Oprah: 17 People, Moments, and Things She Put on the Map

Thanks to her exposure from The Oprah Show, Orman's worked to empower a whole host of women with financial know-how with her CNBC show and column in Oprah's magazine. (And along the way she's given Kristen Wiig one of her best characters.)

The charming fan-favorite designer scored his own talk show.

This friendship goes beyond those road-trip shows, with Oprah's best bud acting as editor-at-large for O, The Oprah Magazine and host of her own show on OWN.

She hired him to help on her beef trial, but the psychologist soon won over Oprah and then her viewers with his homespun direct approach.

With his scrubs, intimate knowledge of all those internal organs, and some truly gross show-and-tells, the cardiac surgeon became a go-to expert.

He helped Oprah train to run the 1994 Marine Corps Marathon, and now his Best Life Plan has started a moment.

Lets the American public in on the celeb secret that is Spanx.

Selects the Chicago cult favorite Garrett Popcorn as one of her ''Favorite Things.''

Gives away 276 Pontiacs to her audience, who later find out they must pay taxes or pass on the car.

Kirstie Alley reveals her bikini body.

After the scandal broke about the veracity of his memoir A Million Little Pieces, James Frey faced the Opes, who'd chosen it for her book club, for a moment of reckoning.

Tom Cruise jumps for Katie Holmes.

Michael Jackson at Neverland.

Launches her book club, featuring Cormac McCarthy and Maya Angelou.

Oxygen, a network for women cofounded by Winfrey, premieres.

O magazine debuts on newsstands. Oprah appears on the first cover, and each one after.

Through a partnership with Discovery Communications (left to right, Christina Norman, CEO, OWN, Oprah Winfrey, chairman, OWN and David Zaslav, president and CEO), Winfrey takes her desire to ''entertain, inform, and inspire people to live their best lives'' to a new level.