Born in Iceland around 980 CE, Gudrid is known to be the most well-traveled woman of her time. Her vast explorations are recorded in The Saga of the Greenlanders and The Saga of Erik the Red. Both of these sagas take place in “Vinland,” which many believe is Canada. Some historians say she sailed along North America's shores with her husband and eventually landed in the United States. Gudrid is recorded to be the first European woman to give birth in the Vinland colony. She later converted to Christianity and embarked on a long pilgrimage to Rome. According to the sagas, Gudrid retired from her life of exploration to become a nun, living out the rest of her days near her farm in Iceland.

Born in 1833 in Stockholm, Sweden, to a long line of inventors and innovators, Alfred Bernhard Nobel is most famous for creating dynamite and the Nobel Prize. Alfred received most of his early education from his mother and later began studying with three different private tutors in Russia. These tutors introduced him to the foundations of chemistry and physics. At the age of 24, Alfred filed his first patent and went on to establish 355 patents throughout his lifetime. Never married and childless, Alfred passed at the age of 63, dedicating his entire fortune to the creation of the Nobel Prize Foundation.