When Andrew Jackson, newly elected as President of the United States, moved on horseback to Washington and settlement in the White House, it was with an immense sense of loneliness, following the death of his beloved wife, Rachel. But the situation changed for the better when he invited young people who themselves were facing loneliness or a sense of failure in life, to join him there and take up activitiees that would revive their spirits and offer meaningful jobs and social assignments.

What happened in the following months and years, which will amaze and dleight the reader, will be seen...

In 1928, defying Italy's Mussolini and the entire fascist party, aviator Umberto Nobile, undertook a daring expedition to the North Pole in Italia, one of several successful airships he had designed. The tragic crash of the airship on the ice and search for survivors was the most extensive in Arctic history, involving seven nations. Although Nobile and eight crew members survived, those lost included not only their tragic companions but searchers, including the famous explorer, Roald Amundsen. The Italia tragedy was described by The New York Times as "one of the most astonishing episodes in...