian alike and relates them to developments in Ontario and the rest of Canada. He gives much attention to such notables as Joseph Brant himself, Hiram 'King' Capron (the founder of the town of Paris), George Brown, the politician-turned-farmer, and his 'agricultural factory', Alexander Graham Bell, Pauline Johnson, Sara Jeannette Duncan, and to such industrial and philanthropic families as the Veritys and the Cockshutts. This book is published under the auspices of the Ontario Historical Society. It is one that everyone interested in Canadian history will want to read.

The Horseshoe Curve is known worldwide as an engineering achievement by the Pennsylvania Railroad. This landmark, located just west of Altoona, opened to traffic on February 15, 1854, and it enabled a railroad line to climb the Allegheny Mountains and the eastern continental divide. The Horseshoe Curve's construction impacted railroad design and development for mountainous terrain everywhere, enabling access to coal and other raw materials essential for the industrial age. J. Edgar Thomson, chief engineer of the Pennsylvania Railroad, is widely recognized for his engineering and design of the Horseshoe Curve, a concept never utilized previously. Today the curve is still in use and sees approximately 70 trains daily. Through vintage photographs, Horseshoe Curve chronicles how this marvel remains one of the vital transportation arteries linking the east and west coasts of the United States.

Cincinnati has a distinguished television history. Beginning before WLW-T signed on the air in February 1948, its experimental station W8XCT broadcast from the 46th floor of the Carew Tower. WKRC-TV and WCPO-TV signed on in 1949, WCET in 1954, and WXIX-TV in 1968. Since then, television has become part of the family. Uncle Al, Skipper Ryle, Batty Hattie from Cincinnati, the Cool Ghoul, Peter Grant, Al Schottelkotte, Nick Clooney, Ruth Lyons, Paul Baby, Bob Braun, and Jerry Springer visited Cincinnati living rooms on television. Remember Midwestern Hayride, TV Dance Party, PM Magazine, Juvenile Court, Young People's Specials, Lilias, Dotty Mack, Bob Shreve, Mr. Hop, Bean's Clubhouse, The Last Prom, and Ira Joe? They are part of the collective Cincinnati history, part of the Cincinnati culture, and part of the Cincinnati family.

Columbia started life in 1850 when Dr. Thaddeus Hildreth and his brother set up the camp known as Hildreth's Diggins in the lovely Sierra foothills. More than 150 tumultuous years later, Columbia is an amazing example of a true gold rush community frozen in time. But this is no ghost town either -- the downtown area, with its plank sidewalks, ornate hotels, and saloons, is preserved as a California State Historic Park. The town today is a living, breathing, modern community at peace with both its past and its present. It's easy to imagine characters from the Old West swaggering through these streets, which served as the backdrop to Gary Cooper's Marshall Will Kane in High Noon. Of course, given Columbia's frequent historical reenactments, one doesn't have to think too hard to conjure such imagery.

Early settlers first called this area Boldface Hill, for a Native American chieftain, but the name was soon changed to Priceas Hill, named after Rees Price and his family, who were among the first city dwellers to see the residential potential of the area. Reesas father, Evan Price, speculated in land west of the city, and his son opened a brickyard and sawmill to serve the building boom. In 1874, Reesas sons John and William built an inclined plane to make the commute up the hill easier. With improved transportation, the communityas population soared, mostly because the air was cleaner up on the hill than it was downtown. Strong community roots were quickly seeded and have since grown. Schools such as Seton, Elder, and Western Hills each have a large number of supportive alumni. Catholic and Protestant churches were built, as well as two synagogues. Businesses were started, and two libraries grew with the population. Residents were active in politics, social clubs, and civic associations. The first Skyline Chili opened here and was named for the stunning view of Cincinnati this hill offers. Other local favorites are Price Hill Chili and the Crowas Nest. Through more than 200 photographs and illustrations, readers can see for themselves the roots of this great community.

Nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, hidden in the northeast region of Georgia, lies - literally and figuratively - one of the Peach State's most treasured areas. Dahlonega, Georgia is known primarily as the site of the first major United States gold rush. But now, as the gold dust has settled, we can look back on the town's complex history - a history more valuable than its famous abundance of precious metal. Dahlonega, Georgia: A Brief History, is not to be confused with works focusing solely on the distant past. The most up-to-date account available, Dahlonega, Georgia even includes the famous 2006 discovery of gold underneath an old hotel. Anne Dismukes Amerson, author of "The Best of I Remember Dahlonega," once again brings vitality and passion to her account as she explores the intriguing history of this beautiful Georgia city.

Photographer Otis Hairston's camera snapped nearly forty years of fond memories and historic Greensboro events- from community gatherings and North Carolina A&T Aggie homecomings to celebrations of the historic 1960 sit-in. This stunning photo collection depicts ordinary people, local heroes and national celebrities as it captures the strength of Greensboro s African American community. "Picturing Greensboro" is a landmark volume of spectacular images that will be cherished for years to come.

Orcas Island, the largest of the 172 islands in San Juan County, lies in the Salish Sea north of Puget Sound. Known as the "Gem of the San Juans" for her shimmering emerald hills bounded by 125 miles of rocky, tree-lined shore, Orcas was home to countless generations of Native Americans before the arrival of its first white settlers, formerly Hudson's Bay men who had hunted on the island, in the late 1850s. An international boundary dispute, popularly known as the Pig War, prevented early pioneers from settling land claims until the dispute was resolved by the German kaiser in 1872. Settlement grew slowly until improved steamship routes and increased commerce brought more tourists to the island. In 1906, Robert Moran built a fabulous estate, Rosario, now a world-class resort. Thousands of visitors have been coming to Orcas Island over the years to explore her forested hills, camp in Moran State Park or stay at one of the many historic resorts, and fish in the pristine waters surrounding this island paradise.