Q-90.1's Lifelines With John Augustine

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.

Lady Constance Lytton was a British aristocrat and suffragette who shed her noble trappings to go on a hunger strike for women's right to vote.

Only one Native American chief won a negotiation with the U.S. government: the Apache leader, Cochise.

How many great novels should a writer be expected to produce to qualify as a great novelist? Thomas Hardy wrote a half-dozen acknowledged classics still read for pleasure and taught in universities though he has been dead for 100 years.

Early in the twentieth century, Albert Barnes created a fiefdom in suburban Philadelphia that embraced his grand house, his art museum, his school for fine arts appreciation, and his ego.

Born into slavery when it was still legal in New York, Sojourner Truth was a powerful orator on faith, women's rights, and the abolition of slavery.

Early sailors could navigate by latitude to sail east and west, but sailing north or south was much more difficult until John Harrison solved the longitude problem.

Twelve generals have been U.S. president. Among them are George Washington, Ulysses S. Grant, and today's subject, Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Many people contributed to the idea of a computer being a machine rather than an occupation, but the biggest leap forward came from Alan Turing.

Authors who spread the Protestant Reformation risked censorship, imprisonment, or even death, including Michael Servetus, who was burned alive along with most copies of his book.

In the late 1950s, white author John Howard Griffin disguised himself as a Black man to experience the state of race relations in the segregated South from the other side.

While Kosciuszko's family was part of Poland's upper 10%, this military leader's sympathies were for the disenfranchised.

Machu Picchu was built mere decades before the Spanish invasion of South America, yet almost no one knew about it until the ruins were discovered in 1911 by Hiram Bingham.

Return with us now to a time when bright and ambitious students studied vocabulary lists to enhance their erudition and learn about a man responsible for bringing many of these words into the English language.

There is a select group of people who have become prominent in history because of one brief moment in their lives. For abolitionist Congressman Charles Sumner, that moment was being assaulted with a cane by a furious Southern senator.

King Edward of England's brutal execution of William Wallace was meant to intimidate the Scots, but instead it inflamed them and a new leader arose: Robert the Bruce.

John Hay would serve every Republican administration from Abraham Lincoln to Teddy Roosevelt even though he was never elected to office himself.