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Presidential Medal of Freedom
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is a decoration bestowed by the President of the United States and is, along with the equivalent Congressional Gold Medal bestowed by an act of U.S. Congress, the highest civilian award in the U.S. It recognizes those individuals who have made "an especially...
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Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa (26 August 1910 – 5 September 1997), born Agnesë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu (pronounced [aɡˈnɛs ˈɡɔndʒe bɔjaˈdʒiu]), was an Albanian Roman Catholic nun with Indian citizenship who founded the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata (Calcutta), India...
Václav Havel
Václav Havel ([ˈvaːtslaf ˈɦavɛl] ( listen)) (born 5 October 1936 in Czechoslovakia) is a Czech playwright, essayist, former dissident and politician. He was the tenth and last President of Czechoslovakia (1989–92) and the first President of the...
Aung San Suu Kyi
Aung San Suu Kyi is a Nobel Peace Laureate and the democratically elected Prime Minister of Myanmar when her party the National League for Democracy won the 1990 general election. However, she has been in detention by the military junta since...
Chuck Yeager
Charles Elwood "Chuck" Yeager (born February 13, 1923) is a retired General in the United States Air Force and noted test pilot. He is widely considered to be the first pilot to travel faster than sound (1947). Originally retiring as a brigadier...
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Colin Powell
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell was sworn in as the 65th
Secretary of State in 2001 after unanimous confirmation by the U.S.
Senate. He served in the military for 35 years, and rose to the rank of
4-star General. His last assignment, from...
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Doris Day
Doris Mary Anne von Kappelhoff (born April 3, 1922), known by her stage name Doris Day, is an American singer and actress.
Singing and dancing and playing both comedic and dramatic roles, she became one of America's biggest box-office stars, making...
Desmond Tutu
Desmond Mpilo Tutu (born 7 October 1931) is a South African cleric and activist who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid. In 1984, Tutu became the second South African to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Tutu was the...
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Dave Thomas
David "Dave" Thomas (July 2, 1932 – January 8, 2002) was an American restaurant owner and philanthropist. Thomas was the founder and chief executive officer of Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers, a fast-food restaurant chain specializing in hamburgers...
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Helen Keller
Helen Adams Keller (June 27, 1880 – June 1, 1968) was an American author, political activist and lecturer. She was the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. The story of how Keller's teacher, Annie Sullivan, broke through the...
Hank Aaron
Henry Louis "Hank" Aaron (born February 5, 1934), is a retired American baseball player whose Major League Baseball (MLB) career spanned the years 1954 through 1976. Aaron is widely considered one of the greatest baseball players of all time. In...
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I. M. Pei
Ieoh Ming Pei (貝聿銘) (born April 26, 1917), commonly known by his initials I. M. Pei, is a Pritzker Prize-winning Chinese-born American architect, known as the last master of high modernist architecture.
Pei was born in Canton (pinyin: Guangzhou),...
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Jesse Jackson
Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr. (born October 8, 1941) is an American civil rights activist and Baptist minister. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as shadow senator for the District of Columbia from...
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. (born October 1, 1924) served as the 39th President of the United States from 1977 to 1981 and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office....
James Cagney
James Francis Cagney, Jr. (July 17, 1899 – March 30, 1986) was an American film actor. Although he won acclaim and major awards for a wide variety of roles, he is best remembered for playing "tough guys." In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked...
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John Wayne
Marion Mitchell Morrison (May 26, 1907 – June 11, 1979), born Marion Robert Morrison, better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and has become an enduring American...
Jacques-Yves Cousteau
Jacques-Yves Cousteau (French pronunciation: [ʒak iv kusto]; 11 June 1910 – 25 June 1997) was a French naval officer, explorer, ecologist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life...
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James Stewart
James Maitland "Jimmy" Stewart (May 20, 1908 – July 2, 1997) was an American film and stage actor, best known for his self-effacing persona. Over the course of his career, he starred in many films widely considered classics and was nominated for...
James D. Watson
James Dewey Watson (born April 6, 1928, in Chicago, Illinois) is an American molecular biologist, best known as one of the two co-discoverers of the structure of DNA, with Francis Crick in 1953. Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins were...
Julia Child
Julia Child (August 15, 1912 – August 13, 2004) was an American chef, author and television personality. She introduced French cuisine and cooking techniques to the American mainstream through her many cookbooks and television programs, notably The...
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies (March 27, 1886 – August 17, 1969) was a German-American architect. He was commonly referred to and addressed by his surname, Mies, by his colleagues, students, writers, and others.
Ludwig...
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Lucille Ball
Lucille Désirée Ball (August 6, 1911 – April 26, 1989) was an American comedienne, film, television, stage and radio actress, model, film and television executive, and star of the sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show and...
Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman (July 31, 1912 – November 16, 2006) was an American economist, statistician, and public intellectual, and a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics. He is known best among scholars for his theoretical and empirical...
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher LG, OM, PC, FRS (born 13 October 1925) served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She is the only woman to have held either post...
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Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American clergyman, activist and prominent leader in the African-American civil rights movement. His main legacy was to secure progress on civil rights in the United States, and he...
Mary Robinson
Mary Therese Winifred Robinson (Irish: Máire Mhic Róibín; born 21 May 1944) served as the seventh, and first female, President of Ireland, serving from 1990 to 1997, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, from 1997 to 2002. She...
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Nancy Reagan
Nancy Davis Reagan (born Anne Frances Robbins on July 6, 1921) is the widow of former United States President Ronald Reagan and served as an influential First Lady of the United States from 1981 to 1989. She was born in New York; her parents...
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Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (Xhosa pronunciation: [xoˈliɬaɬa manˈdeːla]; born 18 July 1918 in Transkei, South Africa) is a former President of South Africa, the first to be elected in a fully representative democratic election, who held office from...
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Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II (Polish: Jan Paweł II, Latin: Joannes Paulus PP. II, Italian: Giovanni Paolo II), born Karol Józef Wojtyła (pronounced [ˈkaɾɔl ˈjuzɛv vɔi̯ˈtɨwa] ( listen); 18 May 1920 – 2 April 2005) served as Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic...
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Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was the 40th President of the United States (1981–1989) and the 33rd Governor of California (1967–1975).
Born in Tampico, Illinois, Reagan moved to Los Angeles, California in the 1930s. He began...
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Roberto Clemente
Roberto Clemente Walker (August 18, 1934 – December 31, 1972) was a professional baseball player and a Major League Baseball right fielder. He was born in Carolina, Puerto Rico, the youngest of seven children. On November 14, 1964, he married Vera...
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Richard Myers
Richard Bowman Myers (born March 1, 1942) is a former four-star general in the United States Air Force and served as the 15th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As Chairman, Myers was the United States military's highest ranking uniformed...
Rosa Parks
Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was an African American civil rights activist whom the U.S. Congress later called the "Mother of the Modern-Day Civil Rights Movement."
On December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama,...
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Stephen Hawking
Stephen William Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA (born 8 January 1942) is a British theoretical physicist. He is known for his contributions to the fields of cosmology and quantum gravity, especially in the context of black holes. He has also achieved...
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Tommy Franks
General Tommy Ray Franks, United States Army, KBE, (born 17 June 1945 in Wynnewood, Oklahoma) is a retired General in the United States Army. His last Army post was as the Commander of the United States Central Command, overseeing United States...
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Vint Cerf
Vinton G. Cerf is vice president and
Chief Internet Evangelist for Google.
He is responsible for identifying
new...
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney (December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1966) was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon and philanthropist. Disney is famous for his influence in...
Edward Teller
Edward Teller (original Hungarian name Teller Ede) (January 15, 1908 – September 9, 2003) was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist, known colloquially as "the father of the hydrogen bomb", even though he claimed that he did not care for the...
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader.
Duke Ellington became one of the most influential artists in the history of recorded music, and is largely recognized as one of...
Helmut Kohl
Helmut Josef Michael Kohl (born 3 April 1930) is a German conservative politician and statesman. He was Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 (of West Germany between 1982 and 1990 and of a reunited Germany between 1990 and 1998) and the chairman...
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Hyman G. Rickover
Hyman George Rickover (January 27, 1900 – July 8, 1986), was a four-star admiral in the United States Navy who invented the nuclear submarine. Rickover was known as the "Father of the Nuclear Navy", which as of July 2007 had produced 200 nuclear...
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Sandra Day O'Connor
Sandra Day O'Connor (born March 26, 1930) is an American jurist and was the first female member of the Supreme Court of the United States. She served as an Associate Justice from 1981 until her retirement from the Court in 2006. O'Connor was...
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Eunice Kennedy Shriver
Eunice Kennedy Shriver DSG (July 10, 1921 – August 11, 2009) founded the precursor to the Special Olympics in 1962. In 1968, she helped Ann McGlone Burke popularize the Special Olympics movement across the U.S.
She was a member of the Kennedy family...
Carole Lombard
Carole Lombard (October 6, 1908 – January 16, 1942) was an American actress. She was particularly noted for her comedic roles in several classic films of the 1930s, most notably in the 1936 film My Man Godfrey. She is listed as one of the American...
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Charlton Heston
Heston was born John Charles Carter in No Man's Land, an unincorporated area between Evanston and Wilmette, Illinois, the son of Lilla (née Charlton) and Russell Whitford Carter, a mill operator. (However, the 1930 Census for Richfield,...
Byron White
Byron Raymond "Whizzer" White (June 8, 1917–April 15, 2002) won fame both as a football running back and as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Appointed to the court by President John F. Kennedy in 1962, he served until...
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Gary Becker
Gary Stanley Becker (born December 2, 1930) is an American economist and a Nobel laureate. Born in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, Becker earned a B.A. at Princeton University in 1951 and a Ph.D. at The University of Chicago in 1955. He taught at Columbia...
James W. Rouse
James Wilson Rouse (April 26, 1914 - April 9, 1996), founder of The Rouse Company, was a pioneering American real estate developer, civic activist, and later, free enterprise-based philanthropist. He is the maternal grandfather of actor Edward...
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Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn (4 May 1929(1929-05-04) – 20 January 1993) was a British actress and humanitarian.
Born in Ixelles as Audrey Kathleen Ruston, Hepburn spent her childhood chiefly in the Netherlands, including German-occupied Arnhem, Netherlands,...
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson (August 27, 1908 – January 22, 1973), served as the 36th President of the United States from 1963 to 1969 after his service as the Vice President of the United States from 1961 to 1963. He served in all four elected offices of...
Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an American jurist and the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. Before becoming a judge, he was a lawyer who was best remembered for his high success rate...
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George McGovern
George Stanley McGovern (born July 19, 1922) is a former United States Representative, Senator, and Democratic presidential nominee. McGovern lost the 1972 presidential election in a landslide to Richard Nixon. As a decorated World War II combat...
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César Chávez
César Estrada Chávez (March 31, 1927 – April 23, 1993) was a Mexican American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist who, with Dolores Huerta, co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers...
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Kirk Douglas
Kirk Douglas (born Issur Danielovitch or И́сер Даниело́вич; December 9, 1916) is an American actor and film producer recognized for his prominent cleft chin, his gravelly voice and his recurring roles as the kinds of characters Douglas himself once...
Gregory Peck
Gregory Peck (April 5, 1916 – June 12, 2003) was an American actor.
One of 20th Century Fox's most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s, Peck continued to play important roles well into the 1990s. His notable performances included that of...
Robert McNamara
Robert Strange McNamara (June 9, 1916 – July 6, 2009) was an American business executive and the eighth Secretary of Defense, serving under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 to 1968. Following that he served as President of...
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Rachel Carson
Rachel Louise Carson (May 27, 1907 – April 14, 1964) was an American marine biologist and nature writer whose writings are credited with advancing the global environmental movement.
Carson started her career as a biologist in the U.S. Bureau of...
Arnold Palmer
Arnold Daniel Palmer (born September 10, 1929) is an American golfer who is generally regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of men's professional golf. He has won numerous events on both the PGA Tour and Champions Tour, dating back...
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John Kenneth Galbraith
John Kenneth "Ken" Galbraith, OC (October 15, 1908 – April 29, 2006) was a Canadian-American economist. He was a Keynesian and an institutionalist, a leading proponent of 20th-century American liberalism and progressivism. His books on economic...
Ansel Adams
Ansel Easton Adams (February 20, 1902 – April 22, 1984) was an American photographer and environmentalist, best known for his black-and-white photographs of the American West and primarily Yosemite National Park.
For his images, he developed the...
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Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr.
Elmo Russell Zumwalt, Jr. (November 29, 1920 – January 2, 2000) was an American naval officer and the youngest man to serve as Chief of Naval Operations. As an admiral and later the 19th Chief of Naval Operations, Zumwalt played a major role in U.S....
