Books published by publisher Compass Point Books (2006-01-01)

Jesse Owens’ gold-medal winning feats at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin struck a mighty propaganda blow against Adolf Hitler. The Nazi leader had planned to use the German games as a showcase of supposed Aryan superiority. Instead there was American black athlete Owens on the podium being photographed by Hitler’s personal photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann. In addition, Owens would figure prominently in the groundbreaking film Olympia by Hitler’s favorite director Leni Riefenstahl. Photo and film captured Owens’ stunning success and revealed how wrong Hitler was in his beliefs.

The astronauts headed to the moon in December 1972 thought they knew what to expect. They would soon be exploring the moon's surface in a lunar rover, traveling farther than anyone before them. They would be collecting soil and rock samples for study back on Earth and could expect to learn about the moon's physical makeup and age. But what they didn't expect came as a huge bonus. The astronauts of Apollo 17 would produce an amazing photograph of planet Earth a lonely globe floating in inky black space. Their stunning Blue Marble image was destined to become one of the most reproduced and recognizable photos in history. And no one is 100 percent sure who took it.

In the fall of 1957, nine students in Little Rock, Arkansas, volunteered to integrate the city’s all-white Central High School. This group, known as the Little Rock Nine, soon found themselves in the center of a firestorm. Many people did not want black students to attend the school, and they fought hard to stop them. But the students faced the challenge with grace, dignity, and courage. They pioneered the way for equality in schools and demonstrated the power of freedom for all Americans.

Nine African American students made history when they defied a governor and integrated an Arkansas high school in 1957. It was the photo of a young girl trying to enter the school being taunted, harassed and threatened by an angry mob that grabbed the world's attention and kept its disapproving gaze on Little Rock, Arkansas. In defiance of a federal court order, Governor Orval Faubus called in the National Guard to prevent the students from entering all white Central High School. The plan had been for the students to meet and go to school as a group on September 4, 1957. But one student didn't hear of the plan and tried to enter the school alone. A chilling photo by newspaper photographer Will Counts captured the sneering expression of a girl in the mob and made history. Years later Counts snapped another photo, this one of the same two girls, now grownup, reconciling in front of Central High School.

People from Great Britain came to North America to start new lives in the 13 American colonies. In the beginning colonists accepted British rule without question. But by the mid-1700s, things were changing. Many colonists wanted the right to govern themselves. The British government felt as if the colonists were being ungrateful. By 1775 war between the two sides was inevitable.

American Indians had lived in North America for thousands of years by the time European settlers arrived. The settlers came in search of land and were eager to build farms, roads, and towns. The Indians lived off the land and believed it belonged to everyone. When the U.S. government completed the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the plan to expand the country to the Pacific Ocean set up a collision course between the two groups' ways of life.

In the mid 19th century, a few women living in upstate New York decided it was time for women to stop accepting their status as second class citizens. Women lacked many basic civil rights that men enjoyed, including suffrage the right to vote. These women from New York held a convention in which they demanded their rights. Their battle took more than 70 years to win. Along the way they were opposed and mocked by male and female anti suffragists who tried to stifle their efforts.

When World War I ended in 1918, it was called, the war to end all wars. But it wasn't. Unsettled issues and resentments festered for the next 20 years, culminating in the outbreak of war in Europe and Asia in the 1930s. The Axis powers, led by Germany, Italy, and Japan, joined to fight the Allies, led by the U.S., the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union. Both sides were determined to rule the world, but only one can succeed.