Al Aumuller, World Telegram staff photographer · Public domain

Born Israel Isidore Beilin in Russia, his family emigrated to escape pogroms against their Jewish village when he was five, arriving in New York with nothing; from that he built a sixty-year career and wrote an estimated one thousand songs, starting with 1911's "Alexander's Ragtime Band." He never learned to read sheet music and could only play piano in the key of F-sharp, working around it with a custom transposing lever built into his piano. Walter Cronkite said he "helped write the story of this country."