The English philosopher Francis Herbert Bradley (1846-1924) based his thought on the principles of absolute idealism. He rigorously criticized all philosophies based on the "school of experience." Born in Clapham on Jan. 30, 1846, F. H. Br...

F. Scott Fitzgerald was a writer very much of his own time. As Malcolm Cowley once put it, he lived in a room full of clocks and calendars. The years ticked away while he noted the songs, the shows, the books, the quarterbacks. His own car...

Probably the greatest Arabic singer of modern times, Fairuz (neé Nuhad Haddad; born 1933), also known as Fayrouz, led the creation of a new musical language in the Middle East. Fairuz was born Nuhad Haddad in 1933 in Beirut, Lebanon...

Faisal I (1883-1933) was an Arab nationalist and political leader during and following World War I. He led Arab troops in the revolt against Turkish rule and became king of newly created Iraq. On May 20, 1883, Faisal was born in Taif near ...

King Faisal ibn Abd al Aziz ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia (1904-1975) was the most prominent Arab leader in the early 1970s. He participated for more than a half century in the creation of modern Saudi Arabia and, as king, was known for his con...

The American conductor JoAnn Falletta (born 1954) served as musical director of three orchestras simultaneously while still a young woman. She chose to perform pieces from the non-standard repertoire, trying to select pieces suited to the ...

Peter Faneuil (1700-1743) was a wealthy American colonial merchant and philanthropist who donated Faneuil Hall to Boston. Eldest child of one of three Huguenot brothers who fled France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, Peter Fan...

Fannie Lou Hamer (1917-1977), field secretary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, was an outspoken advocate for civil rights for African Americans. For more than half of Fannie Lou Hamer's life, she was a rural agricultural w...

Fanny Brice (1891-1951) was a vaudeville, Broadway, film, and radio singer and comedienne. Fanny Brice was born on October 29, 1891, on New York's Lower East Side. She was the daughter of Charles Borach, a saloonkeeper, and Rose Stern, a r...

Born into a famous English theatrical family, Frances Anne Kemble (1809-1893), known as Fanny Kemble, went to America in 1832, where she was celebrated both for her dramatic talent and her cultural observations. Frances Anne Kemble was bor...

Chief of the Baluch Leghari tribe, one-time member of the civil service, and distinguished politician, Sardar Farooq Ahmed Khan Leghari (born 1940) became the eighth president of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan in November 1993. He resign...

The Belgian missionary Father Damien (1840-1889) is known for his work among the lepers on Molokai in the Hawaiian Islands. Father Damien was born Joseph de Veuster in Tremeloo, Belgium, on Jan. 3, 1840, of pious and sturdy Flemish peasant...

Fats Domino (born 1928) brought a unique blend of sounds to the rhythm and blues scene in the 1950s and 60s that appealed to a wide audience. His rendition of "The Fat Man," recorded in December of 1949, is considered by many to be the fir...

The Roman general and dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla (138-78 BC) was the first man to use the army to establish a personal autocracy at Rome. Sulla first came into prominence when he served as quaestor (107-106 B.C.) under Gaius Marius in...

Safi Faye (born 1943), the Senegalese filmmaker and ethnologist who has made her home in Paris, is the best-known woman filmmaker in sub-Saharan Africa. Safi Faye was born in 1943 in Fad Jal, Senegal, a village south of Dakar, where she ma...

The poetry of the Spanish author Federico García Lorca (1898-1936) is marked by brilliance, originality, and dramatic flair. His plays are among the best examples of 20th-century poetic drama. In the 20th century Federico Garc&iacut...

Diogo Antônio Feijó (1784-1843) was a Brazilian liberal priest and minister of justice. He did much to establish order during the first regency but was plagued with insurmountable difficulties as the first single regent. Diogo...

Prime Minister of Spain from 1982 to 1996, Felipe González Márquez (born 1942) helped lead Spain into the European community of nations. Birth and Childhood Felipe González Márquez was born on March 5, 1942, in ...

The Dutch geodesist and geophysicist Felix Andries Vening Meinesz (1887-1966) pioneered in the field of gravity measurements. On July 30, 1887, F. A. Vening Meinesz was born in Scheveningen. He attended the public schools in Amsterdam, the...

Felix "Doc" Blanchard (born 1924) was an outstanding football player, who won the 1945 Heisman Award while attending the United States Military Academy at West Point. Blanchard did not play professional football, but went on to a distingui...

Felix Frankfurter (1882-1965), an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, demonstrated a strong sense for civil liberties. Felix Frankfurter was born in Vienna, Austria, on Nov. 15, 1882. At the age of 12 he and his six brothers and s...

Feng Yü-hsiang (1882-1948) was a Chinese warlord. Commanding the Kuominchün, or National People's Army, Feng controlled major parts of North China during the 1920s. He was known as the "Christian general." Son of a low-ranking ar...

Considered to be the father of modern bacteriology, Ferdinand Cohn (1828-1898) began his studies as a botanist and ultimately made discoveries which led to the creation of a new field of study. He was the first scientist who believed that ...

The French marshall Ferdinand Foch (1851-1929) was commander in chief of the Allied armies in World War I. Ferdinand Foch was born on Oct. 2, 1851, at Tarbes. His early schooling revealed his "geometrical mind" and mathematical ability. He...

Ferdinand I (1503-1564) was Holy Roman emperor from 1555 to 1564. Before his accession and during his reign he pursued conciliatory policies toward the Protestants and the powerful German princes. Born at Alcalá de Henares, Spain, o...