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The land of the free and home of the brave. How much do you know of the history of modern-day America? From its discovery by Columbus to its participation in World war 1 and 2 we can see that America has left its mark on the world. It hasn't all been plain sailing and nobody should dare say otherwise, but has it been a success? Jump into this concise retelling of American history and judge for yourself as we attempt to take a neutral approach to the...
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Spanish accounts and Mesoamerican ruins have ensured that 500 years later, people remain fascinated by civilizations like the Maya and Aztec, as well as sites such as Chichen Itza and Tikal. What is often overlooked is that the Maya and Aztec established kingdoms on lands that had been inhabited for millennia before them, and ancient cultures had not only left ruins but also influenced the civilizations that came after them. Thus, while sites like...
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While it has historically been the Aztecs who were viewed as a militaristic civilization, there is considerable debate among scholars on the question of territorial aggression among the Maya. Since many of the Maya cities lack fortifications that are like those that Western archaeologists might have expected, it was once assumed that the Maya created for themselves an ideal, pacifistic society. However, others have theorized the Maya were particularly...
4) Gastronomy in Mesoamerica: The History of Indigenous People's Diets Before and After European Contac
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Indigenous groups settling in Mesoamerica had different languages, political and social organizations, traditions, and beliefs; however, there were a series of traits that included the use and consumption of many food sources present throughout the entire territory. The domestication of important plants like maize, beans, squash, and chili peppers eventually led to full-scale agricultural societies supporting large populations through intensified...
5) Portuguese Empire and the Americas: The History and Legacy of Portugal's Exploration and Coloniza
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By the start of the 15th century, ships were now much larger and able to support long distance travel with a minimum number of crew aboard. With that, the Portuguese started exploring the west coast of Africa and the Atlantic under orders from Prince Henry the Navigator. At this point, Europeans had not yet been capable of navigating completely around Africa since the ships being built were not yet fully capable of being able to sail very far from...
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Witchcraft...Magic...and an undeniable link in history and modern spiritual practices.
Humans are innately curious and yearn to unravel the mysteries of the universe that reason alone cannot explain.
Whether Voodoo, Candomblé, Hoodoo, Neo-Paganism, or Wicca, each has played a significant role in various cultures, helping humans comprehend life, love, pain, and spirituality.
A blend of different beliefs, witchcraft was heavily influenced by cultural...
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It's tough being an author these days, and it's getting harder. A recent Authors Guild survey showed that the median income for all published authors in 2017, based solely on book-related activities, was just over $3,000, down more than 20% from eight years previously. Roughly 25% of authors earned nothing at all. Price cutting by retailers, notably Amazon, has forced publishers to pay their writers less. A stagnant economy, with only the rich seeing...
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Dennis McAuliffe Jr., a journalist, grew up believing that his Osage Indian grandmother, Sybil Bolton, had died an early death in 1925 from kidney disease. But sixty-six years later, he learns by chance that the cause was a gunshot wound. Investigating the circumstances, he soon finds himself peeling away the layers of a suppressed nightmare chapter of American history: the unspeakable brutality of the "Osage Reign of Terror." He learns that Sybil...
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Charles Alexander Eastman (Ohiyesa) wrote "The Soul of the Indian" to examine the spiritual history of Native American's before European settlement in America. Born of Minnesota Sioux parents in South Dakota, Charles Eastman spent his life working with Natives and Europeans to bridge cultural divides. Born into and raised by a traditional Sioux family, Eastman developed a deep connection to the life of American Indians. Yet at the age of 15 Eastman's...
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In A Short History of the United States, National Book Award winner Robert V. Remini offers a much-needed, concise history of our country. This accessible and lively volume contains the essential facts about the discovery, settlement, growth, and development of the American nation and its institutions, including the arrival and migration of Native Americans, the founding of a republic under the Constitution, the emergence of the United States as a...
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A groundbreaking history of the rise and decline of the vast and imposing Native American empire.
In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, a Native American empire rose to dominate the fiercely contested lands of the American Southwest, the southern Great Plains, and northern Mexico. This powerful empire, built by the Comanche Indians, eclipsed its various European rivals in military prowess, political prestige, economic power, commercial...
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Some of the twentieth century's most important artists and writers--from Jackson Pollock to Saul Steinberg, Frank O'Hara to Jean Stafford--lived and worked on the East End of Long Island years before it assumed an alternate identity as the Hamptons. The home they made there, and its effect on their work, is the subject of these searching, lyrical vignettes by the critic and poet Robert Long.
Pollock moved to Springs because he thought he wanted to...
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When and where was America founded? Was it in Virginia in 1619, when a pirate ship landed a group of captive Africans at Jamestown? So, asserted the New York Times in August 2019 when it announced its “1619 Project”. The Times set out to transform history by tracing American institutions, culture, and prosperity to that pirate ship and the exploitation of African Americans that followed. A controversy erupted, but the Times didn't back down. Instead,...
14) Mississippian Culture: The History and Legacy of the Ancient Indigenous Culture in North America
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When most people think of "ancient American civilizations," the Aztec, Maya, or Inca cultures probably come to mind immediately, because the societies in Mesoamerica have left behind permanent structures for millions of visitors from around the world to see each year. At the same time, however, from about 1000-1500 CE, an equally complex culture formed along the banks of the Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio Rivers. From Red Wing, Minnesota to Greenhouse,...
15) Native American Games: The History and Legacy of the Different Sports Played by Indigenous Groups
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Athletics in Central and North American societies go much further back than most people realize. The native peoples took their sports just as seriously as any of today's most fervent soccer fans. One major difference between modern sports and these aboriginal games is that the native people's sports often had strong religious content, and games were sometimes seen as literal substitutes for war, played to resolve disputes between towns or tribes.
The...
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Useful for academic and recreational archaeologists alike, this book identifies and describes over 200 projectile points and stone tools used by prehistoric Native American Indians in Texas. This edition boasts twice as many illustrations-all drawn from actual specimens-and still includes charts, geographic distribution maps and reliable age-dating information. The authors also demonstrate how factors such as environment, locale and type of artifact...
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In the decade before the onset of the Civil War, groups of Americans engaged in a series of longshot-and illegal-forays into Mexico, Central America, Cuba, and other countries, in hopes of taking them over. Known as military filibusters, the goal was to seize territory to create new independent fiefdoms, which would ultimately be annexed by the still-growing United States. Most failed miserably. William Walker was the outlier. Short, slender, and...
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Venerado por muchas culturas, el «Señor del espejo humeante», uno de los dioses principales del gran Imperio azteca, es también una de las deidades mesoamericanas más interesantes, y a la vez difíciles de entender. Conductor de los destinos del mundo, dador y despojador, patrón de reyes y de esclavos, sembrador de discordias y revelador de pecados, señor de la noche y la oscuridad, primer sol de la creación. Tan fascinante como complejo,...
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Throughout history, warfare has played an important role in the development of many cultures around the world, and Mesoamerica is no exception. As J.M. Francis and T.M. Leonard noted, "The history of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica was one of violence, though no more so than that of any other region of the ancient world. It was a universe of shifting alliances and mutual antagonisms, in which increasingly strong political entities forged themselves and...
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