Jim Whiting
6) Claude Monet
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In 1868, Impressionist painter Claude Monet was desperate. Though he had been painting for a decade, he was living in poverty. He had to support his girlfriend and infant son on his meager earnings. His relatives refused to help him out, so he begged for money from his friends, telling them that his situation seemed hopeless.
Yet just over two decades later, with brisk sales through an art dealer, Monet had become wealthy and famous. People came...
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Giuseppe Verdi was born in obscurity in a tiny Italian village in 1813. When he died in 1901, hundreds of thousands of people turned out to pay their respects to the man whom many people consider as the best opera composer of all time. His career spanned more than half a century and included such successes as Rigoletto, La Traviata, Il Trovatore, Otello, Falstaff, and Aida, the most often-performed work at New York s Metropolitan Opera. Yet when he...
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What is probably the most famous pairing in musical history began without fanfare in 1871 when writer William S. Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan teamed up to produce a Christmas entertainment called Thespis. The two men parted ways soon afterward and it took a theatrical promoter named Richard D Oyly Carter to reunite them four years later. Their first big hit came in 1878 with their operetta H.M.S. Pinafore. It reached the United States the...
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Until she was thirteen, Joan of Arc led a normal life. Then she began hearing voices. She believed these voices spoke for God. At first, they told her to be a good girl. A few years later, they told her that her destiny was to save France from its English invaders. Joan s inspirational leadership helped the French to defeat the English at the city of Orleans. Soon afterward, she persuaded the crown prince Charles to become King of France. A few months...
12) Paul Revere
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Paul Revere was an expert silversmith. He became one of America's first industrialists. He was active in the movement that led to American independence.
Yet Paul Revere's fame rests almost entirely on the few hours that he sped through the Massachusetts countryside in the early morning of April 19, 1775. He was warning the inhabitants that the British regulars were on their way. It marked the beginning of the Revolutionary War.
Few people outside...
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One of the most famous trials in U.S. history took place in a tiny town in Tennessee in 1925. Dayton was the site of what became known as the Scopes Monkey Trial.The defendant, John T. Scopes, was accused of violating a recently passed state law. This law made it illegal to teach the theory of evolution. Under most circumstances, few people would have paid any attention to the trial.Several of Daytons leading citizens saw a chance to put their town...
15) Anne Frank
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Anne Frank was bright, cheerful, and full of hope when her family moved to Amsterdam in the Netherlands. The family, who were Jewish, had left Germany because Adolf Hitler, the country's leader, was trying to kill as many Jews as possible. Soon the Germans invaded their new country. Anne, her family, and four others hid in a tiny apartment for more than two years. Anne wrote in her diary about her feelings and experiences during this difficult time....
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When Leonard Bernstein died in 1990 at the age of 72, one of his admirers said he was actually 288 because he led four separate lives: as a conductor, a composer, a pianist, and a teacher. No other American musician has ever had such a diverse career. A sickly boy, Bernstein discovered music when he was about 10 and pursued a musical career despite his father s objections. He became literally an overnight sensation when he was 25. With only a few...
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Julius Caesar is one of the most famous figures in ancient Rome. He was born into a turbulent era, when different factions were trying to control the government. He survived and began a steady rise in importance. He became a very successful military commander who added more than 200,000 square miles to the territories under Rome s control. But his triumphs created powerful enemies in Rome. They wanted to strip him of his power. He defeated those enemies...
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Ferdinand Magellan made one of the most famous ocean voyages of all time. He left Spain in 1519 with five ships. He was trying to find a quicker route to the Spice Islands in the Pacific Ocean. Along the way, he encountered many problems. Many of his men turned against him. He ran into heavy storms. Food and fresh water were often in short supply. But he kept going-until he was killed in battle. A year later, one of his ships returned to Spain. It...
19) Abigail Adams
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Abigail Adams was the equal of her husband, President John Adams, in many ways. She had strong views about women's rights and slavery, and she let him know exactly how she felt. Her strength and wisdom left a lasting mark on the fledgling U.S.
20) Bubonic Plague
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In the middle of the fourteenth century, a terrible and mysterious plague swept across Europe and Asia. One in every three Europeans died during the five years that it terrified the continent. People tried all sorts of ways to avoid catching the Black Death. They carried flowers, burned incense, fired cannons, and rang church bells. They nailed whole families in their homes to try to keep the disease from spreading. Nothing seemed to help. The death...