In 1927, the Mississippi River swept across an area roughly equal in size to Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Vermont combined, leaving water as deep as thirty feet on the land stretching from Illinois and Missouri south to the Gulf of Mexico. Close to a million people - in a nation of 120 million - were forced out of their homes. Some estimates place the death toll in the thousands. The Red Cross fed nearly 700,000 refugees for months....

Describes how technological advances in China and the Arab world during the medieval period helped make up for the lack of scientific discovery that took place in Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire and explores how the Renaissance became a great period of European learning and discovery.