Provides a detailed account of the disastrous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City, which claimed the lives of 146 garment workers in 1911, and examines the impact of this event on the nation's working conditions and labor laws.

In spring of 1918, World War I was underway, and troops at Fort Riley, Kansas, found themselves felled by influenza. By the summer of 1918, the second wave struck as a highly contagious and lethal epidemic and within weeks exploded into a pandemic, an illness that travels rapidly from one continent to another. It would impact the course of the war, and kill many millions more soldiers than warfare itself. Of all diseases, the 1918 flu was by far the...

Describes the history and culture of the Aztec Indians in the Valley of Mexico and discusses how the arrival of the conquistador Hernando Cortes brought about the fall of their mighty empire.

A biography of the sixteenth-century English sea captain Sir Francis Drake, who is famous for his voyage around the world, his raids against the Spanish, and his defeat of the Spanish Armada.