Marian Anderson was an African American singer, one of the finest contraltos of her time, and recipient of the Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Dorothy Arzner was a pioneer in the film industry, becoming one of the first women directors of feature films and the first woman to join the Directors Guild of America.
Subhas Chandra Bose was a 20th century organizational and military leader who fought for India’s freedom from British rule.
Henry Cowell was an American pianist and experimental composer whose music influenced John Cage.
Dorothy Day was an activist who worked for such social causes as pacifism and women’s suffrage through the prism of the Catholic Church.
Jack "Legs" Diamond was a Prohibition-era mob leader, hit man and bootlegger who was based in New York.
Amelia Earhart, the first female pilot to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, mysteriously disappeared while flying over the Pacific Ocean in 1937.
William Faulkner was a Nobel Prize-winning novelist of the American South, who wrote challenging prose and created the fictional Yoknapatawpha County. He is known for novels like Sartoris.
Joseph Goebbels was minister of propaganda for the German Third Reich under Adolf Hitler. He presented a favorable image of the Nazi regime to the Germans.
Moe Howard was the leader of the vaudeville and film comedy team, The Three Stooges.
Howard Johnson was a 20th century entrepreneur who opened up a pioneering chain of restaurants and motels.
Lucky Luciano was an Italian-born American mobster best known for engineering the structure of modern organized crime in the United States.
Herman J. Mankiewicz was a journalist and screenwriter who won an Academy Award for his work on the film Citizen Kane.
Elijah Muhammad rose from poverty to become the charismatic leader of the black nationalist group Nation of Islam, and mentor of Malcolm X and Louis Farrakhan.
A.C. Nielsen was an American market-research engineer and business executive, best known for creating Nielsen ratings, a national rating of television viewing.
Wilhelm Reich was a psychiatrist who developed psychoanalysis that concentrated on overall character structure rather than on individual symptoms.
Jimmie Rodgers was a country singer who became famous for his style of yodeling. He was one of the first country superstars, and is remembered as the father of country music.
Thornton Wilder is a multiple Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and playwright known for works like The Bridge of San Luis Rey, The Ides of March and Our Town.