Thuban

Thuban would be totally unknown if it wasn't that it was the pole star in 3000BC. In 2,700BC, it was exactly at the pole, Thuban is the most accurate pole star there can ever be. It's just barely fourth magnitude so it will not be seen from urban areas.

Thuban has a spectral class of A0III, indicating that it's very similiar to Vega in temperature and spectrum, but more powerful and more massive. Thuban is not a main sequence star, it has now ceased hydrogen fusion in it's core and it's fusing helium. That makes it a bright giant star, being 250 times more powerful than our Sun but over 300ly distant. Thuban has no real anomalies except that it's quite rare to have a giant star in the A class, A is usually reserved for main sequence and the occasional supergiant. This indicates that Thuban has not been a giant star for very long and is likely still in the process of expanding, probably to eventually become a K class red/orange giant of the Aldebaran sort. It may also mean that it has recently ran out of helium to fuse and is contracting before starting to burn carbon, in which case it may end up a blue giant such as Hadar.

Thuban is binary, with a companion star in a 51 day orbit. The companion has not been directly imaged and from it's mass is likely a red dwarf or a low mass white dwarf.