Portal:Biography

The Biography Portal

A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just 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 themselves, sometimes with the assistance of a collaborator or ghostwriter. (Full article...)

Featured biographies –

Featured articles are displayed here, which represent some of the best content on English Wikipedia.

Image 1

The sarcophagus at the Louvre, 2022

The sarcophagus of Eshmunazar II is a 6th-century BC sarcophagus unearthed in 1855 in the grounds of an ancient necropolis southeast of the city of Sidon, in modern-day Lebanon, that contained the body of Eshmunazar II (Phoenician: 𐤀𐤔𐤌𐤍𐤏𐤆𐤓 ʾšmnʿzr, r. c. 539 – c. 525 BC), Phoenician King of Sidon. One of only three Ancient Egyptian sarcophagi found outside Egypt, with the other two belonging to Eshmunazar's father King Tabnit and to a woman, possibly Eshmunazar's mother Queen Amoashtart, it was likely carved in Egypt from local amphibolite, and captured as booty by the Sidonians during their participation in Cambyses II's conquest of Egypt in 525 BC. The sarcophagus has two sets of Phoenician inscriptions, one on its lid and a partial copy of it on the sarcophagus trough, around the curvature of the head. The lid inscription was of great significance upon its discovery as it was the first Phoenician language inscription to be discovered in Phoenicia proper and the most detailed Phoenician text ever found anywhere up to that point, and is today the second longest extant Phoenician inscription, after the Karatepe bilingual.

The sarcophagus was discovered by Alphonse Durighello, a diplomatic agent in Sidon engaged by Aimé Péretié, the chancellor of the French consulate in Beirut. The sarcophagus was sold to Honoré de Luynes, a wealthy French nobleman and scholar, and was subsequently removed to the Louvre after the resolution of a legal dispute over its ownership. (Full article...)
Image 2

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...)
Image 3
Pound photographed in 1913 by Alvin Langdon Coburn

Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a collaborator in Fascist Italy and the Salò Republic during World War II. His works include Ripostes (1912), Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (1920), and his 800-page epic poem, The Cantos (c. 1917–1962).

Pound's contribution to poetry began in the early 20th century with his role in developing Imagism, a movement stressing precision and economy of language. Working in London as foreign editor of several American literary magazines, he helped discover and shape the work of contemporaries such as Robert Frost, T. S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, and James Joyce. He was responsible for the 1914 serialization of Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the 1915 publication of Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", and the serialization from 1918 of Joyce's Ulysses. Hemingway wrote in 1932 that, for poets born in the late 19th or early 20th century, not to be influenced by Pound would be "like passing through a great blizzard and not feeling its cold." (Full article...)
Image 4

Wollstonecraft c. 1797

Mary Wollstonecraft (/ˈwʊlstənkræft/, also UK: /-krɑːft/; 27 April 1759 – 10 September 1797) was a British writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights. Until the late 20th century, Wollstonecraft's life, which encompassed several unconventional personal relationships at the time, received more attention than her writing. Today Wollstonecraft is regarded as one of the founding feminist philosophers, and feminists often cite both her life and her works as important influences.

During her brief career she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book. Wollstonecraft is best known for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), in which she argues that women are not naturally inferior to men but appear to be only because they lack education. She suggests that both men and women should be treated as rational beings and imagines a social order founded on reason. (Full article...)
Image 5
Prince Romerson (c. 1840 – March 30, 1872) was a Union Army soldier of Native Hawaiian descent. One of the "Hawaiʻi Sons of the Civil War", he was among a group of more than 100 documented Native Hawaiian and Hawaii-born combatants who fought in the American Civil War while the Kingdom of Hawaii was still an independent nation.

Living in the American Northeast before the war, Romerson enlisted in the Union Navy in 1863 as part of the Blockading Squadrons responsible for maintaining the blockade of the ports of the Confederacy. After being discharged from naval service, he reenlisted in the Union Army under the 5th Regiment Massachusetts Colored Volunteer Cavalry, a United States Colored (USCT) regiment, and was promoted to the rank of sergeant on June 1, 1864. Romerson fought with the 5th USCC until the end of the war. Illness prevented him from continuing with his regiment's reassignment to Clarksville, Texas, and he was mustered out in 1865. After the war, like many former USCT veterans, he remained in the army on the frontier as one of the Buffalo Soldiers. He died in 1872. (Full article...)
Image 6

Fermi in 1943

Enrico Fermi (Italian: [enˈriːko ˈfermi]; 29 September 1901 – 28 November 1954) was an Italian and later naturalized American physicist, renowned for being the creator of the world's first nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1, and a member of the Manhattan Project. He has been called the "architect of the nuclear age" and the "architect of the atomic bomb". He was one of very few physicists to excel in both theoretical physics and experimental physics. Fermi was awarded the 1938 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on induced radioactivity by neutron bombardment and for the discovery of transuranium elements. With his colleagues, Fermi filed several patents related to the use of nuclear power, all of which were taken over by the US government. He made significant contributions to the development of statistical mechanics, quantum theory, and nuclear and particle physics.

Fermi's first major contribution involved the field of statistical mechanics. After Wolfgang Pauli formulated his exclusion principle in 1925, Fermi followed with a paper in which he applied the principle to an ideal gas, employing a statistical formulation now known as Fermi–Dirac statistics. Today, particles that obey the exclusion principle are called "fermions". Pauli later postulated the existence of an uncharged invisible particle emitted along with an electron during beta decay, to satisfy the law of conservation of energy. Fermi took up this idea, developing a model that incorporated the postulated particle, which he named the "neutrino". His theory, later referred to as Fermi's interaction and now called weak interaction, described one of the four fundamental interactions in nature. Through experiments inducing radioactivity with the recently discovered neutron, Fermi discovered that slow neutrons were more easily captured by atomic nuclei than fast ones, and he developed the Fermi age equation to describe this. After bombarding thorium and uranium with slow neutrons, he concluded that he had created new elements. Although he was awarded the Nobel Prize for this discovery, the new elements were later revealed to be nuclear fission products. (Full article...)
Image 7
Abu'l-Walid Ismail I ibn Faraj (Arabic: أبو الوليد إسماعيل الأول بن فرج, 3 March 1279 – 8 July 1325) was the fifth Nasrid ruler of the Emirate of Granada on the Iberian Peninsula from 1314 to 1325. A grandson of Muhammad II on the side of his mother Fatima, he was the first of the lineage of sultans now known as the al-dawla al-isma'iliyya al-nasriyya (the Nasrid dynasty of Ismail). Historians characterise him as an effective ruler who improved the emirate's position with military victories during his reign.

He claimed the throne during the reign of his maternal uncle, Sultan Nasr, after a rebellion started by his father Abu Said Faraj. Their forces defeated the unpopular Nasr and Ismail was proclaimed sultan in the Alhambra in February 1314. He spent the early years of his reign fighting Nasr, who attempted to regain the throne from his base in Guadix, where he was initially allowed to rule as governor. Nasr enlisted the help of Castile, which then secured a papal authorisation for a crusade against Ismail. The war continued with intermittent truces and reached its climax in the Battle of the Vega on 25 June 1319, which resulted in a complete victory for Ismail's forces, led by Uthman ibn Abi al-Ula, over Castile. The deaths in the battle of Infante Peter and Infante John, the two regents for the infant King Alfonso XI, left Castile leaderless and forced it to end support for Nasr. (Full article...)
Image 8

Photo, c. 1914

Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia (Russian: Анастасия Николаевна Романова, romanized: Anastasiya Nikolaevna Romanova; 18 June [O.S. 5 June] 1901 – 17 July 1918) was the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, the last sovereign of Imperial Russia, and his wife, Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna.

Anastasia was the younger sister of Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, and Maria, and was the elder sister of Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia. She was killed with her family by a group of Bolsheviks in Yekaterinburg on 17 July 1918. (Full article...)
Image 9
Nadezhda Sergeyevna Alliluyeva (Russian: Надежда Сергеевна Аллилуева; 22 September [O.S. 9 September] 1901 – 9 November 1932) was the second wife of Joseph Stalin. She was born in Baku to a friend of Stalin, a fellow revolutionary, and was raised in Saint Petersburg. Having known Stalin from a young age, she married him when she was 17, and they had two children. Alliluyeva worked as a secretary for Bolshevik leaders, including Vladimir Lenin and Stalin, before enrolling at the Industrial Academy in Moscow to study synthetic fibres and become an engineer. She had health issues, which had an adverse impact on her relationship with Stalin. She also suspected he was unfaithful, which led to frequent arguments with him. On several occasions, Alliluyeva reportedly contemplated leaving Stalin, and after an argument, she fatally shot herself early in the morning of 9 November 1932. (Full article...)
Image 10

Armorial of Plantagenet

The House of Plantagenet (/plænˈtædʒənət/ plan-TAJ-ə-nət) was a royal house which originated in Anjou. The name Plantagenet is used by modern historians to identify four distinct royal houses; the Angevins, who were also Counts of Anjou; the main line of the Plantagenets following the loss of Anjou; and the houses of Lancaster and York, the Plantagenets' two cadet branches. The family held the English throne from 1154, with the accession of Henry II, until 1485, when Richard III died.

Under the Plantagenets, England was transformed, although this was only partly intentional. The Plantagenet kings were often forced to negotiate compromises such as Magna Carta, which constrained royal power in return for financial and military support. The king was no longer just the most powerful man in the nation, holding the prerogative of judgement, feudal tribute and warfare, but had defined duties to the realm, underpinned by a sophisticated justice system. A distinct national identity was shaped by their conflict with the French, Scots, Welsh and Irish, as well as by the establishment of Middle English as the primary language. (Full article...)
Image 11

As illustrated c. 1820

Elizabeth Canning (married name Treat; 17 September 1734 – June 1773) was an English maidservant who claimed to have been kidnapped and held against her will in a hayloft for almost a month. She ultimately became central to one of the most famous English criminal mysteries of the 18th century.

She disappeared on 1 January 1753 and returned almost a month later to her mother's home in Aldermanbury in the City of London, emaciated and in a "deplorable condition". After being questioned by concerned friends and neighbours, she was interviewed by the local alderman, who then issued an arrest warrant for Susannah Wells, the woman who occupied the house in which Canning was supposed to have been held. At Wells' house in Enfield Wash, Canning identified Mary Squires as another of her captors, prompting the arrest and detention of both Wells and Squires. London magistrate Henry Fielding became involved in the case, taking Canning's side. Further arrests were made and several witness statements were taken, and Wells and Squires were ultimately tried and found guilty—Squires of the more serious and potentially capital charge of theft. (Full article...)
Image 12

Lihau c. 1990

Marcel Antoine Lihau or Ebua Libana la Molengo Lihau (29 September 1931 – 9 April 1999) was a Congolese jurist, law professor and politician who served as the inaugural First President of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Congo from 1968 until 1975, and was involved in the creation of two constitutions for the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Lihau attended the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium with the help of sympathetic Jesuit educators, becoming one of the first Congolese to study law. While there he encouraged Congolese politicians to form an alliance that allowed them to secure the independence of the Congo from Belgium. He served briefly as a justice official and negotiator for the Congolese central government before being appointed to lead a commission to draft a permanent national constitution. He was made dean of law faculty at Lovanium University in 1963. The following year he helped deliver the Luluabourg Constitution to the Congolese, which was adopted by referendum. (Full article...)
Image 13

White in Melbourne, c. 1940

Sir Thomas Walter White (26 April 1888 – 13 October 1957) was an Australian politician and pilot in the First World War. In 1914 he became one of the first airmen trained for the Australian Flying Corps (AFC), and the following year he was among the first AFC members to see action when he was deployed to the Middle East with the Mesopotamian Half Flight. After carrying out several missions behind Turkish lines, he was captured in November 1915 but escaped in July 1918. White was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and twice mentioned in despatches for his war service. He married Vera Deakin, a Red Cross worker and daughter of former Australian prime minister Alfred Deakin, in 1920.

White began his parliamentary career in 1929 when he was elected to the House of Representatives as the Member for Balaclava in Victoria. He served as Minister for Trade and Customs in Joseph Lyons's United Australia Party government from 1933 to 1938, but resigned when he was excluded from Lyons's inner cabinet. He joined the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War and saw service in Australia and the United Kingdom. Returning to parliament as a member of the newly formed Liberal Party in 1945, he served as Minister for Air and Minister for Civil Aviation in Robert Menzies's government from 1949 to 1951. His term coincided with the commitment of RAAF squadrons to the Korean War and the Malayan Emergency. Australia's high commissioner to the United Kingdom from 1951 to 1956, White was knighted in 1952 and died in 1957. (Full article...)
Image 14

Charles in Garter robes, c. 1660–1665

Charles II (29 May 1630 – 6 February 1685) was King of Scotland from 1649 until 1651 and King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from the 1660 Restoration of the monarchy until his death in 1685.

Charles II was the eldest surviving child of Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland and Henrietta Maria of France. After Charles I's execution at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War, the Parliament of Scotland proclaimed Charles II king on 5 February 1649. However, England entered the period known as the English Interregnum or the English Commonwealth, with a government led by Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell defeated Charles II at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651, and Charles fled to mainland Europe. Cromwell became Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland. Charles spent the next nine years in exile in France, the Dutch Republic and the Spanish Netherlands. The political crisis that followed Cromwell's death in 1658 resulted in the restoration of the monarchy, and Charles was invited to return to Britain. On 29 May 1660, his 30th birthday, he was received in London to public acclaim. After 1660, all legal documents stating a regnal year did so as if he had succeeded his father as king in 1649. (Full article...)
Image 15

A gold solidus bearing the image of Basiliscus and his son and co-emperor Marcus

Basiliscus (Greek: Βασιλίσκος, translit. Basilískos; died 476/477) was Eastern Roman emperor from 9 January 475 to August 476. He became magister militum per Thracias in 464, under his brother-in-law, Emperor Leo I (r. 457–474). Basiliscus commanded the army for an invasion of the Vandal Kingdom in 468, which was defeated at the Battle of Cape Bon. There were accusations at the time that Basiliscus was bribed by Aspar, the magister militum; many historians dismiss this, instead concluding that Basiliscus was either incompetent or foolish for accepting Vandal King Gaiseric's offer of a truce, which the latter used to construct fireships. Basiliscus's defeat cost the Eastern Empire 130,000 pounds (59,000 kg) of gold, causing the empire to hover above bankruptcy for 30 years. When Basiliscus returned to Constantinople, he sought refuge in the Church of St. Sophia. His sister, Empress Verina, secured him a pardon and he left the church to retire in Neapolis.

When Emperor Leo died in 474, his grandson Leo II (r. 474) took power, but soon died; his father, Zeno (r. 474–475, 476–491) ascended the throne in the same year, in a politically precarious position. Verina conspired to install the magister officiorum Patricius, her lover, as emperor. This plot was supported by Basiliscus, who succeeded in recruiting Isaurian brothers Illus and Trocundes, as well as Verina's nephew Armatus. Zeno fled on 9 January 475, either after learning of the plot or after Verina warned him that his life was in danger. Although Patricius was Verina's intended successor, Basiliscus convinced the Eastern Roman Senate to acclaim him instead. (Full article...)

Did you know... -

... that New York Times writer David W. Dunlap said calling the Apple Bank Building a neighborhood bank branch "is like calling Grand Central Terminal a commuter train station"?
... that China Miéville's novella This Census-Taker fluctuates between the first and third person to convey the trauma felt by the protagonist?
... that saxophonist Braxton Cook appeared in three Tiny Desk concerts for NPR as a sideman, before performing as a featured artist in 2020?
... that the party leader of the new Dutch youth political party LEF – For the New Generation tattooed his party's program points on his forearm?
... that 19th-century construction of the bathing ghat at Bulandshahr was delayed because an executive engineer deemed it an "eye-sore"?
... that PeopleSound was Europe's most visited music streaming site in 2000, and had offered any artist £100 for each song they uploaded?
... that William George Carlile Kent was court-martialled for disobeying deposed Governor William Bligh's order to destroy Sydney?
... that American educator Janet Sorg Stoltzfus established the first foreign school in northern Yemen?
... that Zakir Husain was the first Muslim and the first governor of a state to be elected President of India?
... that Vermont folk musician Pete Sutherland hosted concerts at his house for $10—or $9 if you brought your own chair?
... that one of the districts in the city of Astrakhan is named after Bolshevik leader Aleksandr Trusov?
... that a 1969 note from New York Times writer Grace Glueck to Arthur Ochs Sulzberger spurred a class-action lawsuit over gender discrimination?

General images

The following are images from various biography-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Einhard as scribe (from Biography)
Image 2Third volume of a 1727 edition of Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans printed by Jacob Tonson (from Biography)
Image 3A scene from the Baburnama (from Autobiography)
Image 4Eminent Victorians set the standard for 20th century biographical writing, when it was published in 1918. (from Biography)
Image 5Saint Augustine of Hippo wrote Confessions, the first Western autobiography ever written, around 400. Portrait by Philippe de Champaigne, 17th century. (from Autobiography)
Image 6Cover of the first English edition of Benjamin Franklin's autobiography, 1793 (from Autobiography)
Image 7John Foxe's The Book of Martyrs, was one of the earliest English-language biographies. (from Biography)
Image 8James Boswell wrote what many consider to be the first modern biography, The Life of Samuel Johnson, in 1791. (from Biography)

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Selected portrait

Image 1
Frederick III, German Emperor
Image credit: Illustrated London News
Crown Prince Frederick William of Prussia, later Frederick III, in the August 20, 1870 issue of the Illustrated London News, during his time as commander of one of the three divisions of the German Army in the Franco-Prussian War. He was noted for his fondness for liberal democracy and pacifism, but died less than a year after he became king, before he could institute any real reforms. His death and replacement by his more militaristic son, without the reforms that might have impeded his son's urges, is often considered one of the factors that led to World War I. This engraving is based on a portrait photograph of him taken in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Image 2
Enoch Powell
Photograph: Allan Warren
Enoch Powell (1912–98), a professor of Ancient Greek by age 25 and brigadier during World War II, took up politics in the late 1940s and in the 1960s was selected for several cabinet positions. In 1968, he gave the "Rivers of Blood" speech about the dangers of immigration to the United Kingdom and of proposed anti-discrimination legislation.
Image 3
Nataliya Gotsiy
Photo credit: Peter Duhon
Ukrainian fashion model Nataliya Gotsiy modeling for Cynthia Rowley, Spring 2007 New York Fashion Week. She was the winner of the Ford Supermodel of the World 2004 search. She has appeared on the cover of French Elle and Italian Marie Claire and modeled for Behnaz Sarafpour, Christian Lacroix, Diane von Furstenberg, Dior, Dolce & Gabbana, Dries van Noten, Gucci, Oscar de la Renta, Valentino, and Vivienne Westwood, among others.
Image 4
Enrico Caruso
Photo: Bain News Service; Restoration: Michel Vuijlsteke
Enrico Caruso (1873–1921) was an Italian tenor who was one of the most famous male opera singers in history. He sang to great acclaim at major opera houses around the world, and spent 18 consecutive seasons as the lead tenor at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. He was one of the first major classical vocalists to make numerous recordings (more than 260), and his 1902 recording of "Vesti la giubba" was the first to sell over a million copies. His records sold so well that the Collector's Guide to Victor Records asks, "Did the phonograph make Caruso, or did Caruso make the phonograph?"
Image 5
Stephen Merchant
Photo: Carolyn Djanogly
Stephen Merchant (b. 1974) is an English writer, director, radio presenter, comedian, and actor. He is best known for his collaborations with Ricky Gervais, with whom he co-wrote and co-directed the popular British sitcom The Office, co-hosts The Ricky Gervais Show, and co-wrote, co-directed, and co-starred in Extras.
Image 6
Wayne Gretzky
Photo credit: Håkan Dahlström
Ice hockey player Wayne Gretzky, as a member of the New York Rangers of the National Hockey League (NHL) in 1997. Gretzky, nicknamed "The Great One", is widely considered the best hockey player of all time. Upon his retirement in 1999, he held forty regular-season records, fifteen playoff records, and six All-Star records. He is the only NHL player to total over 200 points in one season—a feat he accomplished four times. In addition, he tallied over 100 points in 15 NHL seasons, 13 of them consecutively. He is the only player to have his number (99) officially retired by the NHL for all teams.
Image 7
Lucy Arbell
Photograph credit: Nadar; restored by Adam Cuerden
Lucy Arbell (8 June 1878 – 21 May 1947), was a French mezzo-soprano whose operatic career was largely centred in Paris. Her career was particularly associated with the composer Jules Massenet, who created a number of operatic roles for her before his death in 1912. This carte de visite of Arbell was created by the French photographer Nadar.
Image 8
Cary Grant
Photograph: RKO publicity photographer; Edit: Chris Woodrich
Actor Cary Grant (1904–86) in a publicity photo for Suspicion (1940). Known for his transatlantic accent, debonair demeanor and "dashing good looks", Grant is considered one of classic Hollywood's definitive leading men. During his 34-year career he acted in over 50 films, including The Eagle and the Hawk, Bringing Up Baby, and North by Northwest.
Image 9
Antanas Smetona
Photo from: National Museum of Lithuania
A portrait of Antanas Smetona, the first President of Lithuania, a signatory to the Act of Independence of Lithuania, as well as the last President before the country's occupation by the Soviet Union in World War II. During his second term, he expanded the powers of the office and became an authoritarian head of state. Prior to the Soviet invasion, Smetona proposed armed resistance, but was overruled by his army. He fled the country, eventually emigrating to the United States. Smetona died in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1944. His remains are currently buried in Chardon, Ohio.
Image 10
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Painting: Vasily Perov
Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–81; depicted in 1872) was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist and philosopher. After publishing his first novel, Poor Folk, at age 25, Dostoyevsky wrote (among others) eleven novels, three novellas, and seventeen short novels, including Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1869), and The Brothers Karamazov (1880).
Image 11
John Henry Newman
Painting: John Everett Millais
John Henry Newman (1801–90) was a British cleric and leader in the Oxford Movement, a group of Anglicans who wished to return the Church of England to many Catholic beliefs and forms of worship traditional in the medieval times. In 1845 Newman converted to Catholicism, eventually rising to cardinal.
Image 12
Queen Wilhelmina and Princess Juliana of the Netherlands
Photo credit: Bain News Service
Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands with her daughter and successor Princess Juliana, circa 1914. Wilhelmina was queen regnant from 1890 to 1948, longer than any other Dutch monarch. Outside the Netherlands she is primarily remembered for her role in the Second World War, in which she proved to be a great inspiration to the Dutch resistance, as well as a prominent leader of the Dutch government in exile. Juliana became queen regnant in 1948 after her mother's abdication and ruled until her own abdication in 1980, succeeded by her daughter, Beatrix.
Image 13
Lies Noor
Photograph credit: Djakartawood Studio; restored by Chris Woodrich
Lies Noor (c. 1938 – 1961) was an Indonesian actress. She first appeared on film in Pulang (Homecoming) in 1952, while she was still at school. She rose in popularity with a string of successful films, and was able to command high fees for her roles. In the mid-1950s, having married and had a child, she took a break from her career to care full-time for her son. After returning to acting in 1960, however, she developed encephalitis the next year and died in hospital two days later. This photograph of Noor was taken around 1956.
Image 14
T206 Honus Wagner
Image credit: American Tobacco Company
The T206 Honus Wagner is a rare baseball card depicting Honus Wagner (February 24, 1874 – December 6, 1955), a dead-ball era shortstop considered one of the best players of all time. The card was designed and issued by the American Tobacco Company from 1909 to 1911. Only 50 to 200 cards were ever distributed to the public, and as a result of the card's rarity and popularity, prices have soared. In 2007, a collector paid $2.8 million for one, making it the most valuable baseball card in history. This specimen belongs to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York.
Image 15
Jeremy Doyle
Photo: Sport the Library
Jeremy Doyle (1983–2011) was an Australian wheelchair basketball player. Left paraplegic after a car accident, he was classified as a 1 point player. While representing his country Doyle won two gold medals, first at the 2009 Paralympic World Cup and again at the 2010 Wheelchair Basketball World Championship.

On this day – January 12

Births

1729 - Edmund Burke, Irish statesman (d. 1797) (pictured)
1737 - John Hancock, American statesman (d. 1793)
1876 - Jack London, American author (d. 1916)
1917 - Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Indian spiritualist (d. 2008)
1951 - Rush Limbaugh, American radio personality (d. 2021)
1952 - Walter Mosley, American author
1954 - Howard Stern, American radio host
1963 - Debashish Bhattacharya, Indian musician

Deaths

1519 - Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1459)
1834 - William Wyndham Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1759)
1976 - Agatha Christie, English writer (b. 1890)
1977 - Henri-Georges Clouzot, French film director and screenwriter (b. 1907)

In the news

10 January 2024 – Capital punishment in Pakistan: The Supreme Court of Pakistan upholds the 2019 death sentence upon former leader Pervez Musharraf, who lived in exile in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, until his death in February 2023. (Dawn)
9 January 2024 – 2024 conflict in Ecuador: President of Ecuador Daniel Noboa declares a state of emergency following the escape of José Adolfo Macías Villamar, leader of the Los Choneros drug cartel, from prison. Gangsters subsequently storm a TC Televisión newsroom in Guayaquil and launch a series of riots, kidnappings, and explosions across the country. Eight civilians are killed, including two at Centro Comercial Albán Borja, and three more injured during random shootings in Guayaquil, while two police officers are killed in Nobol. As a result, schools are closed and the military is called to stop gang activities. (Al Jazeera)
8 January 2024 – Nuclear program of Iran: According to De Volkskrant, a Dutch engineer recruited by the General Intelligence and Security Service of the Netherlands released the malicious computer worm Stuxnet in an Iranian nuclear complex in 2007, disrupting the Iranian nuclear program for years. (NOS) (The Times)
5 January 2024 –: South African former Paralympic athlete Oscar Pistorius is released on parole after serving eight and a half years in prison for the 2013 murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. (France 24)
4 January 2024 – Iraqi conflict: A U.S. drone strike in Baghdad, Iraq, kills four Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba militants, including senior leader Mushtaq Talib Al-Saeedi. (Reuters)
4 January 2024 –: A private plane en route from J. F. Mitchell Airport in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines to Hewanorra International Airport in Saint Lucia crashes shortly after takeoff, killing four people including German actor Christian Oliver and his two daughters. (Loop News) (AFP via Hindustan Times)

Updated: 6:33, 12 January 2024

Quote of the week

"History is the present. That's why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth."

— E. L. Doctorow

Interviewed by George Plimpton in The Paris Review, Winter 1986

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