The Gettysburg Address is a speech that U.S. President Abraham Lincoln delivered during the American Civil War at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on the afternoon of Thursday, November 19, 1863, four and a half months after the Union armies defeated those of the Confederacy at the Battle of Gettysburg. It is one of the best-known speeches in American history.
Sun Tzu was a Chinese general, military strategist, writer and philosopher who lived in the Eastern Zhou period of ancient China. Sun Tzu is traditionally credited as the author of The Art of War, an influential work of military strategy that has affected Western and East Asian philosophy and military thinking. His works focus much more on alternatives to battle, such as stratagem, delay, the use of spies and alternatives to war itself, the making and keeping of alliances, the uses of deceit and a willingness to submit, at least temporarily, to more powerful foes. Sun Tzu is revered in Chinese and East Asian culture as a legendary historical and military figure. His birth name was Sun Wu and he was known outside of his family by his courtesy name Changqing. The name Sun Tzu by which he is best known in the Western World is an honorific which means "Master Sun".
The Commentaries on the Laws of England are an influential 18th-century treatise on the common law of England by Sir William Blackstone, originally published by the Clarendon Press at Oxford, 1765–1769. The work is divided into four volumes, on the rights of persons, the rights of things, of private wrongs and of public wrongs.
Paul Gustave Louis Christophe Doré was a French artist, printmaker, illustrator, comics artist, caricaturist, and sculptor who worked primarily with wood engraving.
Walter Crane was an English artist and book illustrator. He is considered to be the most influential, and among the most prolific, children’s book creators of his generation and, along with Randolph Caldecott and Kate Greenaway, one of the strongest contributors to the child's nursery motif that the genre of English children's illustrated literature would exhibit in its developmental stages in the later 19th century.
Howard Chandler Christy was an American artist and illustrator, famous for the "Christy Girl" – a colorful and illustrious successor to the "Gibson Girl" – who became the most popular portrait painter of the Jazz Age era. Christy painted such luminaries as Lt. Col. Theodore Roosevelt, and Presidents Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Harry Truman. Other famous people he painted include William Randolph Hearst, the Prince of Wales, Eddie Rickenbacker, Benito Mussolini, Prince Umberto and Amelia Earhart. From the 1920s until the 1940s, Christy was well known for capturing the likenesses of congressmen, senators, industrialists, movies stars, and socialites.
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation is a non-fiction book written by Lynne Truss, the former host of BBC Radio 4's Cutting a Dash programme. In the book, published in 2003, Truss bemoans the state of punctuation in the United Kingdom and the United States and describes how rules are being relaxed in today's society. Her goal is to remind readers of the importance of punctuation in the English language by mixing humour and instruction.
Howard Pyle was an American illustrator and author, primarily of books for young people. He was a native of Wilmington, Delaware, and he spent the last year of his life in Florence, Italy.
Western calligraphy is the art of writing and penmanship as practiced in the Western world, especially using the Latin alphabet.
Benson John Lossing was a prolific and popular American historian, known best for his illustrated books on the American Revolution and American Civil War and features in Harper's Magazine. He was a charter trustee of Vassar College.
Kathrine Kressmann Taylor or Kressmann Taylor was an American author, known mostly for her Address Unknown (1938), a short story written as a series of letters between a Jewish art dealer, living in San Francisco, and his business partner, who had returned to Germany in 1932. It is credited with exposing, early on, the dangers of Nazism to the American public.
Glenn Chadbourne is an American artist. He lives in Newcastle, Maine. He is best known for his work in the horror and fantasy genres, having created covers and illustrated books and magazines for publishers such as Cemetery Dance Publications, Subterranean Press, and Earthling Publications. Mr. Chadbourne is known for his sense of humour and down to earth manner, as well as the stark honesty of his work.
1776 is a book written by David McCullough, first published by Simon & Schuster on May 24, 2005. The work is considered a companion piece to McCullough's earlier biography of John Adams, and focuses on the events surrounding the start of the American Revolution. While revolving mostly around the leadership of George Washington, there is also considerable attention given to King George III, General Howe, Henry Knox, and Nathanael Greene. Key Revolutionary War battles detailed in the book include the Battle of Dorchester Heights, the Battle of Long Island, and the Battle of Trenton. The actual signing of the Declaration of Independence is treated as a somewhat minor detail, as the main focus of the book is on military rather than political events. The book includes multiple pages of full color illustrations, including portraits and historical battlefield maps made by British engineers at the time.
Sandow Birk is an American visual artist from Los Angeles whose work deals mainly with contemporary American culture. Seven books have been published on his works and he has made two films. With an emphasis on social issues, his frequent themes have included inner city violence, graffiti, various political issues, travel, prisons, surfing and skateboarding. His projects are often elaborate and epic in scale, including a series on "The Leading Causes of Death in America" and the invasion and the second war in Iraq. He completed a hand-made illuminated manuscript version of the Holy Qur'an, transcribing the English language text by hand in a personalized font based on graffiti, and illuminating the pages with scenes of contemporary American life.
Ben Katchor is an American cartoonist and illustrator best known for his critically acclaimed comic strip Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer. He has contributed comics and drawings to The Forward, The New Yorker,Metropolis magazine, and weekly newspapers in the United States. A Guggenheim Fellowship and MacArthur Fellowship recipient, Katchor was described by author Michael Chabon as "the creator of the last great American comic strip."
Frederic E. "Fred" Ray, Jr. was an American comic book artist and commercial illustrator best known as the primary Superman cover-artist of the 1940s, whose work helped shape the defining look of the iconic superhero character, and for his more than two decades as artist of the DC Comics feature "Tomahawk". His cover of Superman #14 is one of comics' most famous.
Michael McCurdy was an American illustrator, author, and publisher. He illustrated over 200 books in his career, including ten that he authored. Most were illustrated with his trademark black and white wood engravings, with occasional color illustrations. His illustrations often have historical or natural themes.
The Consecration of the Soldiers' National Cemetery was the ceremony at which U.S. President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863. In addition to the 15,000 spectators, attendees included six state governors: Andrew Gregg Curtin of Pennsylvania, Augustus Bradford of Maryland, Oliver P. Morton of Indiana, Horatio Seymour of New York, Joel Parker of New Jersey, and David Tod of Ohio. Reporters present included Joseph Gilbert, Charles Hale, John Russell Young ; and Cincinnati Commercial, New York Tribune, & The New York Times reporters.
Charles Ransom Chickering was best known as the freelance artist who designed some 77 postage stamps for the U.S. Post Office while working at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington, DC. His career as a professional artist began while working as an illustrator for the U.S. Army recording and drawing medical illustrations of the wounded and dead during the First World War. He continued the practice in civilian life and became a noted artist-illustrator who worked for a number of prominent magazines, including The Saturday Evening Post, which were very popular during the pre-television era of the 1920s to 1940s. After the Second World War Chickering began working for the U.S. Post office designing U.S. Postage stamps, some of which became famous. Later in life he became a designer and illustrator for first day cover cachets that were also popular among stamp and postal history collectors.
The Gettysburg Address is an unreleased American documentary written, produced and directed by Sean Conant. The film examines the many influences upon and impacts of U.S. president Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, delivered in the midst of the American Civil War. A soundtrack and companion book to the documentary were released before the film.
