Desi Arnaz was a Cuban-born actor and musician who is remembered for his marriage to Lucille Ball and their TV show, I Love Lucy.
Civil rights activist Ella Baker worked with the NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
James Cagney was an Academy Award-winning actor who was known for playing gangsters and short-fused tough guys.
French writer Simone de Beauvoir laid the foundation for the modern feminist movement. Also an existentialist philosopher, she had a romance with Sartre.
Fashion designer Perry Ellis launched a new wave of fashion that was defined by his signature baggy look. His clothes were lauded as both classic and adventurous.
Benny Goodman, "The King of Swing", was the clarinetist composer responsible for multiple hit singles as a band leader before World War II.
Actor Cary Grant performed in films from the 1930s through the 1960s. He starred in several Hitchcock films, including the 1959 hit North by Northwest.
Hank Greenberg became one of Major League Baseball's first Jewish super stars, while playing for the Detroit Tigers.
Bernard Malamud was an American writer known for his novels and short stories of the Jewish-American life in the first half of the 20th century.
High school teacher Christa McAuliffe was the first American civilian selected to go into space. She died in the space shuttle Challenger’s explosion in 1986.
Married to Judy Garland and father to Liza Minnelli, film director Vincente Minnelli infused a new sophistication and vitality into movie musicals of the 1940s and '50s.
Georgia O'Keefe is a 20th century American painter best known for her flower canvases and southwestern landscapes.
Fritz Pollard was the first African American to play in the Rose Bowl, the first African-American NFL coach and one of the NFL's first black players.
Actress Donna Reed charmed audiences in the film It's a Wonderful Life and on television's The Donna Reed Show.
American socialite Wallis Simpson became the mistress of Edward, Prince of Wales. Edward abdicated the throne to marry her, a period known as the Abdication Crisis.
Tony Spilotro is best known as a mob representative in Las Vegas from the 1970s to the '80s. He was brutally beaten and murdered by mob members in 1986.
Rudy Vallée was an American singer and entertainer best known as the host of the variety hour The Rudy Vallee Show (1929-43).
Teddy Wilson was an influential pianist of jazz and swing. He played and recorded with jazz greats such as Billie Holiday, Benny Goodman and Ella Fitzgerald.
Minoru Yamasaki is an American architect designed the original World Trade Center complex and the Twin Towers.