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Chuck Connors was an American actor, professional baseball and basketball player. Connors is one of 13 athletes to have played in both National Basketball Association and the Major League Baseball. As an actor, he contributed to the success of the popular Western television program The Rifleman. Also known for his charity work, Connors helped found the Chuck Connors Charitable Foundation.
Jack Palance was an American actor known for playing villains and tough guys in the '50s and '60s. In 1992, he was made an inductee of the Western Performers Hall of Fame. It is widely believed that comic book artist Jack Kirby modeled Darkseid on Jack Palance. Jack Palance was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
French poet Arthur Rimbaud is remembered for his influence on Dadaism, surrealism, and symbolism. Known for works such as Le Soleil Etait Encore Chaud and Voyelles, he later got involved in a relationship with poet Paul Verlaine. He also traveled as a merchant and explorer, before dying of cancer.
American mathematician Dorothy Vaughan was also known as a "human computer." Initially a math teacher, she became the first African-American supervisor of NACA, later part of NASA, at a time when racial segregation was rampant in the U.S. Her contribution to the early American space programs is invaluable.
Norman Mailer was an American journalist, novelist, essayist, filmmaker, actor, and playwright. A prolific writer, Mailer had at least one best-selling book in each of the seven decades post Second World War. Overall, he had 11 best-selling books in a career spanning over 60 years. A recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, Mailer is regarded as an innovator of New Journalism.
Miriam Makeba was a South African singer, actress, songwriter, civil rights activist, and United Nations goodwill ambassador. One of the first African musicians to make an impact on the international stage, Makeba is credited with popularizing Afropop genres. She also advocated against apartheid through music and played a major role in the civil rights movement.
Helmut Schmidt, who had once been the chancellor of Germany, was also an avid art connoisseur and a talented pianist. The SPD member had also been associated with the DIE ZEIT magazine and is remembered for his efficient management of the Hamburg storm flood as the police senator of Hamburg.
Canaan Banana was a Zimbabwean politician, theologian, and Methodist minister. In 1980, Banana became the first president of Zimbabwe, a position which he held until 1987. Ten years later, he made the headlines when he was involved in a highly publicized trial after being accused of being a homosexual. He served six months in prison after being convicted of sodomy.
Pope Leo I was the bishop of Rome from 440 to 461. A Roman Aristocrat, he is credited to have convinced Attila the Hun to turn back from his invasion of Italy. He was a prolific writer and around 100 sermons and 150 letters composed by him have been preserved. The Eastern Orthodox Church celebrates him on 18 February.
Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt was an Egyptian army general who served as the regent of his father's Muhammad Ali dynasty in 1848 due to his father's ill health. Ibrahim Pasha is best remembered for his military victories, including his impressive success against the Ottoman Empire, for which he is counted among the greatest members of the Muhammad Ali dynasty.
Lyubov Dostoevskaya was a Russian memoirist and writer. The daughter of popular Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky and his wife Anna Grigoryevna Snitkina, Lyubov Dostoevskaya is best remembered for her work, Dostoyevsky as Portrayed by His Daughter. Many of her memoirs, which were written in French, were translated into other European languages.
Popularly known as the Clint Eastwood of Japan for playing brooding characters, Ken Takakura has mostly been part of yakuza movies that dealt with organized crime. He soared to fame with Abashiri Prison and later delivered award-winning performances in films such as Station, The Yellow Handkerchief, and Poppoya.
Anita Berber was a German dancer, writer, and actress. Berber's addiction to drugs and her choice of clothing in public events, which challenged social taboos at that time, overshadowed her professional achievements. In addition to her personal life, Anita Berber also achieved notoriety as a dancer; some of her performances featured total nudity. She died of tuberculosis at age 29.
Hailed as one of the most celebrated Swedish actors, Sven Wollter was also an influential political activist, working for the Swedish communist party since his youth. Beginning his career on the stage, he debuted on screen as Gusten in Hemsöborna, gaining instant fame for it, continuing with his activism as well as acting till the very end.
Friedrich-Werner Graf von der Schulenburg was a German diplomat who served as an ambassador and consul in several countries before World War I. His position as the German ambassador to the USSR was cut short by the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Schulenburg was accused of being a part of the failed 20 July plot and was executed in 1944.
Gideon Mantell was a British geologist, obstetrician, and palaeontologist. Mantell's attempt to reconstruct the structure of Iguanodon started the scientific study of dinosaurs. He is also credited with discovering the first fossil teeth of Iguanodon. Subsequently, Gideon Mantell went on to discover and identify much of the skeleton of Iguanodon.
Walter Sutton was an American physician and geneticist best remembered for his Boveri-Sutton chromosome theory, which is widely regarded as one of the most important contributions to present-day biology. Walter Sutton is also credited with improving several medical and surgical practices, such as anesthetic techniques.
Kiyoshi Ito was a Japanese mathematician best remembered for his immense contributions to probability theory. He is credited with inventing the concept of stochastic differential equation and stochastic integral. Kiyoshi Ito is also credited with founding Itô calculus. In 2006, Kiyoshi Ito was honored with the prestigious Gauss Prize by the International Mathematical Union.
After studying political science and law, Jacques Chaban-Delmas worked as a journalist. A prominent part of the Résistance movement, he officially began his political career as the mayor of Bordeaux, and later became the prime minister of France. He was also a skilled tennis and rugby player.
A well-known South African socialite and businesswoman, Hazel Crane once smuggled diamonds and worked at a strip club. She had also been a nurse. She was gunned down while traveling in her car to testify against Israeli mafia boss Lior Saat. Her interesting life later became public through her post-humous memoir.
Alessandro Farnese, who later came to be known as Pope Paul III, was the last Renaissance pope and the first pope who belonged to the Counter-Reformation era. A patron of the arts, he commissioned legendary painter Michelangelo to paint frescoes in the Pauline Chapel of the Vatican.
French naturalist and explorer Henri Mouhot started his career as a professor of philology and travelled throughout Europe. With the help of British academic societies, he went on a mission to Indochina. He is best known for informing the Western world of the ruins of Angkor.
