Ryan White contracted HIV from a tainted blood treatment for hemophilia in the early 1980s, when those with AIDS were ostracized. His story helped to change that forever.

They say Mary Fields had "the temperament of a grizzly bear" and a quick hand on the draw, but it would be her devotion to her community that made her a legend across the Wild West.

James Armistead Lafayette collected intel that helped George Washington win at Yorktown. But after the war, he had to fight for his freedom.

In 1903, Charles Ponzi was a poor Italian immigrant with two dollars to his name — then he invented the Ponzi scheme and became a multimillionaire almost overnight.

Olympe de Gouges demanded the regulation of prostitution and the dissolution of marriage, but when she criticized Maximillien Robespierre's Reign of Terror, he silenced her for good.

She was not only the first female surgeon in the U.S. Army, but Dr. Mary Edwards Walker also managed to survive a Confederate prison and overcome extreme misogyny to earn herself a spot in American history.