As a tomboy growing up in Kansas, Amelia Earhart delighted in trying new and risky things, once she even built a roller-coaster in her grandparent’s backyard. In her 20s she fell in love with flight while watching an aerobatics exhibition and grew even more enthralled when she took her first airplane ride. At age 24 she earned her pilot’s wings and in 1928 took part in the transatlantic "Friendship" flight. In 1937 she married publisher George
Between 1753, when he was commissioned as a major of Virginia militia, and 1775, when the second Continental Congress named him Commander-in-Chief of all colonial military forces, George Washington rose from anonymity as a minor landowner and surveyor to become America’s first national hero. With little military training he led the thirteen fledgling colonies through six years of grueling war against formidable British forces, steered the proceedings
In 1849, 11-year-old John Muir immigrated from Scotland to America. Here, he rose from farmer and sawmill worker to become a noted authority on the botany, glaciers, and forestry of the nation's wilderness. Best known for his long association with the Yosemite Valley and Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, Muir also explored, mostly afoot, the southern States, Alaska, the Great Basin, and the Mojave Desert. His studies of nature took him around...
Mary Edwards Walker (1832-1919) defied the conventions of her era. Born and raised on a farm in Oswego, New York, Walker became one of a handful of female physicians in the nation-and became a passionate believer in the rights of women.
Despite the derision of her contemporaries, Walker championed freedom of dress. She wore slacks--or "bloomers" as they were popularly known--rather than the corsets and voluminous ground-dragging petticoats and dresses...
