Born in Holly Springs, Mississippi, to enslaved parents during the tumult of the Civil War, Ida B. Wells (1862-1931) joined a generation of young Black men and women who aspired to professional careers and successful lives as full citizens in the decades after Reconstruction. Following her parents’ tragic deaths during the 1878 yellow fever epidemic, […]

One of first female Prime Ministers in the world and the first and only in India, Indira Gandhi was born in 1917 to a prominent political family at the height of India’s nationalist movement for freedom from British colonial rule. She spent a lonely childhood as her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, noted nationalist leader and later, […]

Set against the backdrop of the Age of Exploration, Black Flags, Blue Waters: The Epic History of America's Most Notorious Pirates reveals the dramatic and surprising history of American piracy’s “Golden Age”—spanning the late 1600s through the early 1700s—when lawless pirates plied the coastal waters of North America and beyond. In his slide show and presentation, Eric […]

Sandra Day O’Connor was born in 1930 in El Paso and grew up on a cattle ranch in Arizona. At a time when women were expected to be homemakers, she set her sights on Stanford University. When she graduated near the top of her law school class in 1952, no firm would even interview her. […]