1001 People Who Made America - Alan Axelrod [46]
Gates, Bill (1955– ) Gates founded a company—Microsoft—that developed and controlled the most important operating systems of the emerging personal computer (PC). With MS DOS (Microsoft Disk-Operating System) and, later, Windows, Microsoft held the software keys to the personal computer. This made Gates one of the wealthiest men in the world (at times, the wealthiest) and simultaneously one of the world’s most admired, envied, and sometimes hated business titans. In 2000, Gates and his wife, Melinda, established the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which rapidly became the richest philanthropic organization in the world—and attracted in 2006 the largest single philanthropic gift ever made, $30.7 billion in stock from Warren Buffet, which more than doubled the foundation’s already spectacular $29 billion endowment.
Gates, Daryl (1926– ) As chief of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) from 1978 until 1992, Gates introduced law enforcement innovations of national significance, including the DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) and Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (CRASH) programs and, most important of all, the SWAT (Special Weapons And Tactics) concept. His hard-charging leadership style, however, was often viewed as excessive, and his paramilitary approach to policing was seen by some as brutal and inappropriate. Most serious were charges of institutionalized racism within the LAPD. His controversial police career ended in 1992, after he seemingly failed to take necessary steps to quell the worst race riots in Los Angeles history. Gates’s embattled career dramatized many of the challenges of law enforcement in modern America.
Gatling, Richard Jordan (1818–1903) About 1862, this American inventor developed the Gatling gun, the direct precursor of the modern machine gun. For better or worse, it was a major step in the efficiency of infantry weapons and—especially in its later development as the machine gun—would have a profound effect on modern warfare.
Genêt, Charles Edmond (1763–1834) Sent by revolutionary France as an emissary to the United States, Genêt sidestepped President Washington and the U.S. government by conspiring to involve American citizens directly in France’s ongoing war against Britain. This strained Anglo-American relations and set the stage for a major crisis in Franco-American relations. But it also successfully tested President Washington’s determination to uphold and defend United States sovereignty.
Genovese, Vito (1897–1969) After immigrating to the United States from Naples in 1913, Genovese became active in New York gangs, rose to control those gangs, then fled to Italy in 1937 to avoid U.S. prosecution. He became an illicit financier of Benito Mussolini and smuggled narcotics into the United States. Returned to the States after World War II, he again rose to prominence as organized crime’s “boss of all the bosses” in the New York area. Convicted on smuggling and narcotics charges in 1959, he was imprisoned, but continued to rule the underworld from his cell. His reign was finally ended by a fatal heart attack, while still in custody.
George, Henry (1839–1897) In 1879, George published Progress and Poverty, in which he proposed the so-called single tax. Government, he wrote, should be financed by a state tax on “economic rent”—the income from the use of the bare land, not any improvements on that land—and all other taxes should be abolished. The idea took fire as the country struggled to recover from the major panic and depression of 1873–1878, and George became a celebrity. His ideas continue to serve as the basis for many ambitious tax reform schemes.
Geronimo (1829–1909) Geronimo, whose Indian name was Goyathlay (“One who yawns”), led his