Alan Turing had a radical and ingenious mind. He is considered one of the fathers of artificial intelligence, and his theories on this matter range from purely mechanical to almost spiritual. During World War II, his decryption of the Nazis’ Enigma codes proved vital for the Allied victory over the Axis powers. Turing’s fingerprints are everywhere, and yet his own country for quite some time failed to acknowledge it.

World War I, or the Great War, was believed to be "the war to end all wars". Because of the incredible extent of destruction and the staggering number of wounded and dead, even those who lived through it could scarcely comprehend its horror. Beginning in 1914, alliances between powerful nations soon plunged the world into a global conflict. Fighting - including miserable trench warfare - broke out in practically every corner of Europe and spread around the world to Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

While names like Nero, Caligula, Hadrian, and Constantine grab all the attention with their exploits, Marcus Aurelius tends to sit more in the historical background of the Roman Empire. In many ways, he is a lesser known emperor even though his written works have stood the test of time. Marcus, a prolific writer and formidable scholar, was perhaps the first to fulfill Plato’s dream of the philosopher king.

Dean Martin was a natural entertainer, known not only for his singing ability but also for his great showmanship on the stage. With Martin, it wasn’t just about the song—it was about the whole package. With songs such as “That’s Amore” and movies like Rio Bravo, he took the world by storm. Later, Dean Martin, along with other famous entertainers such as Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr., forged the ultimate group of performers: The Rat Pack. No one could keep Dean Martin’s spirit down for long. This is his life—this is his story.

On a battlefield so littered with dead bodies that General Ulysses S. Grant said it would have been possible to walk across it in any direction without a foot touching the ground, the Union Army notched a brutal but significant victory against the Confederate Army. The two-day battle, with the highest number of casualties recorded in the fighting up to that time, dashed the hopes of a short war. Still, few could have grasped that this battle was only the beginning of a national campaign of slaughter that would see so many Yankee and Rebel deaths.

Robert Oppenheimer had a lot resting on his shoulders. During the Second World War, he was tasked with directing the development of the world’s first nuclear arsenal. Known as the Manhattan Project, this super-secretive wartime project had the stoic visage of Oppenheimer overseeing the greatest experiment ever conducted by humankind. Much had happened in Oppenheimer’s life to lead him to this point, and much would subsequently take place after, but this moment was indeed the pinnacle of his career and his life.

Audie Murphy was a movie star, writer, and one of the most decorated soldiers who ever lived. He was barely 18 years old when he was shipped off to fight Fascists in Italy during World War II. As he himself would later liken it, he went “to hell and back” and lived to tell the tale. In this book, we will dive deeper to bring you the man behind the medals. Here is a telling of the life and legend of Audie Murphy in full.

Auschwitz is a monument to the barbaric inhumanity of the Nazi regime. It is the site where more than one million people were systematically tortured and killed in support of Adolf Hitler’s determination to eradicate entire populations that he viewed as racially impure.

D-Day, June 6, is one of the most significant dates in the calendar. The 20th century's fate hung in the balance as Nazi Germany had marched across Europe, bringing the blitzkrieg, the Holocaust, and the mad dreams of Adolf Hitler across the bloodied landscape of Europe. In order for the Nazis to be stopped, the Allies had to invade occupied Europe. And invade they did, launching the most massive amphibious landing the world had ever seen.

The Sumerians settled in the area known as Mesopotamia, between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, around 5,000 years ago. They produced many fundamental changes to the way in which human societies developed - these were the first city-builders, the first people to use wheeled vehicles, the first methodical astronomers, and the first people to develop a sophisticated written language. The Sumerians also produced art, music, and literature as well as created some of the first professional soldiers the world had ever seen.

The first female Doctor of the Church, Teresa of Ávila, was a visionary who took matters of reform into her own hands. Even when the church authorities came against her, she stood her ground and held fast to her convictions. In so doing, she managed to persuade the Catholic powers to come around to her point of view. Teresa was not someone who took “no” for an answer; she charted her own course in life.

Rosalind Franklin was what can only be called an overlooked genius. Although she was not fully credited for the feat at the time, her work led to major breakthroughs in our understanding of DNA. In fact, she took the first X-ray photo of DNA in all of its double helix glory. By the time her former colleagues were being showered with accolades for results they made at least partially based on her findings, Franklin would not be around to see it. Sadly, it’s believed that her use of X-ray equipment gave her terminal cancer, cutting her life short at age 37.

The most notorious man in history, Adolf Hitler, is best known for having perpetrated crimes against humanity over the six-year course of World War II. His brutal extermination policies are responsible for the deaths of close to 30 million people he considered inferior, and added to that, the military casualties suffered by all parties, yields a grand total of approximately 60 million people dead by the end of the war. That number equates to 3% of the world's population at the time. But, who was this man? What made him into the monster he became? Can his childhood explain the formation of such a brutal dictator?

William Wallace; if ever there was a champion in the annals of Scottish history, he was it. Known as a proud Scot who rose through the ranks to challenge the English king, Wallace was a mere man who became larger than life - large enough even for the likes of Mel Gibson to play him in Braveheart for movie-going audiences on the silver screen. But who was William Wallace? What separates the real man from the myth?

Alexander the Great. A boy, groomed for greatness from the earliest age, who would put his stamp on the world for generations to come. A man who sought immortality and achieved it in just 10 years. A soldier whose genius for strategy and tactics is still studied in the modern world. A ruler who understood how to win the hearts and minds of his subjects. This is the story of a Titan of the ancient world, a man who rose but, though he died, never truly fell.