Mickey Rooney (1920) Rooney was an American actor who began his career when he was just 17 months old, as part of his family’s vaudeville act, and made his film debut at 6. He went on to star in 50 […]

James Dewar (1842) Dewar was a British chemist and physicist best known for his work on the properties of matter at very low temperatures and the liquefaction of gases. In the course of his work, he liquefied and solidified hydrogen […]

Cass “Mama” Elliot (1941) Elliot was an American singer and member of the vocal group The Mamas & the Papas. After the group broke up, she had a successful solo career, releasing several studio albums. In 1974, after a series […]

Samuel Johnson (1709) Johnson was a British man of letters and one of the outstanding figures of 18th-century England. In 1755, after eight years of work, he published his monumental Dictionary of the English Language, considered the first great English […]

Maureen Connolly (1934) Known as “Little Mo,” Connolly was one of America’s greatest female tennis players. At 14, she became the youngest winner of the National Girl’s Tournament. At 16, she became the youngest player to win the US national […]

Agatha Christie (1890) Christie, a British mystery novelist and playwright known for her detective figures Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple, wrote over 75 novels, including Murder on the Orient Express and And Then There Were None. Her books have […]

Samuel “Uncle Sam” Wilson (1766) Wilson was an American Revolutionary War veteran who owned a meatpacking plant in Troy, New York. He provided beef to the army during the War of 1812 in barrels stamped “US,” indicating that they were […]

Pierre de Ronsard (1524) Now considered one of the greatest French poets, Ronsard first served as a page and a squire and seemed destined for a career at court both in France and abroad. However, an illness left him partially […]

Thomas Sydenham (1624) Known as “the English Hippocrates,” Sydenham was a physician who advocated direct observation instead of theorizing to determine the nature of disease. His conceptions of the causes and treatments of epidemics and his classic descriptions of gout, […]

Colonel Harland David Sanders (1890) In 1929, Sanders opened a gas station and small restaurant in Corbin, Kentucky. His cooking grew so popular that he soon closed the gas station. By 1939, he had developed a secret blend of herbs […]

Laura Ashley (1925) Ashley was a British fashion designer and manufacturer. After serving in the Women’s Royal Naval Service during World War II, she founded a company with her husband to produce silkscreened placemats, scarves, and tea towels. Her romantic […]

Jane Addams (1860) In 1889, with Ellen Gates Starr, Addams founded Hull House in Chicago, one of the first social settlements in the US. Based on the settlements begun in England by Samuel Barnett, Hull House served as a community […]

John Cage (1912) Cage was an American avant-garde composer and writer. In the 1930s, he began writing all-percussion pieces and proclaimed the use of noise as the next musical horizon. In 1938, he introduced the “prepared piano,” an instrument whose […]

Richard Wright (1908) Wright was an American author whose works helped redefine discussions of race in the mid-20th century. The grandson of slaves, he grew up in poverty in the American south. The fictionalized autobiography Black Boy vividly describes his […]

Louis Bonaparte (1856) Sullivan is considered the father of modern American architecture. After working for several Chicago firms, he joined the office of Dankmar Adler in 1879, becoming Adler’s partner at age 24. Their 14-year association produced more than 100 […]