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Ernest Hemingway was the best-selling, most celebrated author of his time. He wove war, love, pain and death into unforgettable patchworks of prose, and sought adventure and craved risk. Behind a cheerful façade were wounds much deeper than any physical ones sustained in an eventful lifetime. Hemingway battled devastating personal wounds he found impossible to shake.
For almost two hundred years one group of fighting men has held an unrivaled grip on the world's imagination. Shadowy pasts have made them outcasts. Glorious victories have made them heroes. And bitter defeats -- often in hopeless battles to the death -- have transformed them into legends. They are the men of the French Foreign Legion. Today, the mystique that surrounds these unusual soldiers still fascinates, still draws young men to enlist in their ranks.
In 1905, all of New York was riveted by the story of Lily Bart, a stunning young woman hoping to claim her place in society through marriage to a wealthy man. As her prospects for marriage unraveled, Lily's life spiraled downward. No longer the toast of New York society, she ended up in a rooming house, alone and penniless. After drinking an overdose of sleeping medication, she died. This tragic figure whose story so captivated New York was not real. She was a character in the novel The House of Mirth. The writer who exposed the dark side of High Society was herself a member of it; Edith Wharton was in a unique position to chronicle -- and critique the upper class. She did -- mercilessly -- and her literary success came at a price.
Over the course of his illustrious career, Lowell Thomas was an adventurer, a showman, the most familiar voice in radio, a television personality and a media pioneer. He was one of the first to be called a newscaster, but through it all, one thing always was true about Lowell Thomas: he was a supreme storyteller.
At the end of World War I, the Ottoman Empire paid the ultimate price for choosing the wrong side. The winners, Britain and France, marched in and began to carve it up. Then an army arose out of nowhere, expelled the invaders from its homeland, and proclaimed the Republic of Turkey. All because of one man, Mustafa Kemal, or, as he came to be known, Atatürk -- father of the Turks. Enormously ambitious for himself and his people, Atatürk saw independence as just the beginning. He would not only transform the government, but also how people dressed, worshipped, wrote, and named themselves -- individually and as a nation.
In novels, memoirs, and essays, the Turkish writer Halide Edib chronicled the most cataclysmic change in the history of her country: its creation after World War I from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire. She not only wrote about it, she was one of the creators. And in that process, she helped secure a prominent place in public life for Turkish women. But in 1919, her country was about to become a colony. British and Greek invaders patrolled key cities, and wanted more. In occupied Istanbul, Halide Edib put down her pen, sent her two young sons away to safety abroad, and headed to the hills to join a small rebel band fighting for freedom. For Halide Edib, the choice was clear: she had to go. But she also kept a record of events -- memoirs -- for the youth on both sides fighting and dying around her, and for her own sons, far away.
The Ottoman Empire lasted some 600 years, and spanned three continents. It was not only their military campaigns that made the Ottomans a force to be reckoned with for centuries. In an era when neighboring states persecuted, exiled, or massacred their minorities, the Islamic Ottoman state was willing to tolerate difference. Its subjects included not only Muslims, but large numbers of Christians and Jews. As Ottoman power eventually ebbed, the diversity that been a strength in one era became a weakness in another. Changing political forces within and without the Empire created a toxic stew of ethnic and religious hatred. That hatred would finally boil over amid the carnage of World War I, and contribute to the Ottoman Empire's own death rattle.
Few figures are so well known and strike as much terror as that of the vampire known as "Dracula." This creature -- not yet dead, but no longer alive -- has at one time or another tempted, fascinated and repelled us all. When writer Bram Stoker published Dracula in 1897, he couldn't have predicted that he was creating a figure who was larger than death. Today, he might be timeless, but in the 15th century, he was all too real. His name was Prince Vlad Dracula whom history has come to know as Vlad the Impaler. In many ways, the reality of Dracula's life was more terrifying than the fiction he helped inspire, his story more shocking than anything Hollywood could manufacture.
In 1915, a Polish scholar named Bronislaw Malinowski landed on a tiny island off the coast of New Guinea. He had come as an anthropologist -- a scientist who studies the origins and behavior of human kind. He had come to investigate the lifestyle, customs and beliefs of the people who lived there. The methods he would develop to conduct his investigation would change anthropology forever.
For over 100 years anthropologists have been learning from people in every corner of our world, and using the data they gather to create a group portrait of the human race. And wherever they find their subjects -- whether they live on the other side of the globe or just down the block, hang out in a tropical rainforest, a corporate boardroom or a parking lot, anthropologists help us to understand our fellow human beings, and our selves
A land of mystery and danger, it's been said that New Guinea contains more strange and new and beautiful things than any other part of the globe. Located off the coast of southeast Asia just North of Australia, this rugged and vast tropical island was one of the last places on Earth to be explored by white men. Tantalizing glimpses of the fierce people who lived in New Guinea as well as the island's stunning plant and animal life have long lured Western adventurers looking to make new discoveries. They were not disappointed.
In May 1919, six months after the end of the Great War in Europe, a French train departed from Berlin, carrying the German delegation to the Paris Peace Conference. The victors decided to meet in Paris to begin the daunting task of rebuilding the world and making a lasting peace settlement with Germany. In a clash of personalities and agendas, facing unimaginable circumstances, the world's leaders met for six months to try to deliver that promise. But just a few years later, their plan for peace would unravel, catapulting the world toward the very tragedy they had wanted to prevent... Was it their fault? Or was it inevitable?
In 1913, 56 year old Woodrow Wilson was inaugurated President of the United States. He came to the job with little practical experience. Still, he arrived in Washington confident, determined to change America. Just over a year after he assumed office, World War I swept across Europe, and Wilson became committed to not just changing the United States, but to changing the world. Although Wilson didn't live long enough to see his dream of lasting international cooperation become reality, decades after his death, in the somber aftermath of World War II, his ideals once again took center stage.
On March 20, 2003, the United States invaded Iraq. Saddam Hussein, the dictator who'd controlled this nation for nearly 25 years was deposed. Many Iraqis celebrated this turning point. However, before long the troops the Iraqis had greeted as liberators were viewed as occupiers. This wasn't the first time these scenes had played out on the streets of Baghdad. In the aftermath of World War I, the British faced nearly the same situation when they took control. One of those challenged was a fiercely independent archaeologist, map-maker and intelligence officer who'd come to know the region as few westerners had. Her name was Gertrude Bell.
In the summer of 1966, the United States found itself in a war it couldn't win, against an enemy it didn't understand. For the Americans, it was a war against Communism. But for the Vietnamese, it was a war to break free from centuries of foreign oppression. At this pivotal moment in their history, they were led by one man who would stop at nothing to free his people. They called him Uncle Ho. To the rest of the world, he was Ho Chi Minh. Millions of Vietnamese would pay the price for Ho Chi Minh's vision of a free Vietnam. A vision that was as bold as it was unbreakable.
Paul Robeson was great at everything he did. And he did a lot: an acclaimed singer, actor, all-American football player, Ivy-league educated lawyer, prize-winning orator. Robeson spoke over a dozen languages in a bass-baritone voice that moved people. But when Robeson used that voice to disagree with the political establishment, people turned on him.
Since our ancestors first stood on two legs, we've looked up at the universe with wonder. And we've been lighting up the night sky since the Chinese first invented rockets some 2000 years ago. In the early 1900s, American inventor Robert Goddard brought space and rockets together -- and launched a new era in human history.
Jazz was born in America, in cotton fields and cities... in brothels and churches. In the opera house, and the night club... jazz was music of the people. It began as part of a quest for freedom among those who were disenfranchised. From their struggle, it became a platform for self-expression. For more than one hundred years, jazz has been played throughout America, and everywhere it has been played, it has been more than just a style. It has been more than just a technique. It has been a way of liberation through music.
In the 1920s the sprawling, brawling, skyscraper-studded city of Chicago ruled the American heartland. And one man seemed to rule Chicago. A racketeer, pimp, bootlegger and cold-blooded killer named Al Capone. Capone's empire lasted just six blood-soaked years. But his image as the ultimate American mobster still survives, decades after his days of gangland glory.
On October 10th, 1919, for the first time in American history, lawmakers voted to change the Constitution and strip away one of people's personal freedoms. Prohibition, the 18th amendment, outlawed alcohol. Many Americans believed Prohibition --later called the Noble Experiment -- would last forever, bringing the country closer to God and family. Instead, the 14 years under Prohibition are remembered for binge drinking, illegal parties, promiscuity, organized crime, and reckless disrespect for morality and government.
In the late '20s, gangland killings were tearing Chicago apart, as mob leader Al Capone battled to be top dog. Valentine's Day 1929 was be a bad day to be in Chicago if you worked for the competition. Newly elected President Herbert Hoover was outraged, and declared a war on crime in his inaugural speech. Within months, an elite squad of federal investigators called the Capone Squad, AKA the Untouchables, hit the streets of Chicago. The man in charge was the hard-driving, bright-eyed, and squeaky clean 26 year old, Eliot Ness. Capone's path was clear. He was going straight to hell. But Ness's path took a series of unexpected turns. The man who could track down bad guys with ease, wouldn't always detect the secret malice in people's hearts.
At the height of his career, Louis Armstrong and his band toured Europe. The sextet had come to perform America's greatest export -- jazz -- but Armstrong's adoring audiences knew him as much more than a musician. He was known as the ambassador of goodwill. Armstrong's joyous stage presence electrified audiences, but many of them didn't know he was the father of jazz itself. He pushed music into the 20th Century by inventing a new way of playing. By doing so, he helped to change the world of music, and the culture we live in, forever.
Chicago in the roaring twenties was a hotbed of activity -- mostly criminal. Mobsters controlled gambling and the flow of alcohol, and they brutally exacted their revenge on their rivals. It was a bloody way of life for gangsters, but newspapermen had a field day. Ben Hecht was a reporter who could find and tell great stories, bringing the harsh realities of Chicago life on to the front page with a human dimension. Exploring the human condition with words would always be important to Hecht, even when he traded the back alleys of Chicago for Hollywood's back-lots, becoming tinsel-town's most respected screenwriter.
On July 14, 1919, French, British and American troops paraded down the Champs-Élysées in Paris, celebrating their triumph in the bloody trenches of World War I. But one American regiment was missing from the Allied ranks. It hadn't been sidelined by injury or a poor service record. In fact, the 369th Infantry was one of the most decorated regiments in the war. The men -- nicknamed the Harlem Hellfighters -- were excluded for one simple reason: they were black.
Perhaps no artistic medium has acted as a more accurate cultural barometer than the popular song -- charting the nation's passions and pastimes with color and immediacy. In the early 20th century, Americans reveled in new found comfort, convenience and prosperity. A group of creative businessmen on Tin Pan Alley celebrated their arrival in song.
"All the things I really like to do are either immoral, illegal or fattening." / "That woman speaks 18 languages and can't say no in any of them." / "Why don't you get out of that wet coat and into a dry martini?" / "Anything can happen, but it usually doesn't." / "Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone." -- New York City. 1920. The First World War was over. Flush with victory and dreams of riches, America was ready for something new. Manhattan was the place to be. New Yorkers were feeling confident and sassy. The connoisseurs of the new culture could be found at a daily lunch at a circular table inside a hotel called the Algonquin. They became known as the Algonquin Round Table.
The year was 1927, and the New York theater district called 'Broadway' was entering what would be its greatest season in history. More than 264 shows were going to open that year -- and as many as 11 would open on a single night. Every new production was an overflowing of talent that was expressly American. In the years following World War I, America's identity came into sharp focus, and it did so on the Broadway stage.
He was unmistakable. With his suave demeanor, impeccable wardrobe and bullet head, on screen Erich von Stroheim played sadistic and sometimes seductive Prussians. As a director, von Stroheim earned a reputation for unparalleled egomania, arrogance and self indulgence. Though he was fired by nearly every studio he worked for and most of his films he directed were finished by others, or destroyed, what remains offers a glimpse of one of Hollywood's pioneers, one whom everyone loved to hate.
To the outside world Hollywood seemed like a magic place. Here, the sun was always shining, everyone had a swimming pool, and glamorous people earned enormous salaries working in factories called movie studios. Every year millions of fans bought tickets to see the studios' latest releases, but no one traveled farther to get here, or worked harder to get to the top, than the men who built the studios and ruled them like feudal overlords. Men who started out with nothing, and transformed themselves into Hollywood's movie Moguls.
Named for one of Hollywood's most legendary filmmakers, the Thalberg Award is given to "creative producers personally responsible for a consistently high quality of motion picture production." A standard of quality set during Hollywood's golden age, by Irving G. Thalberg himself.
People called it the Dust Bowl, an environmental disaster that struck the Great Plains in the late 1930s, when the country was already reeling under the Depression. John Steinbeck's best-selling novel, The Grapes of Wrath, profiled some of the hardest hit: tenant farmers forced off their land and into migrant labor far from home. When the movie version was announced, people worried that Hollywood would ruin it. They didn't need to. It was directed by John Ford.
Join H.W. Brands, professor of history at the University of Texas Austin, on the societal movements and massive cultural changes of the early 20th century.
