The Delaware River was a lifeline for Pennsylvania and New Jersey colonists who relied on the waterway as their only supply route. By the time ferry service was launched between Camden and Philadelphia in 1688, residents on both sides of the river were already dreaming of a bridge crossing. Nearly 240 years later, the Delaware River Bridge Joint Commission, later known as the Delaware River Port Authority, made that dream a reality. Delaware River Port Authority explores the region's early river transportation, failed plans for waterway crossings, and the stories behind the authority's four unique bridges-the Benjamin Franklin, at the time the world's longest single-span bridge; Walt Whitman, which caused a church-sponsored debate; Commodore Barry, the nation's longest cantilever bridge at construction; and Betsy Ross, the nation's second bridge named for a woman-as well as the groundbreaking PATCO Speedline.

The Benjamin Franklin Bridge, originally named the Delaware River Bridge, was constructed to connect the cities of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Camden, New Jersey. For a time after its opening on July 1, 1926, it was the longest suspension bridge in the world, with a main span of 1,750 feet. The Benjamin Franklin Bridge contains many rarely seen images of the bridge's planning and construction, the individuals who helped make the concept of the bridge a reality, and the workers who built it. The bridge has undergone many changes in the decades since its opening, and these vintage photographs trace its evolution, illustrating the bridge's endurance as a symbol of the Philadelphia-Camden metropolitan area.

During the American War for Independence in Augustand September, 1777, the British invaded Delaware aspart of an end-run campaign to defeat GeorgeWashington and the Americans and capture the capitalat Philadelphia. For a few short weeks the hills andstreams in and around Newark and Iron Hill and at Cooch's Bridge along the Christina River were the focus of worldhistory as the British marched through the Diamond State between the Chesapeake Bay and Brandywine Creek.This is the story of the British invasion of Delaware,one of the lesser known but critical watershedmoments in American history.

The federal government wastes your tax dollars worse than a drunken sailor on shore leave. The 1984 Grace Commission uncovered that the Department of Defense spent $640 for a toilet seat and $436 for a hammer. Twenty years later things weren't much better. In 2004, Congress spent a record-breaking $22.9 billion dollars of your money on 10,656 of their pork-barrel projects. The war on terror has a lot to do with the record $413 billion in deficit spending, but it's also the result of pork over the last 18 years the likes of: - $50 million for an indoor rain forest in Iowa - $102 million to study screwworms which were long ago eradicated from American soil - $273,000 to combat goth culture in Missouri - $2.2 million to renovate the North Pole (Lucky for Santa!) - $50,000 for a tattoo removal program in California - $1 million for ornamental fish research Funny in some instances and jaw-droppingly stupid and wasteful in others, The Pig Book proves one thing about Capitol Hill: pork is king!