In 1820, a sperm whale attacked and sunk the Whaleship Essex. 2000 miles off the coast of South America, the crew knew it would be a true feat to survive and make it to shore--any shore. It's story became legendary; Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote about it; Edgar Allen Poe incorporated details of it in his only novel; and, most notoriously of them all, it served as the inspiration for Herman Melville's Moby Dick. This account retraces the history of one of the most famous shipwrecks of all time.

James Burbage founded the Lord Chamberlain's Men in 1594, during the reign of Elizabeth I of England. Its most famous member was, of course, William Shakespeare, he's only a small part of the companies fascinating story. This varied company of actors and writers lived and worked around London, plying their craft. Although it was a beneficial time to be in the arts, Elizabethan England did provide its own dangers and pitfalls. The actors played their parts on the stage, but they had just as many demanding roles to play in their lives. The competition was fierce and brutal, and often the troupes were used as political tools of the warring aristocracy. Playhouses, and acting troupes, rose and fell at the whim of the rich and powerful. This book gives insight in the times and politics of one of the greatest acting companies.

Everyone who was alive remembers where they were the day John F. Kennedy was shot; but that's just a brief moment in time. What shaped the country-and even the world-wasn't that brief moment...it was how we rebuilt. This book follows the 30 days following the death of John F. Kennedy died-it shows how a nation came together, endured, and became stronger in the wake of horrific tragedy. HistoryCaps is an imprint of BookCaps Study Guides. With each book, a brief period of history is recapped. We publish a wide array of topics (from baseball and music to science and philosophy), so check our growing catalogue regularly to see our newest books.

Fiction often imitates real-life. That was certainly the case for Oscar Wilde. This book is part biography, part critical study. It examines all of Wilde's published and unpublished work to see what was happening in her life that she might have used as inspiration for her fiction. HistoryCaps is an imprint of BookCaps Study Guides. With each book, a brief period of history is recapped. We publish a wide array of topics (from baseball and music to science and philosophy), so check our growing catalogue regularly to see our newest books.

They live in secret and their lives are fascinating. Howard Brinkley takes you inside the history of spying in this bundled anthology of three of his top-selling histories. The following books are bundled together at a discounted price in this anthology: *Spies of the American Revolution *Spies of the Civil War *Russian Espionage

The amount of attention focused on Apollo 11 was enormous. Sending a man to the Moon was not simply an American achievement, but an achievement for the entire world. By Apollo 17, the space race was over and the fascination with the Apollo mission was not as great. Though the mission is not the most covered mission, it is one of the most important-what its experiments proved paved the way for space missions to come. HistoryCaps is an imprint of BookCaps Study Guides. With each book, a brief period of history is recapped. We publish a wide array of topics (from baseball and music to science and philosophy), so check our growing catalogue regularly to see our newest books.

Never has the world come as close to the catastrophic destruction that nearly came to pass in October 1962. The United States and the Soviet Union, uneasy allies in World War II but Cold War rivals after the defeat of Germany, squared off over the discovery of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. This launched 13 days of tense negotiations between the two nations, as both President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev prepared for the possibility of nuclear war. While neither man wanted a war and understood the potential consequences, the situation was not merely in their hands. Khrushchev faced pressure from Soviets to take a hardline stance against the U.S., while Kennedy faced the real possibility of a military coup if he did not follow the strong recommendations of his military advisors to destroy the missiles. As Attorney General Robert Kennedy said, "The 10 or 12 people who participated in all these discussions were bright and energetic people. We had perhaps amongst the most able in the country and if any one of a half a dozen of them were president, the world would have been very likely plunged into catastrophic war." Read more about the history of this short crisis in this book. HistoryCaps is an imprint of BookCaps Study Guides. With each book, a brief period of history is recapped. We publish a wide array of topics (from baseball and music to science and philosophy), so check our growing catalogue regularly to see our newest books.

Few famous humans came into the world under such humble circumstances as Abraham Lincoln on February 12, 1809. But it may very well be that the humble and unassuming life he lived actually served to shape him into the solid, moral, honest, decent, hard-working adult that he became. What were those circumstances, the formula so to speak, that molded this future president? This biography looks at the childhood and young adulthood of Abraham Lincoln.