Annette Kellerman, the first woman to wear a one-piece swimsuit
“My early physical misfortune has turned out to be the greatest blessing that could have come to me. Without it I should have missed all the grim struggle upwar...
Category: snapshot biographies
Our collection of historical short story biographies about people who have worked to help others and bring social change.
The legend that was Mary Fields
She drank whiskey, swore often, and smoked handmade cigars. She wore pants under her skirt and a gun under her apron. At six feet tall and two hundred pounds, M...
WWII hero Nancy Wake
In look, Nancy Wake was glamorous; in personality, she was a fearless fighter. Rebellious in her way of being, she was born in New Zealand, but by 1940, had liv...
Janusz Korczak and his children
“He told the orphans they were going out into the country, so they ought to be cheerful. At last they would be able to exchange the horrible suffocating c...
Hazel Lee, WASP pilot during WWII
Hazel Lee loved to swim, and play handball, and play cards, and cook. And she loved to fly planes. About flying, her sister described the love of aviation for H...
A mini biography of Eleanor Roosevelt
“Do what you feel in your heart to be right — for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be ‘damned if you do, and damned if you don’...
WWII hero Hannah Szenes
Hannah Szenes once wrote, “There are stars whose radiance is visible on Earth though they have long been extinct. There are people whose brilliance continues to...
Joyce Bryant sings for first time on a dare
She was a teenager visiting cousins in Los Angeles. They went to a local club where an impromptu singalong began. On a dare she got up on stage to sing. Soon sh...
Jim Thorpe wins gold at 1912 Olympics
It’s the 1912 summer Olympics in Stockholm. Jim Thorpe, a Native American from Oklahoma, represents the U.S. in four track and field events, the most important ...