Showing results by narrator "Todd Van Linda" in All Categories

In the 1960s and 1970s, no actor personified cool, calm and collected like Steve McQueen, whose suave anti-hero protagonists made men jealous and women swoon. As actor Donald Logue puts it in The Tao of Steve, "Steve is the prototypical cool American male. He's the guy on his horse, the guy alone. He has his own code of honor, his own code of ethics, his own rules of living. He never, ever tries to impress the women, but he always gets the girl."

When the Colosseum was built in the late first century AD, the Romans, a people known for their architectural acumen, managed to amaze themselves. Martial, a Roman poet writing during the inauguration of the Colosseum, clearly believed the Colosseum was so grand a monument that it was even greater than the other Wonders of the Ancient World, which had been written about and visited endlessly by the Romans and Greeks in antiquity.

Cloak and dagger adventure, with daring commandos parachuted deep behind enemy lines to kill a sinister mastermind, belongs chiefly to the realm of thriller novels or films.

The Christian Church has no shortage of revered figures and saints, but it is difficult to find one that had a more decisive impact on the course of the Church's history than Augustine of Hippo. Augustine was a bishop of Hippo Regius in Africa, but his works, sermons and writings helped hold the Church together even as the Western Roman Empire was in its death throes, to the extent that every major branch of Christianity recognizes him today.

When people think of musicals, two of the first names that immediately spring to mind are Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire, two giants of one of Hollywood's most distinctive genres. Without question, both men played an instrumental role in popularizing and sustaining the musical from the 1930s through the 1950s, the final decades of Hollywood's Golden Age. Although they did collaborate on two occasions, in many ways Gene Kelly's rise to popularity in the 1940s amounted to a changing of the guard.

Sixteenth-century Russia remains, for most Western audiences, a dark and terrifying space, wrapped in mystery and myth and isolated from states such as England or France, whose heroes are well-known throughout Europe. The traditional dichotomy between East and West is most apparent in the discussion of the remarkable political figures that defined this century.

One of the most famous Native American tribes on the Great Plains is the Cheyenne, and their fame may be surpassed only by their influence on American history. The Cheyenne shifted from a sedentary agricultural society to the kind of nomadic group many envision when thinking of groups on the Plains. Land disputes and conflicts with white settlers and the Cheyenne set in motion the chain of events that led to the most famous battle among Native Americans and the American government: the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

In the west, Hinduism is a religion that everyone has heard of, but one that few truly understand. It is regarded as one of the world's great religions and considered the indigenous religion of India. However, Hinduism, as it is conceived of today, is a conglomerate of a number of indigenous Indian religions. It was only the nonindigenous populations in India, namely the Turks and later the British, who defined what Hinduism was.

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, known across the world simply by the name Raphael, stands as one of the main pillars of the High Renaissance, an iconic example of the balance between spirituality and humanistic inquiry that characterized the time period. Although he lived just 37 years, his career produced an amazingly rich output, and he completed more works than many artists do over careers spanning twice the length.

The life of Pocahontas fulfills a specific role in American culture and history. Her short life holds a bittersweet tragedy that is part of the mythology of Native America, especially the first encounters between English settlers and the local native tribes. The meaning of her name, "little plaything" or "little wanton", suggests that she was destined to be bandied about by the powers in her life.

Sacagawea is one of the most famous Native American women in American history, and few played such a central role in the settlement of the West for the young nation. As a young woman who was married to a French trapper from Quebec, Sacagawea happened to be in the right place at the right time for the legendary Lewis and Clark expedition which set off for the Pacific coast after President Thomas Jefferson negotiated the Louisiana Purchase with France.

The life of Pocahontas fulfills a specific role in American culture and history. Her short life holds a bittersweet tragedy that is part of the mythology of Native America, especially the first encounters between English settlers and the local native tribes. The meaning of her name, "little plaything" or "little wanton", suggests that she was destined to be bandied about by the powers in her life.

As American and Filipino troops were in the process of being defeated in the Philippines, General Douglas MacArthur, his family, and his closest advisors were smuggled out of the Philippines on PT boats. From there they surged across the black ocean to Mindanao and were picked up by American B-17 bombers.

Near the end of 1944, as Allied forces were pushing across the Pacific and edging ever closer to Japan, plans were drawn up to invade the Ryuku islands, the most prominent of them being Okinawa. Military planners anticipated that an amphibious campaign would last a week, but instead of facing 60,000 Japanese defenders as estimated, there were closer to 120,000 on the island at the beginning of the campaign in April 1945. The Battle of Okinawa was the largest amphibious operation in the Pacific theater.

Veil had been a step out of place all his life. Until one day he found a phone that took him on a path far beyond the world he knew. But to get all the answers he had to save the princess he fell in love with - only to lose her once he made her a queen.

Thierry McNulty's brother, Senator Frank McNulty, is missing. She believes he went to their old family campsite on Caddo Lake for a brief vacation, but after days of not hearing from him, she fears the worst. Antonio "Yo" Bleeker is one of the owners of Bag It and Tag It Excursions. When Thierry hires the company to track down her brother, he has no idea what he's getting himself into - especially when he experiences an extreme physical reaction to the beautiful woman.