Salvador Dalí was a prominent Spanish surrealist artist of Catalan ethnicity born in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain. Dalí was a skilled draftsman, best known for the striking and bizarre images in his surrealist work. His painterly skills ar...

Marcel Lajos Breuer was a Hungarian-born modernist architect, and furniture designer. At the Bauhaus he designed the Wassily Chair and the Cesca Chair which is “among the 10 most important chairs of the 20th century.” Breuer extended the sc...

Hirohito, the Showa Emperor, reigned over Japan from 1926 to 1989. He was known in the West by his given name Hirohito (he had no surname). He was the 124th Emperor of Japan. His reign was the longest of all Japanese emperors, and oversaw t...

Machgielis "Max" Euwe was a Dutch chess Grandmaster, mathematician, author, and chess administrator. He was the fifth player to become World Chess Champion (1935–37). Euwe served as President of FIDE, the World Chess Federation, from 1970 t...

Vladimir Nabokov was a multilingual Russian novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist. He also made contributions to entomology a...

Harry Truman was president of America (1945-1952) after the death of F.D. Roosevelt in April 1945. Harry Truman gave the order for the atomic bombs to be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and he represented the United States at Potsdam, the...

Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen was a German pilot and is still regarded today as the "ace of aces". He was a very successful fighter pilot, military leader and flying ace who won 80 air combats during World War I. Richthofen was k...

Ho Chi Minh (meaning "Ho, Enlightened Will") was a Vietnamese revolutionary and statesman, who later became Prime Minister (1946 -1955) and President (1955 - 1969) of North Vietnam. He was a leading force in trying to re-unite North Vietna...

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, abbreviated NSDAP), commonly known as the Nazi Party. He was Chancell...

Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. From 1929–1947, Wittgenstein taught at the University...

Alfonso XIII, King of Spain, posthumous son of Alfonso XII of Spain, was proclaimed King at his birth. He reigned from 1886-1931. His mother, Queen Maria Christina, was appointed regent during his minority. In 1902, on attaining his 16th ye...

Walter Adolph Gropius was a German architect and founder of Bauhaus. He studied architecture in Munich and worked in the office of Peter Behrens in Berlin. In 1910 he formed a partnership with Adolf Meyer. The following year he designed the...

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was a Turkish army officer, reformist statesman, and the first President of Turkey. He is credited with being the founder of the Republic of Turkey. His surname, Atatürk (meaning "Father of the Turks"), was granted to...

Guglielmo Marconi was an Italian inventor, best known for his development of a radio telegraph system, which served as the foundation for the establishment of numerous affiliated companies worldwide. He shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physic...

Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, writer, social critic, political activist, and Nobel laureate. At various points in his life, Russell considered himself a libe...