Ulysses S. Grant was a West Point graduate, Civil War hero, two-term U.S. President, prosecutor of racial injustice and proponent of meritocracy in civil service.

George Washington Carver was born into slavery but became the first Black man to earn a Bachelor of Science degree going on to pursue a Masters degree. Carver invented crop rotation and more than 300 products based on peanuts.

Thomas Edison began his long career as an inventor to resolve his own hearing impairment, filing more than 1,000 patents on innumerable inventions. Edison continued to work into his 80s until his death at age 84.

After WWII, the fast pace in which the Soviet’s achieved nuclear capabilities led to the discovery that design documents had been leaked. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were ultimately implicated as soviet spies and sentenced to death.

Mahatma Gandhi was a lawyer by profession, protestor by practice, and peaceful by nature. Gandhi left his mark on South Africa and his birth country, India, before being assassinated by a Hindu fanatic.

Known as the Gunpowder Plot, on November 5th, 1605, Guy Fawkes and fellow Catholic conspirators attempted to eradicate England’s Protestant-led government with 36 barrels of gunpowder rigged beneath the House of Lords.

Nefertiti was the queen of Egypt from 1370 to 1330 BCE due to her marriage to Amenhotep IV. Her disappearance from the historical record during Amenhotep’s reign has led to speculation of a co-regency in ancient Egypt.