John Calvin Coolidge, Jr. was the thirtieth President of the United States (1923–1929). A Republican lawyer from Vermont, Coolidge worked his way up the ladder of Massachusetts state politics, eventually becoming governor of that state. His...

Louis Blériot was a French aviator, inventor and engineer. In 1909 he completed the first flight across a large body of water in a heavier-than-air craft when he crossed the English Channel, receiving a prize of 1000 British pounds for doin...

Piet Mondrian was a Dutch painter and theoretician who is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. He is known for being one of the pioneers of 20th century abstract art, as he changed his artistic direction from figurat...

Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, writer, social critic, political activist, and Nobel laureate. At various points in his life, Russell considered himself a libe...

Before there was any kind of high-speed travel an English gentleman named Phileas Fogg betted 20,000 pounds that he can travel around the world in 80 or less days. He starts his journey in London. On his way he meets a beautiful Indian Prin...

Alfred Jarry was a French symbolist writer best known for coining the term and philosophical concept of 'pataphysics. In his lifetime, though associated with the Symbolist movement, Jarry was best known for his play Ubu Roi (1896), which...

Luigi Lucheni was an Italian anarchist who assassinated the Austrian Empress, Elisabeth (commonly referred to as Sissi, Viennese for Elisabeth), in 1898. Lucheni believed in propaganda of the deed, a philosophy advocating spreading beliefs...

Jacobus Johannes "Jaap" Eden was a Dutch athlete. He is the only male athlete to have won world championships in both speed skating and cycling (women who have done so are Sheila Young and Christa Rothenburger)....

Alberto Santos-Dumont was an early pioneer of aviation. He was born and died in Brazil. Heir of a prosperous coffee producer family, Santos-Dumont dedicated himself to science studies in Paris. Santos-Dumont designed, built, and flew the...

Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninov, one of the most famous of Russian composers. Rachmaninov's music is considered Romantic while bearing traces of typically Russian themes and style of composition. Although banned in Soviet Russia for more tha...

Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen is, in my opinion, one of, if not the, greatest musical works in history. It is fifteen hours of gorgeous, dramatic music, coupled to an endlessly fascinating and moving story. Needless to say, every recordi...

Mehmed Talat Pasha was one of leaders of the Young Turks, an Ottoman statesman, grand vizier (1917) , and leading member of the Sublime Porte from 1913 until 1918. He is infamously tied to the Armenian Genocide possibly even more than the o...

Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton was a polar explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic, and one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Born in Kilkea, Athy, County Kildare, Irel...

Amy Lawrence Lowell was an American poet of the imagist school from Brookline, Massachusetts, who posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1926. In the post-World War I years, Lowell was largely forgotten, but the women's moveme...

Harry Houdini was a Hungarian-born American magician and escapologist, stunt performer, actor and film producer noted for his sensational escape acts. He was also a skeptic who set out to expose frauds purporting to be supernatural phenomen...