B. B. King (born 1925) is one of the most successful artists in the history of the blues. Today his ability as a blues guitarist is remains unparalleled. "B. B. King is widely recognized as the greatest living blues guitarist," Dimitri Ehr...

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891-1956) was an Indian social reformer and politician who devoted himself to improving the life of untouchables, particularly of his own caste, the Mahars. Bhimrao Ambedkar was born at Mhow, Madhya Pradesh. He att...

No one knows as yet who B. Traven really was. Without revealing his identity, he became a best-selling author in the German-speaking countries of Europe with his first novel, Das Totenschiff (The Death Ship) in 1926. Although he always cla...

Balthazar Johannes Vorster (1915-1983) was a South African political leader who emerged as a major figure in Afrikaner nationalism. Noted as a right-wing figure, he was passionately hostile to liberalism and communism. Balthazar Vorster wa...

Ba Maw (1893-1977) was the first premier of independent Burma (now Myanmar) and the leader of the wartime government that ruled in cooperation with the occupying Japanese from 1942 to 1945. Ba Maw was born in Maubin on February 8, 1893. Hi...

The younger daughter of Ralph Zane and Genevieve Converse Moore, Natalie Zane Moore Babbitt was born on 28 July 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression, and spent the first eighteen years of her life in various towns and communities in ...

Called "the athlete phenomenon of our time, man or woman," Mildred "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias (1913-1956) participated in almost every sport. She excelled as an Olympic athlete and as a golfer. Mildred Didrikson, known throughout her life a...

The Fables of Babrius, written in choliambic verse, constitutes the earliest extant collection of Aesopic fables in Greek and is the only extant Greek collection from antiquity whose author attempts to present his fables in a more sophisti...

Babar the Conqueror (1483-1530) was a descendant of Tamerlane and Genghis Khan, who founded the Mughal (Mogul) dynasty of India and, although a devout Muslim, bequeathed a legacy of toleration for non-Muslims that characterized the Empire ...

Manuel Cabeza de Baca's regional, historical narrative, Historia de Vicente Silva (1896), came into existence in the context of late-nineteenth-century land grabbing in northern New Mexico (the loss of communal land holdings that were turn...

An inveterate polymath, Riccardo Bacchelli had extensive and diverse cultural interests. His inquisitive nature and the enduring vitality of his works are of value not only to literary critics but also to historians, economists, sociologis...

Isaac Backus (1724-1806), an American Baptist leader, was a major figure in New England church history and was instrumental in the eventual securing of the separation of church and state for the new United States. Isaac Backus was born of ...

Shaykh 'Abd al-Hamid Ben Badis (1889-1940) was the leader of the Islamic Reform Movement in Algeria between the two world wars. At a time when highly visible Algerian politicians were advocating Algeria's assimilation into France, Ben Badi...

When he was fourteen years old, writer Adam Bagdasarian experienced a transforming event: he read William Saroyan's My Name Is Aram. For the young Bagdasarian, this book was a "revelation," as he noted on the National Book Foundation Web s...

Elisaveta Bagryana is one of the most outstanding representatives of contemporary Bulgarian poetry. She belongs to the generation that came on the scene during the years after World War I, but she was also a contemporary of several more ge...

Abigail Abbot Bailey was an eighteenth-century Congregationalist woman whose memoir describes her religious response to her husband's extended incestuous involvement with one of their teenage daughters. As one of a relatively small number ...

Jacob Bailey was one of the most prolific writers in late-eighteenth-century North America and perhaps the finest practitioner of Hudibrastic verse satire after Samuel Butler himself. However, he published few of his works (a collection wa...

"I had finally learned that my imagination, was never as good as the real thing," wrote Australian author Alan Baillie, explaining his first success as an author of young-adult fiction in an essay for Something about the Author Autobiograp...

Guillaume de Baillou was born in 1538, the son of a famous mathematician, architect, and engineer. His affluent family owned an estate at Nogent-le-rotrou. He studied at the University of Paris, concentrating in Latin, Greek, and Philosoph...

Augustine Baker was the chief exponent of British Catholic mysticism during a period when mystical and other forms of devotion were on the rise in Europe in response to the Reformation. He was also a significant actor in the history of Bri...

Sara Josephine Baker (1873-1945) was a physician working toward improving the public health care and reducing infant mortality rates substantially in New York City. Sara Josephine Baker was a pioneer in the field of public health and an ac...

The Italian author, courtier, and diplomat Baldassare Castiglione (1478-1529) is known primarily for his "Book of the Courtier." This work, which portrays the ideal courtier, was a chief vehicle in spreading Italian humanism into England a...

Baldur von Schirach was the youngest of several defendants tried for war crimes before an International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, Germany, after World War II. The former head of Nazi Germany's Hitler Youth organization received a sen...

Joseph Glover Baldwin (21 January 1815-30 September 1864), Southwest humorist, lawyer, jurist, and politician, is best known today for a single book, The Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi (1853), twenty-six sketches and satires depict...

During the middle years of the sixteenth century, William Baldwin was a recognized author, editor, and translator whose published works show both a linguistic and narrative complexity and a sophisticated acumen about the political power of...