Geoff Benge

Buoyant and determined, and having at last won the support of the king and queen of Spain, Christopher Columbus sailed west from Europe with three ships, confident he would reach the Indies by this new route and find the gold-laden civilization to the great Khan....

Born in Denison, Texas, Dwight David Eisenhower grew up poor in Abilene, Kansas. After graduating from the US Military Academy at West Point, Ike entered army service, commanding tank training in WWI and afterward, serving in Central America, Europe, and the Philippines....

Growing up in a small town in England, William Bradford lived during a time of upheaval and opportunity. Together with a group of Separatists, William escaped England to establish a new life in Holland and finally set out on the Mayflower on a perilous voyage across the Atlantic Ocean....

As an Olympic runner, a bombardier in the Army Air Corps, and a prisoner of war, Louis Zamperini was determined to thrive and survive. Never backing down from a challenge, he lived a life of adventure while modeling hope and forgiveness to a generation....

Escaping from slavery, Frederick Douglass became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in America, the greatest orator of his day, an influential newspaper publisher, writer, and statesman, and the most important African American of the nineteenth century....

While studying to be a minister, John Flynn longed to apply his training to help people in practical ways. Soon he discovered that his mission field was inside his own country: the vast and dangerous outback, or Never Never, where life-and-death struggles were a constant reality....

Thrown overboard, enslaved by the Turks, captured by pirates, rescued by a princess-the story of Englishman John Smith (1580-1631) would seem unbelievable were it fiction....

Alan Shepard's boyhood fascination with flight led him from constructing model airplanes in his grandfather's basement to attaining national hero status in the race to space....

Billy boarded the train to Minneapolis. He had come to Los Angeles months before as a small-time preacher. Now he was leaving as one of the most recognized Christians in the country. It was not what Billy had sought; he'd just been open for God to use....

Meriwether Lewis had been commissioned by President Jefferson to lead a daring expedition so remarkable it would become one of the most famous explorations in history. He chose as his co-captain William Clark....

Abe Lincoln had never set his sights on becoming president; after all, he'd grown up in a log cabin on the frontier and had hardly any formal schooling....

Richard Wurmbrand, founder of Voice of the Martyrs, was once a young atheist determined to experience everything the world had to offer. Yet he regretted that God did not exist, wishing that a heart of love beat somewhere in the universe....

Determined to make a difference and with an insatiable curiosity, love of adventure, and hunger for justice, Theodore Roosevelt exemplified a life directed by principles and not by circumstance.

When Charles Mulli was a child, his family repeatedly abandoned him, and he lived in fear of his abusive, alcoholic father. With an extraordinary will, the young Kenyan struggled to feed and educate himself and, encountering hope in the gospel, found a reason to live and to forgive....

George Muller stared at the beggar girl. She was no older than five and was piggybacking her little brother. Her mother had died in the cholera epidemic sweeping England. Her father had never returned from the mines....

Horrified by the poverty and suffering most people took for granted in industrial England, William Booth dedicated his life to bringing the gospel to the outcasts of society who would never enter a church and weren't welcome there....

As a poor Canadian farm boy, Jonathan Goforth had no idea that he would spend most of his life braving disaster, danger, and disease to share God's love with the people of China....

While many missionaries died within months, this fiery mill worker from Scotland labored in love among the unreached tribes of Africa's Calabar region for thirty-nine years (1848-1915)....

The spiritual needs of the Muslim world, long neglected by Christian missionaries, came to the world's attention again when Samuel Zwemer dedicated himself to the advancement of the gospel in Arabia....

With only three months of formal education, Thomas Edison grew up to be one of the most successful inventors of all time. Applying scientific principles to practical use, he made scores of inventions and held over thirteen hundred patents....