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270 illustrations
George Eliot's *Middlemarch*, published in 1871, follows Dorothea Brooke — a brilliant young woman who burns to do something meaningful with her life. She imagines...
In 1995, astronomer Robert Williams made a decision that many of his colleagues considered a waste of precious telescope time. He pointed the Hubble Space...
In 1847, Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmelweis made a discovery that should have revolutionized medicine overnight. Working in a Vienna maternity ward, he noticed that women...
In 1541, Michelangelo completed *The Last Judgment* on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel — one of the most ambitious paintings in human history....
In 1995, astronomer Robert Williams made a decision that many of his colleagues thought was foolish. As director of the Space Telescope Science Institute, he...
In 1997, ecologist Suzanne Simard published a groundbreaking discovery in the journal *Nature*. She found that the towering Douglas firs of British Columbia — trees...
In the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam hangs one of Rembrandt van Rijn's final paintings — *The Return of the Prodigal Son*, completed around 1669, the last...
In 2012, a team of researchers in South Africa's Echo Caves discovered something astonishing: the roots of a wild fig tree had penetrated over 400...
In 1995, astronomer Robert Williams made a decision that many of his colleagues thought was a waste of precious telescope time. He pointed the Hubble...
In an era of choreographed celebrations and end zone spectacles, Barry Sanders spent ten seasons with the Detroit Lions doing something radical every time he...
In 1995, astronomers pointed the Hubble Space Telescope at what appeared to be an utterly empty patch of sky — a tiny dark spot no...
In nineteen seasons with the San Antonio Spurs, Tim Duncan won five NBA championships, two league MVP awards, and earned fifteen All-Star selections. By every...
The English word "humility" comes from the Latin *humus* — earth, soil, ground. For centuries, that felt like a quaint metaphor. Then modern soil science...
Johann Sebastian Bach is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music. His works — from the Brandenburg Concertos...
In a single teaspoon of healthy soil, there are more microorganisms than there are people on the entire planet — roughly eight billion bacteria, fungi,...
In 1997, ecologist Suzanne Simard published a groundbreaking discovery in the journal Nature. She found that the tallest, most majestic trees in British Columbia's forests...
Johann Sebastian Bach composed over a thousand works — cantatas, fugues, concertos, and oratorios that still move audiences three centuries later. He is widely regarded...
In the autumn of 1741, George Frideric Handel locked himself in his London rooms and began composing one of the most celebrated works in Western...
In J.R.R. Tolkien's *The Return of the King*, there is a moment near the end that has moved readers for generations. Frodo Baggins, exhausted and...
Dr. Paul Brand, a British orthopedic surgeon who spent decades treating leprosy patients in Vellore, India, made a discovery that changed modern medicine. Leprosy, he...
In Dostoevsky's *The Brothers Karamazov*, there is a scene that has startled readers for over a century. Father Zosima, the most revered elder in the...
In Charles Dickens's *Great Expectations*, young Pip rises from humble beginnings to become a London gentleman. Along the way, he grows ashamed of Joe Gargery,...
Johann Sebastian Bach is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers in Western history. His works — from the *Brandenburg Concertos* to the *Mass...