Henry VIII (born 1491, ruled 1509-1547). The second son of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York was one of England’s strongest and least popular monarchs. He was born at Greenwich on June 28, 1491. The first English ruler to be educated under the influence of the Renaissance, he was a gifted scholar, linguist, composer, and…
Kate Chopin was an American author who lived during the nineteenth century, but because of The Awakening, a novel which was considered scandalous at the time, she has just recently been “…accepted into the canon of major American writers”(Trosky 105). Through Kate Chopin’s main character of The Awakening, Edna Pontellier, she is able to portray…
Jonas Edward Salk was born to Polish-Jewish immigrants, Daniel B. and Dora Salk, on October 28, 1914. Dr. Salk was born in upper Manhattan, but then moved to the Bronx where he went to school. “His first spoken words were, ‘Dirt, dirt,’ instead of the conventional, uninspired ‘No, no’ or ‘Momma.’ He was a responsive…
John Napier was a Scottish Mathematician who was born in Merchiston Castle in Edinburgh in the year 1550. He briefly attended St. Andrew’s University, but for some unknown reason, left without obtaining a degree, which didn’t seem to have any relevance to him. He returned home in 1571 as a scholar competent in Greek. He…
Knute Kenneth Rockne was born on March 4, 1888 in Voss, Norway. He first moved to Chicago at the age of 5. Nobody liked him there, and he was in many fights. Before football or even baseball, Knute discovered skiing. He loved it, and went skiing every chance he got during the winter. Knute was…
John Lennon was a great song writer and musician. He played the rhythm guitar, the piano, and sang. He was in the most popular group in the history of rock music. In 1959, John founded this group, called The Beatles. The original Beatles were John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Pete Best. Brian Epstein…
John F. Kennedy graduated from Harvard in 1940, and soon after he entered the Navy. In 1943, when his PT boat was rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer, Kennedy, despite serious injuries, led the survivors through perilous waters to safety. Back from the war, he became a Democratic Congressman from the Boston area, advancing…
Throughout his life Mr. Hogan overcame a very traumatic childhood, recovered from a nearly fatal head-on collision with a bus and built a golf equipment empire. Ben Hogan was born in a small town in Texas called Dublin. He was one of three children. When Ben was only six years old he witnessed his father…
The woman who would become Ayn Rand was born Alice Rosenbaum on February 2, 1905. (Branden, Barbara pg.3 1986). She was born during the eleventh year of Nicholas II’s reign in Russia.(Baker pg.1 1987). Rand’s birth was just before a revolution in Russia, however this revolution was put down by her first year.(Branden, Barbara pg.3…
ARNOLD, Benedict (1741-1801). The name Benedict Arnold has become a synonym for a traitor to one’s country. In the first years of the American Revolution, however, Arnold was a brilliant and dashing general, highly respected for his service to the patriot cause (see Revolution, American). Benedict Arnold was born on Jan. 14, 1741, in Norwich,…
“Dr. Benjamin Spock, hailed as the grandfather of pediatrics, is known as the leading authority on child rearing.” (Gale 1997) Dr. Benjamin Spock was born on May 2 1903 in New Haven Connecticut, The oldest of six children of a lawyer. Spock attended Yale university, where he became a member of the Yale rowing crew…
Plotinus was born in Upper Egypt, more specifically in Lycopolis in 204 CE. When he was twenty-eight he moved to Alexandria to study philosophy. While in Alexandria, he was tremendously influenced by Plato and Aristotle and therefore studied their works immensely. Subsequent to working under Ammonius for approximately ten years, he joined the Emperor Gordian’s…
Booker T. Washington was the first African American whose likeness appeared on a United States postage stamp. Washington also was thus honored a quarter century after his death. In 1946 he also became the first black with his image on a coin, a 50-cent piece. The Tuskegee Institute, which Washington started at the age of…
Edward Teller is a Hungarian-American physicist, known for his work on the hydrogen bomb. Teller was born in Budapest in 1908, and was educated in Germany at the Institute of Technology in Karlsruhe and at the universities of Munich and Leipzig. He received his Ph.D. in physics in 1930. After working at the University of…
Bruce Lee was born in the Chinese year of the dragon, in the hour of the dragon on November 27, 1940. From the beginning, it was obvious he was a remarkable and unique child with tremendous energy. His mother named him Lee Jun Fan, which meant “return again.” She felt he would return to the…
According to tradition, Confucius was born in the state of Lu (present-day Shandong Province) of the noble K’ung clan. His original name was K’ung Ch’iu. His father, commander of a district in Lu, died three years after Confucius was born, leaving the family in poverty, but Confucius nevertheless received a fine education. He was married…
Born September 30, 1928, Eliezer Wiesel led a life representative of many Jewish children. Growing up in a small village in Romania, his world revolved around family, religious study, community and God. Yet his family, community and his innocent faith were destroyed upon the deportation of his village in 1944. Arguably the most powerful and…
Emily Dickinson is regarded as “one of the greatest American poets that have ever existed.”(Benfey 5) The unique qualities of her brief, but emotional, poems were so uncommon that they made her peerless in a sense that her writing could not be compared to. Her diverse poetic character could be directly connected to her tragic…
EARLY LIFE Charles Dickens was born at Landport, in Portsea, on February 7, 1812. His father was a clerk in the Navy Pay-Office, and was temporarily on duty in the neighborhood when Charles was born. His name was John Dickens. He spent time in prison for debts. But, even when he was free he lacked…
Chiang Kai-shek, also known as Chiang Chung-cheng, was the son of a middle-class wine merchant who lived in the village of Chikow in Chekiang Province. When he was fourteen years old, following the Chinese custom of that time, he was arranged to be marry by his mother (the bride’s name is not mentioned). His bride…