Tag Archives: American Adventure Library

    Now is not the time to explore Death Valley landscape. On Sunday August 16, 2020 Death Valley registered a temperature of 130 degrees, Fahrenheit making it the hottest place on earth. But it’s been hotter. In 1913 Death Valley registered a temperature of 134 degrees. William Lewis Manly At times like these, I  Continue Reading »

The second most famous whale in the world had no name. We don’t know when it was born or when it died. We just know what it did. On the morning of November 20, 1820, in the Pacific Ocean 2000 miles west of South America, this sperm whale bull, around 85 feet long, attacked a  Continue Reading »

Should the United State of America attempt to purchase Cuba from Spain and make Cuba another southern Slave State? The year was 1834 and this shocking question was the subject of a secret meeting in an obscure Belgian town. The American Southern States were the northern tip of the wide practice of slavery, which stretched  Continue Reading »

Before the invention of the Internet, “Yahoo” was the word used to describe a not very bright, brutish male totally without class. Imagine a group of these “yahoos” on horseback, stumbling into the unexplored wilderness, camping at night, anxious to kill buffalo, hoping to marry an Indian Princess, and you will understand the undisciplined group  Continue Reading »

During the pandemic of World War 1 in 1918, the last place you would want to be was in Germany, in a German Prison Camp behind German lines, where the flu pandemic broke out. Yet, that was exactly where James Norman Hall was.   James Norman Hall is the author of my Listen2Read Audiobook “High  Continue Reading »

Before 1908, other than Santa Claus, no human being had reached the North Pole, although many had tried and failed. Some had unfortunately died for their efforts. In the year 1908, two serious contenders were preparing for victory over nature. One was a respected medical Doctor and explorer with very little financial support and no friends  Continue Reading »

Our confident, high stock market reminds me of another high stock market early in 1929. That was when one of my environmental heros, Gifford Pinchot, buoyed with financial confidence a rising stock market gives, planned the adventure of a lifetime.   Financial security and the end of his Governorship of Pennsylvania presented Pinchot with a  Continue Reading »

There is a secret in this picture I took last year outside the Summer Palace, Beijing, China. Inside that building, all the doors and windows are blocked by an inside wall so the occupant, the Emperor of China, could not escape. In the year 1898, the Emperor was a prisoner in his own house.      Continue Reading »