"On Gainesville's 150th birthday, The Gainesville Sun is pleased to announce a commemorative coffee-table book, "Gainesville Memories: A Photographic History of the Early Years." This beautiful, heirloom-quality book will feature a glimpse of the Gainesville area from the early years through stunning historic photos. We are excited to showcase images carefully selected from local historical archives alongside never-before-seen photos from our readers. This hardcover book truly captures the rich heritage of the Gainesville area."--Amazon.com.

Nearly 200 years ago, settlers arrived in Alachua County to grow cotton and other crops. By the middle of the nineteenth century, enough people resided in the area today known as Gainesville that they decided to create a town to be the center of business and government for the county. In 1906, the focus changed with the arrival of the University of Florida. Although it then barely exceeded a hundred students, it has grown to be one of the nation's largest universities and has gained national prominence as a leading research institution. With a selection of more than 100 fine historic images from his best-selling book, Historic Photos of Gainesville, Steve Rajtar provides a valuable and revealing historical retrospective on the growth and development of Gainesville. Remembering Gainesville showcases these black-and-white images to chronicle the growth of the city from a place where pigs, cows, and chickens ran free, to a modern city where cutting-edge research is routine.

Disasters can strike at any time. From the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius to Hurricane Katrina, floods, tornadoes, earthquakes, hurricanes and other natural disasters have caused tremendous loss of life, human suffering, and environmental catastrophe. The complex technological and social changes of the last few centuries have not only intensified the impact of such natural disasters, but have added new introduced new reasons to be concerned - plane crashes, bombings, industrial accidents, genocides. Calling some disasters natural and others man-made downplays the important interrelationship between the event and human actions. Human actions - or inactions - can catapult a natural phenomenon into a deadly catastrophe. Likewise, nature can be terribly disrupted by events that are created by humans. Encyclopedia of Disasters covers over 180 of the most important disasters in history. Arranged chronologically, the encyclopedia includes entries on those disasters that have had the greatest historical, environmental, and cultural impact: The eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, which destroyed the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum; the London Fire of 1666, which flattened much of London and allowed the rebuilding of the city; the influenza epidemic of 1918, which killed millions; the 1964 Prince William Sound earthquake in Alaska, which caused death and destruction as far away as Hawaii; the worst nuclear power plant accident in Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1964, that has rendered the surrounding landscape uninhabitable; and the 2004 earthquake that created a tsunami that killed thousands in Sumatra. Each entry includes a list of readings for additional research, and the encyclopedia is illustrated with numerous photos and line illustrations that show the destruction and despair caused by these disasters.

For more than 200 years, Gainesville, Georgia, has been the trading and business center for Northeast Georgia's mountain region. Its character dictated by rugged mountain terrain and independent, self-reliant people, Gainesville entertains a unique history quite different from the traditional plantation culture of the American South. Celebrated within these pages are the people and places of this "Queen City of the Mountains." With images culled primarily from the Hall County Library and the Archives of the State of Georgia, Gainesville: 1900-2000 captures the memories of the twentieth century on the eve of the millennium. From its days as the "Great Health Resort of the South" to its transition into a metropolitan community, Gainesville has experienced enormous growth and change. Included in this collection are images of the disastrous 1936 tornado that swept through the city, the mills that were active in the early 1900s, and the poultry industry that became a dominant economic force in Gainesville. Residents will delight in the early photographs of the town square that reflect a simpler way of life.

As the Andros Odyssey refugees in Eastern Macedonia managed to survive a series of catastrophes, a much bigger threat appears. Greece enters into World War II. Anthony leaves his wife and joins other poorly equipped Greeks at the front. Greece had to fight four enemies at once: Albania, Italy, Bulgaria and Germany. After the Greek capitulation, Eastern Macedonia was occupied by Bulgarians, who wanted to make sure that no Greek claim on that land persisted after the war. This brought about genocidal massacres of all Greek population in the area. The Bulgarian ambitions were also paralleled by Hitlers Final Solution, regarding the Jewish presence in Greece. As the couple and the people around them struggle to survive this murderous environment, they face starvation, greed, language problems, misinformation, illness, treason, and a variety of other factors. Worse yet, following the capitulation of Germany, Greece is plagued by a new catastrophe, a civil war between communist and nationalist factions that lead to the Cold War. As a result, the Greeks sacrifice proportionally the highest part (almost 10%) of their population during this period of War II. It was the earlier part of this noted sacrifice that gave crucial time to the Russians to muster their strength for a decisive WWII victory against the Germans. The end of the civil war finds Anthony and Elisabeth with two sons, barely able to feed themselves. The oldest son, after reaching adulthood leaves for Germany in search of work. The younger one, after finishing high school, and not being able to afford advanced schooling in Greece leaves for the United States, to help his great uncle, Pandel Mayo in exchange for college tuition. He happens to be the author of this book.

What began as a distribution center for shipping agricultural products around 150 years ago became a community noted in the twentieth century for its leadership in research and education. Historic Photos of Gainesville focuses its lens on the unfolding development of this Alachua County town, encapsulating its cultural progress over the last two centuries with nearly 200 compelling black-and-white photos. This handsome book chronicles the 1906 founding of the University of Florida and includes rare photos of its rise from modest beginnings to one of the nation’s largest universities and leading research facilities. Historic Photos of Gainesville draws from an extensive collection of rare images, revealing how a once quaint southern town became a modern-day city rich with history and educational opportunity. Archiving the growth of this vibrant community, Historic Photos of Gainesville is a must-have for area residents and historians alike.