Showing results for "Helen" in Historical

A serious illness destroyed Helen Keller's sight and hearing before she reached the age of two. At seven, she was introduced to Ann Sullivan, the beloved teacher and friend who helped Helen to make contact with her world. Through sheer determination and resolve, Helen learned to speak, read, and write, and prepared herself for entry into prep school by the age of 16. She later enrolled at Radcliffe and graduated with honors. Her motto: "There are no handicaps, only challenges."

Helen of Troy is one of the most evocative names in ancient history. For nearly three thousand years she has been both the embodiment of absolute female beauty and a reminder of the terrible power that it can wield. Held responsible for both the Trojan War and enduring the enmity between East...

This is the story of a young Liverpool woman widowed in the Second World War before she can know the happiness of having a family. With the blessing of her mother, with whom she runs a B&B, she goes to Normandy to see where her husband was killed in the D-Day landings. Once she is there, she meets an impoverished French poultry farmer, now reduced to driving a beaten up (and still rare) taxi and looking after his old mother and dying brother. Will these two find happiness together?

When they first met at Harvard in 1946, young Kenny O’Donnell and Bobby Kennedy could not have imagined where their lives would take them. The friendship they built saw them through some of the most pivotal moments of the twentieth century - including Robert Kennedy’s tenure as attorney general and O’Donnell’s time spent as John F. Kennedy’s chief of staff - and only ended with RFK’s tragic death.

‘Oh my goodness - another girl, Mrs Swain!' Clara's normal iron composure broke, and she screamed, ‘No! That's not the bloody deal!' And that was how my nanna, Bertha Swain, entered the world. When Helen Batten's marriage breaks down, she starts on a journey of discovery into her family's past and the mysteries surrounding her enigmatic nanna's early life. What she unearths is a tale of five feisty redheads struggling to climb out of poverty and find love through two world wars.

The year was 1935: the twilight of the English aristocracy. It was a time of wealth and glamour; of lavish balls and evening gowns; of tiaras and a coronation. As personal maid to Lady Coventry, Hilda Newman had a unique insight into the leisured life of one of Britain's most noble families. In her fascinating memoir of life upstairs and down, Hilda takes us back to this period between the wars; a gilded era which would soon be dramatically changed by the Second World War.

Born in Germany in 1922, Colin Anson's (Claus Ascher) childhood was marked by the trials of Nazism. His father was arrested by the Gestapo in 1937 and transported to Dachau, where he died shortly after. Colin, aged just seventeen, escaped to Britain in the Kindertransport. As soon as he was old enough, Colin volunteered in the Pioneer Corps. Then, in 1942, he was recruited for the elite commando unit X-Troop. Colin took part in the invasions of Sicily and Italy in 1943, where he sustained a near-fatal injury. But just months later, he returned to duty.

Emily Soldene's life spanned the entire Victorian era. As both leading lady and a formidable impresario with her own opera company, she was a darling of London’s music halls and theatre land, later reinventing herself as a journalist and writer. From humble working-class beginnings, Emily's fiery ambition would see her counting the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and Charles Dickens as friends and mingling with the Rothschilds, Oscar Wilde and aristocrats. She even alleged that she had a close encounter with Jack the Ripper.

The inspiring stories of 6 people who changed history. Contents: Mayer Amschel Rothschild who started a bank which made his family rich Cornelius Vanderbilt who became one of the richest people in the USA W. K. Kellogg who started the world’s biggest cereal company Elizabeth Arden who built...

This is the story of Esther Simpson, a remarkable woman history has largely forgotten, but whose selfless actions left an indelible mark on the cultural and intellectual landscape of the modern world. Forgoing marriage, family, even, it seems, a private life, she committed her whole life resettling academic refugees before, during and after World War Two. She thought of these refugees as her family and by the end of her life could count among her 'children'.

The inspiring stories of 6 people who changed history. Contents: Harriet Tubman, the slave who helped hundreds of other slaves to escape Emmeline Pankhurst who wanted women to be able to vote Maria Montessori, the doctor who found a new way to teach children Helen Keller, the deaf and blind...

Women in the War beautifully weaves together the oral histories of 10 remarkable women who dedicated their young adulthood to the war effort. From aiding codebreaking at Bletchley Park to plotting the Battle of the Atlantic and working alongside Churchill in the War Rooms below Whitehall, these are the women who helped to defend the Home Front and kept Britain going. Now with the wisdom of age, they look back at how they coped with danger, trauma and stress, and tell how their spirits were fortified by friendship, fellowship and romance.

“Don’t cry darling. We need this baby. You will see.” With these words from her husband, Zoltán, Ibolya Rechnitzer’s fear of being pregnant during the uncertainty of wartime is somewhat eased. But in November 1942, four months after their baby, Andy, is born, Zoltán is drafted into the...

February 2022 marked 80 years since the Fall of Singapore and Olga is now ready to tell the story of her years as a child prisoner of war. It's a story of great fear and deprivation; of a childhood utterly lost to conflict. It's also a story of class prejudice and unkindness that didn't end when Olga was freed from the camp and returned to England as a refugee.