April 13

The primary author of the Declaration of Independence, founder of the University of Virginia, and architect of American religious liberty, Jefferson embodied the ideals and contradictions of the American Founding — a philosopher of freedom who enslaved over 600 human beings across his lifetime.

The author of Waiting for Godot (1953), the most influential play of the 20th century, Beckett stripped drama to its existential bones — two men waiting, talking, despairing, enduring. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969, accepting it "in absentia" through his publisher.

The Florentine-born queen who dominated French politics for 30 years as wife and mother of three French kings, Catherine navigated the catastrophic Wars of Religion between Catholics and Huguenots. Blamed by Protestants for the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, she remains one of history's most controversial royal women.

Often called the greatest poet writing in English in the second half of the 20th century, Heaney was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995. His verse, rooted in the soil and history of rural Northern Ireland, explored the relationship between language, memory, and political violence with singular grace.

Widely considered the greatest chess player of all time, Kasparov became World Champion at 22 in 1985 and held or contested the title until 2000. His 1997 match against IBM's Deep Blue — the first time a reigning champion lost a match to a computer — became a cultural watershed about artificial intelligence.

The velvet-voiced soul singer who transformed R&B in the early 1970s with Let's Stay Together, Tired of Being Alone, and I'm Still in Love With You. Green later became an ordained minister, and the tension between sacred and secular love runs through all his greatest music.