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.
Miles Davis 1926–1991Arts & LettersTrumpeter and bandleader who repeatedly redirected jazz through bebop, cool jazz, modal music, and fusion.
Jim Henson 1936–1990Arts & LettersCreator of the Muppets and a central figure in Sesame Street and family television.
Kurt Gödel 1906–1978Science & MedicineProved the incompleteness theorems and spent his later career at the Institute for Advanced Study.
Benjamin Franklin 1706–1790Government & PoliticsPolymath who invented the lightning rod, bifocals, and the Franklin stove, among many other creations.
Charles Lindbergh 1902–1974Frontier & SportAviator who made the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight from New York to Paris in 1927.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.