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6d60e12
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Germany issued a proclamation designating the waters around the British Isles an "area of war" in which all enemy ships would be subject to attack without warning."
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Erik Larson |
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726787b
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She saw Hitler as "a clown who looked like Charlie Chaplin." Like many others in America at this time and elsewhere in the world, she could not imagine him lasting very long or being taken seriously."
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Erik Larson |
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d6598e7
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THE TRAIN CARRYING THE BODY OF ELLEN AXSON Wilson pulled into the station at Rome, Georgia, at 2:30 in the afternoon, Tuesday, August 11, 1914, under gunmetal skies, amid the peal of bells.
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Erik Larson |
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3ec3170
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During heavy rains, river water flowed in a greasy plume far out into Lake Michigan, to the towers that marked the intake pipes for the city's drinking water.
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Erik Larson |
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5f1bea0
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to remain silent is out of the question for a strong and honest man.
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Erik Larson |
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597c54e
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In laying out Central Park we determined to think of no result to be realized in less than forty years.
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Erik Larson |
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bc35749
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of mounting threat.
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Erik Larson |
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9e82b71
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They tasted a new snack called Cracker Jack and a new breakfast food called Shredded Wheat.
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Erik Larson |
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7bf13b4
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Hitler's cabinet enacted a new law, to take effect January 1, 1934, called the Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases, which authorized the sterilization of individuals suffering various physical and mental handicaps.
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Erik Larson |
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b71da74
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Tolerance means weakness," Eicke wrote in the introduction to his rules. "In the light of this conception, punishment will be mercilessly handed out whenever the interests of the fatherland warrant it."
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Erik Larson |
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e4ff29a
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He sensed a rising "hysteria" among midlevel leaders of the Nazi Party, expressed as a belief "that the only safety lies in getting everybody in jail."
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Erik Larson |
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8b65560
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No one had forgotten how in 1885 fouled water had ignited an outbreak of cholera and typhoid that killed ten percent of the city's population.
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Erik Larson |
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87f2925
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One woman, Margaret Gwyer, a young newlywed from Saskatoon, Canada, was sucked into one of the ship's 24-foot-wide funnels. Moments later an eruption of steam from below shot her back out, alive but covered in black soot.
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Erik Larson |
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72d55ff
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My darling atheist," she recalled telling him, "why do you help me decorate a Christmas tree to celebrate the birth of Christ?" He laughed. "This isn't for Christians or for Christ, liebes Kind," he said, "only for pagans like you and me. Anyway, it is very beautiful."
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Erik Larson |
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b743340
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Unmistakable and invulnerable, a floating village in steel, the Lusitania glided by in the night as a giant black shadow cast upon the sea.
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Erik Larson |
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bbe429c
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In part, he knew, this happiness was fostered by German law, which forbade cruelty to animals and punished violators with prison, and here Dodd found deepest irony. "At a time when hundreds of men have been put to death without trial or any sort of evidence of guilt, and when the population literally trembles with fear, animals have rights guaranteed them which men and women cannot think of expecting."
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Erik Larson |
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022695c
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It was conceived out of hubris and anxiety, at a time--1903--when Britain feared it was losing the race for dominance of the passenger-ship industry.
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Erik Larson |
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50c7fe7
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Edith wrote later, "This was the accidental meeting which carried out the old adage of 'turn a corner and meet your fate."
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Erik Larson |
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130bd26
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In this time when writing long letters was everyday practice, men of normal sensibility saw these cards as the most crabbed of media, little better than telegrams,
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Erik Larson |
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7b06b8b
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The company had a remarkable safety record: not a single passenger death from sinking, collision, ice, weather, fire, or any other circumstance where blame could be laid upon captain or company,
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Erik Larson |
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45d1a20
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In losing her he lost not merely his main source of companionship but also his primary adviser, whose observations he had found so useful in helping shape his own thinking.
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Erik Larson |
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a41ca36
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As labor strife increased and the economy faltered, the general level of violence rose.
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Erik Larson |
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8ff13ce
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There are some things I must try to say before the still watches come again in which the things unsaid hurt so and cry out in the heart to be uttered.
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Erik Larson |
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a387c81
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Later, Dodd wrote a description of Hitler in his diary. "He is romantic-minded and half-informed about great historical events and men in Germany." He had a "semi-criminal" record. "He has definitely said on a number of occasions that a people survives by fighting and dies as a consequence of peaceful policies. His influence is and has been wholly belligerent."
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Erik Larson |
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8eb90e5
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Oh, so many things swarmed in my thoughts," she wrote; "and yet each time I was with him I felt the charm of his presence."
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Erik Larson |
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f320320
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Hardly anyone thought that the threats against the Jews were meant seriously," wrote Carl Zuckmayer, a Jewish writer. "Even many Jews considered the savage anti-Semitic rantings of the Nazis merely a propaganda device, a line the Nazis would drop as soon as they won governmental power and were entrusted with public responsibilities."
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Erik Larson |
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41351a0
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It is," she wrote, "an unfortunate trait in the human character to assail or asperse others engaged in the performance of humanitarian acts."
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Erik Larson |
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1b5535f
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ONE MORNING IN AUGUST 1886, as heat rose from the streets with the intensity of a child's fever,
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Erik Larson |
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5137921
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Lost children filled every chair at the headquarters of the Columbian Guard; nineteen spent the night and were claimed by their parents the next day.
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Erik Larson |
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d7e00d7
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Klemperer detected a certain "hysteria of language" in the new flood of decrees, alarms, and intimidation--"This perpetual threatening with the death penalty!"--and in strange, inexplicable episodes of paranoid excess, like the recent nationwide search. In all this Klemperer saw a deliberate effort to generate a kind of daily suspense, "copied from American cinema and thrillers," that helped keep people in line. He also gauged it to be a ma..
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Erik Larson |
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36c5801
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His quest to create a powerful first impression was good showmanship, but it also exposed the aesthetic despot residing within.
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Erik Larson |
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8938b45
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The fair alone consumed three times as much electricity as the entire city of Chicago.
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Erik Larson |
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db9ef6c
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However strange or macabre some of the following incidents may seem, this is not a work of fiction.
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Erik Larson |
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776de3e
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He died angry," Chalmers said, "because I didn't believe him. Even in death he is emphatic and imperious."
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Erik Larson |
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95bf048
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Roosevelt understood that the political costs of any public condemnation of Nazi persecution or any obvious effort to ease the entry of Jews into America were likely to be immense, because American political discourse had framed the Jewish problem as an immigration problem.
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Erik Larson |
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69cbae9
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He had become the living representation of how men liked to think of themselves: one man doing an awful duty and doing it well, against the odds.
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Erik Larson |
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ca0d32a
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The story, too, tends to illustrate the end of the century.
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Erik Larson |
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7b52a38
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the Kodak being a new kind of portable camera that eliminated the need for lens and shutter adjustments.
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Erik Larson |
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3d45060
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He was a loner and intellectually intolerant.
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Erik Larson |
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728f081
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Anyone wishing to bring his own Kodak to the fair had to buy a permit for two dollars,
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Erik Larson |
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90115e9
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I found the actual notes that Prendergast sent to Alfred Trude. I saw how deeply the pencil dug into the paper.
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Erik Larson |
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9a25abf
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TO DODD, PAPEN'S REMARK ranked as one of the most idiotic he had heard since his arrival in Berlin. And he had heard many. An odd kind of fanciful thinking seemed to have bedazzled Germany, to the highest levels of government. Earlier in the year, for example, Goring had claimed with utter sobriety that three hundred German Americans had been murdered in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia at the start of the past world war. Messersm..
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Erik Larson |
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9b37bb8
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It could be done, because it had to be done
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Erik Larson |
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9e80447
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there existed a widespread, if naive, belief that war of the kind that had convulsed Europe in past centuries had become obsolete--that the economies of nations were so closely connected with one another that even if a war were to begin, it would end quickly. Capital
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Erik Larson |