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Portuguese explorer, Ferdinand Magellan, is remembered for organizing the Spanish expedition to the East Indies from 1519 to 1522. A skilled sailor and naval officer, he was in service of the Portuguese crown in Asia. He was killed during the Battle of Mactan. The Pacific Ocean was often called the Sea of Magellan in his honor until the 18th century.
Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American philosopher who led the transcendentalist movement that developed in the eastern United States in the 1820s and 1830s. He is credited with popularizing individualism through his numerous lectures and essays. Emerson influenced many thinkers and writers that followed him; he mentored Henry David Thoreau, who went on to become a leading transcendentalist.
English-born American television presenter, actor, politician, and musician Jerry Springer is a multifaceted man. A qualified lawyer, he shifted to politics from law as a young man. After a few years, he moved to journalism and found considerable success. As a TV presenter, he is best known for the tabloid talk show, The Jerry Springer Show.
Kwame Nkrumah was a Ghanaian revolutionary and politician. He played an important role in the independence of the Gold Coast in 1957, after which he served as the first prime minister of Ghana from 1957 to 1960 and then as the first president of Ghana from 1960 to 1966. He also played an influential role as an advocate of Pan-Africanism.
Antonio Gramsci was an Italian politician, journalist, philosopher, linguist, and writer. A founding member of the Communist Party of Italy, Gramsci went on to serve as the leader of the party before he was arrested by Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime. Since his death, Antonio Gramsci has been the subject of several plays and films.
Peruvian-American author and anthropologist Carlos Castaneda was born to unwed parents. He lived a mysterious life, and though believed to be married, he later denied the claim. An expert on shamanism, he was a disciple of sorcerer Don Juan Matus and later penned books such as The Teachings of Don Juan.
Henry Parkes was a politician who served as the premier of the Colony of New South Wales. Serving at different time periods throughout the 1870s and 1880s, Parkes was the longest non-consecutive premier in the Colony of New South Wales history. Considered the Father of Federation, Parkes was described as the most commanding figure in Australian politics by The Times.
When the American government, baffled by unexplained sightings of flying objects, assigned J. Allen Hynek the task of solving the mystery, Hynek was sceptical. However, he later became the first person to scientifically analyze such sightings. He also established the "Close Encounter" classification system to study UFOs.
French composer and organist Olivier Messiaen is credited with creating melodically innovative scores, using what he called "modes of limited transposition." An ornithologist, too, he added bird songs into his compositions such as La fauvette des jardins and Catalogue d'oiseaux. His Messiaen: Concert A Quatre won a Grammy.
American army officer Zebulon Pike is best remembered for his exploration of areas around the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. While traversing through the southern Colorado region, he was detained by Spanish colonial authorities. He lent his name to the famed Pikes Peak in Colorado.
Maud Gonne not just co-founded the Sinn Féin party but also participated in the theater movement of W.B Yeats, who made her his muse and proposed to her many times, only to be rejected. An Irish nationalist, she also formed the Daughters of Ireland and acted in Yeats’s first play Cathleen ni Houlihan.
Edmund Husserl was a German philosopher of Moravian origin. He established the school of phenomenology. He studied mathematics, physics, and astronomy at the University of Leipzig and worked as an assistant to mathematician Karl Weierstrass. He later became a professor of philosophy and taught for several years. He is considered a major figure in 20th-century philosophy.
Widely known as the God of Management in Japan, Kōnosuke Matsushita began his career as an errand boy and gradually set up his own consumer electric appliances manufacturing company, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. He later founded the brand Panasonic. He had also penned several books on management.
Pope Leo XI served as the chief of the Roman Catholic Church and therefore the ruler of the Papal States from 1 April 1605 until his death on 27 April 1605. Having lasted under a month, Pope Leo XI's papacy is one of the briefest of all time.
Scottish explorer James Bruce is best known for his treatises of travel and his discovery of the source of the Blue Nile. Initially a wine merchant, he later became a British consul in Algiers and decided to explore North Africa. He traveled to places such as Syria, Ethiopia, and Egypt.
Vito Acconci was an American installation artist whose works had a profound influence on other popular artists like Karen Finley, Bruce Nauman, Laurie Anderson, and Tracey Emin. Acconci is credited with developing several public parks, artificial islands, airport rest areas, and other architectural projects across the United States.
Samurai warrior Maeda Toshiie was a leading general of the Sengoku period and served Oda Nobunaga. He was known for his mastery with a traditional Japanese blade-like weapon called yari. He showcased his military exploits in battles such as the Battle of Tedorigawa and trusted a core group of vassals.
Dutch Literature Prize-winning author Willem Frederik Hermans was one of his country’s most versatile writers and one of the most significant from the post-war era. His satirical works focused on social evils. An Untouched House and The Darkroom of Damocles remain 2 of his best-known works.
Emil von Sauer was a German pianist, composer, piano teacher, and score editor. Sauer, who studied music under the popular Hungarian composer Franz Liszt, went on to become one of the most revered pianists of his generation. Sauer is also remembered for his association with Vienna Academy where he served as the head of the university's Meisterschule für Klavierspiel.
Vladimir Stoychev was a Bulgarian diplomat, Colonel General, and Olympic equestrian. As part of the Bulgarian Army, Stoychev took part in the Balkan Wars and the First World War. In the interwar period, Vladimir Stoychev competed at the 1924 and 1928 Olympics as an equestrian. From 1952 to 1987, he served as a member of the International Olympic Committee.
Architect Henry Hobson Richardson is best remembered for introducing what later came to be known as Richardsonian Romanesque. The great-grandson of scientist Joseph Priestley, he was educated at Harvard. Initially an aspiring civil engineer, he later drifted to architecture. His works included libraries, commercial buildings, and the Trinity Church.
