Skip to content

The Library

125 lives ready to enter

Choose a historical life, follow a place, or move into another period. Search and browse remain close at hand, but the people come first.

Search by person, place, year, era, or theme when you already know where you want to begin.

Now exploring: Medieval (8 lives)× Clear

The next life

Lives to enter

Search directly when you know the name, or browse by people, place, and time without losing sight of the lives themselves.

8 lives in view

People

Search by name above, or move straight to an initial.

Time

Choose the period that draws you in.

Place

Move toward a part of the world before choosing a life.

Ways of life

Follow power, reform, witness, command, or court.

Charlemagne

Charlemagne

813 · Aachen

In Aachen, an emperor who built Europe from conquest confronts the bishops already softening his legacy into legend.

Enter the opening

Opening available now

Read the opening and continue through people, place and time from it.

Eleanor of Aquitaine

Eleanor of Aquitaine

1199 · Fontevraud Abbey

At Fontevraud Abbey, the most powerful woman of the medieval world confronts the wreckage left by her own sons.

Enter the opening

Opening available now

Read the opening and continue through people, place and time from it.

William the Conqueror

William the Conqueror

1087 · Rouen

In Rouen, while he still can speak, the man who conquered England sets down what the chroniclers were paid to omit.

Enter the opening

Opening available now

Read the opening and continue through people, place and time from it.

Richard I (Lionheart)

Richard I (Lionheart)

1199 · Chalus

Laid up near Châlus with a crossbow wound that will kill him, a crusader king dictates the truth about holy war.

Enter the opening

Opening available now

Read the opening and continue through people, place and time from it.

Edward I of England

Edward I of England

1307 · Burgh by Sands

Carried rather than riding toward the Scottish border, a king whose will outlasted his body reflects on what conquest requires.

Enter the opening

Opening available now

Read the opening and continue through people, place and time from it.

Saladin

Saladin

1193 · Damascus

In Damascus, as his body begins to fail, the sultan who retook Jerusalem sets down the private cost of holy war.

Enter the opening

Opening available now

Read the opening and continue through people, place and time from it.

Marco Polo

Marco Polo

1323 · Venice

In Venice, as his body thins, the traveller who connected East and West sets down what he saw that no one in Europe was prepared to believe.

Enter the opening

Opening available now

Read the opening and continue through people, place and time from it.

Ibn Battuta

Ibn Battuta

1355 · Fez

In Fez, with his travelling finished, the most widely journeyed man of the medieval world sets down what movement taught him that stillness never could.

Enter the opening

Opening available now

Read the opening and continue through people, place and time from it.

Time travel

Where you are

Medieval

Follow a period or preoccupation

Move through lives that belong to the same era, tension, or historical thread.

Through the Ancient World

13 private lives from the Ancient World, in the order they were lived.

  1. 1. 1458 BCE

    Hatshepsut

  2. 2. 1336 BCE

    Nefertiti

  3. 3. 1213 BCE

    Ramses II

  4. 4. 496 BCE

    Sun Tzu

  5. 5. 429 BCE

    Pericles

  6. 6. 323 BCE

    Alexander the Great

Through the Medieval

10 private lives from the Medieval, in the order they were lived.

  1. 1. 813 CE

    Charlemagne

  2. 2. 1087 CE

    William the Conqueror

  3. 3. 1193 CE

    Saladin

  4. 4. 1199 CE

    Eleanor of Aquitaine

  5. 5. 1199 CE

    Richard I (Lionheart)

  6. 6. 1307 CE

    Edward I of England

Through the Early Modern

25 private lives from the Early Modern, in the order they were lived.

  1. 1. 1519 CE

    Leonardo da Vinci

  2. 2. 1520 CE

    Raphael

  3. 3. 1521 CE

    Ferdinand Magellan

  4. 4. 1524 CE

    Vasco da Gama

  5. 5. 1526 CE

    Niccolò Machiavelli

  6. 6. 1528 CE

    Albrecht Dürer

Through the Revolutionary Age

16 private lives from the Revolutionary Age, in the order they were lived.

  1. 1. 1790 CE

    Benjamin Franklin

  2. 2. 1793 CE

    Marie Antoinette

  3. 3. 1794 CE

    Antoine Lavoisier

  4. 4. 1796 CE

    Catherine the Great

  5. 5. 1797 CE

    Mary Wollstonecraft

  6. 6. 1799 CE

    George Washington

Through the Industrial Age

26 private lives from the Industrial Age, in the order they were lived.

  1. 1. 1849 CE

    José de San Martín

  2. 2. 1852 CE

    Ada Lovelace

  3. 3. 1859 CE

    Isambard Kingdom Brunel

  4. 4. 1862 CE

    Michael Faraday

  5. 5. 1865 CE

    Abraham Lincoln

  6. 6. 1872 CE

    Napoleon III

Through the World Wars

22 private lives from the World Wars, in the order they were lived.

  1. 1. 1914 CE

    Booker T. Washington

  2. 2. 1917 CE

    Edgar Degas

  3. 3. 1919 CE

    Theodore Roosevelt

  4. 4. 1921 CE

    Alexander Graham Bell

  5. 5. 1921 CE

    Ernest Shackleton

  6. 6. 1922 CE

    Gustave Eiffel

Through the Postwar Modern

12 private lives from the Postwar Modern, in the order they were lived.

  1. 1. 1947 CE

    Orville Wright

  2. 2. 1953 CE

    Joseph Stalin

  3. 3. 1955 CE

    Winston Churchill

  4. 4. 1959 CE

    Mao Zedong

  5. 5. 1961 CE

    W.E.B. Du Bois

  6. 6. 1963 CE

    John F. Kennedy

State Power

47 lives shaped by state power, followed across the centuries.

  1. 1. 1458 BCE

    Hatshepsut

  2. 2. 1213 BCE

    Ramses II

  3. 3. 429 BCE

    Pericles

  4. 4. 323 BCE

    Alexander the Great

  5. 5. 44 BCE

    Julius Caesar

  6. 6. 43 BCE

    Cicero

War and Command

36 lives shaped by war and command, followed across the centuries.

  1. 1. 496 BCE

    Sun Tzu

  2. 2. 429 BCE

    Pericles

  3. 3. 323 BCE

    Alexander the Great

  4. 4. 184 BCE

    Scipio Africanus

  5. 5. 183 BCE

    Hannibal

  6. 6. 44 BCE

    Julius Caesar

Science and Discovery

30 lives shaped by science and discovery, followed across the centuries.

  1. 1. 1323 CE

    Marco Polo

  2. 2. 1355 CE

    Ibn Battuta

  3. 3. 1465 CE

    Johann Gutenberg

  4. 4. 1519 CE

    Leonardo da Vinci

  5. 5. 1528 CE

    Albrecht Dürer

  6. 6. 1630 CE

    Johannes Kepler

Exile and Decline

28 lives shaped by exile and decline, followed across the centuries.

  1. 1. 184 BCE

    Scipio Africanus

  2. 2. 1524 CE

    Vasco da Gama

  3. 3. 1526 CE

    Niccolò Machiavelli

  4. 4. 1669 CE

    Rembrandt

  5. 5. 1675 CE

    Johannes Vermeer

  6. 6. 1793 CE

    Marie Antoinette

Empire

25 lives shaped by empire, followed across the centuries.

  1. 1. 1458 BCE

    Hatshepsut

  2. 2. 1213 BCE

    Ramses II

  3. 3. 323 BCE

    Alexander the Great

  4. 4. 183 BCE

    Hannibal

  5. 5. 44 BCE

    Julius Caesar

  6. 6. 30 BCE

    Cleopatra

Monarchy and Court

20 lives shaped by monarchy and court, followed across the centuries.

  1. 1. 1458 BCE

    Hatshepsut

  2. 2. 1336 BCE

    Nefertiti

  3. 3. 1213 BCE

    Ramses II

  4. 4. 30 BCE

    Cleopatra

  5. 5. 1199 CE

    Eleanor of Aquitaine

  6. 6. 1536 CE

    Anne Boleyn