Buzz Aldrin was the second human to walk on the moon. On July 20, 1969, he followed Neil Armstrong onto the lunar surface while a third American astronaut, Michael Collins, remained in orbit overhead. Aldrin attended West Point, flew fighte...

Gerald R. Ford, 38th President of the United States (1974-1977), became President of the United States on August 9, 1974, under extraordinary circumstances. Owing to the Watergate scandal, Ford's predecessor, Richard Nixon, had resigned und...

Charles Augustus Lindbergh, an American aviator, made the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean on May 20-21, 1927. Other pilots had crossed the Atlantic before him. But Lindbergh was the first person to do it alone nonstop. L...

John Edgar Hoover was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, w...

Harry Truman was president of America (1945-1952) after the death of F.D. Roosevelt in April 1945. Harry Truman gave the order for the atomic bombs to be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and he represented the United States at Potsdam, the...

Marc Chagall was a Russian–French artist, associated with several key art movements and was one of the most successful artists of the 20th century. He created a unique career in virtually every artistic medium, including paintings, book il...

Thirty-Second President USA, 1933-1945. Assuming the Presidency at the depth of the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt helped the American people regain faith in themselves. He brought hope as he promised prompt, vigorous action, and a...

Cecil Blount DeMille was an Academy Award-winning American film director. He was famous in the first half of the 20th century, known for the flamboyance and showmanship of his movies. DeMille directed dozens of silent films, including Param...

Sir Alexander Fleming was a Scottish biologist and pharmacologist. He discovered the antibiotic substance lysozyme and isolated the antibiotic substance penicillin from the fungus Penicillium notatum, for which he shared a Nobel Prize. The...

Douglas MacArthur is a major figure in the US military and diplomatic history of WWII and post-WWII. As general of the army, he helped conquer the Japanese Empire and played a major role in rebuilding the nation and drafting its first democ...

Hiram Bingham III was an American academic, explorer and politician. He rediscovered the Inca settlement of Machu Picchu in 1911. Later, Bingham served as Governor of Connecticut and a member of the United States Senate. Machu Picchu ha...

Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton was a polar explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic, and one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Born in Kilkea, Athy, County Kildare, Irel...

Harry Houdini was a Hungarian-born American magician and escapologist, stunt performer, actor and film producer noted for his sensational escape acts. He was also a skeptic who set out to expose frauds purporting to be supernatural phenomen...

Winston Churchill was a politician, a soldier, an artist, and the 20th century's most famous and celebrated Prime Minister. His father was Lord Randolph Churchill, a Nineteenth Century Tory politician. He was educated at Harrow and at Sandh...

Captain Robert Falcon Scott was a British Royal Navy officer and explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions: the Discovery Expedition (1901–1904) and the ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition (1910–1913). On the first expedition, h...