In the beginning Jack Kerouac lived a wild and exciting life outside the realm of everyday “normal” American life. Though On the Road and The Dharma Bums were Kerouac’s only commercial successes, he was a man who changed American literature and pop-culture. Kerouac virtually created a life-style devoted to life, art, literature, music, and poetry.…
Ira Frederick Aldridge was born on July 24, 1807 in New York. However, his birthplace remained questionable until 40 or so years ago. It has also been listed as Senegal(Africa), and Maryland. However conclusive evidence was found in the 1950s that he was born in New York. Included in this evidence are his British Naturalization…
James Cook was born on October 27, 1728 in Marton, England. At the age of 18 James Cook became an apprentice with a shipping company. His first voyages he worked on ships that carried coal to English ports. In 1755, during the French – Indian war, Cook joined the British navy. In 1759 he was…
A trail guide, a fur tracker and hunter and a fur trader. Jim Bridger may have been one of the best outdoorsmen of all times. James Bridger was born on March 17, 1804. In 1812 Jim’s parents moved to the vicinity of St. Louis. He was orphaned at age 12 and became a blacksmiths apprentice. …
John Adams, who became the second president of the United States, has been accused by some historians of being the closest thing America ever had to a dictator or monarch (Onuf, 1993). Such strong accusations should be examined in the context of the era in which Mr. Adams lived and served. A closer examination of…
Jackie Kennedy (Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis) was the wife of John F. Kennedy, 35th president of the United States. Jackie Kennedy was known for her sense of style and elegance. Her second husband , Aristotle Onassis, was one of the wealthiest men in the world. Jackie was of a wealthy and socially prominent family. She studied…
Auguste Rodin was born November 12, 1840 in Paris and attended the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs in Paris at age 14. Rodin had a special gift for modeling human figures and faces; therefore sculpting humans is all he did. Decorators and commercial sculptors exploited Rodin at a very young age. It was some 20 years…
Mary Flannery O’Connor is one of the most preeminent and more unique short story authors in American Literature (O’Connor 1). While growing up she lived in the Bible-belt South during the post World War II era of the United States. O’Connor was part of a strict Roman Catholic family, but she depicts her characters as…
Mary Shelley, author of the most notable gothic novel of all times, inspires authors who read her work. Mary Shelley’s professional life as her husband’s editor, a novelist, and a poet began in 1816, in Scotland when she began her first novel. First of all, while Mary Shelley visited her family in England, Shelley became…
Mary Ann Todd Lincoln, wife of the sixteenth President of the United States, was born December 13, 1818, in Lexington, Kentucky to Robert and Eliza Parker Todd. She was raised in a wealthy, yet dysfunctional family. She was well educated as a child, but needed more attention while growing up. Mary had a lot of…
Michel De Nostradame, otherwise known as Nostradamus was born December 14, 1503. His family was of Jewish ancestry. His grandfather, Pierre de Nostradame, had settled in Provence because by the mid-1400s, many Jews had come to live there. Nostradamus’ father was Jacques de Nostradame. Jacques worked as a scholarly, since most people didn’t know how…
Early in the morning of August 22,1831, a band of black slaves, led by a lay preacher named Nat Turner, entered the Travis house in Southampton County, Virginia and killed five members of the Travis family. This was the beginning of a slave uprising that was to become known as Nat Turner’s rebellion. Over a…
Oscar Wilde (real name Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde) was born on October 16th, 1854 in Dublin. His father, William Robert Wilde, was an eminent eye doctor, with an interest in myths and folklore. He was the founder of the first eye and ear hospital in Great Britain, as well as the appointed Surgeon Occultist…
Cezanne was born in Aix-en-Provence in 1839. He was to die in the same town in 1906. His life and art work was greatly influenced by this small town in France. He was the son of a shrewd business man, Louis-Auguste Cezanne. As a boy growing up in Aix, Cezanne loved to study Greek and…
Ponce de Leon’s quest for the fountain of youth led to the discovery of Florida and many other unexpected yet significant discoveries. His discoveries helped him to become a rich man and a brave conquistador. On March 3, 1513, Juan Ponce de Leon sailed from the island of Puerto Rico with three ships. After asking…
Oscar De La Hoya is a famous professional boxer. He is known all over the world for his looks, talent in the ring and his great sportsmanship. He is one of the best fighters in the field of boxing and a good role model for young children in the world today. PERSONAL Oscar De La…
Queen Victoria was born in 1819 and she died in 1901. She was queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1837-1901) and empress of India (1876-1901). Queen Victoria was born Alexandrina Victoria on May 24, 1819, in Kensington Palace, London. Victoria’s mother was Victoria Mary Louisa, daughter of the duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld.…
Metternich was an extremely intelligent man who turned his conservative beliefs into international policy. Metternich was a confident leader who put little faith in popular opinion or sentiment because he believed that the common man was too fickle in his loyalties and too inept to understand the magnitude of foreign policy. He was a loyal…
Ralph Waldo Emerson certainly took his place in the history of American Literature. He lived in a time when romanticism was becoming a way of thinking and beginning to bloom in America, the time period known as The Romantic Age. Romantic thinking stressed on human imagination and emotion rather than on basic facts and reason. …
German engineer Ferdinand Porsche is certainly one of the most important figures – if not the most important and influent-in the history of automobile making. This outstanding Teuton was born on September 3rd, 1875 in Mafferdorf, Germany. One of the most remarkable accomplishments of his career was that his work was not limited to one…