Q-90.1's Lifelines with John Augustine

Machu Picchu was built mere decades before the Spanish invasion of South America, yet almost no one knew about it until the ruins were discovered in 1911 by Hiram Bingham.

Return with us now to a time when bright and ambitious students studied vocabulary lists to enhance their erudition and learn about a man responsible for bringing many of these words into the English language.

There is a select group of people who have become prominent in history because of one brief moment in their lives. For abolitionist Congressman Charles Sumner, that moment was being assaulted with a cane by a furious Southern senator.

King Edward of England's brutal execution of William Wallace was meant to intimidate the Scots, but instead it inflamed them and a new leader arose: Robert the Bruce.

John Hay would serve every Republican administration from Abraham Lincoln to Teddy Roosevelt even though he was never elected to office himself.

There is a cliché that artists must struggle, but Frida Kahlo must hold the world record.

How could the famously enlightened city of Athens execute one of its most outstanding citizens? A reporter covers a trial held 2,400 years ago in this book.

Today's review covers the second half of Walt Disney's career, following up on the success of Mickey Mouse and Snow White.

A century ago you could see many bizarre sideshows on the boardwalk at Coney Island. But one of these was not an act, but a system that saved thousands of premature babies.

Years ago, I read a fine biography of Gershwin, but I decided to read a more recent one and, sure enough, I'm impressed by Gershwin all over again.

Dylan Thomas wasn't just a star. He was a supernova blazing before us before flaming out.

The American detective story with its hardboiled protagonist walking the mean streets was invented by Dashiell Hammett.

Johnny Appleseed might be the best known figure from America's past that most people know almost nothing about (and one that many believe to be a myth).

There are many people with TV shows named after them, but only a few have entire networks, and only Walt Disney transformed American culture.

The story of Abraham Lincoln is best take in small doses and today's book focuses on the events leading up to and including the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg.

It seems wrong to call Frank Lloyd Wright a "modern" architect - he was born just two years after the end of the Civil War. But he lived a long life and some of his buildings still look something that landed from outer space.

Is it possible that The Iliad and The Odyssey, with over 25,000 lines between them, originated in oral tradition rather than written texts? This is the story of a young Classics student who set out to prove it.

The little-known story of screenwriter Salka Viertel, who created a refuge for famous figures escaping World War ll.

The second part of our review of His Excellency, George Washington.

After 13 years of this program, we are finally getting around to the first and most important leader in American history.

The first person to attain the grand status of rocket scientist was Robert Goddard, a pioneer who laid the groundwork for space travel.

The name of Hatshepsut, a woman who declared herself king of Egypt, was scratched out of the hieroglyphics, but her story is told in this week's biography.

Trial lawyers are popular protagonists in TV and movies, but few are celebrated in biographies, except for Clarence Darrow.

You've likely never heard of General Alexandre Dumas, but his life served as inspiration for the swashbuckling adventure stories written by his famous son.

Dorothea Lange's most famous photograph is of a weather-beaten migrant mother whose face is burned into the American soul.

An immigrant peddler's son, Julius Rosenwald headed to Chicago and eventually became the head of one of the most successful companies in the world.

Would you be interested in a biography of the world's most famous speech therapist, a man you may already be familiar with?

America's take on the detective novel gave us hard-boiled figures like Raymond Chandler's gumshoe Philip Marlowe.

Bach is the grandmaster of German baroque, but so little is known about Bach's life that after his death, he almost disappeared!

One of the world's most famous paintings is "Whistler's Mother" by James McNeill Whistler, except that it isn't, even though she is.

Shortly after the time of Marco Polo, another traveler from Morocco set out on the Hajj to Mecca and ended up traveling to many more places.

Some lives can't be squeezed into a single book, so it's nice to find a biography that focuses on an aspect of a life.

Most Americans get through the year without reading a single poem, even though millions of them were raised on the work of America's most successful poet.

Every American schoolchild could tell you that Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, but he did so much more.

Solomon Northup was a free man in New York who was kidnapped, sold, and resold as a slave for 12 years in the plantations near New Orleans.

Amelia Earhardt wrote only one book about herself and the flight that made her famous.

Voltaire was born on the brink of the Age of Enlightenment and became the star of that era.

Over 1,000 years ago there lived an English king who was not supposed to be king, but he turned out to be perhaps the most important ruler in British history.

Before the FBI, the first organized crime syndicate in America was confronted by an inspector for the US Post Office.

Stradivari built some of the finest and most famous instruments ever made, including the violins that bear his name.

William Herschel began as a talented musician and, through math, became a brilliant astronomer who discovered the planet Uranus.

We've featured doctors and gardeners before on Lifelines, but David Hosack was both.