Bill Bowerman, Track Coach and Nike Co-founder
A legendary track coach at the University of Oregon, Bill Bowerman coached 33 Olympians, including the talented Steve Prefontaine. He also designed lightweight running...
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...
Meriwether Lewis, Western Explorer
Along with William Clark, Meriwether Lewis led the first expedition through the territory of the Louisiana Purchase, revealing the landscape and nature of the...
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...
Tony Kushner, Writer of “Angels in America”
“My day job is playwright. My citizen job is activist...I succeed and fail at both my jobs, but I try to do them both.”...
Chiune Sugihara, the “Japanese Schindler”
Chiune Sugihara was a Japanese consul during World War II who helped save the lives of thousands of Polish Jewish refugees by signing visas...
Maimonides, Jewish Philosopher and Theologian
Maimonides’ ability to harmonize philosophies of the Greco-Roman, medieval Western, Jewish and Islamic civilizations in the context of his own religious beliefs has established...
Jacques Cousteau, Deep Sea Pioneer
Jacques Cousteau is known for developing the aqualung, the one-man submarine and an underwater village off Sudan. While a measure of controversy surrounds his...
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....
Martin Scorsese, Director of “Taxi Driver” and “Raging Bull”
“It’s easy to think of Scorsese as a kind of poet of the underworld,” the American Film Institute reflected when they granted him a...
