Daniel Hale Williams was one of the first physicians to perform open-heart surgery in the United States and founded a hospital with an interracial staff.

Known as "Black Edison," Granville Woods was an African-American inventor who made key contributions to the development of the telephone, street car and more.

Woodrow Wilson, the 28th U.S. president, led America through World War I and crafted the Versailles Treaty's "Fourteen Points," the last of which was creating a League of Nations to ensure world peace. Wilson also created the Federal Reserve and supported the 19th Amendment, allowing women to vote.

Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist best known for developing the theories and techniques of psychoanalysis.

Educator Booker T. Washington was one of the foremost African-American leaders of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, founding the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, now known as Tuskegee University.

John Singer Sargent was an Italian-born American painter whose portraits of the wealthy and privileged provide an enduring image of Edwardian-age society.

Inventor Nikola Tesla contributed to the development of an alternating-current electrical system that's widely used today and discovered the rotating magnetic field (the basis of most AC machinery).

U.S. inventor Frederick Winslow Taylor analyzed shop production. His time-and-motion system led to modern mass production techniques.

Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw wrote more than 60 plays during his lifetime and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925.

American explorer Robert Edwin Peary is best known for claiming to be the first person to reach the geographic North Pole.

The daughter of famous suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harriot Stanton Blatch continued her mother's work in the women's rights movement.

Children's book writer L. Frank Baum created the popular Wizard of Oz series. Ruth Plumly Thompson continued to write the series after his death.

Henry Ossian Flipper was the first African American to graduate from the United States Military Academy at West Point. As second lieutenant with the 10th Cavalry, he was framed for embezzlement.

Charles Melville Hays was president of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway and a victim of the Titanic disaster of 1912.

J.J. Thomson was a Nobel Prize winning physicist whose research led to the discovery of electrons.

Louis Brandeis was the first Jew to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. His decisions affirmed individual liberty and privacy and opposed unchecked governmental power.

Louis H. Sullivan was an architect dubbed the "father of modern American architecture."

Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich of Russia was commander in chief of Tzar Nicholas II's army during WWI. The Russian Revolution ended his career.