Eye witness accounts from a range of source material, including diaries, letters and newspapers, form the basis of this series. Each book in the series provides a helpful insight into an important period of history or world-changing event....

In the Middle Eastern nation of Iran, discontent simmered for decades. The Iranian people despised their leader, Reza Shah, who catered to foreign businesses while ruling Iran as a dictator. In 1979 discontent boiled up into all-out revolution. Led by the charismatic Ayatollah Khomeini, the Iranian people seized control and created a new government based on the Islamic religion. The Iranian Revolution quickly became a showdown between the ideas and values of Islam and those of the West--particularly the United States. The most dramatic event in this showdown occurred in late 1979, when Iranian students captured a group of U.S. Embassy staff, holding them hostage for more than a year. During the following decades, the revolution recast the face of the Middle East: it set in motion a movement of Islamic fundamentalism--a movement that has taken center stage in world events in the twenty-first century. The Iranian Revolution is an ongoing story. However the story ends, the revolution is surely one of world history's most pivotal moments....

Can one man's religious experience change the whole world? In the A.D. 600s, in the Arabian city of Mecca, a merchant named Muhammad began to receive and share messages from God. Muhammad attracted many followers. Eventually the revelations formed the basis for a new religion, Islam. By the time of Muhammad's death, the Islamic religion had spread across the Arabian Peninsula. Muhammad's successors continued to bring Islam to surrounding lands. Often, they used peaceful means to win converts. Other times, they imposed the religion through forceful conquests. Within one hundred years of Muhammad's death, Arab Muslim armies had achieved stunning victories over two major empires, the Persians and the Byzantines. By the mid-700s, Islam was established from India to North Africa and Spain. Converts adopted the Arabic language, studied Arab poets and scholars, and built grand mosques for worship. Today more than one billion people worldwide practice Islam. The Arab conquests of the Middle East, which introduced a new world religion across geography and cultures, is one of world history's pivotal moments....

Eye witness accounts from a range of source material, including diaries, letters and newspapers, form the basis of this series. Each book in the series provides a helpful insight into an important period of history or world-changing event....

Ideal for today's young investigative reader, each A True Book includes lively sidebars, a glossary and index, plus a comprehensive "To Find Out More" section listing books, organizations, and Internet sites. A staple of library collections since the 1950s, the new A True Book series is the definitive nonfiction series for elementary school readers....

The battle of Gettysburg is acknowledged to have been the greatest battle of the Civil War, as well as one of the most remarkable in the history of war. Over a period of three days, 160,000 combatants were involved in a struggle in which approximately 33,000 were wounded, some mortally, and about 7,000 were killed.

Gettysburg is a dramatic and poignant re-telling of these events, from the first skirmishes of the battle to the final, heroic phase known as Pickett’s Charge, when 15,000 Confederate soldiers in a line a mile wide marched 1,000 yards over open ground towards the Union center in the face of concentrated rifle and canon fire.

In these pages, Brendan January vividly captures the dramatic and surprising course of events and the tragic loss of life that occurred over three days of fighting. By setting the scene, using contemporary quotations to great effect, providing profiles of the major participants and detailed coverage of each day of the battle, the author achieves a thoughtful and engaging account of the battle that proved to be the Civil War’s turning point.

Richly illustrated and enriched with maps, a timeline and a glossary, Gettysburg tells a moving and unforgettable story in a compelling way.

The American Battlefilds series:
The concept of American Battlefields is to show how military conflicts influence history. It does this by describing three stages of historical events: first, the situation that exists as prelude to the battle, second, the details of the battle itself; third, how future events are influenced, or even determined, by the outcome of the battle. It also shows how lost battles can lead to larger victories, and how battles won can fail to help an overall lost cause.
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Discusses the scientific accomplishments in such fields as medicine, mathematics, engineering, and astronomy of various groups of American Indians....

Describes the history of the National Mall, the buildings around it, and the special events that have been held there....

"I know that nothing will stop the eternal increase from these pirates but the presence of an armed force." When U.S. president Thomas Jefferson wrote these words, pirates from the Barbary Coast had been attacking U.S. merchant ships for almost ten years. The United States was ready to fight and dispatched its new navy to confront the pirates. It was the first time the young nation had confronted an overseas enemy, the first use of covert military operations, and the first "small war" in U.S. history. In the years that followed, the United States would grow to become a superpower - fighting enemies around the world in both big wars and small ones. But no matter how big and powerful the United States became, it would never forget the lessons learned during that first small war against the Barbary pirates. Follow the dramatic story of war against the pirates - and the story of additional small wars that were often just as bloody and violent as the big ones. ...

What was it like to be in the north tower of the World Trade Center when it was hit by American Airlines Flight 11? How did it feel to be the president on September 11, 2001? What was it like to be a witness to history? Revisit the day the world changed: S

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Discusses the scientific accomplishments in such fields as medicine, mathematics, engineering, and astronomy of various groups of American Indians....