Cecil John Rhodes left money in his will for Rhodes scholars. The Rhodes Scholarship is now an international postgraduate award for study at the University of Oxford. Notable Rhodes scholars include Piyush "Bobby" Jindal (the current governor of Lousiana), Rachel Maddow (social activist and host of MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow" show) and Jared Cohen (the youngest member of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's Policy Planning staff). 

Munitions maker Alfred Nobel, who also invented dynamite, established the Nobel prizes. The Nobel Prize is a set of international awards bestowed in a number of categories by Scandanavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. Controversial Nobel Peace Prize recipients include Henry Kissenger, Yasser Arafat and Barack Obama.

A teaching elder of a church in Charlestown, Massachusetts, John Harvard bequeathed half of his private library and half of his estate to a fledging college in Cambridge that eventually became Harvard University. Harvard is the oldest institution of learning in the United States. The institution's history, influence and wealth have made it one of the most prestigious universities in the world.

James Smithson, the illegitimate son of the Duke of Northumberland, never visited America but left his estate to establish the Smithsonian Institution "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men." Today, the Smithsonian Institution is the largest musuem complex in the world and has over 137 items in its vast collections.

 

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