Product Description

chronicles Andrew Carrolls eye-opening and at times hilarious -- journey across America to find and explore unmarked historic sites where extraordinary moments occurred and remarkable individuals once lived. Sparking the idea for this book was Carrolls visit to the spot where Abraham Lincolns son was saved by the brother of Lincolns assassin. Carroll wondered, To answer that question, Carroll ultimately trekked to every region of the country -- by car, train, plane, helicopter, bus, bike, and kayak and on foot. Among the things he learned:

*Where in North America the oldest sample of human DNA was discovered

* Where Americas deadliest maritime disaster took place, a calamity worse than the fate of the

*Which virtually unknown American scientist saved hundreds of millions of lives

*Which famous Prohibition agent was the brother of a notorious gangster

*How a 14-year-old farm boys brainstorm led to the creation of television

Featured prominently in are an abundance of firsts(from the first use of modern anesthesia to the first cremation to the first murder conviction based on forensic evidence); outrages(from riots to massacres to forced sterilizations); and breakthroughs(from the invention, inside a prison, of a revolutionary weapon; to the recovery, deep in the Alaskan tundra, of a super-virus; to the building of the rocket that made possible space travel). is thoroughly entertaining, but its also a profound reminder that the places we pass by often harbor amazing secrets and that there are countless other astonishing stories still out there, waiting to be found.