April 1960

In Pierre Landais the Continental Navy had its own real-life Commander Queeg. His tour as master of the Alliance was a nightmare wilder than any a novelist could invent

For a provincial belle from Natchez, the Grand Tour was a priceless introduction to Europe’s art, its feudal pomp, and its tourist trade

Three Americans created the art of the motion picture, and made it the universal language of the twentieth century

It was thirty miles offshore, and stormy, but the daredevil swimmer plunged into the Atlantic with a crisp “Goodnight, ladies and gentlemen!” Our author recalls bold Captain Boyton, a mixture of Jules Verne, Tom Swift, and a bit of Walter Mitty.

An Imperial colony on our West Coast was their aim; Fort Ross was their military outpost; and the stakes—higher than they realized

The glacier that covered most of North America scarred the land, turned rivers in their courses, and deeply influenced our history

As the nation changed, so did its theories about raising youngsters. Prayed over or let run wild, and always the despair of foreign visitors, they have usually survived

When the anthracite miners downed tools in 1902, economic feudalism went on trial

It lasted for years and the outcome was decided by the Kaiser. The total casualties: one dead pig

A cowboy’s own story of his experiences on the trail from Texas to Chicago