WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama awarded the nation’s highest civilian honor to 21 groundbreaking actors, musicians, athletes and innovators who inspired him over the years and “helped make me who I am.”

“Everybody on this stage has touched me in a very powerful, personal way, in ways that they probably couldn’t imagine,” Obama said Tuesday in the White House East Room.

The Presidential Medal of Freedom recognizes especially meritorious contributions to the national interests of the United States, its security and its culture.

Among those honored: actors Tom Hanks, Robert De Niro and Robert Redford; Michael Jordan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, two of the best basketball players ever; and Bruce Springsteen and Diana Ross, musicians.

Philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates, comedian Ellen DeGeneres and broadcaster Vin Scully were honored. Also honored were: Richard Garwin, an inventor and polymath physicist who made pioneering contributions to the nation’s defense; Frank Gehry, one of the world’s leading architects; and Margaret H. Hamilton, a mathematician and computer scientist.

And Maya Lin, designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial; Lorne Michaels, producer of “Saturday Night Live”; Newton Minow, a former Federal Communications Commission chairman; and Eduardo Padron, president of Miami Dade College also received the award.