Portal:Biography

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Introduction

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 his or her 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.

Selected biographies

Miniature from a 17th-century Menaion

Vladimir the Great (also (Saint) Vladimir of Kiev); Old East Slavic: Володимѣръ Свѧтославичь, Volodiměrъ Svętoslavičь, Old Norse Valdamarr gamli; c. 958 – 15 July 1015, Berestove) was a prince of Novgorod, grand prince of Kiev, and ruler of Kievan Rus' from 980 to 1015.

Vladimir's father was prince Sviatoslav of the Rurik dynasty. After the death of his father in 972, Vladimir, who was then prince of Novgorod, was forced to flee to Scandinavia in 976 after his brother Yaropolk had murdered his other brother Oleg and conquered Rus'. In Sweden, with the help from his relative Ladejarl Håkon Sigurdsson, ruler of Norway, he assembled a Varangian army and reconquered Novgorod from Yaropolk. By 980, Vladimir had consolidated the Kievan realm from modern-day Belarus, Russia and Ukraine to the Baltic Sea and had solidified the frontiers against incursions of Bulgarian, Baltic tribes and Eastern nomads. Originally a follower of Slavic paganism, Vladimir converted to Christianity in 988 and Christianized the Kievan Rus'. Read more...
Friedrich August von Hayek CH FBA (/ˈhaɪək/; German: [ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈaʊ̯ɡʊst ˈhaɪɛk]; 8 May 1899 – 23 March 1992), often referred to by his initials F. A. Hayek, was an Anglo-Austrian economist and philosopher best known for his defense of classical liberalism. Hayek shared the 1974 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Gunnar Myrdal for his "pioneering work in the theory of money and economic fluctuations and [...] penetrating analysis of the interdependence of economic, social and institutional phenomena". Hayek was also a major social theorist and political philosopher of the 20th century and his account of how changing prices communicate information that helps individuals co-ordinate their plans is widely regarded as an important achievement in economics, leading to his Nobel Prize.

Hayek served in World War I and said that his experience in the war and his desire to help avoid the mistakes that had led to the war drew him into economics. Hayek lived in Austria, Great Britain, the United States and Germany and became a British subject in 1938. He spent most of his academic life at the London School of Economics, the University of Chicago and the University of Freiburg. Read more...
Francis Harry Compton Crick OM FRS (8 June 1916 – 28 July 2004) was a British molecular biologist, biophysicist, and neuroscientist. In 1953, he co-authored with James Watson the academic paper proposing the double helix structure of the DNA molecule. Together with Watson and Maurice Wilkins, he was jointly awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material". The results were based partly on fundamental studies done by Rosalind Franklin, Raymond Gosling and Wilkins.

Crick was an important theoretical molecular biologist and played a crucial role in research related to revealing the helical structure of DNA. He is widely known for the use of the term "central dogma" to summarize the idea that once information is transferred from nucleic acids (DNA or RNA) to proteins, it cannot flow back to nucleic acids. In other words, the final step in the flow of information from nucleic acids to proteins is irreversible. Read more...
Daguerreotype of Gogol taken in 1845 by Sergey Lvovich Levitsky (1819–1898)

Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (31 March 1809 – 4 March 1852) was a Russian dramatist of Ukrainian origin.

Although Gogol was considered by his contemporaries to be one of the preeminent figures of the natural school of Russian literary realism, later critics have found in his work a fundamentally romantic sensibility, with strains of surrealism and the grotesque ("The Nose", "Viy", "The Overcoat", "Nevsky Prospekt"). His early works, such as Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka, were influenced by his Ukrainian upbringing, Ukrainian culture and folklore. His later writing satirised political corruption in the Russian Empire (The Government Inspector, Dead Souls). The novel Taras Bulba (1835) and the play Marriage (1842), along with the short stories "Diary of a Madman", "The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich", "The Portrait" and "The Carriage", are also among his best-known works. Read more...
Georges-Jacques Danton. Musée Carnavalet, Paris

Georges Jacques Danton (French: [ʒɔʁʒ dɑ̃tɔ̃]; 26 October 1759 – 5 April 1794) was a leading figure in the early stages of the French Revolution, in particular as the first president of the Committee of Public Safety. Danton's role in the onset of the Revolution has been disputed; many historians describe him as "the chief force in the overthrow of the French monarchy and the establishment of the First French Republic".

He was guillotined by the advocates of revolutionary terror after accusations of venality and leniency toward the enemies of the Revolution. Read more...
Spitz in December 2012

Mark Andrew Spitz (born February 10, 1950) is an American former competitive swimmer, nine-time Olympic champion, and former world record-holder in 7 events. He won seven gold medals at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany, an achievement surpassed only by fellow American Michael Phelps, who won eight golds at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Spitz set new world records in all seven events in which he competed in 1972.

Between 1968 and 1972, Spitz won nine Olympic golds, a silver, and a bronze; five Pan American golds; 31 Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) titles; and eight National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) titles. During those years, he set 35 world records, but two were in trials and unofficial. He was named World Swimmer of the Year in 1969, 1971, and 1972 by Swimming World Magazine. He was the third athlete to win nine Olympic gold medals. Read more...
Title page of the 1621 edition of Diophantus' Arithmetica, translated into Latin by Claude Gaspard Bachet de Méziriac.
Diophantus of Alexandria (Ancient Greek: Διόφαντος ὁ Ἀλεξανδρεύς; born probably sometime between AD 201 and 215; died around 84 years old, probably sometime between AD 285 and 299) was an Alexandrian Hellenistic mathematician, who was the author of a series of books called Arithmetica, many of which are now lost. Sometimes called "the father of algebra", his texts deal with solving algebraic equations. While reading Claude Gaspard Bachet de Méziriac's edition of Diophantus' Arithmetica, Pierre de Fermat concluded that a certain equation considered by Diophantus had no solutions, and noted in the margin without elaboration that he had found "a truly marvelous proof of this proposition," now referred to as Fermat's Last Theorem. This led to tremendous advances in number theory, and the study of Diophantine equations ("Diophantine geometry") and of Diophantine approximations remain important areas of mathematical research. Diophantus coined the term παρισότης (parisotes) to refer to an approximate equality. This term was rendered as adaequalitas in Latin, and became the technique of adequality developed by Pierre de Fermat to find maxima for functions and tangent lines to curves. Diophantus was the first Greek mathematician who recognized fractions as numbers; thus he allowed positive rational numbers for the coefficients and solutions. In modern use, Diophantine equations are usually algebraic equations with integer coefficients, for which integer solutions are sought. Read more...
John Cage (1988)

John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde. Critics have lauded him as one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was also instrumental in the development of modern dance, mostly through his association with choreographer Merce Cunningham, who was also Cage's romantic partner for most of their lives.

Cage is perhaps best known for his 1952 composition 4′33″, which is performed in the absence of deliberate sound; musicians who present the work do nothing aside from being present for the duration specified by the title. The content of the composition is not "four minutes and 33 seconds of silence," as is often assumed, but rather the sounds of the environment heard by the audience during performance. The work's challenge to assumed definitions about musicianship and musical experience made it a popular and controversial topic both in musicology and the broader aesthetics of art and performance. Cage was also a pioneer of the prepared piano (a piano with its sound altered by objects placed between or on its strings or hammers), for which he wrote numerous dance-related works and a few concert pieces. The best known of these is Sonatas and Interludes (1946–48). Read more...
Khalil Gibran, April 1913

Khalil Gibran (/dʒɪˈbrɑːn/); sometimes spelled Kahlil; (full Arabic name Gibran Khalil Gibran) (Arabic: جبران خليل جبران‎ / ALA-LC: Jubrān Khalīl Jubrān or Jibrān Khalīl Jibrān) (January 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931) was a Lebanese-American writer, poet, visual artist and Lebanese nationalist.

Gibran was born in the town of Bsharri in the Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate, Ottoman Empire (modern-day Lebanon), to Khalil Gibran and Kamila Gibran (Rahmeh). As a pre-teen Gibran emigrated with his family to the United States, where he studied art and began his literary career, writing in both English and Arabic. In the Arab world, Gibran is regarded as a literary and political rebel. His romantic style was at the heart of a renaissance in modern Arabic literature, especially prose poetry, breaking away from the classical school. In Lebanon, he is still celebrated as a literary hero. Read more...
Ford in 1946

John Ford (February 1, 1894 – August 31, 1973) was an American film director. He is renowned both for Westerns such as Stagecoach (1939), The Searchers (1956), and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), as well as adaptations of classic 20th-century American novels such as the film The Grapes of Wrath (1940). His four Academy Awards for Best Director (in 1935, 1940, 1941, and 1952) remain a record. One of the films for which he won the award, How Green Was My Valley, also won Best Picture.

In a career that spanned more than 50 years, Ford directed more than 140 films (although most of his silent films are now lost) and he is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers of his generation. Ford's work was held in high regard by his colleagues, with Orson Welles and Ingmar Bergman among those who have named him one of the greatest directors of all time. Read more...
Medieval Chinese drawing

Subutai (Classical Mongolian: Sübügätäi or Sübü'ätäi; Tuvan: Сүбэдэй; Modern Mongolian: Сүбээдэй, Sübedei; Chinese: 速不台 1175–1248) was an Uriankhai general, and the primary military strategist of Genghis Khan and Ögedei Khan. He directed more than 20 campaigns in which he conquered 32 nations and won 65 pitched battles, during which he conquered or overran more territory than any other commander in history. He gained victory by means of imaginative and sophisticated strategies and routinely coordinated movements of armies that were hundreds of kilometers away from each other. He is also remembered for devising the campaign that destroyed the armies of Hungary and Poland within two days of each other, by forces over 500 kilometers apart. By any metric, he is one of the most successful commanders in history. Read more...
Gregory Peck in 1944

Eldred Gregory Peck (April 5, 1916 – June 12, 2003) was an American actor. He is one of the most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s. Peck received five Academy Award for Best Actor nominations and won once for his performance as Atticus Finch in the 1962 drama film To Kill a Mockingbird.

Peck also received Oscar nominations for his roles in The Keys of the Kingdom (1944), The Yearling (1946), Gentleman's Agreement (1947) and Twelve O'Clock High (1949). Other notable films in which he appeared include Spellbound (1945), The Gunfighter (1950), Roman Holiday (1953), Moby Dick (1956, and its 1998 miniseries), The Big Country (1958), The Bravados (1958), Pork Chop Hill (1959), The Guns of Navarone (1961), Cape Fear (1962, and its 1991 remake), How the West Was Won (1962), The Omen (1976) and The Boys from Brazil (1978). Read more...
Ghalib (Urdu: غاؔلِب‬‎), born Mirza Asadullah Baig Khan (Urdu: مِرزااسَدُاللہ بیگ خان‬), 27 December 1797 – 15 February 1869), was a prominent Urdu and Persian-language poet during the last years of the Mughal Empire. He used his pen-names of Ghalib (Urdu: غالِب‬, ġhālib means "dominant") and Asad (Urdu: اسَد‬, Asad means "lion"). His honorific was Dabir-ul-Mulk, Najm-ud-Daula. During his lifetime the Mughals were eclipsed and displaced by the British and finally deposed following the defeat of the Indian rebellion of 1857, events that he described. Most notably, he wrote several ghazals during his life, which have since been interpreted and sung in many different ways by different people. Ghalib, the last great poet of the Mughal Era, is considered to be one of the most famous and influential poets of the Urdu and Persian languages. Today Ghalib remains popular not only in India and Pakistan but also among the Hindustani diaspora around the world. Read more...
Henry Clay Sr. (April 12, 1777 – June 29, 1852) was an American attorney and statesman who represented Kentucky in both the United States Senate and United States House of Representatives, served as 7th speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, and served as the 9th U.S. secretary of state. He received electoral votes for president in the 1824, 1832, and 1844 presidential elections and helped found both the National Republican Party and the Whig Party. For his role in defusing sectional crises, he earned the appellation of the "Great Compromiser."

Clay was born in Hanover County, Virginia in 1777 and launched a legal career in Lexington, Kentucky in 1797. As a member of the Democratic-Republican Party, Clay won election to the Kentucky state legislature in 1803 and to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1810. He was chosen as speaker of the House in early 1811 and, along with President James Madison, led the United States into the War of 1812 against Britain. In 1814, he helped negotiate the Treaty of Ghent, which brought an end to the War of 1812. After the war, Clay returned to his position as speaker of the House and developed the American System, which called for federal infrastructure investments, support for the national bank, and protective tariff rates. In 1820, he helped bring an end to a sectional crisis over slavery by leading the passage of the Missouri Compromise. Read more...
Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) was an American-British novelist and screenwriter. In 1932, at the age of forty-four, Chandler became a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Great Depression. His first short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in 1933 in Black Mask, a popular pulp magazine. His first novel, The Big Sleep, was published in 1939. In addition to his short stories, Chandler published seven novels during his lifetime (an eighth, in progress at the time of his death, was completed by Robert B. Parker). All but Playback have been made into motion pictures, some more than once. In the year before his death, he was elected president of the Mystery Writers of America.

Chandler had an immense stylistic influence on American popular literature. He is considered to be a founder of the hard-boiled school of detective fiction, along with Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain and other Black Mask writers. The protagonist of his novels, Philip Marlowe, like Hammett's Sam Spade, is considered by some to be synonymous with "private detective". Both were played in films by Humphrey Bogart, whom many consider to be the quintessential Marlowe. Read more...
Di Stéfano with Argentina in 1947

Alfredo Stéfano Di Stéfano Laulhé (Spanish pronunciation: [alˈfɾeðo ði esˈtefano]; 4 July 1926 – 7 July 2014) was an Argentine professional footballer and coach. He is regarded as one of the best footballers of all time, and is best known for his achievements with Real Madrid, where he was instrumental in the club's domination of the European Cup and La Liga during the 1950s. Along with Francisco Gento and José María Zárraga, he was one of only three players to play a part in all five victories, scoring goals in each of the five finals. Di Stéfano played international football mostly for Spain after moving to Madrid, but he also played for Argentina and Colombia.

Di Stéfano, nicknamed "Saeta rubia" ("Blond Arrow"), was a powerful, quick, skillful, and prolific forward, with great stamina, tactical versatility, creativity, and vision, who could also play almost anywhere on the pitch. He is currently the sixth highest scorer in the history of Spain's top division, and Real Madrid's third highest league goalscorer of all time, with 216 goals in 282 league matches between 1953 and 1964. He is Madrid's leading goalscorer in the history of El Clásico, alongside Cristiano Ronaldo. Read more...
John Dryden (/ˈdraɪdən/; 19 August [O.S. 9 August] 1631 – 12 May [O.S. 1 May] 1700) was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who was made England's first Poet Laureate in 1668.

He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden. Walter Scott called him "Glorious John". Read more...
Kraftwerk performing in Kiev, Ukraine, in 2008

Kraftwerk (German: [ˈkʁaftvɛɐ̯k], "power station") is a German band formed in Düsseldorf in 1970 by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. Widely considered to be innovators and pioneers of electronic music, they were among the first successful acts to popularize the genre. The group began as part of West Germany's experimental krautrock scene in the early 1970s before fully embracing electronic instrumentation, including synthesizers, drum machines, vocoders, and home-made experimental musical instruments. On commercially successful albums such as Autobahn (1974), Trans-Europe Express (1977), and The Man-Machine (1978), Kraftwerk developed a self-described "robot pop" style that combined electronic music with pop melodies, sparse arrangements, and repetitive rhythms, while adopting a stylized image including matching suits.

The band’s work would exert a lasting and profound influence across many genres of modern music, including synthpop, hip hop, post-punk, techno, ambient, and club music, and inspired a wide and diverse range of artists. According to The Observer, "no other band since the Beatles has given so much to pop culture." Following the release of Electric Café (1986), member Wolfgang Flür left the group in 1987. Their last album Tour de France Soundtracks was released in 2003. Founding member Schneider departed in 2008. In 2014, the Recording Academy honored Kraftwerk with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. As of 2018, the remaining members of the band continue to tour. Read more...
Portrait of Kublai Khan drawn shortly after his death on February 18, 1294. Kublai's white robes reflect his desired symbolic role as a religious Mongol shaman. Now in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan; colors and ink on silk, 59.4 by 47 cm.

Kublai (/ˈkuːblaɪ/; Mongolian: Хубилай, Hubilai; Chinese: 忽必烈) was the fifth Khagan (Great Khan) of the Mongol Empire (Ikh Mongol Uls), reigning from 1260 to 1294 (although due to the division of the empire this was a nominal position). He also founded the Yuan dynasty in China as a conquest dynasty in 1271, and ruled as the first Yuan emperor until his death in 1294.

Kublai was the fourth son of Tolui (his second son with Sorghaghtani Beki) and a grandson of Genghis Khan. He succeeded his older brother Möngke as Khagan in 1260, but had to defeat his younger brother Ariq Böke in the Toluid Civil War lasting until 1264. This episode marked the beginning of disunity in the empire. Kublai's real power was limited to China and Mongolia, though as Khagan he still had influence in the Ilkhanate and, to a significantly lesser degree, in the Golden Horde. If one counts the Mongol Empire at that time as a whole, his realm reached from the Pacific Ocean to the Black Sea, from Siberia to what is now Afghanistan. Read more...
Thor Heyerdahl around 1980

Thor Heyerdahl (Norwegian pronunciation: [tuːr ˈhæɪəɖɑːl]; October 6, 1914 – April 18, 2002) was a Norwegian adventurer and ethnographer with a background in zoology, botany, and geography. He became notable for his Kon-Tiki expedition in 1947, in which he sailed 8,000 km (5,000 mi) across the Pacific Ocean in a hand-built raft from South America to the Tuamotu Islands. The expedition was designed to demonstrate that ancient people could have made long sea voyages, creating contacts between separate cultures. This was linked to a diffusionist model of cultural development. Heyerdahl subsequently made other voyages designed to demonstrate the possibility of contact between widely separated ancient people, notably the Ra II expedition of 1970, when he sailed from the west coast of Africa to Barbados in a papyrus reed boat. He was appointed a government scholar in 1984.

In May 2011, the Thor Heyerdahl Archives were added to UNESCO's "Memory of the World" Register. At the time, this list included 238 collections from all over the world. The Heyerdahl Archives span the years 1937 to 2002 and include his photographic collection, diaries, private letters, expedition plans, articles, newspaper clippings, original book, and article manuscripts. The Heyerdahl Archives are administered by the Kon-Tiki Museum and the National Library of Norway in Oslo. Read more...

Did you know...

... that civil engineer Ernest William Moir invented the first medical airlock?
... that Sir Clifford Boulton, the 44th Clerk of the House of Commons, was a fan of the soap opera Coronation Street?
... that chemical engineer Robert Edgeworth-Johnstone invented a flute made from the aluminium brass tubing used in oil refineries?
... that missile scientist Song Jian was the architect of China's one-child policy?
... that in a recent court case, the Minnesota Supreme Court resolved a dispute between the state's legislative and executive branches for the first time in its history?
... that political scientist Hu Fo counted among his students the former president, vice president, and premier of Taiwan?
... that Emily Temple-Wood says she will create a Wikipedia article about a woman scientist for every harassing email she receives?
... that the writer İsmet Kür's father and sister were writers, and her daughter is also a writer?
... that after journalist Victor Mallet chaired a talk by Chan Ho-tin, leader of the now-banned Hong Kong National Party, he was denied renewal of his Hong Kong work permit?
... that Lutheran children's educator Magdalena Heymair was the first woman to have her works listed as heretical in the Index Librorum Prohibitorum?
... that during the 1952 steel strike, Clarence B. Randall criticized President Harry S. Truman for what he considered "shocking distortions of fact"?
... that investigators allege Libyan influence in the 2007 French elections was partly accomplished by laundering money from the sale of paintings by 17th-century Dutch artist Andries van Eertvelt?

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Credit: Lemuel Francis Abbott

Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, KB (29 September 1758 – 21 October 1805) was a British flag officer famous for his service in the Royal Navy, particularly during the Napoleonic Wars. He was noted for his inspirational leadership and superb grasp of strategy and unconventional tactics, which resulted in a number of decisive naval victories.

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13 January 2019 – Macedonia naming dispute: Alexis Tsipras, leader of SYRIZA in Greece, announces a vote of confidence in his government after Panos Kammenos, leader of the Independent Greeks (ANEL), announces that it will withdraw from the ruling coalition due to opposition to the Prespa agreement. (FT)
8 January 2019 – China–North Korea relations: North Korean leader Kim Jong-un arrives in Beijing for his fourth summit meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. (The Japan Times)
8 January 2019 –: German politician Frank Magnitz, a member of the AfD party, was beaten unconscious by three masked assailants in the city of Bremen on Monday. AfD party leader Alice Weidel calls the attack an "assassination attempt" and politicians from other German parties condemn the attack. (BBC)
28 December 2018 –: After a 56-day trek, British Army captain Lou Rudd becomes the second person to cross Antarctica alone and unaided, over two decades after the first solo crossing by Norwegian Børge Ousland. (BBC)
26 December 2018 –: After a 53-day trek, American professional endurance athlete Colin O'Brady allegedly becomes the first person to cross Antarctica alone and unaided; his claim of being unaided has been disputed, and the first person to really cross Antarctica alone and unaided was Børge Ousland in 1996 and 1997. (BBC)
24 December 2018 –: The coalition government of Benjamin Netanyahu dissolves the Knesset and sets early elections for April. The coalition has been struggling after failing to pass a new bill that would extend the military draft to ultra-Orthodox Jews and the resignation of Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, leader of one of the parties in the coalition. (CNN)