The Americans who matter.
Presidents and pamphleteers, chemists and center fielders, organizers and con artists — each life in a few hundred words, placed in its era and linked to the rest. 1,176 Americans, written and sourced.
◷ Browse the timeline All 45 presidentsPresidents, lawmakers, judges, diplomats and commanders — the people who ran the country and argued about how.
Abolitionists, suffragists, organizers and advocates who changed what Americans were entitled to.
Researchers, physicians and mathematicians who worked out how the world and the body behave.
Inventors, engineers and architects who built the machines, networks and skylines.
Founders and financiers on one side, organizers and union leaders on the other — and the fights between them.
Novelists, poets, musicians, actors, directors and designers who made the country's culture.
Journalists, publishers, scholars, teachers and preachers who shaped what Americans knew and believed.
Explorers, aviators, astronauts and athletes — Americans who went furthest, fastest or highest.
Assassins, demagogues, gangsters and frauds. Influence is not the same as merit, and this corpus records both.
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Theodore Roosevelt 1858–1919Government & Politics26th President known for progressive reforms, conservation efforts, and assertive foreign policy.
Cornelius Vanderbilt 1794–1877Business & LaborShipping and railroad magnate whose empire made him one of the wealthiest Americans in history.
Donald Trump b. 1946Government & PoliticsBusinessman, media personality, and 45th and 47th president whose populist movement transformed American politics.
Martin Luther King Jr. 1929–1968Reform & RightsBaptist minister and civil rights leader whose nonviolent activism ended legal segregation in America.
Billie Jean King b. 1943Frontier & SportTennis champion and advocate for gender equality who defeated Bobby Riggs in the famous Battle of the Sexes.
Harriet Tubman 1822–1913Reform & RightsAbolitionist who escaped slavery and led hundreds to freedom via the Underground Railroad.Recently added
Rebecca Skloot b. 1972Ideas & MediaSpent a decade reporting the family behind the HeLa cells and turned informed consent into a public argument.
William Gibson b. 1948Arts & LettersNeuromancer and the word cyberspace
Carl Icahn b. 1936Business & LaborCorporate raider and activist investor
Don DeLillo b. 1936Arts & LettersNovelist of American crowds, media saturation and disaster
William Gaddis 1922–1998Arts & LettersNovelist of The Recognitions and J R
Frank Malina 1912–1981Technology & BuildingLed the Caltech student rocket group that became JPL, then left America under investigation and spent a second life as an artist in Paris.