Showing results by narrator "David Zarbock" in All Categories

The Wild West has made legends out of many men, but it also forged a lasting legacy for a few of the West's most legendary towns, and alongside the city of Tombstone, Arizona, perhaps the most famous of them was Deadwood in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Deadwood owes its notoriety to some of the colorful people who called it home, and a recent critically acclaimed television series about the town that brought it to life for millions of modern viewers.

Among all the Native American tribes, the Spanish, Mexicans, and Americans learned the hard way that the warriors of the Apache were among the fiercest in North America. Based in the Southwest, the Apache fought all three in Mexico and the American Southwest, engaging in seasonal raids for so many centuries that the Apache struck fear into the hearts of all their neighbors. Given the group's reputation, it's fitting that they are inextricably associated with one of their most famous leaders, Geronimo.

Fought over bitterly cold flecks of rock and tundra scattered across the remote waters marking the boundary between the Bering Sea and the Pacific Ocean, the Aleutian Islands campaign represented one of the strangest encounters of World War II. Curving southwestward from the southwest coast of Alaska like the tail of a stingray, the rugged, volcanic Aleutians belong to both the United States and Russia.

Today, the name Clint Eastwood conjures up many different and unforgettable images. While many will always associate him as the quintessential Western hero in classics like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, new generations know him as a critically acclaimed director and even an outspoken conservative firebrand.

A century ago, if one were to come across a manual laborer from the early 20th century or the Roaring Twenties and relayed to them the possibility of one day sticking it to the man, one would probably be laughed out of the century. However, this was exactly what one man with solid-gold aspirations and audacity set out to achieve. Jimmy Hoffa, once described by Bobby Kennedy as the second most powerful man in America, was a union boss who evoked both respect and fear.

The title of Iron Brigade has been given to a number of different US Army brigades over the last century and a half, but it has become almost entirely synonymous with the Civil War soldiers who fought in the brigade for the Army of the Potomac. Also known as the Iron Brigade of the West, Rufus King’s Brigade and the Black Hat Brigade, the Iron Brigade was comprised of the 2nd, 6th, and 7th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiments, the 19th Indiana, Battery B of the 4th US Light Artillery, and later, the 24th Michigan.

Outside of the Midwest, the Chippewa are not as well known as other Native American tribes like the Sioux or Cherokee, but they have long been one of the biggest groups in all of North America. Not surprisingly their presence around the Great Lakes region made them especially important to early European explorers who sailed the St. Lawrence and came into contact with the natives as they continued searching for the Northwest Passage.

The vast expanses of southern Russia and the Ukraine provided the Eastern Front arena where the armies of Third Reich dictator Adolf Hitler and Soviet dictator Josef Stalin wrestled lethally for supremacy in 1943. Endless rolling plains - ideal "tank country" - vast forests, sprawling cities, and enormous tracts of agricultural land formed the environment over which millions of men and thousands of the era's most formidable military vehicles fought for their respective overlords and ideologies.

Herod is one of the more well-known characters of the Bible, as even those with a limited knowledge of the Bible will recognize the name and maybe have some idea of who Herod was. One of the most popular stories, known even to non-Christians, is Herod's slaying of the Innocents, a gruesome part of the Christmas story.

The Wild West has made legends out of many men through the embellishment of their stories, but one of the most colorful stories of them all is the fateful Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. The West's most famous gunfight, the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral involved two of the West's most legendary figures, and though the gunfight lasted less than a minute, it is still widely remembered as the climactic event of the period, representing lawlessness and justice, vendettas, and a uniquely Western moral code.

Germany's North African defeat opened up the possibility of taking the war in the west to the European continent for the first time since France's lightning conquest by the Wehrmacht in 1940. The British and Americans debated the merits of landing in France directly in 1943, but they ultimately opted against it.

The rugged island of Sicily, dominated in the east by the snow-crowned eminence of the active volcano Mount Etna (which rises to a height of 11,000 feet), lies in the ocean just off the "toe" of the "boot" of Italy. This spectacular setting witnessed one of 1943's pivotal battles as the theater of Allied operations shifted from North Africa to Europe - Operation Husky, a mixed victory wresting control of Sicily from the Axis.

John Calvin (1509-1564) was one of the most important religious figures of the last millennium and is an instantly recognizable name across the globe. An influential French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation, the period when he was most active (namely during the 1530s and 1540s) was marked by increased complexity and the diffusion of the Reformation into several branches. Alongside Martin Luther, Calvin was one of the central Reformers.

The essence of the event commonly known as the Roswell Crash is that someone saw something in the sky during the summer of 1947. Days later someone else found some odd foil, paper, and wood on the grounds of a ranch in the New Mexico desert nearly a hundred miles from Roswell. A day or two after that, the debris was taken to a military airbase in Roswell, New Mexico, where it remained overnight before the military flew it to another airbase in Ohio.

As one of the most influential and recognizable religious figures in history, Martin Luther (1483-1546) continues to impact the world over 550 years after his death. Luther was a German priest and theologian whose writings and teachings sparked the Protestant Reformation in the early 16th century, creating one of the greatest schisms in the history of the Catholic Church and touching off religious turmoil and bloodshed that would engulf Europe for the next two centuries.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt might be America’s greatest 20th century president, but there’s no question that he was the most unique. Eleanor is one of her country’s most famous and admired first ladies, but history might remember Eleanor more for what she did outside of the White House, as she became a critically acclaimed author and advocate of civil and women's rights. This audiobook covers all the well-known highlights of their lives, their relationship, and their work.

One of the most influential Native American tribes on the Great Plains was the Arapaho, a group so renowned among neighboring Native Americans that it's believed their name came from a Pawnee word for "trader. Like other notable Plains tribes, the Arapaho split off from other groups around the 16th-17th centuries and shifted from a sedentary agricultural society to the kind of nomadic group many envision when thinking of groups on the Plains.

An end to Roderick L. Haig-Brown’s seasons cycle, Fisherman’s Summer is a book that can be listened to again and again, for both knowledge and pleasure. In this installment, he focuses again on the rivers of his native British Columbia such as the Campbell, the Columbia, and the Nimpkish. Among his vast wealth of knowledge concerning fly fishing, listeners are also exposed to his wise reflections.

Buddy Baker was Disney music. Mostly known as the composer of The Haunted Mansion song and score, he also was a composer of films ( Wicked Woman, The Fox and the Hound), TV shows (the original Mickey Mouse Club), and numerous theme park attractions (World of Motion, Wonders of China, Kitchen Kaberet, Impressions de France) around the globe.

Martin Luther strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment of sin could be purchased with money, known as indulgences, and he confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel with his 95 Theses in 1517, one of the most important religious writings of all time. John Calvin (1509-1564) was one of the most important religious figures of the last millennium and an instantly recognizable name across the globe. Calvin was an influential French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation.