Born on the banks of the Yellowstone River, Sitting Bull, as he was later called, was tribal chief and holy man of the Lakota Sioux tribe in a time of fierce conflict with the United States. As the government seized Native American lands, Sitting Bull relied on his military cunning and strong spirituality to drive forces out of his territory and ensure a future homeland for his people.

    Born in rural Jamaica, this musician and songwriter began his career with his band, The Wailing Wailers, in 1963. The Wailers went on to spread the gospel of reggae music around the globe. Bob's distinctive style and dedication to his Rastafari beliefs became a rallying cry for the poor and disenfranchised the world over and led to a hugely successful solo career. After his death in 1981, Bob Marley became a symbol of Jamaican culture and identity. His greatest-hits album, Legend, remains the best-selling reggae album of all time. Who Was Bob Marley? tells the story of how a man with humble roots became an international icon.This title in the New York Times best-selling series contains eighty illustrations that help bring the story to life.

    Who Was Charles Dickens?A young boy who worked in a shoe-polish factory?A world-famous speaker who travelled the globe?The greatest writer of the Victorian era?All of the above? - Yes!Find out more about the real Charles Dickens in this fun and exciting illustrated biography!

    Her early interests included natural history and archaeology, and Potter delighted in sketching fossils and fungi. After briefly illustrating Christmas cards with her brother, Bertram, Potter wrote and illustrated her well-known book, The Tale of Peter Rabbit. The book was rejected by several publishes until Frederick Warne eventually took a risk and published the story in 1902 - a risk that paid off. Peter Rabbit was a huge success and readers loved hearing about Peter's mischevious adventures in the lush English countryside. As she got older, Beatrix Potter became a proud conservationist, working hard to defend the landscape she loved so well against industrialization and logging. Now over one hundred years old, Peter Rabbit and his animal friends have become cultural touchstones and continue to delight readers of all ages.

    She discovered her love of French food while stationed in Paris and enrolled in Le Cordon Bleu cooking school after her service. Child knew that Americans would love French food as much as she did, so she wrote Mastering the Art of French Cooking in 1961. The book was a success and the public wanted more. America fell in love with Julia Child. Her TV show, The French Chef, premiered in 1963 and brought the bubbling and lovable chef into millions of homes. Find out more about this beloved chef, author, and TV personality in Who Was Julia Child?

    Born in Boston in 1809, Poe was orphaned at age two. He was soon adopted by a Virginia family who worked as tombstone merchants. In 1827 he enlisted in the Army and subsequently failed out of West Point. His first published story, The Raven, was a huge success, but his joy was overshadowed by the death of his wife. Poe devoted his life to writing and his tragic life often inspired his work. He is considered to be the inventor of detective fiction and the father of American mystery writers. His work continues to influence popular culture through films, music, literature, and television.

    In the past five decades, Dylan's work has influenced everyone from John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen, and David Bowie to rapper Eminem. Young music lovers will be fascinated by this great artist's life!

    For a long time, the main role of First Ladies was to act as hostesses of the White House...until Eleanor Roosevelt.  Born in 1884, Eleanor was not satisfied to just be a glorified hostess for her husband, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  Eleanor had a voice, and she used it to speak up against poverty and racism.  She had experience and knowledge of many issues, and fought for laws to help the less fortunate.  She had passion, energy, and a way of speaking that made people listen, and she used these gifts to campaign for her husband and get him elected president-four times!  A fascinating historical figure in her own right, Eleanor Roosevelt changed the role of First Lady forever.

    He rose in the ranks to First Lord of the Admiralty and was a staunch opponent of the encroaching German Nazis. Churchill served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. Widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the 20th century, Churchill was also a historian, a writer, and an artist. He is the only British Prime Minister to have won the Nobel Prize in Literature, and was the first person to be made an honorary citizen of the United States.

    Elected four times, he spent thirteen years in the White House. How he led the country through tremendously difficult problems, much like the ones facing America today, makes for a timely and engrossing biography.

    Find out more about The Bull Moose, the Progressive, the Rough Rider, the Trust Buster, and the Great Hunter who was our larger-than-life 26th president in Who Was Theodore Roosevelt?

    But the life of Jesse Owens is much more than a sports story. Born in rural Alabama under the oppressive Jim Crow laws, Owens's family suffered many hardships. As a boy he worked several jobs like delivering groceries and working in a shoe repair shop to make ends meet. But Owens defied the odds to become a sensational student athlete, eventually running track for Ohio State. He was chosen to compete in the Summer Olympics in Nazi Germany where Adolf Hitler was promoting the idea of “Aryan superiority.”  Owens’s winning streak at the games humiliated Hitler and crushed the myth of racial supremacy once and for all.

    The family performed at fairs, weddings, quinceañeras, and on street corners in their native Texas. Selena learned how to sing in Spanish and soon became hugely popular within the Latino community--so much so that she became the best-selling Latin artist of the 1990s. Selena was poised to be a great success, but her life was cut short after being fatally wounded by the president of her fan club. Selena's contributions to music and fashion during her life made her one of the top Latin musicians in the 1990s, and readers will want to know more about the woman who introduced the world to Tejano music.

    She then set her sights on becoming a pop music artist and used her powerful voice and impressive skills on the piano to get a record deal. Aretha released her first of many celebrated albums at the age of 18. In 1987, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, making her the first female artist to grace the prestigious list. With iconic hits such as "Respect" and "Think," and countless awards to her name including eighteen Grammys, Aretha Franklin was one of the bestselling artists of all time.

    It was a teacher at the Colored Waifs? Home who gave him a cornet, promoted him to band leader, and saw talent in the tough kid from the even tougher New Orleans neighborhood called Storyville. But it was Louis Armstrong?s own passion and genius that pushed jazz into new and exciting realms with his amazing, improvisational trumpet playing. His seventy-year life spanned a critical time in American music as well as black history.