History Books

CHAPTER I. ITALY. I am going to tell you next about the most famous nation in the world. Going westward from Greece another peninsula stretches down into the Mediterranean. The Apennine Mountains run like a limb stretching out of the Alps to the south eastward, and on them seems formed that land, shaped somewhat like a leg, which is called Italy. Round the streams that flowed down from these hills,... more...

INTRODUCTION. It is the object of this book, and those which will succeed it in the same series, to put before the reader the main lines of the European War as it proceeds. Each such part must necessarily be completed and issued some little time after the events to which it relates have passed into history. The present first, or introductory volume, which is a preface to the whole, covers no more than... more...

CHAPTER I THE NAVAL CAMPAIGN ON LAKE CHAMPLAIN1775-1776 Preponderant effect of Control of the Water upon the Struggle for American Independence Deducible then from Reason and from Experience Consequent Necessity to the Americans of a Counterpoise to British Navy This obtained through Burgoyne's Surrender The Surrender of Burgoyne traceable directly to the Naval Campaigns on Lake Champlain, 1775,... more...

Chapter I.—PREFATORY. The Twelve Hercules-labors of this King have ended here; what was required of him in World-History is accomplished. There remain to Friedrich Twenty-three Years more of Life, which to Prussian History are as full of importance as ever; but do not essentially concern European History, Europe having gone the road we now see it in. On the grand World-Theatre the curtain has fallen... more...

INTRODUCTION. The springs of American civilization, unlike those of the elder world, lie revealed in the clear light of History. In appearance they are feeble; in reality, copious and full of force. Acting at the sources of life, instruments otherwise weak become mighty for good and evil, and men, lost elsewhere in the crowd, stand forth as agents of Destiny. In their toils, their sufferings, their... more...

PREFACE When I was a boy, some years before I obtained my appointment in the navy, I spent many of those happy hours that only childhood knows poring over the back numbers of a British service periodical, which began its career in 1828, with the title Colburn's United Service Magazine; under which name, save and except the Colburn, it still survives. Besides weightier matters, its early issues... more...

WAR WITH SPAIN. The year had not closed before the ministers found that a rupture with Spain was inevitable. The first intimation of it was detected in the menacing conduct of the court of Versailles; and Lord Bristol, the English ambassador at Madrid, was instructed to demand the real intentions of Charles III., and the real purport of the family compact. General Wall, the Spanish minister replied... more...

CHAPTER I."Ye gentlemen of England,Who live at home at ease,Oh, little do ye think uponThe dangers of the seas."—Old Song.Rather more than eighty years ago, a stout little boy, in his sixth or seventh year, was despatched from an old-fashioned farm-house in the upper part of the parish of Cromarty, to drown a litter of puppies in an adjacent pond. The commission seemed to be not in the least... more...

THE CITY OF NEW YORK. The City of New York is the largest and most important in America. Its corporate limits embrace the whole of Manhattan Island, on which it is situated, and which is bounded by the Hudson, the East and Harlem rivers, and by Spuyten Duyvil creek, which last connects the Harlem with the Hudson. Being almost entirely surrounded by deep water, and lying within sight of the ocean, and... more...

The bombardment of Antwerp began about ten o'clock on the evening of Wednesday, October 7. The first shell to fall within the city struck a house in the Berchem district, killing a fourteen-year-old boy and wounding his mother and little sister. The second decapitated a street-sweeper as he was running for shelter. Throughout the night the rain of death continued without cessation, the shells... more...