John Muir was a Scottish-American naturalist, author, and early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the United States. His letters, essays, and books telling of his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada mountains of Ca...

Piotr Tchaikovsky, Russian composer, started piano studies at five and soon showed remarkable gifts. He began to compose at age ten, and soon after was sent to the School of Jurisprudence where he remained for nine years. Tchaikovsky joine...

Martha Jane Cannary Burke, better known as Calamity Jane, was a frontiers woman, and professional scout best known for her claim of being an acquaintance of Wild Bill Hickok, but also for having gained fame fighting Native American Indians....

Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist who became known as the founding father of psychoanalysis. In creating psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst, Freud...

Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck was a German physicist who is considered to be the inventor of quantum theory. In 1899, he discovered a new fundamental constant, which is named Planck's constant, and is, for example, used to calculate the ener...

Augustus Edward Hough Love, often known as A. E. H. Love, was a mathematician famous for his work on the mathematical theory of elasticity. He also worked on wave propagation and his work on the structure of the Earth in Some Problems of Ge...

William Randolph Hearst was an American newspaper magnate. Hearst was a leading newspaper publisher. The son of self-made millionaire George Hearst, he became aware that his father had received a northern California newspaper, The San Franc...

Erik Satie was a French composer and pianist. Satie was a colourful figure in the early 20th-century Parisian avant-garde. His work was a precursor to later artistic movements such as minimalism, Surrealism, repetitive music, and the Theatr...

Nicholas II or Nikolai II was the last Emperor of Russia, ruling from 1 November 1894 until his forced abdication on 15 March 1917. His reign saw the fall of the Russian Empire from being one of the foremost great powers of the world to eco...

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian communist revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He served as the leader of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic from 1917, and then concurrently as Premier of the Soviet Union from...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...