LEADERSHIP AND LEGACY
in HISTORY
Sample Topic List
Minnesota History
Environment
Norman Borlaug (1960s)
Willard Munger
Count William Rudolph Martinovich von
Rovigno
Merritt Brothers - Ore Mining (1880s)
Medicine
William J. Mayo
Dr. Lillehei and Open Heart Surgery (1952)
Earl Bakken
Bone Marrow Transplants (1968)
Charles Fremont Dight and the
Minnesota Eugenics Society (1923)
Sister Elizabeth Kenny and Physical Therapy
(1942)
State of Minnesota v. Philip Morris (1994)
Science
Civil Rights
Roy Wilkins
John Ireland
Matthew Little
Hubert H. Humphrey (1940s/50s)
Jane Grey Swisshelm (1860s)
Education
Harriet Bishop (1850s)
Gratia Alta Countryman
Ruth A. Myers
Julia Bullard Nelson
Religion
Art/Literature
Charles Joseph Biederman
Leroy Sunderland Buffington
Francis Scott Fitzgerald
Other
Oliver Kelley starts the Grange (1867)
Farmer-Labor Movement of Minnesota
Frances Densmore
J.A.A. Burnquist and the Commission
of Public Safety (1917)
James “Crash” Ryan and Seatbelts (1950s)
George D. Munsing
James J. Hill and the Great Northern Railway
C.C. Washburn and “New Process Flour”
Betty Crocker and General Mills (1930s)
U.S. History
Environment
John Muir and the Fight for the Protection
of the Environment (1890s)
Rachel Carson
Medicine
Oliver Wendell-Holmes, Sr. and Anesthesia
(1846)
Birth of the Food and Drug Administration
(1906)
Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith: Alcoholics
Anonymous (1935)
Jonas Salk and the Polio Vaccine (1955)
Roe v. Wade (1973)
Science
Rosalind Franklin
Edison and the Light Bulb (1880s)
Cyrus McCormick and the Reaper
Charles Goodyear and Vulcanized Rubber
Samuel Morse and Telegraph (1838)
The Lucas Geyser: Oil Discovery in America
Wright Brothers and their Flying Machine
Ford’s Model T and the Assembly Line (1908)
William Merriam Burton/Burton Process (1913)
Watson and Crick: Discovering the
Structure of DNA (1950s)
Civil Rights
A. Philip Randolph
Plessy vs. Ferguson court case (1892)
Ida Wells and anti-lynching (1892)
Booker T. Washington vs. W.E.B. Du Bois
Rosa Parks and Montgomery Bus Boycott
Freedom Riders (1961)
Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam
Karl Heinrich Ulrichs - pioneer of the
modern Gay Rights Movement (1860s)
National Women’s Rights Convention
Elizabeth Blackwell and Female
Education Reform
Margaret Sanger and Birth Control
National Organization of Women (NOW)
Title IX (1972)
Dwight D. Eisenhower and Integration in
Civil Rights (1950s)
Loving v. Virginia (1967)
Roe v. Wade (1973)
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Leadership in the
Women’s Rights Movement (1850s)
Mary Church Terrell and her Advocacy for
Women and African-American Rights (1890s)
Critiquing the American Childhood;
Paul Goodman (1940s)
Fight for Equal Rights Amendment (1960s)
Mother Jones and Labor Rights (1900s)
Nat Turner’s Slave Revolt (1831)
John Lewis
Keating-Owen Child Labor Act (1916)
Education
Horace Mann and Reforms in
American Education (1820s)
Religion
Mary Baker Eddy
Joseph Smith Jr.
Art
Frank Lloyd Wright (1880s)
Literature
John Peter Zenger and Freedom of the Press
Harriet Beecher Stowe and Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Ernest Hemingway
Upton Sinclair and The Jungle
Louisa May Alcott
Other
Dorothea Dix and Activism for the
Indigent Insane (1850s)
Andy Rooney
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
and the Defense of Liberty (1920s)
Development of the NCAA (
World History
Environment
Wangari Maathai
Chico Mendes
Medicine
Marie Curie and Radiation
Hans Asperger
Ignaz Semmelweis and the
Importance of Handwashing
Joseph Lister and Antiseptics
Science and Technology
Copernicus and the Heliocentric Model (1500s)
Sigmund Freud and the
Psychoanalysis Movement
Nikola Tesla
Galileo and Heliocentrism
Isaac Newton and Gravity
Bessemer Process
Darwin and Evolution
The Sewing Machine
Alexander Graham Bell and Telephone
Tim Berners-Lee and the World Wide Web
Civil Rights
Christine de Pizan; The Book of the
City of the Ladies
Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz and the
revolt against Patriarch Spain
Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of
the Rights of Woman
Bela Kun and the Communist Uprising
in Hungary (1919)
Emmeline Pankhurst and the Fight for
British Women’s Suffrage (1870s)
White Rose (anti-Hitler resistance group)
Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization of the USSR
Gorbachev’s Reforms
Emilio Aguinaldo and the Fight for
Filipino Rights
Andrei Sakharov and the Fight for
Human Rights in the Soviet Union
Karl Marx and the Revolt against Capitalism
Salvador Allende’s Reforms in Socialist Chile
Hidalgo and the Mexican Revolt against Spain
Jose de San Martin and the Liberation of Chile
Lech Walesa
Louis Riel and Red River Rebellion
Education
Religion
Martin Luther’s 95 Theses
Henry VIII’s Break with Rome
Daniel O’Connell and Catholic
Emancipation in Ireland
.
Art
Monet; Founding Modernism
Pablo Picasso - Founder of Cubism
Jackson Pollock and Abstract Expressionism
Walter Gropius and the Birth of
Bauhaus - International Style
Francesco Borromini and Gian Lorenzo Bernini
- Leaders of Roman Baroque
Architecture (1630s)
Igor Stravinsky - Revolutionary of Ballet
Asai Chu
Other
British East India Company and
Leadership in Trade
John Locke and the Right to Revolution
Adam Smith and Fight for Free Trade