I'm looking for more "unusual" people and "interesting events" in time.  Please add as I'm always needing new sources for such categories.

Fascinating People and Events

Beatrice Webb was certainly a most unusual woman, and her book  deserves consideration for a place on your list.  She lived from 1858 to 1943, and was the wife of Sidney Webb.  She and her husband were the intellectuals, economists, and activists who launched the Fabian Society movement in Great Britain. 

George Bernard Shaw, who was an eminent member of this group, wrote of her:  "Beatrice Webb's curious mixture of spiritual and technical autobiography, entitled My Apprenticeship, describes how an intelligent girl-capitalist, with a sensitive social conscience and a will of her own, critically impervious to mere persuasion, and impressible by first hand evidence and personal experience only, was led to Socialism by stubbornly investigating the facts of Capitalist civilization for herself.  The Intelligent Woman with a turn for investigation or an interest in character study, or both, should read it."

I can think of three more to add.

1. The Trial of Mrs. Lincoln by Samuel Schreiner Jr. The book covers what Mary Todd Lincoln went through after her husband was assassinated, how congress put her out of the white house, her son had her locked in an insane asylum for excessive shopping, etc. It is a great book.
2. The Professor and The Madman by Simon Winchester.  A great book about a topic most people know nothing about.
3. Finding Atlantis by David King. A great book about the search for Atlantis by a 17th century Swedish professor who staked his entire career on proving that Atlantis existed ... in Sweden.