When you need to get around town, you can drive your car, ride a bike, or even take the bus. But when it comes to hopping on a motorcycle, you don't know how to get your motor running. Get ready for the ride of your life! The Complete Idiot's Guide to motorcycles makes learning to ride as easy as slipping on a leather jacket and a pair of cool shades. With humor and enthusiasm, the experts at Motorcyclist magazine teach you how to buy your very first bike and take to the open road.

    Here, in clear, compelling prose illustrated with evocative scenes, extensive diagrams, and historical photos, is the story of the Titanic's rise and fall- from details on her stateof-the-art design and widely varying accommodations to a timeline showing how structural and human failurecontributed to her demise.

    He describes in very human terms 475 years of recorded history in the Palmetto State, including the experiences of all South Carolinians--those with roots in Africa and in Europe as well as Native Americans; male and female; rich and poor. In an eminently readable presentation, Edgar uses letters, diaries, and other writings to let voices from the past take part in telling the state's fascinating story.Recounting the period from the first Spanish exploration to the end of the Civil War, Edgar charts South Carolina's rising national and international prominence and its parallel economic ascendancy. He dispels myths about the state's early history--including the notion that the colony was inhabited by a homogeneous white population--and tells how South Carolina developed an agricultural economy that relied heavily on African American slave labor. Edgar examines, among other topics, the impact of the American revolution, Charleston's significance as a metropolis and major seaport, and the state's leadership in the Secession movement.With changes wrought by the Civil War, South Carolina slipped from national prominence into a period marked by economic, social, civil, and political strife. Edgar details the everyday life of blacks and whites during Reconstruction, the state's mixed efforts to join the New South, and Benjamin Ryan Tillman's rise to power. He also chronicles South Carolina's changing politics in the once-solid South, the state's reawakening after World War II, the casualties and victories of an extended civil rights struggle, and the Palmetto State's present economic, educational, and political challenges.

    The table of contents lists all of the addresses so that the reader may view and explore all of the sites personally. The work also contains a bibliography of thirty-three sources, one hundred thirty-one footnotes and an index of one hundred sixteen entries. It is fully illustrated with photographs, a map, and Marie Laveau's death certificate.It is the first book written exclusively about the ghosts of New Orleans since Jeanne de Lavigne's 1946 classic Ghost Stories of Old New Orleans. The author visited personally each of the sites, conducted interviews and took photographs. During the course of his research the author experienced two paranormal occurrences which are documented in the narratives.New Orleans Ghosts also contains an epilogue that articulates the six theories that apply to ghostly phenomenon. Each of the theories is further highlighted by being exemplified by reference to individual stories within the text.This book alone has been responsible for the creation of a growing arm of New Orleans tourism-- the "Ghost Tour." Before 1993 such tours did not exist. In 1998 the author is aware of ten such tours. Virtually all of these tour guides have informed the author that his book is the "Bible" for haunted tour guides.

    The company's early years were an unending series of legal, financial, and operational crises that continually threatened its ability to stay in business. Yet FedEx's leaders and employees were incredibly resourceful and resilient. Pilots used personal credit cards to gas up planes, paychecks weren't cashed, and in one of the most famous episodes, founder Fred Smith literally gambled the company's last remaining funds to keep the planes flying. Becuase Roger Frock was with the companies from the start, he is able to chronicle these real-life hardships and hard-fought triumphs as only an insider can. With humor and insight, he describes how FedEx overcame impossible odds to become one of the world's greatest success stories, a revolutionary company that truly changed the way the world does business.

    Working from government reports, manuscripts, and the diaries and letters of those persons—both white and Indian—who knew him, Margaret Coel has developed an unusually readable, interesting, and closely documented account of his life and the life of his tribe during the fateful years of the mid-1800s.It was in these years that thousands of gold-seekers on their way to California and Oregon burst across the plains, first to traverse the territory consigned to the Indians and then, with the discovery of gold in 1858 on Little Dry Creek (formerly the site of the Southern Arapaho winter campground  and presently Denver, Colorado), to settle.Chief Left Hand was one of the first of his people to acknowledge the inevitability of the white man’s presence on the plain, and thereafter to espouse a policy of adamant peacefulness —if not, finally, friendship—toward the newcomers.Chief Left Hand is not only a consuming story—popular history at its best—but an important work of original scholarship. In it the author:Clearly establishes the separate identities of the original Left Hand, the subject of her book, and the man by the same name who succeeded Little Raven in 1889 as the principal chief of the Southern Arapahos in Oklahoma—a longtime source of confusion to students of western history;Lays to rest, with a series of previously unpublished letters by George Bent, a century-long dispute among historians as to Left Hand’s fate at Sand Creek;Examines the role of John A. Evans, first governor of Colorado, in the Sand Creek Massacre. Colonel Chivington, commander of the Colorado Volunteers, has always (and justly) been held responsible for the surprise attack. But Governor Evans, who afterwards claimed ignorance and innocence of the colonel’s intentions, was also deeply involved. His letters, on file in the Colorado State Archives, have somehow escaped the scrutiny of historians and remain, for the most part, unpublished. These Coel has used extensively, allowing the governor to tell, in his own words, his real role in the massacre. The author also examines Evans’s motivations for coming to Colorado, his involvement with the building of the transcontinental railroad, and his intention of clearing the Southern Arapahos from the plains —an intention that abetted Chivington’s ambitions and led to their ruthless slaughter at Sand Creek.

    Setting aside our present-day romantic notions about orphan trains, Holt's book sheds valuable new light on the phenomenon by putting it in the context of nineteenth-century ideals about childhood, the roles of social reformers, the changing theories of relief and welfare for the poor, western development, and rail expansion.Marilyn Irvin Holt, former director of publications at the Kansas State Historical Society; is a freelance editor, writer, and researcher and teaches historical editing at the University of Kansas.

    In this, the definitive comprehensive history of Philadelphia, the reader will discover a rich and colorful portrait of one of America's most vital, interesting, and illustrious cities.

    True tales of murder in New England, from the colonial period to today, chronicled by a true crime master, New York Times bestselling author, and star of Investigation Discovery’s new television show Dark Minds

    Coyne’s journey begins where the US Open and US Amateur got their start, historic Newport Country Club in Rhode Island. As he travels from the oldest and most elite of links to the newest and most democratic, Coyne finagles his way onto coveted first tees (Shinnecock, Oakmont, Chicago GC) between rounds at off-the-map revelations, like ranch golf in Eastern Oregon and homemade golf in the Navajo Nation. He marvels at the golf miracle hidden in the sand hills of Nebraska, and plays an unforgettable midnight game under bright sunshine on the summer solstice in Fairbanks, Alaska. More than just a tour of the best golf the United States has to offer, Coyne’s quest connects him with hundreds of American golfers, each from a different background but all with one thing in common: pride in welcoming Coyne to their course. Trading stories and swing tips with caddies, pros, and golf buddies for the day, Coyne adopts the wisdom of one of his hosts in Minnesota: the best courses are the ones you play with the best people. But, in the end, only one stop on Coyne’s journey can be ranked the Great American Golf Course. Throughout his travels, he invites golfers to debate and help shape his criteria for judging the quintessential American course. He discovers his long-awaited answer in the most unlikely of places!

    No one visits and they never speak to each other. Until the day Zohra Dasgupta, a young postwoman, delivers an extraordinary letter - from a woman claiming to be the sister they thought had been murdered fifty years earlier.So begins an intriguing tale: is this woman an impostor? If she's not, what did happen all those years ago? And why are the brothers such recluses? Then there's Zohra. Once a bright, outgoing teenager, the only friend she will see from her schooldays is laidback Crispin, who has roped her in to the restoration of an old railway line on his father's land. For which, as it happens, they need some carriages . . .With wry humour and a cast of characters as delightful as they are damaged, Clare Morrall tells an engrossing story of past misdeeds and present reckoning, which shows that for all the wrong turnings we might take, sometimes it is possible to retrace our steps.

     For twenty years Daniel Paquette's murder in New Hampshire went unsolved. It remained a secret between two high school friends until Eric Windhurst's arrest in 2005. What was revealed was a crime born of adolescent passion between Eric and Daniel's stepdaughter, Melanie- redefining the meaning of loyalty, justice, and revenge.

    Sometimes we're so afraid of what others think, we're afraid to declare who we are. This city is not midwestern. It's not East Coast. It's just Pittsburgh, and there's no place like it. That's both its blessing and its curse.

    But journeys embarked upon full of the joys of the season all too often grind into a standstill of rage and bitterness before Hampshire even gives way to Wiltshire.Four-and-a-half thousand years ago the bluestones of Stonehenge were conveyed west from the river Avon along a small section of its route. Roman roads crossed it and drovers' paths lie beneath it. Its route cuts across some of the finest chalkland in southern England. The views are huge, the hills wide and windswept. Ancient woods lay across the summits of the downs and prehistoric monuments and sites are everywhere, the evidence of ancient habitation and worship left in abundance.Tom Fort samples the fare at the Willoughby Hedge Café , legendary among truckers. He seeks out service stations and inns and turnpike toll houses; tells stories of dreadful crashes and highway robberies; of solstice seekers and Stonehenge; of Queen Guinevere and Sir Launcelot; of army camps and racing tracks; Battles and festivals; of churches, abbeys, farms, houses, burial mounds, trout fishermen and falconers.Digging in dark corners, explorating long-forgotten byways and pouring over ancient maps Tom Fort has created a travel book, a book of social and cultural history, and a book about the England of 3000 BC and the England of 2010 AD.

    Paul history as longtime music journalist Andrea Swensson takes us through the neighborhoods and venues, and the lives and times, that produced the Minneapolis Sound. Visit the Near North neighborhood where soul artist Wee Willie Walker, recording engineer David Hersk, and the Big Ms first put the Minneapolis Sound on record. Across the Mississippi River in the historic Rondo district of St. Paul, the gospel-meets-R&B groups the Exciters and the Amazers take hold of a community that will soon be all but erased by the construction of I-94. From King Solomon’s Mines to the Flame, from The Way in Near North to the First Avenue stage (then known as Sam’s) where Prince would make a triumphant hometown return in 1981, Swensson traces the journeys of black artists who were hard-pressed to find venues and outlets for their music, struggling to cross the color line as they honed their sound. And through it all, there’s the music: blistering, sweltering, relentless funk, soul, and R&B from artists like Maurice McKinnies, Haze, Prophets of Peace, and The Family, who refused to be categorized and whose boundary-shattering approach set the stage for a young Prince Rogers Nelson and his peers Morris Day, André Cymone, Jimmy Jam, and Terry Lewis to launch their careers, and the Minneapolis Sound, into the stratosphere. A visit to Prince’s Paisley Park and a conversation with the artist provide a rare glimpse into his world and an intimate sense of his relationship to his legacy and the music he and his friends crafted in their youth.