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History

Travel through time with the best history audiobooks that bring the past vividly to life. Our collection covers ancient civilizations, world wars, cultural movements, and pivotal moments that shaped our world – all narrated by engaging storytellers who make historical events feel immediate and relevant.

History

Wright Brothers Audiobook: McCullough’s Masterful Historical Narrative – Free Download

The #1 New York Times bestseller from David McCullough, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize—the dramatic story-behind-the-story about the courageous brothers who taught the world how to fly—Wilbur and Orville Wright.

On a winter day in 1903, in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, two brothers—bicycle mechanics from Dayton, Ohio—changed history. But it would take the world some time to believe that the age of flight had begun, with the first powered machine carrying a pilot.

Orville and Wilbur Wright were men of exceptional courage and determination, and of far-ranging intellectual interests and ceaseless curiosity. When they worked together, no problem seemed to be insurmountable. Wilbur was unquestionably a genius. Orville had such mechanical ingenuity as few had ever seen. That they had no more than a public high school education and little money never stopped them in their mission to take to the air. Nothing did, not even the self-evident reality that every time they took off, they risked being killed.

In this “enjoyable, fast-paced tale” (The Economist), master historian David McCullough “shows as never before how two Ohio boys from a remarkable family taught the world to fly” (The Washington Post) and “captures the marvel of what the Wrights accomplished” (The Wall Street Journal). He draws on the extensive Wright family papers to profile not only the brothers but their sister, Katharine, without whom things might well have gone differently for them. Essential reading, this is “a story of timeless importance, told with uncommon empathy and fluency…about what might be the most astonishing feat mankind has ever accomplished…The Wright Brothers soars” (The New York Times Book Review).

History

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania Audiobook: A Maritime Tragedy Brought to Life – Free Download

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the bestselling author and master of narrative nonfiction comes the enthralling story of the sinking of the Lusitania

“Both terrifying and enthralling.”—Entertainment Weekly
“Thrilling, dramatic and powerful.”—NPR
“Thoroughly engrossing.”—George R.R. Martin

On May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its tenth month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were surprisingly at ease, even though Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone. For months, German U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic. But the Lusitania was one of the era’s great transatlantic “Greyhounds”—the fastest liner then in service—and her captain, William Thomas Turner, placed tremendous faith in the gentlemanly strictures of warfare that for a century had kept civilian ships safe from attack. 

Germany, however, was determined to change the rules of the game, and Walther Schwieger, the captain of Unterseeboot-20, was happy to oblige. Meanwhile, an ultra-secret British intelligence unit tracked Schwieger’s U-boat, but told no one. As U-20 and the Lusitania made their way toward Liverpool, an array of forces both grand and achingly small—hubris, a chance fog, a closely guarded secret, and more—all converged to produce one of the great disasters of history.

It is a story that many of us think we know but don’t, and Erik Larson tells it thrillingly, switching between hunter and hunted while painting a larger portrait of America at the height of the Progressive Era. Full of glamour and suspense, Dead Wake brings to life a cast of evocative characters, from famed Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat to pioneering female architect Theodate Pope to President Woodrow Wilson, a man lost to grief, dreading the widening war but also captivated by the prospect of new love. 

Gripping and important, Dead Wake captures the sheer drama and emotional power of a disaster whose intimate details and true meaning have long been obscured by history.

Finalist for the Washington State Book Award • One of the Best Books of the Year: The Washington Post, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Miami Herald, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, LibraryReads, Indigo

History

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil Audiobook: A Haunting Southern Journey – Free Download

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • An enormously engaging portrait of a most beguiling Southern city: “Elegant and wicked…. [This] might be the first true-crime book that makes the reader want to book a bed and breakfast for an extended weekend at the scene of the crime.’ —The New York Times Book Review

Shots rang out in Savannah’s grandest mansion in the misty,early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. John Berendt’s sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative reads like a thoroughly engrossing novel, and yet it is a work of nonfiction. Berendt skillfully interweaves a hugely entertaining first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case.

It is a spellbinding story peopled by a gallery of remarkable characters: the well-bred society ladies of the Married Woman’s Card Club; the turbulent young redneck gigolo; the hapless recluse who owns a bottle of poison so powerful it could kill every man, woman, and child in Savannah; the aging and profane Southern belle who is the ‘soul of pampered self-absorption’; the uproariously funny black drag queen; the acerbic and arrogant antiques dealer; the sweet-talking, piano-playing con artist; young blacks dancing the minuet at the black debutante ball; and Minerva, the voodoo priestess who works her magic in the graveyard at midnight. These and other Savannahians act as a Greek chorus, with Berendt revealing the alliances, hostilities, and intrigues that thrive in a town where everyone knows everyone else.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is a sublime and seductive reading experience. Brilliantly conceived and masterfully written, this true-crime book has become a modern classic.

History

13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi Audiobook: A Harrowing Oral History – Free Download

The harrowing, true account from the brave men on the ground who fought back during the Battle of Benghazi — and the basis of the movie starring Jon Krasinski and directed by Michael Bay.  

13 Hours presents, for the first time ever, the true account of the events of September 11, 2012, when terrorists attacked the US State Department Special Mission Compound and a nearby CIA station called the Annex in Benghazi, Libya. A team of six American security operators fought to repel the attackers and protect the Americans stationed there. Those men went beyond the call of duty, performing extraordinary acts of courage and heroism, to avert tragedy on a much larger scale. This is their personal account, never before told, of what happened during the thirteen hours of that now-infamous attack.

13 Hours sets the record straight on what happened during a night that has been shrouded in mystery and controversy. Written by New York Times bestselling author Mitchell Zuckoff, this riveting book takes readers into the action-packed story of heroes who laid their lives on the line for one another, for their countrymen, and for their country.

13 Hours is a stunning, eye-opening, and intense book–but most importantly, it is the truth. The story of what happened to these men–and what they accomplished–is unforgettable.

History

American History Stories, Volume 2 Audiobook Free: A Scholarly Look at Revolutionary Narratives – Free Download

History is brought to life in the second volume of American History Stories by Mara L. Pratt. It is a wonderful introduction for children to American history, this volume beginning with the causes of the American Revolution. Although each chapter is short, it is full of fascinating information, and so well-written that adults will enjoy it as much as children. (Summary by Laura Caldwell)

Reader’s Note: This edition contains patriotic songs of the time period. Where these songs have occurred, the lyrics have been read. The music for these songs may be found in the text.

History

Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women Audiobook: A Feminist Historical Reckoning – Free Download

1917. As a war raged across the world, young American women flocked to work, painting watches, clocks and military dials with a special luminous substance made from radium. It was a fun job, lucrative and glamorous-the girls themselves shone brightly in the dark, covered head to toe in the dust from the paint. They were the radium girls.
As the years passed, the women began to suffer from mysterious and crippling illnesses. The very thing that had made them feel alive-their work-was in fact slowly killing them: they had been poisoned by the radium paint. Yet their employers denied all responsibility. And so, in the face of unimaginable suffering-in the face of death-these courageous women refused to accept their fate quietly, and instead became determined to fight for justice.
Drawing on previously unpublished sources-including diaries, letters, and court transcripts, as well as original interviews with the women’s relatives-The Radium Girls is an intimate narrative account of an unforgettable true story. It is the powerful tale of a group of ordinary women from the Roaring Twenties, who themselves learned how to roar.

History

With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa Audiobook: A Harrowing Journey Through War’s Reality – Free Download

This modern classic of military history has been called ‘one of the most important personal accounts of war that I have ever read’ by distinguished historian John Keegan. Author E.B. Sledge served with the First Marine Division during WWII, and his first-hand narrative is unsurpassed in its sincerity. Sledge’s experience shows in this fascinating account of two of the most harrowing and pivotal island battles of the Pacific theater. On Peleliu and Okinawa the action was extremely fierce. Amidst oppressive heat and over land obliterated by artillery shells, the combat raged ferociously. Casualties were extreme on both sides, and by the time the Americans had broken through at Okinawa, more than 62,000 Japanese soldiers were dead. Against military policy, Sledge scribbled notes and jammed them into his copy of the New Testament. Those notes form the backbone of what Navy Times said ‘has been called the best World War II memoir of an enlisted man.’ The rich tones of narrator George Wilson enhance the drama of this frank and astonishing chronicle.

History

Religion of Ancient Egypt Audiobook Free: Victorian Archaeology Explored – Free Download

William Matthew Flinders Petrie – the father of Egyptian Archaeology – developed and applied statistical analysis to pottery from prehistoric sites and by this established seriation as a relative dating method as a major contribution to Egyptian Archaeology. In this scientific paper he describes special varieties of the conception of the supernatural in ancient Egypt. The source text also includes a list of “principal works on Egyptian religion” and a list of works “on religions ancient and modern”. (Summary by Kajo and Piotrek81)

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