Arab-Americans, led by actor Danny Thomas, founded the United States' first hospital for children with cancer in 1962, as a gift of gratitude to their adopted country. Ever since, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital has helped lead the global fight against cancer—at no charge to its young patients.

He is Kyrgyzstan's leading composer, a shepherd who played the three-stringed komuz to his sheep and later became a star composer of classical music in Moscow. Today Muratbek Begaliyev is founder and director of the Kyrgyz Conservatory, a unique melting pot of Kyrgyz and Western traditions.

Ramadan, Cairo, 700 years ago, an hour after sundown: A good-humored crowd jostles in front of a white sheet hung outside a café. Reeds and drums strike up a beat, a lamp is lit behind the sheet, and tonight's back-lit cast of colorful, cut-out characters gestures and leaps in the opening dance. Welcome to khayal al-zill, the best show in all of Mamluk Cairo.

For 700 years, Córdoba and Granada were the cultural capitals of al-Andalus, the centers of the Muslim-ruled convivencia . In 1492, Granada surrendered as the last outpost of Muslim authority in Spain. Today, Spain's government has brought this legacy to the attention of travelers by laying out 11 historic routes across al-Andalus, and beyond.