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showing 252 library results for 'd-day'

The Bounty : the true story of the mutiny on the Bounty /Caroline Alexander. More than two centuries have passed since Master's Mate Fletcher Christian mutinied against Lieutenant Bligh on a small, armed transport vessel called Bounty. Why the details of this obscure adventure at the end of the world remain vivid and enthralling is as intriguing as the truth behind the legend. In giving the Bounty mutiny its historical due, Caroline Alexander has chosen to frame her narrative by focusing on the court-martial of the ten mutineers who were captured in Tahiti and brought to justice in England. This fresh perspective revivifies the entire saga, and the salty, colorful language of the captured men themselves conjures the events of that April morning in 1789, when Christian's breakdown impelled every man on a fateful course: Bligh and his loyalists on the historic open boat voyage that revealed him to be one of history's great navigators; Christian on his restless exile; and the captured mutineers toward their day in court. As the book unfolds, each figure emerges as a full-blown character caught up in a drama that may well end on the gallows. And as Alexander shows, it was in a desperate fight to escape hanging that one of the accused defendants deliberately spun the mutiny into the myth we know today-of the tyrannical Lieutenant Bligh of the Bounty. Ultimately, Alexander concludes that the Bounty mutiny was sparked by that most unpredictable, combustible, and human of situations-the chemistry between strong personalities living in close quarters. Her account of the voyage, the trial, and the surprising fates of Bligh, Christian, and the mutineers is an epic of ambition, passion, pride, and duty at the dawn of the Romantic era. 2003. • BOOK • 3 copies available. 355.133"1789"
Finding Franklin : the untold story of a 165-year search /Russell A. Potter. "In 2014 media around the world buzzed with news that an archaeological team from Parks Canada had located and identified the wreck of the HMS Erebus, the flagship of Sir John Franklin's lost expedition to find the Northwest Passage. Finding Franklin outlines the larger story and the cast of detectives from every walk of life that led to the discovery, solving of one of the Arctic's greatest mysteries. In compelling and accessible prose, Russell Potter details his decades of work alongside key figures in the era of modern searches for the expedition and elucidates how shared research and ideas have led to a fuller understanding of the Franklin crew's final months. Illustrated with numerous images and maps from the last two centuries, Finding Franklin recounts the more than fifty modern searches for traces of his ships and crew, and the dedicated, often obsessive, men and women who embarked on them. Potter discusses the crucial role that Inuit oral accounts, often cited but rarely understood, played in all of these searches, and continues to play to this day, and offers historical and cultural context to the contemporary debates over the significance of Franklin's achievement. While examination of the HMS Erebus will undoubtedly reveal further details of this mystery, Finding Franklin assembles the stories behind the myth and illuminates what is ultimately a remarkable decades-long discovery."-- 2016. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 910.4(987)"1845/2014"
Sir Charles Raymond of Valentines and the East India Company / Georgina Green. "Meticulously researched, Georgina Green's Sir Charles Raymond of Valentines and the East India Company offers readers a detailed biography of a successful eighteenth-century sea captain whose Oriental fortune laid the foundations for domestic comfort and commercial achievement at home in Georgian Essex. Raymond's later life in the City of London managing ships for the East India Company, as a director of the Sun Fire Office and later as a banker, earned him respect and a baronetcy. Living at Valentines in modern day Ilford, Raymond's success attracted other retired captains - relations and business colleagues, to live nearby in Ilford and Woodford. Without these captains who carried their cargo the East India Company would never have become a major force in India. The book includes new material about voyages at sea, the risks and rewards, backed up by statistical information. Readers will encounter Georgian Britain in the round. Trade, politics, marriage, culture, business, sociability, neighbourhood and material life were intertwined in the life of Sir Charles Raymond, just as they were woven through the foundation of Britain's Indian empire. Georgina Green has been well known as a local historian in Redbridge and the Epping Forest area for over 30 years and has written several other books about the history of the area."--Provided by the publisher. 2015. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 954.031092
The Other Norfolk Admirals : Myngs, Narbrough and Shovell /Simon Harris "The careers of the three Norfolk admirals were intimately related. Narbrough and Shovell came from the small North Norfolk hamlet of Cockthorpe and Myngs from nearby Salthouse. In the 1660s, Myngs was the captain, Narbrough the lieutenant and Shovell the lowly cabin boy in the same ship. It is also possible that they were all related at least by marriage. In the majority of the naval wars of the second half of the seventeenth and the early eighteenth centuries one or other of them was invariably present. Cloudesley Shovell was born to a yeoman farmer; he entered the Navy whilst still a boy and, in 1676, came to national prominence by burning the four ships of the Dey of Tripoli right under his castle walls. This led to conflict with Samuel Pepys over a gold medal that the generous Charles II had awarded Shovell. Later there was a spectacular falling out with James II over the new king's Catholicism. Following Narbrough's premature death, Shovell married his widow: effectively the cabin boy marrying the admiral's widow which is unique in British naval history. Brave to a fault, in the reigns of William and Mary, and Anne, Shovell became the leading fighting admiral of the age. In 1707, at the very height of his considerable powers, Shovell and nearly 2,000 men drowned after his ships were wrecked on the rocks of Scilly. According to his grandson, Shovell arrived on the shore alive and was then brutally murdered for the sake of an emerald ring on his finger. Faulty navigation was at the heart of Shovell's demise; did he keep his appointment with the celebrated scientist, Sir Isaac Newton, to discuss longitude? New theories concerning the causes of the disaster are examined and also the fate of his gold dinner service. Explorer, navigator, consummate sailor and naval administrator, John Narbrough was all this and more. No biography of Narbrough has been produced for 85 years and much new material has come to light in this time. For example the rediscovery of the ship, the Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion from which Narbrough was trying to salvage sunken Spanish silver when he died from a mysterious illness. In addition, the British Library recently raised a large sum of money to buy Narbrough's journals of his voyage [1669-71] into the Pacific Ocean and up to, what is now, modern day Chile. He illustrated his journals with paintings of the flora and fauna plus accurate depictions of the harbours that he visited. On his return journey, Narbrough became the first Englishman to sail through the Strait of Magellan from west to east. Both Narbrough and Shovell owed so much to Christopher Myngs and yet no comprehensive biography of him has yet been written. In the 1650s, out in the West Indies, he played very much the part of an Elizabethan buccaneer with repeated attacks on the Spanish Main. After helping himself to treasure that more properly belonged to the state, he was shipped home to England in semi-disgrace. However, in the run-up to the Restoration of the monarchy, the authorities did not think it appropriate to discipline the most popular man in the Navy. Later, at the Four Days' Battle of 1666, Myngs leading the English van, would attempt to fight on despite having his face shattered by a musket ball. Six days later, he died at his home in London and was buried in an East London churchyard which has now become a seedy park. He deserved better."--Provided by the publisher. 2017 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 92:355.333.3