The Story of the Greatest Nations and the World's Famous Events

The Story of history in so simple a form that every one, young and old, may understand and also enjoy it, is no easy matter. Yet the story is of profound importance for us all to know. Our every action in the present is formed upon our knowledge of the past. Hence, the fuller our understanding of that Past, which is History, the wiser will be our actions in the Present, and the keener our judgments of the Future. This Story of the Past has moments of intensest interest, situations more pathetic than those of our most brilliant novels, climaxes more dramatic than those of our strongest plays, scenes more dramatic than those of our strongest plays, scenes more poetic than any of our grandest poems. How are these priceless jewels to be rescued from the more or less tedious and uninteresting details that surround them? How are you, reader, to gather the wheat without the chaff? How are you to learn of the parts that are worth while to you, of the knowledge which you will treasure with delightwithout a weary plodding through all the dry and unnecessary dust of ages? The present work is the effort of the authors and the publisher to answer that question. You have here a series of pictures carefully selected and arranged in chronological sequence so as to cover each great event of all the centuries. Thus the whole story of history is impressed upon the eye, the keenest of the senses. At the same time you have revealed to you, at a glance, all that is known of the surroundings, dress, countenance and action of the chief figures of history in the very moment of their triumphs. Facing each picture is a brief description, telling its story and at the same time carrying onward the general history to the next illustration. Thus the picture descriptions form by themselves an outline account of the world, complete, yet so simple, so vivid, so emphasized by the pictures, that the merest child can follow it all with ease