By 1943, Gino Bartali was one of Italy’s most famous cyclists. He had won the Tour de France in 1938 and twice claimed victory in the Giro d’Italia, earning a reputation for his extraordinary endurance on mountain roads. When German forces occupied much of Italy during World War II, Bartali found a very different use … Read more
At 16, Evelyn Glennie wanted to study at one of Britain’s most prestigious music schools. She had spent years developing her skills as a percussionist and was ready to audition for the Royal Academy of Music in London. There was one problem. Glennie was profoundly deaf, and the Academy initially refused to let her audition. … Read more
In 1930, 22-year-old George Jenkins walked away from a job that most people his age would have been thrilled to have. He was managing a major Piggly Wiggly grocery store in Winter Haven, Florida, but he was growing frustrated. Jenkins had ideas about how stores should operate, how employees should be treated and how customers … Read more
Mohed Altrad grew up in the Syrian desert in a Bedouin family with very little money. He was orphaned at a young age, and even getting an education was a struggle. As a child, he was initially denied the opportunity to attend school. But Altrad wanted to learn, so he began teaching himself to read … Read more
On May 26, 2018, Mamoudou Gassama was walking through Paris when he heard people shouting. He looked up and saw a four-year-old boy hanging outside a fourth-floor balcony. A neighbor on the adjoining balcony had grabbed the child, but the wall between the apartments prevented him from lifting the boy to safety. Gassama, a 23-year-old … Read more
Rick Ruzzamenti had never even donated blood. Then, in February 2011, a receptionist at his yoga studio mentioned she’d given a kidney to a friend. The 44-year-old electrician from Riverside, California, couldn’t stop thinking about it. Two days later, he called a hospital and asked whether he could donate one of his kidneys to somebody … Read more
Art Williams was earning about $10,000 a year coaching high school football in Georgia when his father’s sudden death made him take a closer look at life insurance. He wanted to understand how families protected themselves financially and why some policies cost so much more than others. The more he learned, the more convinced he … Read more
In 2002, 13-year-old Jan Mela was playing table tennis with friends in Malbork, Poland, when a rainstorm sent them looking for shelter. Jan entered an electrical transformer building, where he received a devastating 15,000-volt electrical shock. He survived, but his injuries were so severe that doctors had to amputate his right forearm and part of … Read more
In 1907, a 16-year-old boy named Sidney Weinberg walked into the offices of Goldman Sachs looking for work. He didn’t have a university degree, wealthy relatives or any experience in banking. He was simply a teenager who needed a job. Goldman Sachs hired him for $5 a week as an assistant to the janitor. His … Read more
Veronika Scott thought she’d come up with a pretty good idea. She had designed a heavy winter coat that could turn into a sleeping bag, giving people living on the streets of Detroit a way to stay warm during freezing nights. She’d spent months working on the design, visiting shelters and asking people what they … Read more
At a small college in India, women from some of the world’s most remote villages were learning how to build solar equipment. Many were grandmothers. Some had little formal education, and others couldn’t even speak the same language as their classmates. Yet they were all there to learn something that would change life back home. … Read more
Before Lee Su-jin became a billionaire, he spent his days cleaning rooms at a small motel in Seoul, South Korea. The job wasn’t glamorous. He changed sheets, scrubbed bathrooms, cleaned up after guests, and worked long hours for relatively little money. But there was one advantage. The motel provided somewhere for him to sleep, which … Read more
When Canadian entrepreneur Jody Steinhauer started volunteering with charitable organizations, she noticed something that bothered her. Shelters and community groups were spending precious donation money buying everyday necessities at retail prices. They needed socks, underwear, soap, blankets, and other basic supplies, but they were often paying far more than businesses would for the same products. … Read more
When Coss Marte went to prison, he was overweight, and a doctor had warned him that his health could cut his life short. Before his arrest, Marte had been running a multimillion-dollar drug operation on New York’s Lower East Side. Now he was behind bars, dealing with the consequences of his choices and a serious … Read more
Meghan Rozema called an organ donation program in Alberta in 2020 with a straightforward plan. She wanted to give one of her kidneys to someone who needed it. She wasn’t trying to help a relative or a close friend. The mother of three from Sherwood Park wanted to donate to a complete stranger. During the … Read more
In May 2025, Luke Melling stood in a park in Preston, England, waiting to meet a man who had helped save his life. The man was Alastair Hawken, a father of three from Lincolnshire. They had never met in person, but Luke had been carrying Alastair’s donated stem cells inside his body for three years. … Read more
When Hedayat Osyan arrived in Australia in 2010, he had no family waiting for him, spoke very little English, and had no idea how he was going to build a life in his new country. He had fled Afghanistan as a teenager, leaving behind his mother and two younger siblings. After a dangerous journey that … Read more
In 2002, Narayanan Krishnan was preparing for the biggest opportunity of his cooking career. He had already worked as an award-winning chef at a five-star hotel in India and was being considered for a prestigious position in Switzerland. At just 21 years old, he had the kind of future many young chefs dream about. But … Read more
Long before Eren Ozmen became the owner of an aerospace company worth billions, she was cleaning its offices at night. She was a graduate student from Turkey, studying for her MBA at the University of Nevada, Reno. Money was tight, and she worked several jobs to pay her expenses, including making baklava to sell at … Read more