These riveting personalities each achieved excellence, but even greater than their individual accomplishments is the positive Hispanic image they collectively represent to the world. Photographs, illustrations, and lively text tell the stories of these fascinating historical figures. While searching for the fountain of youth, Ponce de Leon became the first European to reach what is now the state of Florida. Although he died just eight years after his arrival, Ponce de Leon created a legend that has fascinated generations of Americans.

Women Explorers chronicles the lives of six intrepid women whose hunger for adventure and knowledge compelled them on paths of discovery around the world. Their discoveries not only brought stores of information on topics ranging from ancient dinosaur fossils to life in Tibet, but also challenged the established roles of women in their fields. The daughter of a wealthy planter, Alexander used her inheritance to fund research for her passion--the natural sciences. Numerous dinosaur species have been named in her honor, and her legacy continues at the University of California at Berkeley's...

* This series examines the key consequences of arbitrary border making in world history - past and present * These studies describe arbitrary borders as places where people interact differently from the way they would had the boundary not existed * Analytical, but easy to read, these brief histories will appeal to a broad sweep of readership

These riveting personalities each achieved excellence, but even greater than their individual accomplishments is the positive Hispanic image they collectively represent to the world. Photographs, illustrations, and lively text tell the stories ot these fascinating historical figures. With his unique blend of blues, rock, and Afro-Cuban rhythms, Santana has kept himsslf visible on the popular music scene for more than 30 years.

Mother Teresa is one of the most admired Nobel laureates of all time. Born in Eastern Europe of Albanian parents, she became a Catholic missionary nun in India when she was still a teenager. After teaching in a convent school in Calcutta for nearly two decades, in 1946 she claimed that she heard God calling her to live and work among "the poorest of the poor" in that city's slums. With the assistance of the religious order she founded, the Missionaries of Charity, over the next half-century Mother Teresa devoted herself to society's forgotten and unwanted, not only in India but in countries...

Considered by many to be the most influential hip-hop artists of all time, Run-DMC's melding of rap with rock, stripped-down musical arrangements, edgy lyrics, and straight-off-the-street look transformed the sound and style of rap during the early 1980s and helped make them the first hip-hop group to gain widespread popularity. Although Run-DMC was officially disbanded in 2002, the groundbreaking contributions of the trio from Hollis, Queens - Jason "Master Jay" Mizell, Joseph "Run" Simmons, and Darryl "DMC" McDaniels - to the evolution of rap ensure that their place in the history of...

According to the "Hebrew Bible", David rose from humble beginnings as a sheepherder in the hills of Bethlehem to become the ruler of the ancient kingdom of Israel and the founder of an empire that included not only the modern state of Israel, but parts of Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan as well. Courageous and conniving, pious and vengeful, warrior, poet, fugitive, and king, David is not only one of the most complex and fascinating figures in Hebrew scripture but also one of the ancient world's best-known leaders. "King David" uses the ample writings by and about the revered king of Israel to...

In 1347, Europe was hit by the worst natural disaster in its recorded history: the Black Death. Now believed to be a combination of bubonic plague and two other rarer plague strains, the Black Death ravaged the continent for several terrible years before finally fading away in 1352. Most historians believe that the pandemic, which also swept across parts of Western Asia and North Africa, annihilated 33 to 60 percent of Europe's population - roughly 25 to 45 million men, women, and children. This massive depopulation had a deep impact on the course of European history, speeding up or...

This informative new title tells the true story of a powerful earthquake that roared through San Francisco in 1906.

Established by a 1948 UN mandate, which divided the area known as Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, the nation of Israel has remained resilient in its short, tumultuous history. UN partition greatly reduced the land held by the Palestinian Arabs and set in motion a series of conflicts between Israel and its border countries.