On August 19, 1692, five people were hanged as witches in Salem, Massachusetts. Among them was George Burroughs, a Harvard educated minister who climbed the ladder, declared his innocence, and recited the Lord's Prayer without a stumble, something no witch was believed able to do.

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On August 18, 1227, Genghis Khan died in a camp in northwestern China while his army besieged the Tangut capital. His commanders kept the death secret, held the lines, and accepted the city's surrender in the name of a man already gone. This episode traces the road to that tent: a fatherless boy named Temujin, the alliances that made and betrayed him, and the army he rebuilt so thoroughly that it kept conquering without him.

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On August 17, 1786 David Crockett was born in a cabin near Limestone Creek, in a corner of the frontier that could not agree on which government it belonged to. He was rented out to a cattle drover at twelve, ran away at thirteen, and killed bears for currency before Tennessee sent him to Congress. There he lost every land bill he wrote and cast the only vote in his delegation against Indian removal. Then came Texas, the Alamo, and a legend that outgrew the man who signed his name David.

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