Anthony of Egypt withdrew into the desert around 270 AD, inspiring a movement of Christian monasticism that spread across the Mediterranean world. Athanasius of Alexandria's biography of Anthony, written shortly after his death, became one of the most influential texts of late antiquity, shaping ideas of sainthood, temptation, and solitary devotion for over a millennium.

Josiah Franklin's tallow-shop candle-maker son would grow up to become one of the eighteenth century's most versatile minds: printer, scientist, diplomat, and founding father. Franklin's Boston childhood, cut short when he was apprenticed to his brother's print shop at age twelve, shaped the self-taught curiosity that later defined his scientific experiments and political career.

Franklin's Boston upbringing, cut short by financial necessity, sent him into a printing apprenticeship under his brother James that opened the world of books to him. He rose from runaway apprentice to Philadelphia's leading printer, then to internationally famous scientist and diplomat, becoming one of the few Founding Fathers to sign both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Born to Francis Nixon, a citrus farmer and grocer, and his devout Quaker wife Hannah, Richard Milhous Nixon grew up amid hardship, losing two brothers to tuberculosis. He would go on to become the 37th President of the United States, whose career spanned Cold War diplomacy, the opening of China, and the Watergate scandal that forced his resignation in 1974.