Portal:Biography

The Biography Portal

Third Volume of a 1727 edition of Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans printed by Jacob Tonson

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.

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Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during her lifetime and remained the monarch of 15 realms by the time of her death. Her reign of over 70 years is the longest of any British monarch and the longest verified reign of any female head of state in history.

Elizabeth was born in Mayfair, London, as the first child of the Duke and Duchess of York (later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother). Her father acceded to the throne in 1936 upon the abdication of his brother Edward VIII, making the ten-year-old Princess Elizabeth the heir presumptive. She was educated privately at home and began to undertake public duties during the Second World War, serving in the Auxiliary Territorial Service. In November 1947, she married Philip Mountbatten, a former prince of Greece and Denmark, and their marriage lasted 73 years until his death in 2021. They had four children: Charles, Anne, Andrew, and Edward. (Full article...)
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Lieutenant General Sir Edmund Francis Herring, (2 September 1892 – 5 January 1982) was a senior Australian Army officer during the Second World War, Lieutenant Governor of Victoria, and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria. A Rhodes scholar, Herring was at New College, Oxford, when the First World War broke out and served with the Royal Field Artillery on the Macedonian front, for which he was awarded the Military Cross and Distinguished Service Order. After the war he carved out a successful career as a barrister and King's Counsel. He also joined the Australian Army, rising to the rank of colonel by 1939.

During the Second World War, Herring commanded the 6th Division Artillery in the Western Desert campaign and the Battle of Greece. In 1942, as a corps commander, he commanded the land forces in the Kokoda Track campaign. The following year, he directed operations in the Salamaua-Lae campaign and Finisterre Range campaign. Herring left his corps to become the longest-serving Chief Justice and Lieutenant Governor of Victoria, serving for three decades. In the latter capacity, he was patron of many charitable organisations. (Full article...)
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Saint-Saëns c. 1880

Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns (UK: /ˈsæ̃sɒ̃(s)/, US: /sæ̃ˈsɒ̃(s)/, French: [ʃaʁl kamij sɛ̃ sɑ̃(s)]; 9 October 1835 – 16 December 1921) was a French composer, organist, conductor and pianist of the Romantic era. His best-known works include Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso (1863), the Second Piano Concerto (1868), the First Cello Concerto (1872), Danse macabre (1874), the opera Samson and Delilah (1877), the Third Violin Concerto (1880), the Third ("Organ") Symphony (1886) and The Carnival of the Animals (1886).

Saint-Saëns was a musical prodigy; he made his concert debut at the age of ten. After studying at the Paris Conservatoire he followed a conventional career as a church organist, first at Saint-Merri, Paris and, from 1858, La Madeleine, the official church of the French Empire. After leaving the post twenty years later, he was a successful freelance pianist and composer, in demand in Europe and the Americas. (Full article...)
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Joshua Ryan Hutcherson (born October 12, 1992) is an American actor and producer. He began acting in the early 2000s and appeared in several commercials and minor film and television roles before landing his first major role in 2002 in the pilot episode of House Blend. His first film role was in Miracle Dogs (2003) on Animal Planet, followed by a motion-capture performance in The Polar Express (2004) and a voice-acting role in Howl's Moving Castle (2005).

Hutcherson's other early film appearances include Little Manhattan and Zathura: A Space Adventure (both 2005), RV (2006), Bridge to Terabithia (2007), Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008), and The Kids Are All Right (2010). In 2011, 18-year-old Hutcherson landed the leading role of Peeta Mellark in the box office record-setting film series The Hunger Games, released yearly between 2012 and 2015, for which he won three MTV Movie Awards and a People's Choice Award. In the same period, he also played a lead role in Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012) and voice role in the animated film Epic (2013). He was also cast as Mike Schmidt in Blumhouse Productions' upcoming film adaptation of Five Nights at Freddy's (2023). (Full article...)
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Muhammad III (Arabic: محمد الثالث; 15 August 1257 – 21 January 1314) was the ruler of the Emirate of Granada in Al-Andalus on the Iberian Peninsula from 8 April 1302 until 14 March 1309, and a member of the Nasrid dynasty. He ascended the Granadan throne after the death of his father Muhammad II, which according to rumours, was caused by Muhammad III poisoning him. He had the reputation of being both cultured and cruel. Later in his life, he became visually impaired—which caused him to be absent from many government activities and to rely on high officials, especially the powerful Vizier Ibn al-Hakim al-Rundi.

Muhammad III inherited an ongoing war against Castile. He built upon his father's recent military success and expanded Granada's territory further when he captured Bedmar in 1303. He negotiated a treaty with Castile the following year, in which Granada's conquests were recognised in return for Muhammad making an oath of fealty to the King of Castille, Ferdinand IV, paying him tribute. Muhammad sought to extend his rule to Ceuta, North Africa. To achieve this, he first encouraged the city to rebel against its Marinid rulers in 1304, and then, two years later, he invaded and conquered the city himself. Consequently, Granada controlled both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar. This alarmed Granada's three larger neighbours, Castile, the Marinids, and Aragon, who by the end of 1308 had formed a coalition against Granada. The three powers were preparing for an all-out war against Granada when Muhammad III was deposed in a palace coup. His foreign policy was increasingly unpopular among his nobility, and Vizier Ibn al-Hakim—who was, due to Muhammad's near-blindness, by now the power behind the throne—universally distrusted. Muhammad was replaced by his half-brother Nasr on 14 March 1309. Muhammad was allowed to live in Almuñécar, but—following an attempt by his followers to overthrow Nasr—was executed five years later in the Alhambra. (Full article...)
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There are no known portraits of Jean Baptiste Point du Sable made during his lifetime. This depiction is taken from A. T. Andreas' book History of Chicago (1884).

Jean Baptiste Point du Sable (also spelled Point de Sable, Point au Sable, Point Sable, Pointe DuSable, Pointe du Sable; before 1750 – August 28, 1818) is regarded as the first permanent non-Indigenous settler of what would later become Chicago, Illinois, and is recognized as the "Founder of Chicago". A school, museum, harbor, park, bridge, and a road have been named in his honor. The site where he settled near the mouth of the Chicago River around the 1780s is identified as a National Historic Landmark, now located in Pioneer Court.

Point du Sable was of African descent, but little else is known of his early life prior to the 1770s. During his career, the areas where he settled and traded around the Great Lakes and in the Illinois Country changed hands several times between France, Britain, Spain and the United States. Described as handsome and well educated, Point du Sable married a Potawatomi Native American woman, Kitihawa, and they had two children. In 1779, during the American Revolutionary War, he was arrested by the British on suspicion of being an American Patriot sympathizer. In the early 1780s he worked for the British lieutenant-governor of Michilimackinac on an estate at what is now St. Clair, Michigan. (Full article...)
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Feydeau in 1899, painted by his father-in-law, Carolus-Duran

Georges-Léon-Jules-Marie Feydeau (French: [ʒɔʁʒ fɛ.do]; 8 December 1862 – 5 June 1921) was a French playwright of the era known as the Belle Époque. He is remembered for his farces, written between 1886 and 1914.

Feydeau was born in Paris to middle-class parents and raised in an artistic and literary environment. From an early age he was fascinated by the theatre, and as a child he wrote plays and organised his schoolfellows into a drama group. In his teens he wrote comic monologues and moved on to writing longer plays. His first full-length comedy, Tailleur pour dames (Ladies' tailor), was well received, but was followed by a string of comparative failures. He gave up writing for a time in the early 1890s and studied the methods of earlier masters of French comedy, particularly Eugène Labiche, Alfred Hennequin and Henri Meilhac. With his technique honed, and sometimes in collaboration with a co-author, he wrote seventeen full-length plays between 1892 and 1914, many of which have become staples of the theatrical repertoire in France and abroad. They include L'Hôtel du libre échange (The Free Exchange Hotel, 1894), La Dame de chez Maxim (The lady from Maxim's, 1899), La Puce à l'oreille (A flea in her ear, 1907) and Occupe-toi d'Amélie! (Look after Amélie, 1908). (Full article...)
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Portrait by Harris & Ewing, c. 1920

Warren Gamaliel Harding (November 2, 1865 – August 2, 1923) was the 29th president of the United States, serving from March 4, 1921 until his death on August 2, 1923. A member of the Republican Party, he was one of the most popular sitting U.S. presidents. After his death, a number of scandals were exposed, including Teapot Dome, as well as an extramarital affair with Nan Britton, which diminished his reputation.

Harding lived in rural Ohio all his life, except when political service took him elsewhere. As a young man, he bought The Marion Star and built it into a successful newspaper. Harding served in the Ohio State Senate from 1900 to 1904, and was lieutenant governor for two years. He was defeated for governor in 1910, but was elected to the United States Senate in 1914—the state's first direct election for that office. Harding ran for the Republican nomination for president in 1920, but was considered a long shot before the convention. When the leading candidates could not garner a majority, and the convention deadlocked, support for Harding increased, and he was nominated on the tenth ballot. He conducted a front porch campaign, remaining mostly in Marion, and allowed the people to come to him. He promised a return to normalcy of the pre-World War I period, and won in a landslide over Democrat James M. Cox, to become the first sitting senator elected president. (Full article...)
$Image 9 Vesna Vulović (Serbian Cyrillic: Весна Вуловић, pronounced [ʋêsna ʋûːloʋitɕ]; 3 January 1950 – 23 December 2016) was a Serbian flight attendant who holds the Guinness world record for surviving the highest fall without a parachute: 10,160 m (33,330 ft; 6.31 mi). She was the sole survivor after an explosion tore through the baggage compartment of JAT Flight 367 on 26 January 1972, causing it to crash near Srbská Kamenice, Czechoslovakia. Air safety investigators attributed the explosion to a briefcase bomb. The Yugoslav authorities suspected that émigré Croatian nationalists were to blame, but no one was ever arrested. Following the bombing, Vulović spent days in a coma and was hospitalised for several months. She suffered a fractured skull, three broken vertebrae, broken legs, broken ribs, and a fractured pelvis. These injuries resulted in her being temporarily paralyzed from the waist down. Vulović made an almost complete recovery but continued to walk with a limp. She had no memory of the incident and had no qualms about flying in the aftermath of the crash. Despite her willingness to resume work as a flight attendant, Jat Airways (JAT) gave her a desk job negotiating freight contracts, feeling her presence on flights would attract too much publicity. Vulović became a celebrity in Yugoslavia and was deemed a national hero. (Full article...)$
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Vesna Vulović (Serbian Cyrillic: Весна Вуловић, pronounced [ʋêsna ʋûːloʋitɕ]; 3 January 1950 – 23 December 2016) was a Serbian flight attendant who holds the Guinness world record for surviving the highest fall without a parachute: 10,160 m (33,330 ft; 6.31 mi). She was the sole survivor after an explosion tore through the baggage compartment of JAT Flight 367 on 26 January 1972, causing it to crash near Srbská Kamenice, Czechoslovakia. Air safety investigators attributed the explosion to a briefcase bomb. The Yugoslav authorities suspected that émigré Croatian nationalists were to blame, but no one was ever arrested.

Following the bombing, Vulović spent days in a coma and was hospitalised for several months. She suffered a fractured skull, three broken vertebrae, broken legs, broken ribs, and a fractured pelvis. These injuries resulted in her being temporarily paralyzed from the waist down. Vulović made an almost complete recovery but continued to walk with a limp. She had no memory of the incident and had no qualms about flying in the aftermath of the crash. Despite her willingness to resume work as a flight attendant, Jat Airways (JAT) gave her a desk job negotiating freight contracts, feeling her presence on flights would attract too much publicity. Vulović became a celebrity in Yugoslavia and was deemed a national hero. (Full article...)
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Monteverdi by Bernardo Strozzi (c. 1630)

Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi (baptized 15 May 1567 – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, choirmaster and string player. A composer of both secular and sacred music, and a pioneer in the development of opera, he is considered a crucial transitional figure between the Renaissance and Baroque periods of music history.

Born in Cremona, where he undertook his first musical studies and compositions, Monteverdi developed his career first at the court of Mantua (c. 1590–1613) and then until his death in the Republic of Venice where he was maestro di cappella at the basilica of San Marco. His surviving letters give insight into the life of a professional musician in Italy of the period, including problems of income, patronage and politics. (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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James Russell Lowell, c. 1855

James Russell Lowell (/ˈloʊəl/; February 22, 1819 – August 12, 1891) was an American Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat. He is associated with the fireside poets, a group of New England writers who were among the first American poets that rivaled the popularity of British poets. These writers usually used conventional forms and meters in their poetry, making them suitable for families entertaining at their fireside.

Lowell graduated from Harvard College in 1838, despite his reputation as a troublemaker, and went on to earn a law degree from Harvard Law School. He published his first collection of poetry in 1841 and married Maria White in 1844. The couple had several children, though only one survived past childhood. (Full article...)
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The interior of Chichester Cathedral, showing the Romanesque stonework. The interior was reworked after a fire in 1187, but the basic structure dates from before Hilary's episcopate.

Hilary (c. 1110–1169) was a medieval bishop of Chichester in England. English by birth, he studied canon law and worked in Rome as a papal clerk. During his time there, he became acquainted with a number of ecclesiastics, including the future Pope Adrian IV, and the writer John of Salisbury. In England, he served as a clerk for Henry of Blois, who was the bishop of Winchester and brother of King Stephen of England. After Hilary's unsuccessful nomination to become Archbishop of York, Pope Eugene III compensated him by promoting him to the bishopric of Chichester in 1147.

Hilary spent many years in a struggle with Battle Abbey, attempting to assert his right as bishop to oversee the abbey. He also clashed with Thomas Becket, then chancellor to King Henry II of England, later Archbishop of Canterbury; Hilary supported King Henry II's position in the conflict with Becket. Henry appointed Hilary as sheriff and employed him as a judge in the royal courts. The papacy also used Hilary as a judge-delegate, to hear cases referred back to England. Known for supporting his clergy and as a canon lawyer, or someone trained in ecclesiastical law, Hilary worked to have Edward the Confessor, a former English king, canonised as a saint. (Full article...)
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Dan Leno in the 1880s

George Wild Galvin (20 December 1860 – 31 October 1904), better known by the stage name Dan Leno, was a leading English music hall comedian and musical theatre actor during the late Victorian era. He was best known, aside from his music hall act, for his dame roles in the annual pantomimes that were popular at London's Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, from 1888 to 1904.

Leno was born in St Pancras, London, and began to entertain as a child. In 1864, he joined his parents on stage in their music hall act, and he made his first solo appearance, aged nine, at the Britannia Music Hall in Coventry. As a youth, he was famous for his clog dancing, and in his teen years, he became the star of his family's act. He adopted the stage name Dan Leno and, in 1884, made his first performance under that name in London. As a solo artist, he became increasingly popular during the late 1880s and 1890s, when he was one of the highest-paid comedians in the world. He developed a music hall act of talking about life's mundane subjects, mixed with comic songs and surreal observations, and created a host of mostly working-class characters to illustrate his stories. In 1901, still at the peak of his career, he performed his "Huntsman" sketch for Edward VII at Sandringham. The monarch was so impressed that Leno became publicly known as "the king's jester". (Full article...)
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Cabinet card by Gustine L. Hurd, c. 1880

Edward Mitchell Bannister (November 2, 1828 – January 9, 1901) was an oil painter of the American Barbizon school. Born in Canada, he spent his adult life in New England in the United States. There, along with his wife Christiana Carteaux Bannister, he was a prominent member of African-American cultural and political communities, such as the Boston abolition movement. Bannister received national recognition after he won a first prize in painting at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. He was also a founding member of the Providence Art Club and the Rhode Island School of Design.

Bannister's style and predominantly pastoral subject matter reflected his admiration for the French artist Jean-François Millet and the French Barbizon School. A lifelong sailor, he also looked to the Rhode Island seaside for inspiration. Bannister continually experimented, and his artwork displays his Idealist philosophy and his control of color and atmosphere. He began his professional practice as a photographer and portraitist before developing his better-known landscape style. (Full article...)

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... that Margaret A. Mahoney, who in 1949 became the majority leader of the Ohio Senate, is still the only woman to hold the top leadership role?
... that Zail Singh was the first Sikh and the first person from a backward caste to become President of India?
... that Swedish painter, ceramist, designer, and writer Tyra Lundgren was one of the most versatile artists of the 20th century?
... that the writer of the 2022 comic book miniseries Poison Ivy, starring the eponymous Batman villain, described it as a "love story" that features "plant-based body horror"?
... that Canadian artist Tom Forrestall spent six months painting his own car?
... that Jack G. Downing, the only person to serve as CIA station chief in Moscow and Beijing, "read Chinese poetry for kicks"?
... that physician and scientist F. William Sunderman continued working until shortly before his death at the age of 104?
... that the John McCaffary House was the site of the 1850 murder of Bridget McCaffary, for which John McCaffary became the first and only person to be executed by the state of Wisconsin?

General images

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

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

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Selected portrait

Image 1
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 2
Edward VI of England
Artist: Unknown, probably of the Flemish School
A portrait of Edward VI of England, when he was Prince of Wales. He is shown wearing a badge with the Prince of Wales's feathers. It was most likely painted in 1546 when he was eight years old, during the time when he was resident at Hunsdon House. Edward became King of England, King of France and Edward I of Ireland the following year. He was the third monarch of the Tudor dynasty and England's first ruler who was Protestant at the time of his ascension to the throne. Edward's entire rule was mediated through a council of regency. He died at the age of 15 in 1553.
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Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck
Photo credit: Royal family of Bhutan
Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck is the fifth and current Bhutan Dragon King and head of the Wangchuck dynasty. He became king on 14 December 2006, and was officially crowned on 6 November 2008. The young king began his unusual reign overseeing the democratization of Bhutan, stating that the responsibility for this generation of Bhutanese was to ensure the success of democracy.
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Portrait of Cardinal Niccolò Albergati
Artwork credit: Jan van Eyck
The Portrait of Cardinal Niccolò Albergati is an oil-on-oak-panel painting by the Early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck, dating to the 1430s. It is of considerable interest to art historians because van Eyck's preliminary drawing survives. The work depicts Niccolò Albergati, an Italian cardinal and a diplomat working under Pope Martin V, as a visibly ageing cleric, his face seamed with deep lines below the eyes; it is accompanied by notes on the colours to be used in the final painting. A comparison between this drawing and the portrait shows that van Eyck changed several details, such as the depth of the shoulders, the lower curve of the nose, the depth of the mouth and the size of the ear. The finished painting hangs at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, while the drawing is in the collection of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden.
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Jeremy Doyle
Photo: Sport the Library
Jeremy Doyle (1983–2011) was an Australian wheelchair basketball player. Left paraplegic after a car accident, he was classified as a 1 point player. While representing his country Doyle won two gold medals, first at the 2009 Paralympic World Cup and again at the 2010 Wheelchair Basketball World Championship.
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Enoch Powell
Photograph: Allan Warren
Enoch Powell (1912–98), a professor of Ancient Greek by age 25 and brigadier during World War II, took up politics in the late 1940s and in the 1960s was selected for several cabinet positions. In 1968, he gave the "Rivers of Blood" speech about the dangers of immigration to the United Kingdom and of proposed anti-discrimination legislation.
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Image 7
Vincent van Gogh
Painting credit: John Russell
Vincent van Gogh is an oil-on-canvas portrait by Australian painter John Russell, dated 1886. It depicts Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh, who became lifelong friends with Russell after meeting him at Fernand Cormon's atelier in Paris, which they both attended. Painted in a realist and academic manner, the portrait shows hints of the impressionist techniques with which they began experimenting in the latter half of the 1880s. It is the earliest of three portraits painted of Van Gogh by his contemporaries, the other two being Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's Portrait of Vincent van Gogh (1887) and Paul Gauguin's The Painter of Sunflowers (1888). Van Gogh seems to have been particularly attached to Russell's portrait, which Russell gifted to him as a mark of their friendship. The painting passed from Van Gogh to his brother Theo and then to their family; it is now in the collection of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.
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Robin Hunicke
Photo: Charlie Chu
Robin Hunicke (b. 1973) is an American video game designer and producer who worked for several companies before establishing her own, Funomena, in 2011. She also supports independent game development.
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Buster Keaton
Photo credit: Bain News Service
Along with Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton was one of the most important comic actors of the silent era. His trademark was physical comedy with a stoic, deadpan expression on his face, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face". He appeared in dozens of films, and his The General was voted the fifteenth-best film of all time by Sight & Sound readers. Entertainment Weekly also named him the seventh-greatest film director in history.
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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 11
Alice Manfield
Photo: Unknown; Restoration: John O'Neill
Alice Manfield (1878–1960), commonly known as Guide Alice, was a mountain guide, amateur naturalist, chalet owner, photographer, and early feminist figure from Victoria, Australia. Her pioneering work at Mount Buffalo from the 1890s to the 1930s led to her becoming a tourist attraction in her own right, and helped lead to the establishment of the Mount Buffalo National Park. Manfield's parents ran a hotel at Mount Buffalo, and she led tours up the mountain from her youth. Because of her enthusiasm and extensive knowledge of the area, she quickly became a highly sought-after guide. She continued guiding tourists until the 1930s.
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Image 12
Donald Pleasence
Photo: Allan Warren; Restoration: Peter Weis
Donald Pleasence (1919–1995) was a British film, television and stage actor best known for his roles in You Only Live Twice, where he played James Bond's arch-enemy Dr Blofeld, and The Great Escape, where he drew upon his experience in a German POW camp. He was nominated four times for the Tony Award for best performance by a leading actor in a Broadway play, and made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for his services to the acting profession by Queen Elizabeth II in 1994.
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Image 13
Ada Lovelace
Painting: Alfred Edward Chalon
Ada Lovelace (1815–1852) was an English mathematician and writer, chiefly known for her work on using Charles Babbage's planned mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. Her notes include what is recognised as the first algorithm intended to be carried out by a machine, and as such she is often regarded as the first computer programmer.
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Image 14
Lucy Arbell
Photograph credit: Nadar; restored by Adam Cuerden
Lucy Arbell (8 June 1878 – 21 May 1947), was a French mezzo-soprano whose operatic career was largely centred in Paris. Her career was particularly associated with the composer Jules Massenet, who created a number of operatic roles for her before his death in 1912. This carte de visite of Arbell was created by the French photographer Nadar.
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Alice Paul
Photograph credit: Harris & Ewing; restored by Adam Cuerden
Alice Paul was an American suffragist, feminist, and women's-rights activist, and one of the main leaders and strategists of the campaign for the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits sex discrimination in the right to vote. Along with Lucy Burns and others, she strategized events such as the Woman Suffrage Procession and the Silent Sentinels as part of the successful campaign that resulted in the amendment's passage on August 18, 1920. This photograph of Paul was taken in 1915 by the Harris & Ewing photographic studio in Washington, D.C.
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On this day – June 9

Births

1640 - Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1705)
1672 - Tsar Peter I of Russia (d. 1725)
1843 - Bertha von Suttner, (pictured) Austrian novelist and pacifist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1914)
1891 - Cole Porter, American composer and lyricist (d. 1964)
1915 - Les Paul, influential American guitarist (d. 2009)
1916 - Robert McNamara, United States Secretary of Defense and president of the World Bank (d. 2009)
1961 - Michael J. Fox, Canadian-born actor
1963 - Johnny Depp, American actor
1978 - Matthew Bellamy, British guitarist, keyboard player and vocalist (Muse)
1981 - Natalie Portman, Israeli-born actress

Deaths

AD 68 - Nero, Roman Emperor (b. AD 37)
1870 - Charles Dickens, English author (b. 1812)
1964 - Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook, Canadian-born business tycoon and politician (b. 1879)
1974 - Miguel Ángel Asturias, Guatemalan writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1899)

Recent days: June 8 – June 7 – June 6

More of today's anniversaries...

In the news

16 March 2022 – China–United States relations, Chinese espionage in the United States

Prosecutors for the U.S. Justice Department accuse five people working on behalf of the Chinese Ministry of State Security of conspiring to spy on and intimidate several dissidents living in the United States, such as the father of Olympic figure skater Alysa Liu, and Tiananmen Square protest leader and current congressional candidate Xiong Yan. The department says it is the first time that federal elections in the country have been interfered with in this manner. Three have been arrested while two remain at large. (The Guardian) (BBC News)

15 March 2022 –

Burkinabè architect Diébédo Francis Kéré wins the 2022 Pritzker Architecture Prize, becoming the first African and black person to do so. (The Guardian)

11 March 2022 – Protests against the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny renews calls for anti-war and anti-Putin protests in cities across Russia. (Reuters)

11 March 2022 –

Gabriel Boric is sworn-in as President of Chile, becoming the youngest person to serve as President. (Reuters)

10 March 2022 – 2022 South Korean presidential election

Conservative opposition leader Yoon Suk-yeol is confirmed as the winner of yesterday's presidential election with 48.59% of the vote. He will take office as President of South Korea on May 10. (BBC News)

8 March 2022 – Aftermath of the 2021 United States Capitol attack

Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio is indicted on conspiracy charges of obstructing the U.S. Congress during the January 6 attack at the United States Capitol. (Politico)

Updated: 1:33, 20 March 2022

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