She remains the head of state of the United Kingdom, and a group of 16 nations including Canada, Australia, and New Zealand call her queen, and she is the head of the British Commonwealth which includes another 37 countries, including India and South Africa. Throughout her life, she has enjoyed much happiness including a long and happy marriage to Prince Philip, four children, and Silver, Golden, and Diamond Jubilees. Her reign has also been marked by much sadness, including the failed marriages of three of her children, the deaths of close family members and friends, and the markedly difficult death of Princess Diana, which took a toll on both the Royal Family and the nation.Now Life, in a new special edition, takes a nuanced and thoughtful look at the reign of Elizabeth at 90 and what her over-63 years on the throne have meant for her subjects and the world at large, including her early life, the years of World War Ii, her marriage and family, life ruling Great Britain, Windsor family values and much more.With dozens of stunning photos, stories, and analysis, Queen Elizabeth at 90 is a keepsake of both a life well-lived and an historical time on the throne, as well as a captivating collection for any royal watcher.

     This was the first time the Americans had penetrated the “outer ring” of the Japanese Pacific sphere. From now until the end of the war the combined forces of the Navy, Marine Corps and Army would island hop their way to the Japanese mainland. Yet, the Battle of Kwajalein Atoll, particularly on the island of Roi-Namur where there were only 51 survivors of the original 3,500 garrison left, gave the Americans an insight into the fierce resistance that the Japanese would put up over the remaining months of the war. Drawn directly from the testimonies of several hundred infantrymen, Island Victory provides insight into what it was like to feel the heat of battle on the beaches of those Pacific islands. "Written accounts of war simply do not get any closer to the actions and feelings of those [who] were there. Island Victory is a highly recommended, 'must read' book." — The Midwest Book Review "The real value of Island Victory lies in the unadorned words of these soldiers, recorded so openly and methodically by Marshall after the battle. . . . The Kwajalein victors interviewed so painstakingly by Sam Marshall provide a priceless candor and authenticity, the emotional testimonies of young men still flushed with adrenalin, guilt, and relief." — Joseph H. Alexander, Journal of Military History S. L. A. Marshall was a chief U.S. Army combat historian during World War II and the Korean War. He had served on the border with Mexico during the Pancho Villa Expedition before serving in France during World War I. He wrote over thirty books about warfare. Island Victory was first published in 1944. Marshall passed away in 1977.

    He was the first to discover Australia and the Hawaiian Islands and the first to circumnavigate New Zealand. By the 1700s, England, eager to expand its realm of trade, promoted exploration of all the unclaimed regions of the world. The eighteenth century, the age of reason and enlightenment, required a new kind of explorer: not a rover or a plunderer or a seeker of adventure for its own sake, but a master of navigation and seamanship. Captain James Cook filled the bill. No one ever surpassed Cook's record. From South America to Australia, from the ice islands of the South Pacific to the fogbound Bering Strait, lay thousands of miles of islands, atolls, and ocean that Cook charted.

    They would establish a British colony, find gold, and discover a water route to Asia. But what awaited them was far different - fire, hunger, sickness, death, even cannibalism. Here, from the noted historian Marshall W. Fishwick, is the dramatic story of Jamestown and the struggle of its leader, Captain John Smith, who, with the help of Pocahontas, daughter of the Algonquian chief Powhatan, succeeded against all odds.

    In youth they occupied very different worlds: Churchill, the rambunctious and thrusting young aristocrat; Smuts, the ascetic, philosophical Cape farm boy who would go on to Cambridge where, in an unprecedented achievement, he sat both parts of a law tripos simultaneously and won a double first.Brought together first as enemies in the Anglo-Boer War, and later as allies in the First World War, the men forged a friendship that spanned the first half of the twentieth century and endured until Smuts's death in 1950. Richard Steyn, author of Jan Smuts: Unafraid of Greatness, examines this close friendship through two world wars and the intervening years, drawing on a maze of archival and secondary sources, including letters, telegrams and the voluminous books written about both men.This is a fascinating account of two exceptional men in war and peace: one the leader of an empire, the other the leader of a small fractious member of that empire who rose to global prominence.

    Over a thousand of these soldiers were Australian. By the end of the war, just one-third of them had survived and Ambon became a place of nightmares, one of the most notorious of all POW camps the war had seen.Many of the men captured were massacred, and of those who initially survived, many later succumbed to the sadistic brutality of the Japanese guards. Starvation also took a fearful toll, and then there were the medical 'experiments'. It was a place almost without hope for those who held on, made worse by the fact that the savagery inflicted on them wasn't limited to their captors but also came from their own. One soldier described their hopelessness towards the end with the bleak words: 'The men knew they were dying.'Yet astoundingly there were survivors and in Ambon they speak of not just the horrors, but the bravery, endurance and mateship that got them through an ordeal almost impossible to imagine.The story of Ambon is one of both the depravity and the triumph of the human spirit; it is also one that's not been widely told. Until now.

    Names of Kings and major political/military persons have been updated and major typographical errors found with the previous Kindle edition have been corrected. Combined with copious illustrations, maps and images, the newly revised Dark Ages is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand a critical period in Western history that saw the transition from Roman Imperial rule to conquest-driven tribal rule and, ultimately, a flowering into the High Middle Ages. Oman provides one of the best historical examinations and explanations about the period widely known as the Dark Ages, when the end of total and complex Roman Imperial rule over Europe and the Mediterranean collapsed, taking the institutions that provided so much cultural sophistication and stability with it. The Dark Ages has been split into three books, mainly for ease of reading; the original book published in 1893 was a massive tome that covered the period from 476 CE to 918 CE. This second book in the new edition covers the period from 561 CE to 743 CE:THE SUCCESSORS OF JUSTINIAN 565-610DECLINE AND DECAY OF THE MEROVINGIANS 561-656THE LOMBARDS IN ITALY, AND THE RISE OF THE PAPACY 568-653HERACLIUS AND MOHAMMED 610-641THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE VISIGOTHS A.D. 603-711THE CONTEST OF THE EASTERN EMPIRE AND THE CALIPHATE 641-717THE HISTORY OF THE GREAT MAYORS OF THE PALACE 656-720THE LOMBARDS AND THE PAPACY 653-743CHARLES MARTEL AND HIS WARS 720-741

    

    Apart from their achievements, they have suffered all through the history right from the days of Moses till the Israel-Palestine issue. This book clearly brings out the life of jews and their battles, sufferings, customs, beliefs, strategies etc.

     For the next four years they would become instrumental in the secret war against Germany, developing a wide array of armaments to give Britain the upper hand against the might of the Axis forces. Under the guidance of Charles Goodeve, a remarkable Canadian with a flair for picking out which invention could tip the war in the Allies’ favor, these scientists and inventors worked tirelessly, and even put their lives on the line, in the quest to give Churchill’s military the knockout weapon. As Nevil Shute, who was an engineer with the Wheezers and Dodgers stated, “If any one quality was a common requirement for the officers in this unusual department I would say it was imagination — the imagination to look forward and to visualize what might happen.” Not all of their inventions were successful, indeed Sir Charles Madden, who served as staff officer to the Director of the Department stated that during his time there he dealt with “a medley of suggestions ranging from the impractical to the lunatic.” Yet, despite some mishaps, the Wheezers and Dodgers were instrumental in aiding the Allies to victory, with their degaussing method of protecting ships from mines to their Hedgehog weapon that destroyed over forty-five enemy submarines. Secret Weapons of World War II records all of the Department’s developments through the course of the conflict, both successful and not, and is written with humor and insight. “Their story has the fascination of the unexpected, in a British well-played spirit.” Kirkus Reviews Gerald Pawle worked with the Wheezers and Dodgers through the course of World War Two. This work was first published under the title The Secret War: 1939-1945 in 1957. Pawle passed away in 1991.

    He returned with stories of exotic people, tremendous riches, and the most powerful ruler in the world – Kublai Khan. The explorer told of inventions ranging from gunpowder to paper money. The intellectual ferment and cultural diversity he described helped move Europe out of the Dark Ages and into the Renaissance. In his lifetime, people scoffed at his stories. But as this book explains, he changed the world.

    New York Times bestselling historian Emma Moreau exposes and analyzes the events that turned ordinary French citizens into revolutionaries - from the attack on the Bastille to the executions of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette to the bloodthirsty Reign of Terror that claimed the lives of more than 40,000 people.

    During the lend-lease agreement with the USA, the RAF and Fleet Air Arm operated several American designs, each of which was tested to evaluate its potential.This book looks at the key area of fighter aircraft and includes the test results and pilot's own first-hand accounts of flying seventeen different models, designed in the UK, America and Germany. The reader will learn of the possibilities of air superiority offered by these types and also their weaknesses. Types included are The Hawker Hurricane, Supermarine Spitfire, Boulton Paul Defiant, Hawker Tempest and Typhoon, Bell Airacobra, Messerschmitt Bf 109, Focke-Wulf Fw 190, Brewster Buffalo, Curtiss Tomahawk, North American Mustang, Grumman Martlet, Republic Thunderbolt, and Vought Corsair. All aircraft that saw a great deal of action throughout the War and which are now part of legend.

    What was it really like to be at sea in the Navy with Nelson? Were the sailors excited about the Battle of Trafalgar, or suffering scurvey? How did life compare between those of a high range, and those who served them? What were conditions like below the decks, living among the rats and the filth? How did you cope if you suffered from sea sickness? This book takes you back in time to see, hear, smell and taste what life was really like for these brave sailors at sea.