Dizzy Gillespie Biography

Fifty years after helping found a new style of revolutionary jazz that came to be known as bebop, Dizzy Gillespie's music is still a major contributing factor in the development of modern jazz.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Biography

Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the second woman ever to sit on the United States Supreme Court and is known as the legal architect of the modern women's movement. She, more than any other person, pointed out that many laws encouraged gender discrimination; that is, they led to better treatment of men than women instead of guaranteeing equal rights and opportunities to all as was intended by the United States Constitution.

Whoopi Goldberg Biography

The high-energy actress Whoopi Goldberg has appeared in such films as The Color Purple, Ghost, and Sister Act. She became the first African American woman to host the Academy Awards and only the second African American woman to actually win one.

William Golding Biography

The winner of the 1983 Nobel Prize in Literature, William Golding is among the most popular and influential British authors to have emerged in the second half of the twentieth century. Golding's reputation rests primarily upon his first novel, Lord of the Flies (1954), which is consistently regarded as an effective and disturbing portrayal of the fragility of civilization.

Samuel Gompers Biography

The American labor leader Samuel Gompers was the most significant person in the history of the American labor movement (the effort of working people to improve their lives by forming organizations called unions). He founded and served as the first president of the American Federation of Labor.

Jane Goodall Biography

Jane Goodall was a pioneering English primatologist (a person who studies primates, which is a group of animals that includes human beings, apes, monkeys, and others). Her methods of studying animals in the wild, which emphasized patient observation over long periods of time of both social groups and individual animals, changed not only how chimpanzees (a kind of ape) as a species are understood, but also how studies of many different kinds of animals are carried out.

Benny Goodman Biography

Benny Goodman was a great jazz clarinet player and the leader of one of the most popular big bands of the Swing Era (1935–1945).

Mikhail Gorbachev Biography

Mikhail Gorbachev achieved national recognition as member of the Communist Party, the dominant political party of the former Soviet Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Union that believes in the common ownership of goods and services.

Berry Gordy Jr. Biography

Berry Gordy Jr. founded Motown Records in 1959.

Al Gore Biography

Al Gore, U.S. representative, senator, and forty-fifth vice president of the United States, lost one of the closest presidential elections in history, in 2000, to George W.

Jay Gould Biography

American financier and railroad builder Jay Gould made a fortune by controlling the price of the stocks he bought as well as the stock market itself. He later became one of the shrewdest businessmen in American industry.

Stephen Jay Gould Biography

The American paleontologist (a scientist who studies fossil remains of life from long ago) Stephen Jay Gould was awarded the 1975 Schuchert Award by the Paleontological Society for his work in evolutionary (study of the process of change in the growth of a life group) theory. His work gave answers to the missing pieces in Charles Darwin's (1809–1882) transitional questions.

Katharine Graham Biography

The renowned publisher Katharine Graham took over the management of the Washington Post after the death of her husband. She quickly guided the Post to national prominence while expanding her publishing empire.

Martha Graham Biography

Martha Graham, American dancer, choreographer (one who creates and arranges dance performances), and teacher, is considered one of the major figures of modern dance.

Cary Grant Biography

Hollywood legend Cary Grant won audiences the world over with his charm and sophistication as an actor. Grant created a light, comic style that many have tried to imitate but none have surpassed.

Graham Greene Biography

The works of the English writer Graham Greene explore issues of right and wrong in modern society, and often feature exotic settings in different parts of the world.

Wayne Gretzky Biography

Wayne Gretzky, known by hockey fans simply as "The Great One," became the first player to win the Hart Trophy for eight years in a row and beat hockey legend Gordie Howe's (1928–) all-time point record of 1,850.

Grimm Brothers Biography

Woody Guthrie Biography

Writer and performer of folk songs, Woody Guthrie composed "This Land Is Your Land," a song many call an unofficial national anthem. His music, which celebrates the good in people, includes messages of unity and brotherly love and remains the anthem of the poor and broken.

Alex Haley Biography

Alex Haley is the celebrated author of Roots: The Saga of an American Family (1976). By April 1977 almost two million hardcover copies of the book had been sold and 130 million people had seen all or part of the eight-episode television series.

Alexander Hamilton Biography

The first U.S. secretary of the treasury, Alexander Hamilton was one of the leaders of the nation's first political party, the Federalists (a group who supported a strong central government).

Oscar Hammerstein Biography

Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II was born into a great theatrical family on July 12, 1895, in New York City. He was named after both famous grandfathers, Horace Greeley (1811–1872; famous antislavery newspaper publisher), and Oscar I, an opera promoter, as well as after the minister who wed his parents.

John Hancock Biography

John Hancock signed the Declaration of Independence and was a leader of the movement toward revolution in the American colonies. He later served as a president of the Continental Congress, and he was elected governor of Massachusetts for nine terms.

George Frideric Handel Biography

The dramatic English oratorios (lengthy choral works of a religious nature) of the German-born English composer (writer of music) and organist George Frideric Handel were the high point of the entire baroque (seventeenth-century ornate period) oratorio tradition. His Italian operas show a nobility of style and wealth of dramatic insight.

Thomas Hardy Biography

The works of the English novelist, poet, and dramatist Thomas Hardy unite the Victorian (c. 1840–1900) and modern eras.

Stephen Hawking Biography

British physicist and mathematician Stephen Hawking has made fundamental contributions to the science of cosmology—the study of the origins, structure, and space-time relationships of the universe.

Nathaniel Hawthorne Biography

The work of American fiction writer Nathaniel Hawthorne was based on the history of his Puritan ancestors and the New England of his own day. Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables are classics of American literature.

William Randolph Hearst Biography

For almost half a century William Randolph Hearst was the American publisher, editor, and proprietor (business owner) of the most extensive journalistic empire ever assembled by one man. His personality and use of wealth permanently left a mark on American media.