M.C. Escher (1898-1972) produced work that remains among the most widely reproduced and popular graphic art of the twentieth century. His brain-teasing prints use interlocking shapes, transforming creatures, and impossible architectures to...

The first popular stage entertainer to incorporate authentic blues in her song repertoire, Ma Rainey (1886-1939) performed during the first three decades of the twentieth century.Known as the "Mother of the Blues," she enjoyed mass popular...

Kamo Mabuchi (1697-1769) was a Japanese writer, poet, and scholar and one of the major figures in the school of National Learning. Kamo Mabuchi was born Masanobu, or Masafuji, the son of the superior (Kannushi) of the Kamo shrine in Totomi...

Dwight Macdonald (1906-1982) was an editor, journalist, essayist, and critic of literature, popular culture, films, and politics. Dwight Macdonald was born in New York City on March 24, 1906, the son of Dwight and Alice (Hedges) Macdonald....

The Australian virologist and physician Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet (1899-1985) made important contributions to virology, immunology, and human biology. On Sept. 3, 1899, F. Macfarlane Burnet was born in the country town of Traralgon. He w...

George Maclean (1801-1847) was a Scottish solider and agent of British imperial expansion. As an administrator of the British-owned Gold Coast forts, he was instrumental in extending British influence in the interior of present-day Ghana. ...

Madalyn Murry O'Hair (1919-1995) was a staunch atheist whose court cases brought down rulings from the Supreme Court that prayer is not to be required in public schools. Madalyn Murray O'Hair called herself "the most hated woman in America...

As a manufacturer of hair care products for African American women, Madame C.J. Walker, born Sarah Breedlove (1867-1919), became one of the first American women millionaires. Madame C.J. Walker, named Sarah Breedlove at birth, was born Dec...

A professor and foreign policy expert, Madeleine Korbel Albright (born 1937) was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1992 to be the U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations and head of the U.S. delegation to that body. Presid...

The first woman governor of Vermont was Madeleine Kunin (nee May; born 1933). As a three-term Democratic governor (1985-1991), her major concerns were fiscal responsibility, education, and the environment. Madeleine (May) Kunin was born Se...

The founder of the Madhvism sect of Hinduism, Madhva (c. 1197-c. 1276) stressed the importance of bhakti, or devotion, in the worship of his Dvaita, or dualist, interpretation of the Vedanta, the philosophy of Hinduism as expressed in the ...

In 1992, Mae C. Jemison (born 1956) became the first African American woman to travel in space. Mae C. Jemison had received two undergraduate degrees and a medical degree, had served two years as a Peace Corps medical officer in West Afric...

Prominent among modern Japanese architects, Kunio Maekawa (1905-1986) served an apprenticeship in France during the 1930s. Well-known for his use of architectural concrete, his post-World War II contributions included designs for prefa bri...

Maggie Lena Walker (1867-1934) was an African American entrepreneur and civic leader. She and her associates organized a variety of enterprises that advanced the African American community while expanding the public role of women. Maggie L...

The Italian painter Alessandro Magnasco (1667-1749) is best known for his scenes of disembodied, flamelike figures in stormy landscapes or cavernous interiors and for the vitality of his nervous, open brushwork. Alessandro Magnasco, called...

The Indian guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (born ca. 1911) came to the West as a missionary of traditional Indian thought in popular form and founded the Transcendental Meditation Movement, which reached its height of popularity in the 1960s an...

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948) was an Indian revolutionary religious leader who used his religious power for political and social reform. Although he held no governmental office, he was the prime mover in the struggle for independe...

King Mahendra (1920-1972) was the ninth Shah dynasty ruler of Nepal. The period of his rule (1955-1972) was marked by a wide variety of experiments in political systems and approaches to economic and social development. King Mahendra (Bir ...

Probably the foremost Palestinian poet of the late 20th century, Mahmud Darwish (born 1942) was one of the leading poets of the Arab world. Mahmud Darwish was born in al Birwah, a village that lies to the east of Acca (Acre), now in Israel...

Mahmud of Ghazni (971-1030) was the first sultan of the Ghaznavid dynasty in Afghanistan. A zealous Sunni Moslem, he plundered wealthy India and used the booty to patronize culture in Ghazni, making it the center of Perso-Islamic civilizat...

Mairead Corrigan-Maguire (born 1944) and Betty Williams-Perkins (born 1943) were the founders of the women's peace movement in Northern Ireland in 1976. The movement sponsored marches by women from the rival communities in the province in ...

Roger Mais was born on 11 August 1905 in Kingston, Jamaica, into a "brown," respectable, middle- range-landowning, middle-class family and came to maturity in the 1930s, when these inherited categories were coming under pressure due to the...

His Beatitude, Makarios III (1913-1977), archbishop and ethnarch of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus and the first president of the Republic of Cyprus, 1959-1977, championed the campaign to unite the island politically with Greece for a quart...

Millionaire Malcolm Forbes (1919-1990) was the publisher of Forbes magazine from 1957 to 1990. The entire world knew how old Malcolm Forbes was when he died in 1990; extensive press coverage of his lavish 70th (and last) birthday party thr...

Malcolm III (died 1093), the king of Scotland from 1058 to 1093, established the Canmore dynasty, which ruled Scotland for two centuries. His reign was marked by the introduction into Scotland of English influences. Malcolm was a claimant ...