Happy Birthday, Edwin Hubble, Influential Astronomer

Writer Nadine Gordimer has devoted her life to fighting for the rights and health of the less fortunate and oppressed. She won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991 for showing “the true power of words,” having written 14 novels and 11 collections of short stories.

Jack Welch was CEO of General Electric for 20 years, beginning his tenure in the midst of 1981’s tough economic conditions and leading the company to enormous growth. An author, husband and father of four, Welch, along with his wife, Suzy, is a leadership guru whose viewpoint is routinely requested by companies and business students.

William Schwenck Gilbert, one half of the successful Gilbert and Sullivan duo, had a knack for satire and an eye for staging, producing comic operettas beloved to this day, including “The Pirates of Penzance” and “The Mikado.” Gilbert coped with a difficult childhood with disagreeable parents and surmounted a period of indecision before launching himself into a renowned career writing for theater.

“It’s easy to think of Scorsese as a kind of poet of the underworld,” the American Film Institute reflected when they granted him a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997. Raised on the streets of New York, director Martin Scorsese has shone a visionary light on the darkest of scenes and characters.

Beginning with the seminal arcade game Donkey Kong nearly three decades ago, Nintendo’s chief game developer and the father of modern video games, Shigeru Miyamoto, has combined his love of art and adventure to create a fantasy universe and wear the mantle of modern-day Walt Disney.

Actor and political activist Ed Asner has earned critical acclaim both on Broadway and in Hollywood. He is best known for his Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning role as Lou Grant, the newsroom boss on the 1970s TV series “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”

French painter Claude Monet was the central figure of the Impressionist movement in the late 19th century, producing colorful, vibrant studies of natural and architectural landscapes.

Although weak in health himself, Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson will always be associated with vigorous adventure, thanks to such thrilling tales as “Kidnapped” and "Treasure Island.” He also achieved international fame for his chilling (and subsequently oft-imitated) Victorian horror story, “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”