Ravi Shankar, Renowned Indian Musician
Ravi Shankar, India’s most famous sitar player and composer, is credited with popularizing Indian music in the Western world, and with influencing musicians in...
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...
William Faulkner, American Novelist
William Faulkner, revered modernist writer, historian and sociologist, is known for capturing the raw beauty of the rural South in all its dark complexity....
Sonia Sotomayor, First Hispanic Supreme Court Justice
Sonia Sotomayor is the first Hispanic and the third female justice to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. Hailing from a working-class background, Sotomayor...
Maxim Gorky, Russian Writer and Activist
Political activist, author and playwright Maxim Gorky gave a voice to the unheard majority of Russia before, during and after the Russian Revolution. From...
Cecil B. DeMille, Hollywood Director
Cecil B. DeMille was one of the most successful directors in Hollywood. Not only did he produce and direct more than 70 films to...
David Hockney, British Pop Artist
The British Pop Art Movement gained a fresh energy when David Hockney emerged on the scene. He’s both a controversial and highly influential figure,...
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...
Anthony Kennedy, Supreme Court Justice
Called someone who “may arguably be the single most influential arbiter of domestic policy in the land,” Justice Anthony Kennedy has relished his role...
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Author and Abolitionist
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s most memorable contribution to society was her book, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” The responses to Stowe’s work were so powerfully divisive that...
