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Legislators

70 people, across 5 fields.

Abraham Lincoln 1809–1865Presidents16th President who preserved the Union during the Civil War and issued the Emancipation Proclamation.John F. Kennedy 1917–1963Presidents35th President whose brief tenure included the Cuban Missile Crisis and the launch of the Apollo program.Andrew Jackson 1767–1845PresidentsSeventh President whose populist policies and Indian Removal Act left a deeply contested legacy.Barack Obama b. 1961Presidents44th President and first African American to hold the office, known for the Affordable Care Act.James Madison 1751–1836PresidentsFourth President and Father of the Constitution who co-authored the Federalist Papers.Richard Nixon 1913–1994Presidents37th President whose foreign policy achievements were overshadowed by the Watergate scandal.Lyndon B. Johnson 1908–1973Presidents36th President who signed the Civil Rights Act and launched the Great Society programs.Joe Biden b. 1942Presidents46th president who enacted major infrastructure and climate legislation after decades in the Senate and vice presidency.Hillary Clinton b. 1947Political Leaders & StatecraftFirst Lady, Senator, Secretary of State, and first woman to win a major party's presidential nomination.Harry S. Truman 1884–1972Presidents33rd President who authorized the atomic bomb and implemented the Marshall Plan.John Glenn 1921–2016Exploration, Aviation & SpaceFirst American to orbit Earth and later the oldest person to fly in space at age 77.Joseph McCarthy 1908–1957Notorious FiguresSenator whose unsupported accusations and investigations gave “McCarthyism” its name and damaged civil liberties.Jefferson Davis 1808–1889Notorious FiguresPresident of the Confederacy whose defense of slavery and secession made him central to the Civil War and its memory.Robert F. Kennedy 1925–1968Political Leaders & StatecraftSenator and Attorney General whose 1968 presidential campaign was cut short by assassination.John McCain 1936–2018Political Leaders & StatecraftSenator and war hero whose bipartisan spirit and military service defined his political career.John Quincy Adams 1767–1848PresidentsDiplomat, sixth president, and later congressman who opposed slavery’s expansion and shaped early American foreign policy.John Lewis 1940–2020Civil Rights & Social ReformFreedom Rider and congressman whose activism was central to the civil-rights movement and voting-rights legislation.Bernie Sanders b. 1941Political Leaders & StatecraftVermont senator whose presidential campaigns moved single-payer health care into mainstream debate.Nancy Pelosi b. 1940Political Leaders & StatecraftFirst female Speaker of the House who shepherded major healthcare and economic legislation.Henry Clay 1777–1852Political Leaders & StatecraftSenator and statesman known as the Great Compromiser for his role in preserving the Union.Kamala Harris b. 1964Political Leaders & StatecraftFirst woman, first Black American, and first Asian American to serve as vice president.John C. Calhoun 1782–1850Notorious FiguresVice president and theorist of slavery and states’ rights whose doctrines intensified sectional conflict.Dick Cheney 1941–2025Political Leaders & StatecraftVice president who expanded the office's power and directed post-9/11 war policy.Davy Crockett 1786–1836Exploration, Aviation & SpaceFrontiersman, soldier, and politician who became a folk hero of the American frontier.Samuel Adams 1722–1803Political Leaders & StatecraftRevolutionary organizer who helped mobilize resistance to British rule and build support for independence.Huey Long 1893–1935Political Leaders & StatecraftLouisiana governor and senator whose Share Our Wealth program pressured New Deal policy before his assassination.William Jennings Bryan 1860–1925Political Leaders & StatecraftThree-time Democratic nominee and orator who made monetary reform, popular democracy, and moral politics central national issues.Daniel Webster 1782–1852Political Leaders & StatecraftSenator and orator whose speeches on the Union and Constitution are among the greatest in history.Horace Mann 1796–1859EducationReformist who championed public education and is considered the father of the American public school system.Mitch McConnell b. 1942Political Leaders & StatecraftLongest-serving Senate party leader who reshaped the federal judiciary through confirmation strategy.Al Gore b. 1948Political Leaders & StatecraftVice president and 2000 presidential candidate who became a leading advocate for climate policy.Ted Kennedy 1932–2009Political Leaders & StatecraftMassachusetts senator who shaped decades of health care and civil rights legislation.Aaron Burr 1756–1836Political Leaders & StatecraftThird vice president who killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel and was later tried for treason.Stephen A. Douglas 1813–1861Political Leaders & StatecraftIllinois senator whose popular-sovereignty doctrine and debates with Lincoln framed the crisis over slavery.Sam Houston 1793–1863Political Leaders & StatecraftCommander at San Jacinto who became president of the Republic of Texas and later its governor and senator.William McKinley 1843–1901PresidentsTwenty-fifth president who led the Spanish-American War and overseas expansion before being assassinated.Harvey Milk 1930–1978Civil Rights & Social ReformFirst openly gay elected official in California whose assassination made him a martyr for LGBTQ rights.Gerald Ford 1913–2006Presidents38th president who restored basic governmental stability after Watergate and controversially pardoned Richard Nixon.James K. Polk 1795–1849PresidentsEleventh president whose expansionist policies added the Southwest and Oregon to the United States.John Hancock 1737–1793Political Leaders & StatecraftMerchant who presided over the Continental Congress and signed the Declaration first and largest.George Mason 1725–1792Political Leaders & StatecraftFounding-era statesman whose Virginia Declaration of Rights helped inspire the Bill of Rights.Shirley Chisholm 1924–2005Political Leaders & StatecraftFirst Black woman elected to Congress and first woman to run for a major party's presidential nomination.Thaddeus Stevens 1792–1868Political Leaders & StatecraftRadical Republican leader who drove congressional abolition, civil-rights measures, and a transformative vision of Reconstruction.Barry Goldwater 1909–1998Political Leaders & StatecraftSenator and presidential nominee whose 1964 campaign helped create the modern conservative movement.Charles Sumner 1811–1874Political Leaders & StatecraftMassachusetts senator and abolitionist leader who pressed for Reconstruction-era civil rights legislation.Warren G. Harding 1865–1923PresidentsTwenty-ninth president whose administration was marked by postwar retrenchment and the Teapot Dome scandal.John C. Frémont 1813–1890Exploration, Aviation & SpaceExplorer and military officer whose five expeditions mapped much of the American West.Henry Cabot Lodge 1850–1924Political Leaders & StatecraftSenate leader who blocked American entry into the League of Nations after the First World War.James A. Garfield 1831–1881PresidentsTwentieth president assassinated months into office prompting federal civil service reform.Hubert Humphrey 1911–1978Political Leaders & StatecraftSenator and vice president whose advocacy helped make civil rights a central commitment of the Democratic Party.Bob Dole 1923–2021Political Leaders & StatecraftWounded veteran and Senate leader who helped write the Americans with Disabilities Act.Strom Thurmond 1902–2003Political Leaders & StatecraftLong-serving South Carolina senator who ran as a segregationist Dixiecrat and later joined the Republican Party.John Tyler 1790–1862PresidentsFirst vice president to assume the presidency on a president's death and to annex Texas.Newt Gingrich b. 1943Political Leaders & StatecraftSpeaker who engineered the 1994 Republican House majority and the Contract with America agenda.Benjamin Harrison 1833–1901PresidentsTwenty-third president who signed the Sherman Antitrust Act and expanded the modern navy.Tip O’Neill 1912–1994Political Leaders & StatecraftLong-serving House speaker who became the leading congressional counterweight to Ronald Reagan.Roger Sherman 1721–1793Political Leaders & StatecraftOnly person to sign all four founding documents and author of the compromise that produced the Senate.Hugo Black 1886–1971Law & the JudiciaryJustice who championed strong First Amendment protections and incorporation of the Bill of Rights.Robert La Follette 1855–1925Political Leaders & StatecraftWisconsin governor and senator who led the Progressive movement against railroad and corporate influence.George McGovern 1922–2012Political Leaders & StatecraftSouth Dakota senator and 1972 presidential nominee who led opposition to the Vietnam War.Franklin Pierce 1804–1869PresidentsFourteenth president whose support for the Kansas-Nebraska Act deepened the sectional crisis over slavery.Patsy Mink 1927–2002Civil Rights & Social ReformFirst woman of color elected to Congress and a principal author and defender of Title IX.Barbara Jordan 1936–1996Political Leaders & StatecraftTexas congresswoman whose Watergate impeachment address made her a leading constitutional voice in Congress.Sam Rayburn 1882–1961Political Leaders & StatecraftLongest-serving Speaker of the House who steered New Deal and postwar legislation through Congress.Deb Haaland b. 1960Indigenous Leaders & Native NationsFirst Native American cabinet secretary — leading the Interior Department and its boarding-school review.Gaylord Nelson 1916–2005Environment, Agriculture & FoodSenator and founder of Earth Day who helped make environmental protection a mass political movement.Harrison Schmitt b. 1935Exploration, Aviation & SpaceApollo 17 lunar module pilot and only professional scientist to walk on the Moon.Mark Hanna 1837–1904Political Leaders & StatecraftIndustrialist and party boss who invented the modern corporate-funded presidential campaign.Roscoe Conkling 1829–1888Political Leaders & StatecraftSenate boss of the Stalwart patronage machine who resigned in a fight over one customs house.Richard Henry Lee 1732–1794Political Leaders & StatecraftVirginia delegate whose June 1776 resolution formally moved that the colonies be independent states.