Francis Scott Key (1779–1843) was the American writer and lawyer who authored the lyrics to “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the national anthem of the United States. Key was inspired to write the anthem while witnessing the Battle of Baltimore from aboard a British warship during the War of 1812.
John Adams (1735–1826) served as a leader in the American Revolution and as the nation’s second president. Born in Braintree, Massachusetts, Adams attended Harvard College and began practicing law. In 1764, he married Abigail Smith, beginning a long and successful marriage and intellectual relationship. In the 1760s, Adams became a leader in the American resistance against parliamentary acts and British rule. From 1774 to 1777, Adams served as a delegate to the First and Second Continental Congresses and nominated George Washington as...
Meriwether Lewis (1774–1809), a former soldier and personal secretary to President Thomas Jefferson, was sent on an expedition to explore the Louisiana Territory. Lewis was appointed and William Clark led the Corps of Discovery across the country, documenting the terrain, flora, and fauna of the Louisiana territory and making initial contact with American Indian tribes.
Sacagawea (1788–1812), a Shoshone woman, joined the Lewis and Clark expedition when her husband, Toussaint Charbonneau, was hired as a guide. She also served as a guide and, more importantly, as an interpreter, translating between the expedition and native groups they encountered.
Zebulon Pike (1779–1813) was an American officer and explorer. Pike’s Peak in Colorado is named in his honor. He was sent to explore the southern portion of the Louisiana Purchase in 1806–1807, but he was captured by the Spanish and held briefly in 1807. He was killed in the War of 1812.
Richard Allen (1760–1831) was the founder and first bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Allen was born a slave. He converted to Methodism as a teenager and began preaching in his early twenties. He bought his freedom in 1786 and moved from Delaware to Philadelphia. There, he joined St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church and held prayer meetings for African Americans. In 1787, frustrated by the church’s restrictions on its black congregants, Allen withdrew and in 1794 established Bethel, an independent congregation for African...
William Clark (1770–1838) was the frontiersman and explorer who, with Meriwether Lewis, led the Lewis and Clark Expedition in the Louisiana Territory and Pacific Northwest in 1804–1806. Born in Virginia, Clark joined the militia on the Ohio frontier in 1789 and was commissioned as a lieutenant of infantry in the Army in 1792. Under General Anthony Wayne, Clark took part in the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794. He left the military in 1796 and in 1803 was invited by Meriwether Lewis to join him in leading an expedition through the Louisiana...
James Madison (1751–1836) was born in Port Conway, Virginia. He graduated from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) in two years rather than the usual four with concentrations in theology, history, and law. In 1776, he drafted Virginia’s first constitution and bill of rights, which later became a model for the Bill of Rights amendments to the US Constitution. Madison supported religious toleration and the separation of church and state. He was elected to the Continental Congress in 1779 and the Constitutional Convention in...
Born on the western frontier of the Carolinas, Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) was the seventh president of the United States and the first from west of the Appalachians. Jackson rose from poverty to a career in law and politics, becoming Tennessee’s first congressman, a senator, and judge on the state supreme court. Although he would later gain a reputation as the champion of the common people, in Tennessee he was allied by marriage, business, and political ties to the state’s elite. As a land speculator, cotton planter, and attorney, he...
John Marshall (1755–1835) was born in Virginia, far from the wealthy tobacco and slave Tidewater region of the state. During the Revolution, he led a company of riflemen and spent the terrible winter of 1777 at Valley Forge. Out of his Revolutionary War experiences, Marshall became a staunch nationalist who distrusted state governments, which, he believed, had failed to support the soldiers. When Marshall became the nation’s fourth chief justice of the Supreme Court in 1801, the Court lacked prestige and public...