Mary McLeod Bethune was an educator and activist, serving as president of the National Association of Colored Women and founding the National Council of Negro Women.

Dale Carnegie is the author of How To Win Friends and Influence People, one of the bestselling self-help books of all time.

Movie actor and cultural icon James Dean starred in 'East of Eden,' 'Rebel Without a Cause' and 'Giant.' He was killed in a tragic car accident at age 24.

Alexander Fleming was a doctor and bacteriologist who discovered penicillin, receiving the Nobel Prize in 1945.

Matthew Henson was an African American explorer best known as the co-discoverer of the North Pole with Robert Edwin Peary in 1909.

Albert Einstein was a German-born physicist who developed the general theory of relativity. He is considered one of the most influential physicists of the 20th century.

The brutal abduction and murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till on August 28, 1955, galvanized the emerging Civil Rights Movement.

Charlie Parker was a legendary Grammy Award–winning jazz saxophonist who, with Dizzy Gillespie, invented the musical style called bop or bebop.

German novelist, short-story and essay writer Thomas Mann won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929. One of his best-known novels is Death in Venice.

French painter Fernand Léger created the abstract painting series "Contrast of Forms." His work blended elements of Cubism with his own unique style, "tubism."

Baseball Hall of Famer Cy Young set a record with 511 career wins. After his death, the Cy Young Award was created to annually honor the sport's top pitchers.

As a member of the NAACP, Walter White investigated lynchings and worked to end segregation. He was the organization's executive secretary from 1931 to 1955.

Maurice Utrillo French painter who was noted for his depictions of the houses and streets of the Montmartre district of Paris.

Bernarr MacFadden was a well known physical culturist, and became the preeminent advocate for healthy living and exercise.

James Johnson was an influential African-American jazz pianist and a key figure in musical transition from ragtime to jazz. He's known for his hit "Carolina Shout."

James Agee was a film critic for TIME magazine, penned the screenplay for The African Queen, and won the 1958 Pulitzer Prize for his novel A Death in the Family.

Ruth Ellis is best known for the murder of her lover, leading to her execution, the last of a woman in England.

British social anthropologist A.R. Radcliffe-Brown had a profound impact on British and American social anthropology through his version of functionalism.

Saint Katharine Drexel used her personal fortune to fund schools for Native Americans and African Americans. She was canonized in 2000.

Oswald Avery discovered cell transformation. He recognized that DNA carries a cell’s genetic material and can be altered.