Portal:Biography

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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...)

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

Image 1

Gordon-Cumming in 1891

Lieutenant-Colonel Sir William Alexander Gordon Gordon-Cumming, 4th Baronet (20 July 1848 – 20 May 1930), was a Scottish landowner, soldier, socialite and a notorious womaniser. He was the central figure in the royal baccarat scandal of 1891. After inheriting a baronetcy he joined the British Army and saw service in South Africa, Egypt and the Sudan; he served with distinction and rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Something of an adventurer, he also spent time hunting in the US and India.

A friend of Edward, Prince of Wales, for over 20 years, in 1890 he attended a house party at Tranby Croft in the East Riding of Yorkshire, where he took part in a game of baccarat at the behest of the prince. During the course of two nights' play he was accused of cheating, which he denied vehemently. After news of the affair leaked out, he sued five members of the party for slander; the Prince of Wales was called as a witness. The case was a public spectacle, widely reported in the UK and abroad, but the verdict went against Gordon-Cumming and he was ostracised from polite society. (Full article...)
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Shepard in 1971

Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. (November 18, 1923 – July 21, 1998) was an American astronaut. In 1961, he became the second person and the first American to travel into space and, in 1971, he became the fifth and oldest person to walk on the Moon, at age 47.

A graduate of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Shepard saw action with the surface navy during World War II. He became a naval aviator in 1947, and a test pilot in 1950. He was selected as one of the original NASA Mercury Seven astronauts in 1959, and in May 1961 he made the first crewed Project Mercury flight, Mercury-Redstone 3, in a spacecraft he named Freedom 7. His craft entered space, but was not capable of achieving orbit. He became the second person, and the first American, to travel into space. In the final stages of Project Mercury, Shepard was scheduled to pilot the Mercury-Atlas 10 (MA-10), which was planned as a three-day mission. He named Mercury Spacecraft 15B Freedom 7 II in honor of his first spacecraft, but the mission was canceled. (Full article...)
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Albert Ball, (14 August 1896 – 7 May 1917) was a British fighter pilot during the First World War. At the time of his death he was the United Kingdom's leading flying ace, with 44 victories, and remained its fourth-highest scorer behind Edward Mannock, James McCudden, and George McElroy.

Born and raised in Nottingham, Ball joined the Sherwood Foresters at the outbreak of the First World War and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in October 1914. He transferred to the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) the following year, and gained his pilot's wings on 26 January 1916. Joining No. 13 Squadron RFC in France, he flew reconnaissance missions before being posted in May to No. 11 Squadron, a fighter unit. From then until his return to England on leave in October, he accrued many aerial victories, earning two Distinguished Service Orders and the Military Cross. He was the first ace to become a British national hero. (Full article...)
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Miniature from the Madrid Skylitzes version of the chronicle of John Skylitzes depicting Thomas, on horseback and dressed as a Byzantine emperor, negotiating with the Arabs. The rebellion of Thomas is one of the most richly illustrated episodes in the chronicle.

Thomas the Slav (Greek: Θωμᾶς ὁ Σλάβος, romanized: Thōmas ho Slavos, c. 760 – October 823) was a 9th-century Byzantine military commander, most notable for leading a wide-scale revolt in 821–23 against Emperor Michael II the Amorian (r. 820–829).

An army officer of Slavic origin from the Pontus region (now north-eastern Turkey), Thomas rose to prominence, along with the future emperors Michael II and Leo V the Armenian (r. 813–820), under the protection of general Bardanes Tourkos. After Bardanes' failed rebellion in 803, Thomas fell into obscurity until Leo V's rise to the throne, when Thomas was raised to a senior military command in central Asia Minor. After the murder of Leo and usurpation of the throne by Michael the Amorian, Thomas revolted, claiming the throne for himself. Thomas quickly secured support from most of the themes (provinces) and troops in Asia Minor, defeated Michael's initial counter-attack and concluded an alliance with the Abbasid Caliphate. After winning over the maritime themes and their ships as well, he crossed with his army to Europe and laid siege to Constantinople. The imperial capital withstood Thomas's attacks by land and sea, while Michael II called for help from the Bulgarian ruler khan Omurtag. Omurtag attacked Thomas's army, but although repelled, the Bulgarians inflicted heavy casualties on Thomas's men, who broke and fled when Michael took to the field a few months later. Thomas and his supporters sought refuge in Arcadiopolis, where he was soon blockaded by Michael's troops. In the end, Thomas's supporters surrendered him in exchange for a pardon, and he was executed. (Full article...)
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The first illustration of the first roll of the Anthony Roll, depicting the Henry Grace à Dieu, the largest ship in the English navy during the reign of King Henry VIII.

The Anthony Roll is a written record of ships of the English Tudor navy of the 1540s, named after its creator, Anthony Anthony. It originally consisted of three rolls of vellum, depicting 58 naval vessels along with information on their size, crew, armament, and basic equipment. The rolls were presented to King Henry VIII in 1546, and were kept in the royal library. In 1680 King Charles II gave two of the rolls to Samuel Pepys, who had them cut up and bound as a single volume book, which is now in the Pepys Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge. The third roll remained in the royal collection until it was given by King William IV to his daughter Lady Mary Fox, who sold it to the British Museum in 1858; it is now owned by the British Library.

The Anthony Roll is the only known fully illustrated inventory of ships of the English navy in the Tudor period. As the work of a successful state official in 16th century England, the artistic value of the Anthony Roll has been described as being characterised by "naive draughtsmanship and conformity to a pattern" though its artistic aspects display "a decent amateur grasp of form and colour". While the inventories listed in its text have proven to be highly accurate, most of the ship illustrations are rudimentary and made according to a set formula. The level of detail of the ship design, armament and especially rigging has therefore proven to be only approximate. Nevertheless, through their depiction of the ceremonial ornamentation the illustrations in the Roll have provided relevant secondary information to the study of Tudor period heraldry, flags and ship ornamentation. (Full article...)
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Joseph Desha (December 9, 1768 – October 11, 1842) was a U.S. Representative and the ninth governor of the U.S. state of Kentucky. After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, Desha's Huguenot ancestors fled from France to Pennsylvania, where Desha was born. Eventually, Desha's family settled near present-day Gallatin, Tennessee, where they were involved in many skirmishes with the Indians. Two of Desha's brothers were killed in these encounters, motivating him to volunteer for "Mad" Anthony Wayne's campaign against the Indians during the Northwest Indian War. Having by then resettled in Mason County, Kentucky, Desha parlayed his military record into several terms in the state legislature.

In 1807, Desha was elected to the first of six consecutive terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. A Democratic-Republican, he was considered a war hawk, supporting the War of 1812. In 1813, he volunteered to serve in the war and commanded a division at the Battle of the Thames. Returning to Congress after the war, he was the only member of the Kentucky congressional delegation to oppose the unpopular Compensation Act of 1816. Nearly every other member of the delegation was defeated for reelection after the vote, but Desha's opposition to the act helped him retain his seat. He did not seek reelection in 1818, and made an unsuccessful run for governor in 1820, losing to John Adair. By 1824, the Panic of 1819 had ruined Kentucky's economy, and Desha made a second campaign for the governorship almost exclusively on promises of relief for the state's large debtor class. He was elected by a large majority, and debt relief partisans captured both houses of the General Assembly. After the Kentucky Court of Appeals overturned debt relief laws favored by Desha and the majority of the legislature, the legislators abolished the court and created a replacement court, to which Desha appointed several debt relief partisans. The existing court refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the move, and during a period known as the Old Court – New Court controversy, two courts of last resort existed in the state. (Full article...)
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Butler in 1851, portrait by George Richmond

Josephine Elizabeth Butler (née Grey; 13 April 1828 – 30 December 1906) was an English feminist and social reformer in the Victorian era. She campaigned for women's suffrage, the right of women to better education, the end of coverture in British law, the abolition of child prostitution, and an end to human trafficking of young women and children into European prostitution.

Grey grew up in a well-to-do and politically connected progressive family which helped develop in her a strong social conscience and firmly held religious ideals. She married George Butler, an Anglican divine and schoolmaster, and the couple had four children, the last of whom, Eva, died falling from a banister. The death was a turning point for Butler, and she focused her feelings on helping others, starting with the inhabitants of a local workhouse. She began to campaign for women's rights in British law. In 1869 she became involved in the campaign to repeal the Contagious Diseases Acts, legislation that attempted to control the spread of venereal diseases—particularly in the British Army and Royal Navy—through the forced medical examination of alleged prostitutes, a process she described as surgical or steel rape. The campaign achieved its final success in 1886 with the repeal of the Acts. Butler also formed the International Abolitionist Federation, a Europe-wide organisation to combat similar systems on the continent. (Full article...)
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Æthelwulf in the early fourteenth-century Genealogical Roll of the Kings of England

Æthelwulf (Old English: [ˈæðelwuɫf]; Old English for "Noble Wolf"; died 13 January 858) was King of Wessex from 839 to 858. In 825, his father, King Ecgberht, defeated King Beornwulf of Mercia, ending a long Mercian dominance over Anglo-Saxon England south of the Humber. Ecgberht sent Æthelwulf with an army to Kent, where he expelled the Mercian sub-king and was himself appointed sub-king. After 830, Ecgberht maintained good relations with Mercia, and this was continued by Æthelwulf when he became king in 839, the first son to succeed his father as West Saxon king since 641.

The Vikings were not a major threat to Wessex during Æthelwulf's reign. In 843, he was defeated in a battle against the Vikings at Carhampton in Somerset, but he achieved a major victory at the Battle of Aclea in 851. In 853, he joined a successful Mercian expedition to Wales to restore the traditional Mercian hegemony, and in the same year his daughter Æthelswith married King Burgred of Mercia. In 855, Æthelwulf went on a pilgrimage to Rome. In preparation he gave a "decimation", donating a tenth of his personal property to his subjects; he appointed his eldest surviving son Æthelbald to act as King of Wessex in his absence, and his next son Æthelberht to rule Kent and the south-east. Æthelwulf spent a year in Rome, and on his way back he married Judith, the daughter of the West Frankish king Charles the Bald. (Full article...)
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Mark Saunders was a British barrister who was shot dead by police on 6 May 2008 after a five-hour siege at his home in Markham Square in Chelsea, London. Saunders was a successful divorce lawyer who struggled with depression and alcoholism. He had been behaving erratically and drinking heavily in the hours before the incident. Neighbours called the police after Saunders repeatedly fired a shotgun from a window shortly before 17:00 (BST, UTC+1). When armed police officers arrived, Saunders fired at their vehicle and the siege began. More armed officers arrived and took up positions in surrounding buildings and on the street. Saunders fired on two more occasions and the police returned fire, slightly wounding him. Around 20 minutes after the previous round of shooting, just after 21:30, Saunders waved the shotgun out of a window. As he lowered it in the direction of a group of police officers, seven officers fired eleven shots, of which at least five struck him. Police entered his flat minutes later and Saunders was taken to a waiting ambulance where he was pronounced dead.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission investigated the shooting as a matter of course. During the investigation, the Saunders family applied for judicial review of the investigation, claiming that the practice of conferring between the police officers involved made it inadequate; the practice was found lawful and the case dismissed, though it prompted a review of the practice. An inquest held in September 2010 heard that Saunders repeatedly asked during the siege to speak with his wife and a friend (both of whom were at the scene) but that the police refused the requests. It also learnt that Saunders' shotgun was in the open position and not capable of being fired when the police recovered it. The police officers who fired testified that they acted out of fear for their lives and the lives of their colleagues, and felt that they had no choice. The jury returned a verdict of lawful killing, but found several flaws in the police handling of the incident, including the lack of consideration to allowing him to speak to his wife, confusion in the chain of command, and a failure to take account of Saunders' drunken state. The jury did not consider that any of these factors significantly contributed to the outcome of the incident. They could not decide whether Saunders had intentionally aimed his weapon to provoke a lethal response from the police ("suicide by cop"). (Full article...)
Image 10

Haane Manahi in Maadi, Egypt, June 1943

Haane Te Rauawa Manahi, DCM (28 September 1913 – 29 March 1986) was a New Zealand Māori soldier during the Second World War whose gallantry during the Tunisian campaign resulted in a recommendation that he be awarded the Victoria Cross (VC). The subsequent award of the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) disappointed his fellow soldiers who, after his death, advocated greater recognition of his valour. This eventually resulted in a special award in 2007 of an altar cloth for use in a local church, ceremonial sword and a personal letter from Queen Elizabeth II in recognition of his gallantry.

Born in Ohinemutu, New Zealand, Manahi worked as a labourer when, in November 1939, he volunteered to join the Māori Battalion, newly raised for service in the Second World War. In 1941, he participated in the Battle of Greece and fought in the Battle of Crete during which he was wounded. After recovering from his wounds, he returned to his unit and fought through the Western Desert and Tunisian campaigns, during which he was recommended for a VC for his actions at Takrouna over the period 19–21 April 1943. Despite the support of four generals, his VC nomination was downgraded to an award of a DCM, possibly by the British Chief of the General Staff, General Alan Brooke. (Full article...)
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Olga Alexandrovna c. 1910

Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia (Russian: Ольга Александровна; 13 June [O.S. 1 June] 1882 – 24 November 1960) was the youngest child of Emperor Alexander III of Russia and younger sister of Emperor Nicholas II.

Olga was raised at the Gatchina Palace outside Saint Petersburg. Olga's relationship with her mother, Empress Marie, the daughter of King Christian IX of Denmark, was strained and distant from childhood. In contrast, she and her father were close. He died when she was 12, and her brother Nicholas became emperor. In 1901, at 19, she married Duke Peter Alexandrovich of Oldenburg, who was privately believed by family and friends to be homosexual. Their marriage of 15 years remained unconsummated, and Peter at first refused Olga's request for a divorce. The couple led separate lives and their marriage was eventually annulled by the Emperor in October 1916. The following month Olga married cavalry officer Nikolai Kulikovsky, with whom she had fallen in love several years before. During the First World War, Olga served as an army nurse and was awarded a medal for personal gallantry. At the downfall of the Romanovs in the Russian Revolution of 1917, she fled with her husband and children to Crimea, where they lived under the threat of assassination. Her brother Nicholas and his family were shot and bayoneted to death by revolutionaries. (Full article...)
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A portrait of Lafayette in the uniform of a major general of the Continental Army, painted by Charles Willson Peale, c. 1779-80

Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier de La Fayette, Marquis de La Fayette (6 September 1757 – 20 May 1834), known in the United States as Lafayette (/ˌlɑːfiːˈɛt, ˌlæf-/, French: [lafajɛt]), was a French nobleman and military officer who volunteered to join the Continental Army, led by General George Washington, in the American Revolutionary War. Lafayette was ultimately permitted to command Continental Army troops in the decisive siege of Yorktown in 1781, the Revolutionary War's final major battle that secured American independence. After returning to France, Lafayette became a key figure in the French Revolution of 1789 and the July Revolution of 1830 and continues to be celebrated as a hero in both France and the United States.

Lafayette was born into a wealthy land-owning family in Chavaniac in the province of Auvergne in south-central France. He followed the family's martial tradition and was commissioned an officer at age 13. He became convinced that the American revolutionary cause was noble, and he traveled to the New World seeking glory in it. He was made a major-general at age 19, but he was initially not given American troops to command. He was wounded during the Battle of Brandywine but still managed to organize an orderly retreat, and he served with distinction in the Battle of Rhode Island. In the middle of the war, he sailed for home to lobby for an increase in French support. He returned to America in 1780 and was given senior positions in the Continental Army. In 1781, troops under his command in Virginia blocked British forces led by Lord Cornwallis until other American and French forces could position themselves for the decisive siege of Yorktown. (Full article...)
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Ruins of St Oswald's Priory, Gloucester, where Æthelred and Æthelflæd were buried

Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians (or Ealdorman Æthelred of Mercia; died 911) became ruler of English Mercia shortly after the death or disappearance of its last king, Ceolwulf II in 879. Æthelred's rule was confined to the western half, as eastern Mercia was then part of the Viking-ruled Danelaw. His ancestry is unknown. He was probably the leader of an unsuccessful Mercian invasion of Wales in 881, and soon afterwards he acknowledged the lordship of King Alfred the Great of Wessex. This alliance was cemented by the marriage of Æthelred to Alfred's daughter Æthelflæd.

In 886, Alfred took possession of London, which had suffered greatly from several Viking occupations. Alfred then handed London over to Æthelred, as it had traditionally been a Mercian town. In 892, the Vikings renewed their attacks, and the following year, Æthelred led an army of Mercians, West Saxons and Welsh to victory over a Viking army at the Battle of Buttington. He spent the next three years fighting them alongside Alfred's son, the future King Edward the Elder. At some time after 899 Æthelred's health may have declined, and Æthelflæd may have become the effective ruler of Mercia. (Full article...)
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Nicolo or Nicolas Giraud (c. 1795 – after 1815) was a friend of English Romantic poet Lord Byron. The two met in 1809 while Byron was staying in Athens. Giraud, who at that time of their relationship was a fourteen-year-old majordomo and then student at the Capuchin monastery in Athens, reportedly taught Byron Italian, and was his travel companion in Greece. Byron paid for Giraud's education and left him £7,000 (about £630,000 in 2024) in his will. Years after they parted company, Byron changed his will to exclude Giraud. Other than his involvement with Byron, little is known of Giraud's life.

The relationship between Byron and Giraud has become a topic of interest among scholars and biographers of Byron. Some believe that the pair's interaction was platonic, while others, citing contemporary opinion and correspondence between Byron and his friends, argue that Byron engaged in sexual activity with Giraud. The earliest textual claim of a sexual relationship comes from the anonymous 19th-century poem Don Leon, believed to have been written by someone in Byron's social circle, in which the poet is the principal character and Giraud is portrayed as his liberator from the sexual prejudices in Britain. (Full article...)
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"Vine" sculpture by Bronwyn Oliver

Bronwyn Joy Oliver (née Gooda, 22 February 1959 – 10 July 2006) was an Australian sculptor whose work primarily consisted of metalwork. Her sculptures are admired for their tactile nature, aesthetics, and technical skills demonstrated in their production.

Oliver was raised in rural New South Wales. She trained at Sydney's Alexander Mackie College of Advanced Education and London's Chelsea School of Art. She had early success, winning a New South Wales Travelling Art Scholarship in 1981 and the Moet & Chandon Australian Art Fellowship in 1984. Oliver settled in Sydney, where she practised and taught until her death in 2006. (Full article...)

More featured articles

Did you know... - show different entries

... that musician John Mayer dismissed Taylor Swift's "Dear John" as "cheap songwriting"?
... that after the Basilica of St. Mary of the Assumption was named a minor basilica by Pope Francis in 2022, this was announced on the vigil of the Assumption of Mary?
... that actor Oscar Isaac contributed to the creation of his character's background history in the film A Most Violent Year (2014)?
... that anthropologist Theodora Kroeber wrote a biography of her husband that was described as a "welcome and refreshing exception" to the "often embarrassing" biographies of men written by their wives?
... that writer Ed Brubaker earned more from the residuals for his cameo appearance in the film Captain America: The Winter Soldier than he did for his comic from which the film was adapted?
... that Russian artist Igor Grabar dug a trench in snow to paint February Azure?
... that when launched in 1896, the freighter Sir William Siemens and her sister ships were the longest vessels on the Great Lakes?
... that The Ugly Black Bird, a Polish book that discredited the autobiographical value of Kosiński's The Painted Bird, initially received reviews that were "more negative than favourable"?
... that Grace Lavery's autobiography Please Miss discusses her transition but also the "paradigmatic concept of the penis"?
... that the author of the Alex novels says they are not semi-autobiographical, even though she was herself a champion teenage swimmer like the protagonist?
... that Cathie Dunsford was unable to find many books about lesbianism in the 1970s, but by the 1980s had herself become a writer and anthologist of lesbian literature?
... that during the 1960s and 1970s, American artist Robert Bauer painted figures that were a mixture of 20th-century avant-garde funk and 17th-century Dutch realism?

General images

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

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

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Selected portrait

Image 1
Lillian Gish
Photo credit: Bain News Service
A portrait of Lillian Gish from 1921. Gish was one of the first female movie stars, called "The First Lady of the Silent Screen", starting in 1912 and continuing to appear in films until 1987. The American Film Institute named Gish 17th among the greatest female stars of all time and awarded her a Life Achievement Award, making her the only recipient who was a major figure in the silent era. Remarkably, she never won an Academy Award for her work, although she did receive a Special Academy Award in 1971.
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Image 2
Golda Meir
Photo credit: Marion S. Trikosko, U.S. News & World Report
A portrait of Golda Meir from 1973, during her tenure as Prime Minister of Israel. She was the first (and, to date, only) female Prime Minister of Israel, and was the third female Prime Minister in the world, as well as one of the founders of the State of Israel. Born as Golda Mabovitz, she chose her Hebrew name "Meir" upon her appointment as Foreign Minister in 1956. As Prime Minister, Meir oversaw a tumultuous period in Israeli history, with the War of Attrition, Operation Wrath of God, and the Yom Kippur War, all happening during that time.
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Image 3
Maxim Gorky
Photo: Herman Mishkin; Restoration: Fallschirmjäger
Maxim Gorky (1868–1936) was a Russian political activist and writer who helped establish the Socialist Realism literary method. This portrait dates from a trip Gorky made to the United States in 1906, on which he raised funds for the Bolsheviks. During this trip he wrote his novel The Mother.
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Image 4
Agnes Milowka
Photo: James Axford
Agnes Milowka (1981–2011) was an Australian technical diver, underwater photographer, author, and cave explorer. She gained international recognition for extending cave systems across Australia and in Florida, and as a public speaker and author on the subjects of diving and maritime archaeology. She participated in National Geographic and Discovery Channel expeditions. Her passion led her to act as a stunt double on Andrew Wight's feature film Sanctum and to participate in shooting real scenery in Mount Gambier caves, where she drowned just a few weeks after the movie's premiere.
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Image 5
Edgar Allan Poe
Daguerreotype credit: W.S. Hartshorn
A daguerreotype of Edgar Allan Poe taken in 1848, less than a year before his death. Best known for his tales of the macabre and mystery, Poe was one of the early American practitioners of the short story and a progenitor of detective fiction and crime fiction. He is also credited with contributing to the emergent science fiction genre. A copyright statement is inscribed on this image because it is a photograph of the original daguerreotype.
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Image 6
Frederick Douglass
Photo credit: George K. Warren
American abolitionist, editor, orator, author, statesman and reformer Frederick Douglass, shown here in 1879. Born a slave, Douglass was one of the most prominent figures in African American history and a formidable public presence. He was a firm believer in the equality of all people, whether black, female, American Indian, or recent immigrant. He was fond of saying, "I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong."

February is Black History Month in the United States and Canada.
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Image 7
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.
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Image 8
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.
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Image 9
Frédéric Chopin
Photo credit: Louis-Auguste Bisson
The only known photograph of Frédéric Chopin, often incorrectly described as a daguerreotype. It is believed to have been taken in 1849 during the degenerative stages of his tuberculosis, shortly before his death. Chopin, a Polish pianist and composer of the Romantic era, is widely regarded as one of the most famous, influential, admired and prolific composers for the piano. He moved to Paris at the age of twenty, adopting the French variant of his name, "Frédéric-François", by which he is now known.
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Image 10
Daniel O'Connell
Image: Alfred Hoffy; Restoration: Lise Broer
An image of Daniel O'Connell (1775–1847), captioned "The Champion of Liberty". O'Connell was an Irish political leader in the first half of the nineteenth century. He campaigned for Catholic Emancipation—the right for Roman Catholics to sit in the Westminster Parliament, denied for over 100 years—and repeal of the Act of Union which combined Ireland and Great Britain. King George III had disallowed Catholics from sitting in Parliament, saying that it would breach his coronation oath to act as protector of Protestantism. Through O'Connell's efforts, Catholic Emancipation was finally passed by Parliament on 24 March 1829.
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Image 11
George IV
Artist: Sir Thomas Lawrence
An oil on canvas portrait of George IV of the United Kingdom as the Prince Regent, by Sir Thomas Lawrence. In 1814, Lord Stewart, who had been appointed ambassador in Vienna and was a previous client of Thomas Lawrence, wanted to commission a portrait by him of the Prince Regent. He arranged that Lawrence should be presented to the Prince Regent at a levée. Soon after, the Prince visited Lawrence at his studio in Russell Square. Lawrence wrote to his brother that: To crown this honour, [he] engag'd to sit to me at one today and after a successful sitting of two hours, has just left me and comes again tomorrow and the next day.
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Image 12
Sri Mulyani Indrawati
Photo: the International Monetary Fund
Sri Mulyani Indrawati is an Indonesian economist who served for five years as Minister of Finance of Indonesia before being selected as managing director of the World Bank. In 2011 she was ranked as the 65th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes magazine.
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Image 13
Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir
Photo credit: Underwood and Underwood
U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt (left) and nature preservationist John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, stand together on Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park. In the background can be seen Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls. During this trip in 1903, Muir convinced Roosevelt to add Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove to the park, which had been established in 1890.
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Image 14
Beppe Grillo
Photograph: Niccolò Caranti
Beppe Grillo (b. 1948) is an Italian comedian, actor, blogger and political activist who established the Five Star Movement in 2009. Born in Genoa, Grillo became well known as a comic through several television shows in the 1980s, but following jokes which attacked the corruption of the Italian Socialist Party and its leader Bettino Craxi he was banned from television. Grillo continued to tour as a comedian while speaking out against corruption and banking scandals, and in 2005 Time named him a European hero.
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Image 15
Peter Oliver (painter)
Portrait: Peter Oliver
An 8.8-centimetre (3.5 in) tall self-portrait of the English miniaturist Peter Oliver (1594–1648). He often worked with watercolours.
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On this day – May 13

Births

1717 – Empress Maria Theresa of Austria (d. 1780) (pictured)
1842 – Arthur Sullivan, English composer (d. 1900)
1907 – Dame Daphne du Maurier, English author (d. 1989)
1931 – Jim Jones, American cult leader (d. 1978)
1941 – Ritchie Valens, American singer (d. 1959)
1961 – Dennis Rodman, American basketball player and actor
1964 – Stephen Colbert, American comedian and actor

Deaths

1871 – Daniel Auber, French composer (b. 1782)
1884 – Cyrus McCormick, American inventor (b. 1809)
1961 – Gary Cooper, American actor (b. 1901)

More of today's anniversaries...

In the news

13 February 2024 – Estonia–Russia relations: Prime Minister of Estonia Kaja Kallas is reportedly placed on the Russian Interior Ministry's register of wanted people due to the country's removal of Soviet War Memorials, making Kallas the first known government leader to be added to a wanted list by Russian authorities. (The Guardian)
4 February 2024 – 66th Annual Grammy Awards: Taylor Swift wins Album of the Year for Midnights, becoming the first artist to win the award four times. She also announces the release of a new album, The Tortured Poets Department, on April 19. (Variety)
27 January 2024 –: Venezuela's Supreme Court ratifies a ban from seeking any political office for 15 years on María Corina Machado, opposition leader backed by the United States. (Le Monde) (The Economist)
24 January 2024 –: The Constitutional Court of Thailand acquits former Move Forward Party leader Pita Limjaroenrat for owning shares in the defunct media company iTV, thereby allowing Limjaroenrat to resume serving as a Member of Parliament in the House of Representatives. (AP)
23 January 2024 –: North Korea demolishes the Arch of Reunification in Pyongyang after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ruled out peaceful reunification with South Korea. (NDTV); The Senate of the Philippines' committee on women conducts a public hearing regarding the alleged abuses within the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. Three women, two Ukrainian nationals and one Filipino, accuse church leader Apollo Quiboloy of sexually abusing them. (CNN Philippines)

Updated: 6:33, 14 February 2024

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"It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit."

— Harry S. Truman

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