Neil Armstrong, First Man to Walk on the Moon
A pilot at 16, astronaut Neil Armstrong’s early years were spent in the skies, but his later years have been grounded in academia and...
Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s “Dear Leader”
Kim Jong Il assumed power a few years after his father suffered a heart attack. The dictator had a reputation as a somewhat erratic...
Stephen Jay Gould, Paleontologist and Science Writer
Renowned for both his revolutionary contributions to evolutionary biology and his ability to make science accessible to the public, Stephen Jay Gould drew upon...
Helen Keller, Blind and Deaf Author and Activist
Helen Keller lost her vision and hearing before age 2. But with help from her tutor, Anne Sullivan, Keller learned how to speak, read...
Samuel Adams, One of the US’s Founding Fathers
Rebel, patriot and politician Samuel Adams helped organize protests against the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Tea Act of 1773 and developed a...
Jules Verne, Science Fiction Author
Jules Verne was a pioneer in literature. With a powerful interest in writing and an imagination that was ahead of his time, Verne became...
Joseph Heller, Author of “Catch-22”
Brooklyn-born author Joseph Heller is best known for coining the phrase “Catch-22” in his tragicomic World War II novel of the same name.
Joseph Heller’s...
Francis Scott Key, Author of “The Star-Spangled Banner”
Francis Scott Key was a Federalist, a lawyer, attorney general of Washington, D.C., a husband and the father of 11 children. An ancestor and...
George Pullman, Inventor of the Sleeper Car
Inventor and industrialist George Pullman literally raised Chicago from the sewer and built luxury railroad cars for the elite. The media praised his “utopian”...
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...
