Showing results by narrator "Chris Newman" in All Categories

Don't think that because it is such a small country with only about 17 million people, it should be neglected. The Netherlands has a long history, with a high influence on our cultures, trading routes, the stock market, business, and art. The Dutch were all over the world. They "owned" and colonized a big portion of what was then the known world. They were among the first settlers, had the biggest haven, and biggest fleet for some time. The Dutch East-Indian Trading Company, or VOC, is probably the biggest or at least one of the biggest companies that has ever existed.

Michel de Nostredame, referred to as Nostradamus in Latin, was a French astronomer, doctor, and presumed seer mostly known for his work Les Prophéties, a collection of 942 poetic quatrains supposedly predicting future events, which was first released in the year 1555. In this audiobook, let’s take a look at what he predicted, and if any of it came true.

Mother Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu, typically referred to as Saint Teresa of Calcutta in the Catholic Church, was an Albanian-Indian Roman Catholic nun and missionary. She was born in Skopje (today the capital of North Macedonia), which was then part of the Ottoman Empire's Kosovo Vilayet. After 18 years in Skopje, she went to Ireland and ultimately to India, where she spent the remainder of her life. Teresa formed the Missionaries of Charity in the year 1950, a Roman Catholic spiritual order with about 4,500 nuns active in about 133 nations in the year 2012.

Al Capone was an infamous mob boss between the two world wars in the city of New York and surrounding areas. His name and style have been emulated in movies. The mass shootings, tax evasion, and revenge on Italian murders in the mafia gangs on the United States' East Coast were so notorious that they have become iconic and stereotyped. How did Al Capone get the scars on his face? How did he manage to control so many of the gangs in the cities? How was he able to bribe the police, evade taxes, and become a terror for anyone who opposed him? And how did his life finally come to an end?

Meet Dr. Josef Mengele, a man with a twisted mind who had no compassion for the subjects he experimented on. His methods were cruel. His conclusions were inconclusive, and his sadism hardly knew any boundaries. At the time of WWII, Josef Mengele was a German Schutzstaffel (SS) officer and cosmetic surgeon. He is known for his exploits at the Auschwitz prisoner-of-war camp, where he carried out deadly experiments on slaves, belonged to the team of medical professionals that chose victims for the gas chambers, and was just one of the medical professionals who administered the gas.

The infamous double murder that inspired elementary school rhymes is a controversial one: partially because of the insidious nature and grossness of the crime and on the other hand because some people still believe the defendant is innocent. There are many reasons to believe why Lizzie killed both her parents with an axe, and there are some that could be used to argue that she didn’t.

Perhaps you have heard of the horrible stories of the Spanish, Portuguese, or French inquisition, the Catholic body of persecutors who would arrest the supposed “heathens” and accuse them of witchcraft, heresies, blasphemy, adultery, and a whole list of other sins or crimes. Torture, interrogations, executions, burnings, and other inhumane methods were used to then force, coerce, or kill the victims of this Catholic organization within the church at the time.

We’ve all had our humble beginnings, and we seemed so innocent as children. However, for some people, given their childhood and circumstances, and then the political or war-driven environment they face, it goes completely wrong. Such was the case for Rudolf Hoess, a cruel, murderous Nazi commander who had been brainwashed by the system that justified his aid in exterminating millions of Jews. Hoess was the commandant of the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp for the longest time. Learn more about what Rudolf Hoess did and why he has become so infamous.

In the Early Middle Ages, the Anglo-Saxons were a cultural group that resided in England. They traced their roots back to the arrival of incomers to Britain in the fifth century. The contact between a Germanic tribe and native British populations led to the Anglo-Saxon identity. A lot of the native tribes ultimately incorporated and embraced Anglo-Saxon society and language. The Anglo-Saxons established the idea and Kingdom of England, and the modern English language owes practically 26 percent of its vocabulary to them, including the great bulk of words used in daily discussion.

Thanks to ancient Greece, we know more about philosophy, politics, the democratic system, mythology, art, the Olympics, and many, many lingual references imbedded in almost every European language. Ancient Greece has had a significant impact on many concepts we still hold true today.

In this audiobook we will shed more light on the Batavians, a people in history with much bravery, innovation, and determination to form a republic with freedom for its citizens, with opposing enemies they resisted. The Republic of the Seven United Netherlands was followed by the Batavian Republic. It started on January 19, 1795, and ended on June 5, 1806, with Louis I's succession to the Dutch throne. The political, financial, and social modifications that took place at the time of the Batavian Republic's short existence have left an enduring mark.

Jane Austen is well-known for some famous books, among them the popular “Pride and Prejudice.” As an author in the early 1800s, many people may envision pretty dresses and fancy demeanor, but the reality of her life included some hardships that may not be so obvious by reading her novels. In this comprehensive guide, we shed more light on her situation, her road to success, her family life, and the trials she faced in a time when the culture was very different. Let’s slide back the curtain, and reveal the making of a talented, now-famous author!

The Netherlands has a history that dates far back, even before Roman times. Let’s take a look at what happened during the times of the Romans. After the fall of the Roman Empire, or during it, we slowly see a transition into different cultures, habits, and beliefs, which inaugurated, at the time, the Medieval centuries, or the Middle Ages. Let’s explore what happened to the Netherlands area during that time as well.

We all have a typical image of Vikings, from the horns on their helmets to the beards and the clothes they wear. Their ships have a certain charm, and their reputation is that they were brutal, raw, and believed in multiple gods. In this comprehensive guide, we will explore some of the details about the Viking history. What did they do? How did they treat their women? Where did they go to conquer other nations? These are some of the questions we will answer.

Thomas Paine was a political activist, theorist, political theorist, and revolutionary who was born in England. He wrote two of the most popular handouts at the beginning of the American Revolution, Common Sense (1776) and The American Crisis (1776 - 1783) and helped motivate patriots to announce independence from Great Britain in 1776. His thoughts echoed the knowledge's global human rights concepts.

The Hittites were mentioned in the Bible. They were an Anatolian people that contributed to creating a kingdom in Kussara before 1750 BC, the Kanesh or Nesha kingdom between 1750 and 1650 BC, and finally an empire based upon Hattusa in north-central Anatolia around 1650 BC. Under uppiluliuma I, the empire reached its peak in the mid-14th century BC, when it ruled over much of Anatolia and areas of the northern Levant and Upper Mesopotamia.

When we think of Ancient Egypt, we picture movies with mazes, pyramids, traps, mummies, and symbols. And although some of these things were definitely part of it, there is so much more to this ancient civilization. Ancient Egypt was a North African society that grew in the lower banks of the Nile River, in what's now the nation of Egypt. Let’s explore some of the most important features of that society today, and try to grasp what transpired in the culture, the thoughts, the problems, and the development of the Egyptian region more than 5,000 years ago.

The Sumerians were the people from Sumer, the first recognized society in the historic area of southern Mesopotamia (now southern Iraq), developed throughout the 6th and 5th centuries BC throughout the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages. In addition to age-old Egypt, the Caral-Supe culture, the Indus Valley civilization, the Minoan civilization, and age-old China, it is also one of the world's early civilizations. Sumerian farmers who lived along the Tigris and Euphrates valleys grew a great deal of grain and other items.

Initially diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and after a separation of his parents, Edmund Kemper already showed his twisted mind at 15 years old, when he murdered both his grandparents, who were taking care of him. Whether through nature or nurture, this man didn’t show a promising future from the get-go. But perhaps nobody could have suspected the horrors he would inflict on his many victims later in his life.

John Muir was a prominent Scottish-American biologist, author, ecological philosophy, botanist, zoologist, glaciologist, and early supporter for the conservation of wilderness in the US of America. He was also called "John of the Mountains" and "Dad of the National Parks."