François-Marie Arouet, better known by the pen name Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment writer and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion and free trade. Voltaire was a proli...

Captain James Cook was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer, ultimately rising to the rank of Captain in the Royal Navy. Cook made detailed maps of Newfoundland prior to making three voyages to the Pacific Ocean during which he ac...

John Adams was the second President of the United States of America. He was President from 1797 until 1801. His Vice-President was Thomas Jefferson. Adams belonged to the Federalist Party. John Adams was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, on Oc...

Sir Frederick William Herschel was a German-born British astronomer and composer who became famous for discovering Uranus. He also discovered infrared radiation and made many other discoveries in astronomy. He played the cello besides th...

Marie Antoinette was Queen Consort of France. Daughter of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria of the Habsburg dynasty and her consort, the Emperor Francis I, she was married to the heir to the French throne (later Louis XVI of France) in order...

Georges Jacques Danton was a leading figure in the early stages of the French Revolution and the first President of the Committee of Public Safety. Danton's role in the onset of the Revolution has been disputed; many historians describe him...

Count Josef von Radetz was a Czech nobleman and field marshal, a member of House of Radetzky in the Kingdom of Bohemia. He served as chief of the general staff in the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy during the later period of the Napoleonic Wars...

Theodore Roosevelt is mostly remembered as the twenty-sixth President of the United States (1901-1909), but this astonishingly multifaceted man was a great many other things as well. In addition to holding elective office as a New York S...

Marie Sklodowska Curie was a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person and only woman to win twice, the only person...

Vallabhbhai Patel, popularly known as Sardar Patel, was the first Deputy Prime Minister of India. He was an Indian barrister and statesman, a senior leader of the Indian National Congress and a founding father of the Republic of India who p...

Alfred Lothar Wegener was a German polar researcher, geophysicist and meteorologist. During his lifetime he was primarily known for his achievements in meteorology and as a pioneer of polar research, but today he is most remembered as th...

Pablo Picasso was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, stage designer, poet and playwright who spent most of his adult life in France. As one of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century, he is known for...

Jawaharlal Nehru was the first, and is so far the longest-serving, prime minister of independent India, serving from 1947 to 1964. A leading figure in the Indian independence movement, Nehru was elected by the Congress party to assume offic...

Roy Fox Lichtenstein was an American pop artist. During the 1960s, along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, and James Rosenquist among others, he became a leading figure in the new art movement. His work defined the premise of pop art through...

Ennio Morricone was an Italian composer, orchestrator, conductor, and trumpet player who wrote music in a wide range of styles. Morricone composed over 400 scores for cinema and television, as well as over 100 classical works. His score...