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125 lives ready to enter

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Now exploring: Names beginning with E (9 lives)× Clear

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Ways of life

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Elizabeth I

Elizabeth I

1603 · Whitehall

In her final winter, a queen who gave everything to England asks whether the throne was worth what it destroyed.

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Elizabeth Fry

Elizabeth Fry

1844 · Ramsgate

At Ramsgate, where the sea presses against the walls, a prison reformer writes what the committees and charities never saw.

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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.

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Empress Josephine

Empress Josephine

1814 · Malmaison

At Malmaison, with Europe rearranging itself, an empress who was discarded sets down what Napoleon never acknowledged.

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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.

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Emmeline Pankhurst

Emmeline Pankhurst

1928 · London

The woman who led the suffragette movement writes what polite history will refuse to include about the fight for the vote.

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Ernest Shackleton

Ernest Shackleton

1921 · London

In London, with the weight of another departure pressing, the explorer whose greatest achievement was bringing every man home alive prepares for one last voyage.

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Edgar Degas

Edgar Degas

1917 · Paris

I am eighty-three years old, and if the matter is to be stated without the sentimental falsity with which old age is usually surrounded by those who do not yet suffer it, I am blind enough for the practical arts to ha...

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Elvis Presley

Elvis Presley

1977 · Graceland

In the upstairs office at Graceland with the curtains drawn against the Memphis heat and Lisa Marie somewhere down in the house, I am setting my own account down on a yellow legal pad in the days before the tour opens...

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Time travel

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The whole archive

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