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Part 1, Chapter 1

• Brave Companions is a collection of 17 articles and addresses about diverse people and events selected by historian David McCullough.

• Alexander von Humboldt, born in Berlin in 1769, becomes a foremost naturalist who studies extensively in Latin countries.

• Humboldt meets with President Thomas Jefferson and they become friends in science.

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Part 1, Chapter 2

• Humboldt's protege, Louis Agassiz, becomes America's premiere naturalist.

• Agassiz comes to America to do a lecture tour and remains, chairing the natural history department at Harvard.

• Agassiz' unconventional teaching methods encourage free thinking in favor of encyclopedic study.

• Agassiz condemns Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection as atheism.

Part 1, Chapter 3

• Harriet Beecher is born to a stern preacher whose teachings leave her cold.

• The Beechers move to Cincinnati where Harriet befriends Eliza Stowe, the wife of Calvin Ellis Stowe.

• When Eliza dies, Harriet marries Stowe and bears seven children.

• Harriet writes...

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