Ian Lancaster Fleming was a British author, journalist and Naval Intelligence
Officer. He is best remembered for creating the fictional British spy James Bond
and for a series of twelve novels and nine short stories about the character,
which are one of the best-selling series of related novels of all time having sold  
over 100 million copies worldwide. This year, Fleming became the world’s first
English-speaking writer to have an International Airport named in his honor. The
airport, Ian Fleming International Airport, near Oracabessa, Jamaica was opened
on January 12th. 

Ian Fleming’s James Bond

Shirley MacLaine (Beatty) is a film and theater actress, dancer, activist, and
author, well-known for her beliefs in new age spirituality and reincarnation. She
has written a number of autobiographical works.  In 1983, she won the Academy
Award for Best Actress for her role in Terms of Endearment. She is the older
sister of actor Warren Beatty.

John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. wrote the Pulitzer-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath 
(1939) and East of Eden (1952) and Of mice and Men  (1937). He wrote a total 
of twenty-seven books, including sixteen novels, six non-fiction books and five 
collections of short stories. In 1962, John Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize
for Literature. His later work reflected his wide range of interests, including
marine biology, politics, religion, history, and mythology. Steinbeck was 66
when he died in December of 1968.

1984 John Steinbeck gold commemorative coin

LeVar Burton, is a German-born actor, director, producer and author. He is 
well-known for portraying Kunta Kinte in the 1977 award-winning ABC-TV
miniseries Roots, based on the novel by Alex Haley. He is also known for 
his portrayal of Geordi LaForge on the syndicated science fiction series
Star Trek: The Next Generation.

LeVar Burton in Roots

LeVar in Star Trek: The Next Generation

Charles Augustus Lindbergh was an aviator, author, inventor, explorer,and 
social activist. Lindbergh, then a 25-year old U.S. Air Mail pilot, emerged to
almost instantaneous world fame as the result of his  solo non-stop flight on
May 20-21, 1927, from Roosevelt Field on New York’s Long island to Paris,
France, a distance of nearly 3,600 miles in the Spirit of St. Louis, a single-
seat, single-engine monoplane (shown below). Lindberg, who was an
officer in the U.S. Army reserve, was awarded the nations highest
military decoration, the Medal of Honor. He died in 1974 at age 72. 
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