when I was real young, astronauts like Neil Armstrong and John Glenn.

Indiana Jones. Harriet Tubman never outran a giant boulder!

Of course not. She crushed them with her mind!

Second what jon said. Astronauts were way cool when I was little.

Oooh, I just found the Tallchief photo that was in the book I had.

If I'm remembering correctly, one of the reasons I thought she was so great was that she was unusually tall for a ballerina, and so she did a lot of solo work rather than strong partner parts, because most male dancers are so short. As the tallest girl in my ballet class, I figured she gave me hope!

And I suspect that the ultimate lesson, "Don't give up on your dreams just because most of the men around you aren't up to the job of partnering you," probably stuck with me a bit, too! :)

In grade-school I was fascinated with Helen Keller, Anne Frank, and Mary McCleod Bethune. I was also fascinated with Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton.

Anne Frank. I'm sure there were others during that time, but she sprang to mind first.

Julius Caesar, Snoopy, Beethoven. sadly, in that order.

Beethoven. (Seriously, after seeing some children's concert of the 5th Symphony in kindergarten, I was totally into Beethoven for several years, until such point I discovered the rock'n'roll and I started having crushes on musicians from the second half of the 20th century.) I had some kid's biography of Beethoven and I read it over and over again, and for my 6th birthday, my wish was to be able to go back in time to be his friend. True.

Others that spring to mind: Helen Keller (LOVED HER), Laura Ingalls Wilder, Anne Frank, and Houdini.

(on preview: ZOMG, matteo and I were totally on the same Beethoven page!!)

ben franklin

Thirding Hellen Keller.

I wonder if kids these days still read about her, or even know who she is?

Edgar Allan Poe (and, to a lesser degree, Franklin, Whitman, Audobon, Thoreau, Muir, etc.). I had a 1950s-era library-discard 'Heroes of America'-type anthology, with a bunch of brief biographies of Founding Fathers and war heroes and whatnot, along with the occasional Longfellow and Sousa and Stephen Foster.

The biography of Poe included a portrait, and the essayist encouraged readers to cover first one side and then the other side of Poe's face with their finger, so that we could see the darkness and light at war inside the man. As a young kid, I was really into that.

Batman, James Bond, Houdini and Armand Hammer (really -- I was a weird kid).

Comic book heroes.

I can only assume that matteo is now a deaf emperor with a yellow bird on his shoulder.

nth Helen Keller

In grade school my heroes were Walt Disney, Evil Knievel, Steve Martin, Don Adams (actually, anyone that drew for Mad Magazine), WLS "super jock" Larry Lujack, and Charles Schultz. By the end of grade school, Evil Knievel and Larry Lujack were replaced by Bob Newhart, Steve McQueen, Paul McCartney, and John Cleese.

My childhood heroes were George Herriman and Arthur C. Clarke.

Ben Franklin and Richard Feynman are two that I recall from my grade school days.

Yes again to Helen Keller. Also Eleanor Roosevelt and Thomas Jefferson.

Da Vinci and more generally the notion of becoming a Renaissance man. That started in 4th grade. I like to think I succeeded.

Kit Carson. I read everything there was to read about him.

When I was 7-8 (1958-59), I read Huckleberry Finn for the first time, and shortly thereafter Kon-Tiki. And somewhere in there, I went with my mother to a showing of the 3 hour road show version of "South Pacific" at The Orpheum, which was squirmy with love junk for a kid, but mightily impressive otherwise. It was the only movie I've ever been to where the tickets were pre-orders, and my Mom handled them with real reverence when she got them in the mail, and only took me as a last minute substitute for my Dad, when he had the duty that day. After that, I started lashing together every piece of scrap wood I could drag home, to make a seaworthy raft I could sail to the South Pacific, like Thor Heyerdahl. Heyerdahl was one of my first real life heroes, in those early post-Sputnik, space race days.

For weeks, my Dad would cuss and chop up my creations, and drag 'em off to dumpsters too far away for me to find them and drag 'em back. I knew I was making progress when I got one lashing of a couple 4x4 short beam lengths, that he couldn't chop up without taking a rest break. I figured I'd discovered how to make something strong enough to get through the Panama Canal.

But then somebody at school told me how full of mosquitoes Panama was, and as I hated mosquitoes, and had discovered rudimentary airplane physics, I abandoned rafts in favor of aerospace technology, as the most promising mode for adventures in the South Pacific. And that next spring, I met the 1960 Blue Angels (before the accident that would claim the lives of 2 of them later that year), and got a new crop of real flesh and blood heroes, each with their "own" blue-and-gold fighter jet. And they even had their own TV show! I still get to see one or two of their shows each year, and they still put a lump in my throat, every time.

Yes yet again to Helen Keller, Harriet Tubman, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Anne Frank, Abraham Lincoln, Florence Nightingale, Betsy Ross, JFK, the Tudors (especially Elizabeth) and anything to do with Ancient Egypt.

Buffalo Bill and Peter Pan when I was five.

Like paulsc, Thor Heyerdahl was one of my first real-life heroes.

Non-real ones, Mampato was the most important one for me.

Charles Drew and Barbara Frietchie.

Annie Oakley, and she still is. Zora Neale Hurston, but that wasn't until high school. M. L. King. Sojourner Truth. Jane Goodall.

There's a Sojourner Truth statue in my town in walking distance. I feel sorry for her in the winter and want to put a mitten on that bare hand.

Eugenie Clark.

Amelia Earhart