1001 People Who Made America - Alan Axelrod [78]
Limbaugh, Rush (1951– ) Since 1988, Limbaugh has hosted a nationally syndicated conservative radio talk show, heard by an estimated 20 million listeners per week (as of 2007). Not only has Limbaugh been credited with articulating the conservative point of view for the masses, he was identified as a motivating force behind the 1994 Republican sweep of Congress. Media experts have even attributed the revival of AM radio—moribund by the 1970s—to Limbaugh’s tremendous popularity. In 2003, Limbaugh received unwanted publicity when his addiction to prescription pain relievers came to light.
Lincoln, Abraham (1809–1865) Almost universally regarded as the greatest of American presidents, Lincoln presided over a nation torn by the Civil War. He prosecuted that war to restore the Union, and, in the process, he set in place the legal machinery by which slavery in the United States was abolished. Lincoln was a leader of extraordinary courage, wisdom, eloquence, and compassion. Although he fought the war without compromise, he advocated amnesty and forgiveness for the breakaway Confederate states. Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathizer, on April 14, 1865. The president died the following morning.
Lincoln, Mary Todd (1818–1882) The wife of Abraham Lincoln (married on November 4, 1842), Mary Todd Lincoln endured the deaths of two of her sons in childhood (and a third as a young man), the emotional devastation of the Civil War (in which her half-brothers fought for the Confederacy), and the assassination of her husband. She was an unpopular First Lady, in part because of her Southern birth and in part because of her extravagant spending on clothing and furnishings. Like her husband, she suffered from bouts of severe depression. Her only surviving son, Robert Todd Lincoln, caused her commitment to an asylum in 1875. She was released after a court hearing in 1876, but believed herself to have been publicly humiliated. She fled to Europe, returning to Springfield, Illinois, in 1880, where she died three years later.
Lindbergh, Anne Morrow (1906–2001) When Anne Morrow married him on May 27, 1929, Charles A. Lindbergh was the most famous man in America—perhaps in the world. Anne immediately took up flying and became the first American woman to earn a first-class glider pilot’s license. With her husband, she flew and charted air routes between continents throughout the 1930s. Together, the Lindberghs were the first pilots to fly from Africa to South America. Anne endured the loss of her firstborn, Charles Augustus Lindbergh III, who was kidnapped and murdered in 1932. She earned fame in her own right as an author, especially of autobiography, including her 1955 Gift from the Sea, a meditation on womanhood, and her most significant work of autobiography, Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead (1973).
Lindbergh, Charles A. (1902–1974) The maverick son of a U.S. Congressman from Minnesota, Lindbergh had a passion for flying, and on May 20–21, 1927, made the first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic, from New York to Paris. The feat catapulted the tall, handsome, shy aviator to global fame. He was the most lauded non-military hero in American history. Lindbergh devoted much of the rest of his life to pioneering commercial aviation. With his wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, he endured the tragic kidnapping and murder of his infant son in 1932, an episode that drew the heartfelt sympathy of the nation. He fell from grace, however, later in the 1930s for accepting a decoration from the Nazi government of Germany and, in 1940–1941, for his advocacy of American isolationism. In his later years, Lindbergh became a passionate environmentalist.
Lippmann, Walter (1889–1974) Through a career spanning 60 eventful years, Lippmann earned a reputation as America’s most respected political columnist and