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Second World War
Franklin D. Roosevelt
1882–1945
US president who led the New Deal and the United States through most of the Second World War.
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Lives that changed the world.
Read sourced biographies, follow the decisive moments and connect each life to the events, ideas and debates around it.
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Nazi Germany
Adolf Hitler
1889–1945
Nazi dictator whose regime launched a war of conquest and carried out the Holocaust.
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Russian History
Joseph Stalin
1878–1953
Soviet dictator who oversaw forced industrialisation, mass repression and wartime victory over Nazi Germany.
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Victorian Britain
Queen Victoria
1819–1901
British monarch whose long reign coincided with industrialisation, political reform and imperial expansion.
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British History
Henry VIII
1491–1547
Tudor king whose break with Rome transformed English religion and government.
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American History
Abraham Lincoln
1809–1865
US president during the Civil War who issued the Emancipation Proclamation.
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English Civil War
Oliver Cromwell
1599–1658
Parliamentarian commander and Lord Protector after the execution of Charles I.
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Ancient Greece
Alexander the Great
356–323 BC
Macedonian king whose conquests destroyed the Persian Empire and created a Hellenistic world.
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Science and Technology
Isaac Newton
1643–1727
Mathematician and natural philosopher whose work reshaped physics and astronomy.
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Russian Revolution
Vladimir Lenin
1870–1924
Bolshevik leader of the October Revolution and founding head of Soviet government.
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Science and Technology
Charles Darwin
1809–1882
Naturalist who developed the theory of evolution by natural selection.
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Second World War
Charles de Gaulle
1890–1970
Leader of Free France and later founder-president of the Fifth Republic.
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American History
George Washington
1732–1799
Commander of the Continental Army and first president of the United States.
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British History
Clement Attlee
1883–1967
Labour prime minister whose government created the NHS and expanded the welfare state.
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German Empire
Otto von Bismarck
1815–1898
Prussian statesman who engineered German unification and served as the empire's first chancellor.
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Royal History
Elizabeth II
1926–2022
Britain's longest-reigning monarch, whose reign spanned decolonisation and profound social change.
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Science and Technology
Alan Turing
1912–1954
Mathematician whose work shaped computing, codebreaking and artificial intelligence.
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Ancient Greece
Cleopatra VII
69–30 BC
Last active ruler of Ptolemaic Egypt, who navigated Roman civil wars.
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Science and Technology
Albert Einstein
1879–1955
Theoretical physicist whose work transformed modern understanding of space, time and gravity.
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Second World War
George VI
1895–1952
British king during the Second World War and the first phase of post-war decolonisation.
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Cold War
Mikhail Gorbachev
1931–2022
Last Soviet leader, associated with perestroika, glasnost and the end of the Cold War.
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History of Medicine
Florence Nightingale
1820–1910
Nursing reformer and statistician who campaigned for hospital and public-health reform.
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Women's History
Emmeline Pankhurst
1858–1928
British suffrage leader and co-founder of the Women's Social and Political Union.
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Second World War
Neville Chamberlain
1869–1940
British prime minister associated with appeasement and the declaration of war on Germany in 1939.
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