Alphabetical Notable Historical People Name Game

@vonny,

Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn, 3 February 1809 – 4 November 1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn,was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period.

1 Reply

@Dutchy,

Tenzing Norgay (approx. 1914-May 9, 1986)
Nepalese Sherpa guy who was a large part of what/who helped Sir Edmund Hillary become one of the first to ascend to the top of Mount Everest.

More can be found here:
www.tenzing-norgay.com/pages/tenzingnorgaysherpa.html

1 Reply

@Sturgis,

George Orwell 1903--50. Writer of light satirical books and essays which I would never recommend to any ladies.

1 Reply

@spendius,

Louis Pasteur

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Louis Pasteur (December 27, 1822 – September 28, 1895) was a French chemist and microbiologist who is well known for his discoveries of the principles of vaccination, microbial fermentation and pasteurization. He is remembered for his remarkable breakthroughs in the causes and preventions of diseases, and his discoveries have saved countless lives ever since. Pasteur reduced mortality from puerperal fever, and created the first vaccines for rabies and anthrax. His medical discoveries provided direct support for the germ theory of disease and its application in clinical medicine. Pasteur is best known to the general public for his invention of the technique of treating milk and wine to stop bacterial contamination, a process now called pasteurization. He is regarded as one of the three main founders of bacteriology, together with Ferdinand Cohn and Robert Koch, and is popularly known as the "father of microbiology".

Pasteur also made significant discoveries in chemistry, most notably on the molecular basis for the asymmetry of certain crystals and racemization. He was the Director of the Pasteur Institute, established in 1887, till his death, and his body lies beneath the institute in a vault covered in depictions of his accomplishments in Byzantine mosaics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pasteur

1 Reply

@firefly,

Anthony Quinn

Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca (April 21, 1915 – June 3, 2001), more commonly known as Anthony Quinn, was a Mexican American actor, as well as a painter and writer. He starred in numerous critically acclaimed and commercially successful films, including Zorba the Greek, Lawrence of Arabia, The Guns of Navarone, The Message, Guns for San Sebastian, Lion of the Desert and La Strada. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor twice: for Viva Zapata! in 1952 and Lust for Life in 1956.

1 Reply

@Dutchy,

Mayer Amschel Rothschild

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Mayer Amschel Rothschild (23 February 1744 – 19 September 1812) was a German-Jewish banker and the founder of the Rothschild banking dynasty, which is believed to have become the wealthiest family in human history. Referred to as the "founding father of international finance," Rothschild was ranked seventh on the Forbes magazine list of "The Twenty Most Influential Businessmen of All Time" in 2005
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayer_Amschel_Rothschild#Family

1 Reply

@firefly,

Salome--AD 14--about AD 70.

Christian traditions depict her as an icon of dangerous female seductiveness, notably in regard to the dance mentioned in the New Testament, which is thought to have had an erotic element to it, and in some later transformations it has further been iconized as the Dance of the Seven Veils. Other elements of Christian tradition concentrate on her lighthearted and cold foolishness that, according to the gospels, led to John the Baptist's death.

1 Reply

@spendius,

Titian

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Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576) known in English as Titian was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near Belluno (in Veneto), in the Republic of Venice. During his lifetime he was often called da Cadore, taken from the place of his birth.

Recognized by his contemporaries as "The Sun Amidst Small Stars" (recalling the famous final line of Dante's Paradiso), Titian was one of the most versatile of Italian painters, equally adept with portraits, landscape backgrounds, and mythological and religious subjects. His painting methods, particularly in the application and use of color, would exercise a profound influence not only on painters of the Italian Renaissance, but on future generations of Western art.

During the course of his long life, Titian's artistic manner changed drastically but he retained a lifelong interest in color. Although his mature works may not contain the vivid, luminous tints of his early pieces, their loose brushwork and subtlety of tone are without precedent in the history of Western art
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titian

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/images/h2/h2_14.40.640.jpg

Titian, Portrait of a Man, ca. 1515

1 Reply

@firefly,

Francis Henry Underwood (January 12, 1825-August 7,1894)
American author and lawyer who became a founder of The Atlantic Monthly in order to further the antislavery cause.

Following a year at Amherst (Mass.) College, Underwood went to Kentucky where he studied law. There his strong aversion to slavery was heightened by close observation. In 1850 he returned to Massachusetts and, after three years of political work, joined the publishing house of Phillips, Sampson and Company as assistant editor. The antislavery atmosphere of the northeast led him to the idea of publishing a literary magazine to oppose slavery. By 1857, after several years of editorial experience, he had gained the support of such liberal writers as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and James Russell Lowell and persuaded his firm to publish a magazine. Edited by Lowell, with Underwood as assistant editor, The Atlantic Monthly began publication in November 1857. Underwood left the magazine in 1859 after it was purchased by another firm, resuming his political activity and writing the biographies of Lowell, Longfellow, and the poet and reformer John Greenleaf Whittier, as well as several short stories and novels.

His best known book is Quabbin: The Story of a Small Town (1893), an account of his boyhood in Enfield. At his death he was U.S. consul in Scotland.

0 Replies

Paul Valéry

Ambroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valéry (French: 30 October 1871 – 20 July 1945) was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. His interests were sufficiently broad that he can be classified as a polymath. In addition to his poetry and fiction (drama and dialogues), his interests included aphorisms on art, history, letters, music, and current events

1 Reply

@firefly,

George Washington

George Washington (1732-1799) - American revolutionary, general, first US president

1 Reply

@vonny,

Malcolm X
Malcolm X Malcolm X Born May 19, 1925 Omaha, Nebraska, USA Died February 21, 1965 Manhattan, New York, USA This article is about Malcolm X the man. For the biographical movie of the same name, see Malcolm X (film). Malcolm X, (May 19, 1925 - February 21, 1965), born Malcolm Little, also known as Detroit Red, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, and Omowale, was a longtime spokesman for the Nation of Islam. He was also founder of the Muslim Mosque, Inc. and the Organization of Afro-American Unity.
During his life, Malcolm went from being a street-wise Boston hoodlum to one of the most prominent black nationalist leaders in the United States to a martyr of Islam. As a militant leader, Malcolm X advocated black pride, economic self-reliance, and identity politics. He ultimately rose to become a world renowned African American/Pan-Africanist and human rights activist.

Malcolm X was assassinated in New York City on February 21, 1965 on the first day of National Brotherhood Week.

1 Reply

@Dutchy,

Hideki Yukawa

Hideki Yukawa (23 January 1907 – 8 September 1981), was a Japanese theoretical physicist and the first Japanese Nobel laureate. He was one of the world's most highly-respected theoretical physicists. His most visible contributions to science were in the field of particle physics.

1 Reply

@firefly,

Zenobia

Zenobia was a 3rd-century Arabic Queen of the Palmyrene Empire in Syria, who led a famous revolt against the Roman Empire. The second wife of King Septimius Odaenathus, Zenobia became queen of the Palmyrene Empire following Odaenathus' death in 267. By 269, Zenobia had expanded the empire, conquering Egypt and expelling the Roman prefect, Tenagino Probus, who was beheaded after he led an attempt to recapture the territory. She ruled over Egypt until 274, when she was defeated and taken as a hostage to Rome by Emperor Aurelian.

1 Reply

@vonny,

Neil Armstrong

Neil Alden Armstrong (August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012) was an American astronaut and the first person to walk on the Moon. He was also an aerospace engineer, naval aviator, test pilot, and university professor. Before becoming an astronaut, Armstrong was an officer in the U.S. Navy and served in the Korean War. After the war, he earned his bachelor's degree at Purdue University and served as a test pilot at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics High-Speed Flight Station, now known as the Dryden Flight Research Center, where he logged over 900 flights. He later completed graduate studies at the University of Southern California.

A participant in the U.S. Air Force's Man in Space Soonest and X-20 Dyna-Soar human spaceflight programs, Armstrong joined the NASA Astronaut Corps in 1962. He made his first space flight, as command pilot of Gemini 8, in 1966, becoming NASA's first civilian astronaut to fly in space. On this mission, he performed the first docking of two spacecraft, with pilot David Scott.

Armstrong's second and last spaceflight was as mission commander of the Apollo 11 moon landing, in July 1969. On this mission, Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descended to the lunar surface and spent two and a half hours exploring, while Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit in the Command Module. Along with Collins and Aldrin, Armstrong was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Richard Nixon; President Jimmy Carter presented Armstrong the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 1978; he and his former crewmates received the Congressional Gold Medal in 2009.

Armstrong died in Cincinnati, Ohio, on August 25, 2012, at the age of 82, after complications from coronary artery bypass surgery

1 Reply

@firefly,

Bacchylides

Bacchylides - Ancient Greek. (5th century BC) was a Greek lyric poet. Later Greeks included him in the canonical list of nine lyric poets which included his uncle Simonides. The elegance and polished style of his lyrics have been noted in Bacchylidean scholarship since at least Longinus. Some scholars, however, have characterized these qualities as superficial charm. He has often been compared unfavourably with his contemporary, Pindar, as "a kind of Boccherini to Pindar's Haydn", yet the differences in their styles doesn't allow for easy comparison and "to blame Bacchylides for not being Pindar is as childish a judgement as to condemn...Marvel for missing the grandeur of Milton." His career coincided with the ascendency of dramatic styles of poetry, as embodied in the works of Aeschylus or Sophocles, and he is in fact one of the last poets of major significance within the more ancient tradition of purely lyric poetry. The most notable features of his lyrics are their clarity in expression and simplicity of thought,making them an ideal introduction to the study of Greek lyric poetry in general and to Pindar's verse in particular.

1 Reply

@vonny,

Confucius

Confucius (551–479 BC) was a Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher of the Spring and Autumn period of Chinese history.

The philosophy of Confucius emphasized personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice and sincerity. His followers competed successfully with many other schools during the Hundred Schools of Thought era only to be suppressed in favor of the Legalists during the Qin Dynasty. Following the victory of Han over Chu after the collapse of Qin, Confucius's thoughts received official sanction and were further developed into a system known as Confucianism.

Confucius is traditionally credited with having authored or edited many of the Chinese classic texts including all of the Five Classics, but modern scholars are cautious of attributing specific assertions to Confucius himself. Aphorisms concerning his teachings were compiled in the Analects, but only many years after his death.

Confucius's principles had a basis in common Chinese tradition and belief. He championed strong family loyalty, ancestor worship, respect of elders by their children and (in traditional interpretations) of husbands by their wives. He also recommended family as a basis for ideal government. He espoused the well-known principle "Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself", an early version of the Golden Rule.

1 Reply

@firefly,

Damocles

Damocles is a figure featured in a single moral anecdote commonly referred to as "the Sword of Damocles", which was a late addition to classical Greek culture. The figure belongs properly to legend rather than Greek myth. The anecdote apparently figured in the lost history of Sicily by Timaeus of Tauromenium (c. 356–260 BC). The Roman orator Cicero may have read it in Diodorus Siculus. He made use of it in his Tusculanae Disputationes, by which means it passed into the European cultural mainstream.

1 Reply

@vonny,

Euclid (365 b.c.-275 b.c.)
Euclid was a Greek mathematician and scientist who taught at the ancient Library of Alexandria and laid out the principles that came to define Euclidean geometry. His masterwork, Stoicheia (Elements), is a 13-volume exploration all corners of mathematics, based on the works of Aristotle, Eudoxus of Cnidus, Plato, Pythagoras, and others who came before him. Little is known about his life, and what little is recounted is often in error, as the name Euclid was fairly common in his time and place.

He is sometimes credited with one original theory, a method of exhaustion through which the area of a circle and volume of a sphere can be calculated, but he left a much greater mark as a teacher. He presented the theorems and problems with great clarity, showed the solutions concisely and logically, and his Elements has remained a standard geometry text for more than two thousand years.

1 Reply

@Sturgis,

Stephen Foster

Stephen Collins Foster (July 4, 1826 – January 13, 1864), known as the "father of American music", was an American songwriter primarily known for his parlour and minstrel music. Foster wrote over 200 songs; among his best known are "Oh! Susanna," "Camptown Races," "Old Folks at Home," "My Old Kentucky Home," "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair," "Old Black Joe," and "Beautiful Dreamer." Many of his compositions remain popular more than 150 years after he wrote them.

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Alphabetical Notable Historical People Name Game

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