True, sourced stories for sermons and lessons. Search by keyword, theme, or Bible book.
68 illustrations found
Rick Rescorla Went Back Up
Rick Rescorla fought in Vietnam as a young Army lieutenant. Years later he was head of security for Morgan Stanley in the World Trade Center.
Rocky Bleier Decided He Would Walk
Rocky Bleier finished his rookie season with the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1968, then was drafted into the Army and sent to Vietnam. After only three months his platoon was ambushed in a rice paddy.
Roger Bannister Breaks the Four-Minute Mile
For years people said running a mile in under four minutes was beyond what the human body could do. Roger Bannister was a 25-year-old medical student who trained around his studies.
Rosa Parks Stayed Seated
On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white passenger. She was not simply a tired seamstress who happened to say no.
Ruby Bridges Walks into First Grade
On November 14, 1960, a six-year-old named Ruby Bridges walked into William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans escorted by U.S. marshals.
Saint Cyr Helped Lis Hartel onto the Podium
In September 1944, while she was pregnant, Danish rider Lis Hartel developed polio. For a while she could not walk at all.
Saman Kunan’s Last Dive
In the summer of 2018, twelve boys and their soccer coach were trapped deep in a flooded cave in northern Thailand. Saman Kunan had already left the Thai navy, but he came back to volunteer in the rescue.
Seventy Years in an Iron Lung
Paul Alexander caught polio in 1952 when he was just six years old, and within days the disease left him unable to breathe on his own. He spent the next 70-plus years in an iron lung, a seven-foot metal cylinder that pushed air into his lungs.
Sugihara Kept Writing Visas
In the summer of 1940, Chiune Sugihara was a Japanese diplomat in Kovno, Lithuania, when Jewish refugees from Poland began crowding outside his consulate.
Terry Fox and the Marathon of Hope
In March 1977, when Terry Fox was only 18, doctors amputated his right leg above the knee because of bone cancer. Within weeks he was walking on an artificial leg, and the night before his surgery a coach had brought him a story about an amputee who ran the New York Marathon.
The Carpathia Raced Toward the Ice
At 12:35 am on April 15, 1912, the wireless operator and first officer of the Carpathia woke Captain Arthur Rostron with news that the Titanic had struck ice and was sinking.
The Doctor Who Drank the Bacteria
In the early 1980s in Perth, Australia, a young doctor named Barry Marshall teamed up with pathologist Robin Warren, who had spotted curved bacteria in stomach biopsies.
The Doctor Who Said Wash Your Hands
In the 1840s, a young doctor named Ignaz Semmelweis started counting deaths in two maternity wards at Vienna General Hospital. Women in the ward run by doctors and medical students died at nearly five times the rate of the ward run by midwives.
The Four Chaplains Give Away Their Life Jackets
Shortly before 1 a.m. on February 3, 1943, a German submarine torpedoed the Army transport ship Dorchester in the icy North Atlantic, with 902 men aboard.
The Hole in Clara Barton’s Sleeve
At the Battle of Antietam in 1862, Clara Barton arrived near the Cornfield to find surgeons dressing wounds with corn husks because army supplies were far behind.
The Little Ships of Dunkirk
In late May 1940, more than 300,000 British and French soldiers were trapped on the beaches at Dunkirk with the German army closing in. The beaches sloped so gently that big warships couldn't get close, so the British Admiralty appealed to the owners of small boats for help.
The Man in the Red Bandanna
Welles Crowther was a young equities trader and former Boston College lacrosse player. On September 11, 2001, survivors in the South Tower's burning 78th floor sky lobby saw a young man appear with a red bandanna over his face.
The Man in the Water Kept Passing the Line
On January 13, 1982, an Air Florida jet struck a Washington bridge and plunged into the ice-covered Potomac River. A rescue helicopter dropped a line to the few survivors clinging to the wreckage in the freezing water.
The Man Who Didn’t Pick Up the Phone
In the early hours of September 26, 1983, at the height of the Cold War, Soviet officer Stanislav Petrov was on duty at a nuclear early warning center when the computers announced that the United States had launched missiles.
The Navajo Code Was Never Broken
In World War II, the Marines needed a code the enemy could not break. They decided to try one based on the Navajo language, which was unwritten and spoken by very few people outside the Navajo Nation.