Showing results by narrator "Daniel Houle" in All Categories

The biblical-era Kingdom of Moab was located primarily in modern Jordan, but we do not know precisely when it came into being. However, by the tenth century BCE, a proto-Moabite kingdom was extant. We are also not sure about the roots of the Moabite name. The etymology of the name Moab is not completely clear and according to Jewish tradition, the name stems from the Semitic word for father, "abi". Therefore, the name means "from my father".

During the Revolution, relatively little consideration had been given to the role of the federal government in the new nation, and the precise role and authority of an overarching entity with responsibility for all states within the union was a major problem. One of the most urgent tasks Washington faced was the establishment of a treasury to oversee the finances of America and regulate its currency. The Panic of 1792 examines the origins of America’s financial system, and how it was disastrously affected so shortly after the Constitution was ratified.

In September 2012, on a chilly morning, a Russian kid named Yevgeny Zhenya and his dogs were walking to school, when an awful smell made them stop. The 11-year-old wanted to find out what smelled so bad, and with the help of his furry friends, he went to explore the land. They stumbled upon a giant pair of heels that were covered in an immense pile of snow! What could such a giant thing be?

In addition to being one of the ancient wonders of the world, the Great Pyramid of Giza is extraordinary for a number of reasons. It is one of the greatest feats of engineering in the ancient world, to the extent that it remained the tallest built structure in the world from the time it was finished up until the Lincoln Cathedral was completed around 1300 CE.

Few things have captured the American imagination like the “Wild West,” which still evokes images of dusty cowboys, outlaws, gunfights, gamblers, and barroom brawls over 100 years after the West was settled. A constant fixture in American pop culture, the 19th century American West continues to be vividly and colorfully portrayed not just as a place but as a state of mind.

John Giordano is a recovering addict and alcoholic with continuous abstinence since 1984. John watched his son almost die from a drug overdose and from that day on, he dedicated his life to find evidence-based treatments that will greatly improve treatment outcomes. This book is not only for addicts, alcoholics, and mental health clients, but for all human beings who want to improve their quality of life through improving their mind, body and spirit.

This is the life story of a naughty and rebellious boy who grew up in extreme poverty in the dusty alleys of the Jewish ghetto in Tehran, made his way to a kibbutz in Israel, went through hair-raising adventures in the underworld of Berlin, smuggled people from East Berlin and was expelled from the city as well as from West Germany, and after many hardships achieved impressive success in the United States.

In terms of geopolitics, perhaps the most seminal event of the Middle Ages was the successful Ottoman siege of Constantinople in 1453. The city had been an imperial capital as far back as the fourth century, when Constantine the Great shifted the power center of the Roman Empire there, effectively establishing two almost equally powerful halves of antiquity’s greatest empire. Constantinople would continue to serve as the capital of the Byzantine Empire even after the Western half of the Roman Empire collapsed in the late fifth century.

Near the end of the 19th century, Otto von Bismarck, the German chancellor, brought the plenipotentiaries of all major powers of Europe together to deal with Africa's colonization in such a manner as to avoid provocation of war. This event, known as the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885, galvanized a phenomenon that came to be known as the Scramble for Africa.

Curtis appeared in more than 100 movies, dozens of television series, and on countless talk, variety, and game shows, but despite a prolific career spanning six decades in the ficklest business of all, Curtis could never shake the feeling that he was on the outside looking in. He always had a beautiful woman at his side, but he had trouble committing to one. He mingled with the movers and shakers in the realms of entertainment and politics, but when his phone inevitably stopped ringing, he fell hard into drug and alcohol abuse.

Over the last 2,000 years, ambitious men have dreamed of forging vast empires and attaining eternal glory in battle, but of all the conquerors who took steps toward such dreams, none were ever as successful as antiquity’s first great conqueror. Leaders of the 20th century hoped to rival Napoleon’s accomplishments, while Napoleon aimed to emulate the accomplishments of Julius Caesar. But Caesar himself found inspiration in Alexander the Great (356-323 BCE), the Macedonian king who managed to stretch an empire from Greece to the Himalayas in Asia by the age of 30.

The story of early Asian immigration to the United States is also one about race legislation and discrimination at a time when global populations were moving with more frequency and merging ahead of their ability to practically assimilate. The greatest involuntary migration in history took place as some 12.5 million Black African crossed the Atlantic as slaves.

Modern Aswan is a gorgeous vacation spot, with a view worthy of its long and rich history, and near modern Aswan is the ancient site of Elephantine, a city that calls a small island on the Nile home. Elephantine was once a thriving, independent city and one of the oldest urban settings in Egypt, and the settlement there was always connected to the surrounding geographic area due to the importance of its location.

Today the Space Race is widely viewed poignantly and fondly as a race to the Moon that culminated with Apollo 11 “winning” the Race for the United States. In fact, it encompassed a much broader range of competition between the Soviet Union and the United States that affected everything from military technology to successfully launching satellites that could land on Mars or orbit other planets in the Solar System.

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.

About 2,000 years ago, a prophet named John wrote a book about his strange visions while he was in Patmos, a small Greek island in the Aegean Sea. This John, the Seer, the Revelator, was long believed to be one of Jesus’ apostles, but recent historians have determined that he was a second-generation disciple. In fact, he was likely a political exile, writing for Christians under the threat of persecution by the Roman Empire, and his book, the Book of Revelation, was controversial, obscure, and rejected by many local churches as early as the 2nd century CE.

Mesoamerica is a cultural area including central and southern Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, and El Salvador. In this area, Prehispanic societies developed over thousands of years before coming into contact with Spanish conquistadores in the early 16th century. Mesoamerican civilizations flourished, developing complex social, political, and economic systems-based, to a certain extent, on their knowledge of nature.

Tens of millions died during World War II as the warring powers raced to create the best fighter planes, tanks, and guns, and eventually that race extended to bombs which carried enough power to destroy civilization itself. While the war raged in Europe and the Pacific, a dream team of Nobel Laureates was working on the Manhattan Project, a program kept so secret that Vice President Harry Truman didn’t know about it until he took the presidency after FDR’s death in April 1945.

"Rome was a poem pressed into service as a city.” In that short line, Anatole Broyard, a 20th century American writer, compactly captures the timeless and enchanting beauty that resides within the Eternal City of Rome. This tourist destination is often one of the highest ranked on bucket lists, for how could one not want to experience its marvelous ruins, mirror-like rivers, and spectacular stretches of aqueducts, firsthand?

To have the job of your dreams and to be chosen among the others, it is necessary to know the secrets of the process of the interview and therefore, to have the right attitude. Too often, the failure comes from the lack of knowledge of the techniques and the lack of correct preparation. Even if you have failed sometimes, even if you think you can't do it, with this book, you can understand how to get the job of your dreams and don't miss precious opportunities.