Rebels and Reformers: Biographies for Young People

When his floor was dirty, he merely set all his furniture out of doors on the grass, dashed water on the floor of his hut and sprinkled it with white sand, and then with a broom...

Now began what has been called “the martyr age” in America, and the most active period of Garrison’s life. He and his followers held meetings night and day, and mobs of rough an...

Yet there was nothing grossly luxurious or selfish about the life led by the Tolstoy family: according to most aristocratic ideas of luxury their life was simple. Nothing could...

Tycho was born in 1546 and was the eldest of ten children. His father, Otto Brahe, was lord of Knudstrup in Scaane, which now forms part of Sweden. At an early age he was adopte...

His aunt used to welcome all sorts of pilgrims to Yasnaya, beggars and monks and nuns, people despised by the rest of the world, so that Leo was brought up in a strange, almost...

The adventurous, free life he led in Copenhagen, though he had been hungry and cold, had been much more to his liking. In the story of his life he writes about this period with...

On this occasion of giving up his crown he stood before the people of the Netherlands, in the great hall of his palace at Brussels, clothed in black Imperial robes, with a pale...

His next production was _The Henriade_, an epic poem on Henry of Navarre. The chief event in it was the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and this gave him an opportunity of expressi...

After the fall of Napoleon in 1815 there was a determination among the sovereigns of Europe to strengthen their position and prevent any progressive movements which might lead t...

The Holy Office, as it was first called, was instituted early in the thirteenth century. Its practical founder was a Spanish monk, Domenigo de Guzman, who afterwards was known a...

Grotius, who had now gained an international reputation, was given various high appointments, such as Public Historiographer, Attorney-General for the province of Holland, and c...

A campaign in Africa followed and Tunis was captured, soon, however, to be recaptured by the Turks, whose power remained unbroken. These expeditions occupied nearly four years,...

But all these entertainments were too much for the old man. He grew more feeble and ill, and died at last on May 30, 1778, at the age of eighty-three. Shortly before his death V...

The Medici had fallen for the moment, Charles VIII had withdrawn, Florence was now free. It was not to the Medici family, to their magistrates, or to their nobles that the peopl...

But, anyhow, we know now that a man’s deeds and his loyalty to his own convictions are far more important than any declaration he may make of his beliefs, especially when such a...

For the remainder of his days he lived at Pisa. Daily, people saw the white-haired stranger taking his walks and stopping frequently to talk to children: and here he died in Mar...

In 1573 Orange became a Calvinist, so as to identify himself more completely with the cause he had at heart. But he was not a bigoted Calvinist any more than he had been a devot...

This book is intended for young people who are beginning to take an interest in historical subjects, and it may also be acceptable to those who are too busy with their daily wor...

Every one who came near him seemed to feel it, and most of those who read his books. It is true that there still exists a certain number of people who recognize him only as a no...