Probably driven to distraction by this thread, I visited an Op Shop, and found a Readers Digest book called "Great Lives Great Deeds".
It's around 600 pages and covers about 70 of the world's most amazing people from Sir Charles Kingsford Smith to Voltaire to Socrates to Leonardo Da Vinci to Strauss to Ferdinand Magellan etc.
Each person gets a very short biography, and two of the most outstanding are on Winston Churchill, where we see previously untold information and Napoleon Bonapart whose major activities came AFTER he escaped from prison.
Sir Isaac Newton is also featured. The most we ever seemed to be taught about him were Newtons Laws.
"Principia", written in Latin, was his most stunning work, and the book says that "for two centuries it was the major guide to the world's scientific thought"
Then there is this little gem of information from such a brilliant brain:
"He showed how to determine the mass of the Sun and the planets. He proved that the gravitational force of the moon and the sun causes tides in the oceans of the earth, that sping tides occur when moon and sun are pulling together, neap tides when the forces are opposed. Such a wonderful uniformity as he found in the planetary system must, Newton said, 'be allowed the effect of choice' by a Supreme Creator.