G. A. Henty once described himself as "a fierce and truculent Briton, ready to defy the whole world." It was an exaggerated yet appropriate description, given Henty's character and appearance. He was a tall, powerfully built man, with a la...

G. E. M. Anscombe was a wide-ranging analytic philosopher of the first rank, a close student and translator of major works of Ludwig Wittgenstein, and a Roman Catholic social activist and apologist. She was known for her keen and penetrati...

Godfrey Harold Hardy was one of the foremost mathematicians in England during the early part of the 20th century. He was primarily a pure mathematician, specializing in branches of mathematics that study the behavior of numbers (such as nu...

Considered the founder of evolutionary botany, George Ledyard Stebbins, Jr., was the first scientist to apply modern synthetic evolutionary theory to the plant kingdom. Stebbins was one of the twentieth-century architects who developed the...

The American psychologist and educator Granville Stanley Hall (1844-1924) pioneered in developing psychology in the United States. His wide-ranging and prolific writings reveal a central theme best characterized as genetic psychology or ev...

The English historian George Macaulay Trevelyan (1876-1962) is known for his defense and illustration of history as a literary art. George Macaulay Trevelyan was born at Welcombe near Stratford-on-Avon on Feb. 16, 1876, the son of Sir Geor...

The German instrument maker Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit (1686-1736) made the first reliable thermometers. The temperature scale he originated is named after him. Born in Danzig on May 14, 1686, Gabriel Fahrenheit was the son of a well-to-do ...

Gabriel García Moreno (1821-1875) was an Ecuadorian political leader whose dynamic leadership brought stability and improvement to his country. Though mostly governing as a dictator, he broke the power of the military and raised the...

Broad-minded, ambitious, well-read, and socially inept, Gabriel Harvey was probably one of the most visible literary personalities of his day. Out of a prosperous middle-class background, he carved a multiform personal and public career. H...

French philosopher Gabriel Marcel (1889-1973) described man's place in the world in terms of such fundamental human experiences as relationships, love, fidelity, hope, and faith. His brand of existentialism was said to be largely unknown i...

Gabriel Prosser (ca. 1775-1800) was the African American slave leader of an unsuccessful revolt in Richmond, Va., during the summer of 1800. Gabriel Prosser, the slave of Thomas H. Prosser, was about 25 years old when he came to the attent...

The Italian poet and patriot Gabriele D'Annunzio (1863-1938) was one of the last major representatives of fin-de-siècle decadence in European literature. Gabriele D'Annunzio was born on March 12, 1863, at Pescara of well-to-do paren...

Beach volleyball star Gabrielle Reece likes to stay busy. In addition to a full season of play in the Women's Beach Volleyball League (WBVL), she models, works on television, and has written a book. On the sand, Reece led her league in kil...

Leslie Gadallah's work first appeared on science-fiction bookshelves in the late 1980s, when Canadian science-fiction writers were just beginning to make their presence known both in Canada and in the all-important American market. After a...

The Italian opera composer Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848) was one of the first composers of the romantic movement in Italy. Gaetano Donizetti was born in Bergamo on Nov. 29, 1797. He received his first instruction in music from an uncle, bu...

In his youth Gagarin was a Russian diplomat and served in Munich, London, and Paris. His wide circle of friends and contacts included Fedor Ivanovich Tiutchev, Mikhail Iurievich Lermontov, Petr Iakovlevich Chaadaev, Aleksandr Ivanovich Tur...

One of the most distinctive and original comic artists of our time, Gahan Wilson has established a secure reputation as a master of the macabre. "I've always had an innocent affection for the ghastly and the macabre," Wilson explained to R...

Gail Devers is one of the fastest women in the world. In 1992 she achieved fame by winning the 100-meter sprint at the Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, then became only the second woman to repeat as champion in the event as she won aga...

Gerd Gaiser grew up in the upheaval surrounding World War I, came of age in the year of the stock market crash, and fought in World War II. His career--really only an avocation--as a writer flourished after the war, bringing a number of di...

Gaius Marius (ca. 157-86 BC) was a Roman general and popular politician. His military reforms and great commands led to the growing involvement of the army in politics and the eventual collapse of the republican system. Born near Arpinum i...

Robert Galbraith (Caubraith is the old Scots spelling) was one of several Scottish members of a distinguished circle of logicians, philosophers, and theologians that flourished at the University of Paris during the first three decades of t...

Galen (130-200), Greek physician, anatomist, physiologist, philosopher, and lexicographer, was probably the most influential physician of all time. Throughout his life Galen was a prolific writer, producing his first books, Three Commentar...

The Italian scientist Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) is renowned for his epoch-making contributions to astronomy, physics, and scientific philosophy. Galileo was born in Pisa on Feb. 15, 1564, the first child of Vincenzio Galilei, a merchant ...

Louise von Gall was one of many authors in the nineteenth century who were judged by the critics to be producers of Trivialliteratur or Unterhaltungsromane (light novels). But some of these authors dealt with matters in need of urgent atte...

William Davis Gallagher was one of the most important promoters of literary culture in the trans-Appalachian West in the first half of the nineteenth century. Himself a poet and essayist of considerable repute, he edited and published a se...