Campaigns And Hurricanes

When William McKinley traveled to Mississippi in 1901, he became the first US president to visit the state while in office. Though twenty-four men served as president prior to McKinley, none of them included Mississippi in their travel plans. Presidents in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have a better record of visiting Mississippi. There were forty-five presidential trips to the state between 1901 and 2016. Thirty-three communities hosted one or more of the sixty-nine stops the presidents made during those visits. George W. Bush is the unrivaled champion when it comes to the number and frequency of presidential visits. During eight years in office, he visited Mississippi nineteen times, fourteen of those during the state's recovery from Hurricane Katrina. Campaigns and Hurricanes: A History of Presidential Visits to Mississippi traces the presidential visits from William McKinley to Barack Obama and sets each visit into its historical context. Readers will learn that of the forty-five visits made to Mississippi by sitting presidents, eighteen were for disaster recovery, eleven were to campaign, eight were in support of policy proposals, three were purely recreational, and five had singular purposes--for example, university commencement ceremonies or military inspections. Mixed in the history of these visits are anecdotes and discussions of issues, trends, politics, and the people shaping the moments that brought US presidents to Mississippi.

Hurricanes created unique challenges for the colonists in the British Greater Caribbean during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These storms were entirely new to European settlers and quickly became the most feared part of their physical environment, destroying staple crops and provisions, leveling plantations and towns, disrupting shipping and trade, and resulting in major economic losses for planters and widespread privation for slaves. In this study, Matthew Mulcahy examines how colonists made sense of hurricanes, how they recovered from them, and the role of the storms in shaping the development of the region's colonial settlements. Hurricanes and Society in the British Greater Caribbean, 1624–1783 provides a useful new perspective on several topics including colonial science, the plantation economy, slavery, and public and private charity. By integrating the West Indies into the larger story of British Atlantic colonization, Mulcahy's work contributes to early American history, Atlantic history, environmental history, and the growing field of disaster studies.

The Hawker Hurricane was the RAF’s most valuable fighter asset in the Second World War, yet even today is relatively under-appreciated by the general public. Yet from the early months of the war it was the single engine fighter most often encountered by the Luftwaffe and during the Battle of Britain it made 80% of the successful interdictions of enemy formations. As this superbly researched book written by a leading authority on the air war reveals, this was only the start of the Hurricane’s war service. Its reliability and versatility ensured that variants saw action in more war theaters worldwide than any other fighter. Indeed, as the RAF’s Official History recalls ‘Everywhere the Ubiquitous Hurricane was to be seen’. This book follows the ‘Hurri’ to Russia, Malta, North Africa and as far afield as Burma, Sumatra and Java. Seaborne versions fought in the Battle of the Atlantic and defended the Mediterranean convoys. In the ground attack role Hurricane fighter bombers made countless sweeps over occupied Europe. Pilots’ first-hand accounts supplement the text. Readers are left in no doubt as to the massive contribution that the Hurricane made to ultimate victory.

The Great Hurricane of 1780, also known as Hurricane San Calixto II, is one of the most powerful and deadliest North Atlantic hurricanes on record. Often regarded as a cataclysmic hurricane, the storm's worst effects were experienced on October 10, 1780. In The Great Hurricane of 1780, author Wayne Neely chronicles the chaos and destruction it brought to the Caribbean. This storm was likely generated in the mid Atlantic, not far from the equator; it was first felt in Barbados, where just about every tree and house on the island was blown down. The storm passed through the Lesser Antilles and a small portion of the Greater Antilles in the Caribbean between October 10 and October 16 of 1780.Because the storm hit several of the most populous islands in the Caribbean, the death toll was very high. The official death toll was approximately 22,000 people but some historians have put the death toll as high as 27,500. Specifics on the hurricane's track and strength are unclear since the official North Atlantic hurricane database only goes back as far as 1851. Even so, it is a fact that this hurricane had a tremendous impact on economies in the Caribbean and parts of North America, and perhaps also played a major role in the outcome of the American Revolution. This thoroughly researched history considers the intense storm and its aftermath, offering an exploration of an important historical weather event that has been neglected in previous study.

The riveting exploits of a fighter aircraft – and an underrated aerial hero of the Second World War The Hawker Hurricane was flying on the outbreak of war in 1939. Six years later, having saved Britain, it was still playing a major part in the war effort. Widely remembered in its fighter role and unjustly left in the shade of the Spitfire, the Hurricane’s role was varied and pivotal: as a fighter, fighter-bomber, anti-tank aircraft and used at sea. Nor was its theatre of operations any less wide: it saw action in France from the beginning of the Phoney War to the outbreak of the Blitzkrieg, in the Battle of Britain, and then as far afield as Russia, Sumatra and Madagascar. In this intensely readable, spirited and classic account, Adrian Stewart describes all the Hurricane’s roles, adventures and achievements. He recounts the exploits of the aircraft’s outstanding pilots who contributed so much towards mastery of the skies and eventual victory. Perfect for readers of John Nichol’s Spitfire and Lancaster.