Willem Drees was a Dutch politician, prime minister of the Netherlands from 1948 until 1958, as a member of the social-democratic Dutch Labour Party (PvdA). Born in Amsterdam, Drees was known as Vadertje Drees ("Father Drees"), and was very...

Chiang Kai-shek was a Chinese military and political leader who assumed the leadership of the Kuomintang (KMT) after the 1925 death of Sun Yat-sen. He commanded the Northern Expedition to unify China against the warlords and emerged victori...

Jean Monnet, called the Father of the European Community. A brief timeline summarises how and why the Jean Monnet Foundation for Europe was established in Lausanne in 1978. It was the outcome of the convergence of two paths, initiated by th...

Li Dazhao was a Chinese intellectual who co-founded the Communist Party of China with Chen Duxiu and other early communists in 1921. Li was a nationalist and believed that the peasantry in China were to play an important role in China's...

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...

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...

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...

Leader of the French resistance in WWII - A lifetime military man, de Gaulle was minister for National Defense and War in June, 1940 when France capitulated to Germany. DeGaulle escaped to Britain, where he made a famous broadcast calling o...

Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov, Soviet politician and diplomat, was a leading figure in the Soviet government from the 1920s, when he rose to power as a protégé of Joseph Stalin, to the 1950s, when he was dismissed from office by Nikita Kh...

Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel was one of the best known German Field Marshals and commander of the Deutsches Afrika Korps in World War II. He is also known by his nickname The Desert Fox (Wüstenfuchs). In a classic blitzkrieg, Allied force...

Karl Dönitz was a German naval Commander who served in the Imperial German Navy during World War I, commanded the German submarine fleet during World War II, and eventually was given control of the entire German Navy (Kriegsmarine). In the...

Generalísimo Francisco Franco, was head of state of Spain from 1939 until his death in 1975. Known as "El Caudillo de España" ("the leader"), he presided over the fascist authoritarian government of the Spanish State following victory in th...

Josip Broz Tito was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman, serving in various roles from 1943 until his death in 1980. During World War II he was the leader of the Partisans, often regarded as the most effective resistance movement in occu...

Hermann Wilhelm Göring (also Goering in English) was a German politician and military leader, a leading member of the Nazi Party, second in command of the Third Reich, and commander of the Luftwaffe. He was tried for war crimes and crimes a...

Mao Zedong or Mao Tse-tung, also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary, poet, political theorist and founding father of the People's Republic of China, which he governed as the Chairman of the Communist Party of China...