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Red Skelton is best remembered as the host of The Red Skelton Show. Apart from films and TV, he had also performed in vaudeville, casinos, and nightclubs. He was also a skilled painter and specialized in paintings of clowns, which earned him more than his acting projects.
Hildegard of Bingen was a German writer, composer, Christian mystic, visionary, philosopher, polymath, and Benedictine abbess of the High Middle Ages. Apart from being the most-recorded composers of sacred monophony in modern history, Hildegard of Bingen is also widely regarded as the founder of scientific natural history.
Edmonia Lewis was an American sculptor who worked in Rome for most of her career. The first African-American sculptor to gain international prominence, Lewis was also the only Black female artist to have participated and recognized by the American artistic mainstream until the end of the 19th century. Molefi Kete Asante included Lewis in his 100 Greatest African Americans list.
Laura Ashley was a Welsh businesswoman and fashion designer. She is credited with co-founding a British textile design company called Laura Ashley plc, which became an international retail chain after some 20 years from its founding. Two years after her death, the Laura Ashley Foundation was established in order to fund arts and social welfare projects.
Henry Fox Talbot was an English photography pioneer, inventor, and scientist. He is best remembered for inventing the calotype and salted paper processes that served as predecessors to photographic processes of the 20th century. He is also credited with inventing the photoglyphic engraving process. Henry Fox Talbot also played a major role in the progression of photography as an art.
Folke Bernadotte was a Swedish diplomat and nobleman. He is best remembered for negotiating the release of over 30,000 prisoners from German concentration camps during World War II. Folke Bernadotte was assassinated at the age of 53 by a Zionist paramilitary organization called Lehi.
Ruth Benedict was an American folklorist and anthropologist. Benedict, who played an important role in the American Folklore Society, also served as the American Anthropological Association's president; the association gives away an annual prize named after Ruth Benedict. In 2005, she was made an inductee of the National Women's Hall of Fame.
Eugène Viollet-le-Duc was a French architect and author. He is credited with restoring prominent medieval landmarks in France, including iconic buildings which had been damaged during the French Revolution. He restored Notre-Dame de Paris and the Basilica of Saint-Denis, among others. He is regarded as the first theorist of modern architecture and wrote extensively on the subject.
Armenian-origin American film and TV actor Akim Tamiroff is best remembered for his Academy Award-nominated performances in The General Died at Dawn and For Whom the Bell Tolls. Considered the first big Armenian-American star, he also appeared in several series, such as Naked City and Tales of the Vikings.
Abdelaziz Bouteflika is an Algerian politician who served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1963 to 1979. In 1999, he became the seventh president of Algeria and served in that position for nearly 20 years, becoming Algeria's longest-serving head of state. During his presidency, Abdelaziz Bouteflika oversaw the end of the Algerian Civil War.
Best known for his picaresque novels such as The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Scottish novelist Tobias Smollett was born into a family of lawyers and soldiers and initially attended medical training. Some believe he quit university without a degree, while it is also said he had served as a navy surgeon.
Alfred de Vigny was a French poet whose poem La Maison du berger is regarded by some as the greatest 19th-century French poem. One of the leaders of French Romanticism, Vigny also wrote philosophical novels. Also regarded as a thinker, Alfred de Vigny was one of the first French poets to develop a serious interest in Buddhism.
Feodor Chaliapin Jr. was a Russian Empire-born actor best remembered for playing important roles in numerous Italian and American films. Among his most popular roles is Jorge de Burgos in the 1986 historical mystery film, The Name of the Rose. Feodor Chaliapin Jr. also achieved international fame when he appeared in American films like Moonstruck and Stanley & Iris.
Romanian stage and film actor Dem Rădulescu is remembered for his roles in films such as Brigada Diverse în alertă! and The Lace Wars. He also taught at Bucharest’s National University of Theater and Cinematographic Art. He was later awarded the Order of Cultural Merit for his contribution to cinema and theater.
Abraham-Louis Breguet was a French horologist who made several innovations in watchmaking in the course of his illustrious career. Widely regarded as the leading watchmaker of his generation, Breguet's clients included members of the European nobility and leading public figures in France. Counted among the greatest horologists of all time, Abraham-Louis Breguet is credited with founding the popular Breguet company.
Swiss reformer Heinrich Bullinger is remembered for his role in the spread of Zwinglianism, or the teachings of reformer Huldrych Zwingli. He later succeeded Zwingli in Zurich. He also played a major role in the First and Second Helvetic Confession and in bringing about the Reformed tradition.
Turkey’s 9th prime minister, Adnan Mendere had also formed the Democrat Party after being expelled from the RPP. In Turkey’s first free election in over 25 years, in 1950, he had a sweeping win. He and 2 of his cabinet members were tried and hanged after the 1960 coup d'état.
Konstantin Makovsky was a Russian painter best remembered for his association with the popular group The Wanderers. Widely regarded as an exponent of Academic art, Makovsky portrayed Russian life in the past centuries through his historical paintings like Beneath the Crown. One of the highest-paid and most respected Russian artists, Konstantin Makovsky is also considered the primogenitor of Russian impressionism.
Remembered as the founder of St. Augustine in Florida, USA, Spanish admiral and explorer Pedro Menéndez de Avilés has also been credited with planning the first regular trans-Atlantic convoys. Ruthlessly loyal to the Spanish king, he massacred the entire population of a nearby French post and established a string of forts along the Atlantic coast to protect Spanish interests.
