Meet the people who shaped a nation.

Led the Continental Army, presided over the Constitutional Convention and served as the first President (1789–1797), stepping down after two terms.

Main author of the Declaration of Independence; third President; arranged the Louisiana Purchase (1803); founded the University of Virginia. He also enslaved people, a contradiction historians examine.

Printer, scientist, inventor and diplomat; helped draft the Declaration and secured French support in the Revolution.

“Father of the Constitution” and drafter of the Bill of Rights; fourth President.

First Treasury Secretary; built the nation’s financial system; co-wrote the Federalist Papers.

Leader of independence, diplomat and second President; his wife Abigail urged him to “remember the ladies.”

16th President; led the Union through the Civil War, issued the Emancipation Proclamation and pushed for the 13th Amendment.

26th President; protected about 230 million acres of public land and won the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize.

32nd President; led through the Great Depression (New Deal, Social Security) and World War II; elected four times.

Supreme Allied Commander on D-Day; 34th President; launched the Interstate Highway System and created NASA (1958).

35th President; set the goal of landing on the Moon; created the Peace Corps (1961).

40th President; known for his 1987 Berlin speech and arms-reduction treaties with the Soviet Union.

44th President (2009–2017) and the first African American President; won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.

Led nonviolent campaigns for civil rights; gave the “I Have a Dream” speech (1963); Nobel Peace Prize (1964).

Her 1955 arrest for refusing to give up her bus seat sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Escaped slavery, became a great writer, speaker and abolitionist, and advised Lincoln.

Escaped slavery and led many others to freedom on the Underground Railroad; served as a Union scout and spy.

Leader of the women’s suffrage movement; arrested for voting in 1872.

Co-founded the United Farm Workers with Dolores Huerta; used nonviolence to win rights for farmworkers.

Civil rights leader beaten at Selma (1965); served in Congress for over 30 years.

Won Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and became the first Black Supreme Court justice (1967).

Inventor of the phonograph and a practical light bulb system; held over 1,000 U.S. patents.

Made the first powered, controlled airplane flights at Kitty Hawk on December 17, 1903.

Agricultural scientist who taught crop rotation and found many uses for peanuts and sweet potatoes.

NASA mathematician whose calculations helped send astronauts into orbit and to the Moon.

Computer pioneer and Navy rear admiral; helped create COBOL and English-like programming languages.

First person to walk on the Moon, July 20, 1969.

First American woman in space (1983); later inspired girls in science.

Developed the first widely used polio vaccine (1955) and did not patent it.

Physicist of relativity and 1921 Nobel laureate who became a U.S. citizen in 1940.

First Lady, writer and diplomat; chaired the committee that drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948).

First woman to fly solo across the Atlantic (1932); disappeared over the Pacific in 1937.

First woman on the U.S. Supreme Court (1981); founded the civics education group iCivics.

Lawyer who argued landmark gender-equality cases and served on the Supreme Court (1993–2020).

Civil War nurse who founded the American Red Cross (1881).

Founded Hull House in Chicago to help immigrants; first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize (1931).

Introduced the moving assembly line (1913), making the Model T affordable for many families.

Built a hair-care business and is often cited as the first self-made female millionaire in the USA; trained thousands of sales agents.

Steel industrialist who gave much of his fortune to build over 2,500 public libraries worldwide.

Animation pioneer who created Mickey Mouse (1928), the first full-length cel-animated feature (1937) and Disneyland (1955).

Co-founded Apple (1976); led the Macintosh, iPod and iPhone.

Media leader who built a television and publishing business and funds education, including a school in South Africa.

Author of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn; famous for humor and social commentary.

Poet and author of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969); read a poem at the 1993 inauguration.

Jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans who shaped jazz worldwide.

Leading poet of the Harlem Renaissance.

Novelist; first Black woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature (1993).

Children’s author of The Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham.

Broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier in 1947 with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

Three-time heavyweight boxing champion known for his skill, words and stands on principle.

Tennis champion who fought for equal prize money and founded the Women’s Tennis Association (1973).

Gymnast with more Olympic and World medals than any other gymnast; spoke openly about mental health.

Sac and Fox athlete who won Olympic pentathlon and decathlon golds in 1912.

Naturalist who campaigned for national parks and founded the Sierra Club (1892).

Biologist whose book Silent Spring (1962) warned about pesticides and inspired the environmental movement.

39th President; after office, worked for peace, health and housing; won the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize.

Deafblind author and activist who championed people with disabilities worldwide.

Lemhi Shoshone woman who helped guide and translate for the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Created the Cherokee syllabary (1821), allowing the Cherokee people to read and write their language.

First woman Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation (1985–1995); led community self-help projects.

Nez Perce leader who led his people on a long retreat in 1877 and spoke for justice for his people.

Labor leader who co-founded the United Farm Workers and coined “Sí, se puede.”

Osage ballerina, America’s first major prima ballerina.