Serving under Wellington with the 95th Rifles Leach saw action in Denmark, Portugal, Spain, France and Belgium. Leach’s memoir of his years of service provides fascinating insight into life serving on the frontlines across Europe as Wellington and his men attempted to end Napoleon’s domination of the continent. Through the course of the memoir Leach gives in depth analysis of various battles that he served in, including Roleia, Vimeira, Barba Del Puerco, the Coa, Buzaco, Sabugal, Fuentes D’Onoro, Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, Salamanca, Vittoria, Nivelle, Toulouse, Quatre Bras, and of course Waterloo. Yet he also gives insight into what life was like as a soldier away from the heat of battle whilst serving in the Napoleonic Wars, how they entertained themselves, how they trained, and how the local populations viewed them. Jonathan Leach’s Captain of the 95th (Rifles) an Officer of Wellington's Sharpshooters During the Peninsular, South of France and Waterloo Campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars is essential reading for any student of the Napoleonic era. No other memoir of this period provides such brilliant insight into the life of a fighting man serving under Wellington. Jonathan Leach was captain of 1st Battalion in the 95th Rifles during the Napoleonic Wars. His book Captain of the 95th (Rifles) was first published in 1831 and Leach passed away in 1855.

    Whether foot soldier, samurai or trained assassin, these men were driven by strict codes of honor and bound by deep allegiances of rank, family or religion.This book examines the military lives of four formidable warrior types, covering the samurai and the ninja as well as the experiences of warrior monks and ashigaru foot soldiers, less familiar to western readers. The recruitment, training and equipment of each warrior type are described, and their beliefs, motivation and experience of warfare are explored. Rare material from Japanese sources makes this a highly authoritative treatment of the military elites of medieval Japan, brought to life by lavish illustrations and photography.

     The soldiers of the 77th Infantry Division saw some of the bloodiest action of the Second World War. Ours to Hold It High is brilliant history of the division’s actions through the course of World War Two as it island-hopped its way towards victory in the face of ferocious Japanese resistance. The story begins in America in 1942 when the division was re-activated and the units were formed and given training before they sailed west to fight. Part one of the book covers these initial two years and the various forms of rigorous training that the men went through to prepare them for the amphibious warfare that they would meet in the islands of the Pacific Ocean. Parts two, three, four, and five of the book provides brilliant insight into the combat history of the unit from Guam to Okinawa. The actions of each unit of the division are uncovered to give a thorough overview of the tumultuous and chaotic action that the men saw. This is account is not written by a historian sitting at a desk in the United States, instead it was written by the soldiers who were there on the frontlines. Max Myers, the unit historian, has compiled their accounts to form this fascinating book. The actions of the 77th have become famous throughout the globe, particularly with the assistance of films such as Hacksaw Ridge that have immortalized the division. Almost every member of the 77th contributed in one way or another to this history. The Commanding General and members of his staff, the commanders and staff members from the organizations, and many other individuals devoted some of their time to revision and correction of preliminary manuscripts. Ours to Hold It High was initially published in 1947 and Max Myers, the main editor, passed away in 2011.

    World History

    It doesn't matter how small the tunnel is you never know what's around the bend ... You don't know if it's abandoned, you don't know if it's booby trapped and you don't know why the tunnel is there in the first place."They were young, they were Australian, they were Army engineers and they were the first allied soldiers to risk their lives in the darkness of the Vietcong tunnels of South Vietnam. Staring death squarely in the face every day, not only did they follow their enemy down into these unknown underground labyrinths, but matched the Vietcong's jungle warfare skills and defused thousands of their clever booby traps.Off duty, it was a different story. The bad boys of 3 Field Troop were a boozing, brawling, bonking bunch of larrikins, who cut a swathe through the bars and brothels of Saigon, fought American Military Police to a standstill, built a secret casino and booby-trapped their own HQ to teach their officers a lesson.Thrilling, inspiring and action packed, this is the true story of the unsung heroes of Australia's war in Vietnam. Living up to their motto of 'We Make and We Break', they created the legend of the Tunnel Rats.

    Whether it is Hannibal of Carthage marching elephants across the Alps and attacking the heart of Rome, Khalid ibn al-Walid boasting an undefeated military career and destroying the Persian Empire while subduing the Byzantines, or Russian General Alexander Suvurov and his elevation of the bayonet to a work of art that could cut down any European army, great military leaders have exerted tremendous influence on society. This book will look at the lives of the ten greatest military commanders in history. Some conquered the fullest expanse of the known world, as did Alexander the Great. Still others were master statesmen and capable of translating military victory into long-term political gains, such as Julius Caesar, whose vanquishing of the Gauls and his political opponents laid the groundwork for several centuries of unmatchable Roman imperial might. It will also look at the tactics they used to bring down stronger armies and befuddle them at every turn; whether it is Napoleon, who nearly conquered Europe through his deadly manoeuvre sur les derrieres and marching unexpectedly away from the enemy's main strength and concentrating on a weak but vital enemy point; or Hannibal's double entrapment maneuver, which has been the envy of military strategists for the last 2,000 years. Whatever their background, these rulers show that the right military commander at the right time in history can destroy an empire, change civilization, and alter the course of world history forever.

    At a time when South Africa was a place inhabited by the toughest of men, only those who lived in the saddle with a gun in their hands could possibly survive. Inside you will read about... ✓ The Creation of the Boer ✓ Growing Tensions ✓ Colley Steps In ✓ The End of the First War ✓ The Jameson Raid ✓ Stage One: The Boer Offensive ✓ Stage Two: The Empire Strikes Back ✓ Stage Three: Scorched Earth ✓ The End of the Boer Who were the Boers, and what was the conflict that would lead them into a fight to the death with England in the First and Second Anglo-Boer wars? Was this a colonial uprising? Or a freedom-fight gone horribly wrong?

    Uncover their mesmerizing, realistic stories of combat, courage, and distress in readable and balanced stories told from the front lines.Witness the creation of new technologies of destruction: tanks, planes, and submarines; machine guns and field artillery; poison gas and chemical warfare. It introduced U-boat packs and strategic bombing, unrestricted war on civilians and mistreatment of prisoners.World War I reduced Europe’s mightiest empires to rubble, killed twenty million people, and cracked the foundations of our modern world. In its wake, empires toppled, monarchies fell, and whole populations lost their national identities.If you like gripping, authentic accounts of life and combat during WWI, then you won't want to miss WWI: Tales from the Trenches.

    He founded the first empire in western Europe after the fall of Rome, and his court at Aix-la-Chapelle was a center of classical learning and a focus of the Carolingian Renaissance. This book is a splendid introduction to Charlemagne’s life and legend. Matthias Becher describes Charlemagne’s rise to emperor and traces his political and military maneuvering against the Saxons, the Lombards, and others, as Charlemagne incorporated these lands into his own realm. Becher points out that under Charlemagne, jury courts were introduced, the laws of the Franks revised and written down, new coinage introduced, weights and measures reformed, and a Frankish grammar begun. Charlemagne tried to give his kingdom a spiritual basis by referring to antique traditions, says Becher, and he explores the tensions that existed in Charlemagne’s court between modern ideas and traditional thinking. He concludes by discussing Charlemagne’s kinship network, the evolving arrangements for his succession, the effects of his reign, and his posthumous fame. Concise, insightful, and eminently readable, this biography of Charlemagne provides a wealth of information about a remarkable man and his times.

    The author assures us it is not!Three years before they came together, four young American men left their fraternities and college campuses for an adventure exceeding their imaginations. Wanting something more than the draft and unknown to each other, they chose Naval Aviation as the next step in their lives. Generally, they were better than their navy peers, all qualifying for high performance aircraft to be flown from steel decks over foreign seas. They would become the pointy end of the stick in aerial battles over North Vietnam, the most heavily defended patch of real estate in the history of aerial warfare. They were to do this in 1967, the year in which Naval Aviation experienced its greatest losses.These four young men, now Lieutenants Junior Grade, United States Navy, were ordered to Attack Squadron 34 to fly A4 Skyhawks into combat. They were assigned Junior Officer's stateroom 0111 aboard USS Intrepid, a venerable aircraft carrier with a distinguished history. This "bunkroom" better known to them as Triple Sticks was the repository for a log (in navy terms) or journal written by these four young aviators. Forty years later this log was the genesis of this memoir.In the lethal environment over the northern reaches of North Vietnam or ashore in the Officer's clubs and bars of Asia, the writing brings to life wonderful humor, bizarre behavior, vivid aerial battles, uncommon loyalty, anger, frustration and respect. One survived or did not according to his skill and luck.

    Professor Geary draws on the latest archaeological and historical findings to elucidate one of the least understood periods of European history. This text is aimed at both survey and graduate courses on medieval history, which invariably take the Merovingian period as their starting point.

    Acclaimed writer Charles Schaar Murray's Boogie Man is the authorized and authoritative biography of this musician whose extraordinary career spanned over fifty years and included over one-hundred albums and five Grammy Awards. Murray was given unparalleled access to Hooker, and lets him tell his own story in his own words, from life in the Deep South to San Francisco, from the 1948 blues anthem "Boogie Chillen" to the Grammy-winning album The Healer nearly a half-century later. Boogie Man is far more than merely a brilliant biography of one man; it also gives the story of the music that inspired him. "When I die," Hooker said, they'll bury the blues with me. But the blues will never die." Here is the book that does him and his music full justice.

    Along the way, he shows how the Magna Carta laid the foundation for the British constitution, influenced the American Revolution and the U.S. constitution, and continues to shape jurisprudential thinking about individual rights around the world today.In 1215, King John I of England faced a domestic crisis. He had just lost an expensive campaign to retake his ancestral lands in France, an unfortunate adventure that he had funded by heavily taxing the baronial lords of England. Sick of the unpopular king's heavy-handed rule, and unimpressed by the king's unsuccessful attempt to seize Normandy, the feudal barons united to make demands of their sovereign for certain protections. These demands, the "Articles of the Barons," were submitted to the king in rough draft after the rebels occupied three cities, most significantly London. A few years later, after being edited and amplified by the then-Archbishop of Canterbury, the Articles would come to be known as the Magna Carta. The self-interested barons couldn't have known it at the time, but those demands would one day become the bedrock of democratic political development around the globe--even though that influence was largely due to mythologizing by later scholars who warped the symbolism of the document to support their arguments in favor of the rights of all citizens.Although the Magna Carta itself made no requests on behalf of the peasantry, in its structure the outlines of modern democratic reform are plainly visible. Among other things, it demanded limits on the ability of the crown to levy taxes; protection of the rights of the church; the guarantee of swift justice; and a ban on unjust imprisonment. Those protections and guarantees were strictly intended for benefit of feudal barons, but the free citizens of today's democratic nations owe an enormous debt to this history-changing document.

    Variously described as the largest, longest and bloodiest battle on English soil, Towton was fought with little chance of escape and none of surrender. Yet, as if too ghastly to contemplate, the battle itself and the turbulent reign of Henry VI were neglected for centuries. Combining medieval sources and modern scholarship, George Goodwin expertly creates the backdrop of 15th-century England. From the death of Henry V, with his baby son's inheritance first of England, then of France, he chronicles the vicissitudes of the 100 Years War abroad and the vicious in-fighting at home. He brilliantly describes a decade of breakdown of both king and kingdom, as increasingly embittered factions struggle for supremacy that could only be secured after the carnage of Towton

    The producers refused. In Doctor Who, the Twelfth Doctor's costume was inspired by David Bowie. In Game of Thrones, Hodor's real name is Wyllis. Matthew Perry plays Chandler in Friends. He says he can't remember a single thing from the show throughout three seasons. In The Simpsons, Hans Moleman has died at least 15 times. Many mobsters contacted James Gandolfini to tell him his performance was excellent in The Sopranos but warned him not to wear shorts in the show. Millie Bobby Brown was 11 when she was cast as Eleven in Stranger Things. The Tourette Syndrome Association praised the show, South Park, for its accurate portrayal of the Tourette's condition. In Family Guy, Meg's full name is Megatron Griffin.