USA: Influential Figures

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist. He wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), the latter often called "the Great American Novel".  Twain grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, which provided the setting for Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. After an apprenticeship with a printer, he worked as a typesetter and contributed articles to the newspaper of his older brother. He later became a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River before heading west to Nevada. He's been referred to as the Father of American literature. He had 4 children. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Addams

 Jane Addams (September 6, 1860 – May 21, 1935) was a pioneer social worker, philosopher, sociologist, author, and leader in women's rights and world peace. She helped address social concerns, such as the needs of children, public health, and world peace. She was sure women had to have the right to vote. In 1889 Addams and her college friend co-founded Hull House in Chicago, Illinois, the first settlement house in the United States. In 1931 she became the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Louis_Armstrong_restored.jpg

Louis Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana. Armstrong was born into a very poor family, the grandson of slaves. His father abandoned the family when Louis was an infant. Till 1920s the focus had been on collective improvisation, but he also gained popularity  with his solo performances. He had recognizable gravelly voice and he was also skilled at scat singing (vocalizing using sounds and syllables instead of actual lyrics).

Armstrong was one of the first truly popular African-American entertainers to "cross over", whose skin color was secondary to his music in an America that was severely racially divided. He was married 4 times and in his first  marriage he adopted a mentally disabled 3-year old boy. Armstrong died of a heart attack in his sleep at the age of 69. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Thomas_Edison2.jpg

Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847 – October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and an electric light bulb. He managed to register 1,093 US patents in his name, as well as many patents in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. More significant than the number of Edison's patents, are the impacts of his inventions, because his inventions established major new industries world-wide. He was the youngest of 7 siblings and was educated at home (except 3 months). At an early age he had scarlet fever which resulted in deafness in later years. He discovered his talents as a businessman when he worked in the streets selling newspapers. At the age of 24 he married a 16-year-old girl who died 13 years later. They had 3 children. His 2nd marriage with 3 more children lasted till his death ( complications of diabetes ).  He was buried behind the house he had bought for his second wife Mina, in Llewelyn Park, New Jersey.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Amelia_earhart.jpeg

Amelia Mary Earhart (July 24, 1897 – disappeared July 2, 1937) was an American aviation pioneer and author. She was said to have been a tomboy in her childhood. She and her 2 years younger sister were  home-schooled by her mother and a governess. Earhart was the first female pilot to fly alone across the Atlantic Ocean. She set many other records, wrote best-selling books about her flying experiences. She was also a member of the National Women's Party, and an early supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment. In 1937 she disappeared  over the central Pacific Ocean near Howland Island.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ErnestHemingway.jpg

Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American author and journalist. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s, and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. He published seven novels, six short story collections, and two non-fiction works. Additional works were published posthumously. 

Hemingway was raised in Oak Park, Illinois. After high school he reported for a few months for The Kansas City Star, before leaving for Italy to work as an ambulance driver in the World War I. In 1918 he was seriously wounded and returned home. His wartime experiences formed the basis for his novel A Farewell to Arms (1929). In 1921, he married Hadley Richardson, the first of his four wives. The couple moved to Paris, where he worked as a foreign correspondent. He published his first novel, The Sun Also Rises in 1926.  He worked as a journalist in the Spanish Civil War, after returning he wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940). 

Shortly after the publication of The Old Man and the Sea (1952), Hemingway went on  safari to Africa, where he was almost killed in two successive plane crashes that left him in pain or ill health for much of his remaining lifetime. He committed suicide  in Ketchun, Idaho, in the summer of 1961.

Marilyn Monroe (born Norma Jeane Mortenson; June 1, 1926 – August 5, 1962)  was an American actress, model, and singer, who became a major symbol of pop culture. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Studio_publicity_Marilyn_Monroe.jpg

After spending much of her childhood in foster homes, Monroe began a career as a model, which led to a film contract in 1946 with Twentieth Century Fox. Her performances in The Asphalt Jungle and All About Eve (both 1950), drew attention. By 1952 she had her first leading role in Don't Bother to Knock and 1953 brought a lead in Niagara. Her "dumb blonde" persona was used to comic effect in subsequent films such as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, How to Marry a Millionaire ( both 1953). She went to drama school to broaden her range of roles. Her dramatic performance in Bus Stop (1956) was hailed by critics and garnered a Golden Globe nomination. She received a Golden Globe Award for her performance in Some Like it Hot (1959). The final years of Monroe's life were marked by illness, personal problems, and a reputation for unreliability and being difficult to work with. Her death was a probable suicide from an overdose of anti-depressant drugs. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Oprah_Winfrey_at_2011_TCA.jpg

Oprah Gail Winfrey (born January 29, 1954) is an American media figure, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist. Winfrey is best known for her multi-award-winning talk show The Oprah Winfrey Show. Dubbed the "Queen of All Media", she has been ranked the richest African-American of the 20th century,  the greatest black philanthropist in American history,  and is currently North America's only black billionaire.  She is also, according to some assessments, the most influential woman in the world.  In 2013, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama and an honorary doctorate degree from Harvard. Winfrey was born into poverty in rural Mississippi to a teenage single mother and later raised in an inner-city Milwaukee neighborhood. She experienced considerable hardship during her childhood, saying she was raped at age nine and became pregnant at 14; her son died in infancy. Sent to live with the man she calls her father, a barber in Tennessee, Winfrey landed a job in radio while still in high school and began co-anchoring the local evening news at the age of 19. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates

William Henry "Bill" Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate, philanthropist, investor, computer programmer, and inventor. Gates is the former chief executive and chairman of Microsoft, the world’s largest personal-computer software company, which he co-founded with  Paul Allen. He is consistently ranked in the Forbes list of the world's wealthiest people. He has also written and co-authored several books. In the later stages of his career, Gates has pursued a number of philanthropic activities, donating large amounts of money to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, established in 2000. He married Melinda in 1996 and they have 2 daughters and a son. The family resides in an earth-sheltered house ($125 million) in the side of a hill overlooking Lake Washington in Medina.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mark_Zuckerberg.jpg

Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (born May 14, 1984) is an American  computer programmer, Internet entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He is best known as one of five co-founders of the social networking website Facebook. His father was a dentist and mother a psychiatrist. He and his 3 sisters were brought up Dobbs Ferry, a town near New York City. Mark was raised as a Jewish, but later in his life he became an atheist. He was keen on fencing and reciting poems. In 2003 he met a Chinese-Vietnamese  medical student. They got married in 2012 in Zuckerberg's backyard. His personal wealth, as of April 2014, is estimated to be $25.3 billion. He is the 2nd youngest self-made billionaire in the world. Mark Zuckerberg receives a one-dollar-salary as CEO of Facebook. Together with his college roommates and fellow Harvard University students,  Zuckerberg launched Facebook from Harvard's dormitory rooms. Since 2010, Time magazine has named Zuckerberg among the 100 wealthiest and most influential people in the world as a part of its Person of the Year distinction. He is colour-blind ( can't recognize red and green).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Barack_Obama.jpg

Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is the 44th and current US President and the first African American to hold the office. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School. In 1989 he met his wife Michelle Robinson. They have 2 daughters and a Portuguese Water Dog named Bo. He is keen on basketball (supporter of Chicago White Socks). He is left-handed. He worked as a civil rights attorney and taught law at  university in Chicago from 1992 to 2004. His first decisions as a president were about bringing the USA out of  recession in 2008 (taxes, unemployment, creating jobs, affordable medical insurance etc)  In foreign policy, Obama ended US military involvement in the Iraq War, increased U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan, ordered US military involvement in Libya and ordered the military operation that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden in November 2010. 

Obama was re-elected for the 2nd time in November 2012, defeating Republican nominee Mitt Romney.