Niccolò Machiavelli, Author of “The Prince”
Niccolò Machiavelli lived through one of the most tumultuous periods in Italian history. An early alliance with the wrong faction suspended his political career;...
Nelson Mandela, First Black President of South Africa
Nelson Mandela was elected during the first election when South African blacks were allowed to vote. A leader of the resistance for years, Mandela...
Eugene Debs, Labor Leader
Eugene V. Debs spearheaded labor movements, led the American Socialist Party and is remembered today for being an agitator who never shied from passionately...
Alberto Giacometti, Sculptor
Famous for his sculptures of stick-thin figures with razor-sharp, fine features, Alberto Giacometti was an artist who defied categorization. His work flirted with nearly...
Roger Bannister, First Runner to Break the Four-Minute Mile
In 1954, British medical student Roger Bannister became the first man to break the four-minute mile barrier, earning him international admiration and to receive...
Peggy Lee, Actress and Award-Winning Jazz-Pop Singer
Peggy Lee was a prolific, Grammy Award-winning vocalist, Academy Award-nominated actress and songwriter. Renowned for her emotive voice and sensual delivery, her most famous...
Horace Mann, “Father of American Education”
Horace Mann was an educational pioneer. At a time when many saw considerable problems in American education, he stepped forward to address the issues,...
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...
Toni Morrison, Nobel Prize-Winning Author
Toni Morrison grew up in a house of African-American storytellers and developed a love for books. After earning a masters degree in English and...
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...
