The Wangari Maathai Biography: She Planted 51 Million Trees, and They Beat Her Unconscious for It. Wangari Maathai was the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate. She started planting trees in 1977 with rural Kenyan women. The government called her subversive, evicted her with 24 hours notice, beat her unconscious, … Read more
The Mohamed Bouazizi Biography: A Man Who Wanted a Van. Mohamed Bouazizi earned $73 a week selling fruit in Sidi Bouzid. His aspiration was to own a van to grow his business. History turned him into the spark of the Arab Spring, the symbol of a generation’s rage, the face of revolution. His family say … Read more
The Claudette Colvin Biography: The Movement Decided She Was Not Good Enough, History Almost Agreed Claudette Colvin refused to give up her bus seat in Montgomery nine months before Rosa Parks. She was fifteen, pregnant, dark-skinned, and poor. The civil rights movement decided she was not the right face for their cause. She spent 35 … Read more
The Dora Maar Biography: She Was Not Picasso’s Muse, Picasso Was Her Subject. Dora Maar was a pioneering Surrealist photographer with a studio, a political movement, and an iconic career before she ever met Pablo Picasso. He painted her as a weeping woman. She said every portrait of her was a lie. She outlived him … Read more
The Solomon Tsehaye Beraki Biography: The Wounded Fighter Who Wrote A Country Soul in the Mountains Solomon Tsehaye Beraki won a scholarship at twelve, boycotted a military dictatorship’s student programme, joined a guerrilla army at twenty, was wounded in combat, became a barefoot doctor, started writing plays and poetry in a war zone in 1979, … Read more
Jim Abbott Biography The Jim Abbott Biography: He Threw a No-Hitter in Baseball Jim Abbott was born without a right hand, bounced a rubber ball off a brick wall for hours to teach himself to pitch and catch with the same hand, won Olympic gold, became the first baseball player to win the Sullivan Award, … Read more
The Rosalind Franklin Biography: An Equal Who Never Got Deserved Equal Credit. Rosalind Franklin took Photo 51 — the most important scientific photograph ever taken. She identified DNA’s two forms. She was the first to establish the phosphate backbone was on the outside. History called her a tragic victim. Recent scholarship says she was an … Read more
The Surya Bonaly Biography The Surya Bonaly Biography: She Did the Backflip First. Surya Bonaly was the first person to land a backflip on one blade at the Olympics in 1998. She was penalised, finished 10th, and called “too athletic” for a sport that rewarded delicacy over power. In February 2026, Ilia Malinin did the … Read more
The Chico Mendes Biography: The Man Who Used Literacy to Save the Amazon. Chico Mendes began tapping rubber at nine years old and could not read until a communist exile hiding in the rainforest taught him at seventeen. He used that literacy to read newspapers, understand injustice, organise workers, invent a new form of conservation, … Read more
The Granville Woods Biography: The Man Who Beat Thomas Edison in Court Twice, Granville Woods left school at ten, taught himself electrical engineering from library books his friends checked out because Black people were excluded, invented the system that made railway communication possible, defeated Thomas Edison’s patent lawsuit twice, turned down Edison’s job offer, and … Read more