IRISH AMERICAN MUSEUM OF WASHINGTON, D.C. - Key Persons

A Boston native who attended Trinity College before studying at George Washington University at night, Kelly worked at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, now Wilmer Hale before going to AIG. Ms. Kelly served as an Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Verizon Business (formerly, MCI Inc.) since August 4, 2003. She served as an Executive Vice President and General Counsel of MCI Group. Ms. Kelly served as Chief Legal Officer of MCI Group and led its domestic and international legal, regulatory, and legislative efforts. Prior to joining MCI Group, Ms. Kelly served as Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Sears, Roebuck and Co., from March 1999 to January 2003. She also managed the Corporate Secretary function, acting as the primary point of contact for the Board of Directors. As a member of MCI Group's Operating Committee, she was responsible for assisting the Chairman and her team in developing and implementing MCI Group's strategic plan. Ms. Kelly served as Chief Legal Officer of Fannie Mae. Ms. Kelly served as Senior Vice President and General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Fannie Mae from 1995 to March 1999. Ms. Kelly served as a partner and associate with the Washington D.C. law firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering LLP, where she represented a number of corporate clients in transactions, as well as bankruptcy, and developed an expertise in technology. She began her legal career at the Dallas law firm of Carrington, Coleman, Sloman and Blumenthal in 1981. She served as a Director and Member of the Advisory Board of Fannie Mae. Anastasia D. "Stasia" Kelly was Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Senior Regulatory & Compliance Officer of American International Group Inc. AIG, from September 7, 2006 - Jan 2010 prior to joining DLA Piper's Washington office, Stacias family on her father's side is from County Meath, where her cousins still live, and her mother's side hails from County Cork.

Job Titles:

• Board Member of a & E Television Networks

Anne Sweeney born November 4, 1958, the daughter of two teachers, today she is the Co-Chair of Disney Media Networks and President of Disney-ABC Television Group. With roots that can be traced to Kerry, Meath and Mayo Sweeney has had an immeasurable impact on Media in the last twenty years. She spent 12 years at Nickelodeon/Nick at Nite in various executive positions, most recently as senior vice president of Program Enterprises. Among many accomplishments, she oversaw Nickelodeon's international expansion, including launching the channel in the United Kingdom, resulting in a joint venture with British Sky Broadcasting. More than twenty-five years later, her 2004 promotion to president of the Disney-ABC Television Group would bring her the "The Most Powerful Woman in Entertainment" title from the Hollywood Reporter, not to mention also being declared one of the "50 Most Powerful Women in Business" by Fortune Today Ms. Sweeney oversees ABC Studios, the ABC Owned Television Stations Group, and the ABC Television Network, which provides entertainment, news and kids programming to viewers via more than 200 affiliated stations across the U.S. She also oversees Disney Channels Worldwide, a portfolio of 94 kid-driven, family inclusive entertainment channels, including Disney Channel, Disney XD, Playhouse Disney, Disney Cinemagic, Hungama, GXT and Radio Disney brands. Additionally, Ms. Sweeney's responsibilities include cable networks ABC Family and SOAPnet, the company's equity interest in A&E Television Networks, and Disney's publishing imprint, Hyperion. In 2005, Ms. Sweeney led the industry into the digital era when the Disney/ABC Television Group became the first media company to put television content on new platforms. The group was the first to leverage iTunes, the first to introduce an ad-supported full episode player online, and the first to deliver an application for the revolutionary iPad. Under her leadership, the Group continues to combine high-quality content with strategic use of traditional and emerging distribution platforms to deliver compelling news and entertainment viewing experiences to hundreds of millions of people around the world. Active in organizations both within and outside the television industry, Ms. Sweeney is a board member of A&E Television Networks, the Paley Center for Media, the American Film Institute and the Special Olympics. In 2008 she was honored with the Broadcasters Foundation of America's Golden Mike Award for Outstanding Contributions to Broadcasting, the Matrix Award for television from New York Women in Communications, Inc., as well as the National Cable & Telecommunications Association's Vanguard Award for Distinguished Leadership. Ms. Sweeney was inducted into the Cable Center's Hall of Fame in October 2007 and recognized by the Producers Guild of America in 2006 with the President's Citation for her efforts on behalf of diversity across the Disney/ABC Television Group. In 2005 she was inducted into the Broadcasting & Cable "Hall of Fame," and in 2004 received the Muse Award from New York Women in Film & Television. She has been honored repeatedly by Women in Cable & Telecommunications -- as Executive of the Year in 1994, Woman of the Year in 1997, and in 1998 as the recipient of the Advocate Leader Award from WICT's Southern California chapter. In 1995 she received the prestigious STAR Award from American Women in Radio and Television. She was inducted into the American Advertising Federation's Advertising Hall of Achievement in 1996. In 2002 she received Women in Film's esteemed Lucy Award and has been awarded the Cable Television Public Affairs Association's President's Award.

Born June 16, 1902, in Hartford, Connecticut, Barbara McClintock was the third of four children of physician Thomas Henry McClintock and Sara Handy McClintock. From about the age of three until the time she started school, McClintock lived with an aunt and uncle in Brooklyn, New York in order to reduce the financial burden on her parents while her father established his medical practice. McClintock completed her secondary education at Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn. She discovered science at high school, and wanted to attend Cornell University to continue her studies, which she entered in 1919. McClintock received her PhD in botany from Cornell University in 1927, where she was a leader in the development of maize cytogenetics. The field remained the focus of her research for the rest of her career. From the late 1920s, McClintock studied chromosomes and how they change during reproduction in maize. Her work was groundbreaking: she developed the technique for visualizing maize chromosomes and used microscopic analysis to demonstrate many fundamental genetic ideas, including genetic recombination by crossing-over during meiosis-a mechanism by which chromosomes exchange information. She produced the first genetic map for maize, linking regions of the chromosome with physical traits, and demonstrated the role of the telomere and centromere, regions of the chromosome that are important in the conservation of genetic information. She was recognized amongst the best in the field, awarded prestigious fellowships, and elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1944. During the 1940s and 1950s, McClintock discovered transposition and used it to show how genes are responsible for turning physical characteristics on or off. She developed theories to explain the repression or expression of genetic information from one generation of maize plants to the next. Encountering skepticism of her research and its implications, she stopped publishing her data in 1953. Later, she made an extensive study of the cytogenetics and ethnobotany of maize races from South America. McClintock's research became well understood in the 1960s and 1970s, as researchers demonstrated the mechanisms of genetic change and genetic regulation that she had demonstrated in her maize research in the 1940s and 1950s. Mc Clintock was named the 1983 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, acknowledging her as one of the world's most distinguished cytogeneticists, for the discovery of genetic transposition; she is the only woman to receive an unshared Nobel Prize in that category.

Born in Tacoma, Washington, on May 3, 1903 Bing Crosby became the archetypal crooner of a period when the advent of radio broadcasting and talking pictures and the refinement of sound-recording techniques made the climate ideal for the rise of such a figure. His casual stage manner and mellow, relaxed singing style influenced two generations of pop singers and made him the most successful entertainer of his day. The fourth of seven children born in Tacoma, Washington to parents, Harry Lincoln Crosby (1870-1950), a bookkeeper, and Irish-American Catherine Helen (affectionately known as Kate) Harrigan (1873-1964), were English-American. Kate was the daughter of Canadian-born parents who had emigrated to Stillwater, Minnesota, from Miramichi, New Brunswick. Kate's grandfather and grandmother, Dennis and Catherine Harrigan, had in turn moved to Canada in 1831 from Schull, County Cork, Ireland. Bing studied law at Gonzaga University in Spokane but was more interested in playing the drums and singing with a local band. Bing and the band's piano player, Al Rinker, left Spokane for Los Angeles in 1925. In the early 1930s Bing's brother Everett sent a record of Bing singing "I Surrender, Dear" to the president of CBS. His live performances from New York were carried over the national radio network for 20 consecutive weeks in 1932. His radio success led Paramount Pictures to include him in The Big Broadcast (1932), a film featuring radio favorites. His songs about not needing a bundle of money to make life happy was the right message for the decade of the Great Depression. His relaxed, low-key style carried over into the series of "Road" comedies he made with pal Bob Hope. He won the best actor Oscar for playing an easygoing priest in Going My Way (1944). He showed that he was indeed an actor as well as a performer when he played an alcoholic actor

Born on September 20th 1737 at his father's townhouse, Carroll Mansion of Annapolis in Maryland, Charles Carroll III was the only Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence. His grandfather, Daniel Carroll, was Irish and was a clerk in the office of Lord Powis, in the reign of James the Second. Under the patronage of Lord Baltimore, the principal proprietor of Maryland, Mr. Carroll emigrated to that Colony toward the close of the seventeenth century, and became the possessor of a large plantation. His son Charles, the father of [Declaration of Independence signer Charles Carroll], was born in 1702, and lived to the age of eighty years, when he died and left his large estate to his eldest child, Charles, who was then twenty-five years old. When he was only eight years of age, his father, who was a Roman Catholic, took him to France, and entered him as a student in the Jesuit College at St. Omer's. There he remained six years, and then went to another Jesuit seminary of learning, at Rheims. After remaining there one year, he entered the College of Louis le Grand, whence he graduated at the age of seventeen years, and then commenced the study of law at Bourges. One of the wealthiest men in America, Charles Carroll III of Carrollton served as a U.S. Senator in the first Congress, and risked his fortune as well as his life when he joined the Revolutionaries. Possessing one of the most cultivated minds of any of the signers, he achieved remarkable success as planter, businessman, and politician. He was the last of the signatories to die. Carroll sailed home from his European studies in 1765 at the age of 28, and built a home at Carrollton Manor, a 10,000-acre estate in Frederick County newly deeded to him by his father. At that time, he added "Carrollton" to his name to distinguish himself from relatives of the same name. In 1773 Carroll became a champion of the patriots through his newspaper attacks on the Proprietary Governor. The latter was opposing reforms in officers' fees and stipends for Anglican clergy that the lower house of the legislature had proposed. In his final years, Carroll spent most of his time at Doughoregan Manor. In 1832, he died at the age of 95. His body was interred in the family chapel at Doughoregan Manor.

Charles Patrick Daly was born in New York City, 31 October 1816. A member of the New York State Assembly, Chief Justice of the New York Court of Common, president of the American Geographical Society and an author of several books, ironically he received a little schooling in his early years choosing instead to go to sea, serving three years, and later became a mechanic's apprentice. Upon return to New York he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1839, elected a member of the legislature in 1843, became justice of the court of common pleas in 1844, first judge in 1857, and chief justice from 1871 to 1886, his term expiring by limitation of age, when he returned to the practice of his profession. In 1860 he received from Columbia the degree of LL.D. Justice Daly has for many years been president of the American geographical society, lectured at Columbia law-school, delivered discourses before learned societies, and made public addresses. The Daly ancestors were the O'Dalys of County Galway, Ireland. In 1814, two years before Daly's birth, his parents immigrated to the U.S. from Omagh, County Tyrone, Ireland. Daly was born in New York, New York, USA. His father, Michael, had been a master carpenter in Ireland, but in New York City, he worked as the manager of a hotel on Broadway. His mother, Elizabeth, died when Daly was age three. His publications include " Historical Sketch of the Judicial Tribunals of New York from 1623 to 1846" (New York, 1855); "History of Naturalization and its Laws in Different Countries "(1860); "Are the Southern Privateersmen Pirates?" (1862) ;"Origin and History of Institutions for the Promotion of Useful Arts by Industrial Exhibitions" (Albany, 1864); "When was the Drama introduced in America?" (1864); 13 vols. of " Reports of Cases in the Court of Common Pleas, City and County of New York" (New York, 1868-'87); "First Settlement of Jews in North America" (1875); "What we know of Maps and Map-making before the Time of Mercator" (1879).

Job Titles:

• Vice President of Digital Operations for Sony Music Entertainment

Originally from Listowel, Co. Kerry, Cora moved to the U.S. in 1991, right after getting married. She received a Donnelly green card and intended to stay for no longer than a year. Creed taught computer classes at the Aisling Irish Center in Yonkers 10 years go. She played and was a committee member of the Bronx Irish Soccer league for a few years, and also played and was a committee member for the Ladies Darts League. She is one of the founding members of Swazi Legacy, Inc., a not-for-profit organization created last year to continue the life-long work of Father Pat Ahern (late of Ballylongford, Co. Kerry), by raising monies to help educate children orphaned due to the AIDS epidemic in Swaziland. Today Cora Creed is the vice president of digital operations for Sony Music Entertainment; the second-largest global recorded music company of the "big four" record companies, featuring such artists as Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson and Carrie Underwood.She splits her time between New York and Salzburg, Austria, working on strategic operational initiatives in the digital arena.

Job Titles:

• Founder, Co - Founder, and Chairman or Board Member

The youngest of three children, Thomas J Fogarty was born February 25, 1934, into an Irish Catholic family living in Cincinnati. His father worked as a railroad engineer but died when he was just eight years old. Fogarty took an active role in the family, taking care of things his father might have. A Cardiovascular surgeon, an inventor, an entrepreneur and a professor of medicine at Stanford University today, Dr Thomas Fogarty invented the embolectomy balloon catheter in 1961 while still in medical school. His catheter patented in 1969 revolutionized vascular surgery--it is still the most widely used technique for blood clot removal--and encouraged advances for other minimally invasive surgeries, including angioplasty. Dr. Fogarty received his undergraduate education at Xavier University and his medical degree from the University of Cincinnati. He completed his residency at the University of Oregon and later served as Medical Staff President at Stanford Medical Center from 1970-1979. After thirteen years directing the Cardiovascular Surgery Program at Sequoia Hospital, Redwood City, he returned to academic life at Stanford University School of Medicine in July 1993 as Professor of Surgery. Fogarty has served as founder, co-founder, and chairman or board member of more than 33 business and research companies, based on medical devices designed and developed by Fogarty Engineering Inc. In the past 40 years he has been named on over 100 surgical instrumentation patents, including the "industry standard" Fogarty balloon embolectomy catheter and the widely used Aneurx Stent Graft that replaces open AAA surgery. Dr. Fogarty holds countless awards and honors - most notably, he is the recipient of Jacobson Innovation Award of the American College of Surgeons, the Lemelson-MIT Prize for Invention and Innovation and an inductee of the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

Born July 13, 1942 in Chicago, Illinois, Harrison Ford was raised in the suburbs of Chicago, by his Irish father Christopher, a local advertising executive who sometimes worked as a radio actor. Harrison Ford studied English at Ripon College in Wisconsin. He served a long apprenticeship in film and television, interspersed with employment as a carpenter, before finding success in George Lucas 'American Graffiti in 1973. Ford collaborated with Lucas again for his breakthrough role as Han Solo in Star Wars (1977) and its two sequels, The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983). Cast as a resourceful, swashbuckling hero, he found great popularity as the archaeologist adventurer Indiana Jones in a series of films beginning with Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). He received an Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for his role as John Book in Witness 1985. He is a longtime supporter of liberal and environmental causes, and testified before the Senate in a failed attempt to prevent Communist China from being granted "Most Favored Nation" status. In honor of his work for conservation causes, two species of animals have been named for Ford, a Central American ant (Pheidole harrisonfordi) and an eight-eyed spider (Calponia harrisonfordi). Ford's overwhelming passion is the environment. In 1991, he was introduced to Conservation International, one of the world's leading environmental research groups where he joined the ranks of Conservation International as a board member, and soon became vice chairman. He became actively involved in the organization's design and growth, and now sits on the Executive Committee.

Hercules Mulligan born in 1740 was the son of an Irish immigrant to New York City. Hercules, an illustrious cloth merchant, used his trade to gather intelligence for General George Washington during the American Revolution, appointed Washington s chief "confidential agent." While posing as a collaborator during the British occupation of the city, he provided the American commander with vital information on the enemy's plans and movements. British soldiers and officers often came to his shop to have their uniforms and outfits made, while Hercules coaxed information out of them. This information would in turn be sent to General Washington, who relied heavily upon such intelligence. The British officers felt safe around Mulligan, since he was the son-in-law of one of the British naval officers. But Mulligan and his wife were strong but secret patriots in a neighborhood of Tories (NYC is still a haven of the enemies of patriots!). Though his patriotism was not widely known among the NYC neighborhood, it was well known by his American friends. During the 1760's, when many political leaders were still trying to reconcile with England, Mulligan saw clearly that war was the only way to end the dispute between the American colonies and the "mother country," and believed that petitions and boycotts were not going to convince the British to change their tyrannical ways. So he became involved in armed militia companies. For instance, Mulligan had participated in a New York "Sons of Liberty" militia club, one of the first to spring up in America. This group fought the first battle of the American Revolution, the Battle of Golden Hill, in 1769. Mulligan was a member of many other patriotic organizations throughout the City and State. During the early 1770s, before the actual outbreak of the Revolution, Mulligan was responsible for nourishing the patriotism of his young friend Alexander Hamilton, who was then residing in Mulligan's home During the Revolutionary War, Hercules Mulligan served as an important member of the Culper Spy Ring, a secret group that transmitted vital military intelligence to General Washington, using invisible ink, pseudonyms, and other methods of secret correspondence. During Washington's presidency several years later, the business tables of Hercules Mulligan changed. No longer did he have to hide his patriotism and sell fine fabric to British officers - now President Washington patronized Mulligan's shop! Hercules Mulligan is an example of staunch patriotism and bravery. Mulligan played an important role in the progress and success of the American Revolution.

Born March 25, 1745 John Barry was an officer in the Continental Navy during the American Revolutionary War and later in the United States Navy. Often credited as "The Father of the American Navy". Barry was born in a modest thatched cottage in 1745 at Ballysampson on Our Lady's Island, which is part of Tacumshin Parish in County Wexford, Ireland. Barry's father was a poor tenant farmer who was evicted by his British landlord. The family was forced to relocate to the village of Rosslare. At Rosslare, the youth's uncle, Nicholas Barry, was captain of a fishing skiff, and the young man determined at an early age to follow his uncle to sea. Barry started out as a ship's cabin boy, and graduated from seaman to able seaman and ultimately, a Mate's rating. Barry grew to be a tall, muscular, well-respected seaman. A salient event which occurred in Barry's youth led to a lifelong enmity of oppression and the British. At a young age Barry learned of the massacre of some 3,000 Wexfordians under an invading force led by Oliver Cromwell in 1649. Ireland and appointed a Captain in the Continental Navy on December 7, 1775. Few Americans are well-acquainted with the gallantry and heroic exploits of Philadelphia's Irish-born naval commander, Commodore John Barry. Barry remains to this day an unsung hero of the young American Republic. In the space of 58 years, this son of a poor Irish farmer rose from humble cabin boy to senior commander of the entire United States fleet. Intrepid In battle, he was humane to his men as well as adversaries and prisoners. Barry's war contributions are unparalleled: he was the first to capture a British war vessel on the high seas; he captured two British ships after being severely wounded in a ferocious sea battle; he quelled three mutinies; he fought on land at the Battles of Trenton and Princeton; he captured over 20 ships including an armed British schooner in the lower Delaware; he authored a Signal Book which established a set of signals used for effective communication between ships; and he fought the last naval battle of the American Revolution aboard the frigate Alliance in 1783. Barry's first command came in 1766 aboard the schooner, Barbadoes, sailing out of Philadelphia, which Barry adopted as his home port. Barry had good reason to make Philadelphia his new home. William Penn's legacy of religious freedom allowed Roman Catholics, which Barry was, greater latitude of worship than most anywhere else in the Colonies Further, the city was emerging as a great maritime trade center. Its growing population, which exceeded 30,000 by the start of the Revolution, hungered for imported goods brought in by ships piloted by captains such as Barry. Plying back and forth between Philadelphia and the West Indies, Barry gained his early skills of command at the helm of several merchant ships. The Barrys had no children; however, they happily raised two boys from Barry's deceased sister Eleanor's household. Sarah's nephews from Ireland, Michael and Patrick Hayes, were brought to Philadelphia by Captain John Rosseter on his ship, the Rising Sun. Rosseter was a neighbor of the Barry family in Ireland, and the captain also wound up living on the same street as John Barry in Philadelphia. His close association with the Barrys continued even in death, as the Rosseter plot lies next to the Barry plot in Old St. Mary's churchyard. When Barry arrived back in Philadelphia on the Black Prince he was greeted with the word that the Colonies and Great Britain were at war. At the outset of the Revolution, Barry was given the singularly important task of outfitting the first Continental Navy ships which were put to sea from Philadelphia. His assignment included: overseeing rigging, piercing gunports, strengthening bulwarks, procuring powder and canvas for the new warships and loading provisions. Upon completion of his work, Barry was rewarded with what he most desired from the Marine Committee: a Captain's commission in the Continental Navy, dated March 14, 1776, and signed by the President of Congress, John Hancock. Along with this commission went command of Barry's first warship, the brig Lexington. John Barry was so well-regarded during his lifetime that when President Jefferson retrenched the military establishment, Barry's services were retained. Despite being so engaged with naval matters, Barry was active socially while on land. He was a member of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick and the Hibernian Fire Company. Barry's contributions to the nascent navy were singular. He authored a Signal Book in 1780, which established a set of signals to be used for effective communication between ships voyaging in squadron formation. Barry also suggested the creation of a Department of the Navy with separate cabinet status from the Secretary of War. This was finally realized with the formation of the United States Department of the Navy in 1798. Barry remained head of the Navy until his death on September 12, 1803, from the complications of asthma. On September 14, 1803, John Barry received his country's salute in a full military burial in Philadelphia's Old St. Mary's Churchyard. Such was the man, John Barry, a gallant mariner who served his Nation well and stood tall in the annals of American naval history.

Job Titles:

• Scientist
• Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society

Born in Ireland, on July 8, 1894 - Pasadena, John G. Frayne was a physicist and sound engineer. He received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Minnesota while working at the Bell Laboratories. Among his technical achievements were the development of sound recording techniques and their reproduction for optical sound recording systems, which led to stereo-optical formats used by films in the 1970s and '80s; co-invention of the sphere densitometer, which won a Scientific or Technical Academy Award in 1941; the co-invention of the stereo disc cutter which was standard in the recording industry, and the co-invention of the inter-modulation techniques of distortion measurements, which won him an Academy Award in 1953. John G. Frayne, a scientist and educator who was awarded two Academy Awards over the course of his lifetime for his contributions to sound motion pictures, wrote in 1949 with Halley Wolf the classic textbook entitled Elements of Sound Recording. Dr. Frayne, a Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society (AES), received its Gold Medal Award for Outstanding Achievement in advancing the art of audio engineering in 1976. Frayne, who held a doctorate in mathematics was a pioneer in the field of minimizing sound distortion in films. He was a former president of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers and became involved in the early days of sound pictures while a research fellow and physicist at Caltech.

In 1990, for his pioneering contributions and exhaustive work over the course of his career, Joseph Murray was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine which he shared with Thomas E. Donnell.

Born in 1841 in Cleveland Ohio, Joseph O Dwyer and his family were of Irish descent. He began his medical studies under the personal supervision of a general practitioner in 1863. After two years of apprenticeship he entered the College of Physicians New York from which he graduated in 1865. He won first place in the competitive examination for resident physicians of the Charity now the City Hospital of New York City on Blackwell's Island. In 1872 he was appointed to the staff of the New York Foundling Asylum. The deaths of many children by suffocation when diphtheria brought about closure of the larynx proved too sad a sight for him, so he tried to find something to keep the larynx open. He used a wire spring and experimented with a small bivalve speculum but to no purpose. The inflamed mucous membrane and false membrane forced themselves into the interstices and the difficulty of breathing returned. Besides, the pressure produced ulceration. Finally he tried a tube. The use of a tube for intubation had often been attempted but unsuccessfully. O'Dwyer succeeded in devising the form of tube that would remain and then ingeniously fashioned instruments for the placing and displacing of the tube. After a dozen years of diligent study this method of relieving difficulty of breathing proved successful. Most of his medical colleagues were sure that O'Dwyer's scheme was visionary. Before his death it was universally acknowledged that he had made the most important practical discovery of his generation. His tubes and the accompanying instruments for intubation and extubation, with his methods for the care of these patients, have since come to be employed everywhere throughout the medical world.

Job Titles:

• Executive Producer of SNL

Born March 27th 1970 in Huntington, Long Island, New York, Mariah Carey is the third and youngest child of Alfred Roy Carey, an aeronautical engineer and Patricia Carey (née Hickey), a former opera singer and vocal coach. Her mother was Irish American and her father was of Afro-Venezuelan and African American descent; her paternal grandfather, Roberto Nuñez, changed his surname to Carey to better assimilate upon moving to the United States from Venezuela. In June of 1990, Mariah made her debut with "Mariah Carey" which entered at #73, but on August 4, 1990, it reached #1. Her 1990 self-titled debut album went multi-platinum and spawned an extraordinary four consecutive #1 singles: "Vision of Love," "Love Takes Time," "Someday" and "I Don't Wanna Cry," and led to Grammy Awards for Best New Artist and Best Female Vocalist. Her 1993 album titled Music Box went ten-times platinum. On September 30, 1995, she made music history. Her single "Fantasy" from her 1995 Daydream album debuted at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, making her the first female artist to accomplish a number one debut in the U.S. She is the only artist since The Beatles's 59-week record with the most cumulative weeks spent atop Billboard's Hot 100 Singles chart. She is the most successful selling female artist in music history and is the only female artist to have the most #1 singles and albums and also holds the record for straight #1 singles and albums each year. Along with numerous awards and incredible vocal range, she also composes all of her own material, with the exception of song covers.

Job Titles:

• President

Born to Irish immigrants on Chicago's West Side in 1867, Finley Peter Dunne began a career as a newspaperman in the city in 1884. After working on six different dailies, he settled in as the precocious editorial chair at the Chicago Evening Post in 1892. There, he imagined himself into the character of Martin Dooley, whose 750-word monologues (delivered to genial politician John McKenna or long-suffering millworker Malachi Hennessy) became a Chicago tradition. The fictional Mr. Dooley expounded upon political and social issues of the day from his South Side Chicago Irish pub and he spoke with the thick verbiage and accent of an Irish immigrant from County Roscommon. Dunne's sly humor and political acumen won the support of President Theodore Roosevelt, a frequent target of Mr. Dooley's barbs. Indeed Dunne's sketches became so popular and such a litmus test of public opinion that they were read each week at White House cabinet meetings. who had become a popular Post feature during the World's Fair of 1893. Unlike the cosmopolitan McNeery, Mr. Dooley was placed on Chicago's South Side, in the Irish working-class neighborhood known as Bridgeport. Between 1893 and 1900, when Dunne moved on to New York and a different sort of career as a satirist of our national life, some 300 Dooley pieces appeared in Chicago newspapers. Taken together, they form a coherent body of work, in which a vivid, detailed world comes into existence-that of Bridgeport, a self-contained immigrant culture with its own set of customs and ceremonies, and a social structure rooted in family, geography, and occupation.

Job Titles:

• Physician, and Professor of Medicine at Harvard

Conan O'Brien was born April 18, 1963 in Brookline, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston to Thomas O'Brien, a physician, and professor of medicine at Harvard and Ruth O'Brien (née Reardon), an attorney and partner at the Boston firm Ropes & Gray. He is the third of six children. O'Brien's family is Irish Catholic and descends from pre-Civil War era immigrants. In a Late Night episode, O'Brien paid a visit to County Kerry, Ireland, where his ancestors originated. O'Brien repeatedly affirms his Irish Catholic heritage. On a 2009 episode of Inside the Actors Studio, he stated that both sides of his family moved to America from Ireland in the 1850s, subsequently marrying only other Irish Catholics, and that his lineage is thus 100% Irish Catholic. O'Brien attended Brookline High School, where he served as the managing editor of the school newspaper. In his senior year, O'Brien won the National Council of Teachers of English writing contest with his short story, "To Bury the Living". After graduating as valedictorian in 1981, he entered Harvard University. At Harvard, O'Brien concentrated in History and Literature and graduated magna cum laude. Throughout college, O'Brien was a writer for the Harvard Lampoon humor magazine. During his sophomore and junior years, he served as the Lampoon's president O'Brien moved to Los Angeles after graduation to join the writing staff of HBO's Not Necessarily the News. In January 1988, Saturday Night Live's executive producer, Lorne Michaels, hired O'Brien as a writer. During his three years on Saturday Night Live (SNL), he wrote such recurring sketches as "Mr. Short-Term Memory" and "The Girl Watchers"; the latter was first performed by Tom Hanks and Jon Lovitz. In 1989, O'Brien and his fellow SNL writers received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy or Variety Series. From 1991 to 1993, O'Brien was a writer and producer for The Simpsons and was credited as writer or co-writer of four episodes. He was an active producer during seasons 4 and 5 and would frequently contribute to scripts, come up with story ideas, plot points, and jokes. The style of the show's comedy during this period was also somewhat influenced by his comic sensibilities. As executive producer of SNL, Lorne Michaels invited O'Brien to audition to host the successor show to Late Night with David Letterman. Premiering on September 13, 1993, Late Night with Conan O'Brien ran for 16 years with The final Tonight Show with Conan airing January 22, 2010. Conan is set to host a new show on cable station TBS.