Vishwanath Pratap Singh (born 1931) became India's eighth prime minister on December 2, 1989, heading a minority National Front coalition government that ended a decade of continuous Congress Party rule. However, he was ousted less than a ...

V. S. Pritchett (1900-1997) was an English short story writer, novelist, literary critic, journalist, travel writer, biographer, and autobiographer. Though not an innovator in terms of style, he was nevertheless an interesting and highly c...

Waldemar IV (ca. 1320-1375) reunited the kingdom of Denmark under his rule, presenting a strong, nationalistic challenge to the mercantile Hanseatic League. Waldemar IV was born to a bankrupt crown. In 1320, the year he was born, his fathe...

Valentina Tereshkova (born 1937) was the first woman in space, orbiting the earth 48 times in Vostok VI in 1963. Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman in space. Tereshkova took off from the Tyuratam Space Station in the Vostok VI in 196...

The third president of the French Fifth Republic, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing (born 1926) was the architect of France's economic return as one of the leading nations of the world. Valéry Giscard d'Estaing was born in Koblenz, Ge...

Vannevar Bush (1890-1974) was a leader of American science and engineering during and after World War II. He was instrumental in the development of the atomic bomb and the analogue computer, as well as an administrator of government scient...

Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen (1816-1878) was a Brazilian historian. His "História geral do Brasil" is still the starting point for any investigation of Brazilian colonial history. Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen was the son of a Germ...

The Spanish conquistador Vasco Núñez de Balboa (ca. 1475-1519) explored Central America and discovered the Pacific Ocean. He was the first Spanish explorer to gain a permanent foothold on the American mainland. Vasco Nú...

Vasko Popa is a poet of towering stature in contemporary Yugoslav literature. His poetic achievement—eight slim volumes of verse written over a period of thirty-eight years—has received extensive critical acclaim both in his na...

Sebastien Vauban (1633-1707) served as France's foremost military engineer under Louis the XIV. A man of humble birth, Vauban's acumen in planning military fortifications and his direction of sieges against France's enemies helped the regi...

Victor Paz Estenssoro (born 1907) was a reformer, political thinker, and president of Bolivia. He instituted a series of widespread reforms that revolutionized Bolivian society. Victor Paz was born to a middle-class family of mixed Spanish...

The daughter of Nobel award-winning scientist Madame Curie, Eve Curie (born 1904) would gain fame on her own terms: as a concert pianist and journalist during World War II. The youngest child born to Pierre and Marie (Sklodowska) Curie, di...

The Mexican revolutionary and president Venustiano Carranza (1859-1920) led the constitutionalist movement against the Huerta government and convoked the constituent assembly which drafted the Constitution of 1917. Venustiano Carranza was ...

Celtic chieftain Vercingetorix (c. 75 BC-c. 46 BC) battled valiantly to keep the Roman army from overrunning the territory of Gaul, as France was then called. His troops were defeated at Alesia and Vercingetorix was forced to surrender. Re...

Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, Sieur de la Verendrye (1685-1749), was a French-Canadian soldier, explorer, and fur trader. He was the first to explore extensively the southern prairies in what is now the northern United States and southern C...

Ballroom dancers Vernon (1887-1918) and Irene (1893-1969) Castle led the craze for ragtime and Broadway routines adapted as social dances in the years before World War I. Vernon Castle was born Vernon William Blythe in Norwich, England, on...

The American historian Vernon Louis Parrington (1871-1929) is known for his three-volume intellectual history of America, Main Currents in American Thought. Born at Aurora, Ill., on Aug. 3, 1871, Vernon Parrington was of Scotch and Irish d...

The British writer Cicely Veronica Wedgwood (1910-1997) was a narrative historian of the 17th century. She depended on primary documents to make sense of history. One of Britain's most celebrated historians, Cicely Veronica Wedgwood was bo...

The Roman emperor Vespasian (9-79) was the founder of the Flavian dynasty, which marked the shift from a narrow Roman to a broader Italian--and ultimately empirewide--participation in the leadership of the Roman Empire. Vespasian, whose fu...

Vicente Guerrero (1783-1831) was a hero of the Mexican fight for independence from Spain. The second president of the Mexican Republic, he was an ardent defender of Indian rights and a harsh opponent of social and economic inequalities in ...

Spanish navigator VicenteYáñez Pinzón (1463-1514) captained the ship Niña during Italian explorer Christopher Columbus's first expedition to the New World in 1492 and went on to participate in the exploration of...

The French educator and philosopher Victor Cousin (1792-1867) helped to reorganize the French primary school system. He also established the study of philosophy as a major intellectual pursuit of the French secondary and higher schools. Vi...

Victor Emmanuel III (1869-1947) was king of Italy from 1900 to 1946. His cooperation with Mussolini helped bring an end to the Italian monarchy. Victor Emmanuel was born on Nov. 11, 1869, in Naples. After his father, Umberto I, was assassi...

The French author Victor Marie, Vicomte Hugo (1802-1885), was the supreme poet of French romanticism. He is noted for the breadth of his creation, the versatility that made him as much at ease in the novel as in the short lyric, and the my...

Victor Vasarely (1908-1997), the Hungarian-French artist, was recognized as the greatest innovator and master of Op Art. Victor de Vasarely was born in Pécs, Hungary, on April 9, 1908. As a young man he attended the Academy of Paint...