Samuel Pepys was born in London in 1633 and died in Clapham in 1703. In his life, he was Secretary of Naval Affairs and President of the Royal Society, mingling with the greatest of the land. He lived through civil war, plague, and the greatest fire London has suffered outside of the Blitz in World War II. In 1660, at the age of 27, he began a diary, chronicling one of the most colorful periods of the Restoration.

The private diary of James G. McDonald (1886—1964) offers a unique and hitherto unknown source on the early history of the Nazi regime and the Roosevelt administration's reactions to Nazi persecution of German Jews. Considered for the post of US ambassador to Germany at the start of FDR's presidency, McDonald traveled to Germany in 1932 and met with Hitler soon after the Nazis came to power. Fearing Nazi intentions to remove or destroy Jews in Germany,...

A personal narrative of the Civil War written between 1861 and 1865. It captures the urgency and nuance of the period in an epic with commentary on race, status, and power within a nation divided.

The diaries, containing nearly daily entries, commenced on February 23, 1889, in Miner's Delight, Wyoming Territory. They chronicle early married life in Miner's Delight, traveling from Miner's Delight to Chehalis, Washington Territory, by horse and wagon following the Oregon Trail much of the way, and later traveling by the same means from Tacoma, Washington, to Baker City, Oregon. The Dillabaugh family lived in Baker City from 1892 to 1915, and...

Presents a view of American history through the words, songs, letters, diaries, and other documents of individuals such as pilgrims, pioneers, explorers, slaves, Native Americans, politicians, and astronauts.