Nobel Prize winner Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. originated the nonviolence strategy within the activist civil rights movement. King was born on January 15, 1929, in
Atlanta, Georgia. Following graduation from Morehouse… more
Joining the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association in 1979, Earvin "Magic" Johnson, Jr. (born 1959) became one of basketball's most popular stars.
In November 1991,… more
BILL CLINTON
William Jefferson (Bill) Clinton (born 1946) won the Democratic nomination for the presidency in 1992 and then
defeated incumbent George Bush to become the 42nd… more
A. A. Attanasio is a prominent writer of science fiction, fantasy, and historical novels whose major works include the "Radix Tetrad" and the "Tales of Arthor" series, as well as stand-alone titles such as the popular Wyvern, the historica...
A.A. Milne (1882-1956) worked as an essayist, a playwright, a poet, and an adult novelist, in addition to his important contribution as an author of juvenile books. Although he attempted to excel in all literary genres, he was master of Ch...
Study Pack: 5 Biographies, 1 Summary, 4 Criticisms, 1 Quotes
Called the dean of American illustrators by critics and contemporaries, A. B. Frost has been described as the most American of the American illustrators of the turn of the century. Throughout his fifty-year career as an illustrator he disp...
Alfred Bertram Guthrie, Jr., is best known for his writing about the American West. His three most famous novels--sometimes referred to together as a trilogy--cover the eventful decades between 1830 and 1890, vividly depicting the lives of...
Study Pack: 2 Biographies, 1 Summary, 8 Criticisms
Arthur Christopher Benson was one of the most prolific and popular essayists of the Edwardian period. Son of an archbishop of Canterbury, editor of the selected letters of Queen Victoria, and author of "Land of Hope and Glory," he was an u...
Study Pack: 1 Biography, 1 Summary, 10 Criticisms, 1 Quotes
The Russian Zionist Aaron David Gordon (1856-1922) was the spiritual leader of the Palestinian Jewish labor movement. He taught that work is the basis of human civilization. Aaron Gordon was born in the village of Troyano, Podolia (region ...
The legacy of leading Australian poet A. D. Hope to world literature is unquestionable, comprising eleven books of poetry, seven collections of critical essays, and two plays. His writing, compelling in its originality and passion, and rig...
Study Pack: 1 Biography, 1 Summary, 10 Criticisms, 1 Quotes
Alexandre-Edmond Becquerel was the second of three generations of eminent French physicists. His father, Antoine-César Becquerel (1788-1878), was an experimental professor at the Paris Museum of Natural History; his son was Antoine-...
On All Fool's Day 1919 Alfred Edgar Coppard left his job as a clerk-cost accountant at the Eagle Ironworks in Oxford to live alone in a cottage at Shepards Pit, where he began to re-create himself as A. E. Coppard, author. Although the mos...
Alfred Edward Housman was the greatest English classical scholar of his time and a poet of great ability and mastery within the limitations of his chosen themes and form. A Shropshire Lad, published in 1896 at the author's expense, became ...
Study Pack: 3 Biographies, 1 Summary, 3 Essays, 1 Quotes
Without doubt, A. E. van Vogt was the first great Canadian science-fiction writer. In his heyday he was one of the most popular science-fiction authors in the world and is considered to belong to the so-called golden age of writers in the ...
A. E. W. Mason was one of the best and most popular storytellers in the first half of the twentieth century. He was remembered by his contemporaries for his genial and companionable nature and his hearty laugh and also for his enthusiasm f...
A. J. A. Symons is remembered chiefly for his biography of Fr[ederick] Rolfe (or Baron Corvo). He did, however, publish two other substantial biographies and a range of miscellaneous works in his short life, and his younger brother, the pr...
A. J. Cronin was a novelist, dramatist, and nonfiction writer whose works examine moral conflicts between the individual and society as his idealistic heroes pursue justice for the common man. His moralistic novels are known by the public ...
In 1976 at Michigan State University, American and Canadian scholars and poets gathered to honor A. J. M. Smith, seventy-four-year-old doyen of Canadian letters. It is fitting that such a symposium should have been held at an American univ...
Abraham Johannes Muste (1885-1967), American pacifist, led the movement for world peace and pioneered in developing nonviolent resistance as a means of securing social change. On Jan. 8, 1885, A. J. Muste was born in Zierikzee, the Netherl...
A. L. Kennedy is one of the most consistently energetic and critically acclaimed novelists to have emerged from Scotland in the closing years of the twentieth century. Since the early 1990s she has produced novels, collections of short sto...
Known for his scholarship in history, his insight into literature, and his own literary creativity, A. L. Rowse is also respected as one of the foremost British biographers of the twentieth century. Focusing on but not limiting himself to ...
A. M. Klein (1909-1972), journalist and lawyer, was widely regarded as one of Canada's leading poets. His novel The Second Scroll has been acclaimed by scholars and critics as a masterpiece. He contributed significantly to the emergence of...
Study Pack: 2 Biographies, 1 Summary, 6 Criticisms, 1 Quotes
A. N. Wilson's novels have enjoyed immediate critical success in Britain, and he has worked rapidly to consolidate his reputation with a series of books which combine high comedy with increasingly serious and complex interpretations of Bri...
Alan Patrick Herbert, recognized by the familiar initials A. P. H., wrote more than fifty books: musical comedies, novels, plays, light verse, reviews, and articles. A versatile author, he charmed a nation for more than fifty years with hi...
The American labor and civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph (1889-1979), considered the most prominent of all African American trade unionists, was one of the major figures in the struggle for civil rights. The son of an itinerant minist...
A. R. Gurney is one of the few major playwrights to emerge in the 1960s and maintain a flourishing stage career four decades later. His plays continue to be performed widely Off-Broadway and in resident, summer stock, community, and academ...
Although thus far she has written only three novels, A. S. Byatt has nonetheless achieved a distinguished place as a person of letters in the last two decades. As novelist, critic, reviewer, editor, and lecturer, Byatt offers in her work a...
Study Pack: 2 Biographies, 1 Summary, 11 Criticisms, 1 Quotes
The Scottish psychologist Alexander Sutherland Neill (1883- 1973) is most famous as the founder of Summerhill School and as the developer of its radical child-centered theory of education. A Failure at School Born in Forfar, Scotland, on O...
Dr. A. S. W. Rosenbach was called the "Napoleon of Books" by the New Yorker, the "Terror of the Auction Room" by the London tabloids, and "the most scholarly bookseller in [America]" by the writer and collector A. Edward Newton. He bought ...
Swami Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada (1896-1977) was a Hindu religious teacher who at the age of 69 came to the United States where he taught the practice of devotion to Krishna and founded the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. Ab...
Abbott Joseph Liebling's Between Meals (1962) is a singular reminiscence about his year as a student in Paris during the twenties. Born in New York City, Liebling paid his first visits to Paris as a child on European tours with his family,...
Aage Bohr followed his father, the eminent physicist Niels Bohr, into the field of theoretical physics. Bohr's father was director of the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen and instrumental in the development of the Manhattan ...
American lawyer and politician Aaron Burr (1756-1836) was vice president under Thomas Jefferson. After his term of office he conspired to invade Spanish territory in the Southwest and to separate certain western areas from the United State...
Study Pack: 2 Biographies, 2 Summaries, 1 Essay, 1 Quotes
Aaron Copland (1900-1990) was one of the most important figures in American music during the second quarter of the 20th century, both as a composer and as a spokesman who was concerned about making Americans conscious of the importance of ...
Aaron Hill is usually recognized because of others' achievements, not his own. He is probably better known as one of Alexander Pope's targets in the Dunciad than for his own poetry. So, too, his role in the development of the periodical or...
Aaron Klug was born on August 11, 1926, in Zelvas, Lithuania, the son of Lazar Klug, a cattle dealer, and Bella Silin Klug. When he was two years old, he and his parents emigrated to Durban, South Africa. While attending Durban High School...
American merchant Aaron Montgomery Ward (1843-1913) helped create mail-order merchandising and built the large mail-order house which bears his name. Born in Chatham, N.Y., A. Montgomery Ward moved to Niles, Mich., with his parents. He wen...
If verisimilitude were the benchmark for dramatic success, then writer and producer Aaron Sorkin, creator of the popular and iconoclastic television series The West Wing, would score one hundred percent. So real has his presidential charac...
Nathan Aaseng is a prolific writer of juvenile nonfiction and fiction with over 130 titles to his credit. While much of his early work was done in the field of sports, writing several popular series such as "You Are the Coach" for the Minn...
The Jewish scholar Abba Arika (ca. 175-ca. 247), also known as Rav, founded a yeshiva, or academy, in Sura, Babylonia. The school remained an important center of Jewish learning until the 11th century. Abba Arika was born to an aristocrati...
The Israeli statesman, diplomat, and scholar Abba Eban (born 1915) served as Israel's United Nations representative and ambassador to the United States until 1959. He was Israel's foreign minister between 1966 and 1974. Abba Solomon Eban w...
Abba Hillel Silver (1893-1963), rabbi and Zionist leader, was considered among the most prominent leaders of American Judaism. Abba H. Silver, the son of Moses and Diana Silver, was born in Neinstadt, Lithuania, on Jan. 28, 1893. He was th...
Abbas I (1571-1629), called "the Great," was a shah of Persia, the fifth king of the Safavid dynasty. He brought Persia once again to the zenith of power and influence politically, economically, and culturally. The greatest shah of the Saf...
Maj. J. R. Abbey's book collection was the largest and one of the most remarkable of his generation. He is perhaps best known for his collection of color-plate books and fine bindings, but he also collected many illuminated manuscripts and...
Writer and activist Abbie Hoffman (1936-1989) was best known for his anti-war protests as a leader of the Youth International Party in the 1960s. Abbie Hoffman was born November 30, 1936, in Worcester, Massachusetts, and educated at Brande...
Abbott Lawrence (1792-1855), American manufacturer and diplomat, helped develop the New England textile industry and later represented those interests in the U.S. Congress. Abbott Lawrence was born on Dec. 16, 1792, in Groton, Mass., into ...
The American college president and political scientist Abbott Lawrence Lowell (1856-1943) strengthened the Harvard undergraduate college during his presidency at the university. As a political scientist, he stressed the role of parties in ...
Lee K. Abbott is best known as a short-story writer who addresses the themes of lost love and family grief with an inventive voice and a deeply felt compassion for his naive, self-destructive characters. Abbott's stories tend to be comic, ...
Abd al-Malik (646-705) was the ninth caliph of the Arab Empire and the fifth caliph of the Umayyad dynasty. He overcame the dissidents in the Second Civil War and reorganized the administration of the Islamic Empire. The son of Marwan I, A...
The Berber Abd al-Mumin (ca. 1094-1163) was the founder of the Almohad dynasty in North Africa and Spain. Little is known of the background of Abd al-Mumin except that he was born about 1094 in a village close to Tlemcen (in present-day Al...
The Algerian political and religious leader Abd el-Kadir (1807-1883) was the first national hero of Algeria. In 15 years of armed struggle against the French occupation of Algeria, he became a symbol of tenacious resistance to colonialism....
Abd al-Rahman I (731-788) was emir of Islamic Spain from 756 to 788. Known as "the Immigrant," he established the rule of the Umayyad dynasty in the Iberian Peninsula. Born near Damascus, Syria, Abd al-Rahman I was the son of the Umayyad p...
Abd al-Rahman III (891-961) was the greatest of the Umayyad rulers of Spain and the first to take the title of Caliph. During his reign Islamic Spain became wealthy and prosperous. Abd al-Rahman III, called al-Nasir or the Defender (of the...
