Public Figures & Cultural Luminaries
Filterable archive covering centuries of intellectual, artistic, and moral contributions to the human story.
Christopher Hitchens
(Christopher Eric Hitchens)
Formidable Anglo-American author, essayist, and polemicist celebrated for his razor-sharp wit, literary criticism, and outspoken secularist manifesto God Is Not Great.
Harry Morgan
(Harry Bratsberg)
Beloved American character actor whose six-decade career was crowned by his Emmy-winning role as the wise, paternal Colonel Sherman T. Potter on television's M*A*S*H.
Sรณcrates
(Sรณcrates Brasileiro Sampaio de Souza Vieira de Oliveira)
Iconic Brazilian football captain, midfield maestro, and licensed medical doctor who captained Brazil's legendary 1982 World Cup team and founded Corinthians Democracy to challenge military rule.
Socrates
(Socrates Brasileiro Sampaio de Souza Vieira de Oliveira)
Visionary Brazilian midfield maestro and qualified medical doctor who captained Brazil's enchanting 1982 World Cup team and led the revolutionary 'Corinthians Democracy' movement against Brazil's military dictatorship.
Simon Lรฉvy
(ุดู
ุนูู ูููู)
Fez-born linguist, lifelong anti-colonial patriot, university professor, and founder-director of the Museum of Moroccan Judaism in Casablanca, the only Jewish museum in the Arab world.
Christa Wolf
(Christa Ihlenfeld)
The preeminent author of East Germany whose complex psychological novels Cassandra, They Divided the Sky, and Patterns of Childhood critically examined socialist ideals, memory, and totalitarian power.
Gary Speed
(Gary Andrew Speed)
Revered Welsh international footballer and national team manager who won the English league title with Leeds United, made 535 Premier League appearances, and laid the foundation for Wales' modern football renaissance.
Ken Russell
(Henry Kenneth Alfred Russell)
Flamboyant and controversial British film director renowned for flamboyant, visually extravagant biographies of composers and bold films like Women in Love, The Devils, and The Who's Tommy.
Vasily Alekseyev
(ะะฐัะธะปะธะน ะะฒะฐะฝะพะฒะธั ะะปะตะบัะตะตะฒ)
Legendary Soviet super-heavyweight weightlifter who won back-to-back Olympic gold medals (1972, 1976), set 80 world records, and remained undefeated in major international competition for eight years.
Paul Motian
(Stephen Paul Motian)
Revolutionary American jazz drummer and composer of Armenian descent who redefined jazz percussion as an equal melodic voice with the Bill Evans Trio and Keith Jarrett.
Lynn Margulis
(Lynn Petra Alexander)
Iconoclastic American evolutionary biologist whose serial endosymbiotic theory revolutionized the understanding of cellular evolution, showing that mitochondria and chloroplasts originated as symbiotic bacteria.
Djamel Keddou
(ุฌู
ุงู ูุฏู)
Iconic defender and captain of USM Alger, starting central defender of the Algerian national team that won the Gold Medal against France at the 1975 Mediterranean Games.
Lev Borisov
(ะะตะฒ ะะฒะฐะฝะพะฒะธั ะะพัะธัะพะฒ)
Eminent Russian stage and film actor, younger brother of Oleg Borisov, who starred in over ninety films and achieved cult television status as crime boss 'Antibiotic' in Bandit Petersburg.
Har Gobind Khorana
(เคนเคฐ เคเฅเคฌเคฟเคจเฅเคฆ เคเฅเคฐเคพเคจเคพ)
Indian-American biochemist who shared the 1968 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for deciphering the genetic code and later synthesized the world's first artificial gene.
Joe Frazier
(Joseph William Frazier)
Joseph William 'Smokin' Joe' Frazier was a relentless, ferocious heavyweight boxing champion who became the first man to defeat Muhammad Ali in the 1971 'Fight of the Century'. Armed with an unstoppable bobbing-and-weaving forward attack and the most lethal left hook in boxing history, the 1964 Olympic gold medalist reigned as undisputed heavyweight champion from 1970 to 1973.
Slimane Dehilรจs (Colonel Sadek)
(ุณููู
ุงู ุฏููููุณ (ุงูุนููุฏ ุตุงุฏู))
Legendary ALN Colonel who served as right-hand commander to Krim Belkacem and Ouamrane, commander of Wilaya 4, and husband of resistance heroine Izza Bouzekri.
Norman Foster Ramsey Jr.
(Norman Foster Ramsey Jr.)
American physicist who received the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physics for inventing the separated oscillatory fields method, which enabled modern cesium atomic clocks and GPS navigation.
Flรณriรกn Albert
(Albert Flรณriรกn)
Graceful Hungarian striker nicknamed 'The Emperor', the only Hungarian footballer in history to win the Ballon d'Or (1967), who spent his entire career with Ferencvรกros.