Alexis de Tocqueville was born in France 62 years after Thomas Jefferson, but the parallels between them are remarkable.

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Herodotus of Athens was the first significant historian. This idea was so new that he didn't even call his stories of the wars between the Ancient Persians and Greeks "history."

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It's remarkable to realize that Gershwin, the favorite American modernist composer, was born when many Civil War veterans were still alive.

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There is a mystery around the death of Edgar Allen Poe and John Walsh is convinced he has solved the case.

In 1903, on a $50 bet, Horatio Nelson Jackson set out on the first journey by car from San Francisco to New York.

The most famous English diarist, Samuel Pepys, lived in the 1600s and the phrase "may you live in interesting times" certainly applies.

If there's a 20th century world champion subject for biography, it would have to be Winston Churchill. Fortunately, a small door has been opened by Gretchen Rubin and her book, "40 Ways to Look at Winston Churchill."

For 2000 years, the great scientific authority in the West was Aristotle. But by the time the Pilgrims were landing at Plymouth Rock, a new age of science was in bud, and Newton would be an example of the new scientist.

Today's book combines two autobiographical pieces: one a travelogue of Europe and an account of the first World's Fair, the other an account of growing up in and escaping from slavery.

One of the great collaborators on the Great American Songbook was lyricist Yip Harbug.