Throughout American history, many speeches and documents were prepared for events that might have happened, but never did: Eisenhower's personal note apologizing for the failure of D-Day; Lincoln's plans for post-Civil War Reconstruction; the CIA's memo discussing the use of Americans as guinea pigs in drug tests, among many others. Almost History includes more than eighty selections, many supported by photographs of the actual documents, and each is introduced with the story of how they came to be and where they fit in our history. They are compiled here for the first time, by a deputy director of the National Archives, illustrating how close America came to defeat, disaster, and distress -- and providing chilling proof that history can change in an instant.

"Recorded history is rich with events that have changed the course of human experience-events that have rippled through the centuries, and still others that rumble on today. Here in one amazing volume are 75 of the most important historical events of all time, presented in 75 short, fascinating, fully illustrated and entertaining chapters. Divided into 5 historical sections, [this] ALMOST contains all the major historical events that you ever need to know. Chapters include the Peloponnesian War, the fall of the Roman Empire, the Crusades, the travels of Marco Polo, the arrival of Columbus in the New World, the storming of the Bastille, the Gettysburg Address, D-Day, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the 9/11 terrorist attacks and 65 other incredible historic episodes."--Publisher description.

Beginning in the late seventeenth century and concluding with the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade, Almost Dead reveals how the thousands of captives who lived, bled, and resisted in the Black Urban Atlantic survived to form dynamic communities. Michael Lawrence Dickinson uses cities with close commercial ties to shed light on similarities, variations, and linkages between urban Atlantic slave communities in mainland America and the Caribbean. The study adopts the perspectives of those enslaved to reveal that, in the eyes of the enslaved, the distinctions were often of degree rather than kind as cities throughout the Black Urban Atlantic remained spaces for Black oppression and resilience. The tenets of subjugation remained all too similar, as did captives’ need to stave off social death and hold on to their humanity. Almost Dead argues that urban environments provided unique barriers to and avenues for social rebirth: the process by which African-descended peoples reconstructed their lives individually and collectively after forced exportation from West Africa. This was an active process of cultural remembrance, continued resistance, and communal survival. It was in these urban slave communities—within the connections between neighbors and kinfolk—that the enslaved found the physical and psychological resources necessary to endure the seemingly unendurable. Whether sites of first arrival, commodification, sale, short-term captivity, or lifetime enslavement, the urban Atlantic shaped and was shaped by Black lives.

Throughout the Civil War, soldiers and civilians on both sides of the conflict saw the hand of God in the terrible events of the day, but the standard narratives of the period pay scant attention to religion. Now, in God's Almost Chosen Peoples, Li

Jon Sweeney, a self-described “evolved Protestant” and noted religious writer, has long been fascinated by the Catholic Church. However, it wasn’t until he was a young missionary in the Philippines that he truly began to understand the Church’s traditions, mysteries, and religious beliefs and its hold on those who follow the tradition. As he explains, Catholic spirituality is all about responding to the fundamental mystery of Jesus, the incarnation, and what it all meant in the beginning as well as what it means today. In Almost Catholic, Sweeney offers an appreciation of Catholicism, weaving in the story of his own explorations with those of others who have also been attracted to this tradition. He finds himself drawn to the Church’s ancient and medieval traditions out of a desire to connect with the deepest and widest paths on the way. Two millennia of saints and practices and teachings and mystery form a connection for him to the very beginnings of Christianity.

Focusing on important events in which a single decision changes the course of history, an intriguing look at American history speculates about what would have happened if Washington had chosen not to cross the Delaware, Neil Armstrong had aborted the moon landing, or IBM had not asked Bill Gates and Microsoft to write the computer code for its first PC.