Biographies Story Briefs

We may know about a famous person's accomplishments, but what do we know about THEM? What is the human-interest story in THEIR lives? This biography collection features the stories behind the lives of some famous (and not-so-famous) individuals.

Hermann Oberth, one of the world's three "Fathers of Rocketry and Astronautics," became interested in his life's work when, at age 14, he read Jules V...

Johannes Hevelius was an astronomer who, for years, studied the sky without the benefit of a telescope. Born in 1611, in the town of Danzig—then...

See the instrument - an azimuthal quadrant - which Johannes Hevelius used to study the heavens ... and get accurate readings ... with the naked eye. ...

Irish school children, in the 1960s, tell the story of St. Patrick (of St. Patrick's Day).

Although he was a committed Communist by the 1920s, Ho Chi Minh admired many American ideals. One of those ideals was the way the U.S. broke free from...

When Beethoven arrived in Vienna, in November of 1792 - after he'd left Bonn for good - the city was still one of the most sophisticated in Europe.

The day after he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, in December of 1986, Elie Wiesel gave a Nobel lecture entitled "Hope, Despair and Memory."

Still a national hero in Britain, Lord Horatio Nelson helps to save his country from invasion.

One of her most famous poems - "How Do I Love Thee?" - was first published in 1850. Elizabeth wrote it while she was dating Robert Browning.

Hugh Alexander, portrayed by Matthew Goode in "The Imitation Game," was a British chess champion who was recruited to be a code breaker at Bletchely P...

Still the youngest-ever Nobel Laureate for Literature, Rudyard Kipling was enormously popular during his lifetime.

As Henry VIII's troops continued to terrorize the Scots - after the Scottish Parliament refused to approve the Treaty of Greenwich whereby Mary, Queen...

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