There are many people who have influenced the history of Connecticut. Just a few of them are listed here. Click the names below to learn more:
- Benedict Arnold was a general in the American Revolution.
- P.T. (Phineas Taylor) Barnum was a showman, businessman, and politician.
- Leverett Beman was a shoemaker in Middletown who created the first housing development for African Americans.
- Joseph Cinque was a West African man who was kidnapped and managed to gain control of the slave ship the Amistad.
- Prudence Crandall was a schoolteacher who opened a private school that admitted African American girls.
- Fidelia Fielding was the last speaker and preserver of the Mohegan Pequot language.
- Martha Minerva Franklin was a registered nurse who began a national association for black nurses.
- Juan Fuentes-Vizcarrondo was an artist who portrayed Puerto Rican life in the United States.
- Ella Grasso was the first female governor of Connecticut.
- Nathan Hale is Connecticut's state hero.
- Thomas Hooker was a colonial leader who founded the Connecticut Colony.
- Walter "Doc" Hurley was a Connecticut basketball legend, who dedicated his life to teaching and coaching young people.
- Charles Ives was a musical composer.
- Dollie McLean was a dancer who performed African dance.
- The native people were the people who first lived in Connecticut.
- Helen Keller was an author and activist. She was the first deaf-blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.
- Frederick Law Olmsted is considered the father of American landscape architecture.
- Margaret Rudkin started her own bakery called Pepperidge Farm (maker of the goldfish snack).
- Maria Sanchez was the first Latina woman elected to the Connecticut legislature.
- Venture Smith was an enslaved man who bought his freedom and the freedom of his family.
- John Stewart was the first black fire chief in Connecticut.
- Harriet Beecher Stowe was an author of over 30 books. She is best known for her book Uncle Tom's Cabin which described the life of African American's during enslavement.
- Gladys Tantaquidgeon promoted Indian art, medicine, language, and culture.
- Samuel Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was a writer.
- Noah Webster is the author of the blue-back speller and the dictionary.