Download or read book Stephen Decatur written by Spencer C Tucker and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2013-12-15 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brave, energetic, intensely patriotic, Stephen Decatur is America's first great naval hero after John Paul Jones. His short and dramatic life is a story of triumph and tragedy told by the noted historian and author of some twenty books, Spencer Tucker. Decatur's raid into Tripoli Harbor in 1804 to burn the Philadelphia, a prized U.S. warship captured when it ran aground during the Barbary Wars, earned him international fame. An admiring Horatio Nelson described the feat as "the most bold and daring act of the age." Explaining the tremendous impact Decatur's action had on the early U.S. Navy, the author notes that it set a standard of audacity and courage for generations of future naval officers. At the age of twenty-five, Decatur was promoted to captain, becoming the youngest naval officer ever to attain that rank in the U.S. Navy. The book fully examines Decatur's astonishing achievements as it chronicles his rapid rise in the Navy, including his command of the Constitution and the United States, during the War of 1812, when he captured the British frigate Macedonian off the Azores. The book also recounts the cruise that many call his greatest triumph: Decatur sailed into the Mediterranean with a nine-ship American squadron to punish the dey of Algiers for taking American merchant shipping, securing peace with Algiers and keeping other Barbary states quiescent. Lionized by a grateful American public upon his return, Decatur offered a toast at a reception in his honor that is now legendary, "Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong!" In describing Decatur's life, the author also examines Decatur's relationship with James Barron, a Navy captain who fatally shot Decatur during a 1820 duel.
Download or read book A Rage for Glory written by James Tertius de Kay and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-05-11 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stephen Decatur was one of the most awe-inspiring officers of the entire Age of Fighting Sail. A real-life American naval hero in the early nineteenth century, he led an astonishing life, and his remarkable acts of courage in combat made him one of the most celebrated figures of his era. Decatur's dazzling exploits in the Barbary Wars propelled him to national prominence at the age of twenty-five. His dramatic capture of HMS Macedonian in the War of 1812, and his subsequent naval and diplomatic triumphs in the Mediterranean, secured his permanent place in the hearts of his countrymen. Handsome, dashing, and fearless, his crews worshipped him, presidents lionized him, and an adoring public heaped fresh honors on him with each new achievement. James Tertius de Kay is one of our foremost naval historians. In A Rage for Glory, the first new biography of Decatur in almost seventy years, he recounts Decatur's life in vivid colors. Drawing on material unavailable to previous biographers, he traces the origins of Decatur's fierce patriotism ("My country...right or wrong!"), chronicles Decatur's passionate love affair with Susan Wheeler, and provides new details of Decatur's tragic death in a senseless duel of honor, secretly instigated by the backroom machinations of jealous fellow officers determined to ruin him. His death left official Washington in such shock that his funeral became a state occasion, attended by friends who included former President James Madison, current President James Monroe, Chief Justice John Marshall, and ten thousand more. Decatur's short but crowded life was an astonishing epic of hubris, romance, and high achievement. Only a handful of Americans since his time have ever come close to matching his extraordinary glamour and brilliance.
Download or read book Native Decatur written by Mark Pifer and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2018-06-04 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The city of Decatur, Georgia, was founded in 1823. The place of Decatur has existed for several billion years. Unlike other history books that tell the story of a town beginning with its founding, Native Decatur tells the story of how the place came to be. The story begins over a billion years ago with the creation of the current landscape and explains each era of natural and cultural history as a saga of evolution, tragedy, violence, wonder and hope that led to the settlement of the city. The narrative is supported by more than 75 illustrations, photos, historical maps and exhibits. Today's points of interest and remnants of the past are then specifically identified and explained so that you can visit and appreciate them today.
Download or read book Decatur written by Dan Guillory and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2004 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Decatur, Illinois' nineteenth and twentieth century history is presented through vintage photographs.
Download or read book The Second written by Carol Anderson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the New York Times bestselling author of White Rage, an unflinching, critical new look at the Second Amendment and how it has been engineered to deny the rights of African Americans since its inception. In The Second, historian and award-winning, bestselling author of White Rage Carol Anderson powerfully illuminates the history and impact of the Second Amendment, how it was designed, and how it has consistently been constructed to keep African Americans powerless and vulnerable. The Second is neither a “pro-gun” nor an “anti-gun” book; the lens is the citizenship rights and human rights of African Americans. From the seventeenth century, when it was encoded into law that the enslaved could not own, carry, or use a firearm whatsoever, until today, with measures to expand and curtail gun ownership aimed disproportionately at the African American population, the right to bear arms has been consistently used as a weapon to keep African Americans powerless--revealing that armed or unarmed, Blackness, it would seem, is the threat that must be neutralized and punished. Throughout American history to the twenty-first century, regardless of the laws, court decisions, and changing political environment, the Second has consistently meant this: That the second a Black person exercises this right, the second they pick up a gun to protect themselves (or the second that they don't), their life--as surely as Philando Castile's, Tamir Rice's, Alton Sterling's--may be snatched away in that single, fatal second. Through compelling historical narrative merging into the unfolding events of today, Anderson's penetrating investigation shows that the Second Amendment is not about guns but about anti-Blackness, shedding shocking new light on another dimension of racism in America.
Download or read book Whisperin Bill Anderson written by Bill Anderson and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whisperin' Bill: An Unprecedented Life in Country Music presents a revealing portrait of Bill Anderson, one of the most prolific songwriters in the history of country music. Mega country music hits like "City Lights," (Ray Price), "Tips Of My Fingers," (Roy Clark, Eddy Arnold, Steve Wariner), "Once A Day," (Connie Smith), "Saginaw, Michigan," (Lefty Frizzell), and many more flowed from his pen, making him one of the most decorated songwriters in music history. But the iconic singer, songwriter, performer, and TV host came to a point in his career where he questioned if what he had to say mattered anymore. Music Row had changed, a new generation of artists and songwriters had transformed the genre, and the Country Music Hall of Fame member and fifty-year Grand Ole Opry star was no longer relevant. By 1990, he wasn't writing anymore. Bad investments left him teetering at bankruptcy's edge. His marriage was falling apart. And in Nashville, a music town where youth often carries the day, he was a museum piece--only seen as a nostalgia act, waving from the stage of the Grand Ole Opry. Anderson was only in his fifties when he assumed he had climbed all the mountains he was intended to scale. But in those moments plagued with self-doubt, little did he know, his most rewarding climb lie ahead. A follow-up to his 1989 autobiography, this honest and revealing book tells the story of a man with an unprecedented gift, holding on to it in order to share it. Known as "Whisperin' Bill" to generations of fans for his soft vocalizations and spoken lyrics, Anderson is the only songwriter in country music history to have a song on the charts in each of the past seven consecutive decades. He has celebrated chart-topping success as a recording artist with eighty charting singles and thirty-seven Top Ten country hits, including "Still," "8 x 10," "I Love You Drops," and "Mama Sang A Song." A six-time Song of the Year Award-winner and BMI Icon Award recipient, Anderson has taken home many CMA and ACM Award trophies and garnered multiple GRAMMY nominations. His knack for the spoken word has also made him a successful television host, having starred on "The Bill Anderson Show," "Opry Backstage," "Country's Family Reunion," and others. Moreover, his multi-faceted success extends far beyond the country format with artists like James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Dean Martin, and Elvis Costello recording his songs. Today, thanks to the support of musical peers and a few famous friends who believed in him, Anderson continues to forge the path of lyrical integrity in music, harnessing his ability to craft a song that tells a familiar story, grabs you by the heart and moves you. Modern day examples include "Whiskey Lullaby" (Brad Paisley and Allison Krauss), "Give It Away" (George Strait), "A Lot of Things Different" (Kenny Chesney), and "Which Bridge to Cross" (Vince Gill). A product of a long-gone Nashville, Anderson worked to reinvent himself, and this biography documents Anderson's fifty-plus-year career--a career he once thought unattainable. Richly illustrated with black-and-white photos of Anderson interacting with the superstars of American music, including such legends as Patsy Cline, Vince Gill, and Steve Wariner, this book highlights Anderson's trajectory in the business and his influence on the past, present, and future of this dynamic genre.
Download or read book A Night at the Sweet Gum Head Drag Drugs Disco and Atlanta s Gay Revolution written by Martin Padgett and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An electric and intimate story of 1970s gay Atlanta through its bedazzling drag clubs and burgeoning rights activism. Coursing with a pumped-up beat, gay Atlanta was the South's mecca—a beacon for gays and lesbians growing up in its homophobic towns and cities. There, the Sweet Gum Head was the club for achieving drag stardom. Martin Padgett evokes the fantabulous disco decade by going deep into the lives of two men who shaped and were shaped by this city: John Greenwell, an Alabama runaway who found himself and his avocation performing as the exquisite Rachel Wells; and Bill Smith, who took to the streets and city hall to change antigay laws. Against this optimism for visibility and rights, gay people lived with daily police harassment and drug dealing and murder in their discos and drag clubs. Conducting interviews with many of the major figures and reading through deteriorating gay archives, Padgett expertly re-creates Atlanta from a time when a vibrant, new queer culture of drag and pride came into being.
Download or read book One Place written by Tom Rankin and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2013-04-09 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Though artistic and ambitious, Paul Kwilecki (1928-2009) chose to remain in Bainbridge, Georgia, the small Decatur County town where he was born, raised, and ran the family's hardware store. He had always been interested in photography and taught himself how to use a camera. Over four decades, he documented life in his community, making hundreds of masterful and intimate black-and-white prints. Kwilecki developed his visual ideas in series of photographs of high school proms, prison hog killings, shade-tree tobacco farming, factory work, church life, the courthouse. He also wrote eloquently about the people and places he so poignantly depicted, and in this book his unique knowledge is powerfully articulated in more than 200 photographs and selected prose. Paul Kwilecki worked alone, his correspondence with important photographers his only link to the larger art world. Despite this isolation, Kwilecki's work became widely known. "Decatur County is home," he said, "and I know it from my special warp, having been both nourished and wounded by it."
Download or read book Decatur written by Jonathan Ford Baggs and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2019 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Established in 1820 on the banks of the Tennessee River, Decatur, Alabama, has always had its destiny tied to the water. It is the city's lifeblood and obstacle. A railroad, an "iron river" between Tuscumbia and Decatur, was built to overcome the natural obstacle so it could be used as an asset. This effort worked. War, pestilence, economic downturns, labor, and social unrest all imbued residents with a resilience of spirit. Residents knew it, and visitors sometimes described it in quick notes on cardstock. These postcards from Decatur, Alabama, traveled across the land and the world. Presented here for the first time are some of those cards, dating between 1874 and the latter 1970s.
Download or read book Late City written by Robert Olen Butler and published by Atlantic Monthly Press. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Pulitzer Prize–winning author shares an “exceptionally nuanced, tender, funny, tragic, and utterly transfixing portrait” of one man’s troubled century (Booklist, starred review). At 115 years old, former newspaperman Sam Cunningham is also the last surviving veteran of World War I. As he prepares to die in a Chicago nursing home, the results of the 2016 presidential election come in—and he finds himself in a wide-ranging conversation with a surprising God. As the two review Sam’s life, the grand epic of the twentieth century comes sharply into focus. Sam grows up in Louisiana under the flawed morality of an abusive father. Eager to escape, Sam enlists in the army while still underage. Though the hardness his father instilled in him helps him make it out of World War I alive, it also prevents him from contending with the emotional wounds of war. Back in the United States, Sam moves to Chicago to begin a career as a newspaperman that will bring him close to the major historical turns of the twentieth century. There he meets his wife and has a son, whose fate counters Sam’s at almost every turn. As he contemplates his relationships—with his parents, his brothers in arms, his wife, his editor, and most importantly, his son—Sam is amazed at what he still has left to learn about himself after all these years.
Download or read book The Legend of the Black Mecca written by Maurice J. Hobson and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2017-10-03 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For more than a century, the city of Atlanta has been associated with black achievement in education, business, politics, media, and music, earning it the nickname "the black Mecca." Atlanta's long tradition of black education dates back to Reconstruction, and produced an elite that flourished in spite of Jim Crow, rose to leadership during the civil rights movement, and then took power in the 1970s by building a coalition between white progressives, business interests, and black Atlantans. But as Maurice J. Hobson demonstrates, Atlanta's political leadership--from the election of Maynard Jackson, Atlanta's first black mayor, through the city's hosting of the 1996 Olympic Games--has consistently mishandled the black poor. Drawn from vivid primary sources and unnerving oral histories of working-class city-dwellers and hip-hop artists from Atlanta's underbelly, Hobson argues that Atlanta's political leadership has governed by bargaining with white business interests to the detriment of ordinary black Atlantans. In telling this history through the prism of the black New South and Atlanta politics, policy, and pop culture, Hobson portrays a striking schism between the black political elite and poor city-dwellers, complicating the long-held view of Atlanta as a mecca for black people.
Download or read book Wicked Decatur written by Troy Taylor and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2011-04-04 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1854, Decatur was nicknamed "Hell's Half Acre."? By the 1910s and 1920s, the town was referred to as the "Second Most Corrupt City in Illinois, "? gaining notoriety as a place where murder, bootlegging, prostitution, kidnapping, gambling and political corruption were common. Members of the Decatur police force, like Troy Taylor's great-grandfather, were hard-pressed to bar the door against crime in a town that seemed determined to remain wide-open. Wicked Decatur presents a rogue's gallery of those who have slipped through the cracks of legality over the past century and a half.
Download or read book Wartime Decatur written by Dan Guillory and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2006-03-15 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Decatur has a long history of patriotic service, both on and off the field of battle. Decatur volunteers participated in six major campaigns including the Black Hawk War (1832), the Mexican War (18461848), the Civil War (18611865), the Spanish-American War (1898), World War I (19171918), and World War II (19411945). Their record of distinguished service includes the presence of five generals and six Congressional Medal of Honor winners in the Civil War. The Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), the first national veterans organization, was founded in Decatur immediately after the Civil War. In World War II, soldiers from Decatur served in North Africa, Italy, the Philippines, and Germany. Equally impressive, however, is the tradition of the Decatur Canteen, which served food to transient soldiers from the time of the Civil War onward. Local volunteers rolled bandages, collected food, and recycled bales of paper and heaps of scrap metal. Citizens planted victory gardens and bought war bonds and savings stamps. Wartime Decatur: 18321945 documents the vigorous wartime culture based on community involvement and a strong sense of patriotism.
Download or read book Decatur Historical District written by and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book US 27 Decatur Bypass Improvements Adams County written by and published by . This book was released on 1981 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Romantic Decatur written by Charles Lee Lewis and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2016-11-11 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press's distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.
Download or read book US 27 Bypass Decatur written by and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
