Famous LivesBiography
Sisters and Brothers
In 1893, a young Indian monk with no invitation, no money and no friends in America stood up in a crowded hall in Chicago. His first five words brought thousands of people to their feet.
Famous Lives & Biographies
Independently written profiles of scientists, artists, athletes, inventors, explorers and humanitarians.
For curious readers of all ages · 11 stories
Famous LivesBiography
The Boy Who Gave the Blind Books
Louis Braille lost his sight as a small child in a French village. At fifteen, working late at night with a stylus and a sheet of paper, he invented a way for blind people to read with their fingertips.
Famous LivesBiography
The First Teacher
In 1848, a young woman in Pune walked to school every morning while people on the street threw mud and stones at her. Savitribai Phule kept walking, and opened the door to education for the girls of India.
Famous LivesBiography
The Lady with the Lamp
Florence Nightingale was expected to marry well and live a quiet, comfortable life. Instead she walked the wards of a filthy army hospital at night, and then used numbers to change how the world cares for the sick.
Famous LivesBiography
The Patent Clerk
In 1905, a 26-year-old clerk in a Swiss patent office, with no university job and no laboratory, wrote four papers in his spare time. Together they changed how we understand light, atoms, space and time.
Famous LivesBiography
The Newspaper Boy from Rameswaram
A.P.J. Abdul Kalam delivered newspapers as a boy on a small island town in South India. He grew up to lead India's space and missile programmes, and became its most loved President.
Famous LivesBiography
The Light in the Shed
Marie Curie studied in secret as a girl in Warsaw, worked in a leaky Paris shed and discovered two new elements. She remains the only person to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences.
Famous LivesBiography
Water at the Pump
Helen Keller could not see or hear, and had no words for anything, until a determined young teacher spelled into her hand at a water pump in Alabama.
Famous LivesBiography
Twenty-Seven Years
Nelson Mandela spent twenty-seven years in prison for opposing apartheid. He came out not seeking revenge, but determined to build a country for everyone.
Famous LivesBiography
The Girl from Karnal Who Touched the Stars
As a girl in a small town in Haryana, Kalpana Chawla watched planes and drew spaceships. She became the first woman born in India to go to space.
Famous LivesBiography
The Clerk Who Wrote to Cambridge
Srinivasa Ramanujan failed his college exams and worked as a clerk, yet his notebooks were full of mathematics nobody had seen before. One letter changed everything.