Legends and Legendary People Story Briefs

Meet some of the world's most-colorful characters in this collection. From Roman times to the Spanish Main, these individuals were famous in their own lifetimes and later, when their stories became the "stuff of legends."

Aaron Burr became America's third Vice President in 1800. He has an interesting history, but not all of it is pleasant!

Guido Reni created a painting—The Abduction of Helen—in 1631. There is more to this painting than meets the eye of today’s beholders.

After trying, for nearly two decades, to abolish the slave trade, William Wilberforce finally convinces Parliament to do the right thing on February 2...

Featured in "The Imitation Game," where he is portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch, Alan Turing remains one of the towering geniuses of the 20th Century....

Eyewitnesses saw a plane land at Mili Atoll, in the Marshall Islands, during July of 1937. The country issued postage stamps, in 1987, depicting four ...

Near the end of the 19th century, America's cowboys were becoming the subjects of stories in the national media.

This image depicts an artist’s rendering of an Anglo-Saxon warrior called a “Thegn.”Who was a thegn?  What role did such men pl...

Gene Kranz was a key player, among other NASA employees, who helped Apollo 13's flight crew safely return to Earth after a life-threatening situation ...

Even during Roman times, sculptors prized the white marble from Carrara's quarries.

On the 22nd of August, 1924, Clarence Darrow speaks from the heart as he tries to save Leopold and Loeb from a death-sentence.

Bass Reeves was one of 200 Deputy U.S. Marshals appointed to help Judge Isaac C. Parker.

Although beautiful, this famous painting inaccurately depicts how the sea met the land at the time of the famous battle at Thermopylae.

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