1001 People Who Made America - Alan Axelrod [89]
Mifflin, Thomas (1744–1800) Like so many other participants in the American Revolution, Mifflin was a prosperous merchant. He held numerous offices in the colonial and revolutionary government of Pennsylvania and fought in the American Revolution as a major general. Although he preferred action in the front lines of combat, he accepted the thankless task of quartermaster—the officer responsible for supply and logistics—and absorbed much criticism during his tenure in this post.
Miles, Nelson A. (1839–1925) Miles was a brilliant—and temperamental—officer who received the Medal of Honor for his gallantry at Chancellorsville during the Civil War and went on to become an important commander in the Indian Wars. He was in overall command during the infamous Massacre at Wounded Knee (December 29, 1890)—which he condemned—and it was he who accepted the final surrender of the Sioux, thereby ending the era of the Indian Wars. Miles fought in the Spanish-American War—he was, at the time, commanding general of the U.S. Army—and led the invasion of Puerto Rico, then served as the first head of the military government of that island after the war. He retired from the army in 1903, but, when he was in his late seventies, asked to serve in World War I. President Woodrow Wilson turned him down.
Milken, Michael (1946– ) Head of the bond-trading department of Drexel Burnham Lambert, Milken began in the early 1980s exploiting “junk bonds”—hitherto neglected non-investment-grade bonds issued by new companies or companies in trouble. Because of the great risk they carried, junk bonds earned high rates of return—as long as the issuers remained solvent. Milken persuaded savings and loan associations, pension funds, insurance companies, mutual funds, and other institutions to invest in junk bonds, creating a massive influx of capital that fueled an emerging class of entrepreneur called corporate raiders. These individuals specialized in acquiring companies then dismantling or merging them. Such activity came to characterize the frenetic economy of the 1980s. Milken was the king of junk bonds until he was implicated with one of his clients, Ivan Boesky, in an insider trading scheme. He was forced out of Drexel in 1989, and, without him, the junk-bond market imploded. Convicted of securities fraud, Milken was sentenced to 10 years in prison and ordered to pay $600 million in fines.
Miller, Arthur (1915–2005) Miller came of age during the Great Depression and was moved by this background to write plays that combined an acute social consciousness with penetrating and compassionate insight into individual humanity. In his most famous play, Death of a Salesman (1949), Miller created an Everyman character—an embodiment of aspiration and disappointment—who also emerges as one of the great portraits of personality in all drama.
Miller, Glenn (1904–1944) During the 1920s and 1930s, Miller was a successful freelance trombonist and arranger, who repeatedly attempted to make a go with a band of his own, but succeeded only after he had formulated a unique sound that was not only an unmistakable individual signature, but came to be identified with the World War II era of swing. During the war, Miller put his career on hold to lead a U.S. Army Air Forces band, bringing “the sound of home” to GIs stationed overseas. On December 16, 1944, while flying from England to Paris, his plane was lost over the English Channel. Neither the aircraft wreckage nor any sign of Miller was ever recovered.
Minuit, Peter (1580?–1638) Minuit was a Dutch settler who sailed to North America and arrived at the mouth of the Hudson River on May 4, 1626. He was subsequently appointed by the Dutch West India Company director general of the colony on Manhattan. Wanting to legitimate the Dutch claim to the island, he gathered the local Indian leaders and “purchased