Sultan Abdulhamid II, Ruler of the Ottoman Empire

Sultan Abdulhamid II, who ruled the Ottoman Empire for more than 30 years, earned a reputation both as an oppressive leader and a champion...

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Father of Transcendentalism

Ralph Waldo Emerson—essayist, minister, poet and philosopher from New England—was the founding father of the transcendentalist movement and the creator of many literary works...

Lauren Bacall, Actress

Lauren Bacall got her start at age 19 as a sultry screen siren alongside future husband Humphrey Bogart, 25 years her senior. She went...

Anne Frank, Holocaust Diarist

Holocaust victim and diarist Anne Frank lived 15 years, yet her legacy has lived on for decades. In the book known in English as...

George Crockett Jr., Lawyer, Politician and Civil Rights Activist

George Crockett Jr. was a prominent attorney and politician with a career that lasted nearly six decades. An outspoken man who didn’t shy away...

Luciano Pavarotti, World Famous Opera Singer

Luciano Pavarotti, the so-called “King of the High Cs,” brought opera to the masses with his clear, pitch-perfect voice. In a life that began...

Joseph Pulitzer, Founder of the Pulitzer Prizes

Hungarian immigrant Joseph Pulitzer was a lawyer, politician, journalist and publisher of the nation’s most widely circulated newspaper. He is remembered best as the...

Noah Webster, Educator and Dictionary Writer

Noah Webster was a pioneering thinker devoted to books and learning. After the American Revolution, he set out to help the United States develop...

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...

John Philip Sousa, “The March King”

John Philip Sousa is the American composer behind such marching band classics as “The Stars and Stripes Forever” and “Semper Fidelis.” John Philip Sousa's Early...