Sir Sidney Poitier, Bahamian-American actor, film director, author, and diplomat. He broke through as a star in acclaimed performances in American films and plays, which, by consciously defying racial stereotyping, gave a new dramatic credi...

Harry Belafonte is a Jamaican-American singer, songwriter, activist, and actor. One of the most successful Jamaican-American pop stars in history, he was dubbed the "King of Calypso" for popularizing the Trinidadian Caribbean musical style...

James Earl Ray was an American fugitive, felon, and convicted murderer who is believed to have assassinated Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. Ray was convicted on his forty-first birthday after entering a guilt...

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, was leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991. His attempts at reform led to the end of the Cold War, but also inadvertently caused the end of the political supremacy of the Communist Party of the Soviet...

John R. Cash was an American singer, songwriter, musician, actor, and author. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 90 million records worldwide. His genre-spanning songs and sound embraced country,...

Zenzile Miriam Makeba, nicknamed Mama Africa, was a South African singer, songwriter, actress, United Nations goodwill ambassador, and civil rights activist. Associated with musical genres including Afropop, jazz, and world music, she was a...

Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut. He was the first human being to journey into outer space, when his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth on April 12, 1961. Gagarin became an international celebrity, a...

John Robert Lewis was an American politician and civil-rights leader who served in the United States House of Representatives for Georgia's 5th congressional district from 1987 until his death in 2020 from pancreatic cancer. Lewis served as...

Robert James "Bobby" Fischer was an American chess grandmaster and the eleventh World Chess Champion. Many consider him to be the greatest chess player of all time. In 1972, he captured the World Chess Championship from Boris Spassky of the...

Sir Anish Kapoor is an Indian sculptor. Born in Bombay, Kapoor has lived and worked in London since the early 1970s when he moved to study art, first at the Hornsey College of Art and later at the Chelsea School of Art and Design. He rep...

Steven Paul "Steve" Jobs was an American computer entrepreneur and innovator. He was co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc. Jobs also previously served as chief executive of Pixar Animation Studios; he became a memb...

Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the al-Qaeda organization, responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets. He was also a...

William Dalrymple is a Scottish historian and writer, art historian and curator, as well as a prominent broadcaster and critic. His books have won numerous awards and prizes, including the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize, the Thomas Cook Trav...