King James I (1566–1625) was King of Scotland from 1567 to 1625 and King of England from 1603 to 1625. He was the first English monarch of the Scottish Stuart dynasty. In 1604, King James publish...

King Charles I (1600–1649) was King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1625 to 1649. His reign ended with his execution by forces loyal to Parliament in the English Civil War.In 1633, Charles...

King Charles II (1630–1685) was King of Scotland from 1651 to 1685, and King of England and Ireland from 1661 to 1685. Charles II took the throne of England at the end of the English Civil War, w...

John Rolfe (1585–1622) was an early Virginia colonist at Jamestown, probably best remembered today as the husband of Pocahontas.In 1612, Rolfe became the first Englishman in America to cultivate...

John Smith (1580–1631) was an important leader of the Jamestown Colony, the first permanent English settlement in North America.In 1617, Smith described Jamestown, a decade after its founding, as...

Increase Mather (1639–1723) was an influential Puritan minister who played a powerful role in shaping the early years of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He was the father of another major Puritan r...

John Arbuckle (1838–1912) was a Pittsburgh grocer who revolutionized the American coffee business with his Arbuckle's Ariosa Coffee brand in the years after the Civil War.In 1865, Arbuckle launch...

Dr. Harvey Wiley (1844–1930) was a chemist who became one of America's most prominent advocates of food and drug purity during the Progressive Era. He helped to pass the 1906 Pure Food and Drug A...

Henry Ford (1863–1947) was one of America's greatest businessmen, the founder of Ford Motor Company, and the man largely responsible for initiating the era of mass-consumption and mass-production...

John Wayne (1907–1979) was one of the most popular American film actors of the 20th century, most famous for playing rugged cowboys and war heroes. In 1969, he won an Academy Award for Best Actor...

Humphrey Bogart (1899–1957) was one of the most popular American film actors of the mid-20th century. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Bogart the "Greatest Male Star of All Time." The s...

Richard M. Nixon (1913–1994) was a Republican senator from California and the 37th President of the United States. Prior to his presidency, he also served as Dwight Eisenhower's vice president fr...

"Freeway" Ricky Ross (1960–) was a smalltime Los Angeles drug dealer who became one of the nation's biggest cocaine traffickers after inventing "Ready Rock," a cheap form of crack cocaine, in 198...

Pablo Escobar (1949–1993), leader of Colombia's Medellin Cartel, was the world's most prominent cocaine trafficker in the 1980s. In 1989, Forbes magazine estimated that he was the seventh richest...

Howard Schultz (1952–) is the businessman responsible for leading Starbucks Coffee's transformation from a small Seattle shop selling raw coffee beans into a global café behemoth. Worth nearly $...

Len Bias (1963–1986) was an All-American basketball star at the University of Maryland. He died of a cocaine overdose one day after being selected by the Boston Celtics with the second overall pi...

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) was a Hollywood actor turned politician, who served as Governor of California from 1967 to 1975, and then as the 40th President of the United States from 1981 to 1989.&#...

Christopher Columbus (1451–1506) was a navigator and explorer whose famous 1492 voyage from Spain to the West Indies marked the beginning of successful European colonization of the Americas. ...

Harry Anslinger (1892–1975) was the first director of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, serving in that position from the bureau's founding in 1930 until 1962.Anslinger was a zealous opponent of d...

Candy Lightner (1946–) is the founder of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). Lightner organized MADD to lead a campaign against drunken driving after her own daughter Cari was tragically killed...