Bøger af William Hazelgrove

An account of Ernest Hemingway's years in Cuba from 1950 to 1952, and the story behind the writing of The Old Man and the Sea.

One hundred and sixty minutes. That is all the time rescuers would have before the largest ship in the world slipped beneath the icy Atlantic. There was amazing heroism and astounding incompetence against the backdrop of the most advanced ship in history sinking by inches with luminaries from all over the world. It is a story of a network of wireless operators on land and sea who desperately sent messages back and forth across the dark frozen North Atlantic to mount a rescue mission. More than twenty-eight ships would be involved in the rescue of Titanic survivors along with four different countries. At the heart of the rescue are two young Marconi operators, Jack Phillips 25 and Harold Bride 22, tapping furiously and sending electromagnetic waves into the black night as the room they sat in slanted toward the icy depths and not stopping until the bone numbing water was around their ankles. Then they plunged into the water after coordinating the largest rescue operation the maritime world had ever seen and thereby saving 710 people by their efforts.The race to save the largest ship in the world from certain death would reveal both heroes and villains. It would begin at 11:40 PM on March 14, when the iceberg was struck and would end at 2:20 AM March 15, when her lights blinked out and left 1500 people thrashing in 25-degree water. Although the race to save Titanic survivors would stretch on beyond this, most people in the water would die, but the amazing thing is that of the 2229 people, 710 did not and this was the success of the Titanic rescue effort. We see the Titanic as a great tragedy but a third of the people were rescued and the only reason every man, woman, and child did not succumb to the cold depths is due to Jack Phillips and Harold McBride in an insulated telegraph room known as the Silent Room. These two men tapping out CQD and SOS distress codes while the ship took on water at the rate of 400 tons per minute from a three-hundred-foot gash would inaugurate the most extensive rescue operation in maritime history using the cutting-edge technology of the time, wireless.

In the fall of 1779 George Washington took his 10,000 men into winter camp at Morristown, New Jersey after six long years of fighting. It would be a brutal winter of suffering, depression, starvation, betrayal, mutiny, treason and an attempt to kidnap George Washington by the British. By the spring only 8,000 men would be left in Morristown with less than two thirds fit for service. Books have cemented Valley Forge as one with Omaha Beach, the Death March of Bataan, and Washington crossing the Delaware. But the winter of Valley Forge was mild in comparison to other winters. Temperatures did not plummet to unheard levels and snowfall was normal. And the men were not starving on the scale that would later follow at Morristown. The winter of 1779 to 1780 was the worst in a century and would mark Washington's darkest hour where he contemplated the army coming apart from lack of food and, money, six years of war, desertions, mutiny, the threat of a devastating attack by the British, and incredibly, a plot to kidnap him. And yet Morristown would mark a turning point. After a long winter of suffering, he was joined by Lafayette in May who promised Washington a second fleet of French support, leading to the final defeat of the British in 1783.

The inspiring story of a little-known hero's pivotal role in the American Revolutionary WarDuring the brutal winter of 1775-1776, an untested Boston bookseller named Henry Knox commandeered an oxen train hauling sixty tons of cannons and other artillery from Fort Ticonderoga near the Canadian border. He and his men journeyed some three hundred miles south and east over frozen, often-treacherous terrain to supply George Washington for his attack of British troops occupying Boston. The result was the British surrender of Boston and the first major victory for the Colonial Army. This is one of the great stories of the American Revolution, still little known by comparison with the more famous battles of Concord, Lexington, and Bunker Hill. Told with a novelist's feel for narrative, character, and vivid description, The Noble Train brings to life the events and people at a time when the ragtag American rebels were in a desperate situation. Washington's army was withering away from desertion and expiring enlistments. Typhoid fever, typhus, and dysentery were taking a terrible toll. There was little hope of dislodging British General Howe and his 20,000 British troops in Boston--until Henry Knox arrived with his supply convoy of heavy armaments. Firing down on the city from the surrounding Dorchester Heights, these weapons created a decisive turning point. An act of near desperation fueled by courage, daring, and sheer tenacity led to a tremendous victory for the cause of independence.This exciting tale of daunting odds and undaunted determination highlights a pivotal episode that changed history.

This book is the first deconstruction of the Wright brothers myth. They were not -- as we have all come to believe--two halves of the same apple. Each had a distinctive role in creating the first "flying machine."How could two misanthropic brothers who never left home, were high-school dropouts, and made a living as bicycle mechanics have figured out the secret of manned flight? This new history of the Wright brothers' monumental accomplishment focuses on their early years of trial and error at Kitty Hawk (1900-1903) and Orville Wright's epic fight with the Smithsonian Institute and Glenn Curtis. William Hazelgrove makes a convincing case that it was Wilbur Wright who designed the first successful airplane, not Orville. He shows that, while Orville's role was important, he generally followed his brother's lead and assisted with the mechanical details to make Wilbur's vision a reality. Combing through original archives and family letters, Hazelgrove reveals the differences in the brothers' personalities and abilities. He examines how the Wright brothers myth was born when Wilbur Wright died early and left his brother to write their history with personal friend John Kelly. The author notes the peculiar inwardness of their family life, business and family problems, bouts of depression, serious illnesses, and yet, rising above it all, was Wilbur's obsessive zeal to test out his flying ideas. When he found Kitty Hawk, this desolate location on North Carolina's Outer Banks became his laboratory. By carefully studying bird flight and the Rubik's Cube of control, Wilbur cracked the secret of aerodynamics and achieved liftoff on December 17, 1903. Hazelgrove's richly researched and well-told tale of the Wright brothers' landmark achievement, illustrated with rare historical photos, captures the excitement of the times at the start of the "American century."

George Kronenfeldt is an unemployed engineer with one shot to keep his daughter's belief in Santa intact. When Megan tells him the only way she will believe in Santa is if she can videotape him and then tells her fourth grade class she will prove the existence of Santa Claus by posting her video to YouTube, George realizes he must become the Real Santa. He devises a plan to land nine reindeer on his roof and go down his chimney, hiring a broken down movie director who eventually has him funding a full scale production that bankrupts him and threatens his marriage. When George goes to find the "e;Real Santa"e; to help him, the line between what is real and magic is crossed. Real Santa is a funny heartwarming story of parenthood gone wrong and illuminates what lengths parents will go to keep their children happy.