Portal:Biography

The Biography Portal

Third Volume of a 1727 edition of Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans printed by Jacob Tonson

A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or curriculum vitae (résumé), a biography presents a subject's life story, highlighting various aspects of their life, including intimate details of experience, and may include an analysis of the subject's personality.

Biographical works are usually non-fiction, but fiction can also be used to portray a person's life. One in-depth form of biographical coverage is called legacy writing. Works in diverse media, from literature to film, form the genre known as biography.

An authorized biography is written with the permission, cooperation, and at times, participation of a subject or a subject's heirs. An autobiography is written by the person himself or herself, sometimes with the assistance of a collaborator or ghostwriter. (Full article...)

Selected biographies – show different entries

  • Lawrence Wetherby (1954).png

    Lawrence Winchester Wetherby (January 2, 1908 – March 27, 1994) was an American politician who served as Lieutenant Governor and Governor of Kentucky. He was the first of only two governors in state history born in Jefferson County, despite the fact that Louisville (the county seat) is the state's most populous city. The second governor born in Jefferson County is the incumbent governor, Andy Beshear.

    After graduating from the University of Louisville, Wetherby held several minor offices in the Jefferson County judicial system before being elected lieutenant governor in 1947. He was called Kentucky's first "working" lieutenant governor because Governor Earle C. Clements asked him to carry out duties beyond his constitutional responsibility to preside over the state Senate, such as preparing the state budget and attending the Southern Governors Conference. In 1950, Clements resigned to assume a seat in the U.S. Senate, elevating Wetherby to governor. Wetherby won immediate acclaim by calling a special legislative session to increase funding for education and government benefits from the state's budget surplus. In 1951, he won a four-year full term as governor, during which he continued and expanded many of Clements' programs, including increased road construction and industrial diversification. He endorsed the Supreme Court's 1954 desegregation order in the case of Brown v. Board of Education and appointed a biracial commission to oversee the successful integration of the state's schools. As chairman of the Southern Governors Conference in 1954 and 1955, he encouraged other southern governors to accept and implement desegregation. (Full article...)
  • Ronald Reagan's presidential portrait, 1981
    Official portrait, 1981

    Ronald Wilson Reagan (/ˈreɪɡən/ RAY-gən; February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989 and became a highly influential voice of modern conservatism. Prior to his presidency, he was a Hollywood movie actor and union leader before serving as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 to 1975.

    Raised in a low-income family in small towns of northern Illinois, Reagan graduated from Eureka College in 1932 and worked as a radio sports commentator. After moving to California in 1937, he found work as an actor and starred in a few major productions. As president of the Screen Actors Guild, Reagan worked to root out alleged communist influence. In the 1950s, he moved into television and was a motivational speaker at General Electric factories. In 1964, his speech "A Time for Choosing" earned him national attention as a new conservative spokesman. Building a network of supporters, Reagan was elected governor of California in 1966. As governor, he raised taxes, turned a state budget deficit to a surplus, challenged the protesters at UC Berkeley, and ordered in National Guard troops during a period of protest movements. (Full article...)
  • Monteverdi by Bernardo Strozzi (c. 1630)
    Monteverdi's signature


    Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi (/ˌmɒntɪˈvɛərdi/, also US: /-ˈvɜːrd-/; Italian: [ˈklaudjo monteˈverdi] (About this soundlisten); baptized 15 May 1567 – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, string player, choirmaster, and priest. A composer of both secular and sacred music, and a pioneer in the development of opera, he is considered a crucial transitional figure between the Renaissance and Baroque periods of music history.

    Born in Cremona, where he undertook his first musical studies and compositions, Monteverdi developed his career first at the court of Mantua (c. 1590–1613) and then until his death in the Republic of Venice where he was maestro di cappella at the basilica of San Marco. His surviving letters give insight into the life of a professional musician in Italy of the period, including problems of income, patronage and politics. (Full article...)
  • Wilkinson in 1924

    Ellen Cicely Wilkinson (8 October 1891 – 6 February 1947) was a British Labour Party politician who served as Minister of Education from July 1945 until her death. Earlier in her career, as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Jarrow, she became a national figure when she played a prominent role in the 1936 Jarrow March of the town's unemployed to London to petition for the right to work. Although unsuccessful at that time, the March provided an iconic image for the 1930s and helped to form post-Second World War attitudes to unemployment and social justice.

    Wilkinson was born into a poor though ambitious Manchester family and she embraced socialism at an early age. After graduating from the University of Manchester, she worked for a women's suffrage organisation and later as a trade union officer. Inspired by the Russian Revolution of 1917, Wilkinson joined the British Communist Party, and preached revolutionary socialism while seeking constitutional routes to political power through the Labour Party. She was elected Labour MP for Middlesbrough East in 1924, and supported the 1926 General Strike. In the 1929–31 Labour government, she served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the junior Health Minister. She made a connection with a young female member and activist Jennie Lee. Following her defeat at Middlesbrough in 1931, Wilkinson became a prolific journalist and writer, before returning to parliament as Jarrow's MP in 1935. She was a strong advocate for the Republican government in the Spanish Civil War, and made several visits to the battle zones. (Full article...)
  • Hašek with the Detroit Red Wings in 2008

    Dominik Hašek (Czech pronunciation: [ˈdomɪnɪk ˈɦaʃɛk], audio; born January 29, 1965) is a Czech former ice hockey goaltender. Widely regarded as one of the best goaltenders of all time, Hasek played for the Chicago Blackhawks, Buffalo Sabres, Detroit Red Wings and the Ottawa Senators in his 16-season National Hockey League career. During his years in Buffalo, he became one of the league's finest goaltenders, earning him the nickname "The Dominator". His strong play has been credited with establishing European goaltenders in a league previously dominated by North Americans. He is a two-time Stanley Cup champion, both with the Red Wings.

    Hašek was one of the league's most successful goaltenders of the 1990s and early 2000s. From 1993 to 2001, he won six Vezina Trophies, the most under the award's current system of voting for the best individual goalie. In 1998 he won his second consecutive Hart Memorial Trophy, becoming the first goaltender to win the award multiple times. During the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, he led the Czech national ice hockey team to its first and only Olympic gold medal. The feat made him a popular figure in his home country and prompted hockey legend Wayne Gretzky to call him "the best player in the game". While with the Red Wings in 2002, Hašek became the first European-trained starting goaltender to win the Stanley Cup. In the process, he set a record for shutouts in a postseason year. (Full article...)
  • Keith Ormond Edley Johnson, MBE (28 December 1894 – 19 October 1972), was an Australian cricket administrator. He was the manager of the Australian Services cricket team in England, India and Australia immediately after World War II, and of the Australian team that toured England in 1948. The 1948 Australian cricket team earned the sobriquet The Invincibles by being the first side to complete a tour of England without losing a single match.

    Johnson joined the Australian Board of Control for International Cricket in 1935 as a delegate for New South Wales and served in the Royal Australian Air Force during World War II, performing public relations work in London. With the allied victory in Europe, first-class cricket resumed and Johnson was appointed to manage the Australian Services team, which played England in a series of celebratory matches known as the Victory Tests to usher in the post-war era. The series was highly successful, with unprecedented crowds raising large amounts for war charities. As a result, further matches were scheduled and Johnson's men toured British India and Australia before being demobilised. Johnson's administration was regarded as a major factor in the success of the tour. (Full article...)
  • William as depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry during the Battle of Hastings, lifting his helmet to show that he is still alive

    William I (c. 1028 – 9 September 1087), usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first Norman monarch of England, reigning from 1066 until his death in 1087. He was a descendant of Rollo and was Duke of Normandy from 1035 onward. By 1060, following a long struggle to establish his throne, his hold on Normandy was secure. In 1066, following the death of Edward the Confessor, William invaded England, leading an army of Normans to victory over the Anglo-Saxon forces of Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings, and suppressed subsequent English revolts in what has become known as the Norman Conquest. The rest of his life was marked by struggles to consolidate his hold over England and his continental lands, and by difficulties with his eldest son, Robert Curthose.

    William was the son of the unmarried Duke Robert I of Normandy and his mistress Herleva. His illegitimate status and his youth caused some difficulties for him after he succeeded his father, as did the anarchy which plagued the first years of his rule. During his childhood and adolescence, members of the Norman aristocracy battled each other, both for control of the child duke, and for their own ends. In 1047, William was able to quash a rebellion and begin to establish his authority over the duchy, a process that was not complete until about 1060. His marriage in the 1050s to Matilda of Flanders provided him with a powerful ally in the neighbouring county of Flanders. By the time of his marriage, William was able to arrange the appointment of his supporters as bishops and abbots in the Norman church. His consolidation of power allowed him to expand his horizons, and he secured control of the neighbouring county of Maine by 1062. (Full article...)
  • David H. Buel as president in 1908
    David Hillhouse Buel in 1908

    David Hillhouse Buel Jr. (July 19, 1862 – May 23, 1923) was an American priest who served as the president of Georgetown University. He was a Catholic priest and Jesuit for much of his life, but later left the Jesuit order to marry, and subsequently left the Catholic Church to become an Episcopal priest. Born at Watervliet, New York, he was the son of David Hillhouse Buel, a distinguished Union Army officer, and descended from numerous prominent New England families who were among the earliest colonial settlers of the United States. While studying at Yale University, he was introduced to Michael J. McGivney, a priest at St. Mary's Church, and converted to Catholicism, entering the Society of Jesus after graduation.

    In 1901, Buel became a professor at Georgetown University. He took charge of the university in 1905, after the sudden removal of the president. In this role, he promoted intramural sports, oversaw construction of Ryan Gymnasium, and reformed the curriculum and university governance. He also instituted strict discipline and curtailed intercollegiate athletics, stoking fierce opposition from the student body and their parents, which resulted in his removal by the Jesuit superiors in 1908. Buel then performed pastoral work and taught for several years, before resigning from the Jesuit order in 1912 and secretly marrying in Connecticut. When word reached Washington, D.C., his former Jesuit colleagues publicly condemned him, and the media claimed his actions resulted in his excommunication latae sententiae. (Full article...)
  • Leo Ornstein as a young man

    Leo Ornstein (born Лев Орнштейн, Lev Ornshteyn; c. December 11, 1895 – February 24, 2002) was a American experimental composer and pianist of the early twentieth century. His performances of works by avant-garde composers and his own innovative and even shocking pieces made him a cause célèbre on both sides of the Atlantic.

    Ornstein was the first important composer to make extensive use of the tone cluster. As a pianist, he was considered a world-class talent. By the mid-1920s, he had walked away from his fame and soon disappeared from popular memory. Though he gave his last public concert before the age of forty, he continued writing music for another half-century and beyond. Largely forgotten for decades, he was rediscovered in the mid-1970s. Ornstein completed his eighth and final piano sonata in September 1990 at the age of ninety-four, making him the oldest published composer in history (a mark since passed by Elliott Carter). (Full article...)
  • Orval Grove in 1948

    Orval Leroy Grove (August 29, 1919 – April 20, 1992) was an American pitcher in Major League Baseball who played for ten seasons in the American League with the Chicago White Sox. In 207 career games, Grove pitched 1,176 innings and posted a win–loss record of 63–73, with 66 complete games, 11 shutouts, and a 3.78 earned run average (ERA).

    The only freshman on the Proviso High School varsity baseball team, Grove's pitching ability attracted the attention of the White Sox. After signing with the team in 1937, Grove moved between the major leagues and minor leagues for a few seasons until 1943, when he found a solid place in the White Sox's pitching rotation. Grove had a career-year in 1943, finishing the season with career-bests in ERA, wins, and complete games; in 1944, he made his only All-Star appearance. (Full article...)
  • Luo Yixiu (simplified Chinese: 罗一秀; traditional Chinese: 羅一秀; 20 October 1889 – 11 February 1910), a Han Chinese woman, was the first wife of the later Chinese communist revolutionary and political leader Mao Zedong, to whom she was married from 1908 until her death. Coming from the area around Shaoshan, Hunan, in south central China – the same region as Mao – her family were impoverished local landowners.

    Most of what is known about their marriage comes from an account Mao gave to the American reporter Edgar Snow in 1936, which Snow included in his book Red Star Over China. According to Mao, he and Luo Yixiu were the subject of an arranged marriage organised by their respective fathers, Mao Yichang and Luo Helou. Luo was eighteen and Mao just fourteen years old at the time of their betrothal. Although Mao took part in the wedding ceremony, he later said that he was unhappy with the marriage, never consummating it and refusing to live with his wife. Socially disgraced, she lived with Mao's parents for two years until she died of dysentery, while he moved out of the village to continue his studies elsewhere, eventually becoming a founding member of the Communist Party of China. Various biographers have suggested that Mao's experience of this marriage affected his later views, leading him to become a critic of arranged marriage and a vocal feminist. He would marry three more times, to Yang Kaihui, He Zizhen and Jiang Qing, the last of whom was better known as Madame Mao. (Full article...)
  • Image of a lady, aged 75, sitting up in her bed
    Sabrina, aged 75, engraving by Richard James Lane after Stephen Poyntz Denning

    Sabrina Bicknell (1757 – 8 September 1843), better known as Sabrina Sidney, was a British woman abandoned at the Foundling Hospital in London as a baby, and taken in at the age of 12 by author Thomas Day, who tried to mould her into his perfect wife. She grew up to marry one of Day's friends, instead, and eventually became a school manager.

    Inspired by Jean-Jacques Rousseau's book Emile, or On Education, Day decided to educate two girls without any frivolities, using his own concepts, after being rejected by several women, and struggling to find a wife who shared his ideology. In 1769, Day and his barrister friend, John Bicknell, chose Sidney and another girl, Lucretia, from orphanages, and falsely declared they would be indentured to Day's friend Richard Lovell Edgeworth. Day took the girls to France to begin Rousseau's methods of education in isolation. After a short time, he returned to Lichfield with only Sidney, having deemed Lucretia inappropriate for his experiment. He used unusual, eccentric, and sometimes cruel techniques to try to increase her fortitude, such as firing blanks at her skirts, dripping hot wax on her arms, and having her wade into a lake fully dressed to test her resilience to cold water. (Full article...)
  • B ARVN-OF-8.svg

    Nguyễn Chánh Thi ([ŋwiəŋ˨˦ c̻an˦ˀ˥ tʰi˧˥]; 23 February 1923 – 23 June 2007) was an officer in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). He is best known for being involved in frequent coups in the 1960s and wielding substantial influence as a key member of various juntas that ruled South Vietnam from 1964 until 1966, when he was overpowered by Republic of Vietnam Air Force chief and Prime Minister Nguyễn Cao Kỳ in a power struggle and exiled to the United States. Known for his flamboyant style and hostility to U.S. advice, Thi's ouster was supported by the American leadership, who backed Kỳ's pro-U.S. regime.

    Thi joined the French Army at the age of 17 and was captured by Japan after they invaded French Indochina during World War II. After several months he escaped. He later transferred to the Vietnamese National Army of the French-backed State of Vietnam, which, in October 1955, became the ARVN and Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), respectively. A paratrooper, he fought for then-Prime Minister Ngô Đình Diệm against the Bình Xuyên organized crime syndicate in the 1955 Battle for Saigon. Impressed by Thi's performance, Diệm referred to him as "my son" and put him in command of the Airborne Brigade. (Full article...)
  • Blackbeard (c. 1736 engraving used to illustrate Johnson's General History)

    Edward Teach (alternatively spelled Edward Thatch, c. 1680 – 22 November 1718), better known as Blackbeard, was an English pirate who operated around the West Indies and the eastern coast of Britain's North American colonies. Little is known about his early life, but he may have been a sailor on privateer ships during Queen Anne's War before he settled on the Bahamian island of New Providence, a base for Captain Benjamin Hornigold, whose crew Teach joined around 1716. Hornigold placed him in command of a sloop that he had captured, and the two engaged in numerous acts of piracy. Their numbers were boosted by the addition to their fleet of two more ships, one of which was commanded by Stede Bonnet; but Hornigold retired from piracy toward the end of 1717, taking two vessels with him.

    Teach captured a French slave ship known as La Concorde, renamed her Queen Anne's Revenge, equipped her with 40 guns, and crewed her with over 300 men. He became a renowned pirate, his nickname derived from his thick black beard and fearsome appearance; he was reported to have tied lit fuses (slow matches) under his hat to frighten his enemies. He formed an alliance of pirates and blockaded the port of Charles Town, South Carolina, ransoming the port's inhabitants. He then ran Queen Anne's Revenge aground on a sandbar near Beaufort, North Carolina. He parted company with Bonnet and settled in Bath, North Carolina, also known as Bath Town, where he accepted a royal pardon. But he was soon back at sea, where he attracted the attention of Alexander Spotswood, the Governor of Virginia. Spotswood arranged for a party of soldiers and sailors to capture him; on 22 November 1718 following a ferocious battle Teach and several of his crew were killed by a small force of sailors led by Lieutenant Robert Maynard. (Full article...)
  • Cleancut young man wearing a white suit dress uniform and a uniform cap
    Lê Quang Vinh

    Lê Quang Vinh (1923 – 13 July 1956), popularly known as Ba Cụt (Vietnamese: [ɓāː kût]) was a Vietnamese military commander of the Hòa Hảo religious sect, which operated from the Mekong Delta and controlled various parts of southern Vietnam during the 1940s and early 1950s.

    Ba Cụt and his forces fought the Vietnamese National Army (VNA), the Việt Minh, and the Cao Đài religious movement from 1943 until his capture in 1956. Known for his idiosyncrasies, he was regarded as an erratic and cruel leader who fought with little ideological purpose. His sobriquet came from the self-amputation of his left index finger (although it was erroneously reported that it was his middle or "third cut finger"). He later swore not to cut his hair until the communist Việt Minh were defeated. Ba Cụt frequently made alliances with various Vietnamese factions and the French. He invariably accepted the material support offered in return for his cooperation, and then broke the agreement—nevertheless, the French made deals with him on five occasions. The French position was weak because their military forces had been depleted by World War II, and they had great difficulty in re-establishing control over French Indochina, which had been left with a power vacuum after the defeat of Japan. (Full article...)

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11 June 2021 – 2021 Peruvian general election
Vladimir Cerrón, leader of the socialist Free Peru party, claims victory for leftist candidate Pedro Castillo as vote counting approaches an end with more than 99.5% of votes counted and with Castillo more than 60,000 votes ahead of right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori. Some countries in the region have already congratulated Castillo on his apparent presidential election win. (Reuters)
10 June 2021 –
Authorities in Myanmar charge deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi with corruption, a charge that carries a maximum sentence of 15 years' imprisonment. Her trial is expected to begin Monday as her lawyers say that all the charges against her are to "keep her out of the public eye". (DW)
7 June 2021 – 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis
A pro-settler march that was scheduled for Thursday and would have traveled through sensitive sites in East Jerusalem is canceled after Israeli police refused to authorize it. However, the police said they would review a petition calling for the march to be rescheduled. The cancellation follows a warning from Hamas senior leader Khalil al-Hayya that the march could lead to renewed violence. (Al Jazeera English)
7 June 2021 –
Russian oppositional leader Alexei Navalny is returned to prison after fully recovering from his hunger strike. (Deutsche Welle)
5 June 2021 – 2021 Myanmar protests
Clashes erupt in Ayeyarwady and Kyonpyaw, near Yangon, where the military shot and killed 20 protesters, thereby bringing the nationwide death toll since the February 1 coup to more than 845. Meanwhile, military junta leader Min Aung Hlaing meets with ASEAN leaders to discuss paths to peace in the country. (Reuters)
4 June 2021 –
Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya asks the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union to exercise more pressure on the government of Alexander Lukashenko. Tsikhanouskaya, who is currently in self-exile in Lithuania, has been calling for such sanctions since the arrest of activist and journalist Roman Protasevich on May 23. (Reuters)
Updated: 21:33, 12 June 2021
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