Harry Belafonte, Actor, Singer and Activist
Harry Belafonte’s handsome looks and velvety voice, coupled with his talent as an actor and producer, have earned him fame and accolades. But he...
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;...
Amartya Sen, Nobel-Winning Economist
Economist and philosopher Amartya Sen has been called the “Mother Teresa of economics” for helping improve the lives on the poor through his work...
Carole King, Chart-Topping Singer-Songwriter
Carole King started playing the piano at age 4 and hasn’t stopped since. Out of college in the 1960s King was writing some of...
Wangari Muta Maathai, Conservationist and Nobel Peace Prize Winner
In 2004, Wangari Muta Maathai became the first African Woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Maathai is known as the founder of the...
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...
Arthur Ashe, Tennis Star and Human Rights Activist
Arthur Ashe was one of the most accomplished tennis players of his generation and the only African-American man to win a Grand Slam title,...
Elinor Ostrom, First Woman to Win the Nobel Prize in Economics
Elinor Ostrom won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics for her against-the-grain studies of how self-imposed regulation of common resources can be more efficient...
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...
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...
