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In January 1953, William S. Burroughs began an expedition into the jungles of South America to find yage, the fabled hallucinogen of the Amazon. From the notebooks he kept and the letters he wrote home to Allen Ginsberg, Burroughs composed a narrative of his adventures that later appeared as The Yage Letters. For this edition, Oliver Harris has gone back to the original manuscripts and untangled the history of the text, telling the fascinating story of its genesis and cultural importance.

He fought and beheaded three Turkish adversaries in duels. He was sold into slavery, then murdered his master to escape. He sailed under a pirate flag, was shipwrecked and marched to the gallows to be hanged, only to be reprieved at the eleventh hour. And all this happened before he was thirty years old. This is Captain John Smith's life. Everyone knows the story of Pocahontas, and how in 1607 she saved John Smith. And were it not for Smith's leadership, the Jamestown colony would surely have failed.

So you want to be an explorer? Explorers need courage, like Alexander the Great, who conquered most of the known world. But for budding explorers out there, the rewards can be great. Neil Armstrong earned lasting fame when he became the first person to set foot on the moon.

Under Egypt's wind-swept sands, mummies and breathtaking treasure await those savvy and daring enough to seek them out. Intrepid archaeologist Zahi Hawass is one such adventurer, having made major discoveries in the pyramids at Giza and the Valley of the Golden Mummies. From ancient germs and vipers to age-old curses and crumbling tombs, the dangers of his profession are real. But so too are the rewards.

Learn about animals, both domestic and wild, who have become heroes when they came to the rescue of humans

Picture a Crow Indian elder, his wizened eyes catching yours in the ancient flicker of firelight. His mesmerizing stories span the ages, from Custer to World War II to the 21st Century. He is the last traditional chief of his people. He is over 90 years old. Now picture that same man lecturing at colleges nationwide, and addressing the United Nations on the subject of peace. National Geographic presents the amazing life story of Joseph Medicine Crow, the man who begins life as Winter Man.

In January of 2007, two young stoners from Miami Beach-one a ninth grade dropout, the other a licensed masseur-won a

In February 2003, American astronauts Donald Pettit and Kenneth Bowersox and Russian flight engineer Nikolai Budarin were on a routine fourteen-week mission maintaining the International Space Station. But then the space shuttle Columbia exploded far beneath them. With the launch program suspended indefinitely, these astronauts had suddenly lost their ride back to earth. Out of Orbit chronicles the efforts of the beleaguered mission controls in Houston and Moscow as they worked frantically against the clock, ultimately settling on a plan that felt, at best, like a long shot.

Shipwreck. Starvation. Cannibalism. For the first time, celebrated author Gary Collins brings to life the tale of the brigantine Queen of Swansea. Bound for Newfoundland in December 1867, the vessel made her first port of call in St. John’s, only to meet her doom on the rocks of Gull Island, Cape John. The following spring, Captain Mark Rowsell of Leading Tickles chanced upon the fallen ship’s crew on his return voyage from the seal hunt.

In the nineteenth century, the Newfoundland government, under constant pressure from fish merchants, began installing lighthouses in some of the more treacherous places around the island. In the 1950s, Cabot Island boasted a large lighthouse, with a steady, brilliant light and a bellowing foghorn to warn seafarers away from its inviting shoreline. This sentinel of the sea was manned by brothers Alex and Bertram Gill, who hailed from Newtown, a nearby community in Bonavista Bay.