Sublime

That same morning Henry Flagler, now eighty-two, left his home, Whitehall, in Palm Beach. He was frail and his sight was failing, but nothing was about to stop him. Not after spending $12 million on a series of hotels, $18 million on his land-based railroad, and another $20 million or more on his “railroad across the sea.” On this day he would boar

William Hawkins,

In early 1947, he was approached by a Palmach commander named Dov Zayces, who asked him whether he knew anything about torpedoes, self-propelled weapons with explosive warheads. Sharon answered that all he knew about torpedoes was based on what he had seen in movies and read in books. Zayces gave him five pounds sterling and instructed him to trave

After he had spoken, he reached under his parka and took out a gold cigarette case and several gold sovereigns and threw them into the snow at his feet. Then he opened the Bible Queen Alexandra had given them and ripped out the flyleaf and the page containing the Twenty-third Psalm. He also tore out the page from the Book of Job with this verse on

Speaking with the utmost conviction, Shackleton pointed out that no article was of any value when weighed against their ultimate survival, and he exhorted them to be ruthless in ridding themselves of every unnecessary ounce, regardless of its value.

Using notes from Captain Frederick Bailey, a British secret agent who’d stumbled across a hidden valley in Tibet in the 1930s while reconnoitering with rebel groups in Asia, Fisher helped locate the fabled Kintup Falls, a thundering cascade that conceals the entrance to the deepest canyon on the planet. From there, Fisher moled his way into lost wo

Now they have beaten me, he thought. I am too old to club sharks to death. But I will try it as long as I have the oars and the short club and the tiller.

Expedition. Sets out to accomplish, discover, claim, explore. Sets out with an agenda.

The Sage of Gotha was excited by the possibility that De Long would find human civilization at the North Pole. “I should not be at all surprised,” he said, “if Eskimos were found right under the Pole. It is not at all unlikely.