Inside History Collection

In this series, you are taken back to the dramatic events, who have shaped world history for better or for worse. From the construction of the first cathedrals in Europe of the plague to the landing in Normandy in 1944. From the crusaders' bloody marches towards Jerusalem to the daring pilots who gave man air under his wings. Along the way, you will be enlightened in an entertaining way as to why the events took shape as they did. This series has the dramatic narrative as its focal point. You not only get an overview of history's most significant events, but also captivating human destinies, spectacular feats, and history's greatest heroes and villains brought to life.

THE LAND WHERE ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL

Inside History Collection

COLONY BECOMES A NATION 1565-1776 • A new and unexpected sight greeted Chesapeake Bay’s residents in the summer of 1607: English ships had arrived and their passengers were chopping wood for a new colony. Little did the American Indians know then that the fledgling settlement of helpless, malaria-stricken Britons was the beginning of a whole new nation founded on tobacco, adventure and an unquenchable thirst for wealth. Had Chief Powhatan known what was to follow, he probably would have given the English colonists at Jamestown even more grief than he did.

COTTON CREATED THE SOUTH 1803-1861 • In the 1850s, New Orleans’ jetties teemed with life. Passengers continuously boarded and disembarked from the river steamers, while rough deckhands unloaded goods. The heavy traffic on the Mississippi River was due to one product in particular: cotton, which slaves grew by the tonne under the whips of plantation owners. In a few decades, a small but powerful elite of rich Southerners created a society in which cotton was king. And they would do anything to preserve King Cotton’s realm.

NOMADS OF THE PRAIRIE 1519-1890 • A few generations after the arrival of horses in North America, hunting communities emerged whose members followed the prairie’s buffalo herds on their migrations across the grass plains. But the tribes’ itinerant lifestyle was doomed. The white man who’d arrived with the horses also made the Native Americans’ nomadic life impossible – in the most brutal way.

THE WAR FOR TEXAS 1845-1848 • In the mid-19th century, the United States and Mexico fought a somewhat one-sided battle over Texas. The state had declared independence after a war with Mexico in 1836, but in 1845 it agreed to become the twenty-eighth state of the USA. The border with Mexico, however, was contentious. The deployment of US soldiers on Texas territory at the Rio Grande provoked Mexico. With decrepit, outdated weapons, the country tried to defend itself against its big neighbour to the north. Soon, however, the Mexicans would have a new and powerful weapon: a whole battalion of highly motivated and combative Irishmen, who stood ready to fight on their side.

GOLD RUSH HIT AMERICA 1848-1860 • “Gold! Gold! Gold!” shouted the pages of the Californian newspaper in May 1848. A few months earlier, a lucky carpenter had picked a shiny nugget out of the American River in the Sierra Nevada mountains, and word had now reached San Francisco: there was gold in California’s rivers! The news spread like wildfire from coast to coast and from continent to continent. Soon tens of thousands of hopefuls flocked to America’s westernmost state with dreams of getting rich.

BLACK STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM 1818-1865 • Floggings, rapes and staggeringly long working days in the baking sun were commonplace for slaves in the American South. The conditions forced many to submit, but the strongest risked their lives to flee the tyranny. One of those who escaped was a young man named Frederick Douglass. With his razor-sharp writing and booming voice, he led a fight for freedom that ended up tearing America in two.

STATES IN BLOODY...