'Most of man's problems upon this planet, in the long history of the race, have been met and solved either partially or as a whole by experiment based on common sense and carried out with courage.'

Frances Perkins was the first woman in the US to hold a cabinet position

President Franklin D. Roosevelt named her the United States Secretary of Labor in 1933. In her cabinet seat, she not only helped establish the first federal minimum wage in the US, but also the Social Security Act.

'One man can make a difference and every man should try.'

- Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929-1994)

'Men and nature must work hand in hand. The throwing out of balance of the resources of nature throws out of balance also the lives of men.'

- President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)

'I have learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.'

- Martha Washington (1731-1802)

Polish chemist and physicist Marie Curie (1867–1934) on learning

“Nothing in life is to be feared; it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less."

'No big challenge has ever been solved, and no lasting improvement has ever been achieved, unless people dare to try something different.'

- Apple CEO Tim Cook (1960 - present)

A quote from Sally Ride

“Three Secrets to Success: Be willing to learn new things. Be able to assimilate new information quickly. Be able to get along with and work with other people.”

1975: Betty Ford, remarks at the International Women's Year Conference

"Change, by its very nature, is threatening but it is also often productive."

'I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took an excuse.'

- Modern nursing innovator Florence Nightingale (1820-1910)

A trailblazing member of Congress was inspired to champion Title IX because of her own experiences

Patsy T. Mink (D-HI) was the first woman of color in Congress and one of the law’s biggest proponents. Before elected office, Mink was rejected from 20 medical schools because of her gender. She went on to law school instead, but still faced discrimination after graduation when she was turned down jobs because she was a married woman.

A quote by scientist Nikola Tesla

"The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result ... His duty is to lay the foundation for those who are to come, and point the way."

'The arts and sciences are avatars of human creativity. It's our attempt to influence things, the universe internal to ourselves and external to us.'

- Mae Jemison (1956-present), the first Black woman in space

'It might be that some day I shall be drowned by the sea, or die of pneumonia from sleeping out at night, or be robbed and strangled by strangers. These things happen. Even so, I shall be ahead because of trusting the beach, the night and strangers.'

-Janet Reno, the US' first female attorney general (1938-2016)

Social work pioneer Jane Addams (1860 - 1935) on civilization

"Civilization is a method of living, an attitude of equal respect for all men."

'Organize, agitate, educate, must be our war cry.'

- Suffragist Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906)

Listen to how the 1902 'poison squad' experiments changed food safety in America

As part of government research, a group of young men were paid to eat standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—which revealed the dangers of unregulated food. The work was led by the first FDA commissioner, Harvey Wiley, who helped end the "century of the great stomachache."

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once called states 'laboratories of democracy'

Louis Brandeis argued that federalism allows states to experiment with new policies without committing the entire nation, thereby allowing successful ideas to spread while limiting the risks of failure.

Building the first atomic bomb required unprecedented coordination

Creating the first atomic bombs demanded breakthroughs in physics, engineering, and logistics—uniting elite scientists with tens of thousands of workers across the US. This in-depth history explains how the Manhattan Project overcame those challenges.

Gender bias in science’s past still echoes in today’s Nobel Prize tallies

Although women make up half the global population, they’ve won only 49 out of 923 Nobel Prizes from 1901 to 2022. Nobel committee members say historical gender bias has limited female representation, but they plan to promote more diverse nominations.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of young men ate standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—as part of government research to better understand food safety.

At the age of seven, Grace Hopper dismantled alarm clocks

Foreshadowing a career in computers, Hopper exhibited a curiosity for gadgets at a young age and took apart seven clocks, determined to understand how they worked. Despite having a dollhouse, Hopper built an elevator for it and showed a greater interest in building toy furniture than playing with dolls.

Abigail Adams received no formal schooling, but educated herself through reading

Despite receiving no formal education—standard for women of her era—Adams became well-read, largely through self-directed reading and extensive correspondence with leading political thinkers of her time, such as Thomas Jefferson and Mercy Otis Warren.

Modern consulting traces its roots to 1886

Arthur D. Little Inc. was the first management consulting firm. Starting as a chemical analysis lab, the firm evolved to play pivotal roles in projects like developing the NASDAQ system and supporting Apollo 11.

Lewis and Clark’s journey became a blueprint for future exploration

Combining science, diplomacy, and logistics, the Corps of Discovery created a model for later expeditions—from charting the Arctic to NASA’s space missions.

Richard Feynman exposed NASA's safety failures on the Rogers Commission

The Nobel Laureate served on the Rogers Commission investigating Challenger, famously demonstrating O-ring failure with ice water and eventually criticizing NASA's culture of risk normalization and management pressure in the final report.

The environmental crises of the late 1960s led to the founding of the EPA

Disasters such as the Cuyahoga River fire and the Santa Barbara oil spill prompted Congress and President Nixon to establish the Environmental Protection Agency in December 1970, with the goal of unifying federal efforts to control pollution.

English mathematician Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer algorithm a century before computers existed and hypothesized that computing devices would one day be able to compose music—foreseeing the generative AI systems of today.

See a ranking of the best (and worst) Federal Reserve Chairs since 1914 out of the 16 men and women who have held the office since.

After NASA's Voyager 1 captured Earth as a single pixel as it left the solar system in 1990, astronomer Carl Sagan used the image to reflect on humanity's fragility and the responsibility to protect 'the only world we've ever known.'

The story of Dollree Mapp, whose legal challenge over her 1957 conviction for possessing "obscene material" led to a major strengthening of the Fourth Amendment

See the most iconic photos from four decades of LIFE magazine

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.

20,000 letters to the advice columnist 'Dear Abby' provide insight into prevailing sex, religion, and LGBTQ fears, anxieties, and concerns from the 1950s onward.

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

The American Society of Civil Engineers' infrastructure report card gave the US a C in 2025, its highest grade since the project launched in 1998.

When a Paris department store hesitated to sell Estée Lauder's perfume, she 'accidentally' broke a bottle, causing the smell to spread throughout the store and shoppers to start asking to buy the scent.

Mark Twain spent decades feuding with the US Postal Service, convinced its costs and regulations were bureaucratic overreach.

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

American short story writer Flannery O'Connor raised 40 peacocks, which became potent symbols for her fiction's elegant violence

Jimmy Carter signed a 1978 bill that legalized home brewing, a move credited with kick-starting the craft beer industry.

Sears sold DIY house kits starting at $600 in its famous catalog from 1908 through the 1940s, resulting in roughly 10,000 'Sears and Roebuck houses' being built.

The first line of 'immortal' human cells, which can divide indefinitely and are used in scientific research, was nonconsensually taken from a Black woman.

The concept of phantom limbs, the perception that amputated limbs are still present, dates back to a French military surgeon in the 16th century.

The hormonal disorder PCOS was renamed PMOS in 2026, a move designed to improve care and research by shifting the focus to the hormonal causes of this condition that affects 1 in 8 women.

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

Brandi Chastain, the star of the 1999 US victory over China in the 1999 Women's World Cup, was a last-second choice to take the penalty kick that sealed the victory.

Chaos theory—informally known as the butterfly effect—is the reason why weather forecasts are presented with probabilities rather than certainties.

Use this tool to calculate the dollar value of your parental mental load, from meal planning to coordinating after-school care, then see resources that help generate solutions.