Grace Abbott is best known for her social activism on behalf of immigrants and children. She headed the Children's Bureau from 1921 to 1934.
1878-1939
1876-1956
1911-1988
1942-
Ed Asner is an American actor best known as gruff-but-lovable newsman Lou Grant, who debuted on the television sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
1929-
David Axelrod is a political consultant and strategist recognized for creating a winning campaign strategy for U.S. President Barack Obama.
1955-
1930-
Saul Bellow was a celebrated novelist who won the Pulitzer, the Nobel Prize for Literature and the National Book Award for Fiction three times.
1915-2005
Herbert C. Brown was a scientist and professor who won the Nobel Prize for his work in organic chemistry.
1912-2004
James M. Buchanan is an American economist best known for his work on public choice theory, for which he receive the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1986.
1919-
1906-1971
1953-
Scientist Edwin Cohn helped develop a method of separating blood plasma proteins, which provided lifesaving care to many soldiers during World War II.
1892-1953
1912-2002
1909-2006
Roger Ebert was an American film critic best known as one half of the popular Siskel and Ebert film critic television show.
1942-2013
Sociologist E. Franklin Frazier blazed a trail in the 1940s and 50s for African American academics who studied black culture.
1894-1962
Philip Glass is an American composer often associated with minimalism. He has composed numerous film and theatrical scores, including "Koyaanisqatsi" and "The Hours."
1937-
Leon Golub was an American painter who was both horrified and inspired by the Vietnam War.
1922-2004
1917-2001
Academy Award-winning actress Celeste Holm is known for her roles in the 1943 Broadway musical Oklahoma! and the film Gentleman's Agreement.
1917-2012
1919-1988
Astronomer Edwin Hubble revolutionized the field of astrophysics. His research helped prove that the universe is expanding, and he created a classification system for galaxies that has been used for several decades.
1889-1953
Samuel P. Huntington was a political scientist who wrote the influential book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.
1927-2008
June Jordan was an African American author who investigated both social and personal concerns through poetry, essays, and drama.
1936-2002
1926-
Nathan Leopold, along with Richard Loeb, killed a 14-year-old boy while trying to commit "the perfect crime." They were caught.
1904-1971
Robert Todd Lincoln was an American lawyer and secretary of war best known as the first-born son of President Abraham Lincoln.
1843-1926
Richard Loeb, of Leopold and Loeb, is best known for murdering 14-year-old Bobby Franks with Nathan Leopold in an attempt to carry out the 'perfect crime.'
1905-1936
Marilu Henner is best known for her acting careerin film and TV, particularly the series Taxi.
1952-
Actress Danica McKellar played Winnie Cooper on The Wonder Years. She has also written a series of New York Times best-sellers, including Math Doesn't Suck.
1975-
Eliot Ness was a law enforcement official in Chicago, best known for his efforts to enforce Prohibition as head of "The Untouchables."
1903-1957
Mike Nichols in an American theater and film director, best known for his 1967 classic, The Graduate. He's won an Academy Award, as well as multiple Tony and Emmy Awards.
1931-
Patricia Roberts Harris was the first African-American woman to hold a cabinet position, serve as U.S. ambassador and head a law school.
1924-1985
David Rockefeller is an American banker and philanthropist, the youngest of the five sons of John D. Rockefeller Jr.
1915-
American novelist and short-story writer Philip Roth is best known for his provocative explorations of Jewish and American identity.
1933-
1934-1996
American economist Paul Samuelson is best known as a founder of neo-Keynesian economics and for being the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Economics.
1915-2009
Susan Sontag was a critical essayist, cultural analyst, novelist and filmmaker. She wrote On Photography, Illness as Metaphor, The Volcano Lover and In America.
1933-2004
Roger W. Sperry was a 20th century scientist who won the Nobel Prize for his groundbreaking research on brain hemispheres.
1913-1994
1920-
Poet, novelist and short-story writer Jean Toomer was a major figure during the Harlem Renaissance. He is best known for his first book, Cane.
1894-1967
James D. Watson is a Nobel Prize-winning biophysicist and researcher credited with co-discovering the double-helix structure of DNA.
1928-
1878-1958
1891-1958
Paul Wolfowitz is a U.S. government official who is best known as the leading architect of the Iraq War under President George Bush's administration.
1943-
1922-