Born in Buttenheim, Germany Levi Strauss crossed the Atlantic with his family when he was 18 to start a company in New York City in 1847.  Just a month before his 24^th birthday Strauss became an American citizen while living in Kentucky; but would soon move out west to San Francisco to continue the expansion of the Strauss family business.  Touted for creating the first pair of blue jeans (and then patenting it in 1873), Levi Strauss is largely credited for creating a trend that has never died down in over a century.  While we’ve had a few missteps as a society in denim (ahem: acid-washed, jorts, jean jackets matching pants, mom-jeans – we know they’re “in fashion” but we’re still not on board) it’s undeniable that Levi helped shape this country; or, at least, created fitted clothing for this country’s many shapes.

Joseph Pulitzer was a newspaper publisher and battled with publishing rival William Randolph Hearst in the 1890s for customer loyalty.  Regrettably, this led to “yellow journalism” which is the use of sensationalizing stories into eye-catching headlines with the ultimate purpose to sell more papers rather than using well-researched, ethical journalism techniques.  The irony of this, of course, is that in his passing he left $2 million to Columbia University who, in turn, created the Pulitzer Prize which awards outstanding journalists (and now musicians, writers, and artists) for upstanding work in exposing truth.  Yellow journalism is but a small stain on the story of an immigrant who was elected congressman of New York, fought to keep the Statue of Liberty in NYC, and helped establish the world’s first school of journalism.

People generally agree that Einstein was a “very smart individual” but the extent of his knowledge and innate understanding of the universe is proving to continue to impact the world of physics and cosmology, even 60 years after his death.  Einstein spent very little time in the lab and, instead, is considered more of a theorist who spent his time in “thought experiments” that visualized equations and solutions to all of physics’ big questions.  In fact, even Einstein’s self-proclaimed life’s “greatest blunder” in his belief of what he called “lambda” was later proven correct after all; nearly 70 years later.  His simple yet not-so-simple equation of E=MC² has withstood the test of time (and countless experiments) proving his prolific mind.  As Neil DeGrasse Tyson put it in his book Astrophysics for People in a Hurry “Yes, Einstein was a badass.”

The unworldly bulky Austrian turned Terminator is far more than most people give him credit for.  Arnold’s history is more than catch phrases and a fun-to-imitate accent; though, we will never stop screaming things like “it’s not a tumah!”, “run to the choppa!”, and “do it now!”  You may be surprised to learn that his first million wasn’t made from Conan or any other acting or bodybuilding gig, it was actually in real estate.  Bodybuilding paid very poorly but he was able to scrounge enough cash from it to purchase an apartment building, then he parlayed that investment into bigger real estate investments and eventually made his first million through such endeavors.  Beyond that, after decades of success in Hollywood he became the “Governator” of California arguably doing a great job as a conservative in a very liberal state.  This immigrant has been such an impact on American politics that voters have seriously discussed the potential of changing the law to allow citizens who weren’t born in America the right to run for president.  Not bad for a Kindergarten Cop.

Shockingly this name is not that well-known.  Who is he, you ask?  Here’s a hint: in a way, he invented the number that is 10¹⁰⁰ – that would be a “1” with 100 “0” after it.  Still stumped?  The name of that number is a “googol”.  That’s right, Sergey Brin moved to the U.S. from Russia to co-found the web giant Google.  He’s now the twelfth richest person in the world (it must sting to not be top-ten) at $45 billion.  Regardless of certain ethically questionable acts from the super-company, it’s no doubt that they have escalated the advancement of connection throughout the world.  Google X (now just called X), for instance, has pioneered self-driving cars, Project Loon aims to put another billion people within reach of internet signals, and is working on something called Gcam which will be a huge step in digital imaging and photography.  If you’re into comics, Sergey Brin is like the Superman special edition “Red Son” if Superman left his home country of Russia, to come to America and do super things.