Advertise on podcast: Abbreviated Bios

George Gershwin took jazz and adapted it to classical music concertos. He was one of America's greatest composers.

Zebulon Pike explored much of the Louisiana Purchase that Lewis and Clark missed. He was also a hero of the War of 1812.

Kenneth Roberts wrote intense novels about the early years of the American Republic. He also tried to rehabilitate the reputation of American traitor Benedict Arnold.

Charles Drew trained himself to be the number one expert in blood storage. His innovations would later save millions of people.

General Samuel Armstrong opened a school for former slaves after the Civil War to train them in how to make a living.

Joseph Warren was one of the most important Patriot leaders in the events just prior to the American Revolution. He is mostly forgotten today because he died at the Battle of Bunker Hill.

George Chaffey was a pioneer in irrigation. He developed towns in California and Australia, electrified them and created the Imperial Valley.

Benjamin Church is known and the first army ranger and used those tactics to defeat King Philip's forces in the war of that name.

Charles Curtis started out life on an Indian Reservation and made it all the way to the Vice-Presidency.

George Bancroft was America's first great historian but more importantly established the U.S. Naval Academy.

Timothy Dwight, as president of Yale, resisted the influence of French Revolution ideas, which resulted in revival breaking out.

Judith Reisman is the woman who exposed Alfred Kinsey's experiments as a fraud.

John Russell Pope was one of the last neo-classical architects in the U.S. The buildings he designed are some of the most beautiful in the country.

Robert Smalls, as a slave, was trained to be a wheelman on a steamboat. He would use those skills to escape and turn the ship over to the Union Navy.

George Wythe was a founder who was far ahead of most of the others on race relations and wrote legal opinions to undermine slavery.