Athletes

No. 1136: Ballerina and Basketball Player
Calluses, bunions, and the pain of reconstructed tendons are invisible in a ballerina's moment of grace.

Hollywood Celebrities

No. 782: Nothing To Lose
Audrey Hepburn's eulogy hardly mentioned her film career; instead, it focused on her efforts to help children suffering as she suffered long ago.

No. 435: Hedy Lamarr, Inventor
Hollywood's most stunning actress was more than a beautiful face. Austrian-born Hedy Lamarr and composer George Antheil developed a radio-controlled torpedo with a frequency-hopping control signal that is now used all over the world.

Public Figures

No. 517: Sojourner Truth
Years before the Civil War, a freed slave named Isabelle packs her bags and travels across the land, spontaneously taking on a new name. Although she never learns to write, she eventually shapes a theology of social activism, fighting against slavery with her voice-singing, praying, and making speeches.

No. 139: Hoover and Agricola
Lou Hoover and her husband, former mining engineer and U.S. president, translate from Latin into English Georgius Agricola's 16th century engineering "bible", De Re Metallica. The Hoovers turn an old masterpiece into a new one.

No. 803: Helen Keller
Helen Keller, caught in the novelty trap of U.S. press, takes capitalist advice from Andrew Carnegie.

No. 420: The Peaceable Kingdom
Houston's female leaders bring hopeful thoughts about a harmonious society, the model for which can be found in the Neolithic Era.