It should never have happened. The RMS Titanic, an "unsinkable" passenger liner, struck an iceberg off Newfoundland on her maiden voyage. She sank on 15 April 1912, resulting in the deaths of 1,517 people in one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in history.

In 1988, we had an option. In Elusive Destiny, his new biography of John Turner, author Paul Litt captures all the drama of the 1988 Canadian federal election, which the Liberal leader transformed into a referendum on free trade.

Kate Beaton knows more about history and literature than the average reader and Hark! A Vagrant shows it. Beaton is perfectly content to base her cartoon strips on people like the Bronte sisters, Jules Verne and Napoleon.

No wonder Shakespeare had so many good characters. The Elizabethans were a mob of personalities.

She has travelled farther than all her monarchical predecessors put together. She has lived longer than any of them, too. And she has known more historic figures than anyone alive. In Our Queen, Robert Hardman has painted a portrait of one of the most popular public figures on the planet, just in time for her Diamond Jubilee.

For decades after World War II, the Police Gazette ("America's original tabloid") insisted Adolf Hitler was alive and kicking somewhere in South America.

Charles Dickens was born in 1812. By the time of his death in 1870, he had met princes and presidents and amassed a fortune. He was truly 'the Inimitable' and was buried - against his wishes - in Westminster Abbey. But Dickens' energy and brilliance concealed a divided character.

Five hundred years after he set sail, the prevailing view of Christopher Columbus holds him responsible for everything that went wrong in the New World.

On January 24, 1943, over two hundred women were placed in four cattle trucks on a train in Compiegne, France.

Can there really be peace on earth? Visionary scientist Gregg Braden suggests that the hottest topics that divide us are actually related.