Robert Burns was born January 25, 1759, in a straw-thatched cottage, to William and Agnes Burns. His mother had a great store of folklore songs and ballads, and his father tried at all costs to surround his children with good reading and conversation. At the age of seven, his father moved the family to Mt.Otiphant…
Richard Warren Sears was born on December 7, 1863, in Stewartville, Minnesota. He was the son of James Warren and Eliza A. Sears, both of English ancestry. His father led anything but a happy life. He had failed in his quest for gold during the California Gold Rush of 1849 and was a bitter soldier…
Robert Alexander Schumann was born in the small riverside town of Zwickau, Saxony, in 1810.The youngest of five children, Robert Schumann was brought up in comfortable, middle-class respectability. As a child, he apparently exhibited no remarkable abilities. At the age of six, Robert was sent to the local preparatory school, run by Archdeacon Dohner. He…
•Sam Bass was born in the town of Mitchell Indiana on July 21, 1851. Later Bass Moved to the state of Texas where he took up the business of train robbing • Sam’s parents died when he was a youth, his mom Jane, in 1861, Dad Daniel, in 1864. • Sam and his Twelve siblings…
Salvador Dali was born on May 11, 1904. He was a leader in the new movement of art in the early 20th century called Surrealism. In 1921 Dali studied at the San Fernando Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid. Here he was able to associate and learn from such Spanish modernists as Federico Garcia Lorca,…
A brilliant virtuoso of violence, Richard Marcinko rose through the Navy ranks to create and command one of America’s most elite and classified counterterrorist units, Seal Team Six. Then Marcinko was given orders to create Red Cell, a team of the best counter terrorists, whose job was to check the security of the military’s top…
Roger Maris is probably one of baseball’s most misunderstood baseball heroes. Still now after almost 40 years Maris has still not achieved his rightful place in baseball history, the Baseball Hall of Fame. Roger Maris has had a picture-perfect life starting in Hibbing, Minnesota to where he grew up in Fargo, North Dakota. His young…
Rodman Edward Serling was born in Syracuse, New York, on December 25, 1924, to a wholesale meat dealer, and grew up in Binghamton. By his own account, he had no early literary ambitions, though from an early age, he and his older brother, Robert, immersed themselves in movies and in shows like Astounding Stories and…
The first French Canadian to become prime minister of Canada was Wilfrid Laurier. Although French was his native tongue, he became a master of the English language. This and his picturesque personality made him popular throughout Canada, and he led the young country in a 15-year period of great development. Wilfrid Laurier was born in…
Sir Francis Bacon was born January 22, 1561. He died April 9, 1626. He was an English essayist, lawyer, statesman, and philosopher. He had a major influence on the philosophy of science. When he was 12 years old, he began studies at Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1576 he entered Gray’s Inn to pursue a career…
Throughout history there have been several leaders who used their cunning and sly intelligence to trick the general population into following them and their beliefs. Eventually, these leaders had so much support; they could no longer be called leaders, but absolute and dictatorial rulers. However, during the period of Enlightenment and of the French Revolution,…
A political leader for many years, and a co-founder of the National women’s Political Caucus, Shirley Chisholm is one of the most famous African – American women in politics. She was the first black woman to be elected to congress, and also was the first black woman to run for president (1972). She was even…
Stephan Grover Cleveland is the fifth of nine children born to Reverend Richard Falley Cleveland and Ann Neal Cleveland. He was born on March 18th of 1837 in Caldwell, New Jersey, although he was raised in Fayetteville, New York. The actual house in which he was born still stands today on 207 Bloomfield Avenue. He…
Edward James Hughes is one of the most outstanding living British poets. In 1984 he was awarded the title of the nation’s Poet Laureate. He came into prominence in the late fifties and early sixties, having earned a reputation of a prolific, original and skilful poet, which he maintained to the present day. Ted Hughes…
Only in a time when the pressure of the world amounts to angst and the fight for freedom can a world advance in it’s literary achievements. A writer, just like an artist, builds his creations from the mood and settings of the surrounding atmosphere. In the first half of the twentieth century, the atmosphere was…
Colonel T. E. Lawrence, known as Lawrence of Arabia, was a guerrilla leader in the Arab Revolt of 1916-18, which expelled the Turks from western Arabia and Syria during World War I. Lawrence was an aloof, complex, versatile, somewhat arrogant genius, and his exploits made him a popular, if enigmatic, hero in the Western world.…
Many people have never heard of the person Steve Prefontaine. These people are not ignorant; they just have not followed America’s distance running. In distance running Prefontaine, better known as just Pre, is truly a LEGEND. The people that knew Pre could see the passion and desire in everything that he did. Pre was born…
Diana Frances Spencer was born on July 1, 1961 in Sandringham, Norfolk. Her parents, John and Frances Spencer, were hoping for a boy to carry on the Spencer name. It took them nearly a week to come up with a name for the baby girl. Eighteen months earlier, her mother had giver birth to a…
Sylvia Plath’s life, like her manic depression, constantly jumped between Heaven and Hell. Her seemingly perfect exterior hid a turbulent and deeply troubled spirit. A closer look at her childhood and personal experiences removes some element of mystery from her writings. One central character to Sylvia Plath’s poems is her father, Professor Otto Emile Plath.…
Although he is almost unknown during his brief lifetime, Vincent Willem van Gogh, was born Mar. 30, 1853, in Groot-Zundert, the Netherlands and is today probably the most known and appreciated representative of art. His work became an important bridge between the 19th and 20th centuries; and it was particularly influential. Van Gogh clearly showed…