In a sense the very earliest railways were simply ruts caused by the passage of carts on softer ground. Railways of this nature may have been in use as early as 2200 BCE. But railways became a worldwide economic force only in the middle of the nineteenth century, some forty or fifty years after the first demonstration of a mechanically powered trai …

In 1279, off China’s southeast coast, Khubilai Khan routed the Song navy and completed the grand dream of his grandfather, Genghis Khan—the conquest of China. The Grand Khan now ruled the largest empire the world had ever seen, stretching from the China Sea to the plains of Hungary. Having also inadvertently inherited the world’s largest navy …

A lively compendium of little-known hockey trivia from Kevin Gibson, TSN’s one-man Research, Stats and Information Department.

As engaging as the great game itself, the stories behind the National Hockey Leaugue are entertaining, fascinating and, at times, unbelievable. Faux facts emerge from urban legends, conspiracy theories and coincidences, le …

Who is the only player to win a home-run title when he was in retirement? Which all-star outfielder was also selected in the NBA, ABA, and NFL player drafts? Who swatted a record-setting six grand slams in one season? Baseball lovers will want to step up to the plate and see how they'll score on these entertaining games, quizzes, statistics, and an …

The dramatic story of courageous Franciscan friar who battled king, pope and Inquisition in his search for justice.

Nearly a century had passed since the French region of Languedoc had been put to the sword in the Cathar Crusade, but the stain of Catharism still lay on the land. Any accusation of Catharism invited peril. But repression bred resent …

The dramatic story of courageous Franciscan friar who battled king, pope and Inquisition in his search for justice.

Nearly a century had passed since the French region of Languedoc had been put to the sword in the Cathar Crusade, but the stain of Catharism still lay on the land. Any accusation of Catharism invited peril. But repression bred resentme …

The Otter/Twin Otter series are amoung the most versatile aircraft ever built. They have been used as fire-fighting water-bombers and as interurban air buses. Able to out-perform the helicopters of the time, U.S. military Otters have explored Alaska and Antarctica. Otters have made both war and peace, as front-line supply haulers in Vietnam and as …

Lavishly illustrated and richly told, using the full resources of the Canada Aviation Museum, Canadian Wings is a stunning tribute to the men, machines and daredevil achievements of Canadian flight.

This book gives a full and copiously illustrated account of how powered flight developed during its first century in Canada, as well as the contributio …

Developed soon after World War II, in the heady days when the Canadian aircraft industry sought to employ its engineering talent and production capacity to build domestically designed aircraft, the de Havilland Beaver has become one of the most successful and long-lived designs in aviation history. Phil Garratt, the man in charge of de Havilland Ca …

The long, shared history of Christianity and Islam began in the early seventh century AD with a question: Who would inherit the Greco-Roman world of Mediterranean? Sprung from the same source, the two faiths played out over the millennium what historian Stephen O'Shea calls "a sibling rivalry writ very large." Their cataclysmic clashes on the battl …

On October 22, 1921, the American fishing schooner Elsie, just arrived from Gloucester, Massachusetts, lined up in Halifax Harbour beside a new, untested schooner from Lunenburg, ready to race over a 40-mile ocean course. The Elsie's skipper had beaten a Canadian boat decisively the previous year to win the first International Fishermen's Cup race. …

After Word War II, the best flyers brought their versatility to the exacting role of test pilot. The Chosen Ones puts you in the cockpit with these pilots as they make whatever can go wrong with an aircraft go wrong before anyone else flies it. These are their gripping tales -- most told here for the first time -- of taking unproven prototypes into …

Millennia of conflict have made famous the names of great naval battles -- Salamis, Actium, Lepanro, the Spanish Armada, Trafalgar, Tsushima, Jutland, Pearl Harbor Midway, the Battle of the Atlantic. In lively text and with more than eighty full-colour images and one hundred black-and-white photographs, Lost Warships traces the history of war at se …

A shattering chronicle of the life and death of the Cathar movement -- one of Western civilization's great tragedies.

At the beginning of the 13th century, the Cathars, a group of heretical Christians, thrived across what is now southern France, but was then a patchwork of city states and principalities beholden to neither king nor bishop. The Cath …

Double Cross: The Inside Story of James A. Richardson and Canadian Airways tells the story of James A. Richardson's dream of promoting commercial aviation in Canada. It is also the tale of how Canada lost its chance to become a world leader in aviation as a result of government short-sightedness, departmental rivalries and bureaucratic bungling. Th …