Saint Patrick | The Slave Who Escaped Ireland and Then Went Back
His name was Maewyn Succat. He was born around 385 in Roman Britain. His father was a deacon. His grandfather was a priest. He was not raised with strong religious feeling. At sixteen he was kidnapped...
19 Aug 13min
Simone Weil | The Philosopher Who Worked in a Factory, Fought in a War, and Died of Solidarity
Her name was Simone Adolphine Weil. She was born on the third of February 1909 in Paris to a Jewish family. She entered the École Normale Supérieure at nineteen, one of the most elite institutions in ...
17 Aug 13min
Tupac Amaru Shakur | The Son of the Movement Who Contained Multitudes and Was Never Finished
His birth name was Lesane Parish Crooks. His mother changed it to Tupac Amaru Shakur when he was one year old. Tupac Amaru was a Peruvian revolutionary executed by the Spanish. She said: I wanted him ...
15 Aug 12min
Saint Bernadette of Lourdes | The Girl Nobody Believed Who Changed a Town and Never Went Back
Her full birth name was Marie-Bernarde Soubirous. Everyone called her Bernadette. She was born on the seventh of January 1844 in Lourdes, a small town at the foot of the French Pyrenees. Her family wa...
12 Aug 14min
Athanasius of Alexandria | The Man Who Stood Alone Against the World and Saved a Religion
His name was Athanasius. He was born around 293 in Alexandria, the greatest intellectual city of the ancient world. He became Bishop of Alexandria at approximately thirty five years old. He was exiled...
12 Aug 15min
Mozart | The Child Who Performed for Emperors and Died Writing His Own Requiem
His full baptismal name was Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart. He preferred Wolfgang Amadé. He was born on the twenty seventh of January 1756 in Salzburg. He composed his first piece a...
10 Aug 15min
Oskar Schindler | The War Profiteer Who Spent His Fortune Saving the People He Had Come to Exploit
His name was Oskar Schindler. He was born on the twenty eighth of April 1908 in Moravia, now the Czech Republic. He was a greedy opportunist, a German spy, a member of the Nazi Party, a serial adulter...
8 Aug 13min
Saint Cecilia | The Patron of Music Who Never Played an Instrument and What Her Story Actually Says
Her name was Cecilia. She was a Roman noblewoman of the third century. She is the patron saint of music and musicians. The tradition says she sang in her heart to God at her wedding while the musician...
6 Aug 14min
