History audiobooks

Voices of Hollywood's Early Film Stars

By: Blanche Sweet, Bronco Billy Anderson, D.W. Grif...

Length: 20 minutes

Abridged: No

Blanche Sweet was an American silent film actress who began her career in the earliest days of the Hollywood. As the Roaring Twenties wound down, Sweet's career faltered with the advent of talkies. Sweet made just three talking pictures, including her critically lauded performance in 1930's Show Girl in Hollywood, before retiring from the screen... Read more

A Rare Recording of Aimee Semple McPherson

By: Aimee Semple McPherson

Narrated by: Aimee Semple McPherson

Length: 30 minutes

Abridged: No

Aimee Semple McPherson (October 9, 1890 – September 27, 1944), also known as Sister Aimee, was a Canadian-American Los Angeles-based evangelist and media celebrity in the 1920s and 1930s. She founded the Foursquare Church. McPherson has been noted as a pioneer in the use of modern media, especially radio, and was the second woman to be granted a... Read more

Voices of All-Time Baseball Greats

By: Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Carl, Hubbell, Johnny Va...

Length: 10 minutes

Abridged: No

Hear the voices of all-time baseball greats, including Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Carl Hubbell, Johnny Vander Meer, and broadcaster Mel Allen. Also, includes the radio call of Brooklyn Dodgers' Cookie Lavagetto's 1947 World Series game-winning double against the New York Yankees, Babe Ruth's final goodbye at Yankee Stadium, and the New York Giants'... Read more

Voices From Hollywood's Golden Age

By: Stan Laurel, Buster Keaton, Lillian Gish, Ethel...

Length: 20 minutes

Abridged: No

Stan Laurel, was an English comic actor, writer and film director, most famous as Laurel of comedic duo Laurel and Hardy. Laurel’s career stretched between 1917 and 1951, and included a starring role in the 1932 film The Music Box. Buster Keaton was an American actor, vaudevillian, comedian, filmmaker, stunt performer, and writer. He was best... Read more

A Rare Recording of Alexander Fleming

By: Alexander Fleming

Narrated by: Alexander Fleming

Length: 6 minutes

Abridged: No

Sir Alexander Fleming (August 6, 1881 – March 11, 1955) was a Scottish biologist, pharmacologist and botanist. He wrote many articles on bacteriology, immunology, and chemotherapy. His best-known discoveries are the enzyme lysozyme in 1923 and the antibiotic substance penicillin from the mould Penicillium notatum in 1928, for which he shared the... Read more

A Rare Recording of Bertrand Russell

By: Bertrand Russell

Narrated by: Bertrand Russell

Length: 9 minutes

Abridged: No

Bertrand Russell (May 18, 1872 – February 2, 1970) was born in Monmouthshire, into one of the most prominent aristocratic families in Britain. Russell was a philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, prominent anti-war activist, and an outspoken opponent of nuclear weapons. In 1950, Russell was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. The... Read more

A Rare Recording of Carl Jung

By: Carl Jung

Narrated by: Carl Jung

Length: 7 minutes

Abridged: No

Hear seven minutes of a 1959 interview with Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung on the BBC program, “Face to Face,” hosted by John Freeman. This probing interview with Jung, considered the world’s greatest psychiatrist, provides a rare glimpse into his personal viewpoints and sheds insight into his pioneering work. Afterward, Jung was taken aback at... Read more

A Rare Recording of Che Guevara

By: Che Guevara

Narrated by: Che Guevara

Length: 28 minutes

Abridged: No

Narrated by Chris Couch, this is a rare recording of a December 16, 1964, interview of Che Guevara by journalists at the Cuban Mission headquarters in New York City. Recording obtained and published by Rick Sheridan. Read more

A Rare Recording of Helen Keller, Anne Sullivan and Polly Thompson

By: Helen Keller, Anne Sullivan & Polly Thompson

Narrated by: Helen Keller, Anne Sullivan & Polly Thompson

Length: 5 minutes

Abridged: No

Helen Keller was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Though born with the ability to see and hear, at 19 months-old she contracted an acute illness that left her both deaf and blind. Eventually, 20-year-old Anne Sullivan, herself visually impaired, became Keller's speech instructor. It was the beginning of a 49-year-long relationship... Read more

A Rare Recording of JRR Tolkien

By: JRR Tolkien

Narrated by: JRR Tolkien

Length: 41 minutes

Abridged: No

JRR Tolkien was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor best known as the author of fantasy works like "The Hobbit" and "Lord of the Rings." Listen as Tolkien reads "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil," "The Mewlips," "The Hoard," "Perry-The-Winkle," and "The Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon." Also included is a reading of... Read more

A Rare Recording of Knute Rockne

By: Knute Rockne

Narrated by: Knute Rockne

Length: 2 minutes

Abridged: No

Knute Rockne (March 4, 1888 – March 31, 1931) was an American football player and coach, both at the University of Notre Dame. He is regarded as one of the greatest coaches in college football history. Rockne popularized the forward pass and made Notre Dame a major factor in collegiate football. This recording is a famous pre-game lockerroom pep... Read more

A Rare Recording of Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin

By: VI Lenin, Leon Trotsky & Josef Stalin

Narrated by: Lenin & Trotsky and Stalin

Length: 7 minutes

Abridged: No

Vladimir Lenin (speaking Russian) was the main theoretician and practical leader of the Bolsheviks. He was voted the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. Leon Trotsky was a Communist theorist, prolific writer, and leader in the 1917 Russian Revolution. Josef Stalin (speaking Russian) was the General Secretary of the... Read more

A Rare Recording of Richard Wurmbrand

By: Richard Wurmbrand

Narrated by: Richard Wurmbrand

Length: 36 minutes

Abridged: No

Richard Wurmbrand, born on March 24, 1909, was a Romanian Christian minister of Jewish descent. He was a youth during a time of anti-Semitic activity in Romania, but it was later, after becoming a believer in Jesus Christ as Messiah, and daring to publicly say that Communism and Christianity were not compatible, that he experienced imprisonment... Read more

A Rare Recording of Roger Bannister

By: Roger Bannister

Narrated by: Roger Bannister

Length: 4 minutes

Abridged: No

Sir Roger Gilbert Bannister, born on March 23, 1929, is an English former athlete best known for being the first to run the mile in less than 4 minutes, remarkably while practicing as a junior doctor. This was finally achieved on May 6, 1954 at Iffley Road Track in Oxford, with Chris Chataway and Chris Brasher providing the pacing. The resulting... Read more

A Rare Recording of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

By: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Narrated by: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Length: 8 minutes

Abridged: No

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (May 22, 1859 – July 7, 1930) was a Scottish physician and author, best-known for his Sherlock Holmes stories--considered milestones in the crime fiction genre--and for the adventures of Professor Challenger. He was a prolific writer whose other works included science fiction stories and fantasy novels, most notably “The... Read more

Voices of Early British Female Politicians

By: Katharine Ramsey, Nancy Astor & Edith Clara Sum...

Narrated by: Katharine Ramsey, Nancy Astor & Edith Clara Sum...

Length: 10 minutes

Abridged: No

Katharine Ramsey, lived from 1874 to 1960. Known as the ‘Red Duchess,' in 1923 she became the first woman member from Scotland elected to the House of Commons. As a crusader against international cruelty, she spoke out against Stalin, Franco, and Hitler. The following is from a 1929 speech. Nancy Astor (May 19, 1879 – May 2, 1964), though born... Read more

A Rare Recording of Swami Vivekananda

By: Swami Vivekananda

Narrated by: Swami Vivekananda

Length: 3 minutes

Abridged: No

Indian mystic Swami Vivekananda addresses the 1893 World Parliament of Religions in Chicago offering an inspiring message of a shared spirituality and the harmony of world religions. He is considered a key figure in the introduction of Hindu philosophies of Vedanta and Yoga in Europe and America, and is also credited with raising interfaith... Read more

Voices of Famous Inventors

By: Thomas Alva Edison, Thomas Augustus Watson & Gu...

Narrated by: Thomas Alva Edison, Thomas Augustus Watson & Gu...

Length: 13 minutes

Abridged: No

Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847 – October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. Dubbed "The Wizard of Menlo Park", he was one of the first inventors to... Read more

A Rare Recording of Wilhelm Reich

By: Wilhelm Reich

Narrated by: Wilhelm Reich

Length: 11 minutes

Abridged: No

Wilhelm Reich (March 24, 1897 – November 3, 1957) was an Austrian-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, known as one of the most radical figures in the history of psychiatry. Reich argued that mental illness and some physical illnesses were the result of deficiencies of cosmic energy, as measured in units called "orgones", and lack of... Read more

A Rare Recording of William Faulkner

By: William Faulkner

Narrated by: William Faulkner

Length: 48 minutes

Abridged: No

William Faulkner, a Pulitzer Prize recipient, is considered one of the finest writers in American literature. Hear his 1949 Nobel Prize acceptance speech, and excerpts from his works: As I Lay Dying, The Old Man, and A Fable. Recording obtained and published by Rick Sheridan. Read more

Famous British Political Speeches

By: James Ramsay MacDonald, King George V, King Edw...

Narrated by: James Ramsay MacDonald, King George V, King Edw...

Length: 28 minutes

Abridged: No

James Ramsay MacDonald, (October 12, 1866 – November 9, 1937) was a British statesman who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, leading a Labour Government in 1924, and from 1929 to 1931, and a National Government from 1931 to 1935. The following is a 1929 political broadcast discussing peace and unemployment. George V,... Read more

History Speaks - Volume 1

By: Robert Browning, Kenneth Landfrey, Florence Nig...

Narrated by: Robert Browning, Kenneth Landfrey, Florence Nig...

Length: 14 minutes

Abridged: No

Along with historical narrative, hear rare recordings of some of the most people in history, including Robert Browning, Kenneth Landfrey, Florence Nightingale, Sir Henry Morton Stanley, PT Barnum, Sir Arthur Sullivan, Edwin Booth, General Nelson Miles, William Jennings Bryan, and Garret A. Hobart. Recording obtained and published by Rick Sheridan. Read more

History Speaks - Volume 2

By: Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison, William Howard ...

Narrated by: Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison, William Howard ...

Length: 18 minutes

Abridged: No

Along with historical narrative, hear rare recordings of some of the most people in history, including Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison, William Howard Taft, James Whitcomb Riley, O. Henry, Arthur Conan Doyle, William Gillette, Theodore Roosevelt, Ellen Terry, King George V, and Amelia Earhart. Recording obtained and published by Rick Sheridan. Read more

History Speaks - Volume 3

By: Alfred Lord Tennyson, William Edward Gladstone,...

Narrated by: Alfred Lord Tennyson, William Edward Gladstone,...

Length: 16 minutes

Abridged: No

Along with historical narrative, hear rare recordings of some of the most people in history, including Alfred Lord Tennyson, William Edward Gladstone, Guiglielmo Marconi, William McKinley, Leo Tolstoy, William Booth, Pope Leo Xlll, Sir Robert Baden-Powell, Dr. Frederick Cook, and William E. Peary. Recording obtained and published by Rick Sheridan. Read more