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In the last 50 years, life has been simplified by the awe-inspiring advancements that have been achieved in the world of computer science and technology. In 1976, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak unveiled the Apple I, the first-ever computer that operated on a single-circuit board, just five years after a team of IBM engineers introduced the “floppy disk,” which revolutionized data-sharing. In 1981, the first personal computer - IBM's Acorn - equipped...
62) Guy Gibson: The Life and Legacy of the Royal Air Force's Most Distinguished Bomber Pilot During Worl
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Given the RAF's importance, it should come as no surprise that some of the pilots ranked among Britain's most recognized war heroes, and Guy Gibson remains one of the most famous and highly decorated British soldiers in World War II. His exploits in the RAF as the leader of the audacious raid to blow up German dams in May 1943 remain renowned, and for generations of British boys after the war, he served as the benchmark of a legendary hero. His tragic...
63) Dr. Mary Edwards Walker: The Life and Legacy of the Civil Rights Activist Who Became the Only Wom
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In the process of becoming one of the most famous Americans of her era, Susan B. Anthony's legacy has overshadowed many of her contemporaries who were also active in the fight for civil rights. Among them, few led as interesting or progressive a life as Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, who grew up in a family that encouraged every kind of pursuit for girls and provided an educational foundation that would propel Walker in many fields. In addition to becoming...
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Of all the Americans who became renowned for expeditions to the West, few were as famous, or infamous, as John Charles Fremont, whose work produced some of the region's most detailed maps and propelled him to national fame. Among other things, he taught mathematics to midshipmen on a Navy warship on a long cruise off South America, served as governor of two states and a Senator for one, was court-martialed for insubordination, issued the first emancipation...
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At first, airplane improvements occurred in an ad hoc, almost accidental manner during World War I. However, when pilots' mounting of armaments on airplanes proved a successful means of defeating other aircraft and even attacking men on the ground, a much more active and systematic development of warplanes began across the continent. Each advance prompted a countermeasure, as the two sides strove for primacy in a deadly, unforgiving environment which...
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Carl Gustav Jung, the man who created analytical psychology both as a concept and as a practice, was a complicated person. He is also very difficult to understand, partly because so many of his personality traits seem to be contradictory and sometimes mutually exclusive. Ferociously intelligent, he used rigorous scientific method to derive a completely new set of tools for understanding and healing the human mind, yet he also believed completely in...
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It's quite possible that none of what Caesar did would've happened without the template for such actions being set by Lucius Cornelius Sulla 40 years earlier. At the time, when Caesar was in his teens, war was being waged both on the Italian peninsula and abroad, with domestic politics pitting the conservative, aristocratic optimates against the populist, reformist populares, and this tension ultimately escalated into an all-out war. One of the leading...
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A person may not know anything about baseball, but they still likely know the name Babe Ruth. Others may not watch football, but they still likely know who Tom Brady is. And most people have never been to a stock car race, but they've likely heard of Richard Petty, along with his simple but fitting nickname: "The King."
Of course, there are plenty of reasons why Petty is so legendary, and why "The King" is more than merely a nickname. The name is...
69) George Balanchine: The Life and Legacy of One of the 20th Century's Most Influential Choreographers
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By the turn of the 20th century, American entertainment was still preoccupied with European-style operetta, as embodied in the works of cellist-composer Victor Herbert. Traditional dance forms moved from European stories to the American prairie in Oklahoma by the late 1940s, and what was once the property of Bavarian princes became the singing standards of cowboys riding through the corn fields in Oh What a Beautiful Morning and Out of My Dreams.
At...
70) David Dixon Porter: The Life and Legacy of the Distinguished Union Rear Admiral during the Civil War
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Americans have long been fascinated by the Civil War, marveling at the size of the battles, the leadership of the generals, and the courage of the soldiers. Since the war's start over 150 years ago, the battles have been subjected to endless debate among historians and the generals themselves. The Civil War was the deadliest conflict in American history, and had the two sides realized it would take 4 years and inflict over a million casualties, it...
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In the warm predawn darkness of June 22, 1941, 3 million men waited along a front hundreds of miles long, stretching from the Baltic coast of Poland to the Balkans. Ahead of them in the darkness lay the Soviet Union, its border guarded by millions of Red Army troops echeloned deep throughout the huge spaces of Russia. This massive gathering of Wehrmacht soldiers from Adolf Hitler's Third Reich and his allied states – notably Hungary and Romania...
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Despite a general dearth of African American names rising to musical prominence during the years of Reconstruction, black talent existed in good measure for both popular and classical genres, and among the most notable musicians celebrated in the present day is composer Scott Joplin, who in his day earned the moniker "King of Ragtime." Joplin's use of ragtime as a piano genre was as natural to African American dances as the waltz was to Europeans....
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Recent research has revealed that the richest person of all time lived in the 14th century in West Africa and went by many names, including Kankan Musa Keita, Emir of Melle, Lord of the Mines of Wangara, Conqueror of Ghanata and the Lion of Mali II, but today he is usually referred to as Mansa Musa. Adjusting his wealth to modern values, he was worth about an estimated $400 billion as the Sultan of ancient Mali, which controlled the trade routes across...
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"Greetings, conversationalists across the fruited plain, this is Rush Limbaugh, the most dangerous man in America, with the largest hypothalamus in North America, serving humanity simply by opening my mouth, destined for my own wing in the Museum of Broadcasting, executing everything I do flawlessly with zero mistakes, doing this show with half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair because I have talent on loan from...God. Rush Limbaugh....
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In the 1960s and 1970s, no actor personified cool, calm and collected like Steve McQueen, whose suave anti-hero protagonists made men jealous and women swoon. As actor Donald Logue puts it in The Tao of Steve, "Steve is the prototypical cool American male. He's the guy on his horse, the guy alone. He has his own code of honor, his own code of ethics, his own rules of living. He never, ever tries to impress the women, but he always gets the girl."...
76) Saint Gregory the Great: The History of the Early Middle Ages' Most Influential Pope and the Rise
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The pope, the bishop of Rome, claims spiritual authority over more than a billion Catholics worldwide. He also exercises temporal authority over a tiny enclave of Rome consisting of the Vatican Palace, Saint Peter's Basilica, and 44 hectares with the ancient Leonine Walls. As sovereign of the Vatican City States, he has around 1,000 subjects, mostly clerics.
While those facts are widely known, many are not familiar with the fact that before the reunification...
77) Cola di Rienzo: The Controversial Life and Legacy of the Medieval Roman Who Attempted to Unify Italy
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In the wake of the Roman Empire's collapse, Italy found itself fractured, and nearly 1,000 years after Rome lost its grip in the late 5th century, there were several sovereign regional powers on the peninsula, such as Milan, Venice, Florence, the Papal States, and Naples. Centuries of conflict ensued, precipitating great anxiety among Western thinkers, and Italians responded to the fragmentation of the area in many ways. While local leaders often...
78) Executions of British and French Royalty: The Lives of the Royals Who Were Put to Death in Englang
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Over 450 years after his reign, Henry VIII is still the most famous and recognizable King of England, but it's for all the wrong reasons. Though well regarded by contemporaries as a learned King and "one of the most charismatic rulers to sit on the English throne", he is best remembered today for his gluttony and multiple marriages, particularly the gruesome way in which he was widowed on more than one occasion. Naturally, that was the focus of the...
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Throughout the 19th century, American settlers pushing across the Western frontier came into contact with diverse American tribes, producing a series of conflicts ranging from the Great Plains to the Southwest, from the Trail of Tears to the Pacific Northwest. Indian leaders like Geronimo became feared and dreaded men in America, and Sitting Bull's victory over George Custer's 7th Cavalry at Little Bighorn was one of the nation's most traumatic military...
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Stand Watie's life connects the traditional Cherokee homeland in Tennessee and Georgia, the fight within the tribe over leaving for the West or staying on their homeland and trying to resist, and the Trail of Tears. At the same time, his life also includes the ongoing split between mixed-blood and full-blood Cherokee in the Cherokee Nation, and the chaos of Indian Territory during the Civil War.
On the surface, Indian Territory was peaceful and fairly...
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