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- Captain (later Vice Admiral) William Bligh will be remembered as the infamous captain of the HMS Bounty. He went to sea at the age of 15 as sailing master to the famous explorer Captain James Cook on his 2nd voyage round the world (1772-4) aboard the HMS Resolution. It was he who discovered bread-fruit at Otaheite (Tahiti). In 1787, then lieutenant, he was chosen by Sir Joseph Banks to command the Bounty on a voyage to Tahiti to collect plants of the bread-fruit tree and introduce them to the West Indies. On the return voyage, on 28 April 1789, first mate Fletcher Christian led a mutiny, and Bligh and 18 of his supporters were cast adrift in an open boat without charts. The mutineers went back to Tahiti. Bligh was an excellent navigator and managed to 'captain' his boat to Timor in the East Indies. They landed there in June after having travelled nearly 4,000 miles across the Pacific. There he met British authorities and sailed back to England, to be exonerated for his conduct and promoted. In 1791 he set sail for the Society Islands. In 1794 he received the medal of the Society of Arts and in 1801 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society. Bligh served under Lord Nelson in command of the Glatton at the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801. He then became a colonial administrator in Australia. He was made Governor of New South Wales in 1805 which was a penal colony. He was deposed in 1808 and imprisoned (1808-10) by mutinous soldiers during the so-called 'Rum Rebellion' inspired by John MacArthur. On his return to England, Bligh was exonerated of all blame. He was promoted to Rear-admiral in 1811 and Vice-admiral of the Blue in 1814, he was not, however, given any important command. He effectively retired in 1811.
- English nurse and hospital reformer. Florence Nightingale was named after the place of her birth in Italy. Educated at home by their wealthy, well-bred father, Nightingale and her older sister Parthenope studied history, philosophy, mathematics, and classics; they also wrote weekly compositions. Nursing was considered a profession for the lower-classes and that time, however Florence decided that was what she wanded to do. She trained as a nurse at Kaiserswerth (1851) and Paris and in 1853 became superintendent of a hospital for invalid women in London. In the Crimean War she volunteered for duty and took 38 nurses to Scutari in 1854. She organized the barracks hospital after the Battle of Inkerman (5 November) and by imposing strict discipline and standards of sanitation reduced the hospital mortality rate drastically. She returned to England in 1856 and a fund of L 50,000 was subscribed to enable her to form an institution for the training of nurses at St Thomas's and at King's College Hospital. She devoted many years to the question of army sanitary reform, to the improvement of nursing and to public health in India. Her main work, Notes on Nursing (1859), went through many editions.
- A fearsome Apache Indian warrior and medicine man of mythic stature, Geronimo was born about 1829 on the upper reaches of the Gila River (near the present-day mining town of Clifton, AZ). He belonged to the Be-don-ko-he band of the southern Chiricahua Apaches. He was known as Goyathlay or Goyaklay, meaning "one who yawns." It's not clear how he came to be called Geronimo, but conventional wisdom is that it was bestowed upon him by Mexicans during his many raids into that country.
Few specifics are known of his early life, but he emerged as a leader of the Chiricahuas in 1858 in the wake of personal tragedy. According to Geronimo, he had gone in the company of other Apaches and their families to trade peacefully with settlers around the Mexican military post at Janos in northern Chihuahua. While he and other adult males were away, a troop of Mexican soldiers from the neighboring state of Sonora swooped down on the family encampment and slaughtered most of the Apaches there, including Geronimo's mother, wife and three children. As a result, Geronimo swore revenge on Mexicans. Soon after the massacre at Janos, Geronimo received a spirit's voice that told him to fight the Mexicans. In the ensuing forays Geronimo was wounded many times but always recovered, and as late as 1897 he was still boasting to those who would listen that no bullet could kill him. Indeed, foes and followers alike thought that Geronimo was endowed with supernatural powers. Eyewitnesses declared him clairvoyant; according to them, he could interpret signs, explain the unknowable and predict the future.
In line with its uncertain and fluctuating policy, the US government tried to "civilize" the Apaches by shifting them from one reservation to another in Arizona and New Mexico. Although they would "settle down" for a spell on reservation land, sooner or later one or more bands would break out and go on the warpath, and the resulting plundering, burning and killing terrorized the civilian populace from Arizona down into Mexico. Geronimo himself often led these warring factions. Several times he was captured or forced to surrender and was returned to a reservation for a period of time (although other Apaches might be on the warpath), but he eventually would break out again. In May 1885 he fled the reservation with 35 men, 8 boys and 101 women. Ten months later he again surrendered to the American military in northern Sonora (a treaty between the US and Mexico allowed security forces from each nation to cross the border in pursuit of hostile Indians) only to bolt for freedom one more time. With 5,000 American soldiers and 500 Apache scouts and police in pursuit, Geronimo--with 16 warriors, 14 women and 6 children--surrendered to the US Army for the last time on September 3, 1886, at Skeleton Canyon in southern Arizona.
Thus ended an epoch called "The Apacheria", a period of almost constant warfare involving whites, Mexicans and Apaches that lasted for nearly two centuries. Geronimo was exiled to Florida but was promised that afterwards he and his followers would be allowed to return to Arizona--a promise that was not kept. They were placed under military confinement and later scattered among various reservations, with Geronimo and some of his people being sent to Oklahoma. He later became a farmer there and adopted Christianity. He dictated his autobiography, "Geronimo: His Own Story", published in 1906. In February 1909 the 85-year-old warrior fell off of his horse and remained in a ditch until the next day. He caught pneumonia and died a few days later. He was buried in the Indian cemetery at Fort Sill, OK. - Welsh explorer and travel writer Henry Morton Stanley was born John Rowlands (he may have been illegitimate). His father died when he was 2; his mother, a butcher's daughter, went into service in London and then married, and did not want him. Stanley's paternal grandfather, a prosperous farmer, refused to care for him. For a while his mother's brothers boarded him out, then they stopped paying for him and he was taken, at 6, to the workhouse at St. Asaph, where he remained until 1856, when he was 15. The schoolmaster there was a savage brute, afterward adjudged insane, and the boy's life was one long series of torture, in the midst of which somehow he gained an elementary education. At last he beat his tormentor, and ran away.
For a while, a cousin at Brynford employed him as a pupil teacher in a National School, and after school he studied languages and mathematics. For several years, he went from one town and one poor and unwelcoming relative after another, working odd jobs. In 1859 he went to sea as a cabin boy, without pay, on a boat going to New Orleans. A kind-hearted cotton broker, Henry Stanley, picked him up, starving, on the street, cared for him and adopted him. The boy took his benefactor's name. The next year Stanley sent him to his farm in Arkansas, to take charge of the store there. Then he died suddenly, without having made any provision for his adopted son. Young Stanley found himself stranded, and the Civil War had begun. Though his sympathies were with the Union, he enlisted as a Confederate, was taken prisoner at Shiloh, and was released from Camp Douglas, Chicago, by re-enlisting on the other side (a very discreditable, though fairly common at the time, action, which he never entirely lived down). His turncoat tactics proved unnecessary; he contracted dysentery, was discharged from the army and, sick and penniless, worked his way from Harper's Ferry, Virginia, back to Wales. Once more his relatives threw him out, and he became a sailor.
In 1864 he enlisted in the United States Navy as a ship's writer. With this experience he became a wandering news correspondent in the western United States. He made and saved money, and in 1866 was able to travel to Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) with a friend. The next year a Missouri newspaper sent him to report on General Winfield Hancock's Indian expedition. In 1868 he joined the staff of the New York Herald, which sent him to Abyssinia (modern-day Ethiopia) to report on the war there. The rest of Stanley's life belongs to Africa, where he felt he had a "mission". In 1869 James Gordon Bennett Jr., the publisher of the New York Herald, decided to send a reporter to Africa in search for David Livingstone, who was last heard of six years previously. On November 24, 1871, Stanley reached Ujiji (on the shores of Lake Tanganyika) and found Livingstone, weak from illness and barely alive. Despite his condition, Livingstone refused to return to England with Stanley, and died 17 months later.
For the Herald he also covered the Ashanti War in 1873. He made three more African explorations, in Equatorial Africa from 1874 to 1877, in the Congo (for King Leopold II of Belgium) from 1878 to 1884 and in the Sudan from 1885 to 1888. In 15 years, without an army, as a private civilian, he added about 2,000,000 square miles for the British Empire, and he cannot be held responsible for the horrendous atrocities later committed by the Belgians during their ownership and exploitation of the Congo Free State. The controversies arising from the Livingstone expedition gradually died down, though they (and his quick and harsh temper) retarded any bestowal of honors on him. In the 1890s he made a lecture tour in the United States and Australasia. He abandoned his American citizenship, was re-naturalized in England and from 1895-1900 was a member of Parliament. In 1897 he made his last journey, to South Africa, just before the Boer War. He was finally knighted in 1899. He suffered a stroke four years later, and died the following spring. - Director
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Le Prince was a French artist and the inventor of an early motion picture camera born in Metz, France. His father was a major of artillery in the French Army and an officer of the Légion d'honneur. When growing up, he reportedly spent time in the studio of his father's friend, the pioneer of photography Louis Daguerre, from whom he may have received some lessons on photography and chemistry before he was 10 years old. His education went on to include the study of painting in Paris and post-graduate chemistry at Leipzig University. He then moved to Leeds, England in 1866, after being invited to join John Whitley, a friend from college, in Whitley Partners of Hunslet, a firm of brass founders making valves and components. In 1869, he married Elizabeth Whitley, John's sister and a talented artist, and the two of them started a school of applied art, the Leeds Technical School of Art, and became well renowned for their work in fixing coloured photographs on to metal and pottery. In 1881, Le Prince went to the United States with his family where he began experiments relating to the production of 'moving' photographs, designing a camera that utilised sixteen lenses, which was the first invention he patented. After his return to Leeds in May 1887, he built a single-lens camera in mid-late 1888 used to shoot his motion-picture films. It was first used on 14 October 1888 to shoot what would become known as Roundhay Garden Scene (1888) and Accordion Player (1888). He later used it to film Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge (1888). In September 1890, he was preparing for a trip to the United States, supposedly to publicly premiere his work and join his wife and children. Before this journey, he decided to return to France to visit his brother in Dijon. Then, on 16 September, he took a train to Paris but, having taken a later train than planned, his friends missed him in Paris. He was never seen again by his family or friends. The last person to see Le Prince at the Dijon station was his brother. The French police, Scotland Yard and the family undertook exhaustive searches, but never found him. Le Prince was officially declared dead on 16 September 1897.- Annie Besant, English writer, socialist and feminist activist, was born in 1847, the only daughter of William B. P. Wood, a non-practicing physician, and the former Emily Morris. Both were Anglo-Irish Protestants. Annie was raised a devout Anglican, and religion remained an important factor throughout her life, providing the decisive spur to her pioneering work for social justice. Educated privately by Miss Marryat, sister of the novelist Frederick Marryat, Annie Wood married Frank Besant, a clergyman, in 1867. The marriage produced two children, a daughter, Mabel, and a son, Digby. Frank's mental cruelty and physical violence led to a legal separation in 1873 and Annie's abandonment of her naive Christianity. She was associated with the radical atheist Charles Bradlaugh (1833-1891) and the socialist Fabian Society. Besant and Bradlaugh published a treatise advocating birth control and were prosecuted; as a result she lost custody of her daughter. In 1889 she became a disciple of the Russian spiritualist and mystic Madame Blavatsky. Thereafter she went to India where she founded the Central Hindu College in 1898. Her Theosophy and the New Psychology was published in 1904. She became president of the Theosophical Society in 1907, a post she held until her death. She also became involved in the Indian independence movement, established the Indian Home Rule League in 1916, and became the only British woman to serve as president of the Indian National Congress in 1917.
- He was born into the feudal royal family of Travancore (now part of the state of Kerala in South India). Varma's contribution to iconography and lithographs in Indian painting is significant. He apprenticed under the court painter Ramaswamy Naicker and even studied under the tutelage of the Dutch painter Theodore Jensen. Varma was very popular among the British authorities in having him do their portraits. He is more well known today for his paintings of scenes from Indian mythology that have an 'academic' style. In 1894 he mass produced his olegraphs at Lonavala. His paintings had a significant impact on Indian theatre. The Sangeet Natnak used his style of rendering for their stage backdrops that was quickly imitated by others. The poet and novelist Kerala Varma (1845-1914) has written extensively about him.
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Austrian neurologist and 'father of psychoanalysis'. Freud was born to Jacob Freud, a Jewish wool merchant, and Amalia (neé Nathansohn). The family settled in Vienna when Freud was young. In 1873 he started medicine at the University of Vienna, at which time he adopted the shortened form of his name, "Sigmund." Freud served a year of compulsory military service and got his M.D. in 1881. He then stayed on for another year as a demonstrator in the physiology laboratory. From 1882 to 1886, he worked as an assistant at the General Hospital in Vienna. During this period, Dr. Josef Breuer related to Freud how he had treated a young woman suffering from hysteria with 'talking cures' while in a state of self-hypnosis. This is considered the prototype of psychoanalysis. Late in 1885, Freud went to Paris on grant to study at the Salpetriere, a mental hospital, with the famed French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot. Charcot had pioneered the treatment of nervous disorders by hypnosis. On Freud's return to Vienna in 1886 he took up his post as lecturer in neuropathology at the university and also established a private practice in nervous diseases. In 1887 he established a close friendship with Wilhelm Fliess, the Berlin otolaryngologist, with whom he discussed his work and ideas. Fleiss is called "the midwife of psychoanalysis". In 1891 he and his family moved to an apartment at Berggasse, 19. Here for the next 45 years Freud did most of his psychoanalytical treatments on his patients. Freud's first published work was entitled 'On Aphasia, a Critical Study' (1891). Freud first used the term "psychoanalysis" for his new treatment in 1896. Some of his other famous works include: Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905), Selected Papers on Hysteria and Other Psychoneuroses (1909) and The Interpretation of Dreams (1913). Freud was appointed "Professor Extraordinary" of Neurology at the University in 1902. The same year he had also begun to meet informally at Berggasse, 19, with a group of medical colleagues interested in learning about the new discipline. In 1909 Freud was invited to Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, with Carl Jung and Sandor Ferenczi, to speak about his theories. An avid cigar smoker he developed cancer of the jaw in 1923. He underwent operations, radiotherapy and the discomfort of an oral prosthetic device that to some extent affected his speech. In 1930 the city of Frankfurt awarded Freud its Goethe Prize for work that had "opened access to the driving forces of the soul." He was elected in 1936 a corresponding member of the Royal Society of London (in the company of Newton and Darwin). The growing danger of anti-Semitism and Nazi persecution made it apparent that the Freuds would suffer the fate of other Jews if they stayed in Vienna. With the help of US government officials Freud, his wife and daughter Anna were allowed to leave Austria. It was Freud's wish to "die in freedom," and so he did in his new home at 20 Maresfield Gardens, which is now the Freud Museum.- Indian nationalist, scholar, and philosopher. He was born in Ratnagiri during British rule of India in 1956. After teaching mathematics, he was owner and editor of 2 weekly newspapers. A militant member of the 'extremist' wing within the Indian National Congress (and a member of the famous 'Lal, Pal and Bal' trio), he was twice imprisoned by the British for his nationalist activities. He helped to found the Home Rule League in 1914.
- Considered to be the first American serial killer and possibly the most prolific, he was also a con-man and bigamist. He was a doctor who studied medicine at Ann Arbor, MI. He then moved to New York where he practiced briefly. His first brush with the law occurred there when some corpses were found in his possession. He fled to Chicago where he worked for a drug company. The owner mysteriously disappeared and he became the owner. Over the next few years several people who crossed his path also mysteriously disappeared. In 1891 he began construction of a hotel at the corner of 63rd St. in Chicago. It was constructed by several builders over time and had a labyrinthine network of passages that would become his "torture chambers". It was during the Chicago World Fair of 1893 that he did most of his killings when his victims checked into his hotel. They were mainly young attractive women. Holmes would drug them, have sex with their bodies and then drop them down a chute into a gas chamber. There he would watch through a glass panel as they slowly choked to death. Then he would dissect their bodies and dispose of them in acid baths, furnaces or by using quicklime. However, it was because of insurance fraud in Texas that he was brought to the attention of the authorities again. Detective Geyer followed his trail through Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. The bodies of the Pietzel family were found in an Indianapolis boarding house and Holmes was arrested. On 11/30/1895 he received the death sentence. Holmes wrote in his memoirs that he had killed 27 people; however, when he was taken to the gallows he retracted his confession saying that he had done it just for a publicity stunt. Over 200 bodies were found in his Chicago death house, known as "'Holmes' Torture Castle".
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English artist. Sickert was born in Munich, the eldest son of the Danish painter Oswald Adalbert Sickert. The family moved to London in 1868. After a short period as an actor, Sickert studied art at the Slade School and then under James Whistler in Chelsea when, like Whistler, he took to etching. In 1883 he met Degas in Paris, who became the greatest influence on his style and attitude to art. Though often described as an Impressionist, he was only so to the same limited extent as Degas, constructing pictures from swift notes made on the spot, and never painting in the open air. His later work became broader in treatment and lighter in tone, a late innovation being the Echoes', in which he freely adapted the work of Victorian illustrators. He worked in Dieppe from 1885 to 1905, with occasional visits to Venice, and produced music-hall paintings and views of Venice and Dieppe in dark, rich tones. Although well known in Europe, he did not achieve recognition in the UK until the 1920s. His writings were collected in 1947 under the title A Free House. His works, broadly Impressionist in style, capture subtleties of tone and light, often with a melancholic atmosphere, their most familiar subjects being the rather shabby cityscapes and domestic and music-hall interiors of late Victorian and Edwardian London. Ennui (about 1913; Tate Gallery, London) is a typical interior painting. In his Camden Town' period (1905-14), he explored the back rooms and dingy streets of North London. His zest for urban life and his personality drew together a group of younger artists who formed the nucleus of the Camden Town Group, which played a leading role in bringing post-Impressionism into English art. Some of his paintings viz. 'The Ripper's bedroom' made some Ripperologists suspect him of being the elusive 'Jack the Ripper'. Most of this is based on pure speculation.- American short story writer and novelist, was born the son of Andrew Robertson, a ship captain on the Great Lakes, and Amelia (Glassford) Robertson. Morgan went to sea as a cabin boy and was in the merchant service from 1866 to 1877, rising to first mate. Tiring of life at sea, he studied jewelry making at Cooper Union in New York City and worked for 10 years as a diamond setter. When that work began to impair his vision, he turned to writing sea stories, placing his work in such popular magazines as McClure's and the Saturday Evening Post. Robertson never made much money from his writing, a circumstance that greatly embittered him. Nevertheless, from the early 1890s until his death in 1915 he supported himself as a writer and enjoyed the company of artists and writers in a small circle of New York's bohemia. Robertson was found dead of heart disease in an Atlantic City hotel room.
- Indian politician and social reformer. Born in Kotluk, Bombay, in 1866, he became Professor of History at Fergusson College, Poona, resigning in 1904, when he was selected representative of the Bombay legislative council at the supreme council. He founded the Servants of India Society in 1905 to work for the relief of the underprivileged, and in the same year was elected president of the Indian National Congress. He was a leading protagonist of Indian self-government and influenced Mahatma Gandhi, advocating moderate and constitutional methods of agitation and gradual reform.
- English explorer who commanded two Antarctic expeditions, 1901-04 and 1910-12. Born to John and Hannah Scott. Born into a naval family he became a cadet at the age of 13 and entered the navy in 1882. He married famous English sculptor, Kathleen Bruce in 1908. His son Peter was born in 1909. In 1910 he set for antarctica on the ship Terra Nova. With Scott on the final expedition were Edward Wilson (1872-1912), Laurence Oates, H R Bowers, and E Evans. The Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge was founded in 1920 out of funds donated by the public following Scott's death, as a memorial to him and his companions. It houses a small museum and library, and carries out research into all aspects of the Antarctic and Arctic regions. On 18 January 1912 he reached the South Pole, shortly after the Norwegian Roald Amundsen, but on the return journey he and his companions died in a blizzard only a few miles from their base camp. His journal was recovered and published in 1913.
- British hunter who spent most of his adult life in India. He was born in a hill station in India, the second youngest of thirteen children. One of his older stepsisters had survived the siege of Agra during the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. His father died when he was 4, while serving at the 'volatile' Afghan border. He was brought up by his mother on their Naini Tal estate and their "Irish cottage" at Kaladhungi, fifteen miles away. He was fascinated with the jungles as a child and collected birds eggs, studied wildlife and learnt to hunt. From the age of 18 he worked for over twenty years for a railroad company in India. During World War I he was captain of the 500 man 70th Kumaon Labor Corps to France. After the war he was promoted to Major and sent to the North West Frontier as Commandant of the 114th Labor Battalion in the Third Afghan War. From 1920 to 1936 he spent half of each year in Tanganyika, Africa, where he hunted and tracked big game. He supervised growing of coffee and maize on his plantation on slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro. In 1930 he gave up hunting big game when he discovered the wonders of a 16 mm movie camera. Instead he began to 'shoot' animals with his camera. He continued, however, to hunt man-eaters who were disrupting human communities. Corbett shot the "Bachelor of Powalgarh," the most prized big-game trophy of the decade. His other famous kills included the "Champawat man-eater" and the "Man-eaters of Kumaon", the latter whom he killed in 1907 after they had killed nearly 436 victims. His last man-eater hunt was the Thak man-eater in 1938. His most famous book about his exploits in tracking and killing man-eating tigers, lions and leopards in India - Man-Eaters of Kumaon was published in 1944.
- Indian scholar, author, journalist and politician. Azad's father was Muhammad Khairuddin, a Sufi (mystic) saint. After the Revolt of 1857, his father went to Mecca where he married the daughter of Shaikh Mahomed Zahir Wetri. Maulana Azad was born in 1888 in Mecca. His early years were spent in Arabia. In 1898, his father settled in Calcutta and took his family with him. By then, Azad was fluent in Arabic, Urdu, and Farsi. In 1905, Azad's father sent him to Egypt to study at the Al Azhar University in Cairo, the most famous institution of learning in the Moslem world. He returned to India in 1907 and became interested in the Indian nationalist movement. In 1909, after his father's death, Azad, with the help of a dictionary and a grammar, studied English. In those days, he had leanings toward the anarchists and terrorists and had already become an object of suspicion, watched by the Criminal Intelligence Department. During World War I, he advocated a programme of non-cooperation with the British, which influenced Mohandas K. Gandhi and for which he was imprisoned. He was elected president of the Indian National Congress in 1940 and was also president of the Congress Party during negotiations for India's independence. After independence, he was in charge of the ministry of education.
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English writer, scholar and philologist, Tolkien's father was a bank manager in South Africa. Shortly before his father died (1896) his mother took him and his younger brother to his father's native village of Sarehole, near Birmingham, England. The landscapes and Nordic mythology of the Midlands may have been the source for Tolkien's fertile imagination to write about 'the Shire' and 'hobbits' in his later book the Hobbit (1937). After his mother's death in 1904 he was looked after by Father Francis Xavier Morgan a RC priest of the Congregation of the Oratory. Tolkien was educated at King Edward VI school in Birmingham. He studied linguistics at Exeter College, Oxford, and took his B.A. in 1915. In 1916 he fought in World War I with the Lancashire Fusiliers. It is believed that his experiences during the Battle of the Somne may have been fueled the darker side of his subsequent novels. Upon his return he worked as an assistant on the Oxford English Dictionary (1918-20) and took his M.A. in 1919. In 1920 he became a teacher in English at the University of Leeds. He then went on to Merton College in Oxford, where he became Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon (1925-45) and Merton professor of English Language and Literature (1945-59). His first scholarly publication was an edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (1925). He also wrote books on Chaucer (1934) and Beowulf (1937). In 1939 Tolkien gave the Andrew Lang Lecture at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland titled: "On Fairy-Stories". Tolkien will however be remembered most for his books the Hobbit (1937) and the Lord of the Rings (1954-55). The Hobbit began as a bedtime story for his children". He wrote Lord of the Rings over a period of about 14 years.
Tolkien also discussed parts of his novels with fellow Oxfordian and fantasy writer CS Lewis during their 'meetings'. He was trying to create a fantasy world so that he could explain how he had invented certain languages, and in doing so created 'Middle-earth'. However among his peers at Oxford his works were not well received as they were not considered 'scholarly'. It was after LOTR was published in paperback in the United States in 1965 that he developed his legendary cult following and also imitators. Tolkien was W. P. Ker lecturer at Glasgow University in 1953. In 1954 both the University of Liege and University College, Dublin, awarded him honorary doctorates. He received the CBE in 1972. He served as vice-president of the Philological Society and was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He was made an honorary fellow of Exeter College. Despite the immense popularity of his books today Tolkien did not greatly benefit from their sales. His son Christopher Tolkien was able to publish some of his works posthumously after his manuscripts were found.- A native of Bhadeli, a village near the city of Bulsar, in what is now the state of Gujarat, Morarji Ranchhodji Desai was born on leap years day in 1896, the oldest of the 6 children of Ranchhodji Desai, a teacher, and Vajiaben (or Maniben) Desai. He was educated at Bombay University, and he was a civil servant for 12 years before embarking on a long and varied political career. He joined Congress in 1930, but was twice imprisoned as a supporter of Mahatma Gandhi's Civil Disobedience Campaign before becoming Revenue Minister in the Bombay government (1937-39). He was again imprisoned (1941-45) for his part in the 'Quit India' movement, before again serving as Bombay's Revenue Minister (1946) and later, Home Minister and Chief Minister (1952). Four years later, he entered central government, first as Minister for Commerce and Industry (1956-58) then as Finance Minister, resigning in 1963 to devote himself to party work. He was a candidate for the premiership in 1964 and again in 1966, when he was defeated by Indira Gandhi. Deputy premier and Minister of Finance in her administration, Desai resigned in 1968 over differences with the premier. In 1974 he supported political agitation in Gujarat, and the following year began a fast in support of elections in the state, being detained when a state of emergency was proclaimed. After his release in 1977 he was appointed leader of the Janata Party, a coalition opposed to Mrs Gandhi's rule, and he finally became Prime Minister after the elections that same year. The Janata government was, however, characterized by much internal strife, and Desai was forced to resign in 1979.
- His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Indian religious writer and guru, is the founder/acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). He founded ISKCON in New York City in 1966. Prabhupada produced many scholarly translations of ancient Vedic religious texts and made them accessible to the English speaking Western world. His most famous work is "Bhagavad Gita As It Is". His guru, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur, before he died in 1936, had advised him to spread Krishna consciousness to the English speaking countries. In August, 1965, aboard the commercial ocean liner Jaladhuta, he left Calcutta, India, for the United States, landing in Boston in September, 1965. By teaching devotion to Krishna as the universal religion, he did much to assist the spread of Vaishnavism in the West. He initiated over 5000 disciples and established over 100 Hare Krishna (ISKCON) centers.
- US gangster and racketeer. Born Charles Salvadore Lucania in Sicily, he emigrated with his family to the US in 1906. In 1907 he started shoplifting. He was given his nickname by childhood friend and fellow gangster Meyer Lansky for his luck with betting on racehorses, but it also could have applied to the many times he avoided imprisonment and prosecution as a Mafia "godfather" who operated successfully and profitably in the 1920s and 1930s. Between 1928 and 1930 the Castellammarese War broke out between the gangs of Giuseppe Masseria (aka Joe the Boss) and Salvatore Maranzano. Maranzano sent some men to "rough up" Luciano, and when they caught him they not only beat and stabbed him, but addition severed the muscles of his right cheek, leaving him with a droop in his right eye. He was left for dead under the Brooklyn Bridge. However, he lived up to his nickname and survived. Recovering, he sided with Maranzano in the conflict. By 1931 Masseria had been assassinated and Maranzano had won. He named himself "boss of bosses" (capo di tuti capo), but that title proved to be short-lived. Luciano and Lansky's had their men visit Maranzano in his office, disguised as government agents, and assassinated him. Luciano followed that with anywhere from 40 to 90 additional murders during the series of killings that came to be called the "Night of the Sicilian Vespers". Luciano was now the undisputed boss of a "new" Mafia. His business included narcotics-peddling, extortion and, especially, prostitution, including everything from low-rent streetwalkers to high-priced call girls. Luciano, one of the most powerful figures in organized crime, was arrested 25 times between 1919 and 1936 but convicted only once. When three prostitutes finally agreed to give evidence against him, he was arrested (1936) and found guilty of compelling women to become prostitutes. Even from prison, he retained control of his Family, setting up the Crime Syndicate of Mafia Families. During World War II he helped U.S. military intelligence through his Mafia connections in Italy and was given a suspended sentence on condition that he leave the US. In 1946 he was released from prison and deported to Italy as an undesirable alien. He returned to Naples, Italy, where he lived out his life in luxury. Luciano died of a heart attack at Naples Airport. He was only posthumously allowed to return to the USA, where he was buried at St John's Cemetery in New York.
- Infamous Chicago gangster Al Capone was born in the tough Williamsburgh section of Brooklyn, NY, the fourth of nine children of Italian immigrants from Naples. Capone was a born sociopath. In the sixth grade he beat up a teacher and promptly quit school. He picked up his education from the streets, "making his bones" when he joined the notorious James Street gang. This was run by Johnny Torrio, who later graduated Capone into the even more notorious Five Points gang. It was here that Capone became friends with Lucky Luciano, another who would become a hallmark in the '30s gangster era.
By his late teens Capone had been hired by Torrio and Frankie Yale as a bouncer at a saloon / brothel in Brooklyn. In 1918 he was involved in a bar fight over a prostitute with hoodlum Frank Galluccio. Gallucio went after Capone with a knife, resulting in Capone's picking up the moniker by which he would be known for the rest of his life--"Scarface" (although that word was NEVER used in his presence). Capone, however, would attribute the scar to wounds he received in battle while fighting with the famous "lost battalion" in France during World War I (the fact that Capone never spent one minute in the army was a minor point, apparently). By 1919 he was already suspected by New York police of at least two murders, so he moved to Chicago to work under Torrio's uncle, "Big" Jim Colosimo, a Chicago gangster who ran a string of brothels. Torrio and Colosimo had a dispute over bootlegging during the Prohibition era--Torrio was for it and Colosimo was against it. Torrio hatched a plot with Capone to have Colosimo "rubbed out" and they got their old pal Frankie Yale to do it. Over the next few years the new Torrio-Capone regime went to war with rival bootlegging gangs in Chicago. In 1924 they killed Charles Dion O'Bannion, head of the Irish North Side gang. That didn't end the war, however, which went on for several more years. Capone's younger brother Frank died in a hail of rival gangsters' bullets in 1924. In February 1925 Torrio, who had been badly wounded in a shootout, decided to retire. He told Capone, "It's all yours". At the tender age of 26, Al Capone found himself in control of a sophisticated crime organization with 1,000 gunmen at his command and a $300,000-a-week payroll. He was up to it, however, and made a smooth transition from a simple gun-toting leg-breaker, pimp and killer to a "business executive" (his business card stated that he sold "second-hand furniture"). It was estimated that at one point he had approximately half of Chicago's police department on his payroll, and his reach extended to the highest levels of Chicago's city government and even into the Illinois legislature (he was also suspected of having the Illinois governor "in his pocket"). He controlled the local political process by terrorizing voters into voting for candidates he picked. So great was his power that he claimed he "owned" Chicago, and once publicly assaulted the mayor of nearby Cicero--who was on his payroll--on the steps of City Hall for doing something without his clearance, while the local police looked the other way.
Capone was probably the first "equal-opportunity" mob boss. While many of his fellow Italian and Sicilian gangsters would only hire those from their own ethnic group, Capone hired Jews, Irish, Poles, Slovaks, blacks--as long as he considered them trustworthy, they could work for Capone. He even purged the Chicago organized crime scene of "Mustache Petes", the old-time Sicilian gangsters who he didn't think were capable of running a "modern" crime organization. Capone ran Chicago's gambling, prostitution and bootlegging empire, getting rich giving people what they wanted. He was soon wildly popular among the citizenry and was even cheered at the ballpark, while "respectable" citizens like President Herbert Hoover were not. Capone absorbed smaller gangs into his own--sometimes by negotiation, other times by gunfire--extending his reach to outside the Chicago environs and expanding his empire even further. He was, however, always concerned for his own safety and surrounded himself with trusted bodyguards (including Frank Gallucio, the man responsible for his nickname, "Scarface"). Several attempts were made on his life by rival mobsters--one time a convoy of cars full of gangster Hymie Weiss' gunmen shot up a restaurant at which Capone was dining; the place was destroyed, but Capone came through unscathed. Another time would-be assassins poisoned his soup, but his luck held out again.
On Valentine's Day in 1929 Capone ordered the bloody "St. Valentine's Day Massacre". His underlings found out the location of the warehouse of his rival George Moran (aka "Bugs" Moran) and that Moran was to attend a meeting there at a particular time. Capone sent a carload of his gunmen dressed as police officers to the address. Once there they lined up the seven men they found, but Moran wasn't among them; he was on the sidewalk heading towards the building when he saw the "police car" pull up in front and he quickly ducked into a nearby store. Nevertheless, Capone's gunmen machine-gunned them to death. Following the massacre (when Moran was later asked who he thought was responsible for the murders, he replied, "Only Capone kills like that"), public opinion about Capone began to change. He was not above killing on his own, either. When he was informed that his bodyguards John Scalise and Albert Anselmi were part of an assassination plot against him, he decided to take care of the matter himself. To put their minds at ease, he threw a banquet in their honor. While delivering a glowing testimonial to them, Capone suddenly pulled out an Indian club and beat both men to death.
Although local and state authorities had been trying to bring down Capone for years, the federal government finally managed to do it by prosecuting him for income-tax evasion. He was tried, found guilty and sentenced to 11 years in the federal penitentiary in Atlanta, GA. In 1934 he was transferred to Alcatraz, a federal prison on Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay that was set up to hold the nation's worst criminals. He never finished out his sentence, though. In 1939 he was paroled because of the ravages of neurosyphilis, a disease he contracted while running Torrio's and Colosimo's whorehouses. He lived the last eight years of his life as a virtual zombie at his estate in Florida, his brain almost totally destroyed by the disease. - Writer
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Singer Maria Trapp was born on January 26, 1905, aboard a train, as her mother hurried from their village in the Tyrol to the hospital in Vienna, Austria. Her mother, Augusta (nee Rainer), died shortly after Maria was born, and her father, Karl Kutschera, died when she was 6 years old. As a guardian to Maria, the court appointed a man whom she has described as a passionate socialist and a violent anti-Catholic. Although she had been baptized, she grew up outside the Church until she was 18. She was, at that time, in her final year at the State Teachers College for Progressive Education in Vienna. To atone for her earlier life, Maria Kutschera decided to enter a convent. She was accepted as a candidate for the novitiate at the Nonnberg Benedictine Convent at Salzburg, where she considered herself a black sheep because of her tomboyish ways, her willful and independent nature, and her lack of religious training. She was teaching fifth graders at the convent when she was sent by the Mother Abbess as a governess to the children of Baron Georg von Trapp. The Baron, a much-decorated World War I submarine commander, had retired with his 7 children to a villa in Aigen, near Salzburg, after the death of his wife. Maria quickly won the affection of the lonely family with her lively, outgoing disposition and the songs, games, and customs of her Tyrolean girlhood. At the end of nine months, she expected to return to the convent and take the veil. When the Baron proposed marriage, she was torn between her religious devotion and her attachment to the family. With the blessing of the Mother Abbess at Nonnberg, however, she married the Baron on November 26, 1927. After the marriage, the family often sang together, especially during their traditional observance of religious festivals. As a result of the economic disorders that plagued Europe in the early 1930s, the Baron lost his fortune, and to earn a living, the family turned their large home into a guest house for students and clergymen. A special dispensation from the Archbishop of Salzburg permitted them to have a chapel where Mass could be celebrated in their own home. At Easter 1935, the Reverend Franz Wasner (now Monsignor Wasner) came to the Trapp home as a guest and officiating priest. An accomplished musician, he listened critically to the family's informal singing and then immediately took charge of their musical education, becoming their conductor as well as their personal chaplain. He remained with them during their entire career as entertainers. In August 1936, when they happened to be heard by Lotte Lehmann, who insisted that they enter a choral competition at the Salzburg Festival. After winning the contest, they received invitations to give concerts and broadcasts. They began their first European tour at the end of 1937, as the Trapp Family Choir. In March 1938, Austria was taken over by the Nazis. With only a few possessions, they fled across the mountains to St. Georgen, Italy. There they made arrangements with an American concert manager, who advanced them enough money for their passage to New York. The first American concert of the Trapp Family Choir took place at Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania, in October 1938. Over the next few years, they did several traveling shows. In 1942, they spent their summer vacation in Stowe, Vermont. They found the Green Mountain countryside a peaceful retreat that resembled their native Austria, and before the summer ended, they had purchased a 660-acre farm on a hillside offering an expansive view. During a European tour in the summer of 1950, they appeared at the Salzburg Festival. There they were greeted and feted royally and paid a visit to their former home, which had been turned over to missionaries of the Society of Precious Blood after having been used as a Nazi headquarters during World War II. In 1955, the group disbanded permanently after a farewell tour climaxed by three Christmas concerts at Town Hall. Since then, Maria wrote about her life, which became fictionalized in plays (1959) and the popular movie The Sound of Music (1965). She spent the last days of her life as a resort owner with her children and grandchildren in Vermont.- He weighed only four pounds at birth and was so tiny that doctors feared he wouldn't live. But immediately, he began to grow at an incredible rate and by age ten was over six feet tall. He was discovered by Hollywood as a teenager and offered a job acting in comedies. He made over fifty of them, until one day on the set when he fell from a scaffolding. When he woke up, he found he was losing his peripheral vision, due to a newly-discovered pituitary gland tumour. Doctors attempted to shrink the tumor with X-rays which miraculously both restored his sight and stopped his incredible growth. He enrolled in college, during which he went to see the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus where he saw Jack (Jim) Tarver, billed as 'the tallest man in the world'. He joined the circus and traveled with them for fourteen years. Upon retiring from the circus, Jack became a successful traveling salesman and was intensely creative. He painted, sculpted, was a prize-winning photographer.
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Ed Gein and his elder brother Henry lived on a rural farm near Plainfield, WI. George Gein, his father, was a tanner and carpenter and was drunk most of the time. Augusta, Ed's domineering mother, was the real power of the house. She was a religious fanatic who constantly warned her sons about the sins of premarital sex and railed against "evil" women. Ed's father died in 1940, and brother Henry died four years later fighting a marsh fire (although it was later suspected that Ed might have killed him). Ed stayed at the family farm with his mother and never strayed out of the surrounding few counties. When she died of a stroke in 1945, Ed was left all alone at the "tender" age of 39. He sealed her bedroom and the rest of his house off, living in just the kitchen and one other room. During the period of 1950-55, he visited three local cemeteries at night and dug up at least ten graves. He removed bits and pieces from each body, returning some to their graves. He used skullcaps for bowls, and stitched chair seats and lampshades out of human skin. On special occasions, he would dance outside in the moonlight wearing numerous stitched skin coverings, including the face masks of some of his victims. His first murder was committed on December 8, 1954, the other occurred on November 16, 1957. He attacked his last victim in her store and dragged her body to a truck parked out back. Later that evening the victim's son stopped in at the store to check on his mother and found the doors locked, the cash register missing and a trail of blood leading out to the back door. He recalled that he had seen Ed at the store the day before. When the police went to his farm, they found her headless body in his shed, hanging by it's heels from the rafters. Gein was arrested and eventually confessed to his crimes. On January 16, 1958, he was sent to Central State Hospital at Waupun, WI. In November 1968, he was judged competent to stand trial. He was now diagnosed to have chronic schizophrenia, found "not guilty by reason of insanity" and returned to Waupun. It has been theorized that Gein might have killed two men who hired him as their hunting guide in 1952 and were never seen again. There were also two other unidentified women's body parts were found at his farm. In that his murder & grave robbing victims were all of middle or elderly age, these two women's remains were decisively young, in their teenage years. This was never conclusively investigated. In 1978, he was moved to Mendota Mental Health Institute. Gein was a model prisoner and died quietly in his sleep in the geriatric psychiatric ward in 1984. He is buried next to his mother in the Plainfield Cemetery.- Al was the son of Santo Tomaini and Maria Bossone. He was one of seven children, all of whom were normal with the exception of himself. At the age of 12, he was taller than his father, who stood six feet and one inch in height. He had a Great grandfather in Italy who was also a very large Giant. His parents called in a physician who, by taking x-rays, found that his pituitary gland was working overtime, causing him to become a giant. With a height of eight feet, four and one-half inches (weighing 356 pounds and size 27 shoes), Al spent most of his life as a circus giant. He was working with a circus at the Great Lakes Exposition in Chicago, in 1936, when he met his future wife - Jeanie Tomaini. She was born without legs and was only 2'6" tall. After retiring from the circus life, he and Jeanie settled in the circus community of Gaint's Camp, Gibsonton, Florida. There he was an extraordinary community booster, donating the town's first ambulance, served as fire chief, helped build the community hall, and for a time was president of the Chamber of Commerce. He was owner and operator of Giant's Fish Camp, a TV repair shop, and a tourist-trailer court on the banks of the Alafia River. His death in 1962 at 44 years of age, came after extensive treatment for a pituitary tumor. He adopted his children.
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Henry Hite a.k.a. Henry Mullens was hired as an actor because of his height and apparent disregard for self-embarrassment. Henry, a real-life tall guy, portrayed a hitch-hiking space-alien in Bill Rebane's stupefying sci-fi failure 'Terror At Halfday' (1965) after which Herschell Gordon Lewis was brought in to "fix" the results, resulting in what is often considered Lewis' least watchable picture, _Monster a-Go Go_.- One of the tallest actors ever, he held various odd jobs before his debut on the silver screen. He worked for Spike Jones and his City Slickers, Ardens Dairy (in California,) as a Cowboy for Public Relations and at Knotts Berry Farm, (in California) also as a Cowboy. It was while he was working as a doorman at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood that his height was noticed and because of it he was chosen for the role of Gort. He also hosted a children's TV show in the Los Angeles area in the 50s called 'The Gentle Giant'. He was not a very strong man for his size. He was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills, California.
- Indian founder transcendental meditation, born in Allahabad, UP, India in 1917. He abandoned his scientific studies to become a follower of Guru Dev. He founded the science of creative intelligence and, as an exponent of the relaxation technique called transcendental meditation, he became one of the first Eastern gurus to attract a Western following. He first introduced his meditation technique, based on a literal interpretation of yoga concepts and the use of mantras, to the West in 1958, and went on to found the Spiritual Regeneration movement, aimed at saving the world through meditation. He taught that 'life is bliss'. This concept has developed into a worldwide network of meditation centers with an estimated four million practitioners. The Beatles were among his 'celebrity' disciples.
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Malayalam actor who had his roots in theatre. A major actor-playwright in the post-WW2 era with more than 90 plays. He ran the Pratibha Arts Club, an influential theatre group based in Ernakulam. In cinema, he was famous for playing villains. He has also directed, scripted and provided lyrics for movies. His best-known perfromance is in Nirmalayam (1973) as the priest torn between religious responsibilities and the amoral duplicity of those around him.- Actor
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A professional singer at the age of three, Mel Torme was a genuine musical prodigy. As a teenager, he played the drums in Chico Marx's band and earned the nickname "The Velvet Fog" because of his smooth, mellow tenor voice. In the 1940s, he formed his own group, the Mel-Tones, one of the first jazz-influenced vocal groups. As a solo musician, he had a number one hit in 1949 called "Careless Hands" and several lesser hits. He also acted in films and wrote several books, including biographies of Judy Garland and Buddy Rich. Torme's career included some songwriting, too. One of his most well-known compositions, "The Christmas Song", was written in midsummer as Torme relaxed by the pool.- Prem Nazir is considered to be the biggest star in Malyalam film history. He graduated from St. Berchman's College in Changanassery, Kerala. He started acting for the Excel company and most of his films were for the Udaya and Merryland Studios. He portrayed the ideal male in most of his films.
- Controversial pathologist, writer and inventor, Jack Kevorkian was the only son of Levon Kevorkian a former auto-factory worker who owned an excavating company and his homemaker wife. He had 2 sisters. Kevorkian's parents were Armenian refugees, whose relatives were among the 1.5 millon victims of Turkish atrocities in World War I. As a young boy he quit Sunday school because he did not believe in Armenian Orthodox teachings. He taught himself German and Japanese in high school during World war II. Kevorkian graduated from Pontiac High School with honors in 1945 at 17. He then enrolled at the University of Michigan from where he graduated from Medical school in 1952. Kevorkian completed an internship in Pathology at Henry Ford hospital in Detroit, during which period he had an epiphany when he saw a woman who was dying of cancer. It was then that he began to think of ways to alleviate suffering in his patients. In 1953 he got his medical license for Michighan state. He then did a 15 month stint in Korea as an Army Medical Officer during the Korean War. He returned and completed his residency at Pontiac General Hospital, Michigan. He got his nickname 'Dr. Death' in 1956 when he started photographing the retinas of patients at the moment of death to differentiate between coma and death. From 1956-57 he did research in West Germany. In 1957 he obtained his California medical license. In 1958 he presented a paper on 'Capital Punishment or Capital Gain' at the American Association for the Advancement of Science' at Washington, DC. He suggested the harvesting of organs from death row prisoners. This was considered controversial because death row inmates don't necessarily have any rights. By 1960 he was licensed in Pathological Anatomy and in 1965 in Clinical Pathology. In April 1960 he testified before a Joint Judicial Committee in Columbus, Ohio to revise the death penalty and to legalize medical experimentation on condemned inmates. In 1976 he moved to Los Angeles, California. He changed jobs frequently. Between 1982 to 86 he mainly did his writing and research. In 1988, even the pro-suicide Hemlock Society founder, Derek humphry rebuffed his methods as "too perilous and risky". In 1989 after reading about a patient who had asked for euthanasia he began working on a lethal-injection machine that would be able to do the task at the 'flip of a switch'. It was called the Thanatron (and later Mercitron). He got a lot of publicity because of this. On June 4, 1990 he performed the first of his 'medicides' as he liked to call physician-assisted suicide. His 'client' was a 54 year old woman suffering from Alzheimer's. She had contacted him herself after reading his ads in the papers. It was performed in the back of his VW van. She received sodium pentothal (an anesthetic) and potassium chloride (to stop the heart). By the time of this 3rd medicide his medical licemse was revoked for violating Michigan state laws regarding euthanasia. One of his 'clients' was even found on autopsy not to have any major pathology. He continued to do his medicides by giving his clients carbon-monoxide. There were reports that one patient had asked her mask to be removed twice (maybe a change of mind) but Kevorkian had continued with his task. On August 17, 1993 he was formally charged with violating the law. By then he had already helped 20 clients to their peaceful deaths. He was jailed first in November 1993 and then again in December 1993. Kevorkian went on a liquid only fast for 18 days and was acquitted in May 1994. By now he had even gained several supporters in the general community. By 1998 he hed committed over 100 medicides. Relatives of some of his clients claimed that he had continued despite protests from his 'victims'. He was now charged with 2nd degree murder. During his trial he was defended by the flamboyant lawyer Geoffrey Fieger. In March 1999 Dr. Kevorkian was sentenced by a Michigan jury to 10-25 years for his crime.
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Tamil superstar from a poor family in Tamil Nadu, India. His father worked on the railways.
On the day of his birth his father, Chiniah Pillai, follower of Mahatma Gandhi, was jailed for participating in the Independence movement in Nellikuppam (Tamil Nadu, India). He was frequently in and out of jail, and was raised by his mother, Rajamani Ammal.
He joined theatre groups when he was young. He earned his screen name 'Sivaji' after acting in C.N. Annadurai's play 'Sivaji Kanda Indhu Rajyam', a historical play on the Maratha Emperor Shivaji.
He made his film debut in Parasakthi (1952) as Gunasekharan. He became an icon of the DMK party who made DMK films (founded by C.M. Annadurai).
He entered politics in the mid-50s where he joined the Congress party and then defected to support the opposition Janata Dal.
He is most well know for his mythological and patriotic portrayals, like in his most famous films like Karnan(mythological) and Veerapandiya Kattabomman (patriotic).
His main rival was MGR (M.G. Ramachandran) and together they dominated the Tamil film industry in the 1960s and 70s.- Jim Jones was born during the Great Depression. He was the only son of James Thurman Warren Jones Sr. (1887-1951) and Lynetta Putnam (1902-1977). His father was an alcoholic Klansman and he claimed his mother was part Cherokee Indian. He spent most of his formative years in conservative rural Indiana. His father struggled to earn a living as a mystic fortune teller. His parents separated in 1948 and he went to live with his mother in Richmond, Indiana. Jones also worked as an orderly at a local hospital. He got married young, to a nurse 4 years his senior, and adopted 3 children of diverse ethnic backgrounds.
Jones began working as a Methodist minister in Indianapolis in the early 1950 decade. In 1954, when he claimed he had met God on a train ride near Philadelphia, he was defrocked. The charismatic leader then founded his own gathering - the Community National Unity Church. By 1955 he had renamed it the People's Temple Full Gospel Church. He set up a soup kitchen, gave away groceries and clothes to the poor, and established two nursing homes, while preaching messages of apostolic socialism and racial equality. Secretly, he also joined the Communist party on the side. He was appointed director of the Indianapolis Human Rights Commission in 1961. Jones began a dubious path as a "spiritual healer" by planting actors among his believers and miraculously 'healing' them. Jones was getting richer and more popular.
In the early 1960s, during the height of the Cold War, Jones had a vision of apocalyptic destruction. Jones took the vision seriously and decided to move his congregation to Ukiah, California, in the Redwood Valley region north of San Francisco. This area was believed to be one of 9 places on earth that would be safe during a global nuclear war. He then moved to San Francisco's Fillmore district in 1965. Over the next 10 years, his 'flock' of believers reached a peak of 3,000. Jones could be heard on regular radio broadcasts over KFAX radio in California. However, there were occasional bizarre behaviors as well: in April of 1968, when Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated, Jones staged a fake attempt on his own life.
Jones received several humanitarian awards in Northern California for his work with the poor. In 1976, he was appointed to the San Francisco Housing Authority by the Mayor George Moscone for his commitment to social activism. However Jones was becoming more and more of a dictator. He demanded sexual favors from some young women, was the only person who could decide if a couple in his congregation could get married, and often separated children from their parents. In 1973, eight close aides defected from his camp and revealed these details to the press, including allegations of misuse of church money. Very soon after, Jones had begun making plans to move his congregation to the socialist nation of Guyana in South America. By 1974, fifteen of Jones' followers had negotiated a lease for 27,000 acres on Guyana's western border with Venezuela, and began clearing the jungle for what would become the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, or "Jonestown." Jones eventually relocated to Guyana in July 1977. In December 1977, his mother Lynetta Jones died at Jonestown.
In 1978, a group of ex-members calling themselves the Committee of Concerned Relatives published literature that likened Jonestown to a concentration camp, complete with torture. Jones began teaching his followers about mass suicide and held practice drills to test his members' loyalty for the "White Night". In November 1978, U.S. House Representative Leo J. Ryan visited the compound and sought to bring back several defectors, including an ex-member's child. Leo's entourage, along with fifteen defectors, were ambushed and killed by Jones' people on the airstrip as they attempted to leave. The next day, the entire community of 914 'followers' (including 276 children) drank a deadly potion of Fla-Vor Aid laced with cyanide poison. Jones' wife was among them. After the mass suicide of his followers, Jones and a close aide shot themselves. - Applewhite was born in Spur, Texas the son of a Presbyterian Minister. He graduated from high school in Corpus Christi, Texas in 1948. Applewhite briefly enrolled to study as a Minister but changed his mind and went into Music. In 1952 he graudated from Austin College. He then did a brief stint in the US army corps from 1954 to '56. By 1959 he had obtained his Masters in Music from the Univ. of Colorada at Boulder. He was hired as choral director at Univ. of Alabama in 1961. From 1966 to '70 he taught music at Houston's Univ. of St. Thomas. Applewhite even played leading roles at the Houston Grand Opera. However, in 1970 he was dismissed for 'health reasons of an emotional nature'. He even underwent some psychotherapy but of no avail. By 1972 he had divorced his wife and was estranged from his 2 children. During this period in his life he met divorceé Bonnie Lu Nettles a former nurse and mother of 4 who was now interested in astrology. The 2 lived as common-law partners and moved to Las Vegas and Oregon looking for 'spiritual awakening'. In 1974 Applewhite was jailed in Texas for auto theft and credit card fraud. In the period after his release Applewhite and Nettles began calling themselves "the Two" and "Bo" and "Peep" (respectively) and also "Do" and "Ti" (like the musical notes). They began to collect a group of disillusioned followers preaching that the body was just a 'container' and that a great big 'mother ship' would come from outer space to collect the true believers before the end of the world. The press initially dubbed them as a 'UFO cult'! In 1985 when Bonnie died from cancer, Applewhite said that she had been collected by the 'mother ship' and only her container (body) was left behind. By 1993 they were called 'Total Overcomers Anonymous'. On January 17, 1994 when an earthquake rocked California they claimed that it was a sign that the end was near. Applewhite and his followers now needed another sign. They got it, in March 1997 when comet Halle Bopp appeared in the night skies. Applewhite along with 38 other followers made a videotape recording their last messages for loved ones. At their 'ranch' - Rancho Sant Fe (30 miles north of San Deigo, California) they committed mass suicide by consuming vodka laced with phenobarbital and covering their heads with plastic bags. They were all dressed in black with new nike shoes - a uniform by which the 'aliens' who would pick them up could identify them by. They were found a few days later in their bunk beds. Applewhite would not have said it was suicide - they had simply "moved on".
- Albert DeSalvo came from a violent and abusive home. His father 'Frank DeSalvo' beat his wife and kids frequently. 'Frank DeSalvo' was in jail twice and his parents finally divorced in 1944. As a teenager Albert was arrested for breaking and entering. At 17 he joined the army and was stationed in Germany, where he met his wife, a German girl whom he brought back with him to the US. In 1955 while posted at Fort Dix, New Jersey he was charged with molesting a 9 year old girl. No charges were pressed and he was honourably discharged in 1956. He was arrested twice more for robbery when he became short of cash. Albert then began his "measuring man" crimes. He would pose as a talent scout and approach women with a measuring tape. He would then take vital measurements and in the process fondle his unsuspecting victims. No charges were made despite complaints as no violent assault had occurred. On March 17, 1960 he was again arrested for burglary when he confessed to the "measuring man" crimes. He was sent to prison for 11 months. After coming out he began his "green man" crimes as he wore green clothes while perpetrating the crimes. Over a period of 2 years in the neighbouring states of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticutt and Rhode Island he raped around 300 women. The "Green Man" raped up to 6 victims in one day. The "Boston Strangler" crimes involved 11 women who were killed between June 14, 1962 and July 1964. They were raped and strangled with one victim being stabbed. The ligature around their neck had a bow. Victims ranged in age from 19 to 85 years. There was only 1 black victim, the rest white. There was a $110,000 reward for any information leading to his arrest. On November 3, 1964 Albert was arrested for a "Green Man" crime, as one of the victims described it resembled a "Measuring Man" crime. He was put in Brigdewater state hospital for observation. There a fellow inmate George Nassar turned him in as the "Boston Strangler". However a sole survivor from February 1963 couldn't pick him up from a police line up. A psychic Peter Hurkos too felt that it was someone else. Psychiatrists claimed that the "Boston Strangler" had a mother fixation
- which was why some of the victims were quite elderly, but DeSalvo
- Actor
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Ted Cassidy was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and raised in Philippi, West Virginia. He was a well respected actor who portrayed many different characters during his film and television career. His most notable role was Lurch, the faithful butler on the television series The Addams Family (1964). His most memorable dialogue as Lurch would be, "You rang?", whenever someone summoned him. Due to his large size, (6ft. 9in.) he portrayed larger than life characters. His deep voice, was used for narrations and for dubbing certain character's voices. His acting career spanned three decades. Ted Cassidy died in 1979 from complications following open-heart surgery. His live-in girlfriend had his remains cremated, then buried in the backyard of their Woodland Hills home.- Velma dropped out high school in her junior year. She eloped with her first husband at the age of 17 and settled down in Paxton. In 1964 her husband was injured in a car crash and lost his job. He began to drink heavily eventually becoming an alcoholic. Velma had him committed to Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleigh. Meanwhile she worked at a local mill and took prescription tranquilizers for 'peace of mind'. Her husband 'mysteriously' burned to death in his bed in 1969 while smoking. Her second husband died within 6 months of their marriage. Velma was hospitalized 4 times for drug overdoses. Yet she still remained dutifully religious amd taught Sunday school at the Pentecostal church. Velma began to incur debts and wrote hot checks to cover them. In 1974 she killed her own mother, Lillie, with insecticide so that she could fake her signature on a $1,000 loan. She poisoned two of her employers and a lover over the next few years. The relatives of her lover did not belive that he could have just died from 'acute gastroenteritis' and so a full autopsy was performed. It was found that he had been poisoned with arsenic which could mimic acute gastroenteritis. Autopsies on her 2nd husband revealed the same. Velma Barfield confessed to her crimes. In court the jury deliberated for an hour and found her guilty of first degree murder. She was sentenced to be executed in 1984.
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Major Malayalam actor and director of the 60s and 70s. Graduated from Benares Hindu University and later took a diploma in acting from the National School of Drama. He often played the sad and suffering lover. He gained major acclaim after Chemmeen (1965) which established him as a character actor. After that he acted regularly in independent productions. His fist directorial venture was 'Priya' (1970) which received major critical acclaim. Founded the Uma Studio in Trivandrum (Kerala, India).- Along with his adopted cousin Kenneth Bianchi he was part of "the Hillside Stranglers" pair. When he was young his parents divorced. His mother got custody of him and took him across the country from New York to California. He began stealing cars by 14 and was in a youth reformatory by 16 for grand theft auto. He became fascinated with his "idol" sex offender Caryl Chessman the "red light rapist" and began to emulate his techniques. He had several children, legitimate and illegitimate and frequently abused his wives and girl friends. In 1977 along with cousin Bianchi he began the infamous 'hillside slayings' in Los Angeles. When Bianchi was arrested in Washington state in early 1979 he confessed to the crimes and 'betrayed' Buono. Angelo Buono was arrested in October 1979. After his trial in 1983 he got 9 life terms without parole.
- Eddie Carmel's abnormal growth started when he was a teenager. He suffered from acromegaly because of a pituitary gland tumor that was incurable at the time. As an adult, the only work he could find involved exploiting his freakishness. With his best friend, Irwin Sherman, they worked together as stand-up comedians in New York.
Carmel starred in a B-grade monster movie (The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1962)) and made two 45-rpm records ("The Happy Giant" and "The Good Monster"). He joined the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Baliey Circus from 1961 to 1968. They presented him as "The World's Greatest Giant" and "The Tallest Man on Earth." His height was billed at 8' 9" (a 14-inch exaggeration). He very much wanted to be respected for his talent and said, "I'd like someday to reach the point when I'm known as the reverse Mickey Rooney."
He developed severe kyphoscoliosis (abnormal curvature of the spine) at the time of his death that shortened his height to about 7 feet (213 cm). Eddie died at the age of 37 in Montefiore Hospital. - Director
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Malayalam director who studied economics at a college near Kottayam. His grandfather educated him and gave him his first camera. He worked as an insurance salesman in Bellary. Then he went to FTII (Film and Television Institute of India) and studied under Bengali director Ritwik Kumar Ghatak. He started with a student film. His first film was Vidyarthikale Ithile Ithile (1971) made in Tamil. He also wrote his own films. He later lived a nomadic lifestyle in the 70s and depended on support from his friends and colleagues. He suffered from alcoholism and died an accidental death.- Alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy, son of Marguerite Frances Claverie Oswald. He never knew his father, Robert Edward Lee Oswald, who had died 2 months before his birth of a heart attack. Oswald had 1 older full brother and another half-brother (from his mother's first marriage). Young Oswald was placed in a Lutheran orphanage at the age of 3, but he was removed when his mother left for Dallas in January 1944 and married her 3rd husband Edwin A. Ekdahl. Oswald left school in 1954. He was in the US Marines until 1959 when he was discharged due to hardship as his mother was suffering from physical problems. Oswald was interested in Marxist ideologies and lived for some time in the USSR (1959-62). He unsuccessfully tried to get Soviet citizenship. When he was initially denied and as his visa was about to expire he even attempted suicide. In 1961 he married a Russian woman, Marina Nikolaevna Prusakova, (Marina Oswald) and was allowed to stay indefinitely. However by October 1963 Oswald moved along with his wife and daughter back to the States, and settled in Dallas. Oswald began to publicly express his opinions about Communist regimes like Cuba and China by distributing pamphlets. He was working for the Texas School Depository, a 6 story building located in the now 'infamous' Dealey Plaza area of Dallas, Texas. On November 22, 1963 when President Kennedy's motorcade passed by the building it is believed that Oswald was in the building. He may shot the president from the 6th floor and then concealed the rifle behind some crates. Whether he acted alone or not is still an ongoing debate. Oswald apparently left the depository when pandemonium broke out after the incident. He then headed home where he picked up a pistol. Oswald returned to the Depository where he is believed to have fired 4 bullets into police officer J.D. Tippit who approached him to ask him a question. Oswald then ran into the Texas Theatre where the double bill: War Is Hell (1961) and Cry of Battle (1963) was playing. He had not bought a ticket and the authorities cornered him in the theatre and quickly took him into custody. On 23 November 1963 he was charged with the murder of President Kennedy, whom he was alleged to have shot from the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository, as the President passed by in a motor cavalcade. Oswald however vehemently denied his involvement in both the Kennedy assassination and the shooting of officer Tippit. On November 24, 1963 just 2 days later, while authorities were transferring Oswald to the county jail, he was shot dead by night club owner Jack Ruby (1911-67), live before the cameras. Ruby claimed he was avenging Jacqueline Kennedy (Jackie Kennedy Onassis). Claims were made that Oswald had links with the US secret service and with the Mafia. But it seems that there are more conspiracy theories than facts.
- Serial killer who single-handedly committed the most number of murders in a single day - 8. He was the 7th of 8 children born to Robert Speck and Gladys Sterner. His father died when he was 6 and his mother moved the family to Dallas. While there he had 37 arrests for drunk and disorderly behaviour and burglary. He worked as a garbage man for a while. In 1965 he was caught trying to assault a woman at knife point. He was sentenced to 490 days and released as a parole violator. In March 1966 he was separated from his wife and went to Monmoth, Illinois where he has some distant relatives. By then he had become an alcoholic and harboured homicidal threats against his wife. He worked as a merchant seaman on the ore barges that plied the Great Lakes. Speck suffered from Satyriasis (sexual addiction in men) and though he is remembered now for his 8 victim tally on one bloody night he was resposible for 4 other killings that occurred over a period of 3 months before that. This truly makes him a serial-killer and not just a mass murderer. His first killing took place on April 10, 1966. Most of his victims were women who were abducted, raped and either strangled or stabbed to death. His oldest victim was 65. On July 10, 1966 he moved to Chicago. Speck needed money to get passage on a vessel bound for New Orleans. On the 'infamous' night of July 13/14, 1966 he approached Jeffrey Manor a 2 storey townhome at 2319 East 100th Street. It served as a dormitory for nursing students from South Chicago Community Hospital. He was high on downers and inebriated when he knocked on the door. The door was opened by a young Filipino nurse who was immediately taken hostage at both gun and knife point. Speck then aroused 5 other students and herded all 6 of them into one room where he bound and gagged them. Over the next hour 3 more nurses came back to their dormitory and Speck now found himself with 9 potential victims. Speck then came to his brutal decision - he would just dispose of them. He took them one by one, like lambs for slaughter, into adjacent rooms, where he stabbed, strangled and at times raped them. While this was going on the remaining nurses tried to crawl under beds or escape. Speck finished killing 8 out the 9 nurses. He had lost count and the lone survivor of the carnage - the Filipino nurse who had let him in, had managed to crawl away in the darkness and hide in a dark corner in another room. She waited there until 5 in the morning before she came out and screamed for help. The nurses were young who ranged in age from 20 to 24. When the police examined the corpses and noticed the use of square knots they suspected their killer might be a seaman. The lone survivor gave a description of the pock-marked Speck, including a tattoo on his left forearm that said 'born to raise hell'. On July 17, 1966 Speck was found in his crashpad and admitted to Cook County Hospital. He had tried to overdose on drugs to commit suicide. He was recognized by the doctors as the possible killer and the authorities were alerted. In April 1967 he was convicted of multicide and sentenced to death in August, 1967. However in 1972 the verdict was overturned when the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional. His sentence was commuted to consecutive life terms amounting to 400 years. While in prison Speck considered sex change and even got regular injections with female hormones so that he could gradually change his appearance. He died in 1991 after serving only 19 years.
- John Wayne Gacy was born in 1942 and grew up in a working-class neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. His father, John Stanley Gacy (1900-1969), was an alcoholic and beat him frequently during his violent rages. As Gacy grew up, he began to develop a identity crisis - doubting his own masculinity. At the age of 11, he suffered a blow to the head from a swing. Over the next five years, he had frequent blackouts until doctors found a clot in his brain that was removed with medications. Following that, he would feign 'heart problems' for attention.
He graduated from business college and started to work as a shoe salesman. Gacy married a co-worker worker, whose family owned a KFC in Waterloo, Iowa and began to work there as Manager. He gradually earned the respect of the local Jaycees. In May 1968 he was arrested for sexual misconduct with a young male employee. Gacy actually hired a thug to beat up the witness, which failed, and only increased the charges against him. He plead guilty to sodomy and was sentenced to 10 years. Gacy was a model prisoner and was paroled in 1970 after serving only 18 months.
He then moved to Chicago where he began his life anew as a building constructor. Gacy became popular with his new neighbors and colleagues. He would throw theme parties and often dress up as 'Pogo the Clown' for children's parties and charity shows. Gacy was also involved with the Democratic party and even had his picture taken with then First Lady Rosalynn Carter (wife of former President Jimmy Carter).
On February 12, 1971 he was once again charged with sexual misconduct towards a young man. The witness did not show up in court and the charges were dropped. He finished his parole on October 18, 1971. Gacy committed his first murder on January 3, 1972. His modus operandi would be to drive around town looking for young male runaways, ex-jailbirds or even male prostitutes. Gacy's victims ranged in age from 9 to 20 years. He would flash them a 'badge' or a 'gun' pretending to be an officer of the law and 'arrest' them. Gacy would then befriend them and take take them home where he showed them tricks with 'magic handcuffs'. Once he had subdued his victim he would torture, sodomize and garrote them. Then he would bury them in a crawl space beneath his house. When he ran out of space he began to dump bodies in neighboring rivers. After he divorced his second wife in 1976 the killings escalated as he had the house to himself. On October 25, 1976 he committed a double homicide! In December 1977 he actually let one of his victims leave after he had 'done' with him.
On December 12, 1978 he killed his 33rd and last victim; a 15-year-old boy, named Robert Piest, who lived in his neighborhood. This was Gacy's one big mistake. The victim had told someone he was going to see his "contractor" about a job and was never seen again. The "contractor" turned out to be Gacy. When the police dropped by his house they noticed the smell from the decomposing corpses underneath. When they saw his police record, it wasn't hard for them to get a search warrant of his house. A total of 29 bodies were extracted from the crawlspace and five more from the nearby river, of which 9 remain unidentified. Gacy was judged sane by the court psychiatrists and in 1980 was charged with 21 counts of life for murders committed before June 21, 1977 when Illinois reinstated the death sentence. For the 12 committed since then he got the death sentence. - Writer
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George Walton Lucas, Jr. was raised on a walnut ranch in Modesto, California. His father was a stationery store owner and he had three siblings. During his late teen years, he went to Thomas Downey High School and was very much interested in drag racing. He planned to become a professional racecar driver. However, a terrible car accident just after his high school graduation ended that dream permanently. The accident changed his views on life.
He decided to attend Modesto Junior College before enrolling in the University of Southern California film school. As a film student, he made several short films including Electronic Labyrinth THX 1138 4EB (1967) which won first prize at the 1967-68 National Student Film Festival. In 1967, he was awarded a scholarship by Warner Brothers to observe the making of Finian's Rainbow (1968) which was being directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Lucas and Coppola became good friends and formed American Zoetrope in 1969. The company's first project was Lucas' full-length version of THX 1138 (1971). In 1971, Coppola went into production for The Godfather (1972), and Lucas formed his own company, Lucasfilm Ltd.
In 1973, he wrote and directed the semiautobiographical American Graffiti (1973) which won the Golden Globe and garnered five Academy Award nominations. This gave him the clout he needed for his next daring venture. From 1973 to 1974, he began writing the screenplay which became Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977). He was inspired to make this movie from Flash Gordon and the Planet of the Apes films. In 1975, he established ILM. (Industrial Light & Magic) to produce the visual effects needed for the movie. Another company called Sprocket Systems was established to edit and mix Star Wars and later becomes known as Skywalker Sound. His movie was turned down by several studios until 20th Century Fox gave him a chance. Lucas agreed to forego his directing salary in exchange for 40% of the film's box-office take and all merchandising rights. The movie went on to break all box office records and earned seven Academy Awards. It redefined the term "blockbuster" and the rest is history.
Lucas made the other Star Wars films and along with Steven Spielberg created the Indiana Jones series which made box office records of their own. From 1980 to 1985, Lucas was busy with the construction of Skywalker Ranch, built to accommodate the creative, technical, and administrative needs of Lucasfilm. Lucas also revolutionized movie theaters with the THX system which was created to maintain the highest quality standards in motion picture viewing.
He went on to produce several more movies that have introduced major innovations in filmmaking technology. He is chairman of the board of the George Lucas Educational Foundation. In 1992, George Lucas was honored with the Irving G. Thalberg Award by the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his lifetime achievement.
He reentered the directing chair with the production of the highly-anticipated Star Wars prequel trilogy beginning with Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) . The films have been polarizing for fans and critics alike, but were commercially successful and have become a part of culture. The animated spin-off series Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) was supervised by Lucas. He sold Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012, making co-chair Kathleen Kennedy president. He has attended the premieres of new Star Wars films and been generally supportive of them.- Dr. Harold Shipman was born the son of Vera and Harold Shipman. He was the middle of 3 children. His father was a lorry driver and his mother a home maker. In 1957 he studied at High Pavement grammar school (6th form). He was an avid rugby player as a child. His mother's lingering death from lung cancer in June 1963 had a profound effect on the psyche of young Harold. In September 1965 he enrolled at Leeds University Medical School. He met his future wife on a double decker during his daily trips to Leeds. After medical school he got his first medical job at Pontefarct General Infirmary where he worked for 3.5 years. In March 1974 he joined a group practice in Todmorden. While there he was very involved in social functions like the Rochdale Canal Commission. It was during his time there that the first signs of his criminal behavior were noticed. He started having blackouts in public that were initially thought to be epilepsy. In July 1975 it was realized that he was prescribing a large amount of pethidine to his patients according to a pharmacy log. The patients were questioned but none of them admitted to ever having received the powerful narcotic. When Shipman was confronted by his colleagues he admitted to having acquired an opiate addiction from his days in medical school when he had accidentally tried it. That explained the 'blackouts'. He was advised to go to the Retreat in York (an institution that helped with drug addiction) if he wanted to keep his job. However in November 1975 he was charged with 'forgery of prescriptions'. The Shipman family disappeared from Todmorden. Dr. Shipman got a job at the National Coal Board in Doncaster where he did physicals on miners. In February of 1976 he had a job in County Durham for the SW Durham Health Authority. By 1977 he had secured a job with Donneybrook Medical Center in Hyde as part of a group practice. It is believed that some of his earliest victims may have been from his time here. In July 1992 Shipman left his practice to work at The Surgery. He would give his victims a lethal dose of morphine during a house visit and actually come by again when he believed them to be dead. At this time he would perform a cursory medical examination and pronounce his patient dead and no one would be the wiser. He generally preyed upon elderly women who lived alone as they made easy targets. However his youngest victim was 49 and he may have killed a few men as well. Even though his victims were middle aged or elderly they were not generally infirm at the time of death which made a lot of relatives suspicious about their premature deaths. His last victim died on 24 June, 1998. Shipman had apparently changed his patient's will which bequeathed her entire estate to him with nothing for her own daughter. The daughter obviously found this suspicious and alerted detectives. Her body was exhumed on August 1st and an autopsy was performed. Around this time a local taxi driver who did errands for most of his victims realized that they all had one thing in common - their doctor was Shipman. This further added suspicion to Shipman. The news of his crimes was released to the public only by 20 August, 1998. On September 2, 1998 the toxicology report proved that his victim had died from a fatal dose of morphine and not 'natural causes' as he had claimed in the death certificate. When he was initially confronted with the findings he claimed that his patient was a drug addict and he had covered up for her. He was formally arrested on September 7, 1998. In order to cover his tracks Dr. Shipman had made fake entrées in his patients files. Hoever a Visa card statement showed he was elsewhere at the time the extra entries had been made. The bodies of several of his patients were exhumed and examined for morphine. His computer at work was examined and its hard drive revealed when extra entries were made and dates changed on MedDoc. During his incarceration prior to trial he believed the police were conspiring to kill him, surprisingly the same way he killed his patients. He was initially in Strangeways jail in Manchester. Then he was moved to Preston prison later in 1998 and to Walton jail in Liverpool afterward. On 5 October, 1999 he was first arrragned in court and charged with 15 counts of murder an 1 count of forging a will. The trail began on Octber 11, 1999 and went on for a marathon 57 days. The jury retired on January 24 and deliberated until January 31, 2000. At 4:44 pm he was pronounced guilty and given 15 life sentences plus 4 years for forgery. It is officially believed he killed about 215 people making him one of the most prolific serial killers of all time. He killed 7 people in February 1998 alone! Harold Shipman was found dead in his prison cell on 13th January 2004, the day before what would have been his 58th birthday. Verdict: suicide by hanging.
- British serial killer, Peter Sutcliffe, who is infamous as the 'Yorkshire Ripper' was born under fairly normal surroundings. His father John Sutcliffe was a mill owner. Sutcliffe was very attached to his mother Kathleen. He was a loner in school and his grades were generally poor. Sutcliffe quit school at 15. He loved to visit the local wax museum where he was fascinated by specimens that showed the effect of venereal disease on the body.
He worked as a municipal gravedigger and mortuary assistant for a while. During this period he was known to steal things from the bodies he was burying. Some of his early tendencies towards necrophilia may have stemmed from here. He would later tell authorities that it was during this time that he started hearing the voice of God coming from a grave telling him to 'rid the world of harlots'. He attempted his first murder in 1969 with a home made weapon - a sock filled with bricks. On two occasions his victims escaped.
On Oct 30, 1975 however he had perfected his modus operandi. He used a ball peen hammer to bludgeon his victim to death. Then he stabbed them with a chisel or screwdriver to mutilate their bodies. He killed mainly in the cities of Leeds, Bradford and in the West Yorkshire area but two were in Manchester. His victims were all women. Though many were prostitutes, several were not - the only common factor being they were lone women who were out late at night. The age range of his victims was 16 to 47. One of his victims was even killed in her own apartment. In one case, Sutcliffe actually revisited the crime scene a week later to further mutilate the body before it was finally found by the police.
Sutcliffe was a schizoid personality who was able to remain a devoted husband at home while still committing his brutal crimes outside. The largest manhunt in British history was launched to catch the man who was dubbed "The Yorkshire Ripper". It involved interviewing 250,000 people and searching 20,000 houses. In June 1979 the police were sidetracked when they received a hoax tape and letters from someone claiming to be the Ripper. Sutcliffe was among those dismissed at this point as a suspect because he did not have the 'Wearside accent' of the hoax tape.
The last 'Ripper' murder took place on 17 Nov 1980. There had been 13 victims with at least eight attempted murders. On January 2, 1981 Sutcliffe was arrested by two Sheffield police officers on routine patrol for displaying false number plates on his Rover car. (The number plates actually belonged to a Skoda.) Peter Sutcliffe had stolen the plates from a scrapyard in nearby Dewsbury. He had a prostitute in his car with him at the time. He requested permission to 'pee' before going to the station. While he was being questioned at the station, one of the arresting officers decided to go and check the bushes where Sutcliffe had urinated. He found a hammer and chisel behind some shrubbery.
Sutcliffe quickly confessed to his crimes. he said he harbored a vendetta against prostitutes after one of them had swindled him of money and given him a venereal disease. On May 22, 1981 he was declared guilty of committing 13 murders and sentenced to spend not less than 30 yrs in prison. - Actor
- Stunts
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Darwyn (Dar) Swalve began in community theater and his dream was to be in a Broadway play. His acting agent Keith Wolfe placed Darwyn with actor-turned-agent, Morgan Paul, who had contacts in the theater, as well as films. Darwyn's dream of being in a Broadway show was realized when he landed a role in the award winning Broadway show, "City of Angels." He played six months at the Shubert Theater in Century City and toured for one year with the show. In the movies in which he played he also did some of his own stunts. Darwyn also did commercials including one for Ford Mustang with Katherine Zeta-Jones. He had just finished a TV series project for Nickelodeon Productions ("The Journey Of Allen Strange") a few weeks before he passed away in May 1999 from a heart attack.- He was born in Reykjavik, Iceland and moved to the United States at the age of 5. Gunnar lived in Maine till he was 11, his family then moving to Texas, where he went to high school before attending the University of Texas. At the university, he did some theater work and majored in English and mathematics before going on to graduate in English and Scandinavian Studies. Despite graduating in the aforementioned fields, his first job out of high school was as a computer operator.
In the summer of 1973, he heard that Tobe Hooper and others were in town to work on a movie and decided to try out for a part. After interviewing with Tobe Hooper and the writer of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), Kim Henkel, he was cast in the role of the disturbed, mentally handicapped killer, Leatherface.
After Chainsaw, Hansen went on to work as a freelance writer for magazines for several years before going on to write books, one later being set in Iceland about purported serial killer, Henry Lee Lucas. He has gone on to write multiple screenplays - one co-written with his partner Gary Jones, director of Mosquito (1994)).
Gunnar also directed a documentary on Greenland and had a stint designing web pages for GTE.