Showing results for "Military History" in Sports & Outdoors

NOW A BLOCKBUSTER MOTION PICTURE DIRECTED BY CLINT EASTWOOD—NOMINATED FOR SIX ACADEMY AWARDS, INCLUDING BEST PICTURE From 1999 to 2009, U.S. Navy Seal Chris Kyle recorded the most career sniper kills in United States military history. His fellow American warriors, whom he protected with deadly...

Big league baseball would seem to have been a hard sell in 1942. World War II was not going well for the United States in the Pacific and not much better in Europe. Moreover, the country was in drastically short supply of ships, planes, submarines, torpedoes, and other war materials, and Uncle Sam needed men, millions of them, including those from 21 through 35 years of age who had been ordered to register for the draft, the age range of most big league baseball players.

In 1940, at just 15 years old, small-town baseball star Gene Moore was signed to the Brooklyn Dodgers, who saw in him the potential to become one of the great catchers of all time. Before that could happen, though, WWII intervened. Gene's story, a surprising paean to the power and humanity of a game, is told here by his son, a first-time author who exhibits the confidence and pacing of a pro.

During the American Revolution and the border conflicts that followed, Simon Girty's name struck terror into the hearts of U.S. settlers in the Ohio Valley and the territory of Kentucky. Girty (1741-1818) had lived with the Natives most of his life. Scorned by his fellow white frontiersmen as an "Indian lover," Girty became an Indian agent for the British. He accompanied Native raids against Americans, spied deep into enemy territory, and was influential in convincing the tribes to fight for the British.

1972. The Munich Olympics. Palestinian members of the Black September group murder 11 Israeli athletes. Nine hundred million people watch the crisis unfold on television, witnessing a tragedy that inaugurates the modern age of terror.

The legendary explorer of the Titanic shares inside stories of danger, suspense, and discovery - plus previously untold stories about his own dyslexia and how it has shaped his life.

In this gripping retelling of one of the most momentous chapters in history, Nick Holmes presents a new interpretation of an old story. The fate of Rome was decided not just by emperors, soldiers, and barbarians but also by an environmental disaster. A catastrophic megadrought on the Asian steppes in the fourth century AD forced the migration of entire peoples—Huns, Goths, Vandals, and others—west into the Roman Empire. They met an empire weakened from war with Persia. Rome's misfortunes multiplied as it made tactical errors on the battlefield.

The 21st century sniper is a mature, intelligent shooter who leverages technology to his deadly advantage. He has spent thousands of hours honing his skills. He is a master of concealment in all environments, from the mountains of Afghanistan to the crowded streets of Iraq. He is trained in science and left alone to create the unique art of the kill. To the sniper, the battlefield is like a painter’s blank canvas. It is his job to simultaneously utilize tools, training, and creativity to deliver devastating psychological impact upon the battlefield. And it is he alone who is left with the intimacy of the kill.

'A revealing account of the tricky reality behind TV's glamorous image' Daily Mail In the summer of 1992, Jason Salkey was cast in a role that would change his life forever. Sharpe’s Rifles, a Napoleonic war drama, was to be shot in the Crimean Peninsula. Little did the producers know that...

From the bestselling author of The Great Escape, discover the inspiring story of Britain's most courageous flyer: the Second World War hero Sir Douglas Bader. In 1931, at the age of 21, Douglas Bader was the golden boy of the RAF. Excelling in everything he did, he represented the RAF in...

Paul Tremelling was just seven years old when he watched the Royal Navy's Sea Harriers leave their home base in Somerset to do battle against the Argentine Air Force in the Falklands War. Two decades later, he would join this exclusive club, one of an elite band of Fleet Air Arm fighter pilots, charged with standing in the way of Her Majesty's enemies. This is the story of what it takes to make it in the dog-eat-dog arena of fighter combat. In the cockpit or crew room, the pressure is relentless, the humour merciless. It's no place for the faint-hearted.

Bert Trautmann is famed as the goalkeeper who broke his neck in an FA Cup final and played on. But his early life is no less extraordinary: he grew up in Nazi Germany and fought for the Germans in World War Two. In 1945 he was captured and sent to a British POW camp where, for the first time, he saw a better way of life. He embraced England as his new home and before long became an England football hero. This is his extraordinary story.

The only Major League ballplayer whose baseball card is on display at the headquarters of the CIA, Moe Berg has the singular distinction of having both a 15-year career as a catcher for such teams as the New York Robins and the Chicago White Sox and that of a spy for the OSS during World War II. Here, Dawidoff provides "a careful and sympathetic biography" ( Chicago Sun-Times) of this enigmatic man.

The fascinating, true origin story of baseball - how America’s first great sport developed and how it conquered a nation.

A "marvelous" (Sports Illustrated) portrait of the three men whose lives were forever changed by WWI-era Boston and the Spanish flu: baseball star Babe Ruth, symphony conductor Karl Muck, and Harvard law student Charles Whittlesey. In the fall of 1918, a fever gripped Boston. The streets emptied...

Captain Eddie V. Rickenbacker, originally from Ohio, was best known as one of the commanders of the 94th "Hat-in-the-Ring" Squadron, a crack unit of World War I pilots that included many former members of the famed Lafayette Escadrille. The 94th ended the war in France with the highest number of air victories of any American squadron.

Birds of a Feather is ultimately a love story between veterans and the birds they nurse back to health and between Dr. Lindner and her husband, a veteran with PTSD, who healed at Serenity Park. Full of remarkable people and colorful birds, this audiobook reminds us that we all have the power to make a difference.

From the acclaimed author of The Pattons and Patriot Pirates: a book that celebrates America’s forgotten war correspondents, men who were legends in their time; who, between 1860 and 1910, between the Civil War and the Spanish-American War - when empires fell and dynasties flourished - led romantic, thrilling lives on the edgiest frontiers of time and place: seeing the world, breaking the stories, making news themselves during the time when newspapers made the most foreign of landscapes available, and the circulation wars were revolutionizing contemporary life, shaping global events, and making history.

Czechoslovakia, October 1937. Vast crowds have gathered to watch the threatened nation's most prestigious sporting contest: the Grand Pardubice steeplechase. Notoriously dangerous, the race is considered the ultimate test of manhood and fighting spirit. The Nazis have sent their paramilitary elite-SS officers on a mission to crush the 'subhuman Slavs'. The local cavalry officers have no hope of stopping them. But there is one other contestant: a countess riding a little golden mare.

On July 19, 1924, Eric Liddell was on top of the world. He was the most famous Briton at the time, having just won the gold in the Olympic 400-meter race. The story of that race - and the one he didn't run - was told in the popular movie classic Chariots of Fire. But what most of us don't know is what became of Eric Liddell in the years after the credits rolled. As the storm clouds of World War II rolled in, Liddell's strength of character led him to choose an uncertain future in China during World War II to continue helping the Chinese.