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American army during World War I. During World War II, he helped to fashion the U.S. Army into a victorious force in North Africa, became the conqueror of Sicily, then went on to lead his Third Army in a spectacular drive across France and Germany unparalleled in U.S. military history, liberating thousands of towns and villages and capturing more than a million enemy soldiers. Patton was a legendary leader, whose difficult temperament often took him to the verge of being relieved of command—his outstanding combat record notwithstanding. His men memorialized him as “Old Blood-and-Guts.”

Paul, Alice (1885–1977) A radical suffragist, Paul was jailed three times for her activities on behalf of women’s suffrage. In 1923, she drafted and presented to Congress an equal rights amendment to the Constitution intended to ensure legal equality for women. Her campaign for passage and ratification of the amendment failed, as did subsequent attempts long after her death.

Peale, Charles Willson (1741–1827) Peale was born in Maryland, became a much sought-after portrait painter, then studied in England, returning to America at the outbreak of the revolution. Active in the independence movement, he painted portraits of the most important figures of the revolution and in 1782 opened in Philadelphia a public portrait gallery of revolutionary heroes. Four years later, he founded a museum of natural history. Peale’s Museum (later called the Philadelphia Museum) was the first major museum in the United States.

Peckinpah, Sam (1925–1984) Born David Samuel Peckinpah in Fresno, California, Peckinpah directed his first great western, Ride the High Country, in 1962. A literate take on the popular western film genre, the film featured characters in search of fortune or redemption of honor, playing out their violent stories against the backdrop of the majestic American West. These themes were developed with even greater complexity in Peckinpah’s masterpiece, The Wild Bunch (1969), which also featured intricately choreographed, beautifully filmed, and masterfully edited sequences of intense yet poetic violence—for which the director was both praised and condemned.

Pei, I. M. (1917– ) Pei immigrated to the United States in 1935 and studied architecture at the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He rose to fame beginning in the 1950s with his magnificent, even exuberant elaboration of the austere “International Style” in such buildings as the National Center for Atmospheric Research (Boulder, Colorado), John F. Kennedy Memorial Library (Harvard University), the East Building of the National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.), and the New York City Convention Center.

Peirce, Charles Sanders (1839–1914) Peirce possessed an intellect of tremendous scope but is best known for his work in logic and philosophy. He was a metaphysician, who evolved a theory of basic reality; he was a theoretician of the nature of chance and continuity; he was a mathematician, who contributed to the development of linear algebra; he was a logician, who was among the creators of the algebra of logic and other systems basic to modern logic; he was a psychologist, who speculated on many of the bases of human motivation; and he was a pioneering semiotician, who investigated the nature of language and meaning. Peirce even made early contributions to computer theory. Many students of intellectual history consider Peirce the single most original thinker the nation ever produced.

Penn, William (1644–1718) An English Quaker, Penn secured a charter in 1681 to found a new proprietary colony in America. Called Pennsylvania (in honor of his father), the colony offered religious tolerance (including refuge for the universally persecuted Quakers), a significant degree of democracy, and a commitment to fair and peaceful relations with the local Indians. The “Frame of Government” Penn drew up for the colony is considered a precursor of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Perot, H. Ross (1930– ) Perot made a fortune in the computer and data-processing