Benoît B. Mandelbrot was a Franco-American mathematician. Born in Poland, he moved to France with his family when he was a child. Mandelbrot spent much of his life living and working in the United States, acquiring dual French and American...

George Herbert Walker Bush, 41st President of the United States (1989-1993), belongs to a political dynasty; he sits in the middle of three generations of politicians, including his father Prescott, a senator from Connecticut; his son Jeb,...

Patrice Emery Lumumba, African nationalist leader, the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (June-September 1960). Forced out of office during a political crisis, he was assassinated a short time later. In January...

Malcolm X, born Malcolm Little, was an African-American Muslim minister and a human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of blacks, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its crime...

Helmut Krone was an art director and is considered to be a pioneer of modern advertising. Krone spent over 30 years at the advertising agency Doyle Dane Bernbach. He was the art director for the popular 1960's campaign for the Volkswagen Be...

Pol Pot was a Cambodian politician and revolutionary who led the Khmer Rouge from 1963 until 1997 and took part in orchestrating the Cambodian genocide. From 1963 to 1981, he served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuch...

Carlos Castaneda was an author of a series of books that claimed to describe his training in traditional Native American shamanism, which he referred to as a form of "sorcery". Castaneda claimed to have met a Yaqui shaman named Don Juan Mat...

Eugene Luther Gore Vidal was an American writer known for his essays, novels, screenplays, and Broadway plays. As a well-known public intellectual, he was known for his patrician manner and witty aphorisms. Vidal's grandfather was the U.S....

Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and the Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the longest-serving British Prime Minister of the 20th century an...

Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music and a conductor. He is one of the leaders of the post–World War II musical modernism. His compositions have enriched musical culture, and his advocacy of modern and postmode...

The Sun Also Rises was Ernest Hemingway's first big novel, and immediately established Hemingway as one of the great prose stylists, and one of the preeminent writers of his time. It is also the book that encapsulates the angst of the post-...

Elizabeth II is Queen of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and twelve countries that have become independent since her accession on 6 February 1952: Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands...

Sir David Frederick Attenborough is an English broadcaster and naturalist. His career as the face and voice of natural history programmes has endured for 60 years. He is best known for writing and presenting the nine Life series, in conjunc...

Seven Pillars of Wisdom is the monumental work that assured T.E. Lawrence's place in history as "Lawrence of Arabia." Not only a consummate military history, but also a colorful epic and a lyrical exploration of the mind of a great man, thi...

Marilyn Monroe personified Hollywood glamour with an unparalleled glow and energy that enamored the world. Although she was an alluring beauty with voluptuous curves and a generous pout, Marilyn was more than a '50s sex goddess. Her apparen...