Abraham Lincoln’s life began in a Kentucky log cabin and ended in a Washington boarding house after an assassin’s attack. Between those two places, he became a lawyer, a husband and father, and the sixteenth president of the United States. He led the country through the Civil War and helped turn the struggle to preserve…

Napoleon Bonaparte rose from a Corsican family to become Emperor of the French. His victories redrew the map of Europe, while his government reshaped French law and administration. His story also includes two marriages, a much-wanted heir, catastrophic wars, and a final exile thousands of miles from France. To understand him means looking at both…

Nikola Tesla helped shape the electrical world we live in. His work on alternating-current motors and power systems made him one of the most influential inventors of his age. Yet his life also included failed ventures, financial uncertainty, and ambitious dreams that remained unfinished. Behind the familiar portrait was an immigrant engineer whose achievements deserve…

Almanzo Wilder is often introduced as Laura Ingalls Wilder’s husband. Yet his own life stretched from a farm in northern New York to a homestead in Dakota Territory and, finally, a lasting home in the Missouri Ozarks. He was a farmer and father whose childhood memories became Farmer Boy, and whose adult years included illness,…