Download or read book American Gunfight written by Stephen Hunter and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2007-02-06 with total page 15 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: November 1, 1950 -- an unseasonably hot afternoon in sleepy Washington, D.C. At 2:00 P.M. at his temporary residence in Blair House, President Harry Truman takes a nap. At 2:20 P.M., two Puerto Rican natives approach from different directions. Oscar Collazo, a respected metal polisher and family man, and Griselio Torresola, an unemployed salesman, don't look dangerous, not in their new suits and hats, not in their calm, purposeful demeanor, not in their slow, unexcited approach. What the three White House policemen and one Secret Service agent guarding the president cannot guess is that under each man's coat is a 9mm German automatic pistol and in each head, a dream of assassin's glory.
Download or read book American Gunfight written by Stephen Hunter and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2005-11-02 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American Gunfight is the fast-paced, definitive, and breathtakingly suspenseful account of an extraordinary historical event -- the attempted assassination of President Harry Truman in 1950 by two Puerto Rican Nationalists and the bloody shoot-out in the streets of Washington, D.C., that saved the president's life. Written by Pulitzer Prize-winner Stephen Hunter, the widely admired and bestselling novelist and author of such books as Havana, Hot Springs, and Dirty White Boys, and John Bainbridge, Jr., an experienced journalist and lawyer, American Gunfight is at once a groundbreaking work of meticulous historical research and the vivid and dramatically told story of an act of terrorism that almost succeeded. They have pieced together, at last, the story of the conspiracy that nearly doomed the president and how a few good men -- ordinary guys who were willing to risk their lives in the line of duty -- stopped it. It is a book about courage -- on both sides -- and about what politics and devotion to a cause can lead men to do, and about what actually happens, second by second, when a gunfight explodes. It begins on November 1, 1950, an unseasonably hot afternoon in the sleepy capital. At 2:00 P.M. in his temporary residence at Blair House, the president of the United States takes a nap. At 2:20 P.M., two men approach Blair House from different directions. Oscar Collazo, a respected metal polisher and family man, and Griselio Torresola, an unemployed salesman, don't look dangerous, not in their new suits and hats, not in their calm, purposeful demeanor, not in their slow, unexcited approach. What the three White House policemen and one Secret Service agent cannot guess is that under each man's coat is a 9mm German automatic pistol and in each head, a dream of assassin's glory. At point-blank range, Collazo and then Torresola draw and fire and move toward the president of the United States. Hunter and Bainbridge tell the story of that November day with narrative power and careful attention to detail. They are the first to report on the inner workings of this conspiracy; they examine the forces that led the perpetrators to conceive the plot. The authors also tell the story of the men themselves, from their youth and the worlds in which they grew up to the women they loved and who loved them to the moment the gunfire erupted. Their telling commemorates heroism -- the quiet commitment to duty that in some moments of crisis sees some people through an ordeal, even at the expense of their lives.
Download or read book The Last Gunfight written by Jeff Guinn and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-05-15 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published: New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011.
Download or read book Gunfight The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America written by Adam Winkler and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2011-09-19 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A provocative history that reveals how guns—not abortion, race, or religion—are at the heart of America's cultural divide. Gunfight is a timely work examining America’s four-centuries-long political battle over gun control and the right to bear arms. In this definitive and provocative history, Adam Winkler reveals how guns—not abortion, race, or religion—are at the heart of America’s cultural divide. Using the landmark 2008 case District of Columbia v. Heller—which invalidated a law banning handguns in the nation’s capital—as a springboard, Winkler brilliantly weaves together the dramatic stories of gun-rights advocates and gun-control lobbyists, providing often unexpected insights into the venomous debate that now cleaves our nation.
Download or read book Gunfight written by Ryan Busse and published by Public Affairs. This book was released on 2023-04-25 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A former firearms executive pulls back the curtain on America's multibillion-dollar gun industry, exposing how it fostered extremism and racism, radicalizing the nation and bringing cultural division to a boiling point. As an avid hunter, outdoorsman, and conservationist-all things that the firearms industry was built on-Ryan Busse chased a childhood dream and built a successful career selling millions of firearms for one of America's most popular gun companies. But blinded by the promise of massive profits, the gun industry abandoned its self-imposed decency in favor of hardline conservatism and McCarthyesque internal policing, sowing irreparable division in our politics and society. That drove Busse to do something few other gun executives have done: he's ending his 30-year career in the industry to show us how and why we got here. Gunfight is an insider's call-out of a wild, secretive, and critically important industry. It shows us how America's gun industry shifted from prioritizing safety and ethics to one that is addicted to fear, conspiracy, intolerance, and secrecy. It recounts Busse's personal transformation and shows how authoritarianism spreads in the guise of freedom, how voicing one's conscience becomes an act of treason in a culture that demands sameness and loyalty. Gunfight offers a valuable perspective as the nation struggles to choose between armed violence or healing.
Download or read book Gunfight at the Eco Corral written by Robin L. Murray and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2012-10-01 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most film critics point to classic conflicts—good versus evil, right versus wrong, civilization versus savagery—as defining themes of the American Western. In this provocative examination of Westerns from Tumbleweeds (1925) to Rango (2011), Robin L. Murray and Joseph K. Heumann argue for a more expansive view that moves beyond traditional conflicts to encompass environmental themes and struggles. The environment, after all, is the fundamental stage for most western stories, from land rush dramas that pit “sod busters” against ranchers to conflicts between mining-town communities and corporations. Because environmental issues lie at the forefront of so many conflicts today, Murray and Heumann believe that the Western is ripe for such new examination. Drawing on perspectives from both film studies and environmental history, the authors show how western films frequently deal with issues related to land use and different ways of looking at the natural world. In films as diverse as Gene Autry musicals, early John Wayne B-Westerns, and revisionist critiques such as the 2010 remake of True Grit, resources are exploited in the name of progress. Beginning with an analysis of two iconic Westerns, Shane and The Searchers, Murray and Heumann identify the environmental dichotomies—previously overlooked by critics—that are broached in both films, and they clarify the history that lies behind the environmental debates in these films and many others. How do Westerns respond to the historical contexts they present? And what do those responses suggest about American views of nature and its exploitation? The conflicts these movies address grow out of differing views of progress, frequently in relation to technology. The authors show that such binary oppositions tend to blur when examined closely, demonstrating that environmental issues are often more complex than we realize.
Download or read book Arizona s Deadliest Gunfight written by Heidi J. Osselaer and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2018-05-03 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On a cold winter morning, Jeff Power was lighting a fire in his remote Arizona cabin when he heard a noise, grabbed his rifle, and walked out the front door. Someone in the dark shouted, “Throw up your hands!” Shots rang out from inside and outside the cabin, and when it was all over, Jeff’s sons, Tom and John, emerged to find the sheriff and his two deputies dead, and their father mortally wounded. Arizona’s deadliest shoot-out happened not in 1881, but in 1918 as the United States plunged into World War I, and not in Tombstone, but in a remote canyon in the Galiuro Mountains northeast of Tucson. Whereas previous accounts have portrayed the gun battle as a quintessential western feud, historian Heidi J. Osselaer explodes that myth and demonstrates how the national debate over U.S. entry into the First World War divided society at its farthest edges, creating the political and social climate that lead to this tragedy. A vivid, thoroughly researched account, Arizona’s Deadliest Gunfight describes an impoverished family that wanted nothing to do with modern civilization. Jeff Power had built his cabin miles from the nearest settlement, yet he could not escape the federal government’s expanding reach. The Power men were far from violent criminals, but Jeff had openly criticized the Great War, and his sons had failed to register for the draft. To separate fact from dozens of false leads and conspiracy theories, Osselaer traced the Power family’s roots back several generations, interviewed descendants of the shoot-out’s participants, and uncovered previously unknown records. What happened to Tom and John Power afterward is as stirring and tragic a story as the gunfight itself. Weaving together a family-based local history with national themes of wartime social discord, rural poverty, and dissent, Arizona’s Deadliest Gunfight will be the authoritative account of the 1918 incident and the memorable events that unfolded in its wake.
Download or read book An American Uprising in Second World War England written by Kate Werran and published by Pen and Sword History. This book was released on 2020-07-19 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The shocking story of a WWII shootout between black and white GIs in a quiet Cornish town that put the British-US “special relationship” on trial. On September 26, 1943, racial tensions between American soldiers stationed in Cornwall erupted in gunfire. Labelled a ‘wild west’ mutiny by the tabloids, it became front page news in Great Britain and the USA. For Americans, it bolstered a fast-accelerating civil rights movement, while in the UK, it exposed unsettling truths about Anglo-American relations. With new archival research, journalist Kate Werran pieces together the shocking drama that authorities tried to hush up. Her narrative examines everything from the controversy of American segregation on British soil to the shocking event itself and the resulting court martial. Extracted from wartime cabinet documents, secret government surveys, opinion polls, diaries, letters and newspapers as well as testimony from those who remember it, this story offers a rare window into a little-known dark side of the ‘American Invasion.’
Download or read book And Die in the West written by Paula Mitchell Marks and published by Touchstone. This book was released on 1990 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The gunfight at the O.K. Corral has excited the imaginations of Western enthusiasts ever since that chilly October afternoon in 1881 when Doc Holliday and the three fighting Earps strode along a Tombstone, Arizona, street to confront the Clanton and McLaury brothers. When they met, Billy Clanton and the two McLaurys were shot to death; the popular image of the Wild West was reinforced; and fuel was provided for countless arguments over the characters, motives and actions of those involved.
Download or read book American Lion written by Jon Meacham and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2009-04-30 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive biography of a larger-than-life president who defied norms, divided a nation, and changed Washington forever Andrew Jackson, his intimate circle of friends, and his tumultuous times are at the heart of this remarkable book about the man who rose from nothing to create the modern presidency. Beloved and hated, venerated and reviled, Andrew Jackson was an orphan who fought his way to the pinnacle of power, bending the nation to his will in the cause of democracy. Jackson’s election in 1828 ushered in a new and lasting era in which the people, not distant elites, were the guiding force in American politics. Democracy made its stand in the Jackson years, and he gave voice to the hopes and the fears of a restless, changing nation facing challenging times at home and threats abroad. To tell the saga of Jackson’s presidency, acclaimed author Jon Meacham goes inside the Jackson White House. Drawing on newly discovered family letters and papers, he details the human drama–the family, the women, and the inner circle of advisers– that shaped Jackson’s private world through years of storm and victory. One of our most significant yet dimly recalled presidents, Jackson was a battle-hardened warrior, the founder of the Democratic Party, and the architect of the presidency as we know it. His story is one of violence, sex, courage, and tragedy. With his powerful persona, his evident bravery, and his mystical connection to the people, Jackson moved the White House from the periphery of government to the center of national action, articulating a vision of change that challenged entrenched interests to heed the popular will– or face his formidable wrath. The greatest of the presidents who have followed Jackson in the White House–from Lincoln to Theodore Roosevelt to FDR to Truman–have found inspiration in his example, and virtue in his vision. Jackson was the most contradictory of men. The architect of the removal of Indians from their native lands, he was warmly sentimental and risked everything to give more power to ordinary citizens. He was, in short, a lot like his country: alternately kind and vicious, brilliant and blind; and a man who fought a lifelong war to keep the republic safe–no matter what it took.
Download or read book I Survived the American Revolution 1776 I Survived 15 written by Lauren Tarshis and published by Scholastic Inc.. This book was released on 2017-08-29 with total page 107 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bestselling author Lauren Tarshis tackles the American Revolution in this latest installment of the groundbreaking, New York Times bestselling I Survived series. Bestselling author Lauren Tarshis tackles the American Revolution in this latest installment of the groundbreaking, New York Times bestselling I Survived series. British soldiers were everywhere. There was no escape. Nathaniel Fox never imagined he'd find himself in the middle of a blood-soaked battlefield, fighting for his life. He was only eleven years old! He'd barely paid attention to the troubles between America and England. How could he, while being worked to the bone by his cruel uncle, Uriah Storch? But when his uncle's rage forces him to flee the only home he knows, Nate is suddenly propelled toward a thrilling and dangerous journey into the heart of the Revolutionary War. He finds himself in New York City on the brink of what will be the biggest battle yet.
Download or read book Draw written by James Reasoner and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2003-12-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Known for his ability to make history come vividly to life, Reasoner strips away the dime novel legends and Hollywood myths to show us how the gunfighters of the Old West really lived, killed, and were killed. Praised for his “well-researched” (Booklist) and “lively, suspenseful” (Publishers Weekly) novels, James Reasoner now proves that truth can be even more exciting than fiction. Among the true stories he brings us: • Doc Holliday’s Last Gunfight • The Last Bloody Ride of the Dalton Gang • The End of the Notorious John Wesley Hardin • Wild Bill’s Tragic Mistake • The End of an Earp • Turkey Creek Canyon Shoot-out • Gunfight at Stone Corral • The Doolin Bunch vs. the U.S. Marshals • Rourke’s Bad Luck Robbery • Shoot-out at the Tuttle Dance Hall • Wichita’s New Year’s Day Gunfight • Bat Masterson and the Battle of the Plaza • The Sam Bass Gang’s Luck Runs Out • The Long Branch Saloon’s Spectacular Fray • Ben Thompson’s Christmas Day Shooting • The Man Who Killed the Man Who Killed Jesse James • and more! These are the shoot-outs and showdowns that gave the Wild West its name, recounted here with gritty accuracy, colorful detail, and all the drama of life—and death—on the frontier.
Download or read book Tombstone written by Tom Clavin and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2020-04-21 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER "Tombstone is written in a distinctly American voice." —T.J. Stiles, The New York Times “With a former newsman’s nose for the truth, Clavin has sifted the facts, myths, and lies to produce what might be as accurate an account as we will ever get of the old West’s most famous feud.” —Associated Press The true story of the Earp brothers, Doc Holliday, and the famous Battle at the OK Corral, by the New York Times bestselling author of Dodge City and Wild Bill. On the afternoon of October 26, 1881, eight men clashed in what would be known as the most famous shootout in American frontier history. Thirty bullets were exchanged in thirty seconds, killing three men and wounding three others. The fight sprang forth from a tense, hot summer. Cattle rustlers had been terrorizing the back country of Mexico and selling the livestock they stole to corrupt ranchers. The Mexican government built forts along the border to try to thwart American outlaws, while Arizona citizens became increasingly agitated. Rustlers, who became known as the cow-boys, began to kill each other as well as innocent citizens. That October, tensions boiled over with Ike and Billy Clanton, Tom and Frank McLaury, and Billy Claiborne confronting the Tombstone marshal, Virgil Earp, and the suddenly deputized Wyatt and Morgan Earp and shotgun-toting Doc Holliday. Bestselling author Tom Clavin peers behind decades of legend surrounding the story of Tombstone to reveal the true story of the drama and violence that made it famous. Tombstone also digs deep into the vendetta ride that followed the tragic gunfight, when Wyatt and Warren Earp and Holliday went vigilante to track down the likes of Johnny Ringo, Curly Bill Brocius, and other cowboys who had cowardly gunned down his brothers. That "vendetta ride" would make the myth of Wyatt Earp complete and punctuate the struggle for power in the American frontier's last boom town.
Download or read book The Gunning of America written by Pamela Haag and published by . This book was released on 2016-04-19 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An acclaimed historian explodes the myth about the 'special relationship' between Americans and their guns, revealing that savvy 19th century businessmen--not gun lovers--created American gun culture"--
Download or read book The Life and Crimes of Railroad Bill written by Larry L. Massey and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2015-09-11 with total page 137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For over a year, Railroad Bill eluded sheriffs, private detectives hired by the L&N line, and bounty hunters who traveled across the country to match guns with the legendary desperado. The African American outlaw was wanted on multiple charges of robbery and murder, and rumor had it that he stole from the rich to give to the poor. He terrorized busy train lines from east of Mobile to the Florida Panhandle, but as soon as the lawmen got close, he disappeared into the bayous and pine forests--until one day his luck ran out, and he was gunned down inside a general store in Atmore, Alabama. Little is known about Railroad Bill before his infamy--not his real name or his origins. His first recorded crime, carrying a repeating rifle without a license, led him into a gunfight with a deputy and made him a wanted man throughout Florida in 1894. His most celebrated escape--a five-day foot chase with scores of men and several bloodhounds--led to tales of Railroad's supernatural ability to transmogrify into an animal or inanimate object at will. As his crimes progressed from robbing boxcars to wounding trainmen to murdering sheriffs, more and more reward money was offered for his capture--dead or alive. Today, Railroad Bill is the subject of many folk songs popularized by singers such as Paul McCartney, Taj Mahal, Gillian Welch, and Ramblin' Jack Elliot. But who was he? Where did he come from? What events led to his murderous spree? And why did some view him as a hero? In Railroad Bill, Larry Massey separates fact from myth and teases out elusive truths from tall tales to ultimately reveal the man behind the bandit's mask.
Download or read book Winning a High Speed Close Distance Gunfight written by Lou M. Chiodo and published by Paladin Press. This book was released on 2009-01-01 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A firearms training program geared for the high-speed, close-distance conditions of a real gunfight needs to be about fighting, not just shooting. Former U.S. Marine and California Highway Patrol veteran Lou Chiodo recognizes this fact, and Winning a High-Speed, Close-Distance Gunfight outlines the fundamentals of his reality-based program – one that enjoys one of the highest police officer survival ratings in the country. During his police service, Chiodo realized that standard firearm qualification courses do not prepare officers to face the high-stress environment that they experience in real gunfights – multiple-round, rapid-fire engagements at danger-close distances, often in low light. He studied survival stress and confrontation dynamics from all angles and used his findings to develop the training methods outlined in this book. Through innovative ranges and drills that replicate the conditions of actual street engagements, along with a radical but surprisingly simple retooling of firearm qualification courses, Chiodo shows how you can achieve true combat accuracy when the bullets are flying for real. Whether you are a police officer, firearms instructor or armed citizen, Winning a High-Speed, Close-Distance Gunfight will help you evaluate your present program and adopt useful training methods to prepare for real-life armed confrontations. Read this valuable book and start training to fight, not just to shoot.
Download or read book Gun Barons written by John Bainbridge, Jr. and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2022-05-24 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Bainbridge, Jr.'s Gun Barons is a narrative history of six charismatic and idiosyncratic men who changed the course of American history through the invention and refinement of repeating weapons. Love them or hate them, guns are woven deeply into the American soul. Names like Colt, Smith & Wesson, Winchester, and Remington are legendary. Yet few people are aware of the roles these men played at a crucial time in United States history, from westward expansion in the 1840s, through the Civil War, and into the dawn of the Gilded Age. Through personal drive and fueled by bloodshed, they helped propel the young country into the forefront of the world's industrial powers. Their creations helped save a nation divided, while planting seeds that would divide the country again a century later. Their inventions embodied an intoxicating thread of American individualism—part fiction, part reality—that remains the foundation of modern gun culture. They promoted guns not only for the soldier, but for the Everyman, and also made themselves wealthy beyond their most fevered dreams. Gun Barons captures how their bold inventiveness dwelled in the psyche of an entire people, not just in the minds of men who made firearm fortunes. Whether we revere these larger-than-life men or vilify them, they helped forge the American character.
