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Explore StoriesDiscover the real Calamity Jane →
H. R. Locke, c. 1895 · Library of Congress
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Abraham Lincoln:
The Life Behind the Legacy
From a Kentucky log cabin to the presidency, Civil War and a nation changed forever.

The Sailor Who Went
Around the World Alone

Charles Blondin:
A Life Above Niagara
Archival portraits: Alexander Gardner / Library of Congress (digitally cleaned); Hollinger & Co. / Library of Congress; Charles Reutlinger / Paris Musées, Musée Carnavalet (CC0). Image sources and historical context are linked in each story.
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From Chester A. Arthur to Theodore Roosevelt: Reform, Industry and Empire
Five presidents guided America from the Gilded Age into the Progressive Era, leaving a complicated record of reform, expansion and…
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US Presidents 16–20: Lincoln to Garfield and the Fight for Reconstruction
Explore US presidents 16–20, from Lincoln to Garfield: their parties, achievements, controversies and the struggle over freedom after the Civil…
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US Presidents 11–15: Polk to Buchanan and the Road to Civil War
Meet US presidents 11–15, from James K. Polk to James Buchanan, and explore their parties, achievements, failures and the mounting…
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US Presidents 6–10: John Quincy Adams to John Tyler
Explore US presidents 6–10, from John Quincy Adams to John Tyler, with their political parties, achievements, controversies and the crises…
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American Presidents
The people who shaped a nation →

Victorian Lives
An extraordinary world of characters →

A World to Discover
Journeys, discoveries and remarkable lives →
Browse matching stories from the archive. Jack Black is shown in a historical engraving from Henry Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor.
Bringing History To Life explores remarkable people and the images they left behind. Created by Matt, with sources, image credits and room for the uncertainties of history.
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