Strange America

In 1528, a mission set out from Spain to colonize Florida. But the expedition went horribly wrong: Delayed by a hurricane, knocked off course by a colossal error of navigation, and ultimately doomed by a disastrous decision to separate the men from their ships, the mission quickly became a desperate journey of survival. Of the 300 men who had embarked on the journey, only four survived - three Spaniards and an African slave.

Strange and Obscure Stories of the Civil War is an entertaining look at the Civil War stories that don’t get told, and the misadventures you haven’t read about in history books. Share in all the humorous and strange events that took place behind the scenes of some of the most famous Civil War moments.

Weird but True Stories from the 1950's: Bizarre, Shocking, and Unbelievable Tales from America’s Atomic Age Think you know the 1950's? Think again. Beneath the surface of poodle skirts, chrome diners, and black-and-white TV was a decade overflowing with mystery, irony, and stranger-than-fiction true stories. This captivating collection reveals ten astonishing real-life events from the 1950's that defy expectation and logic—each one verified and rooted in historical fact. From radar panic over Washington D.C. to the eerie Phantom Whistler of New Jersey, from mid-air collisions with ...

Weird but True Stories from the Roaring 1920s: Strange and Bizarre Tales from the Prohibition Era is a riveting collection of real, historically documented events that prove truth is stranger than fiction. From haunted courtrooms and dance marathons that drove people to madness, to bootlegging schemes, deadly medical frauds, and a massacre that changed organized crime forever, this book explores the weirdest corners of 1920s America. Set against the backdrop of Prohibition, jazz, flappers, and gangsters, these ten unforgettable stories showcase the bizarre side of the decade that redefined ...

The Strange Career of Jim Crow is one of the great works of Southern history. Indeed, the book actually helped shape that history. Published in 1955, a year after the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education ordered schools desegregated, Strange Career was cited so often to counter arguments for segregation that Martin Luther King, Jr. called it "the historical Bible of the civil rights movement." The book offers a clear and illuminating analysis of the history of Jim Crow laws, presenting evidence that segregation in the South dated only to the 1890s.

The Los Angeles Times headline screamed: Rocket Scientist Killed in Pasadena Explosion. The man known as Jack Parsons, a maverick rocketeer who helped transform a derided sci-fi plotline into actuality, was at first mourned as a scientific prodigy. But reporters soon uncovered a more shocking story: Parsons had been a devotee of the city’s occult scene.

Originally published in 1979, the first volume of the best-selling "Gonzo Papers" is now back in print. The Great Shark Hunt is Dr. Hunter S. Thompson's largest and, arguably, most important work, covering Nixon to napalm, Las Vegas to Watergate, Carter to cocaine. These essays offer brilliant commentary and outrageous humor, in signature Thompson style. Thompson's razor-sharp insight and crystal clarity capture the crazy, hypocritical, degenerate, and redeeming aspects of the explosive and colorful '60s and '70s.

Crazy Horse was the legendary military leader of the Oglala Sioux whose personal power and social nonconformity contributed to his reputation as being “strange.” Crazy Horse fought in many battles, including the famous Battle of the Little Bighorn, and held out tirelessly against the US government’s efforts to confine the Native Americans to reservations. Eventually, in the spring of 1877, he surrendered to military forces and ended up meeting a violent death. Now, nearly a century and a half later, Crazy Horse continues to hold a special place in the hearts and minds of people.

Discover the strangest side of the Civil War that textbooks left behind. From sneezed-out bullets and exploding mules to musical ceasefires and sky-high spies in balloons, Weird but True Stories from the Civil War reveals the bizarre, hilarious, and unbelievable moments that actually happened during America’s deadliest conflict. These aren’t fictional tales—they’re real events, drawn from eyewitness accounts, battlefield reports, and historical archives. Explore ten shocking stories that shine a light on the surreal side of 19th-century warfare, including a Confederate soldier who ...

Weird but True Stories from the Great Depression: Bizarre, Shocking, and Unbelievable Tales from America's Darkest Decade Step beyond the breadlines and dust storms into the strangest corners of America’s hardest era. This captivating collection of weird but true stories from the Great Depression reveals a side of the 1930s you've never seen—filled with eccentric survival strategies, bizarre public stunts, surreal government projects, and the unforgettable humans behind it all. Meet the man who couldn’t be killed—even when poisoned, frozen, and gassed. Discover how flour sacks ...

Brilliant scientist and witty conversationalist, best-selling author and architect of the great surveys that mapped the West after the Civil War, Clarence King was named by John Hay "the best and brightest of his generation". But King hid a secret from his Gilded Age cohorts and prominent family in Newport: for 13 years he lived a double life - as the celebrated White explorer, geologist, and writer Clarence King and as a Black Pullman porter and steelworker named James Todd.

Something was out there. Sometimes in the woods. Sometimes in graveyards. Sometimes already buried. Between 1780 and 1930, Americans reported things they didn’t understand and couldn’t identify. Hairy shapes at the edge of forests. Coffins reopened. Bodies inspected. Boogeyman in America pulls real cases from American newspapers and records, written when fear was fresh and answers were missing. Inside you’ll find: Beasts in the trees Disturbed graves Dead… or undead? Bodies that didn’t look right Plus much more No legends. No modern explanations. Just true American history at its ...

It was the street your mother warned you about - even if you lived in San Francisco. Long associated with skid row, saloons, freak shows, violence, and vice, the Bowery often showed the worst New York City had to offer. Yet there were times when it showed its best as well.

Charged with racial, sexual, and political overtones, the confirmation of Clarence Thomas as a Supreme Court justice was one of the most divisive spectacles the country has ever seen. Anita Hill's accusation of sexual harassment by Thomas, and the attacks on her that were part of his high-placed supporters rebuttal, both shocked the nation and split it into two camps. In this brilliant, often shocking book, Jane Mayer and Jill Abramson, two of the nation's top investigative journalists, examine all aspects of this controversial case.

Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War Following Ultron’s war on humanity, the world no longer trusts the Avengers. After a controversial decision to hold the team accountable is made, Captain America is torn—he can understand people’s fear, but the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. taught him just how...

In the timber camps of North Florida in the 1930s, Zora Neale Hurston, a famous African-American anthropologist and author, discovered the unwritten segregationist law allowing a white man to force a white woman to have his children. Dr. Ellis coined the term "paramour rights" and attributed it to Hurston's character in this novel. Twenty years later, she received an assignment from the Pittsburgh Courier to cover the murder trial of Ruby McCollum, a wealthy colored woman accused of slaying a white physician.

To his contemporaries in Gilded Age Manhattan, Guillermo Eliseo was a fantastically wealthy Mexican, the proud owner of a luxury apartment overlooking Central Park, a busy Wall Street office, and scores of mines and haciendas in Mexico. But for all his obvious riches and his elegant appearance, Eliseo was also the possessor of a devastating secret: He was not, in fact, from Mexico at all. Rather, he had begun life as a slave named William Ellis, born on a cotton plantation in Texas during the waning years of King Cotton.

The definitive, revelatory biography of Marvel Comics icon Stan Lee, a writer and entrepreneur who reshaped global pop culture—at a steep personal cost HUGO AWARD FINALIST EISNER AWARD NOMINEE “True Believer is in every imaginable way the biography that Stan Lee deserves—ambitious...

Masiosare, nuestro extraño enemigo, es un libro que hace una serie de viajes al pasado de México y la mente de los mexicanos, para comprender los mitos y traumas que nos destruyen como país y nos dividen como pueblo. En un México que no cesa de destruirse a sí mismo, Juan Miguel Zunzunegui hace, en esta revisión histórica, el llamado a la paz y la colaboración que el país necesita para sobrevivir.

One of Buzzfeed's 24 New Books We Couldn’t Put Down “One of the smartest young writers of her generation.”—Book Riot From the acclaimed cultural critic and New York Times bestselling author of This Will Be My Undoing—a writer whom Roxane Gay has hailed as “a force to be reckoned...