Details the lives and careers of the best professional wrestling figures of the last one hundred fifty years, including Bruno Sammartino, The Undertaker, and John Cena.
In its third edition, this massive reference work lists the final resting places of more than 14,000 people from a wide range of fields, including politics, the military, the arts, crime, sports and popular culture. Many entries are new to this edition. Each listing provides birth and death dates, a brief summary of the subject's claim to fame and their burial site location or as much as is known. Grave location within a cemetery is provided in many cases, as well as places of cremation and sites where ashes were scattered. Source information is provided.
This exhaustive bibliographical reference will be the first stop for anyone looking for Calamity Jane in print, film, or photograph—and wanting to know how reliable those sources may be. Richard W. Etulain, renowned western-U.S. historian and the author of a recent biography of this charismatic figure, enumerates and assesses the most valuable sources on Calamity Jane’s life and legend in newspapers, magazines, journals, books, and movies, as well as historical and government archives. Etulain begins with a brief biography of Martha Canary, aka Calamity Jane (1856–1903), then analyzes the origins and growth of her legends. The sources, Etulain shows, reveal three versions of Calamity Jane. In the most popular one, she was a Wild Woman of the Old West who helped push a roaring frontier through its final stages. This is the Calamity Jane who fought Indians, marched with the military, and took on the bad guys. Early in her life she also hoped to embody the pioneer woman, seeking marriage and a stable family and home. A third, later version made of Calamity an angel of mercy who reached out to the poor and nursed smallpox victims no one else would help. The hyperbolic journalism of the Old West, as well as dime novels and the stretchers Calamity herself told in her interviews and autobiography, shaped her legends through much of the twentieth century. Many of the sensational early accounts of Calamity’s life, Etulain notes, were based on rumor and hearsay. In illuminating the role of the Deadwood Dick dime novel series and other pulp fiction in shaping what we know—or think we know—of the American West, Etulain underscores one of his fascinating themes: the power of popular culture. The product of twenty years’ labor sifting fact from falsehood or distortion, this bibliography and reader’s guide includes brief discussions of nearly every item’s contents, along with a terse, entertaining evaluation of its reliability.
Following the 1972 Olympics one sportswriter referred to Mark Spitz, winner of seven gold medals, as “the first great Jewish athlete.” He couldn’t have been more wrong. As Jewish Sports Legends shows, Jews have excelled at athletics for centuries. This engaging volume illuminates the lives and unforgettable accomplishments of Jews in virtually every major sport played worldwide. Baseball stars Sandy Koufax and Hank Greenberg, basketball’s Red Auerbach and Dolph Schayes, and football’s Sid Luckman and Marv Levy are only a few notable examples. With photographs accompanying almost every sports personality, this fifth edition introduces some famous and some not-so-famous Jewish sports greats throughout history. More than eighty new entries have been added to the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame since 2005, among them Lyle Alzado, Max Baer, Ira Berkow, Kenny Bernstein, Sasha Cohen, Shawn Green, Donna Geils Orender, Aly Raisman, and Bud Selig. While most of those profiled are professional sport champions and Olympic gold medalists, the book also features great coaches, officials, journalists, and other significant contributors in every major sport.
(Theatre World). Theatre World, the statistical and pictorial record of the Broadway and off-Broadway season, touring companies, and professional regional companies throughout the United States, has become a classic in its field. The book is complete with cast listings, replacement producers, directors, authors, composers, opening and closing dates, song titles, and much, much more. There are special sections with biographical data, obituary information, listings of annual Shakespeare festivals and major drama awards.
The stories, folklore, and history surrounding Maryland's most haunted places. A must-read for fans of the supernatural and Maryland history. The demon car of Seven Hills Road, the ominous Hell House above the Patapsco River, the mythical Snallygaster of western Maryland--these are the extraordinary tales and bizarre creatures that color Maryland's folklore. The Blue Dog of Port Tobacco faithfully guards his master's gold even in death, and in Cambridge, the headless ghost of Big Liz watches over the treasure of Greenbriar Swamp. The woods of Prince George's County are home to stories of the menacing Goatman, while on stormy nights at the nearby University of Maryland, the strains of a ghostly piano float from Marie Mount Hall. From the storied heroics of the First Maryland Regiment in the Revolutionary War to the mystery of the Poe Toaster, folklorists Trevor J. Blank and David J. Puglia unravel the legends of Maryland.
""My Best for the Kingdom provides a valuable history of several little-known events in early Mormon history--the Church in Tennessee and Kentucky in the 1830s, the Danites in Missouri, Mormon resistance to Missouri persecutions, ... the James Emmett expedition, [and] pioneer Spanish Fork, Utah...John L. Butler's autobiography, given here in full, rivals and adds to the accounts of Hosea Stout and John D. Lee in telling the Mormon story of the 1830s, '40s, and '50s. Butler was a valiant militiaman, missionary, frontiersman, and bishop. A fast-moving, informative, well-researched and well-told account of Mormonism on the frontier...and pioneer Utah.""--Leonard J. Arrington quoted on the back outside jacket. This is the 3rd printing of My Best for the Kingdom (ISBN 978-1-365-73968-2) and is the same as the 2nd printing (ISBN 978-0-9843965-2-8) and 1st printing (ISBN 1-56236-212-7) versions except that the front & end papers (family chart and map) on the previous versions are now included as the final two pages.
Early Jazz Trumpet Legends By: Larry Kemp Early Jazz Trumpet Legends is an examination of the lives and contributions of jazz trumpeters born before 1925. Included are Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Harry James, Bix Beiderbecke, Bunny Berigan, and Roy Eldridge along with scores of other men and women who created jazz with a trumpet. This is an essential guide for the student of jazz, those interested in history, and those who just like to read entertaining true stories about the most colorful people. Early Jazz Trumpet Legends is the most comprehensive book on the subject. More than 320 trumpeters are discussed. There is a glossary of jazz terminology and a Forward explaining the nature of a trumpet, the nature of jazz, and what a legend is along with background information about New Orleans during the first 30 years of jazz. The scholarship involved is impeccable, while the text reads as easily as a novel. Those who travel to New Orleans will find the information in this book extremely useful to understand the soul of this exotic city and its role as the incubator of jazz. An ideal gift for any musician or lover of jazz. Early Jazz Trumpet Legends is the first of three volumes organized chronologically by date of birth. The second volume, Modern Jazz Trumpet Legends covers those born between 1925 and 1940 and the third volume, Current Jazz Trumpet Legends, covers those born after 1940.