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Bobby Fischer began as a chess prodigy in his teens and went on to become the youngest "grandmaster," at 15. His participation in a politically controversial match in Yugoslavia led to the revocation of his U.S. passport and his arrest. He spent the final years of his life in Iceland.
Chang Bunker was a Siamese-American man and one-half of the popular conjoined twin brothers. Chang and his conjoined twin Eng were two of the most studied human beings during the 19th century. They toured the United States and Europe as part of their freak shows, gaining financial success and fame. They are credited with coining the colloquial term Siamese twins.
One of the first to be awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Virginia Clara Jones was possibly Warner Brothers' biggest box-office money-maker in late 1940s. Beginning her career with vaudevilles, she quickly signed contracts first with Goldwyn and later with Warner Brothers, giving out numerous hits, including Oscar-winning The Best Years of Our Lives and White Heat.
Nineteenth-century polymath Francis Galton revolutionized science with his pathbreaking research on human intelligence and psychometrics. His books dealt with diverse topics such as correlational calculus, fingerprint analysis, and meteorology, and he also explored Africa. He left Cambridge without an honors degree, and yet ended up being knighted for his achievements.
Swedish architect Raoul Wallenberg went down in history as a savior for Jews during the Nazi regime. He not only issued provisional Swedish passports, or Schutzpass, to protect Jews, but also set up safe houses for them. He disappeared amid mysterious circumstances. Many believe he died in a Soviet prison.
Faten Hamama was an Egyptian actress and film producer. Regarded as an icon in Middle Eastern and Egyptian cinema, Hamama played an important role in popularizing the film industry in Egypt. She is also remembered for stressing the importance of women in the film industry and Egyptian society at large. In 1965, she was awarded the Decoration of the Republic.
Though he wasn’t formally educated in astronomy, Clyde Tombaugh was immensely interested in the subject since childhood and had built his own telescope after high school. He grew up to discover Pluto, then regarded as the ninth planet but later declared a "dwarf planet," and many other celestial bodies.
T. H. White was an English author whose works have influenced other famous writers like Michael Moorcock, J. K. Rowling, Gregory Maguire, Ed McBain, Neil Gaiman, and Helen Macdonald. Rowling has stated that the Harry Potter books were strongly influenced by White's writing. Gaiman admitted that both Harry Potter and his own character Timothy Hunter were inspired by White's characters.
Camilo José Cela was a Spanish novelist, essayist, story writer, and poet. One of the most respected Spanish writers of his generation, Camilo José Cela received a number of prestigious awards, including the 1987 Prince of Asturias Award for Literature. In 1989, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature. In 1994, he was honored with the Premio Planeta de Novela.
Albert Jacka was the first Australian to be decorated with the Victoria Cross during the First World War. He enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force as a young man and fought in the Gallipoli Campaign during the First World War. He became a businessman after the conclusion of the war but never recovered fully from his wartime injuries.
Born to affluent coffee farmers in Brazil, Tarsila do Amaral later traveled to Spain and Paris, to study painting. Best remembered for her masterpieces such as The Black Woman and Man Who Eats, Tarsila also painted surrealist and semi-Cubist landscapes. She was a pioneer of the Antropofagia movement.
Czeslaw Niemen was a Polish singer-songwriter, keyboard player, and composer. He gained notoriety during the 1960s for his revolutionary music, such as the 1967 song Strange Is This World, which was considered the most prominent Polish protest song of that time. Czeslaw Niemen’s life and career have inspired several documentaries, including Krzysztof Magowski's 2014 film A Dream About Warsaw.
Anthony the Great is revered as the patron saint of diseases for miraculously healing people of ailments such as ergot poisoning, which came to be known as St. Anthony's Fire. Known widely as the Father of Monasticism, he had spent 20 years in isolation in the Thebaid desert.
Lola Montez was an Irish actress and dancer. She achieved popularity as a Spanish courtesan, dancer, and mistress of King Ludwig I of Bavaria. The German revolutions of 1848–1849 forced her to flee to the United States, where she established herself as an actress and dancer. Lola Montez has been portrayed in many films, including Lola Montez, the King's Dancer.
Juan Montalvo was an Ecuadorian essayist and author. He is best remembered for his 1880 work Las catilinarias, which made him popular throughout intellectual circles in Europe, the USA, and the rest of Latin America. Although the book made him famous, it also forced him to live in France for the rest of his life as a refugee.
Frederic W.H. Myers was a 19th-century classicist and a Victorian psychical researcher. The essayist’s best-known work remains his posthumously published 2-volume collection Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death. He also penned award-winning poems. Rumors claim he was homosexual but also had a relationship with his cousin's wife.
