Legends and Legendary People Videos

Meet some of the world's most-colorful characters in this collection. From Roman times to the Spanish Main, these individuals were famous in their own lifetimes and later, when their stories became the "stuff of legends."

Beginning in the fifteenth century, the Medici family, more than any other, presided over this time of cultural change known as "The Renaissance."

WARNING: THIS CLIP, AND ITS DESCRIPTION, CONTAINS CLOSE-UPS OF ART WORK WHICH MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR VIEWING BY YOUNG CHILDREN.

WARNING: THIS CLIP, AND ITS DESCRIPTION, CONTAINS CLOSE-UPS OF ART WORK WHICH MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR VIEWING BY YOUNG CHILDREN.

NOTE: This clip contains a segment on fourteenth-century art and its creative processes.

WARNING: THIS CLIP, AND ITS DESCRIPTION, CONTAINS CLOSE-UPS OF ART WORK WHICH MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR VIEWING BY YOUNG CHILDREN.

As Rome conquered more and more far-flung lands, the empire was able to produce more gladiators.

Every bout did not result in the death of a gladiator.

To kill a man for no reason, and just because it was expected of him in a game, was extremely difficult.

Some of the gladiators in ancient Rome are foreigners, captured by Roman legions.

Despite an earlier string of space-race failures, the United States developed a rocket with enough power to send people to the moon.

Seamus Heaney, 1995 Nobel Laureate for Literature, was a world-famous poet who producednew workuntil shortly before his death in 2013.

Solzhenitsyn died in Moscow, reportedly of a heart ailment, at the age of 89.

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