His accomplishments ran from sonnets and love poems to the most famous sculptures, paintings, and buildings ever created. Michelangelo is frequently considered the Creator of the Renaissance....

Though the present-day United States stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific, the shape of the nation has shifted many times over the course of its history. The year 1803 marked one of the greatest changes, when President Thomas Jefferson purchased 828,000 square miles from France's Napoleon Bonaparte. This area of land, known then as the Louisiana Territory, today comprises all or part of 15 states. Buying the territory was no easy task, however. France was wrangling with political and military battles, the deal required the talents of two of Jefferson's most talented diplomats, and even the constitutionality of such land acquisition came under fire. "The Louisiana Purchase" tells the story of the purchase that opened up the possibility of American westward expansion....

During the Revolutionary War, Alexander Hamilton led his troops as captain. After the war he worked to make the new national government stronger, and served as the First U.S Secretary of the Treasury. Ages 12-16 years....

In 1271, the ruler of the enormous Mongol Empire invited Marco Polo into his service, thus began Polo's 25 years of travel to the far corners of the Mongol empire. Ages 8+ years....

Galileo was an Italian mathematician, astronomer, and physicist. He is also noted for being the first to study the skies with a refracting telescope. In one year - 1610 - he made major discoveries relating to the moon, Milky Way, Jupiter's four large moons, sunspots, and the phases of Venus....

During the decades following the American Civil War, the economy of the United States experienced phenomenal growth. At every turn - in agriculture, shipping, merchandizing, manufacturing, and transportation - a new American system of production and distribution was born. As the economy grew, so did the personal wealth of a handful of intrepid investors, dealmakers, and Wall Street financiers. A new class of business leaders was born, dominating their sectors of the nation's ever-expanding industrial base. To some, they were the mighty titans of industry. To others, they were greedy robber barons.As the American people came to question the robber barons' self-serving business practices, observers called for reform. The call was answered in 1890 with the passage of the Sherman Antitrust Act, a piece of legislation designed to bring down these controlling interests in the U.S. economy. "The Robber Barons and the Sherman Antitrust Act" explores the foundations and repercussions of the law that reshaped American business....

Though historians could name hundreds of political and military leaders who left their mark during the Civil War, "Civil War Leaders" presents the lives and contributions made by the era's greatest leaders, representatives of both sides in the conflict, Northerners and Southerners alike. While their efforts may, at times, have pitted one against the other, their legacies represent a patchwork of American biographies. Each pursued goals that were set by the course of the nation as it became increasingly fractured. Through secession and the bloodiest war to date in American history, the United States emerged on the other side of the conflict once again united, its weaknesses healed, and its future more secure than it had been before the ordinance of war briefly ruled the American landscape. Learn about the intriguing leaders of the Civil War era, their convictions, and their decisions during this tumultuous time in American history....

When it was completed in 1825, the Erie Canal caused a great sensation. Though plans for an artificial waterway to link the Great Lakes with the eastern seaboard were underway as early as 1783, supporters of the project experienced difficulties in finding federal funding. With New York State footing the bill, construction finally began on the canal on July 4, 1817, following the inauguration of DeWitt Clinton, the canal's biggest advocate, as governor of New York. The Erie Canal's completion brought an increase in goods and capital, making New York the leading financial and commercial center in the nation, surpassing Boston and Philadelphia. For many years, the Erie Canal served as the chief traffic artery for both passengers and freight, and population increased in large numbers throughout the state.However, the middle of 19th century brought steady competition from the railroads, and the canal's commercial importance was greatly reduced. Today, the Erie Canal is a branch of the New York State Canal System and is considered a relatively minor commercial waterway. In "The Erie Canal", read how this manmade waterway that extends from Lake Erie in Buffalo, New York, to the Hudson River in Albany helped shape the future of the Empire State....

On March 6, 1857, the United States Supreme Court ruled on a case that would decide the fate of a slave named Dred Scott. For 11 years, Scott waited to hear if he would be granted his freedom as his case wound its way through the courts of Missouri and New York. Instead, the Court's decision would rock the American landscape, causing a further split in the already fragile relationship between North and South. Distilling a breadth of material, and supplemented with photographs, sidebars, a chronology, timeline, and more, "Dred Scott v. Sandford" traces Scott's suit through the U.S. judicial system. History professor Tim McNeese gives readers a clear understanding of the infamous Supreme Court decision in which all blacks, free and slave, were denied U.S. citizenship....

For four straight years, the people of the United States fought against one another in a brutal civil war that resulted in the deaths of approximately 620,000 men in uniform. Between 1861 and 1865, more Americans died during this bloody conflict than in all other American wars combined. With fighting across the South and in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Kentucky, some battles proved to be key in the overall outcome of the war. The clashes between the Union and the Confederates are nearly countless, ranging from minor skirmishes to full-scale engagements that sometimes stretched across battlefields measuring miles in length. Sometimes, these battles displayed the limits of a man's endurance and revealed the honorable manhood of the armies. The story of these battles in "Civil War Battles" is the story of the men who risked their lives for a personal cause and those who made the ultimate sacrifice....

In the mid-1840s, a group of 33 settlers, their goods, and animals began moving west by wagon train from Springfield, Illinois, to California. After stopping in St. Louis, the Donner Party followed the California Trail until they reached Little Sandy River, in what is now Wyoming, where they camped alongside other groups of travelers. Now numbering 87, the settlers took a shortcut called Hastings Cutoff, but found themselves stranded in the Sierra Nevada Mountains during a snowstorm that blocked the trail through what is now called Donner Pass. What started out as an adventurous trek to a new land turned into a nightmare as the days turned into months, their food and supplies dwindled, and several members of the party died. The rest of the group resorted to cannibalism to survive. Of the original 87 travelers, 39 died, and 48 survived. "The Donner Party" details the trials faced by these settlers as they made the journey west to California....

Settled in 1633, Williamsburg was first known as Middle Plantation because it was located between the James and York rivers. In 1693, the nation's second-oldest institution of higher education, the College of William and Mary, was founded there. In 1699, the settlement became the capital of England's largest and richest colony, Virginia. These are just some of the many fascinating facts found in Williamsburg. This resourceful volume, filled with detailed historical information on the people and events surrounding the development of this colony, is an integral part of the new Colonial Settlements in America set....

When war broke out between the North and the South in 1861, the United States was still a growing nation, living with traditions of the past and beginning to improve life with new technological advances of the future. The Civil War was a conflict during which both sides experimented with old and new methods, machines, and weapons - all of which were dependent upon developing technologies. Exploding shells, hot air balloons, anesthesia, land mines, submarines, and the telegraph are a few of the unique technologies that Union and Confederate leaders used in their struggle to win the war. "Technology and the Civil War" explains the role of technology for Americans before, during, and after the conflict....

Since his military school days, Robert E. Lee excelled as a soldier. He was the first cadet to receive the rank of sergeant while at West Point, where he graduated at the head of his class in artillery and tactics, and ranked second in his class overall. Lee continued his distinguished military career, and was asked by Abraham Lincoln to take control of the entire Union army against the Confederates. Instead, he fought for his native Virginia out of loyalty during the Civil War. After surrendering to Ulysses S. Grant of the North in Appomattox Court House, Virginia, Lee supported reconciliation between North and South. He became known as the great Southern hero of the war, and his popularity grew in the North as well after his death in 1870. Today, Lee is remembered for his character and his devotion to duty, and he remains an iconic figure of American military leadership....

The abolitionist movement, which was a campaign to end the practice of slavery and the slave trade, began to take shape in the wake of the American Revolution. In the years leading up to the Civil War, the movement continued to gain strength, largely due to the determination of such leaders as William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and John Brown. "The Abolitionist Movement" is a thorough exploration of this seminal movement in American history. By offering readers numerous photographs, insightful text, sidebars, a chronology and timeline, and a helpful glossary, this book makes the people and events associated with abolitionism come alive in a potent yet accessible manner....

He was born in New York City, and he died in New York City. But Tito Puente would live his life as a Puerto Rican who would become one of the greatest Hispanic-American musicians of the 20th century. During the 1940s and 1950s, American music experienced some of its most significant changes. The separate worlds of jazz, swing, and Latin music came together to take on new forms and styles, resulting in a music that created a beat and syncopation that brought countless thousands of frenetic fans to the dance floors and night clubs of the Big Apple. Puente led the way in this transition of the American music scene as a songwriter, arranger, big bandleader, and unrivaled musician. He pounded out rhythms on the timbales with an incredible intensity and soul, a combination that won him the hearts of his admirers, those who were drawn in by the ecstatic lure of his style of Afro-Cuban music. In "Tito Puente", read about this energetic six-time Grammy Award winner....

During the 19th century, hardy pioneers used the Oregon Trail to migrate to the Pacific Northwest. The five- to six-month journey spanned 2,170 miles west through territories that became the states of Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. However, the journey west was not necessarily a smooth one. According to some statistics, about one-tenth of the emigrants perished along the way. After the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, traffic along the Oregon Trail declined. Yet, the trail was used until modern highways were constructed parallel to large portions of the trail during the 1890s. "The Oregon Trail" focuses on the period of 1840-1859, when approximately 52,000 pioneers moved to Oregon, and nearly five times that opted to move to California or Utah....

In 1607, American Indians, hidden along the banks of a Virginia river, watched as three boats filled with bearded strangers sailed upstream. For more than a century, the Spanish had been busy establishing an empire in the New World, far to the south. Meanwhile, other Europeans began launching their own colonial efforts in lands that for many centuries had been home to tens of thousands of Native Americans. These newly arrived strangers riding upstream were Englishmen, ready to take great risks in the name of their king as they reached the unknown shores of what is today Chesapeake Bay. They would settle on an island in a river they named for their king - James. Just in time to celebrate the 400th anniversary of its settlement, "Jamestown" treats students to a fully illustrated and highly readable history of the first permanent English colony in North America....

He read and wrote with the greatest of passions. And Jorge Luis Borges, the greatest of Argentine writers, created, through a 60-year-long career, one of the most significant and enduring literary legacies of any writer of the 20th century. The reach of his poetry, his stories, and his essays was global. His works came to be read throughout the world, even prior to becoming an elderly statesman-like writer. The result was a legacy of written art that often defies categorization, or even accurate description. Yet through his work, he managed to bring the literature of other places and other centuries under one canopy, an umbrella of modern writing that will, one suspects, withstand the scrutiny of centuries to come....