History Books

During the last twenty years the patient researches of successive students in the archives of North Italian cities have been richly rewarded. The State papers of Milan and Venice, of Ferrara and Modena, have yielded up their treasures; the correspondence of Isabella d'Este, in the Gonzaga archives at Mantua, has proved a source of inexhaustible wealth and knowledge. A flood of light has been... more...

CHAPTER I. A BOY ESCAPES A TYRANT AND PAYS A DEBT WITH A HORNET'S NEST—MEETS KIT CARSON AND BECOMES THE OWNER OF A PONY AND A GUN. The old saying that truth is stranger than fiction is emphasized in the life of every man whose career has been one of adventure and danger in the pursuit of a livelihood. Knowing nothing of the art of fiction and but little of any sort of literature; having been... more...

CHAPTER I FINDING A PLACE OF REFUGE The migration of the blacks from the Southern States to those offering them better opportunities is nothing new. The objective here, therefore, will be not merely to present the causes and results of the recent movement of the Negroes to the North but to connect this event with the periodical movements of the blacks to that section, from about the year 1815 to the... more...

CHAPTER I. One evening long ago, when this wonderful century, now in a vigorous old age, had just passed its nineteenth birthday, in a bright, cheerful sitting-room in the good old city of Hartford, Conn., sat a fair young matron beside a cradle in which lay sleeping a beautiful boy a year and a half old. The gentle motion of her little slippered foot on the rocker, keeping time with the soft humming... more...

INTRODUCTORY The title of this book needs a word of explanation, since each of its terms can legitimately be used to denote more than one conception both of time and place. "The East" is understood widely and vaguely nowadays to include all the continent and islands of Asia, some part of Africa—the northern part where society and conditions of life are most like the Asiatic—and some regions... more...

Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives: In obedience to the command of the Constitution, it has now become my duty "to give to Congress information of the state of the Union and recommend to their consideration such measures" as I judge to be "necessary and expedient." But first and above all, our thanks are due to Almighty God for the numerous benefits which He has... more...

PREFACE. The Duchesse d'Orleans, commonly though incorrectly styled the Princess of Bavaria, was known to have maintained a very extensive correspondence with her relations and friends in different parts of Europe. Nearly eight hundred of her letters, written to the Princess Wilhelmina Charlotte of Wales and the Duke Antoine-Ulric of Brunswick, were found amongst the papers left by the Duchess... more...

Chapter I. Pontiac's Conspiracy The fall of Montreal, on September 8, 1760, while the plains about the city were still dotted with the white tents of the victorious English and colonial troops, was indeed an event of the deepest consequence to America and to the world. By the articles of capitulation which were signed by the Marquis de Vaudreuil, Governor of New France, Canada and all its... more...

WILLIAM RUFUS, OR WILLIAM THE RED. 1087.An. Reg. 1. William, surnamed Rufus or William the Red, second sonne to William Conqueror, began his reigne ouer England the ninth of September, in the yeare 1087. about the 31. yeare of the emperour Henrie the fourth, and the 37. of Philip the first, king of France, Urbane the second then gouerning the sée of Rome, and Malcolme Cammoir reigning in Scotland.... more...

CHAPTER I. ST. CLAIR'S DEFEAT, 1791. The Westward March of the Backwoodsman. The backwoods folk, the stark hunters and tree-fellers, and the war-worn regulars who fought beside them in the forest, pushed ever westward the frontier of the Republic. Year after year each group of rough settlers and rough soldiers wrought its part in the great epic of wilderness conquest. The people that for one or... more...