IMDb Historical Calendar
If IMDb were to offer a calendar with historical people born in each month, these are the people who would appear in that calendar.* If you had such a calendar, which month would you most look forward to seeing?
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* As of 25-September-2016
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* As of 25-September-2016
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart grew up in Salzburg under the regulation of his strict father Leopold who also was a famous composer of his time. His abilities in music were obvious even when Mozart was still young so that in 1762 at the age of six, his father took him with his elder sister on a concert tour to Munich and Vienna and a second one from 1763-66 through the south of Germany, Paris and London. Mozart was celebrated as a wonder child everywhere because of his excellent piano playing and his improvisations.
In 1769 he became the concertmaster of the Archbishop and was knighted by the Pope in Rome. Working in Salzburg he nevertheless travelled around Europe to meet other composers and orchestras. But in 1781 after a dispute with the Archbishop he left Salzburg and went to Vienna where he married Constanze Weber from Mannheim. In Vienna he also started his friendship with Joseph Haydn and a time of many work pieces. In the last year of his life, for example, he wrote one of his masterpieces, "Die Zauberflöte". Although some of his operas were successful he could not make money from this and died in poverty at the age of 36, having even on his last day worked on a "Requiem". He was buried in a communal grave which could not be precisely identified years later.- Writer
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Abraham Lincoln was an American politician from Kentucky. He was the second presidential candidate of the then-new Republican Party, following John Charles Frémont (1813 - 1890). He served as President of the United States from 1861 to 1865, during the American Civil War. He was assassinated in April 1865, the first of four American presidents to be assassinated during their term in office.
In February 1809, Lincoln was born in a one-room log cabin, located on the Sinking Spring Farm . The Farm itself was located near the modern city of Hodgenville, Kentucky, which was incorporated in 1836. Lincoln was the second child born to the illiterate farmer Thomas Lincoln (1778-1851) and his first wife Nancy Hanks (1784-1818). Both of his parents were born in Virginia.
Lincoln was a namesake grandson of Captain Abraham Lincoln (1744 - 1786), a military veteran of the American Revolutionary War. The senior Abraham was born in Pennsylvania, and settled in the areas of modern Kentucky in 1781. He was shot by an unnamed Native American in May 1786, while working in his field. The Lincoln family were descendants of Samuel Lincoln (1622 - 1690), an English weaver who had settled in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1637.
Lincoln's father Thomas bought or leased various farms in Kentucky, but lost most of his land in court disputes over property titles. In 1816, the Lincoln family settled in Indiana, which at the time had a more reliable and surveying system. Indiana was a "free-state", having abolished slave-holding in 1816. This suited Thomas' religious beliefs. He had joined the Separate Baptists, a religious group which forbade its members to own slaves.
In October 1818, Lincoln's mother Nancy died due to milk sickness. She had ingested milk cow containing the poison tremetol. She was 34-years-old at the time of her death. Lincoln was only 9-years-old at the time. The boy's primary caregiver for a while was his older sister Sarah Lincoln (1807 - 1828), who took over most household duties.
In December 1819, Lincoln's father married his second wife Sarah Bush (1788 - 1869). She was a widow, with three children of her own from a previous marriage. Lincoln grew close to his stepmother, and started calling her mother. By that time, Lincoln was old enough to start working in the farm. He reportedly never liked the physical labor, and his family regarded him as particularly lazy.
Lincoln received little formal schooling, relying on brief tutoring by itinerant teachers. He learned to read at the age of 7, but was not trained to write for several years. However, he became a bibliophile and spend most of his free time "reading, scribbling, writing, ciphering, writing Poetry, etc" He was largely self-educated, reading on a variety of topics.
As a teenager, Lincoln was "tall, strong, and athletic". He was trained in the "catch-as-catch-can" style of wrestling, a grappling style, and had a career as an amateur wrestler. He earned his reputation in the sport by defeating the leader of "the Clary's Grove Boys", a local gang of troublemakers.
In 1830, the Lincoln family moved to Macon County, Illinois. By that time, Lincoln was 21-years-old, legally entering adulthood. His relationship with his father Thomas became difficult, as young Lincoln craved for financial independence. In 1831, Thomas and most of his family settled in a new homestead, located in Coles County, Illinois. Lincoln decided not to follow them, and started living on his own. He settled for a few years in New Salem, Illinois.
In 1831, Lincoln and his partner Denton Offutt purchased a general store in New Salem. Lincoln gained a reputation of honesty, when he realized that he had accidentally overcharged a customer and voluntarily returned the money to him. By 1832, the general store had failed. The partnership was dissolved.
Also In 1832, Lincoln stood as a candidate for the Illinois General Assembly. He was an unlikely candidate, as he was rather poor and lacked political connections. He received 277 votes, nearly every vote in the village of New Salem. He lost the election as he was unknown outside this village.
In the early 1830s, Lincoln worked as New Salem's postmaster, and then as county surveyor. He aspired to become a lawyer, and read law on his own. He extensively studied legal texts in order to qualify. He later claimed that he was entirely self-taught. In 1834, Lincoln sought election to the Illinois General Assembly again. This time, he stood as a candidate for the powerful Whig Party and won the election. He served four terms in the General Assembly.
Lincoln's first known romantic relationship involved Ann Rutledge (1813 - 1835), a local woman who was reputedly engaged to another man. Rutledge died in August 1835, during a typhoid epidemic. She was only 22-years-old at the time of her death. Lincoln became severely depressed following her death. Biographers think that he wrote the poem "The Suicide's Soliloquy"(1838), to record his own suicidal thoughts during this period.
In 1836, Lincoln was admitted to the Illinois bar, and moved to Springfield Illinois to practice law. He started his career as a lawyer by practicing law under experienced lawyer John Todd Stuart (1807 - 1885), who happened to be a long-time friend of Lincoln. Lincoln gained a reputation as a formidable trial lawyer in cases involving cross-examinations.
In his political career in the 1830s, Lincoln championed the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, which connected the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. He later served as a Canal Commissioner. He voted to expand suffrage to all white males, not only white landowners. He adopted a "free soil" policy, vocally opposing both slavery and abolitionism. He favored the plan of the Whig party leader Henry Clay (1777 - 1852) to use freedmen in the colonization of Liberia.
In 1839, Lincoln became romantically interested in Mary Todd (1818 - 1882), a daughter of the wealthy businessman Robert Smith Todd (1791-1849). They were engaged in 1840, and were married in 1842. They had four sons. Mary had a higher social standing than Lincoln, being part of the gentry in Springfield, Illinois. She had reputedly rejected several suitors. Her most notable suitor before Lincoln was the successful lawyer Stephen Arnold Douglas (1813 -1861).
In 1842, Lincoln's last term in the Illinois General Assembly ended. In 1843, he sought the Whig nomination for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. He lost the nomination to John Jay Hardin (1810 - 1847), but convinced party officials to not renominate Hardin in the next election. Lincoln won the Whig nomination in 1846, and went on to win the election. He served as a congressman from 1847 to 1849. During this time, Lincoln was the only Whig in the Illinois delegation.
During his term in congress, Lincoln proposed a bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and to compensate slave owners for the loss of property. The bill failed to gain sufficient support, even from his own party. Lincoln spoke out against the country's involvement in the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), warning that the price of glory would be "showers of blood".
Lincoln did not seek renomination to Congress in the 1848 election, honoring a 1846 pledge to serve a single term. He supported Zachary Taylor's campaign to win the Whig nomination for the presidency. When Taylor won the presidential election, Lincoln expected political favors from the new president. Taylor offered to Lincoln an appointment as secretary or governor of the Oregon Territory, which was at that time a stronghold of the Democratic Party. Lincoln declined the offer, as it would require him to abandon his legal career in Illinois. He resumed life as a lawyer.
During the 1850s, Lincoln was one of Illinois' leading lawyers. He appeared before the Illinois Supreme Court in 175 cases, and was the sole counsel in 51 of these cases. He solidified his reputation as a defense lawyer in two murder trials. In the trial of Duff Armstrong (1833-1899), Lincoln was able to prove that a key eyewitness was actually lying about what he had seen. Lincoln found that the witness stood at too great a distance in nighttime conditions to have seen anything. In the trial of Simeon Quinn "Peachy" Harrison (a cousin of Lincoln), Lincoln was able to convince a judge that the dying declaration of the murder victim should not be excluded as hearsay, That declaration was that the victim had actively provoked Harrison into attacking, helping the defense's case.
In 1854, Lincoln resumed his active participation in political life by speaking out against the controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act, a law that repealing the Missouri Compromise (1820), and would allow for the expansion of slavery to the new territories of Kansas and Nebraska. The Whig Party split in two due to its factions' different reactions to the new law. The Party's anti-slavery faction helped establish the new Republican Party, which also attracted anti-slavery politicians from the Free Soil Party, the Liberty Party, and the Democratic Party.
In 1854, Lincoln stood as a Whig candidate to the United States Senate. He was not able to secure the election, but managed to convince his supporters to vote for Lyman Trumbull (1813 - 1896), an anti-slavery Democrat with similar views to their own. Trumbull won the election. In 1856, Lincoln formally joined the Republican Party. At the June 1856 Republican National Convention, Lincoln was one of the candidates for the party's nomination for Vice President of the United States. Lincoln received 110 votes, finishing second among the candidates. The vice-presidential nomination was instead won by William Lewis Dayton (1807 - 1864).
In 1858, Lincoln stood as a Republican candidate for the United States Senate. His opponent was Stephen Arnold Douglas, a leading Democrat politician. The Senate campaign featured seven debates between Lincoln and Douglas, which attracted nationwide attention. The candidates argued extensively over the legal and moral status of slavery in the United States. In this elections, the Republican Party won the popular vote, but the Democratic Party won more seats. The legislature re-appointed Douglas to the Senate. But Lincoln had become nationally famous, and he was often mentioned by the press as a likely presidential candidate.
In 1860, Lincoln received early endorsements as a presidential candidate. In the 1860 Republican National Convention, he secured the party's nomination. His most significant rival for the nomination was William Henry Seward (1801-1872), who finished second among the various candidates. Only Lincoln and Seward received over 50 votes from delegates. The party's nomination for vice president was secured by Hannibal Hamlin (1809 - 1891), a former Democrat who had opposed slavery for most of his career.
In the 1860 United States presidential election, the Democratic Party was split into two rival factions, which nominated different candidates. In the election, Lincoln received 1,866,452 votes, or 39.8% of the popular vote. In the electoral college, he received 180 votes, winning the election. Lincoln every one of the free Northern states, plus California and Oregon in the recently annexed Western United States. He received no votes at all in 10 of the 15 slave states.
Lincoln started his presidency in March 1861. By that time, 7 states had already seceded from the Union in reaction to his victory (in chronological order: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas). The American Civil War started in April 1861 with the Battle of Fort Sumter, a bombardment of a Union fort located near Charleston, South Carolina. On April 15, Lincoln called on the states to send a total of 75,000 volunteer troops to recapture forts, protect Washington, and "preserve the Union". In Baltimore rioting crowds started attacking Union forces. Lincoln suspended the right of habeas corpus in select areas, allowing the government forces to confine people without formal trials. Thousands of suspected Confederate sympathizers were confined.
Lincoln soon established his executive control over the Union's war effort, and helped shape its military strategy, He expanded his war powers, and exercising "unprecedented authority" over the country. He had the full support of the Republican-controlled Congress, as well as popular support in states loyal to the Union. His political opposition consisted of two different factions, the Copperheads and the Radical Republicans. The Copperheads were a faction of the Democratic Party which demanded a compromise on the matter of slavery, and a peace settlement with the Confederates. The Radical Republicans were a faction of the Republican Party which demanded the "permanent eradication of slavery", and rejected any ideas concerning compromises with slave-owners.
In September 1862, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared the emancipation of slaves in 10 Confederate states. The Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863. By the spring of 1863, Lincoln had started recruiting "black troops" in massive numbers. By the end of the year, 20 regiments of African Americans from the Mississippi Valley had been recruited by the Union.
Lincoln ran for re-election in the 1864 United States presidential election. He united the main factions of the Republican Party and the War Democrats (a pro-Union faction of the Democratic Party) into a coalition known as Union Party. The remaining factions of the Democratic Party made the mistake of nominating retired general George Brinton McClellan (1826 - 1885) as their presidential candidate. McClellan held a grudge against Lincoln, but rejected any ideas concerning peace with the Confederates. Meaning that the Copperheads could see little difference between him and Lincoln.
Lincoln won the presidential election with 2,218,388 votes, representing 55.0% of the popular vote. 78% of Union soldiers. voted fort him, as they did not want a compromise to end the War. Lincoln won 212 electoral votes, and had the support of 22 out of the Union's 25 states. His new vice-president was Andrew Johnson (1808 - 1875), a prominent War Democrat.
In 1865, the Union seemed to be winning the American Civil War. On April 14, 1865, Lincoln and his wife attended Ford's Theatre in Washington D.C. They wanted to see a performance of the then-popular British play "Our American Cousin" (1858) by Tom Taylor (1817 - 1880). During the performance, Lincoln was assassinated by the well-known actor John Wilkes Booth (1838 - 1865). Booth was a Confederate sympathizer, and hoped to turn the tide of the War. Lincoln was 56-years-old at the time of his death.
Lincoln's corpse was returned for burial to Springfield, Illinois, where he had lived for decades. On May 4, 1865, Lincoln was interred at the Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield. The Lincoln Tomb later became a state historic site. His wife and three of their four sons were later buried there as well.
Historians tend to rank Lincoln among the top Presidents of the United States. Due to his violent death, he came to be regarded as "a national martyr". Several political factions trace their origins to Lincoln's ideas and policies. He has been described as "a classical liberal" of the 19th-century, and is well-regarded for his policies favoring trade and business.- Music Department
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Johann Sebastian Bach was born on March 21, 1685, in Eisenach, Thuringia, Germany, into a large and distinguished family of professional musicians. His father, named Johann Ambrosius Bach, was a violinist and trumpeter, employed by the city of Eisenach. His uncles were church organists, court musicians and composers. His mother and father died before Bach was 10. As an orphan, he moved in with his eldest brother, J. C. Bach, an organist and composer, under whose tutelage Bach studied organ music as well as the construction and maintenance of the organ.
Education: At the age of 14, Bach received a scholarship and walked on foot 300 kilometers to the famous St. Michael's school in Luneburg, near Hamburg. There he lived and studied for 2 years from 1699-1701. It was there that he sang a Capella at the boys chorale. Bach's studies included organ, harpsichord, and singing. In addition he took the academic studies in theology, history and geography, and lessons of Latin, Italian, and French. Besides his studies of music by the local Nothern German composers, Bach had important exposure to the music of composers from other European nations; such as the French composers Jean-Baptiste Lully, Marais, and Marchand, the South German composers Johann Pachelbel and Froberger, and the Italians Arcangelo Corelli and Antonio Vivaldi.
Personality and character: Bach was 17 when he made a 4-month pilgrimage, walking on foot about 400 kilometers from Arnstadt to the Northern city of Lubeck. There he studied with 'Dietrich Buxtehude' and became so involved that he overstayed his leave by three months. Buxtehude being probably the best organist of his time became the living link between the founder of Baroque music Heinrich Schütz and the biggest Baroque genius, Bach. Back in Arnstadt, Bach wrote 'Toccata and Fugue in D Minor' (1702), his first masterpiece; which stemmed from his bold organ improvisations. At that time he was in love with his second cousin Maria Barbara; whom he was taking upstairs to the church organ, where her presence was inspirational for his creativity. Bach was punished for the violation of the restrictions on women's presence in the church and he was fired. However, he eventually married Maria Barbara.
Cross-cultural studies: Bach studied the orchestral music of Antonio Vivaldi and gained insight into his compositional language by arranging Vivaldi's concertos for organ. Six French suites were written for keyboard; each suite opens with 'Allemande' and consists of several pieces, including 'Courante', 'Sarabande', 'Menuet', 'Gavotte', 'Air', 'Anglaise', 'Polonaise', 'Bourree', and 'Gigue'. As suggested by their titles, the pieces were representing songs and dances from various cultures. From the music of the Italians Antonio Vivaldi, Arcangelo Corelli, and 'Giuseppe Torelli'; Bach adopted dramatic introductions and endings as well as vivacious rhythmical dynamism and elaborate harmonization. Bach also performed the music of English, French, and Italian composers; motets of the Venetian school, and incorporated their rhythmical patterns and textural structures in the development of his own style.
Teaching: Bach selected and instructed musicians for orchestras and choirs in Weimar and Leipzig. His work as a Cantor included teaching instrumental and vocal lessons to the church musicians and later to the musicians of the court orchestra. Bach was also a teacher of his own children and of his second wife. In 1730, Bach presented his second wife with a musical notebook for studies, known as the 'Notebook of Anna Magdalena Bach'. Compositions in the notebook were written in a form of minuete, polonaise, gavotte, march, rondeau, chorale, sonata, prelude, song, and aria; written mainly by Bach, as well as by his sons 'Carl Philip Emanuel Bach', Johann Christoph Bach, and composers 'Francois Couperin', Georg Bohm, and others.
Family: Bach married his second cousin, named Maria Barbara, who was the inspirational force for his early compositions. They had seven children, 4 of whom survived to adulthood. W. F. Bach, J. C. Bach, and C. P. E. Bach became composers. Maria Barbara died in 1720. On December 3, 1721, Bach married Anna Magdalena (bee Wilcke), a talented soprano, who was 17 years his junior. They had thirteen children. Bach fathered a total of 20 children with his two wives. His sons 'Friedemann Bach', Johann Christoph Bach, and 'Carl Philip Emanuel Bach' became important composers in the Rococo style. The descendants of Bach are living in many countries across the world.
Social activity: Bach replaced his friend Georg Philipp Telemann as the director of the popular orchestra known as Collegium Musicum, which he led from 1729-1750. It was a private secular music society that gave concert performances twice a week at the Zimmerman's Coffeehouse near the Leipzig market square. Bach's exposure to such a secular public environment inspired him to compose numerous purely entertainment pieces for solo keyboard and several violin and harpsichord concertos.
Politics: Being the undisputed musical genius, Bach still suffered from ugly political machinations. Although the Leipzig Council had enough money, they never honored the promised salary of 1000 talers a year; promised to Bach by the Mayor of Leipzig, Gottlieb Lange, at the hiring interview. Bach worked diligently, in spite of being underpaid for 27 years until his death. On top of that local political factions in the Leipzig Council manipulated Bach's educational work as well as his compositions and public performances. They were pressuring him as the Cantor and Composer and interfering his creative efforts by imposing restrictions on his performances because of their ugly political games. Bach prevailed as he composed and played his "Mass in B Minor" to the monarch of Saxony and was appointed the Royal Court Composer of Saxony.
King Frederick the Great invited Bach to Potsdam in 1747. There the king played his own theme for Bach and challenged the composer to improvise on it. Bach used the 'royal theme' and improvised a three-part fugue on the king's piano. Later Bach upgraded the king's theme to a more sophisticated melody, and composed an array of pieces based on the improved 'royal theme', which he titled "Musical Offering" and later presented this composition to the king.
Legacy: Bach wrote over eleven hundred music compositions in all genres. In Leipzig alone he wrote a cantata for every Sunday and feast day of the year, of which 224 cantatas survive. Some of his compositions were written on the same theme at different times in his life, like choral cantatas and organ works on similar themes with significantly reworked arrangements. The complete list of Bach's works, BWV, has 1127 compositions for voice, organ, harpsichord, violin, cello, flute, chamber music for small ensembles, orchestral music, concertos for violin and orchestra, and for keyboard and orchestra. His music became the essential part of the education for every musician. Bach influenced such great composers as Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Liszt, Frédéric Chopin, Felix Mendelssohn, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Sergei Prokofiev and many other prominent musicians.
Bach is by far the most performed and recorded composer in history. His 'Das Wohltemperierte Clavier' (The well-tempered keyboard, or The well-tuned piano, in modern terminology) is the definitive work for all students as well as concert musicians. Bach's 'Orgebuchlein' (The little organ book) is a staple in the repertoire of organists and pianists, and some pieces from it were arranged for ensembles. Bach's many chorales, especially the "Mass in B Minor" are considered the best works in the genre. His last work 'The Art of Fugue' is best known for it's acclaimed performance by Glenn Gould. Bach's music was used in hundreds of films, thousands of stage productions, and continues being played all over the world.
The definitive biography of J. S. Bach was written by the Nobel Prize Laureate Albert Schweitzer.- Writer
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William Shakespeare's birthdate is assumed from his baptism on April 25. His father John was the son of a farmer who became a successful tradesman; his mother Mary Arden was gentry. He studied Latin works at Stratford Grammar School, leaving at about age 15. About this time his father suffered an unknown financial setback, though the family home remained in his possession. An affair with Anne Hathaway, eight years his senior and a nearby farmer's daughter, led to pregnancy and a hasty marriage late in 1582. Susanna was born in May of 1583, twins Hamnet and Judith in January of 1585. By 1592 he was an established actor and playwright in London though his "career path" afterward (fugitive? butcher? soldier? actor?) is highly debated. When plague closed the London theatres for two years he apparently toured; he also wrote two long poems, "Venus and Adonis" and "The Rape of Lucrece". He may have spent this time at the estate of the Earl of Southampton. By December 1594 he was back in London as a member of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, the company he stayed with the rest of his life. In 1596 he seems to have purchased a coat of arms for his father; the same year Hamnet died at age 11. The following year he purchased the grand Stratford mansion New Place. A 1598 edition of "Love's Labors" was the first to bear his name, though he was already regarded as England's greatest playwright. He is believed to have written his "Sonnets" during the 1590s. In 1599 he became a partner in the new Globe Theatre, the company of which joined the royal household on the accession of James in 1603. That is the last year in which he appeared in a cast list. He seems to have retired to Stratford in 1612, where he continued to be active in real estate investment. The cause of his death is unknown.- Karl Heinrich Marx was born on May 5, 1818, in Trier, then Kingdom of Prussia, German Confederation. His father, Hershel Mordechai, was the son of a rabbi. Karl converted to Lutheran Christianity because Jews were not allowed to practice law. He graduated from the Trier Gymnasium, then studied law at the University of Bonn, where he was briefly a president of the Trier Tavern Club. He transfered to the Fridrich-Wilhelms-Universitat in Berlin, from which he graduated in 1841 with a doctorate in philosophy. He abandoned a university career and became an editor of a liberal newspaper, "Rheinische Zeitung", in Cologne. A year later the paper was shut down by the Prussian government. Marx moved to France, where he wrote "Zur Judenfrage" ("On the Jewish Question", 1843), a critique of civil rights in his time.
In Paris Marx met Friedrich Engels. Engels was the son of a wealthy capitalist and supported Marx throughout his life. Together they developed the communist ideology. Police forced him to leave Paris and he moved with Engels to Brussels. There he developed the materialist conception of history and wrote "The German Ideology" and "The Poverty of Philosophy", which was a critique of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's socialist thought. On February 21, 1848, Marx and Engels published "The Communist Manifesto", which called for revolution instead of reforms. It described all human history as a class struggle. It was commissioned by the Communist League of German emigrants in London. Marx himself was active in London.
Police arrested Marx and expelled him from Belgium. He returned to Paris. There he managed to get the French government money to subsidize four hundred German immigrants' return tickets. In 1849 the French government collapsed and Marx returned to Cologne. There he was on two trials for his calls for armed rebellion of the poor. He was acquitted twice, but his newspaper was closed. He returned to Paris again, but was forced out. With the money from Engels he moved to London. There Marx lived for the rest of his life on financial contributions from Engels.
In London he became the central figure in a new organization called "The International Working Men's Association", which surfaced in 1864. Marx authored its first public statement in 1864, and many declarations and manifestos that followed. "Das Kapital"--his main work on economics--was drafted in three volumes. Only the first volume was completed and published in 1867. The second and third volumes remained unfinished and were published posthumously.
Marx and his wife Jenny von Westphalen had six children, three of whom died at young age. His daughter Eleanor was a socialist and assisted Marx in editing his works. She committed suicide in 1898. His other daughter, Laura, committed suicide in 1911. Karl Marx died on March 14, 1883, and was buried in Highgate Cemetery in London. - Actor
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A cigar-smoking, monocled, swag-bellied character actor known for his Old South manners and charm. In 1918 he and his first wife formed the Coburn Players and appeared on Broadway in many plays. With her death in 1937, he accepted a Hollywood contract and began making films at the age of sixty.- Actor
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Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 - April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that middle-class Americans could afford, he converted the automobile from an expensive luxury into an accessible conveyance that profoundly impacted the landscape of the 20th century.- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (née Godwin; 30 August 1797 - 1 February 1851) was an English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel "Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus" (1818). She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin, and her mother was the philosopher and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft.
After Wollstonecraft's death less than a month after her daughter Mary was born, Mary was raised by Godwin, who was able to provide his daughter with a rich, if informal, education, encouraging her to adhere to his own liberal political theories. When Mary was four, her father married a neighbor, with whom, as her stepmother, Mary came to have a troubled relationship.
In 1814, Mary began a romance with one of her father's political followers, the then married Percy Bysshe Shelley. Together with Mary's stepsister Claire Clairmont, Mary and Shelley left for France and traveled through Europe. Upon their return to England, Mary was pregnant with Percy's child. Over the next two years, she and Percy faced ostracism, constant debt, and the death of their prematurely born daughter. They married in late 1816, after the suicide of Percy Shelley's first wife, Harriet.
In 1816, the couple famously spent a summer with Lord Byron, John William Polidori, and Claire Clairmont near Geneva, Switzerland, where Mary conceived the idea for her novel "Frankenstein". The Shelleys left Britain in 1818 for Italy, where their second and third children died before Mary Shelley gave birth to her last and only surviving child, Percy Florence Shelley. In 1822, her husband drowned when his sailing boat sank during a storm near Viareggio. A year later, Mary Shelley returned to England and from then on devoted herself to the upbringing of her son and a career as a professional author. The last decade of her life was dogged by illness, probably caused by the brain tumor that was to kill her at the age of 53.
Until the 1970s, Mary Shelley was known mainly for her efforts to publish her husband's works and for her novel "Frankenstein", which remains widely read and has inspired many theatrical and film adaptations. Recent scholarship has yielded a more comprehensive view of Mary Shelley's achievements. Scholars have shown increasing interest in her literary output, particularly in her novels, which include the historical novels "Valperga" (1823) and "Perkin Warbeck" (1830), the apocalyptic novel "The Last Man" (1826), and her final two novels, "Lodore" (1835) and "Falkner" (1837). Studies of her lesser-known works, such as the travel book "Rambles in Germany and Italy" (1844) and the biographical articles for Dionysius Lardner's "Cabinet Cyclopaedia" (1829-46), support the growing view that Mary Shelley remained a political radical throughout her life. Mary Shelley's works often argue that cooperation and sympathy, particularly as practiced by women in the family, were the ways to reform civil society. This view was a direct challenge to the individualistic Romantic ethos promoted by Percy Shelley and the Enlightenment political theories articulated by her father, William Godwin - Michael Faraday was an English scientist who contributed to the study of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. His main discoveries include the principles underlying electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism and electrolysis.
Although Faraday received little formal education, he was one of the most influential scientists in history. It was by his research on the magnetic field around a conductor carrying a direct current that Faraday established the basis for the concept of the electromagnetic field in physics. Faraday also established that magnetism could affect rays of light and that there was an underlying relationship between the two phenomena.
He similarly discovered the principles of electromagnetic induction and diamagnetism, and the laws of electrolysis. His inventions of electromagnetic rotary devices formed the foundation of electric motor technology, and it was largely due to his efforts that electricity became practical for use in technology.
Albert Einstein kept a picture of Faraday on his study wall, alongside pictures of Isaac Newton and James Clerk Maxwell. - Actress
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This celebrated star of the French stage had a sporadic love-hate affair with early cinema. After her film debut in Le duel d'Hamlet (1900) she declared she detested the medium; yet she consented to appear in another film, La Tosca (1909). Upon seeing the results, she reportedly recoiled in horror, demanding that the negative be destroyed. Her next film appearance, in the Film d'Art production of La dame aux camélias (1912), was a critical and popular success, helping give cinema artistic dignity. The following year she made Les amours de la reine Élisabeth (1912) in Britain. The receipts from this film's distribution in the US provided Adolph Zukor with the funds to found Paramount. Bernhardt, at 69, was offered a fortune to make films with other companies, but stayed with Film d'Art, appearing in Adrienne Lecouvreur (1913). She appeared in two more pictures after losing a leg in 1915, Jeanne Doré (1915) and Mothers of France (1917), both produced as WWI morale boosters. In 1923, when she was 79, her hotel room was turned into a studio so that she could appear in the film La voyante (1924). But her failing health halted production and she died before the film was completed. She was portrayed on the screen by Glenda Jackson in The Incredible Sarah (1976).- Writer
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Mark Twain, born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in Florida, Missouri in 1835, grew up in Hannibal. He was a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River. Throughout his career, Twain served as a writer, lecturer, reporter, editor, printer, and prospector. Twain took his pen name from an alert cry used on his steamboat - "by the mark, twain".- Music Department
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Beethoven was the child of a Flamian musician family and became a member of the electoral orchestra of Bonn in 1783. In 1787 he studied at Mozart's in Vienna and in 1792 he moved all to Vienna becoming a student of Joseph Haydn. The Vienna High Society loved him as a piano player as well as as composer. In 1802 his deafness became serious making Beethoven a real eccentric until his death in 1827.