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Bernie Sanders was born on 8 September 1941 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. He is an actor, known for My X-Girlfriend's Wedding Reception (1999), The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel (2020) and Tucker Carlson Tonight (2016). He has been married to Jane Sanders since 28 May 1988. He was previously married to Deborah Shiling.- Writer
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Noam Chomsky was born on December 7, 1928, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His undergraduate and graduate years were spent at the University of Pennsylvania, where he received his PhD in linguistics in 1955. From 1951-55, he was a Junior Fellow of the Harvard University Society of Fellows. While a Junior Fellow he completed his doctoral dissertation, entitled, "Transformational Analysis." The major theoretical viewpoints of the dissertation appeared in the monograph "Syntactic Structure", published in 1957. This formed part of a more extensive work, "The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory", circulated in mimeograph in 1955 and published in 1975.
Chomsky joined the staff of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1955 and in 1961 was appointed full professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics (now the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy.) From 1966 to 1976 he held the Ferrari P. Ward Professorship of Modern Languages and Linguistics. In 1976 he was appointed Institute Professor. From 1958-59 he was in residence at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, NJ. In the spring of 1969 he delivered the John Locke Lectures at Oxford; in January 1970 he delivered the Bertrand Russell Memorial Lecture at Cambridge University; in 1972, the Nehru Memorial Lecture in New Delhi; and in 1977 the Huizinga Lecture in Leiden, among many others. Prof. Chomsky has received honorary degrees from the University of London, the University of Chicago, Loyola University of Chicago, Swarthmore College, Delhi University, Bard College, the University of Massachusetts, the University of Pennsylvania, Georgetown University, Amherst College, Cambridge University, the University of Buenos Aires, McGill University, the Universitat Rovira I Virgili, Tarragona, Columbia University, the University of Connecticut, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, the University of Western Ontario, the University of Toronto, Harvard University, the University of Calcutta and Universidad Nacional De Colombia. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Science. He is also a member of other professional and learned societies in the United States and abroad, and is a recipient of the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award of the American Psychological Association, the Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences, the Helmholtz Medal, the Dorothy Eldridge Peacemaker Award, the Ben Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science, and others. Chomsky has written and lectured widely on linguistics, philosophy, intellectual history, contemporary issues, international affairs and U.S. foreign policy. His works include "Aspects of the Theory of Syntax"; "Cartesian Linguistics"; "Sound Pattern of English" (with Morris Halle); "Language and Mind"; "American Power and the New Mandarins"; "At War with Asia"; "For Reasons of State"; "Peace in the Middle East?"; "Reflections on Language"; "The Political Economy of Human Rights, Vol. I and II" (with E.S. Herman); "Rules and Representations"; "Lectures on Government and Binding"; "Towards a New Cold War"; "Radical Priorities"; "Fateful Triangle"; "Knowledge of Language"; "Turning the Tide"; "Pirates and Emperors"; "On Power and Ideology"; "Language and Problems of Knowledge"; "The Culture of Terrorism"; "Manufacturing Consent" (with E.S. Herman); "Necessary Illusions"; "Deterring Democracy"; "Year 501"; "Rethinking Camelot: JFK, the Vietnam War and US Political Culture"; "Letters from Lexington"; "World Orders, Old and New"; "The Minimalist Program"; "Powers and Prospects"; "The Common Good"; Profit Over People"; "The New Military Humanism"; "New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind"; "Rogue States"; "A New Generation Draws the Line"; "9-11"; and "Understanding Power".- Producer
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Kyle Kulinski is an American talk show host and progressive political commentator. He is the host of Secular Talk, also known as The Kyle Kulinski Show. Kulinski was born and raised in Westchester, New York. He received a Bachelor's degree in Political Science from Iona College. Kulinski is most known for being one of the founders of the Justice Democrats, a progressive offshoot of the Democratic Party in the United States. As of 2017, he is a member of its board of directors.- Writer
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Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia. He was the son of Alberta Christine (Williams), a schoolteacher, and Martin Luther King Sr. a pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. For Martin the civil rights movement began one summer in 1935 when he was six years old. Two of his friends did not show up to play ball with him and Martin decided to go looking for them. When he went to one of the boys' house, their mother met him at the front door and told him in a rude tone that her son would not be coming out to play with him that day or any other day because they were white and he was black. Years later, Martin admitted that those cruel words altered the direction of his life. As a teenager, Martin went through school with great distinction. He skipped ninth and 12th grades, and excelled on the violin and as as a public speaker. One evening after taking top prize in a debate tournament, he and his teacher were riding home on the bus discussing the event when the driver ordered them to give up their seats for two white passengers who had just boarded. Martin was infuriated as he recalled, "I intended to stay right in my seat and protest," but his teacher convinced him to obey the law and they stood for the remainder of the 90-mile trip. "That night will never leave my memory as long as I live. It was the angriest I had ever been in my life. Never before, or afterward, can I remember myself being so angry," he later recalled.
Martin entered Morehouse College, his father's alma mater, when he was 15 with the intention of becoming a doctor or lawyer. After graduating from Morehouse at the age of 19, he decided to enter Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania. This private nondenominational college had only 100 students at the time, and Martin was one of six black students. This was the first time that he had lived in a community that was mostly white. He won the highest class ranking and a $1,200 fellowship for graduate school. In 1951 he entered Boston University School of Theology to to pursue his Ph.D. While at Crozer Martin had attended a lecture by Howard University President Mordecai Johnson, who spoke about Mohandas K. Gandhi, India's spiritual leader whose nonviolent protests helped to free his country from British rule, and that gave Martin the basis for positive change. It was here that he met and married his wife Coretta Scott King, who was a soprano studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. In 1954 Martin accepted a call to the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, to be its pastor. Despite Coretta's warning that it would not be safe for them in Alabama, the poorest and most racist state in the US, Martin insisted that they move there. Many local black ministers attended Martin's first sermon at the church, among them the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, who congratulated him on his speech. The two became fast friends and often discussed life in general and the challenges of desegregation in particular. Then an incident changed Martin's life forever.
On the cold winter night of December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a 42-year-old black seamstress who worked in a downtown Montgomery department store, boarded a bus for home and sat in the back with the other black passengers. A few stops later, she was ordered to give up her seat to a white passenger who just boarded. She repeatedly refused, prompting the driver to call the police, who arrested her. In response to Mrs. Parks' courage, the town's black leaders formed the Montgomery Improvement Association and elected Martin as its leader. The first goal of the MIA was to boycott the city's bus system until public transportation laws were changed. The strike was long, bitter and violent, but eventually the city's white merchants began to complain that their businesses were suffering because of the strike, and the city responded by filing charges against Martin. While in court to appeal the charges, he learned that the U.S. Supreme Court had affirmed the decision by the Alabama Supreme Court that the local laws requiring segregation on buses were unconstitutional. The first civil rights battle was won, but for Martin it was the first of many more difficult ones. On November 29, 1959, he offered his resignation to the members of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, as several months earlier he had been elected leader of a new organization called the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). He moved his family to Atlanta and began to establish a regional network of nonviolent organizations.
In April 1961 he coordinated the SCLC and other civil-rights organizations to take two busloads of white and black passengers through the South on a "freedom ride" for publicity reasons. In Virgina and North and South Carolina there were no incidents, but in Anniston, Alabama, the ride became a rolling horror when one bus was burned and its passengers beaten by an angry racist white mob. In Birmingham, angry mobs--with some policemen joining them--greeted the bus with more violence, which was broken up when state police intervened and stopped the chaos. The violence shook Martin and he decided to abandon the freedom rides before someone was killed, but the riders insisted they complete the ride to Montgomery, where they where greeted with more violence. In January 1963 Martin arrived in Birmingham with Ralph Abernathy to organize a freedom march aimed to end segregation. Despite an injunction issued by city authorities against the gathering, the protesters marched and were attacked by the police. Three months later another march was planned with the intent to "turn the other cheek" in response to the violence by the city's police force. As the marchers reached downtown Birmgingham, the police attacked the crowd with high-pressure fire hoses and attack dogs. This time, however, the incident was witnessed across the entire country, as many network TV crews were there and broadcasting live footage of unarmed marchers being blasted to the ground by high-pressure hoses and others being bitten and mauled by snarling attack dogs, and it sparked a national outrage.
The next day, more marchers repeated the walk and more policemen attacked with fire hoses and police dogs, leading to a total of 1,200 arrests. On the third day, Martin organized another march to the city jail. This time, when the marchers approached the police, none of them moved and some even let the marchers through to continue their march. The nonviolent strategy had worked--the strikes and boycotts were cutting deeply into the city merchants' revenues, and they called for negotiations and agreed with local black leaders to integrate lunch counters, fitting rooms, restrooms and drinking fountains within 90 days. Martin was then called for a rally in Washington, DC, near the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963. Nearly 200,000 people stood in the intense heat listening to the speeches by the members and supporters of the NACCP. By the time Martin was called as the day's final speaker, the crowd was hot and tired. As he approached the podium, with his papers containing his prepared speech, he suddenly put them aside and decided to speak from the heart. He spoke of freedoms for blacks achieved and not yet achieved. He then spoke the words that echo throughout the world to this day: "I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. 'We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.' I have that dream." By mid-October 1964 Martin had given 350 civil rights speeches and traveled 275,000 miles across the country and worked for 20 hours a day.
While in an Atlanta hospital after collapsing from exhaustion, his wife brought in his room a telegram notifying him that he had won the Nobel Peace Prize. On April 1, 1968, Martin traveled to Memphis, Tennessee to meet with two of his advisers, James Bevel and Jesse Jackson, to discuss organizing a march to Washington in support of a strike by Memphis' city's sanitation workers. In the late afternoon of April 4, he stepped out onto the balcony of the Lorraine Motel where he was staying to speak with Andrew Young. As he saw Jackson and waved to him for a moment, a gunshot rang through the air and Martin Luther King Jr. was hit in the neck and fell dead from a sniper's bullet. He was dead, but the struggle that he started to continue to bring peace and end the racial conflict in the USA continues to this day.R.I.P.- Editorial Department
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Neil deGrasse Tyson is an American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, and science communicator.
Born and raised in New York City, Tyson became interested in astronomy at the age of nine after a visit to the Hayden Planetarium. After graduating from the Bronx High School of Science, where he was editor-in-chief of the Physical Science Journal, he completed a bachelor's degree in physics at Harvard University in 1980. After receiving a master's degree in astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin in 1983, he earned his master's (1989) and doctorate (1991) in astrophysics at Columbia University. For the next three years, he was a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University. In 1994 he joined the Hayden Planetarium as a staff scientist and the Princeton faculty as a visiting research scientist and lecturer. In 1996, he became director of the planetarium and oversaw its $210-million reconstruction project, which was completed in 2000.
From 1995 to 2005, Tyson wrote monthly essays in the "Universe" column for Natural History magazine, some of which were published in his book Death by Black Hole (2007). During the same period, he wrote a monthly column in Star Date magazine, answering questions about the universe under the pen name "Merlin". Material from the column appeared in his books Merlin's Tour of the Universe (1998) and Just Visiting This Planet (1998). Tyson served on a 2001 government commission on the future of the U.S. aerospace industry, and on the 2004 Moon, Mars and Beyond commission. He was awarded the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal in the same year.
In 2014, he hosted the television series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, a successor to Carl Sagan's 1980 series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage.
As a science communicator, Tyson regularly appears on television, radio, and various other media outlets.- Additional Crew
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John Douglas was born on 18 June 1945 in Long Island, New York, USA. He is a writer and producer, known for Mindhunter (2017), The Lovely Bones (2009) and BAD LAND. He has been married to Pamela Elizabeth Modica since 22 November 2006. He was previously married to Pamela Elizabeth Modica.- Writer
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A graduate of the Czech Technical University in Prague, Simon Wiesenthal was an architect in the city of Lvov in the Ukraine when World War II broke out; due to the non-aggression treaty with Nazi Germany, the Russians forced Wiesenthal, as with other Jews, from his livelihood; he was working as a mechanic in a bedspring factory when he was imprisoned in a labor camp working on a railroad for the duration of the war. He had smuggled his wife, a blonde who could pass for Polish, to safety through the underground, but both thought the other had died during the war. At various times during his captivity, he contemplated suicide rather than face torture; however, he made a wager with an SS Corporal who bet him that no one would ever believe the truth of what had gone on in the concentration camps. Wiesenthal had his purpose in life - to survive and bring the truth of the horrors of the Holocaust to the public at large, as well as bringing the perpetrators of those atrocities to justice. After the war's end, Wiesenthal went to an Allied base in Lidz, Austria with an extensive list of atrocities he had witnessed and offered his services to the Allies. He was permitted to make arrests of those people who had been accused of committing them, and from that small start, in 1947 he established the independent Jewish Documentation Center in Lidz (later in Vienna) where he started searching for war criminals. He was successful in aiding in the detection and ultimate capture and subsequent execution of SS Major Adolf Eichmann, who had helped devise "The Final Solution" - the transport and murder of Jews and other "inferior persons" to gas chambers in death camps. Wiesenthal estimated that he helped bring to trial at least 1,100 ex-Nazis.- Writer
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Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born on January 30, 1882, in Hyde Park, New York, to James and Sara Roosevelt. His father was 54 at the time of FDR's birth and already had a grown son, nicknamed "Rosy". Sarah was only 27 when FDR was born. Growing up, FDR had a happy but sheltered childhood. His family was very wealthy and FDR had a very privileged upbringing, with trips to Europe and private tutors. Sara Roosevelt was a loving but domineering and overprotective mother. FDR was a devoted son, but found clever and subtle ways to get around his mother's domination. At 14 he was sent to Groton, an exclusive prep school led by the Rev. Endicott Peabody. FDR did not enjoy his time at Groton, often being teased by the other kids for having a formal and stuffy manner. Since he had a nephew who was older than him, kids at Groton called him "Uncle Frank". He graduated from Groton in 1900 and went to Harvard, where he edited the "Crimson" but failed to be accepted into the Porcellian Social Club. He graduated Harvard in 1903. Soon after that he fell madly in love with his sixth cousin, Eleanor Roosevelt. They married in 1905, with President Theodore Roosevelt giving the bride away. However, from the start Franklin and Eleanor's marriage was not a happy one. She was quiet and shy, whereas he was boisterous and outgoing. The fact that his mother moved into the house next door to theirs, and ran things, did not help. Franklin and Eleanor had six children (one child died in infancy). In 1910 Franklin was elected to the New York State Legislature from Duchess County. There he made a name for himself as a crusading reformer who favored the "average guy" over big business and championed for honest government. In 1913 he was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy and served under Josephus Daniels and President Woodrow Wilson. In 1918 he began a love affair with his wife's social secretary, Lucy Mercer. When Eleanor discovered the affair, she was understandably devastated and told Franklin she wanted a divorce. At the urging of his mother, Frankilin chose to save the marriage and promised Eleanor that he would never have anything more to do with Lucy. The damage was done, however, and Franklin and Eleanor never again shared the intimacies of marriage, becoming more like political partners. In 1921 FDR was stricken with polio and paralyzed. He permanently lost the use of his legs, but refused to let that thwart his political ambitions. He spoke at the 1924 Democratic Convention for the candidacy of Alfred E. Smith, then the Governor of New York, calling him the "Happy Warrior". In 1928 FDR was elected Governor of New York and was well placed when the stock market crashed in 1929. As governor he took the lead in providing relief and public works projects for the millions of unemployed in the state. His success as New York's governor made him a strong candidate for the Presidency in 1932. He easily beat incumbent President Herbert Hoover.
When Franklin Roosevelt was sworn in as President on March 4, 1933, more than 15 million Americans were unemployed. Millions more had been hard hit by the Depression and the banking system had collapsed. FDR wasted no time in launching a radical economic recovery program, known as the New Deal. He created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which made the federal government the guarantor of people's bank deposits - not the banks themselves - and allowed drought-stricken farmers to refinance their mortgages, He created public works programs including the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)--thus making the government the employer of last resort--as well as setting up the Social Security system, instituting a minimum wage, outlawing child labor--a widespread practice at the time, especially in mines, factories and textile mills--and mandating a 40-hour work week with overtime pay. In responding to the Depression, FDR forever changed the role of the federal government in American life. He was easily reelected in 1936, defeating Republican Alf Landon in a landslide. His second term as president was less successful than his first, however. The Supreme Court had ruled a number of New Deal measures unconstitutional. With an electoral mandate in the bank, FDR proposed "packing" the Supreme Court with justices of his political persuasion for every judge over the age of 70 that did not retire. However, Congress refused to pass the Supreme Court packing plan, and from that point on FDR was unable to get Congress to pass much of his legislation. Also, fascism was rising rapidly throughout Europe and Asia. Germany's Adolf Hitler and Italy's Benito Mussolini had both seized power and began to conquer other countries, such as Ethiopia, Austria and Czechoslavakia. FDR was unable to respond to the threats from Europe and Asia, however, because sentiment in the US was strongly isolationist and Congress had passed a series of neutrality laws that gave the President very little power to respond to international aggression. World War II began in September 1939 when Hitler invaded Poland. Nine months later all of Western Europe had fallen to Hitler. The UK and its Commonwealth and Empire was standing alone. FDR wanted to help Britain, but had to move carefully and skillfully. He negotiated a deal in which the US gave Britain 50 old destroyers in exchange for bases in the Western Hemisphere. With World War II underway, FDR took the unprecedented move of seeking a third term as president. He won that term in November 1940, defeating Republican Wendell Willkie. Safely re-elected, he proposed a radical new program for helping Britain, known as Lend-Lease, in which Britain could buy armaments and other supplies from the US but not have to pay for them until after the war. FDR used the analogy of borrowing a neighbor's hose to put out a house fire to sell Lend-Lease. It passed and America became the "arsenal of democracy" as it began to build armaments for Britain and then the Soviet Union, when Hitler invaded it in mid-1941. Roosevelt met Britain's Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, for the first time in August 1941 where they drew up the Atlantic Charter. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, destroying much of America's Pacific fleet. The next day,FDR declared war on Japan, calling December 7 "a date that will live in infamy." America was in the war, and not only against Japan, but also against Germany and Italy. Under FDR's leadership, America quickly transformed itself from a decaying nation of idle factories, impoverished families, abandoned farms and masses of hobos roaming the streets to a nation turning out planes, tanks, guns, military vehicles and other armaments on a scale that quickly dwarfed the capability of Nazi Germany to do the same. World War II also changed American life as blacks got better jobs in the war plants and women began working outside the home in unprecedented numbers. Helped by Eleanor, FDR used the war as a vehicle for social progress, securing better treatment for minorities and women, higher wages and better benefits for workers and a GI bill, which guaranteed a free college education for all American soldiers who fought in the war. In so doing, he created the American middle class of today.
After a series of military defeats, the US and its allies began to win the war. Invasions of North Africa and Italy were launched and the US started retaking islands in the South Pacific it had lost to Japan at the beginning of the war, starting with the Battle of Midway in 1942. FDR met with Churchill several times throughout the war and with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin at Tehran in 1943 and at Yalta in 1945. The Allied invasion of France, known as D-Day, was launched on June 6, 1944. As the war ended, FDR pushed for his dream of a United Nations and for reforms that would ensure that another World War would never happen. The United Nations did come to pass, as well as new global institutions such as the World Bank and IMF. Also, FDR advocated for decolonization of Africa and Asia, leading to the collapse of the old European empires.
Because of the war, FDR felt he had no right to leave the presidency while Americans under his command were still fighting. So he sought a fourth term in 1944. His opponent was the new governor of New York, Thomas E. Dewey, who ran a campaign of innuendo, hinting that FDR was too ill to lead and that his government had gone stale. FDR retaliated with a speech accusing the Republicans of attacking his dog, Fala. FDR won his fourth term in November 1944. In January 1945 he journeyed to Yalta to confer with Churchill and Stalin for the last time, to settle the postwar world and push for Russian participation in the United Nations. By this time FDR was gravely ill. After the Yalta Conference, he traveled to his resort at Warm Springs, Georgia, where he died suddenly of a massive stroke on April 12, 1945. It was revealed that Lucy Mercer, his one-time lover, was with him when he died and that she had secretly visited him in the White House a number of times during his last year.
There was an elaborate funeral for him, with a train procession from Warm Springs to Washington DC, then to Hyde Park, where he was buried.- Oscar Romero was born on 15 August 1917 in Ciudad Barrios, El Salvador. He died on 24 March 1980 in San Salvador, El Salvador.R.I.P.
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Huey Long was born on 30 August 1893 in Winnfield, Louisiana, USA. He was married to Rose McConnell. He died on 10 September 1935 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA.R.I.P.- Writer
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Abraham Lincoln was an American politician from Kentucky. He was the second presidential candidate of the then-new Republican Party, following John Charles Frémont (1813 - 1890). He served as President of the United States from 1861 to 1865, during the American Civil War. He was assassinated in April 1865, the first of four American presidents to be assassinated during their term in office.
In February 1809, Lincoln was born in a one-room log cabin, located on the Sinking Spring Farm . The Farm itself was located near the modern city of Hodgenville, Kentucky, which was incorporated in 1836. Lincoln was the second child born to the illiterate farmer Thomas Lincoln (1778-1851) and his first wife Nancy Hanks (1784-1818). Both of his parents were born in Virginia.
Lincoln was a namesake grandson of Captain Abraham Lincoln (1744 - 1786), a military veteran of the American Revolutionary War. The senior Abraham was born in Pennsylvania, and settled in the areas of modern Kentucky in 1781. He was shot by an unnamed Native American in May 1786, while working in his field. The Lincoln family were descendants of Samuel Lincoln (1622 - 1690), an English weaver who had settled in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1637.
Lincoln's father Thomas bought or leased various farms in Kentucky, but lost most of his land in court disputes over property titles. In 1816, the Lincoln family settled in Indiana, which at the time had a more reliable and surveying system. Indiana was a "free-state", having abolished slave-holding in 1816. This suited Thomas' religious beliefs. He had joined the Separate Baptists, a religious group which forbade its members to own slaves.
In October 1818, Lincoln's mother Nancy died due to milk sickness. She had ingested milk cow containing the poison tremetol. She was 34-years-old at the time of her death. Lincoln was only 9-years-old at the time. The boy's primary caregiver for a while was his older sister Sarah Lincoln (1807 - 1828), who took over most household duties.
In December 1819, Lincoln's father married his second wife Sarah Bush (1788 - 1869). She was a widow, with three children of her own from a previous marriage. Lincoln grew close to his stepmother, and started calling her mother. By that time, Lincoln was old enough to start working in the farm. He reportedly never liked the physical labor, and his family regarded him as particularly lazy.
Lincoln received little formal schooling, relying on brief tutoring by itinerant teachers. He learned to read at the age of 7, but was not trained to write for several years. However, he became a bibliophile and spend most of his free time "reading, scribbling, writing, ciphering, writing Poetry, etc" He was largely self-educated, reading on a variety of topics.
As a teenager, Lincoln was "tall, strong, and athletic". He was trained in the "catch-as-catch-can" style of wrestling, a grappling style, and had a career as an amateur wrestler. He earned his reputation in the sport by defeating the leader of "the Clary's Grove Boys", a local gang of troublemakers.
In 1830, the Lincoln family moved to Macon County, Illinois. By that time, Lincoln was 21-years-old, legally entering adulthood. His relationship with his father Thomas became difficult, as young Lincoln craved for financial independence. In 1831, Thomas and most of his family settled in a new homestead, located in Coles County, Illinois. Lincoln decided not to follow them, and started living on his own. He settled for a few years in New Salem, Illinois.
In 1831, Lincoln and his partner Denton Offutt purchased a general store in New Salem. Lincoln gained a reputation of honesty, when he realized that he had accidentally overcharged a customer and voluntarily returned the money to him. By 1832, the general store had failed. The partnership was dissolved.
Also In 1832, Lincoln stood as a candidate for the Illinois General Assembly. He was an unlikely candidate, as he was rather poor and lacked political connections. He received 277 votes, nearly every vote in the village of New Salem. He lost the election as he was unknown outside this village.
In the early 1830s, Lincoln worked as New Salem's postmaster, and then as county surveyor. He aspired to become a lawyer, and read law on his own. He extensively studied legal texts in order to qualify. He later claimed that he was entirely self-taught. In 1834, Lincoln sought election to the Illinois General Assembly again. This time, he stood as a candidate for the powerful Whig Party and won the election. He served four terms in the General Assembly.
Lincoln's first known romantic relationship involved Ann Rutledge (1813 - 1835), a local woman who was reputedly engaged to another man. Rutledge died in August 1835, during a typhoid epidemic. She was only 22-years-old at the time of her death. Lincoln became severely depressed following her death. Biographers think that he wrote the poem "The Suicide's Soliloquy"(1838), to record his own suicidal thoughts during this period.
In 1836, Lincoln was admitted to the Illinois bar, and moved to Springfield Illinois to practice law. He started his career as a lawyer by practicing law under experienced lawyer John Todd Stuart (1807 - 1885), who happened to be a long-time friend of Lincoln. Lincoln gained a reputation as a formidable trial lawyer in cases involving cross-examinations.
In his political career in the 1830s, Lincoln championed the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, which connected the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. He later served as a Canal Commissioner. He voted to expand suffrage to all white males, not only white landowners. He adopted a "free soil" policy, vocally opposing both slavery and abolitionism. He favored the plan of the Whig party leader Henry Clay (1777 - 1852) to use freedmen in the colonization of Liberia.
In 1839, Lincoln became romantically interested in Mary Todd (1818 - 1882), a daughter of the wealthy businessman Robert Smith Todd (1791-1849). They were engaged in 1840, and were married in 1842. They had four sons. Mary had a higher social standing than Lincoln, being part of the gentry in Springfield, Illinois. She had reputedly rejected several suitors. Her most notable suitor before Lincoln was the successful lawyer Stephen Arnold Douglas (1813 -1861).
In 1842, Lincoln's last term in the Illinois General Assembly ended. In 1843, he sought the Whig nomination for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. He lost the nomination to John Jay Hardin (1810 - 1847), but convinced party officials to not renominate Hardin in the next election. Lincoln won the Whig nomination in 1846, and went on to win the election. He served as a congressman from 1847 to 1849. During this time, Lincoln was the only Whig in the Illinois delegation.
During his term in congress, Lincoln proposed a bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and to compensate slave owners for the loss of property. The bill failed to gain sufficient support, even from his own party. Lincoln spoke out against the country's involvement in the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), warning that the price of glory would be "showers of blood".
Lincoln did not seek renomination to Congress in the 1848 election, honoring a 1846 pledge to serve a single term. He supported Zachary Taylor's campaign to win the Whig nomination for the presidency. When Taylor won the presidential election, Lincoln expected political favors from the new president. Taylor offered to Lincoln an appointment as secretary or governor of the Oregon Territory, which was at that time a stronghold of the Democratic Party. Lincoln declined the offer, as it would require him to abandon his legal career in Illinois. He resumed life as a lawyer.
During the 1850s, Lincoln was one of Illinois' leading lawyers. He appeared before the Illinois Supreme Court in 175 cases, and was the sole counsel in 51 of these cases. He solidified his reputation as a defense lawyer in two murder trials. In the trial of Duff Armstrong (1833-1899), Lincoln was able to prove that a key eyewitness was actually lying about what he had seen. Lincoln found that the witness stood at too great a distance in nighttime conditions to have seen anything. In the trial of Simeon Quinn "Peachy" Harrison (a cousin of Lincoln), Lincoln was able to convince a judge that the dying declaration of the murder victim should not be excluded as hearsay, That declaration was that the victim had actively provoked Harrison into attacking, helping the defense's case.
In 1854, Lincoln resumed his active participation in political life by speaking out against the controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act, a law that repealing the Missouri Compromise (1820), and would allow for the expansion of slavery to the new territories of Kansas and Nebraska. The Whig Party split in two due to its factions' different reactions to the new law. The Party's anti-slavery faction helped establish the new Republican Party, which also attracted anti-slavery politicians from the Free Soil Party, the Liberty Party, and the Democratic Party.
In 1854, Lincoln stood as a Whig candidate to the United States Senate. He was not able to secure the election, but managed to convince his supporters to vote for Lyman Trumbull (1813 - 1896), an anti-slavery Democrat with similar views to their own. Trumbull won the election. In 1856, Lincoln formally joined the Republican Party. At the June 1856 Republican National Convention, Lincoln was one of the candidates for the party's nomination for Vice President of the United States. Lincoln received 110 votes, finishing second among the candidates. The vice-presidential nomination was instead won by William Lewis Dayton (1807 - 1864).
In 1858, Lincoln stood as a Republican candidate for the United States Senate. His opponent was Stephen Arnold Douglas, a leading Democrat politician. The Senate campaign featured seven debates between Lincoln and Douglas, which attracted nationwide attention. The candidates argued extensively over the legal and moral status of slavery in the United States. In this elections, the Republican Party won the popular vote, but the Democratic Party won more seats. The legislature re-appointed Douglas to the Senate. But Lincoln had become nationally famous, and he was often mentioned by the press as a likely presidential candidate.
In 1860, Lincoln received early endorsements as a presidential candidate. In the 1860 Republican National Convention, he secured the party's nomination. His most significant rival for the nomination was William Henry Seward (1801-1872), who finished second among the various candidates. Only Lincoln and Seward received over 50 votes from delegates. The party's nomination for vice president was secured by Hannibal Hamlin (1809 - 1891), a former Democrat who had opposed slavery for most of his career.
In the 1860 United States presidential election, the Democratic Party was split into two rival factions, which nominated different candidates. In the election, Lincoln received 1,866,452 votes, or 39.8% of the popular vote. In the electoral college, he received 180 votes, winning the election. Lincoln every one of the free Northern states, plus California and Oregon in the recently annexed Western United States. He received no votes at all in 10 of the 15 slave states.
Lincoln started his presidency in March 1861. By that time, 7 states had already seceded from the Union in reaction to his victory (in chronological order: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas). The American Civil War started in April 1861 with the Battle of Fort Sumter, a bombardment of a Union fort located near Charleston, South Carolina. On April 15, Lincoln called on the states to send a total of 75,000 volunteer troops to recapture forts, protect Washington, and "preserve the Union". In Baltimore rioting crowds started attacking Union forces. Lincoln suspended the right of habeas corpus in select areas, allowing the government forces to confine people without formal trials. Thousands of suspected Confederate sympathizers were confined.
Lincoln soon established his executive control over the Union's war effort, and helped shape its military strategy, He expanded his war powers, and exercising "unprecedented authority" over the country. He had the full support of the Republican-controlled Congress, as well as popular support in states loyal to the Union. His political opposition consisted of two different factions, the Copperheads and the Radical Republicans. The Copperheads were a faction of the Democratic Party which demanded a compromise on the matter of slavery, and a peace settlement with the Confederates. The Radical Republicans were a faction of the Republican Party which demanded the "permanent eradication of slavery", and rejected any ideas concerning compromises with slave-owners.
In September 1862, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared the emancipation of slaves in 10 Confederate states. The Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863. By the spring of 1863, Lincoln had started recruiting "black troops" in massive numbers. By the end of the year, 20 regiments of African Americans from the Mississippi Valley had been recruited by the Union.
Lincoln ran for re-election in the 1864 United States presidential election. He united the main factions of the Republican Party and the War Democrats (a pro-Union faction of the Democratic Party) into a coalition known as Union Party. The remaining factions of the Democratic Party made the mistake of nominating retired general George Brinton McClellan (1826 - 1885) as their presidential candidate. McClellan held a grudge against Lincoln, but rejected any ideas concerning peace with the Confederates. Meaning that the Copperheads could see little difference between him and Lincoln.
Lincoln won the presidential election with 2,218,388 votes, representing 55.0% of the popular vote. 78% of Union soldiers. voted fort him, as they did not want a compromise to end the War. Lincoln won 212 electoral votes, and had the support of 22 out of the Union's 25 states. His new vice-president was Andrew Johnson (1808 - 1875), a prominent War Democrat.
In 1865, the Union seemed to be winning the American Civil War. On April 14, 1865, Lincoln and his wife attended Ford's Theatre in Washington D.C. They wanted to see a performance of the then-popular British play "Our American Cousin" (1858) by Tom Taylor (1817 - 1880). During the performance, Lincoln was assassinated by the well-known actor John Wilkes Booth (1838 - 1865). Booth was a Confederate sympathizer, and hoped to turn the tide of the War. Lincoln was 56-years-old at the time of his death.
Lincoln's corpse was returned for burial to Springfield, Illinois, where he had lived for decades. On May 4, 1865, Lincoln was interred at the Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield. The Lincoln Tomb later became a state historic site. His wife and three of their four sons were later buried there as well.
Historians tend to rank Lincoln among the top Presidents of the United States. Due to his violent death, he came to be regarded as "a national martyr". Several political factions trace their origins to Lincoln's ideas and policies. He has been described as "a classical liberal" of the 19th-century, and is well-regarded for his policies favoring trade and business.- He grew up in the small town of Hudson, Quebec.
Layton is a published author. In 2000, he published Homelessness: The Making and Unmaking of a Crisis, which focuses on the nature and extent of homelessness in Canada, and argues for a national housing policy in which the federal government would directly subsidize the housing of low-income families. In 2004 his second book was published; Speaking Out: Ideas that Work for Canadians, discusses practical ideas for addressing Canada's social and environmental problems.
In the Canadian federal election held October 14, 2008, the New Democratic Party won 37 seats. This was an increase in seats compared to both the 2006 and 2004 federal elections.R.I.P. - Tommy Douglas was born on 20 October 1904 in Falkirk, Scotland, UK. He was an actor, known for The Great Debate (1974) and 90 Minutes Live (1976). He was married to Irma Dempsey. He died on 24 February 1986 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
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Christina Hoff Sommers is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where she studies the politics of gender and feminism, as well as free expression, due process, and the preservation of liberty in the academy. Before joining AEI, Dr. Sommers was a philosophy professor at Clark University.
She is best known for her defense of classical liberal feminism and her critique of gender feminism. Her books include "Freedom Feminism-Its Surprising History and Why It Matters Today" (AEI, 2013); "One Nation Under Therapy" (St. Martin's Press, 2005), coauthored with Sally Satel; "The War Against Boys" (Simon & Schuster, 2001 and 2013), which was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year in 2001; and "Who Stole Feminism?" (Simon & Schuster, 1995). Her textbook, "Vice and Virtue in Everyday Life," currently in its ninth edition, is a bestseller in college ethics.
Her writings have appeared in publications such as The Atlantic, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. In addition to frequent radio and television appearances, Dr. Sommers is the host of the popular video blog, The Factual Feminist.
Dr. Sommers has a Ph.D. in philosophy from Brandeis University and a B.A. from New York University.- Writer
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Astronomer, educator and author Carl Sagan was perhaps the world's greatest popularizer of science, reaching millions of people through newspapers, magazines and television broadcasts. He is well-known for his work on the PBS series Cosmos (1980), the Emmy Award and Peabody Award-winning show that became the most watched series in public-television history. This was seen by more than 500 million people in 60 countries. The accompanying book, "Cosmos" (1980), was on the New York Times bestseller list for 70 weeks and was the best-selling science book ever published in English.
Carl Edward Sagan was born November 9, 1934, in Brooklyn, New York. Having taught at Cornell University since 1968, Sagan received a bachelor's degree (1955) and a master's degree (1956), both in physics, and a doctorate in astronomy and astrophysics (1960), all from the University of Chicago. He taught at Harvard University in the early 1960s before coming to Cornell, where he became a full professor in 1971. Sagan played a leading role in NASA's Mariner, Viking, Voyager and Galileo expeditions to other planets. He received NASA Medals for Exceptional Scientific Achievement and twice for Distinguished Public Service and the NASA Apollo Achievement Award. His research focused on topics such as the greenhouse effect on Venus; windblown dust as an explanation for the seasonal changes on Mars; organic aerosols on Titan, Saturn's moon; the long-term environmental consequences of nuclear war; and the origin of life on Earth. A pioneer in the field of exobiology, he continued to teach graduate and undergraduate students in courses in astronomy and space sciences and in critical thinking at Cornell.
The breadth of his interests were made evident in October 1994, at a Cornell-sponsored symposium in honor of Sagan's 60th birthday. The two-day event featured speakers in areas of planetary exploration, life in the cosmos, science education, public policy and government regulation of science and the environment -- all fields in which Sagan had worked or had a strong interest. Sagan was the recipient of numerous awards in addition to his NASA recognition. He received 22 honorary degrees from American colleges and universities for his contributions to science, literature, education and the preservation of the environment and many awards for his work on the long-term consequences of nuclear war and reversing the nuclear arms race. Among his other awards were: the John F. Kennedy Astronautics Award of the American Astronautical Society; the Explorers Club 75th Anniversary Award; the Konstantin Tsiolkovsky Medal of the Soviet Cosmonauts Federation and the Masursky Award of the American Astronomical Society. He also was the recipient of the Public Welfare Medal, the highest award of the National Academy of Sciences, "for distinguished contributions in the application of science to the public welfare".
Sagan was elected chairman of the Division of Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society, president of the Planetology Section of the American Geophysical Union and chairman of the Astronomy Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. For 12 years, he was editor of Icarus, the leading professional journal devoted to planetary research. He was co-founder of the Planetary Society, a 100,000-member organization and the largest space-interest group in the world. The society supports major research programs in the radio search for extraterrestrial intelligence, the investigation of near-Earth asteroids and, with the French and Russian space agencies, the development and testing of balloon and mobile robotic exploration of Mars. Sagan also was Distinguished Visiting Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California and was contributing editor of Parade magazine, where he published many articles about science and about the disease that he battled for the last two years of his life.
On December 20, 1996, Carl Sagan died at age 62 of pneumonia at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington. He was buried at Lakeview Cemetery in Ithaca, Tompkins County, New York.R.I.P.- Actor
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Fred Rogers was the host of the popular long-running public television children's show Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. The show debuted in Pittsburgh in 1967 and was picked up by PBS the next year, becoming a staple of public TV stations around the United States. Rogers' mild manner, cardigan sweaters and soft speaking voice made him both widely beloved and widely parodied. Rogers ended production of the show in 2001, but reruns of the show continued to be aired on many PBS stations. He died in 2003 after a short battle with stomach cancer.R.I.P.- Stephen William Hawking was born on 8 January 1942 on Oxford, Oxfordshire, England. He was an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, author and Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology within the University of Cambridge.
His scientific works include a collaboration with Roger Penrose on gravitational singularity theorems in the framework of general relativity and the theoretical prediction that black holes emit radiation, often called Hawking radiation. Hawking was the first to set out a theory of cosmology explained by a union of the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. He was a vigorous supporter of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.
Hawking was an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA), a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States. In 2002, Hawking was ranked number 25 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. He was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge between 1979 and 2009 and achieved commercial success with works of popular science in which he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general; his book "A Brief History of Time" appeared on the British Sunday Times best-seller list for a record-breaking 237 weeks.
At the release party for the home video version of A Brief History of Time (1991), Leonard Nimoy, who had played Spock on Star Trek (1966), learned that Hawking was interested in appearing on the series. Nimoy made the necessary contact, and Hawking played a holographic simulation of himself in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) in 1993. The same year, his synthesizer voice was recorded for the song "Keep Talking" by the rock band Pink Floyd, and in 1999 for an appearance on The Simpsons (1989). Hawking also guest-starred on Futurama (1999) and The Big Bang Theory (2007).
Hawking allowed the use of his copyrighted voice in the biographical drama The Theory of Everything (2014), in which he was portrayed by Eddie Redmayne in an Academy Award-winning role. Hawking died at age 76 in his home in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, early in the morning of 14 March 2018.R.I.P. - Actor
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Richard Dawkins was born on 26 March 1941 in Nairobi, Kenya. He is an actor and writer, known for Doctor Who (2005), Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008) and Intersect (2020). He has been married to Lalla Ward since September 1992. He was previously married to Marian Dawkins and Eve Barham.- Actress
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Hedy Lamarr, the woman many critics and fans alike regard as the most beautiful ever to appear in films, was born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in Vienna, Austria. She was the daughter of Gertrud (Lichtwitz), from Budapest, and Emil Kiesler, a banker from Lemberg (now known as Lviv). Her parents were both from Jewish families. Hedwig had a calm childhood, but it was cinema that fascinated her. By the time she was a teenager, she decided to drop out of school and seek fame as an actress, and was a student of theater director Max Reinhardt in Berlin. Her first role was a bit part in the German film Geld auf der Straße (1930) (aka "Money on the Street") in 1930. She was attractive and talented enough to be in three more German productions in 1931, but it would be her fifth film that catapulted her to worldwide fame. In 1932 she appeared in a Czech film called Ekstase (US title: "Ecstasy") and had made the gutsy move to appear nude. It's the story of a young girl who is married to a gentleman much older than she, but she winds up falling in love with a young soldier. The film's nude scenes created a sensation all over the world. The scenes, very tame by today's standards, caused the film to be banned by the U.S. government at the time.
Hedy soon married Fritz Mandl, a munitions manufacturer and a prominent Austrofascist. He attempted to buy up all the prints of "Ecstasy" he could lay his hands on (Italy's dictator, Benito Mussolini, had a copy but refused to sell it to Mandl), but to no avail (there are prints floating around the world today). The notoriety of the film brought Hollywood to her door. She was brought to the attention of MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer, who signed her to a contract (a notorious prude when it came to his studio's films, Mayer signed her against his better judgment, but the money he knew her notoriety would bring in to the studio overrode any moral concerns he may have had). However, he insisted she change her name and make good, wholesome films.
Hedy starred in a series of exotic adventure epics. She made her American film debut as Gaby in Algiers (1938). This was followed a year later by Lady of the Tropics (1939). In 1942, she played the plum role of Tondelayo in the classic White Cargo (1942). After World War II, her career began to decline, and MGM decided it would be in the interest of all concerned if her contract were not renewed. Unfortunately for Hedy, she turned down the leads in both Gaslight (1940) and Casablanca (1942), both of which would have cemented her standing in the minds of the American public. In 1949, she starred as Delilah opposite Victor Mature's Samson in Cecil B. DeMille's epic Samson and Delilah (1949). This proved to be Paramount Pictures' then most profitable movie to date, bringing in $12 million in rental from theaters. The film's success led to more parts, but it was not enough to ease her financial crunch. She made only six more films between 1949 and 1957, the last being The Female Animal (1958).
Hedy retired to Florida. She died there, in the city of Casselberry, on January 19, 2000.- Additional Crew
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Expert in science fiction, futurist, bestselling author, acclaimed on-air personality, and popularizer of theoretical physics.
Dr. Kaku has starred in science programming for television including series for Discovery, Science Channel, BBC, ABC, and History Channel. Beyond his numerous New York Times bestselling books, he has also been a featured columnist for top science publications such as Popular Mechanics, Discover, Cosmos, WIRED, New Scientist, Newsweek, Wall Street Journal, Variety, Vanity Fair, and many others.
Kaku is a news contributor to several news organizations including CBS, CBSN, FOX News, CNN, and CNBC, also appearing on ABC, FOX Business, and RT. Dr. Kaku has made guest appearances on all major talk shows including The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, The Late Show, The Tonight Show, and Conan. He was profiled in the award-winning documentary film, "Me & Isaac Newton" by Michael Apted.
Kaku has also appeared in commercial media for Toyota, Samsung, TurboTax, Coca-Cola, and others.- Writer
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Christopher Eric Hitchens (born April 13, 1949) was a British-American author, journalist, and literary critic. He was a columnist at Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, The Nation, Slate, and Free Inquiry.
Hitchens is known for his atheism and anti-theism and was a firm believer in the Enlightenment values of secularism, humanism, and reason. Hitchens became a United States citizen on his 58th birthday, April 13, 2007.R.I.P.- Charles Robert Darwin FRS FRGS FLS FZS (12 February 1809 - 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist and biologist, best known for his contributions to evolutionary biology.His proposition that all species of life have descended from a common ancestor is now widely accepted and considered a fundamental concept in science. In a joint publication with Alfred Russel Wallace, he introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding. Darwin has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history, and he was honored by burial in Westminster Abbey.
- Chris Hansen was born on 26 March 1959 in Lansing, Michigan, USA. He is an actor, known for Dateline NBC (1992), To Catch a Predator (2004) and The Boys (2019). He has been married to Gabrielle Gagnon since 13 November 2021. He was previously married to Mary Joan Gleich.
- In 1575 Galileo moved to Florence with his parents. He returned to Pisa in 1581 to study mathematics, where he studied until 1585. At the Florentine Accademia del Disegno he became acquainted with the writings of Archimdes and in 1586 constructed a hydrostatic balance. In 1589 he was appointed professor of mathematics at the University of Pisa and in 1592 at the University of Padua. In his precision engineering workshop he developed a proportion compass, found the laws for the string pendulum and derived the fall laws. His daughters Virginia and Livia were born in 1600 and 1601 and his son Vincenzo in 1591 in 1606. Galileo, who was enthusiastic about natural science, excelled in astronomical studies in 1606 following the appearance of a new star. For this purpose, in Padua he further developed a telescope that had been built in Holland, with the help of which he was able to demonstrate the structure of the Milky Way and the surface of the moon.
In January 1610 he discovered the first four moons of Jupiter, which he named "Medicea Sidera" in honor of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo II de' Medici. This discovery was significant because Jupiter's gravitational system led the researcher to gradually develop his theory of the solar-centered planetary system. After Galileo returned to Florence in July 1610, in the same year the Grand Duke of Tuscany appointed him the first mathematician and philosopher in the state for his astronomical research. His astronomical research results, which now also included sunspots and the ring of Saturn, were received by scientific and religious-philosophical experts, sometimes with extreme skepticism and sometimes with enthusiasm. In particular, Galileo came into conflict early on with the discovery of ever new celestial phenomena, particularly with Aristotelian philosophy, which was based on the perfection and immutability of the cosmos.
His scientific findings were initially recognized by the Catholic Church. In 1611, on the occasion of his visit to Pope Paul V, Galileo saw himself accepted into the Roman "Academia dei Lincei" and honored by the papal scholars. However, his research into the solar system led to far-reaching consequences for the religious-philosophical world view of the time: Galileo gained a heliocentric model of the world from this, which was based on the scientific knowledge that the planets revolved around the sun and therefore not the Earth but the sun was the center of the solar system system. In doing so, he demonstrated for the first time through scientific and astronomical observations and research a theory that had been developed and published by Nicholas Copernicus since 1514. As his teaching, which was in clear contradiction to the geocentric worldview of the Bible, became increasingly widespread, the Catholic authorities became increasingly concerned.
In 1615, a Dominican monk denounced Galileo as a heretic at the Congregation of the Sacred Uffizi in Rome, i.e. H. at the Papal Inquisition Court. In 1616, the Inquisition court condemned the Copernican doctrine as an error. Galileo was forbidden from further disseminating it, and Nicholas Copernicus's 1543 treatise was placed on the index of forbidden literature. In the following years, which Galileo Galilei spent in Florence until 1631 and then in nearby Arcetri, he adhered to the commandment imposed on him, but devoted himself increasingly to the refutation of Aristotelian-scholastic physics. During this time, one of his most witty writings, the "Saggiatore" (Tester with the Gold Scales), was written. As a result of the change of pope (Urban VIII), in 1632 he was able to obtain initial ecclesiastical approval to publish another work, the "Dialogue on the two principal world systems, the Ptolemaic and the Copernian". Soon afterwards, however, the Jesuits banned the publication.
In the same year, Galileo was again summoned before the Roman Inquisitorial Court, which sentenced him on June 22, 1633 to renounce the disputed doctrine. The prison sentence imposed on him was converted into banishment by Pope Urban VIII a few months later. The legend is considered historically controversial, according to which Galileo immediately after the forced renunciation said "And it (the earth) moves!" would have insisted on the validity of the Copernican theory of the Earth revolving around the fixed star, the Sun. Galileo spent the following years in exile on his estate in Arcetri near Florence, where he continued the research he had begun earlier in the areas of mechanics, motion and gravity. It was not until 1638 that he achieved a partial relaxation of the banishment sentence so that he could also stay in Florence. In 1634 his dearest daughter Virginia died. Another stroke of fate struck him in the same year t because he became blind and could only continue his work to a limited extent.
Galileo Galilei died on January 8, 1642 at the age of 77 in Arcetri and was buried in Santa Croce, the Church of the Holy Cross, in Florence.
It took the Catholic Church more than a century to recognize the teachings of Copernicus and Galileo in 1757 and to remove their works from the index of banned books. It was only under Pope John Paul II in 1992/93 that she acknowledged the miscarriage of justice that had once been committed with the rehabilitation of both scholars. In recent research, the theory is increasingly being put forward that Galileo was condemned at the time because of his deviation from the Tridentine doctrine of the Eucharist. Galileo and René Descartes founded a new age of scientific teaching through a change in method. He doesn't ask the "why" of a process but rather the "how." - Art Department
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Neal Adams is an American comic book artist and writer from New York City. He has been active in the field since the early 1960s. His work has been critically acclaimed, and he has been inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame, the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1999, and the Joe Sinnott Hall of Fame. He has been a creators-rights advocate since the 1970s, and once led efforts to unionize the comic book creators.
In 1941, Adams was born on Governors Island, an island located in New York Harbor, within the New York City borough of Manhattan. The island was used as a United States Army post from 1783 to 1966, primarily used as a training ground for troops. Residential buildings and modern roads were added to the island in the 1920s.
Adams received his secondary education at the School of Industrial Art, a Career and Technical Education high school located in Manhattan. The school had been established in 1936 by a small group of art teachers. Adams graduated in 1959, and then started seeking work as a freelance comic book artist.
Adams submitted samples of his work to the publisher Archie Comics. He aspired to draw stories for the superhero the Fly/Thomas "Tommy" Troy. A panel of his work was published in "Adventures of the Fly" #4 (January 1960), added to another artist's story. The panel was considered superior to one which had been drawn by a more experienced artist. It was Adams' first published work.
Adams was hired by Archie Comics, and tasked with writing, penciling, inking, and lettering humorous filler stories for "Archie's Joke Book Magazine". He earned about16 dollars for each half-page that he completed , and 32 dollars for each full page. The payment was meager, but Adams became the main breadwinner for his impoverished family,
Through a recommendation, Adams was hired for three months as an assistant to experienced comics artist Howard Nostrand (1929-1984). They worked on the short-lived syndicated comic strip "Bat Masterson" (1959-1960), which was based on a Western television series. Adams primarily worked as a background artist on the strip, earning a weekly salary of 9 dollars.
Having left Archie Comics, Adams worked for a while as a freelance artist for the advertising industry. He found regular work at the agency Johnstone and Cushing (1936-1962), which specialized on comic-book styled illustrations. Adams received additional training by veteran illustrator Elmer Wexler (1918 - 2007), and created a number of works in Wexler's style.
In 1962, Adams was hired as the main artist for the comic strip "Ben Casey" (1962-1966), which was based on a medical drama television series. The plots of the script were typical for soap operas, involving "heroin addiction, illegitimate pregnancy, and attempted suicide". But Adams produced artwork in a realistic style, which aided the strip's success. Adams earned a weekly salary of 300-350 dollars.
In 1966, "Ben Casey" ended, and Adams returned to working as a freelancer. He served briefly as a ghost artist for the comic strip "Peter Scratch" (1965-1967), about the career of a hard-boiled detective. He also served as a ghost artist for the long-running comic strip "The Heart of Juliet Jones"" (1953-2000), with art imitating the work of the strip's regular artist Stan Drake (1921 - 1997). He reportedly turned down an offer to work on the comic strip "The Green Berets", which glorified the battles of the Vietnam War. He suggested that the agency responsible should hire Joe Kubert ( 1926 - 2012), an artist who specialized in drawing war comics.
In 1967, Adams was hired by the comic book publisher Warren Publishing, which specialized on horror stories. He collaborated with experienced writer Archie Goodwin (1937 - 1998)) in creating stories for the anthology series "Creepy" and "Eerie". At that time, he learned that Joe Kubert had left DC Comics. The company sought new artists for its war comics, and Adams applied for the job. An 8-page story in the anthology series "Our Army at War" #182 (July 1967) was his first story for DC. He continued working concurrently for both Warren and DC.
Adams aspired to work on stories for the popular superhero Batman/Bruce Wayne, but DC editor's kept rejecting his applications for the job He was instead tasked to illustrate comedy stories for the series "The Adventures of Jerry Lewis" and "The Adventures of Bob Hope", which depicted fictionalized versions of famous comedians. He was also tasked with drawing Superman-related covers for "Action Comics" #356 and "Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane".
In "Detective Comics" #369 (November, 1967), Adams illustrated a lighthearted story featuring the superhero Elongated Man/Randolph "Ralph" Dibny. It was his first superhero story. He soon became the regular artist for stories featuring the undead superhero Deadman/Boston Brand, serving in this role for "Strange Adventures" #206-216 (November 1967-February, 1969). As of issue #212, he was also the series' writer. This series became a fan favorite, and won a number of awards. It established Adams' reputation as a great artist.
In 1968. Adams became the regular writer and artist for a short-lived series featuring the return of 1940s superhero the Spectre/Jim Corrigan. While the series re-established the Spectre as a viable character, it was not commercially successful. The series only lasted for 10 issues, with Adams illustrating about half of them. The only significant villain depicted in Adams' stories was the Psycho-Pirate/Roger Hayden, a man who could manipulate the emotions of others.
In 1969, was asked to rewrite and redesign a Teen Titans story about protesters being manipulated by alien invaders.. His version of the story appeared in "Teen Titans" vol 1 #20 (April, 1969). The original version of the story was intended to introduce a superhero code-named Jericho, while Adams' version featured a one-shot character called Joshua.
Adams' continued to be a freelancer, and he was hired by Marvel Comics in 1969. Adams served as the regular artist for "X-Men" vol 1 #56-63(May-December, 1969), and #65 (February, 1970). In his first story, Adams redesigned the super-villain Living Pharaoh/Ahmet Abdol into the giant form of the Living Monolith. He next introduced the villain Larry Trask, along with the second generation of the mutant-hunting robots known as the Sentinels. He also co-created and designed the energy vampire Sauron/Karl Lykos, who was named after a Tolkien character. He co-created a new super-villain team, the Savage Land Mutates, as rivals for the X-Men. Adams was the first artist to design classic villain Magneto/Max Eisenhardt without his helmet. In his final issue, Adams co-created a new villainous alien race, the Z'nox.
As Adams later recalled in interviews, he found that Marvel provided a friendlier working environment than DC. He got to socialize with his co-workers, and befriended colleague such as John Romita Sr. (1930-), Marie Severin (1929-2018), and Herb Trimpe (1939 - 2015). He also formed working relationships with writers Roy Thomas (1940-) and Dennis O'Neil (1939 - 2020), and the inker Tom Palmer (1942-).
In 1970, Adams finally got a chance to work on Batman, when asked by editor Julius Schwartz to revamp the character. The fairly lighthearted Batman stories of the 1960s had fallen out of fashion. Adams and Dennis O'Neil created stories re-establishing Batman's "dark, brooding nature" and the film noir-like world which he inhabits. They also made changes to Batman's rogues gallery.
In 1970, Adams co-created the shapeshifting villain Man-Bat/Dr. Robert Kirkland "Kirk" Langstrom as a new adversary for Batman. In May 1971, Adams co-created the femme fatale Talia al Ghul as both a foe and a love interest to Batman. In June 1971, Adams co-created Talia's father, the immortal villain Ra's al Ghul (Arabic for "The Head of the Demon) as a new major threat in Batman's life. In August 1971, Adams revived the classic villain Two-Face/Harvey Dent, who had last been used in 1954. The disfigured villain became one of Batman's main rogues. In September 1973, Adams revamped the Joker into "a homicidal maniac who murders people on a whim and delights in his mayhem". This version of the character more closely resembled the 1940s version of the character than the "goofy prankster" version used since the 1950s.
Back in "The Brave and the Bold #85 (August-Sepembert 1969), Adams had redesigned the classic superhero Green Arrow/Oliver "Ollie" Queen. He gave the character a distinctive goatee beard and a more stylish uniform. In 1970, he further revamped the character into a streetwise protector of the working class and the disadvantaged, with left-wing political beliefs. Starting in "Green Lantern/Green Arrow" #76 (April 1970), the character shared a series with the space cop Green Lantern/Hal Jordan. Jordan was revamped at that time into a conservative man with a strong belief in "law and order". The two heroes formed an odd pairing in their shared stories
Over the following few years, Adams and Dennis O'Neil collaborated in stories where the two heroes faced real-life problems, such as "racism, overpopulation, pollution, and drug addiction". Green Arrow's former sidekick Speedy/Roy Harper was depicted as a drug addict, bringing the problem of addiction close at home. This new direction to the characters was critically acclaimed, but not commercially successful. "Green Lantern/Green Arrow" was canceled with issue #89 (April, 1972), which featured a story based on Jesus' crucifixion. The series was revived in 1976, without any involvement by Adams.
Adams was one of the main artists working in the space opera story "Kree-Skrull War", published in "Avengers" vol. 1 #89-97 (June 1971 - March 1972). The story depicted a war between two rival space empires, that had been introduced in the previous decade. It also featured the alien superhero Captain Marvel/Mar-Vell becoming an honorary member of the Avengers. It finally introduced a romantic relationship between two veteran Avengers, the magic user Scarlet Witch/Wanda Maximoff and the sentient android Vision. The story is considered a highlight in Marvel's history, and introduced many long-running subplots.
In 1973, Adams co-created a new science fiction character for Marvel, Killraven/Jonathan Raven. The character inhabited a post-apocalyptic a future, where humanity has been enslaved by Martians. Killraven was depicted as a member of a group of freedom fighters who wandered in the ruins of the Eastern United States. The initial Killraven series ended in 1976, though the characters has been revived several times.
For the rest of the 1970s, Adams worked on few stories for DC Comics. He worked however frequently as a cover artist, and worked on redesigns of Superman's supporting cast. He was an uncredited co-artist in the crossover story "Superman vs. The Amazing Spider-Man" (March 1976). In the story the two heroes team-up to foil the combined threats of Lex Luthor and Doctor Octopus/Dr. Otto Octavius. The story is considered the first modern superhero inter-company crossover.
In 1978, Adams and Dennis O'Neil collaborated on the one-shot comic "Superman vs. Muhammad Ali", where the hero has to face Ali in a boxing match. The story established that Superman typically relies on his superior strength to win fights, and lacked in actual training and fighting skills. The 72-page book was a landmark issue, and a personal favorite of Adams. It was also his last professional comic book story for several decades.
Back in 1971, Adams had founded his own company, the illustration studio Continuity Associates. There comic book artists provided artwork for other companies. In the late 1970s, Adams focused most of his efforts on running the lucrative company. The company's employees have at various times included famous names such as Larry Hama, Walt Simonson, and Jim Starlin.
In the 1970s, Adams led efforts to unionize comic book creators. In 1978, he co-founded the Comics Creators Guild. The organization had about 40 members. In 1975, his lobbying efforts convinced DC Comics to pay a yearly stipend and medical benefits to Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster,, Superman's original creators. The two men did not own their own creation, and had struggled financially for years. In 1987, Adams' lobbying efforts convinced Marvel Comics to return original artworks from its archives to the artists responsible. These artists could earn additional income from selling the artwork to collectors.
In 1984, Adams founded the subsidiary company Continuity Comics (1984-1994), to publish work by himself and others. Its most popular character was the witch Ms. Mystic, a character which Adams had created in 1982. She had her own series for 9 issues. Adams was involved in a legal controversy when fellow artist Michael Netzer (1955-) claimed that he was an uncredited co-creator of Ms. Mystic, and demanded ownership rights. Adams won the court case, but Continuity Comics collapsed due to financial problems. Adams and Netzer have maintained an adversarial relationship ever since.
In 2005, Adams made his comeback in comics, when hired by Marvel to draw an 8-pages long story featuring the X-Men. In 2010, he both wrote and designed the mini-series "Batman: Odyssey". From 2011 to 2012, he worked on the sequel series "Batman: Odyssey" vol. 2. In 2012, he worked on the X-Men again, co-writing and designing the mini-series "First X-Men". This series established that Wolverine/James Howlett and Sabretooth/Victor Creed led a mutant team of heroes before the X-Men were founded. It also provided additional background information on several characters associated with the X-Men, such as Professor X/Charles Xavier and Bolivar Trask.
Adams produced a number of Batman short stories for DC Comics in 2013 and 2014. In 2016, he created new versions of some of his most famous covers for DC Comics. Also in 2016, he wrote and designed the miniseries "Superman: Coming of the Supermen". In 2017, Adams wrote and designed a mini-series featuring Deadman. So far, this has been his last major work for comic books.
In 2008, Adams participated in efforts to convince the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum to end its ownership of artwork created by the artist Dina Babbitt (1923-2009). Babbitt had created the artwork while serving as an inmate of the Auschwitz concentration camp, and ownership over it was held by the camp's authorities. She later wished to reclaim ownership over her work, but the museum rejected her petitions. Adams believes that the artwork properly belongs to Babbitt's descendants, and not to the museum. He has illustrated a graphic documentary about Babbitt's story, and continues to support the case of the Babbitt family.
As of 2021, Adams is 80 years old. He is no longer particularly active as an artist, but he is fondly remembered for creating or co-creating several popular characters. Some of his creations have stood the test of time, and his contributions to long-running characters such as Batman and the X-Men are well-regarded.- Writer
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Dennis O'Neil began as Stan Lee's editorial assistant in the mid-1960s. He wrote comic stories for Batman starting in the 1970s, and was one of the guiding forces behind returning the Batman character to its dark roots from the campiness of the '60s. He's written several novels, comics, short stories, reviews and teleplays, including the novelization of the movie Batman Begins.- Actor
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In 1979 with his Detroit friends, Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert, Bruce Campbell raised $350,000 for a low-budget film, The Evil Dead (1981), in which he starred and co-executive produced. Completed piecemeal over four years, the film first gained notoriety in England where it became the best-selling video of 1983, beating out The Shining (1980). After its appearance at Cannes, where Stephen King dubbed it "the most ferociously original horror film of the year", New Line Cinema stepped forward to release "Evil Dead" in the U.S.
After co-producing Crimewave (1985), a cross-genre comedy written by Sam Raimi, Ethan and Joel Coen, Campbell moved to Los Angeles and quickly gained a foothold producing or starring in genre films such as the Maniac Cop (1988) series, Lunatics: A Love Story (1991), Moontrap (1988), and Mindwarp (1991), a post-apocalyptic "Jeremiah Johnson", during which he met his wife-to-be, filmmaker, Ida Gearon.
Campbell then rejoined his Detroit colleagues to star and co-produce the second and third films in the Evil Dead trilogy (Evil Dead II (1987) & Army of Darkness (1992)), completing 12 years of work on the cult favorite.
This rough-and-tumble background was a plus as Campbell made his foray into television, first starring in the highly touted Fox series The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. (1993), then as a recurring guest-star on the hit show Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (1993).
With these under his belt, Campbell easily made the transition to director, helming numerous episodes and recurring as the King of Thieves in the #1 syndicated Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (1995), and its follow-up phenomenon, Xena: Warrior Princess (1995).
Bruce has since expanded his range on television, appearing in anything from Disney's update of The Love Bug (1997), to decidedly dramatic turns on the acclaimed series Homicide: Life on the Street (1993) and The X-Files (1993). At the invitation of ABC, Campbell ventured into the world of sitcoms with a recurring role on ABC's Emmy-nominated Ellen (1994), participating in one of the three touted "out" episodes.
But Campbell didn't abandon his film roots. During that time, he had featured roles in the blockbuster Congo (1995), John Carpenter's Escape from L.A. (1996), and the award-winning independent crime drama, Running Time (1997). He followed these up with roles in Paramount's romantic comedy, Serving Sara (2002), Jim Carrey's The Majestic (2001), and all three of Sam Raimi's blockbuster Spider-Man movies.
After a return to episodic television in the swashbuckling series, Jack of All Trades (2000), Campbell took the title role in MGM's cult sleeper Bubba Ho-Tep (2002). His directorial debut, Man with the Screaming Brain (2005) premiered on the Sci Fi Channel, and Dark Horse Comics published the comic adaptation.
Campbell then directed and starred as himself in My Name Is Bruce (2007), a spoof of his B-movie career, then re-teamed with Disney for their fun-filled hit, Sky High (2005).
Campbell has since made the leap into other forms of entertainment, and is enjoying his role as an author with back-to-back New York Times bestsellers: a memoir entitled "If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor", and his first novel, "Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way".
In the multi-media industry, Bruce has enjoyed voicing characters for Disney's animated TV series The Legend of Tarzan (2001) and the Warner Brothers feature The Ant Bully (2006). He also portrayed the character of "Mayor Shelbourne" in the animated hit film, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009). Recently, Campbell voiced the role of "Rod Torque Redline" in Cars 2 (2011), the sequel to the smash Disney animated feature and for the immensely popular game, "Call of Duty".
In 2013, Bruce co-produced the hit remake of Evil Dead (2013), joined his filmmaking pal Sam Raimi on Oz the Great and Powerful (2013), and completed an impressive seven-year run on the spy show, Burn Notice (2007) (2007-2013), USA's #1 show on cable.
More than two decades after the release of Army of Darkness (1992), Bruce returned to his most iconic role for Ash vs Evil Dead (2015), a highly-anticipated series premiering on the Starz network on Halloween 2015.- Actor
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Jeffrey Combs was born on September 9th, 1954 in Oxnard, California. He grew up in Lompoc, California with a plethora of siblings both older and younger. He attended the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts in Santa Maria, and the Professional Actor's Training Program at the University of Washington in Seattle. He spent about four years in regional theater performing at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, the Arizona Theatre Company in Tucson, the California Shakespearean Festival, the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles and the South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa among others. In 1980 he moved to Los Angeles, where he lives with his family. As a horror film leading actor, Combs is probably best known for portraying Herbert West in the cult horror film Re-Animator (1985). Re-Animator was based on H.P. Lovecraft's famous novel brought together by Stuart Gordon and Brian Yuzna, the producer and financier of the film. Combs stayed in the realm of cult films with both Gordon and Yuzna to return when making From Beyond (1986), and Bride of Re-Animator (1990) also from Lovecraft novels. He has also been in some supporting roles in _Pit and the Pendulum, The (1990) (V)_, the strange FBI Agent with Michael J. Fox in The Frighteners (1996), I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998) and the remake of the William Castle thriller, House on Haunted Hill (1999).- Podcaster
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Joe Rogan was born on 11 August 1967 in Newark, New Jersey, USA. He is a podcaster and writer, known for The Joe Rogan Experience (2009), NewsRadio (1995) and Zookeeper (2011). He has been married to Jessica Rogan since 2009. They have three children.- Actor
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Robin McLaurin Williams was born on Saturday, July 21st, 1951, in Chicago, Illinois, a great-great-grandson of Mississippi Governor and Senator, Anselm J. McLaurin. His mother, Laurie McLaurin (née Janin), was a former model from Mississippi, and his father, Robert Fitzgerald Williams, was a Ford Motor Company executive from Indiana. Williams had English, German, French, Welsh, Irish, and Scottish ancestry.
Robin briefly studied political science at Claremont Men's College and theater at College of Marin before enrolling at The Juilliard School to focus on theater. After leaving Juilliard, he performed in nightclubs where he was discovered for the role of "Mork, from Ork", in an episode of Happy Days (1974). The episode, My Favorite Orkan (1978), led to his famous spin-off weekly TV series, Mork & Mindy (1978). He made his feature starring debut playing the title role in Popeye (1980), directed by Robert Altman.
Williams' continuous comedies and wild comic talents involved a great deal of improvisation, following in the footsteps of his idol Jonathan Winters. Williams also proved to be an effective dramatic actor, receiving Academy Award nominations for Best Actor in a Leading Role in Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), Dead Poets Society (1989), and The Fisher King (1991), before winning the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in Good Will Hunting (1997).
During the 1990s, Williams became a beloved hero to children the world over for his roles in a string of hit family-oriented films, including Hook (1991), FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992), Aladdin (1992), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), Jumanji (1995), Flubber (1997), and Bicentennial Man (1999). He continued entertaining children and families into the 21st century with his work in Robots (2005), Happy Feet (2006), Night at the Museum (2006), Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009), Happy Feet Two (2011), and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb (2014). Other more adult-oriented films for which Williams received acclaim include The World According to Garp (1982), Moscow on the Hudson (1984), Awakenings (1990), The Birdcage (1996), Insomnia (2002), One Hour Photo (2002), World's Greatest Dad (2009), and Boulevard (2014).
On Monday, August 11th, 2014, Robin Williams was found dead at his home in Tiburon, California USA, the victim of an apparent suicide, according to the Marin County Sheriff's Office. A 911 call was received at 11:55 a.m. PDT, firefighters and paramedics arrived at his home at 12:00 p.m. PDT, and he was pronounced dead at 12:02 p.m. PDT.R.I.P.- Actor
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Former Oakland Raiders/Kansas City Chiefs football star who rose to prominence as one of the first African-American male action stars of the "blaxploitation" genre of the early 1970s, who has since gone on to a long and illustrious career as an actor, director, writer, and producer! Burly, yet handsome 6' 3" Williamson first came to attention in the TV series Julia (1968) playing love interest, Steve Bruce. However, his rugged, athletic physique made him a natural for energetic roles and he quickly established himself as a street wise, tough guy in films including That Man Bolt (1973), Black Caesar (1973), and Mean Johnny Barrows (1975). Talented Williamson established his own production company "Po 'Boy Productions" in 1974, which has produced over 40 movies to date. Like many young American stars of the 1960s and '70s, Williamson was noticed by Italian producers who cast him in a slew of B-grade action movies that occupied a lot of his work in the 1980s. From the late '80s onwards, much of his work has been of the "straight to video" fare (often playing police officers), but none could deny he has kept actively busy in movies and TV for over three decades, both in front of and behind the camera. More recently, indie director Robert Rodriguez cast him alongside FX guru Tom Savini as two vampire killing bikers, in his bloody action film From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), and he has most recently appeared on screen (displaying his wonderful comedy skills) playing grumpy Captain Dobey in Starsky & Hutch (2004).- Producer
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George A. Romero never set out to become a Hollywood figure; by all indications, though, he was very successful. The director of the groundbreaking "Living Dead" films was born February 4, 1940 ,in New York City to Ann (Dvorsky) and Jorge Romero. His father was born in Spain and raised in Cuba, and his mother was Lithuanian. He grew up in New York until attending the renowned Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA.
After graduation he began shooting mostly short films and commercials. He and his friends formed Image Ten Productions in the late 1960s and they all chipped in roughly $10,000 apiece to produce what became one of the most celebrated American horror films of all time: Night of the Living Dead (1968). Shot in black-and-white on a budget of just over $100,000, Romero's vision, combined with a solid script written by him and his "Image" co-founder John A. Russo (along with what was then considered an excess of gore), enabled the film to earn back far more than what it cost; it became a cult classic by the early 1970s and was inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress of the United States in 1999. Romero's next films were a little more low-key but less successful, including The Affair (1971), The Crazies (1973), Season of the Witch (1972) (where he met future wife Christine Forrest) and Martin (1977). Though not as acclaimed as "Night of the Living Dead" or some of his later work, these films had his signature social commentary while dealing with issues--usually horror-related--at the microscopic level. Like almost all of his films, they were shot in, or around, Romero's favorite city of Pittsburgh.
In 1978 he returned to the zombie genre with the one film of his that would top the success of "Night of the Living Dead"--Dawn of the Dead (1978). He managed to divorce the franchise from Image Ten, which screwed up the copyright on the original and allowed the film to enter into public domain, with the result that Romero and his original investors were not entitled to any profits from the film's video releases. Shot in the Monroeville (PA) Mall during late-night hours, the film told the tale of four people who escape a zombie outbreak and lock themselves up inside what they think is paradise before the solitude makes them victims of their own, and a biker gang's, greed. Made on a budget of just $1.5 million, the film earned over $40 million worldwide and was named one of the top cult films by Entertainment Weekly magazine in 2003. It also marked Romero's first work with brilliant make-up and effects artist Tom Savini. After 1978, Romero and Savini teamed up many times. The success of "Dawn of the Dead" led to bigger budgets and better casts for the filmmaker. First was Knightriders (1981), where he first worked with an up-and-coming Ed Harris. Then came perhaps his most Hollywood-like film, Creepshow (1982), which marked the first--but not the last--time Romero adapted a work by famed horror novelist Stephen King. With many major stars and big-studio distribution, it was a moderate success and spawned a sequel, which was also written by Romero.
The decline of Romero's career came in the late 1980s. His last widely-released film was the next "Dead" film, Day of the Dead (1985). Derided by critics, it did not take in much at the box office, either. His latest two efforts were The Dark Half (1993) (another Stephen King adaptation) and Bruiser (2000). Even the Romero-penned/Tom Savini-directed remake of Romero's first film, Night of the Living Dead (1990), was a box-office failure. Pigeon-holed solely as a horror director and with his latest films no longer achieving the success of his earlier "Dead" films, Romero has not worked much since, much to the chagrin of his following. In 2005, 19 years after "Day of the Dead", with major-studio distribution he returned to his most famous series and horror sub-genre it created with Land of the Dead (2005), a further exploration of the destruction of modern society by the undead, that received generally positive reviews. He directed two more "Dead" films, Diary of the Dead (2007) and Survival of the Dead (2009).
George died on July 16, 2017, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He was 77.R.I.P.- Actor
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William Shatner has notched up an impressive 70-plus years in front of the camera, displaying heady comedic talent and being instantly recognizable to several generations of cult television fans as the square-jawed Captain James T. Kirk, commander of the starship U.S.S. Enterprise.
Shatner was born in Côte Saint-Luc, Montréal, Québec, Canada, to Anne (Garmaise) and Joseph Shatner, a clothing manufacturer. His father was a Jewish emigrant from Bukovina in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, while his maternal grandparents were Lithuanian Jews. After graduating from university, he joined a local Summer theatre group as an assistant manager. He then performed with the National Repertory Theatre of Ottawa and at the Stratford, Ontario, Shakespeare Festival as an understudy working with such as Alec Guinness, James Mason, and Anthony Quayle. He came to the attention of New York critics and was soon playing important roles in major shows on live television.
Shatner spent many years honing his craft before debuting alongside Yul Brynner in The Brothers Karamazov (1958). He was kept busy during the 1960s in films such as Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) and The Intruder (1962) and on television guest-starring in dozens of series such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955), The Defenders (1961), The Outer Limits (1963) and The Twilight Zone (1959). In 1966, Shatner boarded the USS Enterprise for three seasons of Star Trek (1966), co-starring alongside Leonard Nimoy, with the series eventually becoming a bona-fide cult classic with a worldwide legion of fans known variously as "Trekkies" or "Trekkers".
After "Star Trek" folded, Shatner spent the rest of the decade and the 1970s making the rounds, guest-starring on many prime-time television series, including Hawaii Five-O (1968), Marcus Welby, M.D. (1969) and Ironside (1967). He has also appeared in several feature films, but they were mainly B-grade (or lower) fare, such as the embarrassingly bad Euro western White Comanche (1968) and the campy Kingdom of the Spiders (1977). However, the 1980s saw a major resurgence in Shatner's career with the renewed interest in the original Star Trek (1966) series culminating in a series of big-budget "Star Trek" feature films, including Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991). In addition, he starred in the lightweight police series T.J. Hooker (1982) from 1982 to 1986, alongside spunky Heather Locklear, and surprised many fans with his droll comedic talents in Airplane II: The Sequel (1982), Loaded Weapon 1 (1993) and Miss Congeniality (2000).
He has most recently been starring in the David E. Kelley television series The Practice (1997) and its spin-off Boston Legal (2004).
Outside of work, he jogs and follows other athletic pursuits. His interest in health and nutrition led to him becoming spokesman for the American Health Institute's 'Know Your Body' program to promote nutritional and physical health.- Actor
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Leonard Simon Nimoy was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Dora (Spinner) and Max Nimoy, who owned a barbershop. His parents were Ukrainian Jewish immigrants. Raised in a tenement and acting in community theaters since age eight, Nimoy did not make his Hollywood debut until he was 20, with a bit part in Queen for a Day (1951) and another as a ballplayer in the perennial Rhubarb (1951). After two years in the United States Army, he was still getting small, often uncredited parts, like an Army telex operator in Them! (1954). His part as Narab, a Martian finally friendly to Earth, in the closing scene in the corny Republic serial Zombies of the Stratosphere (1952), somewhat foreshadowed the role which would make him a household name: Mr. Spock, the half-human/half-Vulcan science officer on Star Trek (1966) one of television's all-time most successful series. His performance won him three Emmy nominations and launched his career as a writer and director, notably of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), the story of a humpback whale rescue that proved the most successful of the Star Trek movies. Stage credits have included "Fiddler on the Roof", "Oliver", "Camelot" and "Equus". He has hosted the well-known television series In Search of... (1977) and Ancient Mysteries (1994), authored several volumes of poetry and guest-starred on two episodes of The Simpsons (1989). In the latter years of his career, he played Mustafa Mond in NBC's telling of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1998), voiced Sentinel Prime in the blockbuster Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011), and played Spock again in two new Star Trek films, Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek Into Darkness (2013).
Leonard Nimoy died on February 27, 2015 in Bel Air, Los Angeles, California, of end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He was 83.R.I.P.- Actor
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Jackson DeForest Kelley was born in Toccoa, Georgia, to Clora (Casey) and Ernest David Kelley.
He graduated from high school at age 16 and went on to sing at the Baptist church where his father was a minister. At age 17, he made his first trip outside the state to visit an uncle in Long Beach, California. He intended to stay for two weeks but ended up staying a year. Upon returning home, he told his parents he was moving to California to become an actor. His mother encouraged him but the idea did not go over well with his father.
In California, Kelley was spotted by a Paramount talent scout while working on a United States Navy training film. He became a reliable character actor (often in Westerns in which he often played the villain), but hit the big time when he was offered the role of the somewhat irascible Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy on the television series Star Trek (1966). He later reprised his role for a string of successful Star Trek films: Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989), and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991).
DeForest Kelley died at age 79 of stomach cancer in his home in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles on June 11, 1999.R.I.P.- Actor
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Sir Patrick Stewart was born in Mirfield, Yorkshire, England, to Gladys (Barrowclough), a textile worker and weaver, and Alfred Stewart, who was in the army. He was a member of various local drama groups from about age 12. He left school at age 15 to work as a junior reporter on a local paper; he quit when his editor told him he was spending too much time at the theatre and not enough working. Stewart spent a year as a furniture salesman, saving cash to attend drama school. He was accepted by Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in 1957.
He made his professional debut in 1959 in the repertory theatre in Lincoln; he worked at the Manchester Library Theatre and a tour around the world with the Old Vic Company followed in the early 1960s. Stewart joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1966, to begin his 27-year association. Following a spell with the Royal National Theatre in the mid 1980s, he went to Los Angeles, California to star on Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987), which ran from 1987-1994, playing the role of Captain Jean-Luc Picard. After the series ended, Stewart reprised his role for a string of successful Star Trek films: Star Trek: Generations (1994), Star Trek: First Contact (1996), Star Trek: Insurrection (1998), and Star Trek: Nemesis (2002). Stewart continues to work on the stage and in various films. He was awarded Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire in the 2010 Queen's New Year's Honours List for his services to drama.- Actor
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Widely regarded as one of greatest stage and screen actors both in his native Great Britain and internationally, twice nominated for the Oscar and recipient of every major theatrical award in the UK and US, Ian Murray McKellen was born on May 25, 1939 in Burnley, Lancashire, England, to Margery Lois (Sutcliffe) and Denis Murray McKellen, a civil engineer and lay preacher. He is of Scottish, Northern Irish, and English descent. During his early childhood, his parents moved with Ian and his older sister, Jean, to the mill town of Wigan. It was in this small town that young Ian rode out World War II. He soon developed a fascination with acting and the theatre, which was encouraged by his parents. They would take him to plays, those by William Shakespeare, in particular. The amateur school productions fostered Ian's growing passion for theatre.
When Ian was of age to begin attending school, he made sure to get roles in all of the productions. At Bolton School in particular, he developed his skills early on. Indeed, his first role in a Shakespearian play was at Bolton, as Malvolio in "Twelfth Night". Ian soon began attending Stratford-upon-Avon theatre festivals, where he saw the greats perform: Laurence Olivier, Wendy Hiller, John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson and Paul Robeson. He continued his education in English Drama, but soon it fell by the wayside as he concentrated more and more on performing. He eventually obtained his Bachelor of Arts in 1961, and began his career in earnest.
McKellen began working in theatre over the next few years. Very few people knew of Ian's homosexuality; he saw no reason to go public, nor had he told his family. They did not seem interested in the subject and so he saw no reason to bring it up. In 1988, Ian publicly came out of the closet on the BBC Radio 4 program, while discussing Margaret Thatcher's "Section 28" legislation, which made the promotion of homosexuality as a family relationship by local authorities an offense. It was reason enough for McKellen to take a stand. He has been active in the gay rights movement ever since.
Ian resides in Limehouse, where he has also lived with his former long-time partner Sean Mathias. The two men have also worked together on the film Bent (1997) as well as in exquisite stage productions. To this day, McKellen works mostly in theatre, and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1990 for his efforts in the arts. However, he has managed to make several quite successful forays into film. He has appeared in several productions of Shakespeare's works including his well received Richard III (1995), and in a variety of other movies. However, it has only been recently that his star has finally begun to shine in the eyes of North American audiences. Roles in various films, Cold Comfort Farm (1995), Apt Pupil (1998) and Gods and Monsters (1998), riveted audiences. The latter, in particular, created a sensation in Hollywood, and McKellen's role garnered him several of awards and nominations, including a Golden Globe and an Oscar nod. McKellen, as he continues to work extensively on stage, he always keeps in 'solidifying' his 'role' as Laurence Olivier's worthy 'successor' in the best sense too, such as King Lear (2008) / King Lear (2008) directed by Trevor Nunn and in a range of other staggering performances full of generously euphoric delight that have included "Peter Pan" and Noël Coward's "Present Laughter", as well as Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" and Harold Pinter's "No Man's Land" (National Theatre Live: No Man's Land (2016)), both in acclaimed productions brilliantly directed by Sean Mathias.
McKellen found mainstream success with his performance as Magneto in X-Men (2000) and its sequels. His largest mark on the big screen may be as Gandalf in "The Lord of the Rings" film trilogy directed by Peter Jackson, which he reprised in "The Hobbit" trilogy. He also reprised the role of 'King Lear' with new artistic perspectives in National Theatre Live: King Lear (2018) offering an invaluable mesmerizing experience as a natural force of stage - and screen - of infinite generosity through his unsurpassable interpretation of the titanically vulnerable king.- Writer
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Alan Moore was born on 18 November 1953 in Northampton, England, UK. He is a writer and actor, known for The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003), From Hell (2001) and Watchmen (2019). He has been married to Melinda Gebbie since 12 May 2007. He was previously married to Phyllis B. Dixon.- Writer
- Producer
- Actor
Frank Miller was born in Olney, Maryland, to a nurse mother and a carpenter and electrician father, and was raised in Montpelier, Vermont. He is of Irish descent. Miller was a big comics writer/artist in the '70s and '80s. He wrote and penciled the Marvel series "Daredevil" for a long time. His friend, Klaus Janson, inked. He also wrote two spinoffs about the character "Electra" and did a miniseries about the "X-Men" character "Wolverine". His hit miniseries "Ronin" was published by DC in the mid-eighties. His greatest success came with DC's character "Batman". In 1980, he wrote the acclaimed "Batman" story "Wanted - Santa Claus - Dead or Alive!" for DC Comics. In 1986, his most notable comic-book work, the groundbreaking "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns", an alternate history story about Batman in a grim future, was published by DC. Miller wrote and penciled. In 1988, he wrote the acclaimed "Batman: Year One", about Batman's first year on the job, for DC. In 1996, he wrote "Spawn versus Batman", a one-shot issue published by DC and Image Comics. He wrote the major motion pictures RoboCop 2 (1990) and RoboCop 3 (1993) and did the "Robocop" comic series for a little while.
Miller directed The Spirit (2008) and co-directed Sin City (2005) and Frank Miller's Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014)_.- Trevor S. Valle was born on 27 October 1975 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He is a writer, known for Doomsday: 10 Ways the World Will End (2016), Big History (2013) and Mysteries at the Museum (2010).
- Writer
- Producer
- Actor
Neil Gaiman is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre, and films. He is best known for the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book.
As a child and a teenager, Gaiman read the works of C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Lewis Carroll, Mary Shelley, Rudyard Kipling, Edgar Allan Poe, and Alan Moore.
Gaiman also wrote episodes of the BBC science fiction series Doctor Who, during Matt Smith's as the Doctor.- Actor
- Director
- Soundtrack
William Daniels is an American actor, born in Brooklyn, New York City. He was born in 1927, to bricklayer David Daniels and his wife Irene.
Daniels was a member of the singing Daniels family in Brooklyn. He made his television debut in 1943 at the age of 16, as part of a variety act. That same year, Daniels made his Broadway debut in the comedy play "Life With Father" (1939) by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. Until the 1960s, Daniels was primarily a theatrical actor, with a few guest star roles in television. For his role in the play "The Zoo Story" (1958) by Edward Albee, Daniels received an Obie Award.
Daniels made his film debut in 1963, at the age of 36. He debuted in the Cold War-themed thriller "Ladybug Ladybug" (1963), where he played school principal Mr. Calkins. His next film role was the comedy-drama film "A Thousand Clowns" (1965), where he played child welfare worker Albert Amundson. Daniels had a supporting role in "The Graduate" (1967), playing the father of protagonist Benjamin Braddock (played by Dustin Hoffman).
Daniels found his first major television role in the superhero comedy "Captain Nice" (1967). He played police chemist Carter Nash, who could transform into the superhero Captain Nice by drinking a super serum. In both identities, Nash was a mild-mannered mama's boy, who was pressured into a crime-fighting career by his mother (played by Alice Ghostley). He was clumsy as a hero, and had a crippling fear of heights. The series lasted only 15 episodes
In the 1970s, Daniel's most prominent role was that of John Adams in the film adaptation of "1776" (1972). He also played John Quincy Adams in the historical television series "The Adams Chronicles" (1976). He had a regular role in the sitcom "The Nancy Walker Show" (1976) as Lt. Commander Kenneth Kitteridge of the United States Navy. Kenneth was the loving husband of protagonist Nancy Kitteridge (played by Nancy Walker). The series lasted for 13 episodes.
In the crime drama series "Knight Rider" (1982-1986), Daniels voiced KITT, an artificially intelligent electronic computer module in the body of a robotic automobile. The series lasted for 90 episodes. The series was very popular in its time, and has had a large number of sequels and spin-offs.
Daniels also played surgeon Dr. Mark Craig in the medical drama "St. Elsewhere" (1982-1988). The setting was St. Eligius Hospital, a decaying urban teaching hospital in Boston. The series lasted for 137 episodes and garnered 62 Primetime Emmy Award nominations.
Daniels played KITT again in the television film "Knight Rider 2000" (1991). He had a prominent role in the sitcom "Boy Meets World" (1993-2000) as teacher George Feeny, a strict but loving mentor to protagonist Cory Matthews (played by Ben Savage). The series lasted for 158 episodes, and Feeny was one of Daniel's most recognizable roles.
Daniels guest starred as KITT in two episodes of the animated sitcom "The Simpsons" (1989-). The episodes were "The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace" (1998) and "Milhouse Doesn't Live Here Anymore". Daniels also voiced a Hospital Ship in the episode "Critical Care" (2000) of the science fiction series "Star Trek: Voyager" (1995-2001).
In the 2000s, Daniels provided voice roles for animated television series, such as "Kim Possible" and "The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy". His most prominent role in the 2010s was that of George Feeny again, who appeared in 5 episodes of the sitcom series "Girl Meets World" (2014-2017). It was a sequel series to "Boy Meets World" , featuring the life of Cory Matthews as a teacher and father.
By 2020, Daniels was 92 years old, one of the oldest living actors.- Howard Bloom is known for Ice Guardians (2016), FCR247 Interviews (2020) and Bucky: A Fuller Future (2017).
- Actor
- Soundtrack
- Actor
- Writer
- Stunts
Shad Gaspard was born on January 13, 1981 in Brooklyn, New York, USA as Shad Chad Javier Romain Chittick Gaspard. He is a Professional wrestler, actor, and writer, known for his time in World Wrestling Entertainment, and films such as Get Hard (2015), WWE Raw (1993) and From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series (2014).R.I.P.- Actor
- Composer
- Music Department
Lemmy was born on 24 December 1945 in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England, UK. He was an actor and composer, known for Grosse Pointe Blank (1997), Airheads (1994) and Smokin' Aces (2006). He died on 28 December 2015 in Los Angeles, California, USA.R.I.P.- Producer
- Actor
- Director
Larry King was born on 19 November 1933 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. He was a producer and actor, known for Ghostbusters (1984), Enemy of the State (1998) and Bee Movie (2007). He was married to Shawn Ora Engemann, Julie Alexander, Sharon Lepore, Alene Akins, Mickey Sutphin, Annette Kaye and Freda Miller. He died on 23 January 2021 in Los Angeles, California, USA.