Leo Szilard, Physicist and Contributor to the Manhattan Project
Leo Szilard, the Hungarian Jewish physicist, molecular biologist and inventor, worked on the Manhattan Project but expressed himself as a “scientist of conscience,” using...
Charles Atlas, Famed Bodybuilder
Legendary bodybuilder Charles Atlas became an icon in the 1920s as the man who transformed himself from a skinny weakling into a muscle-bound celebrity.
Charles...
Bahá’u’lláh, Founder of the Bahá’í Religion
Iranian spiritual leader Bahá'u'lláh founded the Bahá’í religion in 1863. Today, it has five million followers from around the world.
Bahá'u'lláh's Early Days
Mirza Hoseyn Ali...
Saul Bellow, American Novelist
“The backbone of 20th-century American literature”—this was novelist Philip Roth’s assessment of Saul Bellow. His struggle with modernism, his Jewish upbringing, his feelings of...
Werner Herzog, Eccentric Filmmaker
Renowned German documentary filmmaker Werner Herzog focuses on the eccentric, the original and the fascinating in people and stories, reflecting his own inner nature....
Sandra Day O’Connor, First Female Supreme Court Justice
Sandra Day O’Connor endured a great deal of gender-based prejudice before she became the first woman to serve as a Supreme Court justice. During...
D.H. Lawrence, Author of “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”
At the end of his life, D.H. Lawrence wrote, “For man, as for flower and beast and bird, the supreme triumph is to be...
Stephen Jay Gould, Paleontologist and Science Writer
Renowned for both his revolutionary contributions to evolutionary biology and his ability to make science accessible to the public, Stephen Jay Gould drew upon...
Rosa Parks, Mother of the Civil Rights Movement
Rosa Parks was a seamstress and NAACP secretary whose simple act of civil disobedience—her refusal to give up her seat on the bus to...
Allen Ginsberg, Beat Poet
Allen Ginsberg helped launch a literary revolution in the United States during the mid-20th century. As a central figure in the Beat generation, Ginsberg’s...
