persistence
Kept going when the world said stop, and was usually right.
The Surgeon Who Wouldn't Give It Back
She was exchanged man-for-man for a Confederate major, and that wasn't even the strangest thing about her wedding.
Prizes Are For Boys
What does it take to invent modern estate planning, compose polytonal symphonies on weekends, and then leave a Pulitzer-winning piece in a drawer for thirty-six years?
The Farmer Who Did Not Know
He showed up in overalls and gumboots, removed his dentures, and asked if he could run.
The Wash-and-Be-Clean Man
What did Victorian surgeons do when one quiet Quaker suggested they stop wearing coats stiffened with old blood?
The Man Who Kept the Schedule
What do you find when you open a grave that belonged to a man who never stopped walking?
The Thrupenny Fix
What happens when the Air Ministry is years from a fix, pilots are dying in stalls, and a five-foot carburetor researcher has a home workshop and a motorcycle?
The Bucket List
A college dropout found him in four days with a bucket list.
The Man Who Could Not Swim
He crossed every ocean alone and considered learning to swim entirely pointless.
The Postman Who Built a Palace
He tripped on a stone in 1879 and spent the next thirty-three years building a palace out of the ones he found on the way home.
The Man Who Stabbed a Bible
A century before the Civil War, a four-foot-seven cave-dweller in a military coat walked into a Quaker meeting and sprayed fake blood on every slaveholder in the room.
The Woman Who Walked to Lhasa
At fifty-five, she disguised herself as a beggar pilgrim and walked into the most forbidden city on earth.
The Man Who Couldn't Stop Walking
He left home for a sixteen-month pilgrimage and came back twenty-four years later.