Zabdiel Boylston (1679-1766) was the first American physician to use inoculation against smallpox in 1721 during a Boston epidemic. Zabdiel Boylston was born March 9, 1679, near the present city of Brookline, Mass., and studied medicine wi...

Zachary Taylor (1784-1850), twelfth president of the United States, was, as one of the two military heroes of the Mexican War, the last Whig president. Living in a time when generals were politically appointed and the Army poorly trained, ...

Peterson Zah (born 1937) has devoted his life to the service of the Navajo people. He has been active in the field of education, in legal matters, in attempts to reconcile disputes with the Hopi, and in efforts to resolve the issues of dep...

Ask anyone to name a western writer and chances are the first name to come to mind will be Zane Grey (1872-1939). Considered to be the father of the modern American western novel, Grey was beloved by two generations of readers. His strengt...

Kanze Zeami (1364-1444), also called Zeami Motokiyo, was a Japanese actor, playwright, and critic. His theoretical works on the art of the No are as justly celebrated as his dramas. It was the great esthete, statesman, and patron of the fi...

The career of Zebulon Pike (1779-1813), American soldier and explorer, was dominated by ambiguously motivated explorations of the American West. During one of these he unsuccessfully tried to climb the Colorado mountain named for him, Pike...

In the foreword to Talking Cure (1982) Cynthia McDonald calls Lisa Zeidner's poetry "fugal": "The new lines enter, extending the work past the natural stopping point of each phase so the poems continually re-engage." Zeidner's repetition a...

The Greek philosopher Zeno of Citium (335-263 BC) was the founder of Stoicism. His teachings had a profound influence throughout the ancient world and in important respects helped pave the way for Christianity. Zeno the son of Mnaseas, was...

Chang Chih-tung (1837-1909) was a Chinese official and reformer. A brilliant Confucian scholar, he was convinced of the peerless quality of China's traditional culture. However, to preserve it, he introduced Western-type industry, educatio...

The Chinese painter Chao Meng-fu (1254-1322) was a high official under the Yüan dynasty, 1279-1369, and helped to establish the tradition of amateur scholarly painting, wen-jen-hua. Chao Meng-fu was born at Huchow in Chekiang Province...

Cheng Ho (1371-ca. 1433) was a eunuch in the service of the Ming emperor Yung-lo and commander in chief of the Chinese expeditionary fleet to the South Seas in the early years of the 15th century. Born into a family named Ma, presumably of...

Chou En-lai (1898-1976) was a Chinese Communist leader and premier of the People's Republic of China. From the 1920s on Chou was among the top leaders of the Chinese Communist party. Chou En-lai was born in Huaian, Kiangsu Province, into a...

The Chinese philosopher Chuang Tzu (ca. 369-ca. 286 BC), also known as Chuang Chou, was the most brilliant of the early Taoists and the greatest prose writer of his time. Not much is known of the life of Chuang Tzu. The Shih Chi (Historica...

The publication of Dale Zieroth's work in two important 1970s anthologies established him as one of the significant new voices in Canadian poetry of the decade. That Zieroth's poems were included in Storm Warning (1971), edited by Al Purdy...

A member of the struggle for Tunisian independence, Zine el Abidine Ben Ali (born 1936) held many posts in the new government, rising to the position of prime minister in 1987. On November 7, 1987, he removed the aging and infirm President...

Zénobe Gramme was a true enigma, and it is remarkable that he was able to accomplish what he did. Born on April 4, 1826, in Jehay-Bedegnée, Belgium, Gramme was the son of an educated family of modest means. With the family's ...

Zog I (1895-1961) was an Albanian ruler who fought to defend Albanian autonomy. Ahmed Bey Zog, originally Zogolli (Zogu), son of the most powerful Muslim chieftain in northern Albania, the head of the Mati tribe, was born in the village of...

Zona Gale was born in Portage, Wisconsin. After graduating from the University of Wisconsin in 1895, she worked as a newspaper reporter in Milwaukee, then joined the staff of the New York Evening Post in 1901. Preferring the life of a free...

Zoroaster (ca. 628 BC- ca. 551 BC) was a prophet of ancient Iran and the founder of the Iranian national religion. Zoroastrianism is ranked with Judaism, Christianity, and Islam among the higher religions originating in the Middle East. Th...

Zosimos was an Egyptian who wrote a book on Alchemy in the fourth century A.D. There is not much more that can be observed about his life with any degree of certainty. He is mentioned in ancient books as a wise man and a mystical figure. T...

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (1928-1979), Pakistan's president and then prime minister, mobilized his country's first mass-based political party around a socialist ideology and highly independent foreign policy. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was born on Janu...