Portal:Illinois/Selected biography

Barack Obama (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney and taught constitutional law at University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. He served three terms representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004, running unsuccessfully for the United States House of Representatives in 2000. He was elected to the United States Senate from Illinois in 2004.

Obama resigned his Senate seat after winning the Presidential election of 2008. Nine months after his election, he was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Major domestic initiatives in his first term included the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. In foreign policy, Obama ended U.S. military involvement in the Iraq War, increased U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan, signed the New START arms control treaty with Russia, and ordered the military operation that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden. In his second term Obama promoted domestic policies related to gun control and called for full equality for LGBT Americans. In foreign policy, Obama ordered U.S. military involvement in Iraq in response to gains made by the Islamic State in Iraq and took steps to normalize U.S. relations with Cuba. (Read more...)

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Alison Krauss is an American bluegrass-country singer and fiddle player. She entered the music industry at a young age, winning local contests by the age of ten and recording for the first time on her brother's album at fourteen. She signed with Rounder Records in 1985 and released her first solo album at sixteen in 1987. She was invited to join the band with which she still performs, Alison Krauss & Union Station (AKUS), and later released her first album with them as a group in 1989.

She has thus far released more than ten albums, appeared on numerous soundtracks, and has been credited by audiophiles with helping to usher in a new interest in bluegrass music in the United States. Her soundtrack performances have led to further popularity, including the Grammy-winning O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, an album also credited with raising American interest in bluegrass, and the Cold Mountain soundtrack, which led to her performance at the 2004 Academy Awards. During her career she has won 20 Grammy Awards—more than any other female artist and tied for seventh-most among all artists—along with numerous other awards. (Read more...)

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James T. Aubrey, Jr. was an American television and film executive. President of the CBS television network during the early 1960s, he put some of television's most enduring series on the air, including Gilligan's Island and The Beverly Hillbillies. Under Aubrey, CBS dominated American television the way General Motors and General Electric dominated their industries. The New York Times Magazine in 1964 called Aubrey "a master of programming whose divinations led to successes that are breathtaking."

Despite his successes in television, Aubrey's abrasive personality and oversized ego — "Picture Machiavelli and Karl Rove at a University of Colorado football recruiting party" wrote Variety in 2004 — led to his firing from CBS amid charges of improprieties. "The circumstances rivaled the best of CBS adventure or mystery shows," declared The New York Times in its front-page story on his firing, which came on "the sunniest Sunday in February" 1965. After four years as an independent producer, Aubrey was hired by financier Kirk Kerkorian to preside over Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's near-total shutdown in the 1970s, during which he slashed the budget and alienated producers and directors but brought profits to a company that had suffered huge losses. Aubrey resigned from MGM after four years, declaring his job was done, and then vanished into almost total obscurity for the last two decades of his life. (Read more...)

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Joseph W. Tkach was the appointed successor of Herbert W. Armstrong, founder of the Worldwide Church of God. Tkach became President and Pastor General of the church upon the death of Armstrong in 1986. Tkach spearheaded a major doctrinal transformation of the Worldwide Church of God, abandoning Armstrong's unconventional doctrines and bringing the church into accord with mainstream evangelical Christianity. His son, Joseph Tkach Jr., continued his work and in 1997 the Worldwide Church of God became a member of the National Association of Evangelicals.

During Tkach's tenure, the changes that he implemented stirred much controversy and significant dissent among those who continued to follow Armstrong's theology. The dissenters labelled the changes as heresy and many left to form new church organizations. Within the mainstream Christian community, some have hailed Tkach's reforms, which brought a church from the fringe to orthodoxy, as unprecedented in the history of the Christian church. (Read more...)

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Michael Jordan is a retired American professional basketball player. Widely considered one of the greatest basketball players of all time, he became one of the most effectively marketed athletes of his generation and was instrumental in popularizing the NBA (National Basketball Association) around the world in the 1980s and 1990s.

After a standout career at the University of North Carolina, Jordan joined the NBA's Chicago Bulls in 1984. He quickly emerged as one of the stars of the league, entertaining crowds with his prolific scoring. His leaping ability, illustrated by performing slam dunks from the foul line at Slam Dunk Contests, earned him the nicknames "Air Jordan" and "His Airness." He also gained a reputation as one of the best defensive players in basketball. In 1991, he won his first NBA championship with the Bulls, and followed that with titles in 1992 and 1993, securing a "three-peat". Though Jordan abruptly left the NBA in October 1993 to pursue a career in baseball, he rejoined the Bulls in 1995 and led them to three additional championships (1996, 1997, and 1998). His 1995–96 Bulls team won an NBA-record 72 regular-season games. Jordan retired for a second time in 1999, but he returned for two more NBA seasons as a member of the Washington Wizards from 2001 to 2003. (Read more...)

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CM Punk (born Phillip Jack Brooks on October 26, 1978) is an American mixed martial artist, retired professional wrestler, and color commentator. He is currently signed as a martial artist to UFC and works as a commentator for Cage Fury Fighting Championships and an analyst on Fox Sports 1. He is best known for his time in WWE, where his 434-day WWE Championship reign stands as the longest of the 21st century and the sixth-longest in history.

Punk initially came to prominence through his career on the professional wrestling independent circuit, primarily as a member of the Ring of Honor (ROH) roster, where he became the first head trainer of the ROH wrestling school. In 2005, Punk signed a contract with WWE. During his 15-year career, he won the WWE Championship twice, WWE's World Heavyweight Championship three times, and the ECW and ROH World Championships once each. By winning WWE's World Tag Team Championship (with Kofi Kingston) and Intercontinental Championship, he became WWE's 19th Triple Crown Champion and the fastest to achieve this feat (203 days).

Brooks has used the CM Punk moniker for his entire career, with his character consistently being portrayed as outspoken, confrontational, sharp-tongued, anti-establishment, straight edge, and iconoclastic. Most of the straight edge principles he portrayed are also his real life views. Depending on his alignment as a hero or villain, he emphasized different aspects of the straight edge culture to garner the desired audience reaction. After becoming disillusioned with WWE, Punk retired from professional wrestling in early 2014. He pursued a career in mixed martial arts and was signed by the UFC in December 2014. Read more...)

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Wesley Clark (born December 23, 1944) is a retired four-star general of the United States Army. Clark was valedictorian of his class at West Point, was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford where he obtained a degree in PPE, and later graduated from the Command and General Staff College with a master's degree in military science. He spent 34 years in the Army and the Department of Defense, receiving many military decorations, several honorary knighthoods, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Clark joined the 2004 race for the Democratic Party presidential nomination as a drafted candidate on September 17, 2003, but withdrew from the primary race on February 11, 2004 in favor of campaigning for the eventual Democratic nominee, John Kerry. Clark currently leads a political action committee — "WesPAC: Securing America" — which was formed after the primaries, and used it to support numerous Democratic Party candidates in the 2006 midterm elections. (Read more...)

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Ann Bannon is an American writer who wrote a series of six lesbian pulp fiction books from 1957 to 1962 known as The Beebo Brinker Chronicles. The books were popular when they were first released, and have proved a remarkable longevity, especially for pulp fiction, being reprinted in three different issues, and several languages. That iconic longevity, the characters and the books themselves earned her the title of "Queen of Lesbian Pulp Fiction." When depictions of lesbians in written literature were quite rare, and what was written was dismal and unhappy, her books set her apart from other authors who wrote about lesbianism. She has been described as "the premier fictional representation of US lesbian life in the fifties and sixties," and that her books, "rest on the bookshelf of nearly every even faintly literate Lesbian. (Read more...)

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Ronald Reagan was the 40th President of the United States and the 33rd Governor of California. He was defeated in his run for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968 as well as 1976, but won both the nomination and election in 1980. As president, Reagan implemented new political initiatives as well as economic policies, advocating a laissez-faire philosophy, but the extent to which these ideas were implemented is debatable. The policies, dubbed "Reaganomics," included substantial tax cuts implemented in 1981. After surviving an assassination attempt and ordering controversial military actions in Grenada, he was re-elected in a landslide victory in 1984. Reagan's second term was marked by the ending of the Cold War, as well as a number of administration scandals, notably the Iran–Contra affair. The president ordered a massive military buildup in an arms race with the Soviet Union, foregoing the previous strategy of détente. He publicly portrayed the USSR as an "Evil Empire" and supported anti-Communist movements worldwide. (Read more...)

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Jean Baptiste Point du Sable (before 1750 – August 28, 1818) is regarded as the first permanent resident of what became Chicago, Illinois. Little is known of his life prior to the 1770s. In the early 1780s he worked for the British lieutenant-governor of Michilimackinac on an estate at what is now the city of St. Clair, Michigan, before moving to settle at the mouth of the Chicago River. He is first recorded living in Chicago in early 1790, having apparently become established sometime earlier. He sold his property in Chicago in 1800 and moved to St. Charles, Missouri, where he died on August 28, 1818. Point du Sable has become known as the "Founder of Chicago". In Chicago, a school, museum, harbor, park and bridge have been named, or renamed, in his honor; and the place where he settled at the mouth of the Chicago River in the 1780s is recognized as a National Historic Landmark, now located in Pioneer Court.(Read more...)

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Paul Cornell (August 5, 1822 – March 3, 1904) was an American lawyer and Chicago real estate speculator who founded the Hyde Park Township that included most of what are now known as the south and far southeast sides of Chicago, Illinois. He turned the south side Lake Michigan lakefront area, especially the Hyde Park community area and neighboring Kenwood and Woodlawn neighborhoods, into a resort community that had its heyday from the 1850s through the early 20th century. He was also an urban planner who paved the way for and preserved many of the parks that are now in the Chicago Park District. Additionally, he was a successful entrepreneur with interests in manufacturing, cemeteries, and hotels. His modern legacy includes several large parks now in the Chicago Park District: Jackson Park, Washington Park, Midway Plaisance and Harold Washington Park. (Read more...)

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Orval Leroy Grove (August 29, 1919 – April 20, 1992) was an American pitcher in Major League Baseball who played for ten seasons in the American League with the Chicago White Sox. In 207 career games, Grove pitched 1,176 innings and posted a win–loss record of 63–73, with 66 complete games, 11 shutouts, and a 3.78 earned run average (ERA). The only freshman on the Proviso East High School varsity baseball team, Grove's pitching ability attracted the attention of the White Sox. After signing with the team in 1937, Grove moved between the major leagues and minor leagues for a few seasons until 1943, when he found a solid place in the White Sox's pitching rotation. Grove spent four more full seasons with the White Sox and four more with the Sacramento Solons of the Pacific Coast League. After retirement, he worked with his uncle in a trucking business in Chicago while continuing to pitch at the semi-pro level.

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Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American author and journalist. His economical and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. 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, including three novels, four short story collections, and three non-fiction works, were published posthumously. Many of his works are considered classics of American literature. Hemingway was raised in Oak Park, Illinois. A few months after high school he left for the Italian front to enlist with the World War I ambulance drivers. 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 came under the influence of the modernist writers and artists of the 1920s "Lost Generation" expatriate community. He published his first novel, The Sun Also Rises in 1926. 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. In 1959, he bought a house in Ketchum, Idaho, where he committed suicide in the summer of 1961. (Read more...)

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Timothy Blackstone (March 28, 1829 – May 26, 1900) was a 19th-century railroad executive, businessman, philanthropist, and politician. Blackstone worked in the railroad industry for most of his life after dropping out of school. Blackstone served as president of the Chicago and Alton Railroad from 1864 through 1899, was a founding president of the Union Stock Yards, and served one term as mayor of La Salle, Illinois. An active philanthropist, Blackstone was the benefactor of the James Blackstone Memorial Library in Branford, Connecticut. A nearly identical library, Blackstone Memorial Library, was donated to the Chicago Public Library by Timothy Blackstone's widow in 1902. The Blackstones also funded Blackstone Hall for the Art Institute of Chicago Building. Chicago's Blackstone Library is the first dedicated branch of the Chicago Public Library system, and later his mansion became the site of the Blackstone Hotel and the Blackstone Theatre.

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Sir Georg Solti (21 October 1912 – 5 September 1997) was an orchestral and operatic conductor, best known for his appearances with opera companies in Munich, Frankfurt and London, and as a long-serving music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Born in Budapest, he studied there with Béla Bartók, Leo Weiner and Ernő Dohnányi. His career was interrupted by the rise of the Nazis, and because he was a Jew he fled the increasingly restrictive anti-semitic laws in 1938. After conducting a season of Russian ballet in London at the Royal Opera House he found refuge in Switzerland, where he remained during the Second World War. In 1961 he became musical director of the Covent Garden Opera Company, London. During his ten-year tenure, he introduced changes that raised standards to the highest international levels. He became a British subject in 1972. In 1969 Solti was appointed music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a post he held for 22 years. He restored the orchestra's reputation after it had been in decline for most of the previous decade. He became the orchestra's music director laureate on his retirement in 1991.

Known in his early years for the intensity of his music making, Solti was widely considered to have mellowed as a conductor in later years. He recorded many works two or three times at various stages of his career, and was a prolific recording artist, making more than 250 recordings, including 45 complete opera sets. The most famous of his recordings is probably Decca's complete set of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, made between 1958 and 1965.

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Sandra Cisneros (born December 20, 1954) is an American writer best known for her acclaimed first novel The House on Mango Street (1984) and her subsequent short story collection Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories (1991). Her work experiments with literary forms and investigates emerging subject positions, which Cisneros herself attributes to growing up in a context of cultural hybridity and economic inequality. She is considered a key figure in Chicano literature.

Cisneros grew up in Chicago as the only daughter in a family of six brothers, which often made her feel isolated, and the constant migration of her family between Mexico and the USA instilled in her the sense of "always straddling two countries ... but not belonging to either culture." Cisneros's work deals with the formation of Chicana identity, exploring the challenges of being caught between Mexican and Anglo-American cultures, facing the misogynist attitudes present in both these cultures, and experiencing poverty. For her insightful social critique and powerful prose style, Cisneros has achieved recognition far beyond Chicano and Latino communities, to the extent that The House on Mango Street has been translated worldwide and is taught in American classrooms as a coming-of-age novel. (Read more...)

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Leona Woods (August 9, 1919 – November 10, 1986), was an American physicist who helped build the first nuclear reactor and the first atomic bomb. Woods was born on a farm in La Grange, Illinois and earned her BS in chemistry from the University of Chicago in 1938, at the age of 19. At age 23, she was the youngest and only female member of the team which built and experimented with the world's first nuclear reactor (then called a pile ), Chicago Pile-1, in a project led by her mentor Enrico Fermi. In particular, Woods was instrumental in the construction and then utilization of geiger counters for analysis during experimentation. After the war, her research involved high-energy physics, astrophysics and cosmology. In later life she became interested in ecological and environmental issues, and she devised a method of using the isotope ratios in tree rings to study climate change. She was a strong advocate of food irradiation as a means of killing harmful bacteria.

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Ninian Edwards (March 17, 1775 – July 20, 1833) was a founding political figure of the state of Illinois. He served as the only governor of the Illinois Territory from 1809 to 1818, as one of the first two United States Senators from Illinois from 1818 to 1824, and as the third Governor of Illinois from 1826 to 1830. Born in Maryland, Edwards began his political career in Kentucky. In 1809, U.S. President James Madison appointed him to govern the newly created Illinois Territory. He held that post for three terms, overseeing the territory's transition to statehood in 1818. On its second day in session, the Illinois General Assembly elected Edwards to the U.S. Senate. Edwards won an unlikely 1826 election to become Governor of Illinois. As governor or territorial governor he twice sent Illinois militia against Native Americans, in the War of 1812 and the Winnebago War, and signed treaties for the cession of Native American land. Edwards returned to private life when his term ended in 1830 and died of cholera two years later.

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William D. Boyce (June 16, 1858 – June 11, 1929) was an American newspaper man, entrepreneur, magazine publisher, and explorer. He was the founder of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA). Born in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, he acquired a love for the outdoors early in his life. With his first wife, Mary Jane Beacom, he moved to Chicago to pursue his entrepreneurial ambitions. There he established the Mutual Newspaper Publishing Company and the weekly Saturday Blade, which catered to a rural audience and was distributed by thousands of newspaper boys. With his novel employment of newsboys to boost newspaper sales, Boyce's namesake publishing company maintained a circulation of 500,000 copies per week by 1894. Boyce strongly supported worker rights, as demonstrated by his businesses' support of labor unions and his concern for his newsboys' well-being.

Boyce learned about Scouting while passing through London during his first expedition to Africa in 1909. On his return to the United States, he formed the BSA. From its start, Boyce focused the Scouting program on teaching self-reliance, citizenship, resourcefulness, patriotism, obedience, cheerfulness, courage, and courtesy in order "to make men". Boyce received many awards and memorials for his efforts in the U.S. Scouting movement, including the Silver Buffalo Award.

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Henry Darger ( c. April 12, 1892 – April 13, 1973) was a reclusive American writer and artist who worked as a hospital custodian in Chicago. He has become famous for his posthumously discovered 15,145-page, single-spaced fantasy manuscript called The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion, along with several hundred drawings and watercolor paintings illustrating the story. The visual subject matter of his work ranges from idyllic scenes in Edwardian interiors and tranquil flowered landscapes populated by children and fantastic creatures, to scenes of horrific terror and carnage depicting young children being tortured and massacred. Much of his artwork is mixed media with collage elements. Darger's artwork has become one of the most celebrated examples of outsider art. (Read more...)

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James Butler Hickok—known as "Wild Bill" Hickok—was a folk character of the American Old West. Although some of his exploits as reported at the time were fictionalized, his skills as a gunfighter and gambler, along with his reputation as a lawman, provided the basis for his enduring fame. Born and raised on a farm near Troy Grove, Illinois, Hickok went west at age 18 as a fugitive from justice, first working as a stagecoach driver, then as a lawman in the frontier territories of Kansas and Nebraska. He fought and spied for the Union Army during the American Civil War and gained publicity after the war as a scout, marksman, actor, and professional gambler. Hickok was involved in several notable shootouts. He was shot from behind and killed while playing poker in a saloon in Deadwood, Dakota Territory (now South Dakota) by an unsuccessful gambler, Jack McCall. The card hand he held at the time of his death (aces and eights) has come to be known as the "Dead Man's Hand".

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Marcus Ward Lyon, Jr. was an American mammalogist, bacteriologist, and pathologist. He was born into a military family at Rock Island Arsenal, and demonstrated an early interest in zoology by collecting local wildlife around his father's army posts. He graduated from Brown University in 1897, and continued his studies at George Washington University while working part-time at the United States National Museum (USNM). He received his Ph.D. from George Washington University in 1913. In 1919, he and his wife, Martha, moved to South Bend, Indiana to join a newly opened clinic. Prior to moving, Lyon had published many papers on mammalogy, both during and after his tenure at the USNM. In these papers, he had formally described six species, three genera, and one family. Once in South Bend, he began to publish medical studies, too, but continued his work in mammalogy, with a particular focus on the local fauna of Indiana. He published more than 160 papers during his career.

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Robert Ridgway (July 2, 1850 – March 25, 1929) was an American ornithologist specializing in systematics. Ridgway was born in Mount Carmel, Illinois. He was appointed in 1880 by Spencer Fullerton Baird, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, to be the first full-time curator of birds at the United States National Museum, a title he held until his death. In 1883, he helped found the American Ornithologists' Union, where he served as officer and journal editor. Ridgway was an outstanding descriptive taxonomist, capping his life work with The Birds of North and Middle America (eight volumes, 1901–1919), completed from Larchmound, his estate in Olney. In his lifetime, he was unmatched in the number of North American bird species that he described for science. As technical illustrator, Ridgway used his own paintings and outline drawings to complement his writing. He also published two books that systematized color names for describing birds, A Nomenclature of Colors for Naturalists (1886) and Color Standards and Color Nomenclature (1912). Ornithologists all over the world continue to cite Ridgway's color studies and books.

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Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the United States through its Civil War—its bloodiest war and its greatest moral, constitutional and political crisis. In doing so, he preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, and modernized the economy.

Born in Hodgenville, Kentucky, Lincoln grew up on the western frontier in Kentucky and Indiana. Largely self-educated, he became a lawyer in Illinois and a member of the Illinois House of Representatives, where he served from 1834 to 1846. Reentering politics in 1854, he became a leader in building the new Republican Party. In 1858, while taking part in a series of highly publicized debates with his opponent and rival, Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, Lincoln spoke out against the expansion of slavery but lost the U.S. Senate race to Douglas.

Lincoln was elected president in 1860. His election prompted seven southern slave states to form the Confederate States of America before he was sworn into office. Lincoln's complex moves toward ending slavery centered on the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. He closely supervised the war effort, especially the selection of top generals, and made major decisions on Union war strategy. His Gettysburg Address of 1863 became an iconic endorsement of the principles of nationalism, republicanism, equal rights, liberty, and democracy. Six days after the surrender of Confederate commanding general Robert E. Lee, Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathizer. Lincoln has been consistently ranked both by scholars as one of the three greatest U.S. presidents. (Read more...)

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Emmett Till (July 25, 1941 – August 28, 1955) was an African-American teenager who was lynched in Mississippi at the age of 14 after reportedly flirting with a white woman. Till was from Chicago and visiting relatives in Money, a small town in the Mississippi Delta region. He spoke to 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant, the married proprietor of a small grocery store there. Several nights later, Bryant's husband Roy and his half-brother J. W. Milam went to Till's great-uncle's house and abducted the boy. They took him away and beat and mutilated him before shooting him and sinking his body in the Tallahatchie River. Three days later, Till's body was discovered and retrieved from the river.

Till's body was returned to Chicago. His mother, who had mostly raised him, insisted on a public funeral service with an open casket to show the world the brutality of the killing. Tens of thousands attended his funeral or viewed his casket and images of his mutilated body were published in black-oriented magazines and newspapers, rallying popular black support and white sympathy across the U.S. Intense scrutiny was brought to bear on the condition of black civil rights in Mississippi, with newspapers around the country critical of the state. In September 1955, Bryant and Milam were acquitted of Till's kidnapping and murder. Protected against double jeopardy, Bryant and Milam publicly admitted in an interview with Look magazine that they killed Till. The trial of Bryant and Milam attracted a vast amount of press attention. Till's murder is noted as a pivotal catalyst to the next phase of the Civil Rights Movement. (Read more...)

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Black Hawk, or Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak in the Sauk language, (1767 – October 3, 1838) was a war leader of the Sauk American Indian tribe in what is now the Midwest of the United States. He earned his status as a war chief or captain by leading raiding and war parties as a young man, and a band of Sauk warriors during the Black Hawk War of 1832.

Black Hawk was born in 1767 in the village of Saukenuk on the Rock River (present-day Rock Island, Illinois). During the War of 1812, Black Hawk had fought on the side of the British against the U.S., hoping to push white American settlers away from Sauk territory. Later he led a band of Sauk and Fox warriors, known as the British Band, against European-American settlers in Illinois and present-day Wisconsin in the 1832 Black Hawk War. After the war, he was captured by U.S. forces and taken to the eastern United States. Shortly before being released from custody, Black Hawk told his story to an interpreter; aided also by a newspaper reporter, he published Autobiography of Ma-Ka-Tai-Me-She-Kia-Kiak, or Black Hawk, Embracing the Traditions of his Nation.... Black Hawk died in 1838 in what is now southeastern Iowa. He has been honored by an enduring legacy: his book, many eponyms, and other tributes. (Read more...)

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Judith Krug (March 15, 1940 – April 11, 2009) was an American librarian, freedom of speech proponent, and critic of censorship. Krug became Director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom at the American Library Association in 1967. In 1969, she joined the Freedom to Read Foundation as its Executive Director. Krug co-founded Banned Books Week in 1982.

Krug was born (as Judith Fingeret) in Pittsburgh. She received a Master of Arts degree in library science from the Graduate Library School of the University of Chicago. She became a research analyst for the American Library Association in 1965 and became director of its Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) upon its foundation. As director of the OIF, Krug organized publication of a newsletter which recounted instances of censorship in the U.S. and suggested ways to deal with these attempts to limit free speech. She coordinated the effort against the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which was the first attempt by the United States Congress to introduce a form of censorship of speech on the Internet. Krug strongly opposed the notion that libraries should censor the material that they provide to patrons. Krug raised a public outcry against the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 and in 2003, led the initiative to challenge the constitutionality of the Children's Internet Protection Act. (Read more...)

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Otto Graham (December 6, 1921 – December 17, 2003) was a professional basketball and football player. He played quarterback for the Cleveland Browns in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) and National Football League (NFL). Graham is regarded by critics as one of the dominant players of his era, having taken the Browns to league championship games every year between 1946 and 1955, winning seven of them. While most of Graham's statistical records have been surpassed in the modern era, he still holds the NFL records for career average yards gained per pass attempt and for the highest career winning percentage for an NFL starting quarterback.

Graham grew up in Waukegan, Illinois, the son of music teachers. He entered Northwestern University in 1940 on a basketball scholarship, but football soon became his main sport. After a brief stint in the military at the end of World War II, Graham played for the Rochester Royals of the National Basketball League (NBL), winning the 1945–46 championship. Paul Brown, Cleveland's coach, signed Graham to play for the Browns, where he thrived. Graham's 1946 NBL and AAFC titles made him the first of only two people to have won championships in two of the four major North American sports. After he retired from playing football in 1955, Graham coached for the College All-Star Game, the Coast Guard Academy, and the Washington Redskins. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1965. (Read more...)

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John Hay (October 8, 1838 – July 1, 1905) was an American statesman and official whose career in government stretched over almost half a century. Beginning as a private secretary and assistant to Abraham Lincoln, Hay's highest office was United States Secretary of State under Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. Hay was also an author and biographer and wrote poetry and other literature throughout much of his life.

Born in Indiana to an anti-slavery family that moved to Illinois when he was young, Hay showed great potential, and his family sent him to Brown University. After graduation in 1858, Hay read law in his uncle's office in Springfield, Illinois, adjacent to that of Lincoln. Hay worked for Lincoln's successful presidential campaign and became one of his private secretaries at the White House. Throughout the American Civil War, Hay was close to Lincoln and stood by his deathbed after the President was shot at Ford's Theatre. In addition to his other literary works, Hay co-authored with John George Nicolay a multi-volume biography of Lincoln that helped shape the assassinated president's historical image.

As Secretary of State, Hay was responsible for negotiating the Open Door Policy, which kept China open to trade with all countries on an equal basis, with international powers. By negotiating the Hay–Pauncefote Treaty with the United Kingdom, the (ultimately unratified) Hay–Herrán Treaty with Colombia, and finally the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty with the newly-independent Republic of Panama, Hay also cleared the way for the building of the Panama Canal.

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Ernie Banks (January 31, 1931 – January 23, 2015), nicknamed "Mr. Cub" and "Mr. Sunshine", was an American professional baseball player who starred in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a shortstop and first baseman for the Chicago Cubs between 1953 and 1971. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1977 and was named to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team in 1999.

Banks began playing professional baseball in 1950 with the Kansas City Monarchs in the Negro leagues. He served in the U.S. military, returned to the Monarchs, and began his major league career in September 1953. The following year, Banks was the Rookie of the Year runner-up. From 1955, Banks was a National League (NL) All-Star for 11 seasons, playing in 13 of the 15 All-Star Games held during those years. He was named the National League Most Valuable Player in 1958 and 1959, and the Cubs' first Gold Glove winner in 1960.

Banks retired from playing in 1971, was a coach for the Cubs in 1972, and in 1982 was the team's first player to have his uniform number retired. Banks was active in the Chicago community during and after his tenure with the Cubs. He founded a charitable organization, became the first black Ford Motor Company dealer in the United States, and made an unsuccessful bid for a local political office. In 2013, Banks was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his contribution to sports. Banks lived in the Los Angeles and Chicago areas.

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Lupe Fiasco (born Wasalu Muhammad Jaco on February 16, 1982) is an American rapper, record producer, and entrepreneur. He rose to fame in 2006 following the success of his debut album, Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor. He also performs as the frontman of rock band Japanese Cartoon under his real name. Fiasco is the chief executive officer of 1st and 15th Entertainment.

Raised in Chicago, Jaco developed an interest in hip hop after initially disliking the genre for its use of vulgarity and misogyny. After adopting the name Lupe Fiasco and recording songs in his father's basement, 19-year-old Fiasco met rapper Jay-Z who helped him sign a record deal with Atlantic Records. In September 2006, Fiasco released his debut album Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor on the label, which received three Grammy nominations. He released his second album, Lupe Fiasco's The Cool, in December 2007. The lead single "Superstar" became his first top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. Lasers was released in March 2011 to mixed reviews, but it became his first album to debut at number one on the Billboard 200. His latest album, Drogas Wave, was released in September 2018.

In addition to music, Fiasco has pursued other business ventures, including fashion. He runs two clothing lines, Righteous Kung-Fu and Trilly & Truly; he has designed sneakers for Reebok. He has been involved with charitable activities, including the Summit on the Summit expedition, and in 2010 he recorded a benefit single for victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Fiasco is also noted for his anti-establishment views, which he has expressed in both interviews and his music.

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Eleanor Sophia Smith (15 June 1858 – 30 June 1942) was an American composer and music educator. She was one of the founders of Chicago's Hull House Music School and headed its music department from 1893 to 1936.

Born in Atlanta, Illinois into a musical family, Smith taught herself to play the piano and later became a classically trained musician. Earning a teaching degree, she began publishing music compositions for children using the philosophy of Friedrich Fröbel, advocating for less memorization and drilling and more attention to intuitive appreciation of music. Studying composition and voice in Germany, she also toured the country observing choirs and their teaching techniques.

Returning to the United States in 1890, Smith began working at the settlement house, Hull House, as a music instructor. Within three years she had co-founded the Hull House Music School, a school which followed her progressive teaching ideas, cross-training students in vocal music as well as instruments. Simultaneously, she worked in several institutions in the Chicago area which trained music educators.vSmith published numerous compilations of songs, including two six-volume textbook series, which were widely used throughout the United States. Most of her writings were focused on children's voices and contained short songs written with attention paid to the limited range and short attention span of children. Many of her compositions were still being used in music education programs in the latter part of the 20th century.

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James Shields (May 10, 1806 – June 1, 1879) was an Irish American politician and United States Army officer, who is the only person in U.S. history to serve as a Senator for three different states. Shields represented Illinois from 1849 to 1855, Minnesota from 1858 to 1859, and Missouri in 1879.

Born and educated in Ireland, Shields emigrated to America in 1826. He settled in Kaskaskia, Illinois, where he studied and practiced law. In 1836, he was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives, and later was elected State Auditor. His work as auditor was criticized by a young Abraham Lincoln, who with his then fiancée, Mary Todd, published a series of inflammatory pseudonymous letters in a local paper. Shields challenged Lincoln to a duel, and the two nearly fought on September 22, 1842, before making peace and eventually becoming friends.

Shields was appointed to the Illinois Supreme Court and subsequently was Commissioner of the U.S. General Land Office. At the outbreak of the Mexican–American War, he took an appointment as brigadier general of volunteers. He served with distinction and was twice wounded. After serving as Senator from Illinois, he moved to Minnesota and there founded the town of Shieldsville. He was elected as Senator from Minnesota. He served in the American Civil War, and at the Battle of Kernstown, his troops inflicted the only tactical defeat of Stonewall Jackson. After moving multiple times, Shields settled in Missouri and served again in the Senate. He represents Illinois in the National Statuary Hall.

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Julie Ertz (née Johnston; born April 6, 1992) is a former American soccer player and FIFA Women's World Cup champion. She played as a midfielder for the Chicago Red Stars of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL), the highest division of women's professional soccer in the United States, and the United States women's national soccer team.

Ertz played collegiate soccer with the Santa Clara University Broncos from 2010 to 2013. Following her collegiate career, Ertz was selected third overall by the Chicago Red Stars in the 2014 NWSL College Draft that took place on January 17, 2014. She is in her fifth season with the Red Stars to date. After moving to center midfield for club and country in 2017, Ertz was awarded U.S. Soccer Female Player of the Year. Ertz first appeared for the United States national team during an international friendly against Scotland on February 9, 2013. She has since made 69 total appearances for the team and scored 17 goals. She represented the United States at the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup. At 23, she was the second youngest member of the team. The United States went on to the World Cup final where she played every minute of all seven games and was subsequently named to the FIFA Women's World Cup All-Star Team. Ertz again played for the U.S. team at the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup in France, scoring in the 3-0 win over Chile. After the 2023 World Cup, Ertz retired from international soccer. (Read more...)

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George Rogers Clark (November 19, 1752 – February 13, 1818) was an American surveyor, soldier, and militia officer from Virginia who became the highest-ranking American patriot military officer on the northwestern frontier during the American Revolutionary War. He served as leader of the militia in Kentucky (then part of Virginia) throughout much of the war. He is best known for his celebrated captures of Kaskaskia (1778) and Vincennes (1779) during the Illinois Campaign, which greatly weakened British influence in the Northwest Territory. The British ceded the entire Northwest Territory to the United States in the 1783 Treaty of Paris, and Clark has often been hailed as the "Conqueror of the Old Northwest". Clark's major military achievements occurred before his thirtieth birthday. Afterward, he led militia in the opening engagements of the Northwest Indian War, but was accused of being drunk on duty. He was disgraced and forced to resign. During the final decades of his life, he worked to evade creditors and suffered living in increasing poverty and obscurity. (Read more...)