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• 
  

• 
  Baikonur
  Baikonur (Kazakh: Байқоңыр, Bayqoñır ; Russian: Байконур, Baykonur), formerly known as Leninsk, is a city in Kyzylorda Province of Kazakhstan, rented and administered by the Russian Federation. It was constructed to service the Baikonur Cosmodrome and was officially renamed Baikonur by Russian president Boris Yeltsin on December 20, 1995.
  The shape of the area rented is an ellipse, measuring 90 kilometres east to west, by 85 kilometres north to south, with the cosmodrome at the centre.
  The original Baikonur (Kazakh for "wealthy brown", i.e. "fertile land with many herbs") is a mining town a few hundred kilometres northeast, near Dzhezkazgan in Kazakhstan's Karagandy Province. Starting with Vostok 1 in April 1961, the launch site was given this name to cause confusion and keep the location secret. (The original Baikonur's residents took advantage of the confusion by ordering and receiving much scarce materials before government officials discovered the deception.) The new Baikonur's railroad station predates the base and retains the old name of Tyuratam.
  
  wn.com/Baikonur
• 
  Battle of Adré
  The Battle of Adré took place in Adré, Chad on December 18, 2005. The battle began when the Chadian rebel groups Rally for Democracy and Liberty (RDL) and Platform for Change, Unity, and Democracy (SCUD), allegedly backed by the government of Sudan, attacked the garrison in this city. However, Chadian loyalists, who had been forewarned by military intelligence of the attack, easily repulsed the attackers. Either seventy, one hundred, or three hundred rebels were killed, depending on reports. Governmental losses are unknown, but they lost at least one Russian-made helicopter in a collision with electric wires during the fighting, while another Mi-17 helicopter was heavily damaged by rebel fire which killed at least one crew member.
  On December 19, SCUD leader Yaya Dillo Djérou said, "A few of our troops have participated in the action in Adré, but it is being led by RDL. Yesterday we took control of the city."
  
  
  
  wn.com/Battle_of_Adré
• 
  Battle of the Trebia
  The Battle of the Trebia (or Trebbia) was the first major battle of the Second Punic War, fought between the Carthaginian forces of Hannibal and the Roman Republic in December of 218 BC, on or around the winter solstice. It was a resounding Roman defeat with heavy losses, and yet some 10,000 and more Romans, over 2.5 legions, were victorious on their part of battlefield and retreated with honor to Placentia (Piacenza). In this battle Hannibal got the better of the Romans by exercising the careful and innovative planning for which he was famous. The impetuous and short-sighted opposing general, the consul Tiberius Sempronius Longus, allowed himself to be provoked into a frontal assault under physically difficult circumstances and failed to see that he was being led into a trap.
  The battle took place in the flat country of the Province of Piacenza on the left bank of the Trebbia River, a shallow, braided stream, not far south from its confluence (from the south) with the Po river. The battle is named for the river. Although the precise location is not known for certain it is generally accepted as being visible from the Via Emilia, now paralleled by highway A21/E70 and a railroad trunk line, all of which come from Piacenza, a contemporaneously placed Roman colony (though perhaps on an existing settlement), and cross the river north of where the Romans did in the battle. The area is possibly in the comune of Rottofreno at its main settlement, San Nicolò a Trebbia, in the vicinity of the coordinates given at the head of this article.
  
  wn.com/Battle_of_the_Trebia
• 
  Battle of Verdun
  The Battle of Verdun (French: Bataille de Verdun, IPA: [bataj də vɛʁdœ̃], German: Schlacht um Verdun, IPA: [ʃlaxt ˀʊm vɛɐdœŋ]) was one of the major battles during the First World War on the Western Front. It was fought between the German and French armies, from the 21st of February to the 18th of December 1916, on hilly terrain north of the city of Verdun-sur-Meuse in north-eastern France.
  Verdun resulted in 698,000 battlefield deaths (362,000 French and 336,000 German combatants), an average of 70,000 deaths for each of the ten months of the battle. It was the longest and one of the most devastating battles in the First World War and the history of warfare.
  For centuries, Verdun had played an important role in the defense of its hinterland, due to the city's strategic location on the Meuse River. Attila the Hun, for example, failed to seize the town in the fifth century. When the empire of Charlemagne was divided under the Treaty of Verdun of 843 the town became part of the Holy Roman Empire. The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 awarded Verdun to France. Verdun played an important role in the defensive line that was built after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. As a protection against German threats along the eastern border a strong line of fortifications was constructed between Verdun and Toul and between Épinal and Belfort. Verdun guarded the northern entrance to the plains of Champagne and thus the strategically important approach to the French capital city of Paris.
  
  wn.com/Battle_of_Verdun
• 
  California
  California (pronounced ⁱ/kælɨˈfɔrnjə/) is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third most extensive (after Alaska and Texas). It is home to the nation's second- and sixth-largest census statistical areas (Los Angeles Metropolitan Area and San Francisco Bay Area), and eight of the nation's fifty most populated cities (Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco, Fresno, Sacramento, Long Beach and Oakland). The capital city is Sacramento.
  California's diverse geography ranges from the Pacific Coast in the west, to the Sierra Nevada mountains in the east – from the Redwood–Douglas-fir forests of the northwest, to the Mojave Desert areas in the southeast. The center of the state is dominated by Central Valley, a major agricultural area. California contains both the highest and lowest points in the contiguous United States (Mount Whitney and Death Valley), and has the third-longest coastline of all states (after Alaska and Florida). Earthquakes are a common occurrence due to the state's location along the Pacific Ring of Fire: about 37,000 are recorded annually.
  
  wn.com/California
• 
  Cliff Palace
  The Cliff Palace is the largest cliff dwelling in North America. The structure built by the Ancient Pueblo Peoples is located in Mesa Verde National Park in their former homeland region. The cliff dwelling and park are in the southwestern corner of Colorado, in the Southwestern United States.
  Tree ring dating indicates that construction and refurbishing of Cliff Palace was continuous from c. 1190 CE through c. 1260 CE, although the major portion of the building was done within a twenty-year time span. The Ancestral Pueblo that constructed this cliff dwelling and the others like it at Mesa Verde were driven to these defensible positions by "increasing competition amidst changing climatic conditions". Cliff Palace was abandoned by 1300, and while debate remains as to the causes of this, some believe a series of megadroughts interrupting food production systems is the main cause. Cliff Palace was first discovered in 1888 by Richard Wetherhill and Charlie Mason while out looking for stray cattle.
  
  wn.com/Cliff_Palace
• 
  Czechoslovakia
  Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia (Czech and Slovak: Československo, Česko-Slovensko) was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992. From 1939 to 1945, the state did not de facto exist because of its forced division and partial incorporation into Nazi Germany, but the Czechoslovak government-in-exile nevertheless continued to exist during this period. In 1945, the eastern part of Carpathian Ruthenia was taken over by the Soviet Union. On 1 January 1993, Czechoslovakia peacefully split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
  Form of state:
  Neighbours:
  Topography:
  The country was of generally irregular terrain. The western area was part of north-central European uplands. The eastern region was composed of northern reaches of Carpathian Mountains and Danube River basin lands.
  Climate:
  The weather was predominantly continental, but varied from the moderate temperature of Western Europe in the west, to more severe weather of Eastern Europe and the western Soviet Union in the east.
  
  wn.com/Czechoslovakia
• 
  Dominica
  Dominica ( /ˌdɒmɪˈniːkə/ DOM-i-NEE-kə;French: Dominique; Kali‘na (Carib): Wai‘tu kubuli), officially the Commonwealth of Dominica, is an island nation in the Lesser Antilles region of the Caribbean Sea, south-southeast of Guadeloupe and northwest of Martinique. Its size is 750 square kilometres (290 sq mi) and the highest point in the country is Morne Diablotins, which has an elevation of 1,447 metres (4,747 ft). The Commonwealth of Dominica had a population of 71,293 at the 2011 Census. The capital is Roseau.
  Dominica has been nicknamed the "Nature Isle of the Caribbean" for its unspoiled natural beauty. It is the youngest island in the Lesser Antilles, still being formed by geothermal-volcanic activity, as evidenced by the world's second-largest hot spring, Boiling Lake. The island features lush mountainous rainforests, home of many rare plant, animal, and bird species. There are xeric areas in some of the western coastal regions, but heavy rainfall can be expected inland. The Sisserou Parrot (also known as the Imperial Amazon), the island's national bird, is featured on the national flag. Dominica's economy is heavily dependent on tourism, agriculture and heavy taxation.
  
  wn.com/Dominica
• 
  Fourteenth Air Force
  The Fourteenth Air Force (Air Forces Strategic) (14 AF) is a numbered air force of the United States Air Force Space Command (AFSPC). It is headquartered at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.
  The command is responsible for the organization, training, equipping, command and control, and employment of Air Force space forces to support operational plans and missions for U.S. combatant commanders and their subordinate components and is the Air Force Component to U.S. Strategic Command for space operations.
  Established on 5 March 1943 at Kunming, China, 14 AF was a United States Army Air Forces combat air force deployed to the Pacific Theater of World War II. It engaged in operations primarily in China. After World War II Fourteenth Air Force subsequently served Air Defense Command, Continental Air Command, and the Air Force Reserves (AFRES).
  14 AF is commanded by Lt. Gen. Susan J. Helms. Its Command Chief Master Sergeant is Chief Master Sgt. Dennis L. Vannorsdall.
  In 1993, Fourteenth Air Force became part of Air Force Space Command responsible for performing space operations. As the Air Force's sole Numbered Air Force for space and its concurrent United States Strategic Command mission of Joint Space Operations, the operational mission of 14 AF includes space launch from the east and west coasts, satellite command and control, missile warning, space surveillance and command and control of assigned and attached joint space forces. The overall mission is control and exploit space for global and theater operations, thereby ensuring warfighters are supported by the best space capabilities available.
  
  wn.com/Fourteenth_Air_Force
• 
  Malaysia
  Malaysia (ⁱ/məˈleɪʒə/ mə-LAY-zhə or ⁱ/məˈleɪsiə/ mə-LAY-see-ə) is a federal constitutional monarchy in Southeast Asia. It consists of thirteen states and three federal territories and has a total landmass of 329,847 square kilometres (127,350 sq mi) separated by the South China Sea into two similarly sized regions, Peninsular Malaysia and Malaysian Borneo. Land borders are shared with Thailand, Indonesia, and Brunei, and maritime borders exist with Singapore, Vietnam, and the Philippines. The capital city is Kuala Lumpur, while Putrajaya is the seat of the federal government. In 2010 the population exceeded 27.5 million, with over 20 million living on the Peninsula.
  Malaysia has its origins in the Malay Kingdoms present in the area which, from the 18th century, became subject to the British Empire. The first British territories were known as the Straits Settlements, whose establishment was followed by the Malay kingdoms becoming British protectorates. The territories on Peninsular Malaysia were first unified as the Malayan Union in 1946. Malaya was restructured as the Federation of Malaya in 1948, and achieved independence on 31 August 1957. Malaya united with Sabah, Sarawak, and Singapore on 16 September 1963, with si being added to give the new country the name Malaysia. However, less than two years later in 1965, Singapore was expelled from the federation. Since independence, Malaysia has had one of the best economic records in Asia, with GDP growing an average 6.5% for almost 50 years. The economy has traditionally been fuelled by its natural resources, but is expanding in the sectors of science, tourism, commerce and medical tourism.
  
  wn.com/Malaysia
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  Mongolia
  Mongolia ⁱ/mɒŋˈɡoʊliə/ (Mongolian:  Монгол улс (help·info), literally Mongol country/state) is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only 38 kilometres (24 mi) from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulan Bator, the capital and largest city, is home to about 45% of the population. Mongolia's political system is a parliamentary republic.
  The area of what is now Mongolia has been ruled by various nomadic empires, including the Xiongnu, the Xianbei, the Rouran, the Gökturks and others. The Mongol Empire was founded by Genghis Khan in 1206. After the collapse of the Yuan Dynasty, the Mongols returned to their earlier pattern of constant internal conflict and occasional raids on the Chinese borderlands. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Mongolia came under the influence of Tibetan Buddhism. At the end of the 17th century, all of Mongolia had been incorporated into the area ruled by the Qing Dynasty. During the collapse of the Qing Dynasty in 1911, Mongolia declared independence, but had to struggle until 1921 to firmly establish de facto independence from the Republic of China, and until 1945 to gain international recognition.
  
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  NASA
  Coordinates: 38°52′59″N 77°0′59″W / 38.88306°N 77.01639°W / 38.88306; -77.01639
  The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research. Since February 2006, NASA's mission statement has been to "pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research." On September 14, 2011, NASA announced that it had selected the design of a new Space Launch System that it said would take the agency's astronauts farther into space than ever before and provide the cornerstone for future human space exploration efforts by the U.S.
  NASA was established by the National Aeronautics and Space Act on July 29, 1958, replacing its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). The agency became operational on October 1, 1958. U.S. space exploration efforts have since been led by NASA, including the Apollo moon-landing missions, the Skylab space station, and later the Space Shuttle. Currently, NASA is supporting the International Space Station and is overseeing the development of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle and Commercial Crew vehicles. The agency is also responsible for the Launch Services Program (LSP) which provides oversight of launch operations and countdown management for unmanned NASA launches.
  
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  New Jersey
  New Jersey (ⁱ/nuː ˈdʒɜrzi/) is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the U.S. state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania, and on the southwest by Delaware. New Jersey is the 4th least extensive, but the 11th most populous and the most densely populated of the 50 United States. New Jersey lies mostly within the sprawling metropolitan areas of New York City and Philadelphia. It is also the third wealthiest by 2009–2010 median household income.
  The area was inhabited by Native Americans for more than 2,800 years, with historical tribes such as the Lenape along the coast. In the early 17th century, the Dutch and the Swedes made the first European settlements. The British later seized control of the region, naming it the Province of New Jersey. It was granted as a colony to Sir George Carteret and John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton. At this time, it was named after the largest of the British Channel Islands, Jersey, Carteret's birthplace. New Jersey was the site of several decisive battles during the American Revolutionary War.
  
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  Nobel Peace Prize
  The Nobel Peace Prize (Norwegian and Swedish: Nobels fredspris) is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Chemistry, Physics, Physiology or Medicine, and Literature. It is awarded to those who have "done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."
  Per Alfred Nobel's will, the recipient is selected by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, a 5-member committee appointed by the Parliament of Norway. Since 1990, the prize is awarded in Oslo City Hall on 10 December each year. The prize was formerly awarded in the Atrium of the University of Oslo Faculty of Law (1947–89), the Norwegian Nobel Institute (1905–46) and the Parliament (1901–04).
  According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who "shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."
  
  wn.com/Nobel_Peace_Prize
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  North Vietnam
  North Vietnam was a communist state that ruled the northern half of Vietnam from 1954 until 1976. It was officially the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (Vietnamese: Việt Nam Dân chủ Cộng hòa), and was proclaimed in Hanoi in 1945. Vietnam was partitioned following the Geneva Conference at the end of the First Indochina War.
  During World War II, Vietnam was a French colony under Japanese occupation. Soon after Japan surrendered in 1945, the DRV was proclaimed in Hanoi. Viet Minh leader Hồ Chí Minh became head of the government while former emperor Bảo Đại became "supreme advisor." Non-communist figures were ousted from the DRV on October 30 and fled to the South. In November, the French reoccupied Hanoi and the French Indochina War followed. Bảo Đại became head of the Saigon government in 1949, which was then renamed the State of Vietnam. Following the Geneva Accords of 1954, Vietnam was partitioned at the 17th parallel. The DRV became the government of North Vietnam while the State of Vietnam retained control in the South.
  
  wn.com/North_Vietnam
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  Pennsylvania
  Pennsylvania (ⁱ/ˌpɛnsɨlˈveɪnjə/), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a US state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States, and the Great Lakes Region. The state borders Delaware to the southeast, Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, Ontario, Canada to the northwest, New York to the north, and New Jersey to the east.
  Pennsylvania is the 33rd most extensive, the 6th most populous, and the 9th most densely populated of the 50 United States. The state's four most populous cities are Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown, and Erie. The state capital is Harrisburg. Pennsylvania has 51 miles (82 km) of shoreline along Lake Erie and 57 miles (92 km) of shoreline along the Delaware Estuary.
  Pennsylvania is 170 miles (274 km) north to south and 283 miles (455 km) east to west. Of a total 46,055 square miles (119,282 km²), 44,817 square miles (116,075 km²) are land, 490 square miles (1,269 km²) are inland waters, and 749 square miles (1,940 km²) are waters in Lake Erie. It is the 33rd largest state in the United States. Pennsylvania has 51 miles (82 km) of coastline along Lake Erie and 57 miles (92 km) of shoreline along the Delaware Estuary.
  
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  Piltdown Man
  The Piltdown Man was a hoax in which bone fragments were presented as the fossilised remains of a previously unknown early human. These fragments consisted of parts of a skull and jawbone, said to have been collected in 1912 from a gravel pit at Piltdown, East Sussex, England. The Latin name Eoanthropus dawsoni ("Dawson's dawn-man", after the collector Charles Dawson) was given to the specimen. The significance of the specimen remained the subject of controversy until it was exposed in 1953 as a forgery, consisting of the lower jawbone of an orangutan that had been deliberately combined with the skull of a fully developed modern human.
  The Piltdown hoax is perhaps the most famous paleontological hoax ever. It has been prominent for two reasons: the attention paid to the issue of human evolution, and the length of time (more than 40 years) that elapsed from its discovery to its full exposure as a forgery.
  At a meeting of the Geological Society of London held on 18 December 1912, Charles Dawson claimed to have been given a fragment of the skull four years earlier by a workman at the Piltdown gravel pit. According to Dawson, workmen at the site had discovered the skull shortly before his visit and had broken it up in the belief that it was a fossilised "coconut". Revisiting the site on several occasions, Dawson found further fragments of the skull and took them to Arthur Smith Woodward, keeper of the geological department at the British Museum. Greatly interested by the finds, Woodward accompanied Dawson to the site where, although working together between June and September 1912, Dawson alone recovered more fragments of the skull and half of the lower jaw bone.
  
  wn.com/Piltdown_Man
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  Qatar
  Qatar (ⁱ/ˈkɑːtɑr/ or ⁱ/kəˈtɑr/;Arabic: قطر‎ [ˈqɑtˤɑr]; local vernacular pronunciation: [ɡɪtˤɑr]), also known as the country or State of Qatar or locally Dawlat Qaṭar, is a sovereign Arab state, located in Western Asia, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeasterly coast of the much larger Arabian Peninsula. Its sole land border is with Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its territory surrounded by the Persian Gulf. A strait of the Persian Gulf separates Qatar from the nearby island state of Bahrain.
  Qatar has been ruled as an absolute monarchy by Al Thani family since the mid-19th century. Formerly a British protectorate noted mainly for pearling, it became independent in 1971, and has become one of the region's wealthiest states due to its enormous oil and natural gas revenues. In 1995, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani became Emir when he seized power from his father, Khalifa bin Hamad Al Thani, in a peaceful coup d'état. The most important positions in Qatar are held by the members of the Al Thani family, or close confidants of the al-Thani family. Beginning in 1992, Qatar has built intimate military ties with the United States, and is now the location of U.S. Central Command’s Forward Headquarters and the Combined Air Operations Center.
  
  wn.com/Qatar
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  Soviet Union
  The Soviet Union (Russian: Советский Союз, tr. Sovetsky Soyuz), officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR; Russian: Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик, tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik; IPA: [sɐˈjus sɐˈvʲetskʲɪx sətsɨəlʲɪˈstʲitɕɪskʲɪx rʲɪsˈpublʲɪk] ( listen); abbreviated СССР, SSSR), was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991.
  The Soviet Union was a single-party state ruled by the Communist Party from its foundation until 1990. A union of 15 subnational Soviet republics, the Soviet state was structured under a highly centralized government and economy.
  The Russian Revolution of 1917 caused the downfall of the Russian Empire. Following the Russian Revolution, there was a struggle for power between the Bolshevik party, led by Vladimir Lenin, and the anti-communist White movement. In December 1922, the Bolsheviks won the civil war, and the Soviet Union was formed with the merger of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.
  
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  Sri Lanka
  Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka (ⁱ/ʃriː ˈlɑːŋkə/, /sriːˈlɑːŋkə/, or /sriːˈlæŋkə/;Sinhala: ශ්‍රී ලංකාව, Tamil: இலங்கை), is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent in South Asia. Known until 1972 as Ceylon ( /sɨˈlɒn/, /seɪˈlɒn/, or /siːˈlɒn/), Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar, the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the Maldives.
  As a result of its location in the path of major sea routes, Sri Lanka is a strategic naval link between West Asia and South East Asia. It was an important stop on the ancient Silk Road. Sri Lanka has also been a center of the Buddhist religion and culture from ancient times, being the nation where the Buddhist teachings were first written down as well as the oldest continually Buddhist country. Sri Lanka boasts a diverse range of cultures, languages and religions. The Sinhalese people form the majority of the population; Tamils, who are concentrated in the north and east of the island, form the largest ethnic minority. Other communities include Moors, Burghers, Kaffirs, Malays and the aboriginal Vedda people.
  
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  Sudan
  Sudan (ⁱ/suːˈdæn/ or /suːˈdɑːn/;Arabic: السودان‎, as-Sūdān), officially the Republic of the Sudan (Arabic: جمهورية السودان‎, Jumhūrīyat as-Sūdān), sometimes called North Sudan, is an Arab state in North Africa (sometimes also considered to be part of the Middle East). It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, and Libya to the northwest. The population of Sudan is a combination of indigenous inhabitants of Nile Valley, and descendants of migrants from the Arabian Peninsula. Due to the process of Arabisation common throughout the rest of the Arab World, today Arab culture predominates in Sudan. The majority of the population of Sudan adheres to Islam. The Nile divides the country between east and west sides.
  The people of Sudan have a long history extending from antiquity which is intertwined with the history of Egypt. Sudan suffered seventeen years of civil war during the First Sudanese Civil War (1955–1972) followed by ethnic, religious and economic conflicts between the Muslim Arab northern Sudanese and the mostly animist and Christian Nilotes of Southern Sudan. This led to the Second Sudanese Civil War in 1983. Because of continuing political and military struggles, Sudan was seized in a bloodless coup d'état by colonel Omar al-Bashir in 1989, who thereafter proclaimed himself President of Sudan. The civil war ended with the signing of a Comprehensive Peace Agreement which granted autonomy to what was then the southern region of the country. Following a referendum held in January 2011, South Sudan seceded on 9 July 2011 with the consent of Sudan's President al-Bashir.
  
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  Tunisia
  Tunisia (US ⁱ/tuːˈniːʒə/ two-NEE-zhə or UK /tjuːˈnɪziə/ tew-NIZ-iə; Arabic: تونس‎ Tūnis pronounced [ˈtuːnɪs]), officially the Republic of Tunisia (Arabic: الجمهورية التونسية‎ al-Jumhūriyyah at-Tūnisiyyah), is the northernmost country in Africa. It is an Arab Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area is almost 165,000 square kilometres (64,000 sq mi), with an estimated population of just under 10.7 million. Its name is derived from the capital Tunis located in the northeast.
  Tunisia is the smallest country in North Africa. The south of the country is composed of the Sahara desert, with much of the remainder consisting of particularly fertile soil and 1,300 kilometres (810 mi) of coastline.
  Tunisia has relations with both the European Union—with whom it has an association agreement—and the Arab world. Tunisia is also a member of the Arab Maghreb Union, the Arab League, and the African Union. Tunisia has established close relations with France in particular, through economic cooperation, industrial modernization, and privatisation programs.
  
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  United Arab Emirates
  The United Arab Emirates ⁱ/juːˌnaɪtɨd ˌærəb ˈɛmɪrɨts/ (Arabic: دولة الإمارات العربية المتحدة‎, Al Imārāt al ‘Arabīyah al Muttaḥidah), sometimes simply called the Emirates or the UAE, is a country situated in the southeast of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia on the Persian Gulf, bordering Oman to the east and Saudi Arabia to the south, as well as sharing sea borders with Qatar to the west and Iran to the north.
  The UAE is a federation of seven emirates (equivalent to principalities), each governed by a hereditary emir, with a single national president. The constituent emirates are Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah, and Umm al-Quwain. The capital is Abu Dhabi, which is also the state's center of political, industrial, and cultural activities.
  Prior to independence in 1971, the UAE was known as the Trucial States or Trucial Oman, in reference to a 19th-century truce between the local sheikhs, hereditary rulers of the territories, and the United Kingdom. The term Pirate Coast was also used by some to refer to the emirates from the 18th to the early 20th century, owing to the preponderance of pirates operating from Emirati ports.
  
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  Utah
  Utah (/ˈjuːtɔː/ or ⁱ/ˈjuːtɑː/) (Arapaho: Wo'tééneihí' ) is a state in the Western United States. It became the 45th state admitted to the Union on January 4, 1896. Utah is the 13th-most extensive, the 34th-most populous, and the 10th-least-densely populated of the 50 United States. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,817,222 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the sixth most urbanized in the U.S. The name "Utah" is derived from the name of the Ute tribe and means "people of the mountains" in the Ute language. Utah is bordered by Arizona on the south, Colorado on the east, Wyoming on the northeast, Idaho on the north and Nevada on the west. It also touches a corner of New Mexico.
  Utah is the most religiously homogeneous state in the Union. It is home to the Salt Lake Temple, and approximately 60% of Utahns are reported to be members of LDS Church which greatly influences Utah culture and daily life.
  
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  Yuan Dynasty
  The Yuan Dynasty (Chinese: 元朝, p Yuán Cháo; Mongolian: Их Юань улс) was the branch of Mongol Borjigin dynasty established by Kublai Khan. Although the Mongols had ruled northern China for decades, it was not until 1271 that Kublai Khan officially proclaimed the dynasty in the traditional Chinese style. His realm – the Great Yuan Empire (t 大元帝國, s 大元帝国, p Dà Yuán Dìguó) – was by this point isolated from the other khanates and controlled only most of present-day China and its surrounding areas including modern Mongolia. It was the first non-Han dynasty to rule all of China and lasted until 1368, after which its remnants in Mongolia were known as the Northern Yuan.
  The Yuan is considered both a successor to the Mongol Empire and as an imperial Chinese dynasty. In official Chinese histories, the Yuan Dynasty bore the Mandate of Heaven, following the Song Dynasty and preceding the Ming Dynasty. Although the dynasty was established by Kublai Khan, he placed his grandfather Genghis Khan on the imperial records as the official founder of the dynasty as Taizu.
  
  wn.com/Yuan_Dynasty

• Abe Burrows
  Abe Burrows (December 18, 1910 – May 17, 1985) was an American humorist, author, and director for radio and the stage. He won a Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize.
  Born Abram Solman Borowitz in New York City, Burrows graduated from New Utrecht High School in Brooklyn and later attended both City College and New York University. He began working as a runner on Wall Street while at NYU, and he also worked in an accounting firm. After he met Frank Galen in 1938, the two wrote and sold jokes to an impressionist who appeared on the Rudy Vallée radio program.
  His radio career gained strength when he collaborated with Ed Gardner, the writer and star of radio legend Duffy's Tavern. The two created the successful series after Gardner's character, Archie, premiered on the earlier radio program, This Is New York. Burrows was made the show's head writer in 1941, and he credited the experience with investing the Runyonesque street characters he fashioned for Guys and Dolls. "The people on that show," Burrows once said about Duffy's Tavern, "were New York mugs, nice mugs, sweet mugs, and like (Damon) Runyon's mugs they all talked like ladies and gentlemen. That's how we treated the characters in Guys and Dolls."
  
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  Abel Tasman
  Abel Janszoon Tasman (Dutch: [ˈaːbəl ˈjɑnsoʊn ˈtɑsmɐn]; 1603–1659) was a Dutch seafarer, explorer and merchant, best known for his voyages of 1642 and 1644 in the service of the VOC (United East India Company). His was the first known European expedition to reach the islands of Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania) and New Zealand, and to sight the Fiji islands. His navigator François Visscher, and his merchant Isaack Gilsemans, mapped substantial portions of Australia, New Zealand and some Pacific Islands.
  Abel Tasman was born in 1603 in Lutjegast in what is now the province of Groningen, the Netherlands. In 1633, Tasman went to Batavia in service of the VOC; four years later he was back in Amsterdam. Tasman signed on for another ten years and took his wife along to Batavia. In 1639 Tasman was sent as second in command of an exploring expedition in the north Pacific under Matthijs Quast. His fleet included the ships Engel and Gracht and reached Fort Zeelandia (Dutch Formosa) and Deshima.
  In August 1642, the Council of the Indies, consisting of Antonie van Diemen, Cornelis van der Lijn, Joan Maetsuycker, Justus Schouten, Salomon Sweers, Cornelis Witsen, and Pieter Boreel in Batavia despatched Abel Tasman and Franchoijs Visscher on a voyage of which one of the objects was to obtain knowledge of "all the totally unknown provinces of Beach".
  
  wn.com/Abel_Tasman
• Akira Iida
  Akira Iida (Shinjitai: 飯田 章, Iida Akira^?, born 18 December 1969 in Sagamihara, Kanagawa) is a Japanese racing driver in the Super GT series, since 2002 affiliated with Toyota and Lexus. First driving in the series since 1994, Iida has won five races altogether and took one driver's title in 2002.
  Iida, who also drove Formula 3000 and Formula Nippon, is one of the presenters in the Best Motoring series.
  Being experienced at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Akira Iida did also participate in the 2008 24 Hours Nürburgring race as well as in VLN endurance races, winning his class twice with a Lexus LF-A.
  On August 31, 2011, Iida recorded a lap time of 7:14.64 in a fully road-legal Lexus LFA Nürburgring Package around the Nürburgring Nordschleife. This marked a new fastest time for regular production cars, running on standard specification tyres.
  
  wn.com/Akira_Iida
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  Alan Rudolph
  Alan Steven Rudolph (born 18 December 1943) is an American film director and screenwriter.
  Rudolph was born in Los Angeles, the son of Oscar Rudolph (1911–1991), a television director and actor. He was a protégé of Robert Altman and worked as an assistant director on his adaptation of Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye and later Nashville.
  Rudolph's films focus upon isolated and eccentric characters and their relationships, and frequently are ensemble pieces featuring prominent romanticism and fantasy. He has written almost all of his films, and repeatedly has worked with actors Keith Carradine and Geneviève Bujold, and composer Mark Isham (see List of noted film director and composer collaborations).
  Director Rudolph came to prominence with Choose Me (1984), the story of the sexual relationships among a handful of lonely, but charming, people — an ex-prostitute bar owner (Lesley Ann Warren), an emotionally repressed radio talk show hostess (Bujold), and a disarmingly honest madman (Carradine). Trouble in Mind (1985) featured Kris Kristofferson as well as Bujold, Carradine and John Waters icon Divine. The film was entered into the 36th Berlin International Film Festival.
  
  wn.com/Alan_Rudolph
• Alan Voorhees
  Alan Manners Voorhees (December 17, 1922 – December 18, 2005) was a transportation engineer and urban planner who designed many large public works in the United States. Voorhees was born in Highland Park, New Jersey.
  During World War II, he left his studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) to join the United States Navy as an officer in what was called the "Underwater Demolition Team 11" (UDT-11), a precursor to the U.S. Navy SEALs. He spent much of the war mapping shoreline defenses in the Pacific. After the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Voorhees' unit was sent in to inspect the city, making him one of the first Americans to see the bomb's aftermath. For his military service he received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, and the Presidential Unit Citation.
  After the war, Voorhees continued his education, graduating from RPI in 1947 and then earning his master's degree in city planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1949.
  In 1952, Voorhees came to Washington, D.C. to work for the nonprofit Automobile Safety Foundation. While studying traffic in Baltimore, Voorhees developed a mathematical formula to predict traffic patterns based on land use. This formula has been instrumental in the design of numerous transportation and public works projects around the world. He wrote "A General Theory of Traffic Movement" (1956), which applied the gravity model to trip distribution, which translates trips generated in an area to a matrix that identifies the number of trips from each origin to each destination, which can then be loaded onto the network.
  
  wn.com/Alan_Voorhees
• Alan Wagner
  Alan Cyril Wagner (October 1, 1931 — December 18, 2007) was an American television executive, radio personality, writer, and opera historian and critic. He served as the East Coast vice president of programming at CBS from 1976 until 1982, when he became the first president of the Disney Channel.
  Born in Harlem, New York City, Wagner grew up in the Brighton Beach neighborhood of Brooklyn. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Columbia University. He served in the United States Navy during the mid 1950s, notably appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1956 performing a stand-up comedy bit with a group of fellow seamen. A passionate advocate for opera, Wagner became the host of the WNYC radio program Living Opera in 1957 after his contract with the Navy came to an end. The program aired for two-hours every Sunday morning, featuring excerpts from opera recordings and interviews with performers and other personalities from the opera world. Wagner would also often relate humorous and interesting backstage stories that he had experienced or had heard about. He left Living Opera in 1968 after hosting the program for eleven years.
  
  wn.com/Alan_Wagner
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  Alejandro Sanz
  Alejandro Sanz (born Alejandro Sánchez Pizarro on December 18, 1968) is a Spanish singer-songwriter and musician. For his work, Sanz has won a total of fifteen Latin Grammy Awards and three Grammy Awards. He has won the Latin Grammy for Album of the Year three times, more than any other artist. Throughout his career, he has released a total of ten studio albums and six DVDs. The singer is noted for his flamenco-influenced ballads, but he has also experimented with rock, salsa, and hip hop.
  Born in Madrid, Sanz began playing guitar at age seven, taking influence from his family's flamenco roots. He released his debut album at age sixteen, although he did not gain commercial success until his second release, Viviendo Deprisa. His next two records, Si Tú Me Miras and 3 also fared well commercially, but it was his 1997 breakthrough album Más that garnered international success. El Alma al Aire followed in 2000, selling more than a million copies in its first week.
  In 2002, he became the first Spanish artist to record an MTV Unplugged album. His collaboration with Shakira on the single "La Tortura" reached number one on several charts worldwide. His albums No Es lo Mismo (2003) and El Tren de los Momentos (2006) showed Sanz experimenting with more diverse styles of music, while his most recent release, Paraíso Express (2009) served as a return to form for the musician. He signed to Universal Music Group in 2011 and is reported to be working on his tenth studio album.
  
  wn.com/Alejandro_Sanz
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  Alexei Kosygin
  Alexei Nikolayevich Kosygin (Russian: Алексе́й Никола́евич Косы́гин, tr. Aleksej Nikolajevič Kosygin; IPA: [ɐlʲɪkˈsʲej nʲɪkɐˈlajɪvʲɪtɕ kɐˈsɨgʲɪn]; (21 February [O.S. 5 March] 1904 – 18 December 1980) was a Soviet-Russian statesman during the Cold War. Kosygin was born in the city of St. Petersburg in 1904 to a Russian working class family. He was conscripted into the labor army during the Russian Civil War, and after the Red Army's demobilisation in 1921, he worked in Siberia as an industrial manager. Kosygin returned to Leningrad in the early 1930s and worked his way up the Soviet hierarchy. During the Great Patriotic War (World War II), Kosygin was a member of the State Defence Committee and was tasked with moving Soviet industry out of territories soon to be overrun by the German military. He served as Minister of Finance for a year before becoming Minister of Light Industry and later, the Minister of Light and Food Industry. One year before his death in 1953, Stalin removed Kosygin from the Politburo, intentionally weakening his position within the Soviet hierarchy.
  
  wn.com/Alexei_Kosygin
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  Alfonso II of Naples
  Alfonso II of Naples (4 November 1448 – 18 December 1495), also called Alfonso II d'Aragon, was King of Naples from 25 January 1494 to 22 February 1495 with the title King of Naples and Jerusalem. As Duke of Calabria he was a patron of Renaissance poets and builders during his tenure as the heir to the throne of Naples.
  Born at Naples, Alfonso was the oldest child of Ferdinand I of Naples and his first wife, Isabella of Taranto, the daughter of Tristan, Count of Copertino and Caterina Orsini. He was the cousin of Ferdinand II of Aragon, king of Aragon and the first (co-)ruler of a unified Spain. His teacher was the humanist Giovanni Pontano, whose De splendore describes the proper virtues and manner of life becoming to a prince.
  When his mother Isabella of Taranto died (1465), he succeeded to her feudal claims, which included the Brienne claim to the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
  In 1463, when Alfonso was fifteen, his great-uncle Giovanni Antonio del Balzo Orsini, Prince of Taranto, died, and he obtained some lands from the inheritance. Alfonso had shown himself a skilled and determined soldier, helping his father in the suppression of the Conjure of the Barons (1485) and in the defence of the Kingdom's territory against the Papal claims.
  
  wn.com/Alfonso_II_of_Naples
• Alfred Bester
  Alfred Bester (December 18, 1913 – September 30, 1987) was an American science fiction author, TV and radio scriptwriter, magazine editor and scripter for comic strips and comic books. Though successful in all these fields, he is probably best remembered today for his work as a science fiction author, and as the winner of the first Hugo Award in 1953 for his novel The Demolished Man.
  Alfred Bester was born in Manhattan, New York City, on December 18, 1913. His father James owned a shoe store, and was a first-generation American whose parents were both Austrian. Alfred's mother, Belle, was born in Russia and spoke Yiddish as her first language before coming to America as a youth. Alfred was James and Belle's second and final child, and only son. (Their first child, Rita, was born in 1908.) Though his father was of Jewish background, and his mother became a Christian Scientist, Alfred Bester himself wasn't raised within any religious traditions.
  Bester attended the University of Pennsylvania where he was a member of the Philomathean Society. He went on to Columbia Law School, but tired of it and dropped out. Bester and Rolly Goulko married in 1936. Rolly Bester had a successful career as a Broadway, radio and television actress before changing careers to become an advertising executive during the 1960s. The Besters remained married for 48 years until her death on January 12, 1984. Bester was very nearly a lifelong New Yorker, although he lived in Europe for a little over a year in the mid-1950s and moved to Pennsylvania with Rolly in the early 1980s. Once settled there, they lived on Geigel Hill Road in Ottsville, Pennsylvania.
  
  wn.com/Alfred_Bester
• Ali Curtis
  Ali Curtis (born in Philadelphia, PA on December 18, 1978) is a former American soccer forward. He was the 1999 Hermann Trophy and 2000 MAC Award winner before spending four seasons in Major League Soccer.
  A native of Ann Arbor, MI, Ali Curtis had an extraordinary career playing college soccer at Duke University, where he scored 53 goals and 28 assists from 1997 to 2000, and, in his junior season won the Hermann Trophy, and in his senior season won the MAC Award, both recognizing college soccer's best player. He ranks as the all-time leading goal-scorer in Duke soccer history.
  After graduating from Duke, Curtis was drafted second overall in the 2001 MLS SuperDraft by the Tampa Bay Mutiny. Despite the fact that the 2001 Mutiny were one of the worst teams in MLS, Curtis finished the season with two goals and one assist in 1211 minutes. After the contraction of Tampa Bay, Curtis' rights were picked up by D.C. United, with whom he showed more promise, scoring five goals and one assists in only 806 minutes in the 2002 season. Curtis ended up leading D.C. United in goal scoring in 2002. Curtis had a fantastic season in 2003, however, midway through the season, he was traded to Dallas. Curtis finished the 2003 season as the Dallas Burn's team leader in assist. After a third of a season with the Burn, Curtis and Dallas parted ways in 2004.
  
  wn.com/Ali_Curtis
• Alison Plowden
  Alison Margaret Chichele Plowden (18 December 1931–17 August 2007) was an English historian and biographer well known for her popular non-fiction about the Tudor period.
  She was born at Quetta in India, a descendant of both Edmund Plowden and Henry Chichele. Privately educated, she worked for the BBC as a script editor. She produced the script for the television series Mistress of Hardwick (about Bess of Hardwick), which won her a Writers' Guild Award for the best educational television series, and several television plays, including Sweet England's Pride, and The Case of Eliza Armstrong.
  She later recalled: "A secretary writing scripts was a little like a performing monkey at the BBC - there was a sort of 'Fancy, what a clever little girl' attitude."
  In 1970 she decided to leave the BBC to go freelance. Her first book, ‘The Young Elizabeth’ (1972), was followed by ‘Danger to Elizabeth’ (1973), ‘Marriage With My Kingdom’ (1977), about Elizabeth's courtships, and ‘Elizabeth Regina’ (1980), which presented the Queen at the height of her powers. Collectively these books became known as Alison Plowden's "Elizabethan Quartet". While working on this series she also published ‘Tudor Women’ (1979). After the quartet she wrote ‘Elizabethan England: life in an age of adventure’ (1982). In addition she wrote many drama and other scripts for BBC radio between 1963 and 1988.
  
  wn.com/Alison_Plowden
• Allan Kayser
  Allan J. Kayser II (born December 18, 1963) is an American film and TV actor.
  Kayser was born and raised in Littleton, Colorado, attending Columbine High School from 1978-1982. In high school, he participated in baseball and wrestling, and was a drummer in several rock bands.
  Kayser entered acting and moved to Los Angeles, California, shortly after graduating. He was a part of several motion pictures in the 1980s, including Hot Chili and Night of the Creeps. However, Kayser is perhaps best known for starring in 102 episodes of the American television sitcom Mama's Family from 1986–1990, making him a teen idol in the 1980s. In 1989, Kayser was nominated for a Young Artist Award as Best Young Actor Guest Starring in a Drama or Comedy Series for his part in Mama's Family.
  Kayser retired from acting in the early nineties to settle down with his wife Lori, who was from the actual Raytown, Missouri, running a dance studio. After the birth of their first child, they then moved to Warrensburg, Missouri, where he attended Central Missouri State University. Also during these years, Kayser operated the dance academy in Warrensburg, that had also been relocated, with his wife for several years.
  
  wn.com/Allan_Kayser
• Allen Klein
  Allen Klein (December 18, 1931 – July 4, 2009) was an American businessman, talent agent and record label executive. His clients included The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.
  Allen Klein was born in Newark, New Jersey, the son of Jewish immigrants from Budapest, Hungary. His father was a butcher by trade, and his mother died before his first birthday. As a teenager, he worked in several jobs while attending evening classes. He excelled at mental arithmetic, and graduated from Upsala College, East Orange, New Jersey, in 1956.
  He undertook bookkeeping for several people in showbusiness, and audited record companies. In 1957 he began his own business, a partnership with his wife Betty. Record industry insiders began to fear his blunt-speaking tenacity, and well-placed people began to recommend him. Klein regarded himself as a shrewd and tenacious businessman, exampled by him having a modified Bible quote on his desk, reading: "Though I walk in the shadow of the valley of evil, I have no fear, as I am the biggest bastard in the valley."
  
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  Andrija Mohorovičić
  Andrija Mohorovičić (Croatian pronunciation: [ǎndrija moxorǒʋitʃitɕ]) (January 23, 1857 – December 18, 1936) was a Croatian meteorologist and seismologist. He is best known for the eponymous Mohorovičić discontinuity and is considered a founder of modern seismology.
  Mohorovičić was born in Volosko, Opatija, where his father (also named Andrija), was a blacksmith, making anchors. The younger Andrija also loved the sea and married a captain's daughter, Silvija Vernić. They had four sons.
  Mohorovičić obtained his elementary education in his home town, then continued at the gymnasium of neighbouring Rijeka. He received his higher education in mathematics and physics at the Faculty of Philosophy in Prague in 1875, where one of his professors was Ernst Mach. At 15, Mohorovičić knew Italian, English and French. Later he learned German, Latin and Ancient Greek.
  He taught first at high school in Zagreb (1879–1880), then at secondary school in Osijek. From 1882, he taught for nine years at the Royal Nautical School in Bakar, near Rijeka. Work started or completed there was important to his later scientific career. From 1893, when he became a corresponding member of the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Zagreb, to 1917-18 he taught in the fields of geophysics and astronomy. In 1898 he became a full member of what was then the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts in Zagreb, where he was a private docent. In 1910 he became titular associate university professor.
  
  wn.com/Andrija_Mohorovičić
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  Andy Fantuz
  Andrew "Andy" Fantuz, (born December 18, 1983, in Chatham-Kent, Ontario) is a Canadian football wide receiver for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the Canadian Football League. He had been a member of the Saskatchewan Roughriders for six seasons after he was drafted by them in the first round of the 2006 CFL Draft. Fantuz was also signed by the Chicago Bears in 2011. He played CIS football for the University of Western Ontario.
  
  
  Fantuz attended John McGregor Secondary School from 1997 to 2002, where he played football and basketball.
  Andy Fantuz attended the University of Western Ontario from 2002 to 2005, where he established himself as one of the best receivers in Canadian Interuniversity Sport history. Fantuz was awarded the CIS Rookie of the year award in 2002 with 1300 receiving yards (a single season record) and nine touchdowns. Fantuz won the Hec Crighton Trophy as the top player in the CIS in 2005, finishing with 44 catches for 825 yards to become only the fifth receiver to win the award and first since Calgary's Don Blair in 1995. He finished his university career as the OUA and CIS leader with 189 receptions for 4,123 yards and 41 touchdown receptions. He was a four-time CIS all-Canadian and four-time OUA all-star while being named to the first team all-Canadian in 2002, 2004, and 2005. On Jan 21, 2006, Fantuz represented Eastern Canada in the East-West Shrine Game which showcases the best college talent in the USA and with invitees from Canada.
  
  wn.com/Andy_Fantuz
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  Anne Revere
  Anne Revere (June 25, 1903 – December 18, 1990) was an American stage, film, and television actress.
  Born in New York City, Revere was a direct descendant of American Revolution hero Paul Revere. Her father, Clinton, was a stockbroker, and she was raised on the Upper West Side and in Westfield, New Jersey. In 1926, she graduated from Wellesley College, then enrolled at the American Laboratory School to study acting with Maria Ouspenskaya and Richard Boleslavsky.
  Revere made her Broadway debut in 1931 in The Great Barrington. Three years later, she went to Hollywood to reprise her stage role in the film adaptation of Double Door. She returned to Broadway to create the role of Martha Dobie in the original 1934 production of The Children's Hour, and in later years she appeared on the New York stage in As You Like It, The Three Sisters, and Toys in the Attic (play), for which she won the 1960 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play.
  Revere worked steadily as a character actress in films, appearing in nearly three dozen between 1934 and 1951. She frequently was cast in the role of a matriarch and played mother to Elizabeth Taylor, Jennifer Jones, Gregory Peck, John Garfield, and Montgomery Clift, among others. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress three times and won for her performance in National Velvet. Additional screen credits included The Song of Bernadette, Gentleman's Agreement, The Keys of the Kingdom, Body and Soul, and A Place in the Sun.
  
  wn.com/Anne_Revere
• Anthony Catanzaro
  Anthony Catanzaro (born December 18, 1970) is an American male fitness model, training consultant,and bodybuilder.
  He was born in Bay Shore, New York, U.S., on Long Island and now lives in New York City.
  Catanzaro has been modeling for numerous magazines and has appeared in training videos and fitness/training magazines such as Exercise, Playgirl (January 2001 centerfold), Fitness Magazine, Health & Fitness, Natural Bodybuilding, Muscle & Fitness, Fitness Plus, Men’s Exercise and Exercise for Men Only.
  He has appeared in TV shows like Maury, Ricki, Donahue, Good Day New York and Saturday Night Live as well as in films like Carlito's Way, The Scout, Batman: Gothic, and the independent film Beef. He was a contestant on the Oxygen model search reality television program Mr. Romance.
  Catanzaro is a successful competitive bodybuilder with titles including: INBF Natural NYC Middle Weight Champion (2005); NPC New York State Middleweight winner (2002); INBF Tournament of Champions Middleweight Champion (2001); and Natural Bodybuilding Middleweight Champion (1998).
  
  wn.com/Anthony_Catanzaro
• Anthony Sampson
  Anthony Terrell Seward Sampson (3 August 1926 – 18 December 2004) was a British writer and journalist. He was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford and served with the Royal Navy from 1944-47. During the 1950s he edited the magazine Drum in Johannesburg, South Africa. On returning to the United Kingdom he joined the editorial staff of The Observer, where he worked from 1955-66. Sampson was the author of a series of major books, starting with Anatomy of Britain (1962). His main themes were how Britain works as a state, and large corporations. He was also a founding member of the (now defunct) Social Democratic Party (SDP).
  Sampson took an interest in broad political and economic power structure, but saw power as personal. His books read like series of interlocked biographies — of arms merchants, oil company executives, etc., according to the theme of each. He was a biographer and personal friend of Nelson Mandela.
  Furthermore, the personal was the psychological. This passages from The Money Lenders is an example of his psychoanalytical interpretations:
  
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  Antonio Stradivari
  Antonio Stradivari (1644 – 18 December 1737) was an Italian luthier and a crafter of string instruments such as violins, cellos, guitars, violas, and harps. Stradivari is generally considered the most significant and greatest artisan in this field. The Latinized form of his surname, Stradivarius, as well as the colloquial, "Strad", is often used to refer to his instruments. It is estimated that he made 1,000 to 1,100 instruments and that around 650 of these instruments have survived including 450 to 512 violins.
  Stradivari's ancestry consisted of notable citizens of Cremona, dating back to at least the 12th or 13th century. The earliest mention of the family name, or a variation upon it, is in a land grant dating from 1188. The origin of the name itself has several possible explanations; some sources say it is the plural of Stradivare, essentially meaning "toll-man" in a Lombard variety of Italian, while others say that the form "de Strataverta" derives from "Strada averta", which, in a Cremonese dialect of Italian, means "open road".
  
  wn.com/Antonio_Stradivari
• Aris Maliagros
  Aris Maliagros (Greek: Άρης Μαλιαγρός; also Aris Malliagros; August 17, 1895 in Argostoli on the island of Kefalonia – December 18, 1984) was a Greek actor who played several aristocratic roles. He was famous as the "master with the monocle".
  He was born on the island of Kefalonia and studied at the school in the National Theatre. He appeared in theatre for the first time at Fioro of Levante (1914). Later, he played in Christinaki (1916). A Chocolate Soldier (1918–19), Butterfly (1919–1920), The Dance Countess (1922), The Misanthrope, Hamlet, King Lear, The Merchant of Venice, Cymbeline, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Arravoniasmata, etc. He entered into the "Greek Scene" in 1950 and at the National Theatre from 1950 and acted in Erotic Games, The Star of Seville, Difficult, Acharnis, etc.
  
  wn.com/Aris_Maliagros
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  Art Linkletter
  Arthur Gordon "Art" Linkletter (July 17, 1912 – May 26, 2010) was a Canadian-born American radio and television personality. He was the host of House Party, which ran on CBS radio and television for 25 years, and People Are Funny, on NBC radio-TV for 19 years. Linkletter was famous for interviewing children on House Party and Kids Say the Darndest Things, which led to a series of books quoting children. A native of Canada, he became a naturalized United States citizen in 1942.
  Linkletter was born Gordon Arthur Kelly in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. In his autobiography, Confessions of a Happy Man (1960), he revealed that he had no contact with his natural parents or his sister or two brothers since he was abandoned when only a few weeks old. He was adopted by Mary (née Metzler) and Fulton John Linkletter, an evangelical preacher. When he was five, his family moved to San Diego, California, where he graduated from San Diego High School at age 16. During the early years of the Great Depression, he rode trains around the country doing odd jobs and meeting a wide variety of people. In 1934, he earned a bachelor's degree from San Diego State Teachers College (now San Diego State University) (SDSU), where he was a member of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity. While attending San Diego State, he played for the basketball team and was a member of the swimming team. He had previously planned to attend Springfield College but did not for financial reasons.
  
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  Ashley Benson
  Ashley Victoria Benson (born December 18, 1989) is an American film and television actress and model. She is best known for her role as Abby Deveraux on Days Of Our Lives , and Hanna Marin on Pretty Little Liars.
  Ashley Benson was born and raised in Anaheim Hills, California. She started dancing competitively in ballet, jazz, hip-hop, and lyrical at age 4. She also enjoys singing, and has appeared in several choir groups and musicals. At age 4, she was asked to audition to sing solo at four Christmas services for her 2,500 member church. At 5 years old, she modeled in dance catalogs, and at age 8 was pursued by The Ford Modeling Agency and worked steadily in print. She made a very small appearance in Zoey 101 in the episode "Quinn's Date". She has also performed in NLT's music video "That Girl", and Hot Chelle Rae's music video "Honestly."
  In 1999, Benson started pursuing an acting career. She began working and appearing on a number of commercials, but quickly made the transition into film and television. In 2004, Benson signed a three-year contract with the daytime television series, Days of our Lives, and on November 12, 2004 began her role as Abigail "Abby" Deveraux, the oldest child of supercouple Jack Deveraux and Jennifer Horton, until May 2, 2007. She explained that, because of the number of episodes filmed a day, "you can't really mess up; you have to know all of your lines", and that she did not get a break from work.
  
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  Augusta Holmès
  Augusta Mary Anne Holmès (18 December 1847 – 28 January 1903) was a French composer of Irish descent. At first she published under the pseudonym Hermann Zenta. In 1871, Holmès became a French citizen and added the accent to her last name. She herself wrote the lyrics to almost all her songs and oratorios, as well as the libretto of the opera La Montagne Noire.
  Holmès was born in Paris. Despite showing talent at the piano, she was not allowed to study at the Paris Conservatoire, but she took lessons privately. She developed her piano playing under the tutelage of local pianist Mademoiselle Peyronnet, Versailles' cathedral organist Henri Lambert, and Hyacinthe Klosé. Also, she showed some of her earlier compositions to Franz Liszt. Around 1876, she became a pupil of César Franck, whom she considered her real master. (She led the group of Franck's students who in 1891 commissioned for Franck's tomb a bronze medallion from Auguste Rodin.)
  Camille Saint-Saëns wrote of Holmès in the journal Harmonie et Mélodie, "Like children, women have no idea of obstacles, and their willpower breaks all barriers. Mademoiselle Holmès is a woman, an extremist."
  
  wn.com/Augusta_Holmès
• Ayaka
  Ayaka Iida (飯田 絢香, Iida Ayaka^?, born December 18, 1987) is a Japanese female singer formerly signed to Warner Music Japan. Born in Osaka, she moved to Tokyo to pursue a singing career. She married actor Hiro Mizushima on February 22, 2009.
  In January 2006, Ayaka recorded "I Believe" as the opening theme for the Japanese drama Rondo. The full single was first released as a download-only single and went on to become one of the fastest songs to reach 1,000,000 downloads, as well as becoming the 3rd-highest-selling download debut single for a female artist.
  Ayaka's second single "Melody (Sounds Real)" peaked at number 14 on the Oricon charts has gone on pass the 20,000 mark.
  "Real Voice" was Ayaka's third single and was used as the ending theme to the Japanese drama Suppli. "Blue Days", the b-side from "Melody (Sounds Real)", was also used as an insert song for the show. "Real Voice" was released on July 17, 2006, and has sold over 50,000 copies.
  Weeks before the scheduled release of Ayaka's debut album, "First Message", the album was cancelled. In its place, the single "Mikazuki" was released as a rerecorded version of the same song from 2005. "Mikazuki" became Ayaka's highest charting single, selling 40,091 copies within its first week and taking the highest spot on the Oricon weekly charts, remaining in the charts for 41 weeks. The single sold over 300,000 copies.^{[citation needed]}
  
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  Barkha Dutt
  Barkha Dutt is an Indian television journalist and columnist. She is currently the group editor with NDTV.
  Dutt gained prominence for her reportage of the Kargil War. She has won many national and international awards, including the Padma Shri, India's fourth highest civilian honour. She writes a column for the Hindustan Times called "Third Eye". In 2010 she was one of the journalists taped in the 2G lobbying Radia tapes controversy.
  Barkha Dutt was born in New Delhi to S. P. Dutt, an official in Air India and Prabha Dutt who was a well-known journalist with the Hindustan Times.^{[citation needed]} Barkha credits her journalism skills to her mother, Prabha, a pioneer among women journalists in India.^{[citation needed]} Prabha Dutt died in 1984 due to a brain haemorrhage.^{[citation needed]} Barkha's younger sister, Bahar Dutt, is also a television journalist working for CNN IBN.
  Barkha graduated from St. Stephen's College, Delhi with a degree in English literature. She received a Master's in Mass Communications from Jamia Millia Islamia Mass Communication Research Center, New Delhi. She started her journalism career with NDTV and later rose to head the English news wing of the organization. She also obtained a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, New York assisted by an Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation scholarship. Her reporting of the Kargil conflict in 1999, including an interview with Captain Vikram Batra, brought her to prominence in India. She has since covered conflicts in Kashmir, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq.
  
  wn.com/Barkha_Dutt
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  Benjamin Watson
  Benjamin Watson (born December 18, 1980 in Norfolk, Virginia) is an American football tight end for the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League. He was drafted by the New England Patriots 32nd overall in the 2004 NFL draft. He played college football at Georgia.
  Watson attended Northwestern High School in Rock Hill, South Carolina and was a letterman in football. In football, as a senior, he caught 31 passes for 515 yards (16.61 yards per rec. avg), was an All-Area pick, All-Region selection, an All-State honoree, selected to play in the Shrine Bowl, and voted Student of the Year. As a junior, he was an All-Area pick, an All-region selection, led his team to the state championship, and voted Student of the Year. He was also a member of his high school chapter of The Fellowship of Christian Athletes.
  Watson played football at Duke University prior to transferring to the University of Georgia where he majored in finance.
  Watson entered the league rumored to have scored a 48 on his Wonderlic Test, an achievement that projects to an IQ of 156 . He was drafted by the New England Patriots 32nd overall in the 2004 NFL draft. He was on the injured list for almost his entire rookie season for the Patriots, playing in only one game.
  
  wn.com/Benjamin_Watson
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  Bernard Bolzano
  Bernhard Placidus Johann Nepomuk Bolzano ((1781-10-05)October 5, 1781 – December 18, 1848), Bernard Bolzano in English, was a Bohemian mathematician, logician, philosopher, theologian, Catholic priest and antimilitarist of German mother tongue.
  Bolzano was the son of two pious Catholics. His father, Bernard Pompeius Bolzano, was born in northern Italy and moved to Prague, where he married Maria Cecilia Maurer, the (German-speaking) daughter of a Prague merchant. Only two of their twelve children lived to adulthood.
  Bolzano entered the University of Prague in 1796 and studied mathematics, philosophy and physics. Starting in 1800, he also began studying theology, becoming a Catholic priest in 1804. He was appointed to the then newly created chair of philosophy of religion in 1805. He proved to be a popular lecturer not just in religion but also in philosophy, and was elected head of the philosophy department in 1818. Bolzano alienated many faculty and church leaders with his teachings of the social waste of militarism and the needlessness of war. He urged a total reform of the educational, social, and economic systems that would direct the nation's interests toward peace rather than toward armed conflict between nations. Upon his refusal to recant his beliefs, Bolzano was dismissed from the university in 1819. His political convictions (which he was inclined to share with others with some frequency) eventually proved to be too liberal for the Austrian authorities. He was exiled to the countryside and at that point devoted his energies to his writings on social, religious, philosophical, and mathematical matters. Although forbidden to publish in mainstream journals as a condition of his exile, Bolzano continued to develop his ideas and publish them either on his own or in obscure Eastern European journals. In 1842 he moved back to Prague, where he died in 1848.
  
  wn.com/Bernard_Bolzano
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  Betty Grable
  Elizabeth Ruth "Betty" Grable (December 18, 1916 – July 2, 1973) was an American actress, dancer, and singer.
  Grable was celebrated for having the most beautiful legs in Hollywood and studio publicity widely dispersed photos featuring them. Her iconic bathing suit poster made her the number-one pin-up girl of the World War II era. It was later included in the Life magazine project "100 Photos that Changed the World". Hosiery specialists of the era often noted the ideal proportions of her legs as thigh (18.5"), calf (12"), and ankle (7.5"). Grable's legs were famously insured by her studio for $1,000,000 with Lloyds of London.
  Grable appeared in several smash-hit musical films in the 1940s, most notable: Mother Wore Tights in 1947, with frequent co-star Dan Dailey. She came to prominence in 1939 when she signed with Twentieth Century-Fox and signed on to appear opposite Ethel Merman in the Broadway musical Du Barry Was a Lady. But it was not until she was called back to Hollywood to replace Fox's musical queen, Alice Faye, in Down Argentine Way, that she became a household name. Throughout her career, Grable was typecast in her stereotype-musical film roles, and when her career faltered in the 1950s, she found it hard to reinvent herself as a serious-trained actress.
  
  wn.com/Betty_Grable
• Bill Duggan
  Bill Duggan (born December 18, 1974) is an American actor. He was raised in San Francisco, California. He was an active member of his grade school speech program. He began acting in high school, performing in school plays and musicals. He continued his training at Santa Clara University, where he received an acting scholarship. After majoring in Theater Arts, he followed his childhood dream to the city of Los Angeles, California, where he hoped to begin a career on more than just the stage.
  Bill's credits include many television commercials and print ads. As an actor, he has appeared on shows such as The Shield, Nash Bridges and General Hospital, The Girl Next Door, Rapid Guy Movement, Dangerous Minds, Copycat, First Years, Zoom Experience and hosted HGTV's Curb Appeal. His theater credits include Eugene in Brighton Beach Memoirs, Gary in Noises Off, Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing & Measure for Measure, Lucas in Laughter on the 23rd Floor, Paul in A Chorus Line, and Baby John in West Side Story. Other shows include: Camelot, South Pacific, A Lady in the Dark, Grapes of Wrath, Stand-Up Tragedy. His newest and current credit is host of the television pre-game show on The CW for the 49ers home games.
  
  wn.com/Bill_Duggan
• Bill Holland
  Bill Holland (born December 18, 1907, died May 19, 1984) was an American race car driver from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who won the Indianapolis 500 in 1949. He nearly won as a rookie in 1947 but slowed and allowed teammate Mauri Rose to pass him seven laps from the end, mistakenly believing that Rose was a lap down. On November 14, 1951, Holland was suspended from AAA Indy Car racing for one year after competing in a three-lap Lion's Charity race at Opa Locka, Florida which was a NASCAR event. The American Automobile Association, at the time the sanctioning body for Indycar races, had a strict rule forbidding its drivers from participating in any races other than their own, and would blacklist violators.
  Holland won the first ever automobile race at Selinsgrove Speedway (Selinsgrove, PA) on July 20, 1946.
  Holland died from complications of Alzheimer's disease, and was survived by his wife Myra.
  The Indianapolis 500 was part of the FIA World Championship from 1950 through 1960. Drivers competing at Indy during those years were credited with World Championship points and participation. Bill Holland participated in 2 World Championship races, finishing on the podium once and scoring 6 World Championship points.
  
  wn.com/Bill_Holland
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  Boris Volynov
  Boris Valentinovich Volynov (Russian: Борис Валентинович Волынов; born December 18, 1934, in Irkutsk) is a Soviet cosmonaut who flew two space missions of the Soyuz programme: Soyuz 5, and Soyuz 21. He was the first halakhic (by mother) Jewish cosmonaut.
  He is a graduate of the Soviet Military Engineering Academy and held the rank of Colonel in the Soviet Air Force. After resigning from the space programme in 1982, he spent eight years as a senior administrator at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre. After 30 years of service in Star City he retired. In June 2006, he visited the Kennedy Space Center.
  Volynov was assigned as one of two possible commanders training for Voskhod 1 in 1964, but he and his fellow crewmembers Georgi Katys and Boris Yegorov were dumped three days before the scheduled launch date despite being the prime crew. This was due to the State Commission discovering that Volynov's mother was Jewish; Sergey Korolyov was reportedly furious about this decision, but was told by Nikita Khrushchev "Don't rock the boat - it's not worth it!"
  
  wn.com/Boris_Volynov
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  Brad Pitt
  William Bradley "Brad" Pitt (born December 18, 1963) is an American actor and film producer. Pitt has received four Academy Award nominations and five Golden Globe Award nominations, winning one Golden Globe. He has been described as one of the world's most attractive men, a label for which he has received substantial media attention.
  Pitt first gained recognition as a cowboy hitchhiker in the road movie Thelma & Louise (1991). His first leading roles in big-budget productions came with A River Runs Through It (1992), Interview with the Vampire (1994), and Legends of the Fall (1994). In 1995, he gave critically acclaimed performances in the crime thriller Seven and the science fiction film 12 Monkeys, the latter earning him a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor and an Academy Award nomination. Four years later, Pitt starred in the cult hit Fight Club. He then starred in the major international hit Ocean's Eleven (2001) and its sequels, Ocean's Twelve (2004) and Ocean's Thirteen (2007). His greatest commercial successes have been Troy (2004) and Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005). Pitt received his second and third Academy Award nominations for his leading performances in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) and Moneyball (2011). In addition, Pitt owns a production company, Plan B Entertainment, whose productions include The Departed (2006), which won the Academy Award for Best Picture, and Moneyball, which garnered a Best Picture nomination.
  
  wn.com/Brad_Pitt
• Brian Brockless
  Brian Brockless (21 January 1926, London - 18 December 1995) was an English composer, organist and conductor and, for much of his life, was the Director of Music at the Priory Church of St Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield, London where he succeeded Paul Steinitz in 1961. He was a much respected Choral Trainer and his annual performances of Bach's St John Passion were noted for their musicality. He was the founder of Pro Cantione Antiqua, originally known as the St Bartholomew Singers.
  The son of an amateur French horn player and baritone, Brockless was inspired by music from a very young age along with his sister Pauline who herself became a fine soprano and performed regularly at the Proms.
  Brockless studied organ and composition at the Royal College of Music under the direction of Herbert Howells, a great influence on the young composer. Howells' influence can be seen most in "An English Elegy", dedicated to Howells and originally the slow movement of a quartet written for his BMus degree. Brockless went on to study conducting with Sergiu Celibidache at the Accademia Musicale, Siena, Italy (where he won the conducting prize in 1963). He subsequently worked with Celibidache in Europe and Scandinavia.
  
  wn.com/Brian_Brockless
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  Brian Orser
  Brian Ernest Orser, OC (born December 18, 1961) is a Canadian retired competitive and professional figure skater. He is the 1984 and 1988 Olympic silver medalist, 1987 World champion and the 1981-1988 Canadian national champion.
  He is one of the most accomplished skaters in Canada's history, with eight national titles, two Olympic medals, and a world title to his credit. He is the skating director at the Toronto Cricket, Skating and Curling Club.
  Brian Orser was born in Belleville, Ontario.
  In 1985 he was made a Member of the Order of Canada and was promoted to Officer in 1988.
  In November 1998, Orser lost a legal battle to prevent public disclosure when ex-boyfriend Craig Leask sued him for palimony. Orser initially feared the revelation of his homosexuality would ruin his career, but he has since embraced support from other skaters and the public.
  Orser won his first national title on the novice level in 1977. The following season, he went to Junior Worlds and placed 4th, behind eventual rival Brian Boitano. He added a second national title, this time at the junior level, to his resume in 1979.
  
  wn.com/Brian_Orser
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  Bridgit Mendler
  Bridgit Claire Mendler (born December 18, 1992) is an American actress, singer, musician and songwriter. She currently stars as Teddy Duncan on the Disney Channel Original Series Good Luck Charlie and starred in the Disney Channel Original Movie Lemonade Mouth. She had a recurring role as Juliet van Heusen on Wizards of Waverly Place and has also appeared in the films Labor Pains, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, The Clique and Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2. She has signed with Hollywood Records, which plans to release her debut studio album in September 2012.She will be releasing her first single of her debut album, "Ready or Not" in June 30, 2012.
  Mendler was born in Washington, D.C. and attended Lafayette Elementary School. She then moved with her family to the San Francisco area town of Mill Valley at age eight. It was there where she first expressed interest in acting and began working in plays. She became the youngest performer in the San Francisco Fringe Festival.
  Mendler had a San Francisco agent when she was 11 years old. When she was thirteen, she began working in the Los Angeles market, landing her first L.A. role in the soap opera General Hospital in 2006. In that same year, she provided the voice of Thorn in the video game, Bone: The Great Cow Race. In 2007, Mendler played the role of Pamela Jones in the film Alice Upside Down and in 2008, Mendler played the role of Kristen Gregory in the film The Clique.
  
  wn.com/Bridgit_Mendler
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  Casper Van Dien
  Casper Robert Van Dien, Jr. (born December 18, 1968) is an American actor.
  Van Dien was born and grew up in Milton, Florida, the son of Diane (née Morrow), a nursery school teacher, and Casper Robert Van Dien, Sr., a U.S. Navy Commander and fighter pilot. There is a long military tradition in Van Dien's family. Aside from his father, his grandfather was a Marine during World War II. Van Dien is descended from an old Dutch family long settled in the New York area; his other heritage includes Swedish, French, English, and Native American.
  The street on which Van Dien grew up in Ridgewood, New Jersey, Van Dien Avenue, was named after his great great grandfather. In high school, Van Dien was often referred to as "Ken doll" due to his good looks, and got into many fights for that reason. Later he was described as a "perfect life-sized Ken doll." When Van Dien was older, his family moved to Florida, where he enrolled at the St. Petersburg campus of the Admiral Farragut Academy, graduating 3rd in command. Next, he went to Florida State University in Tallahassee.
  
  wn.com/Casper_Van_Dien
• Celia Johnson
  Dame Celia Elizabeth Johnson DBE (18 December 1908 – 25 April 1982) was an English actress.
  She began her stage acting career in 1928, and subsequently achieved success in West End and Broadway productions. She also appeared in several films, including the romantic drama Brief Encounter (1945), for which she received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She was nominated for BAFTA Awards on five occasions, and won twice, for her work in the film The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), and for the television production Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont, a BBC Play for Today broadcast in 1973.
  Much of her later work was for television, and she continued performing in theatre for the rest of her life. She died suddenly from a stroke.
  Born in Richmond, Surrey, Johnson was the second daughter of Robert Johnson and Ethel Griffiths. During her childhood, her family called her "Betty". Johnson's first public performance was in 1916, when she played a role in a charity performance of King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid to raise funds for returned World War I soldiers. She attended St Paul's Girls' School in London from 1919 until 1926, and played in the school's orchestra under Gustav Holst. She acted in school productions, but had no other acting experience, when she was accepted to study at R.A.D.A. in 1926, and later spent a term in Paris, studying under Pierre Fresnay at the Comédie Française. She later recalled her choice of an acting career with the comment, "I thought I'd rather like it. It was the only thing I was good at. And I thought it might be rather wicked.”
  
  wn.com/Celia_Johnson
• Charles Dawson
  Charles Dawson (11 July 1864 – 10 August 1916) was an amateur British archaeologist who was credited with and now blamed for discoveries that turned out to be imaginative frauds, climaxing with that of the Piltdown Man (Eoanthropus dawsoni), which he presented in 1912. Dawson was often present at finds in the archaeological digs, or was the finder himself.
  Born the eldest of three sons, Dawson moved with his family to Hastings, Sussex, when he was still very young. Charles initially studied as a lawyer following his father and pursued a hobby of collecting and studying fossils. He made a number of seemingly important fossil finds. Amongst these were teeth from a previously unknown species of mammal, later named Plagiaulax dawsoni in his honour, three new species of dinosaur, one later named Iguanodon dawsoni, and a new form of fossil plant, Salaginella dawsoni. The British Museum conferred upon him the title of Honorary Collector. For these important finds he was elected a fellow of the Geological Society and a few years later after another find, to the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1895. Dawson died prematurely from septicaemia 1916.
  
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  Charles Griffin
  Charles Griffin (December 18, 1825 – September 15, 1867) was a career officer in the United States Army and a Union general in the American Civil War. He rose to command a corps in the Army of the Potomac and fought in many of the key campaigns in the Eastern Theater.
  After the war, he commanded the Department of Texas during Reconstruction. He proved to an ardent supporter of the Congressional policies of the Radical Republicans and of freedmen's rights, and controversially disqualified a number of antebellum state officeholders in Texas, replacing them with loyal Unionists.
  Griffin was born in Granville, Ohio, the son of Apollos Griffin. He attended the nearby Kenyon College in Gambier, and graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, placing 23rd out of 38 in the Class of 1847. Commissioned as a brevet second lieutenant, he served with the 2nd U.S. Artillery during the final campaign of the Mexican-American War.
  He was promoted to first lieutenant in 1849 and served in the New Mexico Territory against Navajo Indians until 1854, when he left the Southwest frontier. He then taught artillery tactics at West Point, forming an artillery battery from the academy's enlisted men shortly after the Southern states began seceding from the Union.
  
  wn.com/Charles_Griffin
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  Charles Oakley
  Charles Oakley (born December 18, 1963) is a retired American professional basketball player. Oakley, a former power forward, was a member of the Chicago Bulls, New York Knicks, Toronto Raptors, Washington Wizards and Houston Rockets
  Oakley was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and attended Virginia Union University.
  He placed in the top ten in rebounds per game five times between 1987 and 1994 (second in 1987 and 1988). In all but one of these seasons he played the full complement of 82 games. Due to his durability he actually placed in the top ten in total rebounds 6 times and led the league in total rebounds twice (1987 and 1988). In 1994, he became an NBA All-Star and was chosen to the league's All-Defense 1st team.
  Drafted in 1985 by the Cleveland Cavaliers, Oakley's draft rights were traded to the Chicago Bulls. Oakley provided another scoring option and steady offensive and defensive performances to an up-and-coming Bulls squad led by Michael Jordan. He earned All-Rookie Team honors in 1986.
  
  wn.com/Charles_Oakley
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  Charles Wesley
  Charles Wesley (18 December 1707 – 29 March 1788) was an English leader of the Methodist movement, son of Anglican clergyman and poet Samuel Wesley, the younger brother of Anglican clergyman John Wesley and Anglican clergyman Samuel Wesley (the Younger), and father of musician Samuel Wesley, and grandfather of musician Samuel Sebastian Wesley. Despite their closeness, Charles and his brother John did not always agree on questions relating to their beliefs. In particular, Charles was strongly opposed to the idea of a breach with the Church of England into which they had been ordained. Charles Wesley is chiefly remembered for the many hymns he wrote. He ministered for part of his life in The New Room Chapel in Bristol. His house, located nearby, can still be visited today.
  
  wn.com/Charles_Wesley
• Chas Chandler
  Bryan James "Chas" Chandler (18 December 1938 — 17 July 1996) was an English musician, record producer and manager of several successful music acts.
  Born at 35 Second Avenue, Heaton, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, he began his career playing bass guitar in a trio with Alan Price. After vocalist Eric Burdon joined them the group was renamed The Animals and became one of the most successful R&B bands ever.^{[citation needed]} Chandler's best known bass lines are the opening riffs of their 1965 hits "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" and "It's My Life". Chandler was also the most prominent of the group's backing vocalists and did occasional songwriting with Burdon.
  After the group split up in late 1966, Chandler became manager of Jimi Hendrix, bringing him to England and recruiting other musicians to form The Jimi Hendrix Experience. He also produced their first two albums, and was instrumental in introducing Hendrix to Eric Clapton. It was through this introduction that Hendrix got a chance to play with Clapton and Cream on stage.
  
  wn.com/Chas_Chandler
• Chris Farley
  Christopher Crosby "Chris" Farley (February 15, 1964 – December 18, 1997) was an American comedian and actor. Farley was a member of Chicago's Second City Theatre and cast member of the hit NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live between 1990 and 1995. Farley and Chris Rock were introduced as two of the show's new cast members in early 1990. Like his idol, John Belushi, Farley died of a speedball overdose at the age of 33. On August 26, 2005, Farley was posthumously awarded the 2,289th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which is located in front of iO West.
  Farley was born in Madison, Wisconsin, the son of Mary Anne (née Crosby), a housewife, and Thomas "Tom" Farley, Sr., who owned an oil company. He had four siblings: Tom Jr., Kevin, John, and Barbara. His cousin, Jim, is a vice president at Ford Motor Company. Farley's family is traditionally Irish Catholic, and Farley and his siblings attended Catholic schools in his hometown, including Edgewood High School of the Sacred Heart. According to Joel Murray, a fellow Second City cast member, Chris would "always make it to Mass". Many of his summers were spent as a camper and counselor at Red Arrow Camp, near Minocqua, Wisconsin.
  
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  Christina Aguilera
  Christina María Aguilera (born December 18, 1980) is an American recording artist and actress. Aguilera first appeared on national television in 1990 as a contestant on the Star Search program, and went on to star in Disney Channel's television series The Mickey Mouse Club from 1993 to 1994. Aguilera signed to RCA Records after recording "Reflection", the theme song for the animated film Mulan (1998).
  In 1999, Aguilera came to prominence following her debut album Christina Aguilera, which was a commercial success spawning three number one singles on the Billboard Hot 100—"Genie in a Bottle", "What a Girl Wants", and "Come On Over Baby (All I Want Is You)." Her sophomore and her debut Latin-pop album, Mi Reflejo (2000), a Christmas third studio album, My Kind of Christmas (2000), and several collaborations followed which garnered Aguilera worldwide success, though she was displeased with her lack of input in her music and image. After parting from her management, Aguilera took creative control over her fourth studio album, Stripped (2002). The album's second single, "Beautiful", was a commercial success and helped the album's commercial performance amidst controversy over Aguilera's image. Aguilera followed up Stripped with the soul, jazz and blues inspired, Back to Basics (2006), released to positive critical acclaim. The album produced three singles "Ain't No Other Man", "Hurt" and "Candyman". Four years later Aguilera released her sixth studio album, Bionic (2010), which incorporated aspects of R&B, electropop, and synthpop and was met with mixed reviews and low sales. Aguilera's seventh studio album is set to be released in 2012.
  
  wn.com/Christina_Aguilera
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  Christopher Polhem
  Christopher Polhammar (December 18, 1661 – August 30, 1751), better known as  Christopher Polhem (help·info), which he took after his ennoblement, was a Swedish scientist, inventor and industrialist. He made significant contributions to the economic and industrial development of Sweden, particularly mining.
  Polhem was born on the island of Gotland in the small village of Tingstäde, situated northeast of Visby.
  Originally the Polheim family came from Austria to Pomerania, Germany, from whence his father, Wolf Christoph Polhammer traded with Visby, where he would eventually settle down to become a skipper. When Polhem was 8, his father died and his mother, Christina Eriksdotter Schening from Vadstena, Östergötland remarried. As a result of conflicts with his stepfather, his private tuition was no longer paid for and Polhem was sent to live with his uncle in Stockholm. In Stockholm he attended a German school until the age of 12 when his uncle died; once again Polhem was left without the possibility of education.
  
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  Cliff Palace
  The Cliff Palace is the largest cliff dwelling in North America. The structure built by the Ancient Pueblo Peoples is located in Mesa Verde National Park in their former homeland region. The cliff dwelling and park are in the southwestern corner of Colorado, in the Southwestern United States.
  Tree ring dating indicates that construction and refurbishing of Cliff Palace was continuous from c. 1190 CE through c. 1260 CE, although the major portion of the building was done within a twenty-year time span. The Ancestral Pueblo that constructed this cliff dwelling and the others like it at Mesa Verde were driven to these defensible positions by "increasing competition amidst changing climatic conditions". Cliff Palace was abandoned by 1300, and while debate remains as to the causes of this, some believe a series of megadroughts interrupting food production systems is the main cause. Cliff Palace was first discovered in 1888 by Richard Wetherhill and Charlie Mason while out looking for stray cattle.
  
  wn.com/Cliff_Palace
• Conny Plank
  Konrad "Conny" Plank (May 3, 1940 – December 18, 1987) was a German record producer and musician. He was born in Hütschenhausen. His creativity as a sound engineer and producer helped to shape many innovative recordings of postwar European popular music, covering a wide range of genres including progressive, avant-garde, electronic music and krautrock. His immense catalog of work has greatly influenced modern studio production and engineering techniques.
  As a musician, Plank is credited on albums by Guru Guru, Cluster, Liliental and Os Mundi. He collaborated with Dieter Moebius on five Moebius & Plank studio albums recorded between 1979 and 1986. The Moebius & Plank sound foreshadowed techno and electronica and influenced many later musicians.
  Plank and the bands he worked with in Germany had a strong influence on mainstream rock artists, some of whom were able to popularise aspects of his production technique and his highly distinctive sonic approach. In the 1980s the new generation of electronic pop bands were able to realise his ideas in performance as computerised electronic instruments became readily available.
  
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  Cowboy Troy
  Troy Lee Coleman III (born December 18, 1970) is an American musician, better known by his stage name Cowboy Troy, who performs country rap. He is a member of the MuzikMafia, an aggregation of country music singer-songwriters whose membership also includes Big & Rich, Gretchen Wilson and James Otto. He has released four studio albums and one EP, including two releases on Warner Bros. Records, and has charted twice on the Billboard country singles charts.
  Troy graduated from Skyline High School in the Dallas Independent School District. He then attended the University of Texas at Austin and received a bachelors degree. Prior to beginning his career as a singer, he worked as the assistant manager of a Dallas area Foot Locker.
  He got the name Cowboy Troy in college, after a friend used the name to distinguish the cowboy-hat-wearing Coleman from his other friends named Troy.
  On May 17, 2005, Troy released his first major-label solo album, Loco Motive, through the RAYBAW records production label and the Warner Music Group distribution label. The album debuted at #2 on Billboard's Top Country Albums chart. The first single, "I Play Chicken with the Train," peaked at #48 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart on April 9, 2005 and was the #1 country download at the iTunes Music Store on April 15, 2005.
  
  wn.com/Cowboy_Troy
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  Daniel Cleary
  Daniel Cleary (born December 18, 1978) is a Canadian professional ice hockey winger playing for the Detroit Red Wings of the National Hockey League. On June 4, 2008, Cleary became the first player from Newfoundland and Labrador to get his name on the Stanley Cup when the Red Wings won hockey's top prize. He was selected in the first round of the 1997 NHL Entry Draft, 13th overall, by the Chicago Blackhawks. A common mistake made by announcers during NHL games is saying Cleary is from Carbonear, Newfoundland. Cleary was born in Carbonear, as this was/is the location of the area's only hospital, but he was raised in a nearby town called Harbour Grace, in a section of the town called Riverhead.
  After playing minor hockey in his home area of Harbour Grace, Cleary left home at age 15 to play for the Kingston (ON) Voyageurs of the Metro Junior Hockey League (OHA). He scored 46 points in 41 games with the V's that season and subsequently was selected 11th overall in the 1994 OHL Priority Selection by the Belleville Bulls.
  
  wn.com/Daniel_Cleary
• Darren Carter
  Darren Anthony Carter (born 18 December 1983 in Solihull) is an English football midfielder who is a free agent after his contract with Preston North End expired at the end of the 2010–11 season.
  Carter made his debut at the age of 18 for Birmingham City in the 1–0 defeat at their local rivals West Bromwich Albion on 29 January 2002 in Division One. He subsequently hit the headlines in May of the same year when he scored the decisive penalty in the shoot-out to win the Division One play-off final against Norwich City. The match had finished 1–1 after extra time and the spot-kick sealed Birmingham's promotion to the Premiership. Carter represented England U20 at the 2003 FIFA World Youth Championship.
  After the former England Under-20 international signed a contract to keep him at the club until 2006, he was loaned to Sunderland in September 2004. Carter scored on his debut in a 3–1 victory over Preston North End on 18 September 2004. He made nine further appearances for the Black Cats. This gave his Birmingham career the boost it needed, and he was seen as a vital member of the squad until his July 2005 transfer to West Bromwich Albion for £1.5 million.
  
  wn.com/Darren_Carter
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  Diana Lynn
  Diana Lynn (October 7, 1926 – December 18, 1971) was an American actress.
  Born Dolores Marie Loehr in Los Angeles, California, Lynn was considered a child prodigy because of her exceptional abilities as a pianist at an early age, and by the age of 12 was playing with the Los Angeles Junior Symphony Orchestra.
  Dolores Loehr made her film debut playing the piano in They Shall Have Music and was once again back at the keyboard, accompanying Susanna Foster, in There's Magic in Music, when it was decided that she had more potential than she had been allowed to show. Paramount Pictures changed her name to "Diana Lynn" and began casting her in films that allowed her to show her personality and developed her skills as an actress.
  Her comedic scenes with Ginger Rogers in The Major and the Minor were well received, and in 1944 she scored an outstanding success in Preston Sturges' The Miracle of Morgan's Creek. She appeared in two Henry Aldrich films, and played writer Emily Kimbrough in two films Our Hearts Were Young and Gay and Our Hearts Were Growing Up both co-starring Gail Russell.
  
  wn.com/Diana_Lynn
• Dimitris Dragatakis
  Dimitris Dragatakis (Greek: Δημήτρης Δραγατάκης; 22 January 1914 – 18 December 2001) was a Greek composer of classical music.
  He was born in Platanoussa, Epirus in 1914 and studied the violin from 1930 to 1939 at the Greek National Conservatory in Athens. Later on, he switched to the viola and from 1949 started composition lessons with Leonidas Zoras and Manolis Kalomiris, receiving his diploma in 1955.
  He is considered one of the most important modern Greek composers, with a personal musical idiom that is both mature and laconic. Influenced by the musical traditions of Greece (in particular the ones of his native Epirus) and ancient Greek drama, his music also came to reflect his interest in new techniques such as free atonality, novel instrumental combinations, post-modernism, minimalism and electronic music.
  He won a number of major prizes, including the Maria Callas award from the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation in 1997 and the prestigious J. A. Papaioannou award from the Athens Academy in 1999.
  
  wn.com/Dimitris_Dragatakis
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  DJ Lethal
  Leor Dimant (Latvian: Leors Dimants; born December 18, 1972 in Riga, Latvian SSR, USSR), better known as DJ Lethal, is a turntablist and producer and member of the bands House of Pain, Limp Bizkit and La Coka Nostra.
  Leor Dimant was born in Riga, Latvia, when this country was still part of the Soviet Union. His first contact with music was through his father Grisha Dimant (1951–2007), who, along with his friends, played guitar in a rock band.
  In 1979, when DiMant was seven, he and his family emigrated the USSR for Italy, where they remained for a year until they obtained a visa. They were then allowed to go to either Toronto, Los Angeles, or New York City. His parents chose New York. There, his father performed in various Russian clubs and restaurants mostly in Brighton Beach.
  DiMant and his parents lived in Jersey City for a time. His family later moved to Los Angeles in 1987 when his father got a job at a new Russian restaurant there. His first introduction to hip hop was in Jersey City, when his school held a talent show with several students performing a rap song, and DiMant was amazed. Once he moved to Los Angeles, he quickly became interested in hip hop culture, including break dancing and graffiti. Before learning to DJ, he actually started off as a beatboxer. He later practiced DJing using his friend's turntables and mixer.
  
  wn.com/DJ_Lethal
• Don Beebe
  Don Lee Beebe (born December 18, 1964) is a former American football wide receiver who played for the Buffalo Bills (1989–1994), Carolina Panthers (1995) and the Green Bay Packers (1996–1997) of the NFL, and is considered one of the fastest players in NFL history.
  Beebe attended Kaneland High School in Maple Park, IL where he lettered in basketball, track and football. He was drafted by the Bills out of unheralded Chadron State College (after transferring from Western Illinois University) in the third round (82nd pick overall) of the 1989 NFL Draft. He created a sensation at the 1989 pre-draft combine, posting times in speed and agility drills that were the marvel of the camp. Most of the coaches and staff were dumb-founded as to where he came from and how he got invited.
  In his 9 NFL seasons, Don Beebe caught 219 passes for 3,416 yards, rushed for 28 yards, returned 81 kickoffs for 1,735 yards, and scored 25 touchdowns (23 receiving, 1 kickoff return, 1 fumble recovery). He shares the NFL record for most appearances as a player in Super Bowls. Beebe appeared in six Super Bowls (XXV, XXVI, XXVII and XXVIII with the Buffalo Bills; XXXI and XXXII with the Green Bay Packers), and won the NFL Championship with the Packers in Super Bowl XXXI. Beebe has always been highly respected by players and coaches because of his strong work ethic and character. He was honored as an "Unsung Hero" in 1996 at the NFL Players Association Awards Banquet.
  
  wn.com/Don_Beebe
• Douglas Fraser
  Douglas Andrew Fraser (December 18, 1916 – February 23, 2008) was an American union leader. He was president of the United Auto Workers from 1977 to 1983, and an adjunct professor of labor relations at Wayne State University for many years. He is best remembered for helping to save Chrysler from bankruptcy in 1979 by heavily lobbying Congress for a financial bailout.
  Fraser was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1916. His father, Samuel, was an electrician and an active and vocal trade unionist. The family was so poor that his father, who worked at a brewery, would sometimes fuel the family stove with stolen whiskey. Samuel Fraser moved to Detroit, Michigan, when he was a young boy. In 1922, his mother, with Douglas and his sister and brother, sailed to New York City aboard the SS Cameronia and were inspected at Ellis Island on April 23, 1923. They travelled to their new home in Detroit by train.
  He was deeply influenced by the Great Depression. His father was out of work for long periods, and Fraser admitted that the poverty and social disorder he witnessed changed his life.
  
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  Edmund Kemper
  Edmund Emil "Big Ed" Kemper III (born December 18, 1948), also known as "The Co-ed Killer", is an American serial killer and necrophile who was active in California in the early 1970s. He started his criminal life by murdering his grandparents when he was 15 years old. Kemper later killed and dismembered six female hitchhikers in the Santa Cruz area. He then murdered his mother and one of her friends before turning himself in to the authorities days later. Kemper is noted for his imposing physicality, standing 6'9" (2.06 m) and weighing over 300 pounds (140 kg).
  Kemper was the middle child and only son born to Edmund Emil Kemper, Jr. (1919–1985) and Clarnell E. Strandberg (1921–1973). As a child he was extremely bright, but displayed sociopathic behavior from a young age, including cruelty to animals; he purportedly fatally stabbed a pet cat at age 13. He acted out bizarre sexual rituals with his sisters' dolls and exhibited a dark fantasy life. He recalled later that his eldest sister pushed him into the deep end of a swimming pool and he had to struggle to get out and nearly drowned. She also pushed him within yards of a moving train.
  
  wn.com/Edmund_Kemper
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  Edward MacDowell
  Edward Alexander MacDowell (December 18, 1860 – January 23, 1908) was an American composer and pianist of the Romantic period. He was best known for his second piano concerto and his piano suites "Woodland Sketches," "Sea Pieces," and "New England Idylls." "Woodland Sketches" includes his most popular short piece, "To a Wild Rose." In 1904 he was one of the first seven Americans honored by membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
  Edward MacDowell was born in New York City. He received his first piano lessons from Juan Buitrago, a Colombian violinist who was living with the MacDowell family at the time. He later received lessons from friends of Buitrago, including Teresa Carreño, a Venezuelan pianist.
  His family later moved to Paris, France, where in 1877 he was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire. He then continued his education at Dr. Hoch's Conservatory in Frankfurt, Germany where he studied piano with Carl Heymann and composition with Joachim Raff. When Franz Liszt visited the conservatory in 1879 and attended a recital of student compositions, MacDowell performed some of his own compositions, along with a transcription of a Liszt symphonic poem. MacDowell also taught piano at "Schmitt’s Akademie für Tonkunst" in Darmstadt (now known as the "Akademie für Tonkunst") for a year.
  
  wn.com/Edward_MacDowell
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  Elliot Easton
  Elliot Easton (born Elliot Steinberg, December 18, 1953, in Brooklyn, New York) is an American musician. He played lead guitar and sings backing vocals for The Cars. His guitar solos are an integral part of the band's hit singles. He studied music at the Berklee College of Music. He plays guitar left-handed. Upon the collapse of The Cars in 1988, Easton played in bands such as the new wave supergroup The New Cars and the roots rock group Creedence Clearwater Revisited. He has also played in songs by newer artists such as the power pop band the Click Five, whose guitarist Joe Guese referred to him as "the Boston connection".
  Easton released one solo album in 1985, Change No Change, featuring songs co-written with Jules Shear. A later band project, Band of Angels, was formed with singer Danny Malone, and recorded one album, Band of Angels, which was not released, but selections from which were included in the 1996 CD release of Change No Change.
  In the mid-1990s, Easton produced and played on the first two albums by Amy Rigby. He was also the lead guitarist on Jules Shear's 1994 album "Healing Bones".
  
  wn.com/Elliot_Easton
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  Emily Atack
  Emily Jane Atack (pronounced ay-tack) (born 18 December 1989) is a British actress best known for her role as Charlotte Hinchcliffe in the award winning E4 series The Inbetweeners. She also appeared in Heartbeat (2008), Blue Murder (2007) and was featured in a number of lads' mags.
  Born in Bedfordshire, she is the daughter of actress Kate Robbins and musician Keith Atack. Atack was a contestant in ITV's Dancing on Ice in early 2010, partnered with professional ice skater Fred Palascak; they were voted off in the eighth week. In 2011, Atack presented a stylised public service announcement titled Ready, Steady, Drink, showing the dangers of drinking alcohol.
  Atack is related to Sir Paul McCartney - her mother is the ex-Beatles's cousin.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Emily_Atack
• Eric Tindill
  Eric William Thomas Tindill (18 December 1910 – 1 August 2010) was a New Zealand sportsman. Tindill held a number of unique records: he was the oldest ever Test cricketer at the time of his death, the only person to play Tests for New Zealand in both cricket and rugby union (a so-called "double All Black"), and the only person ever to play Tests in both sports, referee a rugby union Test, and umpire a cricket Test: a unique "double-double".
  Tindill was born in Nelson and was raised in Motueka. His family moved to Wellington in 1922, and he was educated at Wellington Technical College until 1925. He trained as an accountant, and worked as a civil servant for 40 years in the government audit office. He was nicknamed "Snowy" due to his fair hair. He married his wife Mary in 1937, shortly before he left on a cricket tour to England. An all-round sportsman, in addition to cricket and rugby, Tindill also played football for Wellington in 1927, and was a founder of the Wellington Table Tennis Association in 1932.
  
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  Erich Von Falkenhayn
  Erich von Falkenhayn (11 September 1861 – 8 April 1922) was a German soldier and Chief of the General Staff during World War I. He became a military writer after World War I.
  Born in Burg Belchau near Graudenz in the Province of Prussia, Falkenhayn became a career soldier. Between 1896 and 1903 he served in Qing China, and saw action during the Boxer Rebellion. Afterwards, the Army posted him to Brunswick, Metz, and Magdeburg, with ever-increasing rank. In 1913, he became Prussian Minister of War, in which capacity he acted as one of the key players in the genesis of World War I when the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo took place. Like most German military, he did not then count on an overall war, but he very soon embraced the idea and belonged to those pushing Kaiser Wilhelm II to declare war.
  Falkenhayn succeeded Moltke as Chief of the General Staff of the German Army after the Battle of the Marne on 14 September 1914. Confronted with the failure of the Schlieffen Plan due to Moltke's interference, he attempted to outflank the British and French in the "Race to the Sea", a series of engagements throughout northern France and Belgium in which each side tried to turn the other's flank until they reached the coastline. The British and French eventually stopped the Germans at the First Battle of Ypres (October–November 1914).
  
  wn.com/Erich_Von_Falkenhayn
• Fawna MacLaren
  Fawna MacLaren (born December 18, 1965 in Santa Monica, California) is an American model and actress. She was chosen as Playboy's Playmate of the Month for January, 1989.
  She was selected as Playboy's 35th Anniversary Playmate after a nationwide search. She was paid $35,000 for her centerfold. Several years later, she appeared in one of Playboy's Wet & Wild home videos.
  
  wn.com/Fawna_MacLaren
• Fernando Jara
  Fernando Jara (born December 18, 1987 in Panama) is thoroughbred horse racing jockey in the United States. Aboard Jazil he won the 2006 Belmont Stakes. In addition, he was the primary North American rider of 2006 American Horse of the Year Invasor, and rode him to victory in the 2006 Breeders' Cup Classic, 2007 Donn Handicap and 2007 Dubai World Cup.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Fernando_Jara
• Fletcher Henderson
  James Fletcher Hamilton Henderson, Jr. (December 18, 1897 – December 29, 1952) was an American pianist, bandleader, arranger and composer, important in the development of big band jazz and swing music. His was one of the most prolific black orchestras and his influence was vast. He was often known as "Smack" Henderson (apparently named due to his college baseball hitting skills).
  Fletcher Henderson was born in Cuthbert, Georgia. He attended Atlanta University in Atlanta, Georgia and graduated in 1920. After graduation, he moved to New York City to attend Columbia University for a master's degree in chemistry. However, he found his job prospects in chemistry to be very restricted due to his race, and turned to music for a living.
  He was recording director for the fledgling Black Swan label from 1921-1923. Throughout the early and mid 1920s, Henderson provided solo piano accompanyment for many blues singers. In 1922 he formed his own band, which was resident first at the Club Alabam then at the Roseland Ballroom, and quickly became known as the best African-American band in New York. Even though he did not do band arrangements in the 1920's, for a time his ideas of arrangement were heavily influenced by those of Paul Whiteman, but when Louis Armstrong joined his orchestra in 1924 Henderson realized there could be a much richer potential for jazz band orchestration. Henderson's band also boasted the formidable arranging talents of Don Redman (from 1922 to 1927). During the 1920s and very early 1930s, Henderson actually wrote few, if any, arrangements; most of his recordings were arranged by Redman (c. 1923-1927) or Benny Carter (after 1927-c. 1931). As an arranger, Henderson came into his own in the mid-1930s.
  
  wn.com/Fletcher_Henderson
• François Hamelin
  François Hamelin (born on 18 December 1986 in Sainte-Julie, Quebec) is a Canadian short track speed skater from Sainte-Julie, Quebec, currently residing in Montreal. He is the younger brother of acclaimed Canadian short tracker Charles Hamelin. His father Yves Hamelin is also the director of the Canadian short track program.
  While not having nearly the same amount of success of his older brother, Hamelin has had success at the junior level in international competition. In addition Hamelin has been an important part of the Canadian short track team helping them to both a silver at the 2008 World Championships, and a silver at the 2008 World Team Championships. During the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, François skated with his brother in the 1000m short track final, only to place 5th. On February 26, he won a gold medal in the 5000 m relay along with his brother Charles, François-Louis Tremblay, Olivier Jean and Guillaume Bastille.
  
  
  
  wn.com/François_Hamelin
• Gatianus of Tours
  Gatianus (Catianus, Gatianus, Gratianus; French: Cassien, Gatien, Gratien) (3rd century CE) was the founding bishop of the see of Tours.
  According to Christian historians, during the consulship of the Emperor Decius and Vettus Gratus (250 CE), Pope Fabian sent out seven bishops from Rome to Gaul to preach the Gospel: Gatianus to Tours, Trophimus to Arles, Paul to Narbonne, Saturnin to Toulouse, Denis to Paris, Austromoine to Clermont, and Martial to Limoges. A community of Christians had already existed for many years in Lyon, where Irenaeus had been bishop.
  Gatianus devoted half a century to evangelization, against the objections of the Gauls. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, he managed anyway to gather apostles round him, whom he sent out to establish churches, and at his death the diocese of Tours was securely established. As with other founders of the seven Catholic churches of Gaul, especially Martial, Gatianus became confounded in later Christian mythology with the "seventy-two disciples of Christ", alleged to have been sent into Gaul during the first century, by Saint Peter himself. Other details of his biography, while not as easily disprovable, are also largely legendary. Gregory of Tours, writing in the 6th century, is a more dependable source for the few biographical details concerning his predecessor. According to the Catholic historian Mons. Louis Duchesne (Christian Worship: Its Origin and Evolution), the traditions preserved at Tours furnished Gregory with only the name of Gatianus and perhaps the 50-year extent of his episcopacy; it was by comparison with a brief early biography of Saturninus of Toulouse (Passio S. Saturnini) that Gregory arrived at the date 250, for the beginning of Gatianus' ministry at Tours (History of the Franks, 1.30).
  
  wn.com/Gatianus_of_Tours
• 
  Gene Roddenberry
  Eugene Wesley "Gene" Roddenberry (August 19, 1921 – October 24, 1991) was an American television screenwriter, producer and futurist, best known for creating the American science fiction series Star Trek. Born in El Paso, Texas, Roddenberry grew up in Los Angeles, California where his father worked as a police officer. Roddenberry flew 89 combat missions in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II, and worked as a commercial pilot after the war. He later followed in his father's footsteps, joining the Los Angeles Police Department to provide for his family, but began focusing on writing scripts for television.
  As a freelance writer, Roddenberry wrote scripts for Highway Patrol, Have Gun–Will Travel, and other series, before creating and producing his own television program, The Lieutenant. In 1964, Roddenberry created Star Trek, and it premiered in 1966, running for three seasons before cancellation. Syndication of Star Trek led to increasing popularity, and Roddenberry continued to create, produce, and consult on Star Trek films and the television series, Star Trek: The Next Generation until his death. Roddenberry received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and he was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame and the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences' Hall of Fame. Years after his death, Roddenberry was one of the first humans to have his ashes "buried" in outer space.
  
  wn.com/Gene_Roddenberry
• 
  Geordie Walker
  Kevin "Geordie" Walker (born Kevin Walker, 18 December 1958, in Chester-le-Street, County Durham, England) is a rock musician, best known as the guitarist from the post-punk group Killing Joke.
  When he was fourteen, Walker's family moved south from Newcastle to Milton Keynes, 45 miles northwest of London. It was here that he acquired his nickname due to his northeastern "Geordie" accent (which he has subsequently lost).
  Walker moved to London to study architecture and became a founding member of Killing Joke in 1979 when he responded to an advertisement placed by the singer Jaz Coleman. He had never played in a band before. Walker and Coleman have been the only constant members of the group since.
  Walker has also been a member of industrial metal supergroups Murder, Inc. and The Damage Manual.
  Although most known for playing electric guitar, he has also used acoustic guitars; sparingly on the albums Outside the Gate (1988) and Pandemonium (1994), and more liberally on Democracy (1996).
  Like Velvet Revolver's Slash, Walker is known for smoking cigarettes on stage, even in United States venues where smoking is prohibited.
  
  wn.com/Geordie_Walker
• George Abecassis
  George Edgar Abecassis DFC (21 March 1913 – 18 December 1991) was an English racing driver, and co-founder of the HWM Formula One team.
  Born in Oatlands, Surrey, Abecassis began circuit racing in 1935 in a modified Austin Seven which became known as The Einsitzer. After taking 1937 as a year away from the track, he acquired an Alta and made a name for himself in English national racing during the 1938 and 1939 seasons. In 1939 he won the Imperial Trophy Formula Libre race at Crystal Palace, driving his Alta, defeating Prince Bira, in the E.R.A. known as Romulus, in a wet race, "that being the only time it was beaten by a 1,500 c.c. car in the British Isles."
  At one point Abecassis held the Campbell circuit lap record at Brooklands at 72.61 m.p.h. On 3 July 1938 Abecassis broke the Prescott Hill Climb record with a climb of 47.85 seconds in his supercharged 1½ litre Alta.
  When World War II broke out he joined the Royal Air Force and became an experienced pilot, ultimately becoming a member of the secret "Moon Squadrons", ferrying secret agents in and out of occupied countries in Europe with specially-modified Halifax and Stirling aircraft. During the course of his wartime service Abecassis was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
  
  wn.com/George_Abecassis
• George Stevens
  George Stevens (December 18, 1904 – March 8, 1975) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter and cinematographer.
  Among his most notable films were Diary of Anne Frank (1959), nominated for Best Director, Giant (1956), winner of Oscar for Best Director, Shane (1953), Oscar nominated, and A Place in the Sun (1951), winner of Oscar for Best Director.
  He was born in Oakland, California, and his family included his father Landers Stevens and his mother Georgie Cooper, both stage actors. His uncle was drama critic Ashton Stevens. He also had two brothers, Jack and writer Aston Stevens. He learned about the stage from his parents and worked and toured with them, on his way to filmmaking. He broke into the movie business as a cameraman, working on many Laurel and Hardy short films, such as Night Owls (1930). His first feature film was The Cohens and Kellys in Trouble in 1933.
  In 1934 he got his first directing job, the slapstick Kentucky Kernels. His big break came when he directed Katharine Hepburn in Alice Adams in 1935. He went on in the late 1930s to direct several Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire movies, not only with the two actors together, but on their own. In 1940, he directed Carole Lombard in Vigil in the Night, and the film has an alternate ending for European audiences in recognition of World War II, which the US had not yet entered.
  
  wn.com/George_Stevens
• Gerald Le Dain
  Gerald Eric Le Dain, CC (November 27, 1924 – December 18, 2007) was a Canadian lawyer and judge, who sat on the Supreme Court of Canada from 1984 to 1988.
  Born in Montreal, Quebec, the son of Eric George Bryant Le Dain and Antoinette Louise Whithard, he served during World War II as an artilleryman. He received a B.C.L from McGill University and was called to the Quebec Bar in 1949. He received a doctorate from the University of Lyon in 1950. He taught law at McGill University from 1953 to 1959 and again from 1966 to 1967. He was dean of Osgoode Hall Law School from 1967 to 1972. From 1969 to 1973, he was the chairman of the Commission of Inquiry into the Non-Medical Use of Drugs (also known as the Le Dain Commission), where he ruled that cannabis be removed from the narcotic control act and be regulated provincially. In 1975, he was appointed to the Federal Court of Appeal and the Court Martial Appeal Court.
  In 1989, he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Gerald_Le_Dain
• Gianluca Pagliuca
  Gianluca Pagliuca (Italian pronunciation: [dʒanˈluka paʎˈʎuka]; born December 18, 1966 in Bologna) is a retired Italian football goalkeeper who is currently working as a commentator for Mediaset Premium.
  In his club career, Pagliuca has played for Sampdoria (1987–94), Internazionale (1994–99), Bologna (1999–2006), and Ascoli (2006–07). He won the Cup Winners' Cup and one Scudetto with Sampdoria and the UEFA Cup with Inter, when he captained the side to a 3–0 win over Lazio in 1998. Pagliuca was also in the Sampdoria's team that lost 1–0 to Barcelona in the 1992 European Cup final at Wembley. He was first choice goalkeeper for Italy at the 1994 and 1998 World Cups.
  He became the first goalkeeper to be sent off in a World Cup match, when he was dismissed for handling outside his area against Norway at the 1994 tournament in the USA. However, he returned after suspension to feature from the quarter-finals onwards with his team losing to Brazil.
  After the 1994 World Cup, he moved from Sampdoria to Internazionale from a then world record fee for a goalkeeper of £7 million. However, Pagliuca's international career was halted by the emergence of Juventus goalkeeper Angelo Peruzzi, and it would be 3 years before he returned to the Italy squad. Pagliuca would have taken part the World Cup that summer only as a back-up but for an arm injury to Peruzzi just prior to the tournament.
  
  wn.com/Gianluca_Pagliuca
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  Giannis Ploutarhos
  Giannis Ploutarhos (Greek: Γιάννης Πλούταρχος; born 18 December 1970) is a popular Greek singer and songwriter. He is considered one of the most popular laïko singers of his time, and has been characterized with having a genuine laïko voice. To date, he has released 11 studio albums along with one greatest hits album.
  Giannis Ploutarhos was born as Giannis Kakossaios on 18 December 1970 in the small village of Mavrogia, outside Orchomenos. Ploutarhos comes from a poor rural family, which long struggled to make ends meet. He first started singing at age six, while his whole family would sing while working to get through the day. His first musical influences came from Dimotiká and traditional Byzantine music. Ploutarhos lived there until the age of sixteen, at which point he decided to move to Athens to pursue his dream of becoming a singer. He had told his family he wanted to move the Athens to study Hairdressing.
  Once in Athens, Ploutarhos began working during the day at a hair salon while singing at clubs at night. His first gig was at a small club in Korydallos. Disappointed by the prevailing conditions in the music business, he abandoned singing twice and pursued other occupations to support himself. Despite previous disappointments, Ploutarhos' love of music pushed him back into the business and just two years after his first performance, he started appearing at club Rodolfo, which was followed by appearances at bigger clubs such as Neraida, Fantasia, and Tonel where he collaborated with well known laïka names such as Giannis Poulopoulos, Rita Sakellariou, Themis Adamantidis, as well as Contemporary aïka artists such as Stelios Rokkos and Giorgos Mazonakis. Around that time, Ploutarhos came into contact with Dimitris Kardatzis and Ilias Filippou who believed in his talent, and got him in touch with his first producer Girgos Makrakis, who is credited with inspiring his stage last name "Ploutarhos".
  
  wn.com/Giannis_Ploutarhos
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  Gilbert Bécaud
  Gilbert Bécaud (French pronunciation: [ʒil.bɛːʁ be.ko], 24 October 1927 – 18 December 2001) was a French singer, composer and actor, known as "Monsieur 100,000 Volts" for his energetic performances. His best-known hits are "Nathalie" and "Et Maintenant", a 1961 release that became an English language hit as "What Now My Love". He remained a popular artist for nearly fifty years, identifiable in his dark blue suits, with a white shirt and "lucky tie"; blue with white polka dots. When asked to explain his gift he said, "A flower doesn't understand botanics." His favourite venue was the Paris Olympia under the management of Bruno Coquatrix. He debuted there in 1954 and headlined in 1955, attracting 6,000 on his first night, three times the capacity. On 13 November 1997 Bécaud was present for the re-opening of the venue after its reconstruction.
  Born François Silly in Toulon, Bécaud learned to play the piano at a young age, and then went to the Conservatoire de Nice. In 1942, he left school to join the French Resistance during World War II. He began songwriting in 1948, after meeting Maurice Vidalin, who inspired him to write his early compositions. He began writing for Marie Bizet; Bizet, Bécaud and Vidalin became a successful trio, and their partnership lasted until 1950.
  
  wn.com/Gilbert_Bécaud
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  Gillian Armstrong
  Gillian May Armstrong (born 18 December 1950) is an award-winning Australian director of feature films and documentaries.
  Born in Melbourne, Victoria, Gillian Armstrong grew up in the eastern suburb of Mitcham. She attended Swinburne Technical College with the intention of becoming a theatre costume designer, but it was here she became increasingly interested in film. During this time, she was exposed to a range of artistic films that differentiated from the commercial cinema and Television she was used to.
  After graduating from her four years at art school in 1968, Armstrong was set on pursuing a career in film. She began making short films of 2-10 minutes, and started work as an assistant editor in a commercial film house, which lasted a year.
  In 1972 she entered, and later graduated from, the Australian Film Television and Radio School. She paid her tuition during this time through waitressing
  Following a string of small jobs within the Australian film industry, she achieved her first real directorial recognition through her short film The Singer and the Dancer which won an award at the Sydney Film Festival.
  
  wn.com/Gillian_Armstrong
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  Gino Cimoli
  Gino Nicholas Cimoli (December 18, 1929 – February 12, 2011) was an outfielder in Major League Baseball.
  A high school all-star at Galileo High School, Cimoli signed as an amateur free agent with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1949. He would make his Major League Baseball debut with the Dodgers on April 19, 1956; appearing in his final game on May 7, 1965.
  On April 15, 1958, Cimoli became the first Major League batter to step into the batter's box on the West Coast when the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Francisco Giants played their first game of the season at Seals Stadium in San Francisco.
  Cimoli played on the Pirates' 1960 World Series championship team, which defeated the New York Yankees in seven games. He was primarily the Pirates' fourth outfielder in 1960 and often platooned with center fielder Bill Virdon. After left fielder Bob Skinner injured his thumb in the first game of the World Series, Cimoli started games two through six in left field. Cimoli returned to the bench in game seven when Skinner returned. In the eighth inning of game seven, with the Pirates trailing 7-4, Cimoli, pinch-hitting for pitcher Roy Face, led off with a single off Bobby Shantz, advanced to second on Bill Virdon's bad-hop ground ball, which struck Yankee shortstop Tony Kubek in the throat, then scored on Dick Groat's single, the first run in a five-run inning to give the Pirates a 9-7 lead. The Pirates gave the lead away in the ninth before finally winning the game in the bottom half on Bill Mazeroski's leadoff home run.
  
  wn.com/Gino_Cimoli
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  Gladys Cooper
  Dame Gladys Constance Cooper DBE (18 December 1888 – 17 November 1971) was an English actress whose career spanned seven decades on stage, in films and on television.
  Beginning on the stage as a teenager in Edwardian musical comedy and pantomime, she was starring in dramatic roles and silent films before the beginning of the First World War. She also became a manager of the Playhouse Theatre from 1917 to 1933, where she played many roles. Beginning in the early 1920s, Cooper was winning praise in plays by W. Somerset Maugham and others. In the 1930s, she was starring steadily both in the West End and on Broadway. Moving to Hollywood in 1940, Cooper found success in a variety of character roles; she was nominated for three Academy Awards, the last one as Mrs Higgins in My Fair Lady (1964). Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, she mixed her stage and film careers, continuing to star on stage until her last year.
  Cooper was born at 23 Ennersdale Road, Hither Green, Lewisham, London, the oldest of the three daughters of Charles William Frederick Cooper (1844–1939) by his marriage to Mabel Barnett (1861–1944). Her two younger sisters were Doris Mabel (1891–1987) and Grace Muriel (1893–1982). Gladys Cooper spent most of her childhood in Chiswick, where her family moved when she was an infant.
  
  wn.com/Gladys_Cooper
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  Graciano López Jaena
  Graciano López Jaena (December 18, 1856-January 20, 1896) was a Filipino journalist, orator, and revolutionary from Iloilo, well known for his written work, La Solidaridad.
  Philippine historians regard López Jaena, along with Marcelo H. del Pilar and José Rizal, as the triumvirate of Filipino propagandists. Of these three ilustrados, López Jaena was the first to arrive and may have founded the genesis of the Propaganda Movement.
  His parents sent López Jaena to Jaro which had been opened under the administration of Governor General Carlos María de la Torre. While studying at St. Vincent Ferrer Seminary in Jaro, López Jaena served as a secretary to an uncle named Claudio López who was the honorary vice consul of Portugal in Iloilo. His ambition of becoming a physician, convinced his parents that this was the better course of action.
  López Jaena sought enrollment at the University of Santo Tomas but was denied admission because the required Bachiller en Artes degree was not offered at the seminary in Jaro. However he was appointed to the San Juan de Dios Hospital as an apprentice. Unfortunately, due to financial problems, his parents could not afford to keep him in Manila. He returned to Iloilo and practiced medicine in communities.
  
  wn.com/Graciano_López_Jaena
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  Gray Davis
  Joseph Graham "Gray" Davis, Jr. (born December 26, 1942) is an American Democratic politician who served as California's 37th Governor from 1999 until being recalled in 2003. Prior to serving as Governor, Davis served as Chief of Staff to Governor Jerry Brown (1975–1981), California State Assemblyman (1983–1987), California State Controller (1987–1995), and the 44th Lieutenant Governor of California (1995–1999). Davis holds a B.A. in history from Stanford University and a J.D. from Columbia Law School. He was awarded a Bronze Star for his service as a Captain in the Vietnam War.
  During his time as Governor, Davis made education his top priority and California spent eight billion dollars more than was required under Proposition 98 during his first term. Under Davis, California standardized test scores increased for five straight years. Davis signed the nation's first state law requiring automakers to limit auto emissions. Davis supported laws to ban assault weapons. He is also credited with improving relations between California and Mexico. Davis began his tenure as Governor with strong approval ratings, but those ratings declined as voters blamed Davis for the California electricity crisis and the California budget crisis that followed the dot-com bubble burst. Voters were also alienated by Davis’s record breaking fundraising efforts and negative campaigning.
  
  wn.com/Gray_Davis
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  Hana Soukupová
  Hana Soukupová (born December 18, 1985) is a Czech model. She has participated in the Victoria's Secret fashion shows and modeled for the Victoria Secret Catalog.
  Soukupová was born on December 18, 1985 in Karlovy Vary, Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic). Because of her height, she began playing basketball for a local team.
  Soukupová began to work as a model in Prague in 1998. She signed her first major modeling contract at 15 years of age as the face of Carolina Herrera’s Chic perfume.
  In September 2004, Soukupová was selected as one of only nine models appeared on the cover of American Vogue in an issue that compared supermodels today to supermodels of the 80s and 90s heyday. Others included Daria Werbowy, Gemma Ward, Gisele Bündchen, and Karolína Kurková. Vanity Fair touted her as the next Eastern European model that will most likely make it big. Additionally, she has been featured on over 80 magazine covers^{[citation needed]} including numerous international editions of Vogue and on the covers of Harper's Bazaar, W, Elle, and Allure. Soukupová's work can be seen in over 4,000 pages of editorial fashion stories and advertising campaigns.^{[citation needed]} Soukupová has worked closely with renowned photographers Steven Meisel, Nick Knight, Mikael Jansson, Craig McDean, Mario Sorrenti, Steven Klein, Mario Testino, David LaChapelle, Inez Van Lamsweerde, Patrick Demarchelier.
  
  wn.com/Hana_Soukupová
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  Harry Hooper
  Harry Bartholomew Hooper (August 24, 1887 – December 18, 1974) was a Major League Baseball player in the early 20th century.
  Hooper batted left-handed and threw right-handed. Hooper was born in Bell Station, California. A graduate in engineering at Saint Mary's College of California, he broke into the majors with the Red Sox in 1909, and still holds many of the team's records. He was traded to the Chicago White Sox in the 1921 season and finished his career in 1925.
  Hooper was known as a top-caliber defensive right fielder and a solid leadoff hitter. Between 1910 and 1915, he teamed with Tris Speaker (CF) and Duffy Lewis (LF) to form one of the finest outfield trios in baseball history. On May 30, 1913 Hooper became the first player to hit a home run to lead off both games of a doubleheader, a mark only matched by Rickey Henderson 80 years later. Beside this, Hooper is the only person to be a part of four Red Sox World Series championships: in 1912, 1915, 1916 and 1918. On October 13, 1915, he became the first player to hit two home runs in a single World Series game. Hooper was also the captain of the Red Sox in 1919.
  
  wn.com/Harry_Hooper
• Harvey Atkin
  Harvey Atkin (born 18 December 1942 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada) is a Canadian voice actor who has worked in feature films and television. He has also done voice-overs, and has voiced animations.
  From an early age he was exposed to many things that would shape his view of life. His grandfather, an immigrant from Russia, steeped his young grandson in the old country's ways, which included the Yiddish language. Atkin claims that to this day, his late grandfather is still a major influence on him. He and his parents lived with him for several years before finally getting their own house – around the corner from his grandfather's.
  Atkin's father, for his part, played an equally important role in his son's upbringing. It was he who taught Atkin about the business world. However, at this time, it seemed that Atkin's "job description" was "class clown".
  Owing to Atkin's continual clowning in school, he was encouraged to join the school's drama club. This, and his winning a best actor award at a local drama festival, drove him into a career in acting. A stint at a summer camp for the performing arts also helped in his choice of career.
  
  wn.com/Harvey_Atkin
• Heinrich Roth
  Heinrich Roth (December 18, 1620 in Augsburg, Germany – June 20, 1668 in Agra; also known as Henricus Rodius or Henrique Roa) was a missionary and pioneering Sanskrit scholar.
  Having been born and raised in Augsburg, where his father Konrad Roth (died 1637) worked as Doctor utriusque iuris for the Prince-Bishopric, from 1635 to 1639 Heinrich Roth studied Rhetoric at the University of Dillingen and Philosophy at the Jesuit college in Innsbruck. In 1639, he became a Jesuit in Landsberg, and from 1641 to 1645 taught at the University of Munich, before returning to Dillingen to start theological studies, which he completed in Ingolstadt in 1649. The same year, he was ordained priest in Eichstätt.
  On behalf of Francesco Piccolomini, in 1649 Roth was assigned to the so-called Ethiopian mission to India. Traveling by the land route via Smyrna (1650) and Isfahan, he arrived in Goa by 1652. He worked first on the Island of Salsette off Goa, where from time to time he acted as Portuguese interpreter. He was then sent on an embassy by one of the native princes, and via Uttarakhand finally reached the Mughal Empire and its residence in Agra in 1654. Acting as rector of the Jesuit residence in Agra since 1659, he was involved in the persecution under Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb.
  
  wn.com/Heinrich_Roth
• Heinz Inniger
  Heinz Inniger (born December 18, 1980) is a Swiss snowboarder. He ranked 4th in Parallel Slalom at the World Cup 2004/2005.
  
  
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  wn.com/Heinz_Inniger
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  Henrietta Edwards
  Henrietta Muir Edwards' (18 December 1849 – 10 November 1931) was a Canadian women's rights activist and reformer.
  She was born Henrietta Louise Muir in Montreal. As a young woman, she esposed various feminist causes, forming the Working Girls' Association in 1875 to provide vocational training for women and editing the journal Women's Work in Canada.
  In 1893, with Lady Aberdeen, she founded the National Council of Women and the Victorian Order of Nurses.
  Edwards was one of "The Famous Five" (also called "The Valiant Five"), who established that women were, indeed, persons and therefore entitled to sit in the Senate of Canada.
  Among other honours, in October 2009, the Senate voted to name Edwards and the rest of the Five Canada's first "honorary senators."
  
  wn.com/Henrietta_Edwards
• Hildebert
  Hildebert of Lavardin (or Hildebert of Tours) (c. 1055 – December 18, 1133) was a French writer and ecclesiastic. His name is also spelled Hydalbert, Gildebert, or Aldebert.
  Hildebert was born of poor parents at Lavardin, near Vendôme, and was intended for the church. He was probably a pupil of Berengarius of Tours, and became master (scholasticus) of the school at Le Mans; in 1091 he was made archdeacon and in 1096 bishop of Le Mans. He had to face the hostility of a section of his clergy and also of the English king, William II, who captured Le Mans and carried the bishop with him to England for about a year.
  Hildebert then travelled to Rome and sought permission to resign his bishopric, which Pope Paschal II refused. In 1116 his diocese was thrown into great confusion owing to the preaching of Henry of Lausanne, who was denouncing the higher clergy, especially the bishop. Hildebert compelled him to leave the neighborhood of Le Mans, but the effects of his preaching remained.
  In 1125 Hildebert was translated unwillingly to the archbishopric of Tours, where he came into conflict with the French king Louis VI about the rights of ecclesiastical patronage, and with the bishop of Dol about the authority of his see in Brittany. He presided over the synod of Nantes, and died at Tours probably on December 18, 1133. Hildebert built part of the cathedral at Le Mans. Some writers have referred to him with the title of saint, but there appears to be no authority for this. He was not a man of very strict life; his contemporaries, however, had a very high opinion of him and he was called egregius versificator.
  
  wn.com/Hildebert
• Jack Linkletter
  Jack Linkletter (November 20, 1937 – December 18, 2007) was an American game show and television host and entertainer. He was the son of Art Linkletter.
  Linkletter was born as Arthur Jack Linkletter in San Francisco. He was the oldest of Lois and Art Linkletter's five children. He was said to have been inspired to enter show business by his father's show, House Party.
  As a boy, Mr. Linkletter inspired one of his father's most famous "House Party" routines: interviewing young children.
  Linkletter was an English major at the University of Southern California in 1958 when he began hosting the NBC-TV prime-time summer replacement quiz show "Haggis Baggis."
  At 15, Linkletter began doing an interview show for CBS Radio, which was soon followed by an hourlong program featuring records and stunts called "Teen Time."
  Linkletter hosted seven television shows throughout his career, including Haggis Baggis, Hootenanny, On the Go (1958–59), Here's Hollywood and America Alive. He also hosted a number of events and pageants, including the Miss Universe pageant, events for the World's Fair and many parades.
  
  wn.com/Jack_Linkletter
• 
  Jacques Pépin
  Jacques Pépin (born December 18, 1935) is an internationally recognized French chef, television personality, and author working in the United States. At the end of the 1980s and the start of the 1990s, he appeared on French and American T.V. and wrote an array of cookbooks that became best sellers.
  Pépin, the second of three sons, was born in 1935 in Bourg-en-Bresse, near Lyon in France. After World War II, his parents, Jeanne and Jean-Victor Pépin, owned the restaurant, Le Pelican, where Pépin worked and later became known for his love for food. He went on to work in Paris, training under Lucien Diat at the Plaza Athénée. From 1956 to 1958, Pépin was the personal chef to three French heads of state, including Charles de Gaulle. In 1959 Pépin came to the United States to work at the restaurant Le Pavillon. Eight months later, In 1961, Howard Johnson, a regular Le Pavillon customer, hired Pépin to work along side fellow Frenchman Pierre Franey to develop food lines for his chain of Howard Johnson's restaurants, while Pépin was attending Columbia University. Pépin received his B.A. degree from Columbia’s School of General Studies in 1970 and went on to earn a master’s degree in French literature at Columbia in 1972.
  
  wn.com/Jacques_Pépin
• 
  James Callaghan
  Leonard James Callaghan, Baron Callaghan of Cardiff, KG, PC (27 March 1912 – 26 March 2005), was a British Labour politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1976 to 1979 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1976 to 1980. Commonly known as Jim Callaghan (and nicknamed "Sunny Jim", "Gentleman Jim", "Lucky Jim" or "Big Jim"), Callaghan is the only person to have served in all four of the Great Offices of State: Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary.
  Callaghan was Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1964 to 1967 during a turbulent period in the British economy in which he had to wrestle with a balance of payments deficit and speculative attacks on the pound sterling. In November 1967, the Government was forced to devalue the pound sterling despite having already denied this would be done, both publicly and to the House of Commons. Callaghan offered to resign, but was persuaded to swap his ministerial post with Roy Jenkins, becoming Home Secretary from 1967 to 1970. In that capacity, Callaghan took the decision to use the Army to support the police in Northern Ireland, after a request from the Northern Ireland Government.
  
  wn.com/James_Callaghan
• James Lawrie
  James Lawrie (born 18 December 1990) is a Northern Irish international footballer who plays for Conference North side Altrincham. The striker has represented Northern Ireland at youth level and in 2009 earned his first senior cap.
  One of the most promising players to come through the Port Vale youth system in recent years, during the summer of 2009 he picked up interest from top-flight clubs. However he was released by the club in the summer of 2010 after only featuring in a handful of games, and signed with AFC Telford United. He was loaned out to Altrincham in 2011, and signed permanently with the club in December that year.
  Born in Dundonald, County Down, Lawrie attended Middlewich High School in Middlewich, Cheshire, England.
  Lawrie worked his way through the Port Vale youth team and in July 2007 was offered his first professional contract. He is considered to be one of the brightest lights to come out of Vale Park since Anthony Gardner. His first league goal came in the 89th minute against Chester City on 27 January 2009, the goal was so well taken that it earned him the club's goal of the season award. Following that game manager Dean Glover stated his belief that Lawrie had a bright future in football and two days later signed Lawrie up to a two-and-a-half year deal. Lawrie repaid these kind words the next month in a BBC interview; accepting responsibility for Vale's low standing on behalf of the players, as opposed to bad-management on Glover's part. On 4 April he gained his second club goal in a 1–1 draw with Bury, again impressing with his performance.
  
  wn.com/James_Lawrie
• James Pickles
  Judge James Pickles (18 March 1925 – 18 December 2010) was an English Circuit judge associated with many controversial decisions, who later became a tabloid columnist.
  Pickles was born in Halifax, West Yorkshire and was educated at Worksop College. He read law at Leeds University and Christ Church, Oxford.
  Pickles practised as a barrister at Bradford, Yorkshire from 1949 to 1976, serving as a Recorder of the Crown Court from 1972 to 1976. He was then appointed Circuit Judge on the North Eastern circuit. His career as a judge was controversial, and some of his judgments made headline news, resulting in calls for judges to be held more accountable. These included the jailing of a woman for seven days for contempt when she refused to give evidence against her ex-boyfriend, who had assaulted her, and the imprisonment of a single mother for six months on a charge of theft.
  He was a vocal proponent of the legalisation of cannabis. In 1958 he was the Labour candidate for the parliamentary constituency of Barkston Ash, and at the 1966 general election he contested Brighouse and Spenborough as a Liberal.
  
  wn.com/James_Pickles
• Jean Pronovost
  Jean Joseph Denis Pronovost (born December 18, 1945) is a retired professional ice hockey right winger who played in the NHL for the Pittsburgh Penguins, Atlanta Flames and Washington Capitals.
  He was acquired by Pittsburgh along with John Arbour from the Boston Bruins on May 21, 1968 for the Penguins 1969 1st round draft pick (4th overall Frank Spring) and cash.
  Pronovost was a consistent scorer who scored 40 goals four times. He was also the first member of the Pittsburgh Penguins to score 100 points in a season and 50 goals in a season. Pronovost played his junior career with the Niagara Falls Flyers.
  He was traded to Atlanta by Pittsburgh for Gregg Sheppard on September 6, 1978 and was sold to Washington by Calgary on July 1, 1980.
  Pronovost coached Shawinigan Cataractes of the QMJHL 1994 to 1996; the Quebec Rafales of the IHL 1996-97 and Rouyn-Noranda Huskies (QMJHL) 2000-01.
  He is also a noted born-again Christian and he is currently working at Emmanuel Christian School in Dollard des Ormeaux in the West Island of Montreal, Quebec.
  
  wn.com/Jean_Pronovost
• Jens Schmidt
  Jens Schmidt (born 18 February 1981) is a German international rugby union player, playing for the TSV Handschuhsheim in the Rugby-Bundesliga and the German national rugby union team. He was, until 2009, the captain of the German team, but then retired from international rugby, to return once more in 2010.
  Jens Schmidt begun playing rugby when he was nine years old in 1990.
  Throughout his career, he played for the TSV Handschuhsheim, except when he spent one year with the French professional club FC Auch Gers in 2001.
  He has won the German rugby union cup twice with his team, TSV Handschuhsheim, in 2005 and 2008. His greatest success as a national team player was the promotion to Division 1 of the European Nations Cup in 2008.
  He made his 35th international for Germany in the game against Spain on 15 November 2008 and made his last appearance for his country against Portugal on 21 February 2009, his 38th cap. He returned briefly to the team for the all-important relegation decider against Spain on 20 March 2010 but remained an unused substitute.
  
  wn.com/Jens_Schmidt
• Joan Tabor
  This is an article about the US actress. For the English folksinger see June Tabor.
  Joan Tabor (September 16, 1932 - December 18, 1968) was an US film and TV actress.
  She was born on September 16, 1932, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, USA.
  Her acting credits include the film "The Teenage Millionaire" in 1961, and numerous appearances in TV series including "Mister Ed" (1961–1966), "Arrest And Trial" (1963–1964), "Have Gun Will Travel" (1957–1963), "Bat Masterson" (1958–1961), and "Laramie" (1959–1963). She also had a guest appearance in the first season of Perry Mason in "The Case of the Substitute Face" in 1958 and also "The Case of the Dubious Bridegroom" in 1959.
  She was married twice - first to Chicago broker David Gold, with whom she had one daughter, and whom she divorced in 1954, second to actor Broderick Crawford, from 1962 to 1967 (separated 1965).
  She died in Beverly Hills, California on December 18, 1968 after accidentally overdosing on influenza medication. She was 36 years old. She is buried at the Woodlawn Cemetery in Sioux Falls.
  
  wn.com/Joan_Tabor
• Joel Hirschhorn
  Joel Hirschhorn, (December 18, 1937 – September 17, 2005), was an American songwriter. He won the Academy Award for Best Song on two occasions. He also wrote songs for a number of musicians, including Elvis Presley and Roy Orbison. Hirschhorn was born in the Bronx and attended the High School of Performing Arts in Manhattan. After graduating, Hirschhorn became a regular performer on New York’s nightclub circuit, both as a solo singer and as a member of the rock & roll band, The Highlighters.
  During the mid-1960s, Hirschhorn branched out into writing film soundtracks. The first score he wrote was for Who Killed Teddy Bear? (1965), which was directed by his friend Joseph Cates. He worked with Cates again the following year in The Fat Spy. However, the film was received so badly that Hirschhorn struggled to find work in Hollywood for a number of years afterwards.^{[citation needed]}
  Hirschhorn, along with songwriting partner Al Kasha, did not work on another film until 1970’s The Cheyenne Social Club, which was directed by Gene Kelly. It was the pair’s next effort, for The Poseidon Adventure (1972), that really made their name. "The Morning After", a song they wrote in a single evening, won them their first Oscar and also topped the Billboard chart.
  
  wn.com/Joel_Hirschhorn
• 
  Johann Salomo Semler
  Johann Salomo Semler (December 18, 1725 – March 14, 1791) was a German church historian, biblical commentator, and critic ecclesiastical documents and of the history of dogmas. Sometimes known as the "the father of German rationalism".
  He was born at Saalfeld in Electoral Saxony, the son of a poor clergyman. He grew up in pietistic surroundings, which powerfully influenced him his life through, though he never became a Pietist. In his seventeenth year he entered the University of Halle, where he became the disciple, afterwards the assistant, and finally the literary executor of the orthodox rationalistic professor SJ Baumgarten. He also wrote Latin poems. In 1749 he accepted the position of editor, with the title of professor, of the Coburg official Gazette. But in 1751 he was invited to Altdorf as professor of philology and history, and in 1752 he became a professor of theology in Halle.
  After the death of Baumgarten in 1757, Semler became head of the theological faculty, and the fierce opposition provoked by his writings and lectures only helped increase his fame as a professor. His popularity continued undiminished until 1779. In that year he produced a reply (Beantwortung der Fragmente eines Ungenannten) to the Wolfenbuttel Fragments (see Reimarus) and to KF Bahrdt's confession of faith, a step which was interpreted by the extreme rationalists as a revocation of his own rationalistic position.
  
  wn.com/Johann_Salomo_Semler
• 
  John Burgoyne
  General John Burgoyne (24 February 1722 – 4 August 1792) was a British army officer, politician and dramatist. He first saw action during the Seven Years' War when he participated in several battles, mostly notably during the Portugal Campaign of 1762.
  Burgoyne is best known for his role in the American War of Independence. During the Saratoga campaign he surrendered his army of 5,000 men to the American troops on October 17, 1777. Appointed to command a force designated to capture Albany and end the rebellion, Burgoyne advanced from Canada but soon found himself surrounded and outnumbered. He fought two battles at Saratoga, but was forced to open negotiations with Horatio Gates. Although he agreed to a convention, on 17 October 1777, which would allow his troops to return home, this was subsequently revoked and his men were made prisoners. Burgoyne faced criticism when he returned to Britain, and never held another active command.
  Burgoyne was also an accomplished playwright known for his works such as The Maid of the Oaks and The Heiress, but his plays never reached the fame of his military career. He served as a member of the House of Commons of Parliament for a number of years, sitting for the seats of Midhurst and Preston. He is often referred to as Gentleman Johnny.
  
  wn.com/John_Burgoyne
• 
  John Leventhal
  John Leventhal (born December 18, 1952) is a Grammy Award-winning musician, producer, songwriter, and recording engineer who has produced albums for Michelle Branch, Rosanne Cash, Marc Cohn, Shawn Colvin, Rodney Crowell, Jim Lauderdale, Joan Osborne, Loudon Wainwright, The Wreckers and many others. As a musician he has worked with all of the above as well as artists such as Jackson Browne, Willie Nelson, Bruce Hornsby, Elvis Costello, Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, Charlie Haden, David Crosby, Levon Helm, Edie Brickell, Paul Simon, Patty Larkin, Susan Tedeschi, Steve Forbert, Kelly Willis and Johnny Cash. As a songwriter he has had over 100 songs recorded by various artists. In 1998 he won a Grammy Award for Record and Song of the year for producing and co-writing the song "Sunny Came Home" (a 1997 hit for Colvin). Albums he has produced have been nominated for a total of 11 Grammy Awards. In 2005 he composed the score for the film Winter Solstice.
  Leventhal lives with his wife Rosanne Cash and their children in New York City.
  
  wn.com/John_Leventhal
• Johnny Hyde
  Johnny Hyde (born Iván Haidabura 23 April 1895 - 18 December 1950) was a Russian-born American talent agent.
  Vice-president of the William Morris Agency's West Coast office during the 1930s and 1940s, Hyde represented some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry. In 1948, he met then-unknown actress and model Marilyn Monroe. Taking her on as a client, he had her undergo minor plastic surgery, and used his influence to help her land the roles of Angela in The Asphalt Jungle and Miss Caswell in All About Eve. The buzz generated by her performances enabled Hyde to negotiate a contract for Monroe with 20th Century Fox.
  Despite the fact that Monroe was nearly 31 years his junior, Hyde eventually left his wife for her. He wanted to marry her, but she repeatedly refused; she said she loved Hyde, but was not in love with him.
  Hyde was played by Ron Rifkin in Norma Jean & Marilyn, Richard Basehart in the TV movie Marilyn: The Untold Story, Joel Gray in the TV movie Marilyn and Me, and Lloyd Bridges in the TV miniseries Moviola episode "This Year's Blonde".
  
  wn.com/Johnny_Hyde
• Jonathan Cainer
  Jonathan Cainer was born on the 18 December 1957 in Surbiton, London, England and is a British Sun-sign Astrologer.
  
  He started his first Astrology column in the magazine Today in March 1986-1992. He worked at the Daily Mail for 7 years 1992-1999. He then worked for the Daily Express in 2000. He then left and joined The Mirror from 2001-2004 but returned to the Daily Mail where he still writes their Astrology column. He writes over 25,000 words a week. He is the father to 6 children.
  
  James Silver of The Independent newspaper on Jonathan in October 2005: "He's a self-declared touchy-feely liberal and 'unreconstructed hippie' who took his children on the anti-Iraq war demo". The same article, however, implied that the Daily Mail only liked him because he made them so much money.
  
  wn.com/Jonathan_Cainer
• 
  Joseph Barbera
  Joseph Roland Barbera ( /bɑrˈbɛrə/ bar-BERR-ə; March 24, 1911 – December 18, 2006) was an influential American animator, director, producer, storyboard artist, and cartoon artist, whose film and television cartoon characters entertained millions of fans worldwide for much of the twentieth century.
  Through his young adult years, Barbera lived, attended college, and began his career in New York City. After working odd jobs and as a banker, Barbera joined Van Beuren Studios in 1932 and subsequently Terrytoons in 1936. In 1937, he moved to California and while working at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Barbera met William Hanna. The two men began a collaboration that was at first best known for producing Tom and Jerry and live action films. In 1957, after MGM dissolved their animation department, they co-founded Hanna-Barbera, which became the most successful television animation studio in the business, producing programs such as The Flintstones, The Huckleberry Hound Show, Top Cat, Scooby-Doo, The Quick Draw McGraw Show, Yogi Bear, The Smurfs, Wacky Races, and The Jetsons. In 1967, Hanna-Barbera was sold to Taft Broadcasting for $12 million, but Hanna and Barbera remained head of the company until 1991. At that time, the studio was sold to Turner Broadcasting System, which in turn was merged with Time Warner, owners of Warner Bros., in 1996; Hanna and Barbera stayed on as advisors.
  
  wn.com/Joseph_Barbera
• 
  Joseph Grimaldi
  Joseph Grimaldi (18 December 1778 – 31 May 1837), was an English actor and comedian who is perhaps best known for his invention of the modern day whiteface clown. He chiefly appeared at Drury Lane in pantomime, where his greatest success was appearing in Harlequin and Mother Goose; or the Golden Egg and followed with a successful performance at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden.
  Grimaldi was born in Clare Market, London, into a family of professional dancers and clowns. His Italian father, Joseph Giuseppe Grimaldi (d. 1788), was a dancer at the King's Theatre in Haymarket by 1758. He was later engaged by David Garrick to play Pantaloon in pantomimes at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane and to act as the ballet-master. Grimaldi's mother, Rebecca Brooker, was also a dancer. She had been apprenticed to his father since 1773 and had become his mistress shortly afterwards, although she was still less than fourteen years old when Grimaldi was born. Grimaldi's paternal grandfather, Giovanni Battista Grimaldi appeared on stage as "Iron Legs" and was briefly popular in Italy and France, though he spent time in the Bastille after a scandalous performance, and he later defrauded John Rich in London before fleeing to the Continent.^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/Joseph_Grimaldi
• 
  Joseph Stalin
  Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (Russian: Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин; born Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, Russian: Иосиф Виссарионович Джугашвили; 18 December 1878 – 5 March 1953) was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution in Russia in 1917 and later held the position of General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. While the office of the General Secretary was officially elective and not initially regarded as the top position in the Soviet state, Stalin managed to use it to consolidate more and more power in his hands after the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924 and gradually put down all opposition groups within the Communist Party. This included Leon Trotsky, a socialist theorist and the principal critic of Stalin among the early Soviet leaders, who was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1929. Whereas Trotsky was an exponent of permanent revolution, it was Stalin's concept of socialism in one country that became the primary focus of Soviet politics.
  
  wn.com/Joseph_Stalin
• 
  Joshua Dallas
  Joshua Paul Dallas (born December 18, 1981) is an American actor who played Fandral in Thor, a film adaptation based on the Marvel Comics character. He is currently starring in the ABC television series Once Upon a Time.
  Dallas graduated in 1997 at the age of 17 from New Albany High School in New Albany, Indiana, where he studied theater under David Longest. Aged 19 he gained the Sarah Exley Scholarship, that fully funded his degree level studies at the Mountview Conservatoire for the Performing Arts in London, England.
  On graduation, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, and then took parts wth the Royal National Theatre, English National Opera, the New Shakespeare Company and The Young Vic.
  Returning to the United States and based in Hollywood, he was cast in 2011 as Fandral in Thor after Irish actor Stuart Townsend withdrew from the role days before filming was to begin. As he was a virtual unknown actor when cast, there was some speculation that Dallas was selected because there simply was not enough time to find a bigger name replacement. To prepare for the role, Dallas viewed Errol Flynn as an inspiration (the character was also created based on Flynn), and watched many of his films. He commented, "I tried to bring out that little bit of Flynn-ness in it. Flynn had a lot of that boyish charm and Fandral's got all that in him."
  
  wn.com/Joshua_Dallas
• Jules Dassin
  Julius "Jules" Dassin (18 December 1911 – 31 March 2008) was an American film director, with Jewish-Russian origins. He was a subject of the Hollywood blacklist in the McCarthy era, and subsequently moved to France, where he revived his career.
  One of eight children of Berthe Vogel and Samuel Dassin, a Russian-Jewish barber in Middletown, Connecticut, Dassin grew up in Harlem and went to Morris High School in the Bronx. He joined the Communist Party USA in the 1930s and left it after the Hitler–Stalin Pact in 1939. He started as a Yiddish actor with the ARTEF (Yiddish Proletarian Theater) company in New York. He collaborated on a film with Jack Skurnick that was incomplete because of Skurnick's early death.
  In 1937 he married Beatrice Launer, with whom he had three children. In May 1955 he met Melina Mercouri at the Cannes Film Festival. At about the same time, he discovered the literary works of Nikos Kazantzakis. These two elements created a bond with Greece. He divorced Launer in 1962 and married Mercouri in 1966. The couple had to leave Greece after the colonels' coup in 1967. In 1970, they were accused of having financed an attempt to overthrow the dictatorship, but the charges were quickly dropped.^{[citation needed]} Dassin and Mercouri lived in New York City during the 1970s; then, when the general's dictatorship in Greece fell in 1974, they returned to Greece and lived out their lives there. While Mercouri became involved with politics and won a parliamentary seat, Dassin stayed with movie-making in Europe but found time in the U.S. to make another movie, the racial drama Up Tight!, which would be his last American film.^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/Jules_Dassin
• Julia Wolfe
  Julia Wolfe (born December 18, 1958) is an American composer. She was born in Philadelphia, holds degrees from the University of Michigan, Princeton and Yale, and currently works in New York. Wolfe's music is rhythmically vigorous and often clangorously dissonant. As a composer associated with the downtown style of new music she is not averse to drawing on rock and minimalism as primary influences. Her music, however, shows a good deal more rhythmic complexity than is generally found in these genres, hence her music can properly be considered and described as postminimalist.
  In 1987, Wolfe co-founded Bang on a Can together with composers David Lang and Michael Gordon, her husband. She was awarded a grant in 2000 from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award. In 2010, Wolfe was nominated as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Music.[1]
  In 2003, she joined the composition faculty of the Manhattan School of Music. Currently she is Director of Music Composition at New York University in the Steinhardt School.
  
  wn.com/Julia_Wolfe
• 
  Justin Edinburgh
  Justin Charles Edinburgh (born 18 December 1969) is an English professional football manager and former player. He is currently manager of Newport County. Nicknamed 'Musselburgh', he has previously played for, or managed, six other clubs.
  A defender, usually employed as a left-back, Edinburgh started his career as a trainee with Southend United, turning professional in August 1988. He helped the Shrimpers win promotion from the Football League Division Four in 1990. In total he played 47 games for the seaside club, scoring one goal.
  He moved to Tottenham Hotspur for £150,000 in January 1990, initially on loan. He joined Spurs permanently in July 1990, making his debut for them on 10 November 1990, as a substitute in a 4–2 win at home to Wimbledon. He played for Spurs for most of the 1990s. He won an FA Cup winner's medal in 1991 despite just previously starting only 12 league games. He would also win a League Cup winner's medal with Spurs, in 1999. This second medal was awarded to Edinburgh despite his being sent off in the final for raising his arms to Robbie Savage, as the post-match analysis showed that Savage had distinctly overreacted to a minimal contact and that the red card was unjustly awarded. In total, he made 190 league appearances (and 23 as substitute) for Tottenham, scoring a solitary goal.
  
  wn.com/Justin_Edinburgh
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  Karl Dorrell
  Karl Dorrell (born December 18, 1963) is an American football coach and former player. He is currently the quarterbacks coach for the Houston Texans of the National Football League (NFL), a position he assumed in February 2012. Dorrell served as the head football coach of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) from 2003 to 2007, compiling a record of 35–27. He led the UCLA Bruins to five bowl appearance in five seasons, but did not coach in the fifth after he was fired in December 2007. Dorrel was the first African American head football coach in UCLA's history.
  Karl attended Helix High School in La Mesa, California, where he played football. He was a two-time all-league selection and an honorable mention All-American as a senior. He led Helix to the CIF San Diego Section second place in 1981.
  Karl went on to play football at UCLA, earning four varsity letters in football. He was one of the most successful wide receivers at UCLA with 1,517 receiving yards on 108 receptions. He suffered a shoulder injury in 1984 and was granted an extra year of eligibility by the NCAA. He played on a team that won the Rose Bowl in 1983, 1984, and 1986, and that won the Freedom Bowl in 1986.
  
  wn.com/Karl_Dorrell
• 
  Katie Holmes
  Kate Noelle "Katie" Holmes (born December 18, 1978) is an American actress who first achieved fame for her role as Joey Potter on The WB television teen drama Dawson's Creek from 1998 to 2003. Her movie roles have included the blockbuster Batman Begins along with art house films such as The Ice Storm and thrillers including Abandon. She has also played on Broadway in a production of Arthur Miller's All My Sons. She achieved worldwide celebrity for her marriage to Tom Cruise, with whom she has a daughter, Suri.
  Holmes was born in Toledo, Ohio. She is the fourth daughter and youngest child of five children born to Kathleen (née Stothers), a homemaker and philanthropist, and Martin Joseph Holmes, Sr., an attorney specializing in divorces, She has three older sisters and one older brother: Tamera, Holly Ann, Martin Joseph, Jr., and Nancy Kay.
  Holmes is of Russian, German, English and Irish ancestry and was baptized a Roman Catholic. She attended Christ the King Church and parochial schools in Toledo. She graduated from the all-female Notre Dame Academy (also her mother's alma mater), where Katie was a 4.0 student. At St. John's Jesuit, a nearby all-male high school, Holmes appeared in school musicals, playing a waitress in Hello, Dolly! and Lola in Damn Yankees. She scored 1310 out of 1600 on her SAT and was accepted to Columbia University (and attended for a summer session); her father wanted her to be a doctor.
  
  wn.com/Katie_Holmes
• Kazuhide Uekusa
  Kazuhide Uekusa (植草 一秀, Uekusa Kazuhide^?, born December 18, 1960 in Edogawa, Tokyo) is a Japanese economist, economic analyst, former senior economist at Nomura Research Institute, and chairman of the Three-Nations Research Institute Co., Ltd.. He gained notoriety for his sex offense arrests.
  He was born and raised in Edogawa, Tokyo. According to TV interviews with his ex-classmates, he was mostly a straight A student, so they called him a child prodigy.
  After graduating Matsue Fourth Municipal Junior High School, he went on to Ryogoku Metropolitan High School. Although this school is coeducational, he was in a boys' class. According to his classmates here, he never talked about girls nor love affairs. They were very impressed that he used to read books while attending school.
  In 1979, he entered the prestigious University of Tokyo and majored in economics. Uekusa joined Nomura Research Institute in April 1983 after graduating from University of Tokyo in March 1983. He obtained positions as a researcher of Fiscal and Momentary Policy Institute at the Ministry of Finance in July 1985, an assistant professor at the Economic Research Institute at Kyoto University in June 1991, an honorary fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in October 1993, a senior economist at Nomura Research Institute in April 2002, and became a professor at the graduate school in Waseda University from April 2003, until he was dismissed in April 2004. Afterwards, he established the Three-Nations Research Institute, and became a chairman of the company on April 1, 2005. In April 2006, he made a career comeback in an academic position as a visiting professor at Nagoya University of Commerce & Business graduate school in Nagoya. He lectured on "national economic strategy" until the arrest in September of the year.
  
  wn.com/Kazuhide_Uekusa
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  Keith Richards
  Keith Richards (born 18 December 1943) is an English musician and songwriter, and a founder member of The Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone magazine said Richards has created "rock's greatest single body of riffs", and has named him the 4th greatest guitarist of all time. Fourteen songs written by Richards and songwriting partner Mick Jagger, The Rolling Stones' lead vocalist, are listed among Rolling Stone magazine's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time". Richards' notoriety for illicit drug use stems in part from several drug busts during the late 1960s and 1970s.
  Keith Richards is the only child of Bert Richards and Doris Dupree Richards. He was born at Livingston Hospital in Dartford, Kent. His father was a factory worker injured in World War II during the Normandy invasion.
  Richards' paternal grandparents were socialists and civic leaders whose family originated from Wales. His maternal grandfather, Augustus Theodore Dupree, who toured Britain with a jazz big band, "Gus Dupree and his Boys", fostered Richards' interest in guitar.
  
  wn.com/Keith_Richards
• 
  Kirsty MacColl
  Kirsty Anna MacColl (10 October 1959 – 18 December 2000) was an English singer-songwriter.
  MacColl scored several pop hits from the early 1980s to the early 1990s. During this era, she often sang on recordings produced by her husband Steve Lillywhite, notably those of The Smiths and the song "Fairytale of New York" by The Pogues.
  MacColl was killed in a controversial boating incident in Mexico.
  Kirsty MacColl was the daughter of folk singer Ewan MacColl and dancer Jean Newlove. She and her brother, Hamish MacColl, grew up with their mother in Croydon, where she attended Park Hill Primary School and Monks Hill High School, making appearances in school plays. At the time of MacColl's birth, her father had been in a relationship with folksinger, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Peggy Seeger since 1956 (a relationship that would continue until his death in 1989), and already had a son with her.
  She came to notice when Chiswick Records released an EP by local punk rock band the Drug Addix with MacColl on backing vocals under the pseudonym Mandy Doubt (1978). Stiff Records executives were not impressed with the band, but liked her and subsequently signed her to a solo deal.^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/Kirsty_MacColl
• 
  Konrad Zuse
  Konrad Zuse (German pronunciation: [ˈkɔnʁat ˈtsuːzə]; 1910–1995) was a German civil engineer and computer pioneer. His greatest achievement was the world's first functional program-controlled Turing-complete computer, the Z3, which became operational in May 1941.
  Zuse was also noted for the S2 computing machine, considered the first process-controlled computer. He founded one of the earliest computer businesses in 1941, producing the Z4, which became the world's first commercial computer. In 1946, he designed the first high-level programming language, Plankalkül. In 1969, Zuse suggested the concept of a computation-based universe in his book Rechnender Raum (Calculating Space).
  Much of his early work was financed by his family and commerce, but after 1939 he was given resources by the Nazi German government. Due to World War II, Zuse's work went largely unnoticed in the United Kingdom and the United States. Possibly his first documented influence on a US company was IBM's option on his patents in 1946.
  
  wn.com/Konrad_Zuse
• Koyuki
  Koyuki Katō (加藤 小雪, Katō Koyuki^?, born December 18, 1976), better known as Koyuki (小雪^?), is a Japanese model and actress.
  Koyuki was born in Zama, Kanagawa. She started her modeling career in 1995 and has since starred in various Japanese dramas, TV and magazine ad campaigns and films. She frequently appears in Japanese print and television campaigns for the electronics company Panasonic. Her first international film was The Last Samurai where she played Taka, the wife of a Samurai slain by the character Nathan Algren, played by Tom Cruise. She appears in Blood: The Last Vampire live-action film starring Jun Ji-Hyun, where she plays Onigen, the arch-villain. On April 1, 2011, she married Kenichi Matsuyama, who co-starred with her in Kamui Gaiden. The couple's first son was born on January 5, 2012.
  She is signed with the Japanese talent agency and record label Avex Group Holdings.
  
  wn.com/Koyuki
• 
  Kreator
  Kreator is a thrash metal band from Essen, Germany, formed in 1978, but formalized in 1982 under the name Tormentor. They originally performed a speed metal style with Venom influences. Their style of music is similar to their compatriots Destruction and Sodom, the other two big German thrash metal bands. All three of these bands are often credited with helping pioneer death metal, by containing several elements of what was to become the genre. Kreator's work began in the vein of pure thrash metal but ventured into industrial and gothic from 1992 to 1999, before eventually returning to their classic thrash sound to date.
  To date, Kreator has released twelve studio albums, two EPs, one live album and three compilation albums. The band released its debut album Endless Pain in 1985. Although many of their previous albums, including Pleasure to Kill (1986), were quite popular in the United States, Kreator did not experience major American commercial success until the 2009 release of their twelfth studio album, Hordes of Chaos, which peaked at number 165 on the Billboard 200 and debuted at #16 on the Media Control Charts, the band's highest ever chart position in Germany. The band is currently working on new material for a thirteenth studio album Phantom Antichrist, which is due to be released on 1 June 2012 in Europe, with a release date of 4 and 5 June for the UK and USA respectively.
  
  wn.com/Kreator
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  Kublai Khan
  Kublai Khan ( /ˈkuːblə ˈkɑːn/; Mongolian: Хубилай хаан, Xubilaĭ xaan; Middle Mongolian: Qubilai Qaγan, "King Qubilai"; September 23, 1215 – February 18, 1294), born Kublai (Mongolian: Хубилай, Xubilaĭ; Middle Mongolian: Qubilai; Chinese: 忽必烈; pinyin: Hūbìliè; also spelled Khubilai) and also known by the temple name Shizu (Chinese: 元世祖; pinyin: Yuán Shìzǔ; Wade–Giles: Yüan Shih-tsu), was the fifth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire from 1260 to 1294 and the founder of the Yuan Dynasty in China.
  As he was the second son of Tolui and Sorghaghtani Beki, and a grandson of Genghis Khan, he claimed the title of Khagan of the Ikh Mongol Uls (Mongol Empire) in 1260 after the death of his older brother Möngke in the previous year, though his younger brother Ariq Böke was also given this title in the Mongolian capital, Karakorum. Kublai won the battle against Ariq Böke in 1264 and the succession war marked the beginning of disunity in the empire. Kublai's real power was limited to China and Mongolia (which was the Yuan Dynasty, or the Mongol Dynasty) after the victory over Ariq Böke, though his influence still remained in the Ilkhanate and, to a far lesser degree, in the Golden Horde in the western parts of the Mongol Empire. If one counts the Mongol Empire at that time as a whole, his realm reached from the Pacific to the Urals, from Siberia to modern day Afghanistan – one fifth of the world's inhabited land area.
  
  wn.com/Kublai_Khan
• 
  Larry Wall
  Larry Wall (born September 27, 1954) is a programmer and author, most widely known for his creation of the Perl programming language in 1987.
  Wall grew up in south Los Angeles and then Bremerton, Washington before starting higher education at Seattle Pacific University in 1976, majoring in chemistry and music and later premed with a hiatus of several years working in the university's computing center before graduating with a self-styled bachelor's degree in Natural and Artificial Languages.
  While in graduate school at UC Berkeley, Wall and his wife were studying linguistics with the intention afterwards of finding an unwritten language, perhaps in Africa, and creating a writing system for it. They would then use this new writing system to translate various texts into the language, among them the Bible. Due to health reasons these plans were cancelled, and they remained in the U.S., where Larry instead joined the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory after he finished graduate school.
  Wall is the author of the rn Usenet client and the nearly universally-used patch program. He has won the International Obfuscated C Code Contest twice and was the recipient of the first Free Software Foundation Award for the Advancement of Free Software in 1998.
  
  wn.com/Larry_Wall
• 
  Laurent Voulzy
  Laurent Voulzy (born Lucien Gerville-Reache on 18 December 1948 in Paris, France) is a French singer and composer.
  Voulzy originally led the English-pop-influenced Le Temple de Vénus before joining Pascal Danel as guitarist from 1969 to 1974. However, he is best known for his collaborative songwriting efforts with singer/songwriter Alain Souchon and his solo singing career, which spanned several successful albums.
  Voulzy had an international hit with the song Rockollection. The French lyrics were interspersed with some lines from classic rock hits after the chorus. His major French hits also include 'Le Soleil Donne' – sung in French, English and Spanish – and 'Les Nuits Sans Kim Wilde' ('Nights without Kim Wilde'), inspired by the chart-topping English singer.
  After a huge hit with his N°1 album La Septième Vague in 2006, Voulzy recorded in 2007 a duet with famous French guitarist Jean-Pierre Danel on his hit album Guitar Connection 2. The song hit the French charts at #7 in 2008. For his 2011 album Lys and Love, Voulzy recorded a duet on the song "Ma seule amour" with English singer Roger Daltrey of The Who.
  
  wn.com/Laurent_Voulzy
• Lawrence Lucie
  Lawrence Lucie (December 18, 1907 – August 14, 2009) was an American jazz guitarist.
  Lucie was born in Emporia, Virginia. He learned banjo, mandolin, and violin as a child and played with his family at dances. Lucie's father, a barber, also played jazz music. He studied banjo in New York City at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, but switched to guitar when he started a professional career.
  Lucie spent his career as a rhythm guitarist, seldom taking solos. In 1931, he subbed for Freddy Guy of Duke Ellington's band, being the last surviving musician to have played the Cotton Club with Ellington. He then became an original member of Benny Carter's band in 1932. This association lasted through 1934, including the opening of the Apollo Theater, where Carter's was the house band. He also performed with Fletcher Henderson (1934, 1936-39), the Mills Blue Rhythm Band (1934-36), Coleman Hawkins (1940), and Louis Armstrong (1940-44); he was also the best man at one of Armstrong's weddings. He recorded with all of them except Ellington. He can also be found on record with Teddy Wilson and Billie Holiday, Spike Hughes, Putney Dandridge, Big Joe Turner, Red Allen, and Jelly Roll Morton.
  
  wn.com/Lawrence_Lucie
• Leila Arcieri
  Leila C. Arcieri (born December 18, 1973) is an American actress and model. She was Miss San Francisco in the 1997 Miss California pageant and has appeared in many films such as xXx, Wild Things 2, and Daddy Day Care.
  Arcieri was born in San Francisco, California, the daughter of an Italian American father and African-American mother. Arcieri spent the better part of her childhood in Sebastopol, located in California's wine and redwood country. Upon graduating from high school, she moved to San Francisco, where she dabbled with both graphic design and photography before becoming a make-up artist.^{[citation needed]}
  Arcieri was crowned Miss San Francisco in 1997, and soon after she began appearing in both commercials (including 1-800-COLLECT and Starburst) and music videos with the likes of Boyz II Men, and Q-Tip. Such work eventually brought her to the attention of writer-producer Timothy Stack, who cast her in the role of Jamaica St. Croix in his new series, Son of the Beach, a parody of Baywatch. That same year Leila was selected as the Coors Lite Beer 2000 spokesmodel. She reprised her role in XXX for the Director's Cut release in a short film containing the death of Xander. She also appeared in one episode of MADtv.
  
  wn.com/Leila_Arcieri
• Leila Steinberg
  Leila Steinberg (born December 18, 1961) is an American educator, writer, poet, dancer, singer and founder of Alternative Intervention Models (formerly Assemblies In Motion), a 501(c)(3) non-profit dedicated to helping at-risk youth find their voice using the arts and athletics. She is best known as the artist mentor and first manager for superstar rapper, Tupac Shakur who came to her writing workshop, The Microphone Sessions in the Oakland Bay area.
  Leila Steinberg was born in Los Angeles, California as the middle child to a Arabic Puerto Rican American mother and a Polish-Jewish American criminal defense attorney.
  During the late 1980s Steinberg was a backup dancer and singer touring with world music icons, O.J Ekemode & The Nigerian Allstars. She also shared the stage with Santana, The Spinners, Bo Diddley, The Neville Brothers, Burning Spear and Jimmy Cliff. As a veteran music industry executive she served as a street marketer with Atlantic Records, Sony, Def Jam, Tommy Boy, Interscope, and Relativity.
  
  wn.com/Leila_Steinberg
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  Leonard Maltin
  Leonard Maltin (born December 18, 1950) is an American film critic and historian, author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives.
  Maltin was born in New York City, son of singer Jacqueline (née Gould), and Aaron Isaac Maltin, a lawyer and immigration judge. He is married to researcher and producer Alice Tlusty. He has one daughter Jessie, born in 1986, who works with him. Maltin is Jewish. Maltin grew up in Teaneck, New Jersey, and graduated from Teaneck High School. He is a friend of film critic Roger Ebert.
  Maltin began his writing career at age fifteen, writing for Classic Images and editing and publishing his own fanzine, Film Fan Monthly, dedicated to films from the golden age of Hollywood. After earning a journalism degree at New York University, Maltin went on to publish articles in a variety of film journals, newspapers, and magazines, including Variety and TV Guide.
  As an author, Maltin is best known for Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide, (some editions titled as his ...Movie and Video Guide), a compendium of synopses and reviews that first appeared in September 1969 and has been annually updated since October 1987. (It was published under the title TV Movies until the 1990s, and in 2005 spawned a spin-off, Leonard Maltin's Classic Movie Guide, limited to films released in 1960 and earlier to allow the regular book to cover a larger number of more recent titles.) He has also written several other works, including Behind the Camera, a study of cinematography, The Whole Film Sourcebook, Leonard Maltin's Movie Encyclopedia, Our Gang: The Life and Times of the Little Rascals, and Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons.
  
  wn.com/Leonard_Maltin
• 
  Leonid Yuzefovich
  Leonid Abramovich Yuzefovich (Russian: Леони́д Абра́мович Юзефо́вич, born December 18, 1947 in Moscow) is a Russian writer known for the series of crime fiction stories taking place in pre-Revolution Russian Empire. He also writes non-fiction books about history, and currently adapts his stories for TV serials.
  In 1975, he started working as a history teacher at a Moscow school and he is a teacher until today. In 1981 he earned his Ph.D. (Candidate of Sciences) with his thesis on Russian diplomatic etiquette of the 15th-17th centuries.
  His fiction works were occasionally published through the late 1970s and 1980s but he mostly owed his initial popularity to the well-distributed non-fiction book The Sovereign of the Desert about Roman Ungern von Sternberg, issued in 1993. It influenced Victor Pelevin's novel Chapayev and Void, issued in 1996.
  He gained more popularity when in 2001 he switched to detective stories set in the late 19th century, re-inventing the fame of the detective Ivan Putilin.
  
  wn.com/Leonid_Yuzefovich
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  Lev Dyomin
  Lev Stepanovich Dyomin (Russian: Лев Степанович Дёмин; January 11, 1926, in Moscow – December 18, 1998, in Zvyozdny Gorodok) was a Soviet cosmonaut who flew on the Soyuz 15 spaceflight in 1974. This spaceflight was intended to dock with the space station Salyut 3, but the docking failed.
  Dyomin gained a doctoral degree in engineering from the Soviet Air Force Engineering Academy and the rank of Colonel in the Soviet Air Force.
  He only made a single spaceflight before resigning from the space programme in 1982 and taking up deep-sea research.
  He died of cancer in 1998.
  He was awarded:
  
  
  
  
  
  wn.com/Lev_Dyomin
• 
  Lionel Monckton
  Lionel John Alexander Monckton (18 December 1861 – 15 February 1924) was an English writer and composer of musical theatre. He was Britain's most popular musical theatre composer of the early years of the 20th century.
  Monckton was born in London, the eldest son of the Town Clerk of London, Sir John Braddick Monckton, and Lady Monckton, the former Maria Louisa Long (1837–1920), an "enthusiastic amateur actress". His sister was Mrs Augusta Moore, who wrote popular novels as Martin J. Pritchard.
  He was educated at Charterhouse School and Oriel College at Oxford University, graduating in 1885. There he acted in college theatrical productions and composed music for productions of the Oxford University Dramatic Society, of which he was a founder, and the Phil-Thespian Club. He initially joined the legal profession at Lincoln's Inn and began to practise law, but gained part-time work as a song writer and a theatre and music critic, first for the Pall Mall Gazette and later for the Daily Telegraph. His first theatre work was Mummies and Marriage, an operetta produced by amateurs in 1888. At the age of 29, in 1891, he finally managed to place the song "What will you have to Drink?", with lyrics by Basil Hood, in a professional musical burlesque called Cinder Ellen up too Late. After this, his songs were included in several other London shows.
  
  wn.com/Lionel_Monckton
• Lonnie Brooks
  Lonnie Brooks (born Lee Baker Jr., December 18, 1933) is an American blues singer and guitarist. He was born in Dubuisson, Louisiana, United States.Rolling Stone stated, "His music is witty, soulful and ferociously energetic, brimming with novel harmonic turnarounds, committed vocals and simply astonishing guitar work."The New York Times added, "He sings in a rowdy baritone, sliding and rasping in songs that celebrate lust, fulfilled and unfulfilled; his guitar solos are pointed and unhurried, with a tone that slices cleanly across the beat. Wearing a cowboy hat, he looks like the embodiment of a good-time bluesman."
  He learned to play blues from his banjo-picking grandfather, but did not think about a professional career until he moved to Port Arthur, Texas in the early 1950s. There he heard live performances by Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, T-Bone Walker, B.B. King, Long John Hunter and others and began to think about making money from his music. One day, while Brooks was strumming his guitar on his front porch in Port Arthur, Clifton Chenier heard him and offered him a job in his touring band.^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/Lonnie_Brooks
• Lucious Harris
  Lucious H. Harris (born December 18, 1970, in Los Angeles, California) is an American former professional basketball player who was selected by the Dallas Mavericks in the 2nd round (28th overall) of the 1993 NBA Draft. Harris has played for the Mavericks, Philadelphia 76ers, New Jersey Nets and Cleveland Cavaliers in 12 NBA seasons. He played in the 2002 and 2003 NBA Finals as a member of the Nets.
  Harris has played in 800 games and has scored a total of 5,784 points in his NBA career.
  Harris was selected as Eastern Conference Player of the Week for the week of December 23–29, 2003.
  Harris played seven seasons for the New Jersey Nets before being released during the off-season of 2004 due to the teams salary cap problems. He went on to play for the Cleveland Cavaliers during the 2004-05 season, however Harris shot 40 percent from the field and 32 from 3 point land while averaging a career low 4.3 points per game. Following that season, Harris was released by the Cavaliers in an attempt to get under the salary cap.
  
  wn.com/Lucious_Harris
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  Lyman Abbott
  Lyman Abbott (December 18, 1835 – October 22, 1922) was an American Congregationalist theologian, editor, and author.
  Lyman Abbott was born at Roxbury, Massachusetts on December 18, 1835, the son of the prolific author, educator and historian Jacob Abbott. Lyman Abbott grew up in Farmington, Maine and later in New York City.
  He graduated from the New York University in 1853, where he was a member of the Eucleian Society, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1856. Abbott soon abandoned the legal profession, however, and after studying theology with his uncle, John Stevens Cabot Abbott, was ordained a minister of the Congregational Church in 1860.
  He was pastor of the Congregational Church in Terre Haute, Indiana from 1860 to 1865 and of the New England Church in New York City in 1865-1869. From 1865 to 1868 he was secretary of the American Union Commission (later called the American Freedmen's Bureau). In 1869 he resigned his pastorate to devote himself to literature.
  Abbot worked variously in the publishing profession as an associate editor of Harper's Magazine, and was the founder of a publication called the Illustrated Christian Weekly, which he edited for six years. He was also the co-editor of The Christian Union with Henry Ward Beecher from 1876 to 1881. Abbott later succeeded Beecher in 1888 as pastor of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn.
  
  wn.com/Lyman_Abbott
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  Magnus I of Sweden
  Magnus I of Sweden, son of Nicholas (Swedish: Magnus Nilsson ; Danish: Magnus Nielsen), later called Magnus the Strong (born about 1106, died 4 June 1134 in the Battle of Fotevik), was a Danish duke who ruled Gothenland in southern Sweden from 1125 to 1130. His status as ruler of Sweden was disputed in his own time, but today he is recognized as one of the Swedish monarchs.
  Magnus was the son of King Niels I of Denmark and Margaret Fredkulla, the second or eldest daughter of King Inge the Elder of Sweden.
  When Margaret's first cousin King Inge the Younger died in 1125, Magnus claimed the throne as the eldest grandson of Inge the Elder. Magnus was recognized by the Geats (Göterna) of Gothenland, but according to the Westrogothic law, had to be accepted also by the Swea, another tribe to the north of the Geats. The Swea, however, had selected Ragnvald Knaphövde. According to Saxo Grammaticus, Ragnvald had shown disrespect towards the Geats by not taking a Geat hostage. As retaliation, Ragnvald was murdered by Magnus's supporters not long after.
  
  wn.com/Magnus_I_of_Sweden
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  Majel Barrett
  Majel Barrett-Roddenberry (born Majel Leigh Hudec; February 23, 1932 – December 18, 2008) was an American actress and producer. She is best known for her role as Nurse Christine Chapel in the original Star Trek series, Lwaxana Troi on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and for being the voice of most onboard computer interfaces throughout the series. She was also the wife of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry.
  As the wife of Roddenberry and given her ongoing relationship with Star Trek—participating in some way in every series during her lifetime—she was sometimes referred to as "the First Lady of Star Trek". She and Gene Roddenberry were married in Japan on August 6, 1969, after the cancellation of the original Star Trek series. They had one son together, Eugene "Rod" Roddenberry, Jr., born in 1974.
  Hudec began taking acting classes as a child. She attended the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, then had some stage roles and came to Hollywood. Her father, William Hudec, was a Cleveland police officer. He was killed in the line of duty in 1955 while Majel was touring with an off-Broadway road company. In the late 1950s and 1960s, she had bit parts in a few movies and small roles in TV series. She worked at the Desilu Studios on several TV shows, including Bonanza, The Untouchables, The Lucy Show, and The Lieutenant (produced by Gene Roddenberry). She received training in comedy from Lucille Ball. In 1960, she played Gwen Rutherford on Leave It to Beaver. She was also briefly seen in the film Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? in an ad parody at the beginning of the film. Barrett is the mother of Eugene Wesley "Rod" Roddenberry, Jr.
  
  wn.com/Majel_Barrett
• Makiko Esumi
  Makiko Esumi (江角 マキコ, Esumi Makiko^?), née Makiko Hirano (平野真紀子 Hirano Makiko, born 18 December 1966 in Izumo, Shimane Prefecture, Japan) is a Japanese model, actress, writer, essayist, and lyricist. Esumi is most well known for her role as Chinatsu Tsuboi in the Japanese television drama series Shomuni.
  Esumi won the 1995 Rookie of the Year Award at both the 19th Annual Japan Academy Prize ceremonies and at the 38th Blue Ribbon Awards for her role in the 1995 film Maborosi. She was nominated in 2002 for the Best Actress Award at the 26th Annual Japan Academy Prize ceremonies for her role in Inochi.
  In 2000, she released her single, One Way Drive, featuring guitar work and production by Tomoyasu Hotei, who also co-wrote the song with Esumi. She wrote a children's book in 2005.
  Esumi is married to Fuji TV director Shin Hirano and is distantly related to Koji Ezumi, a goalkeeper for Omiya Ardija. She was previously married to photographer Rowland Kirishima. She gave birth in 2005 to her first daughter, with her second due to be born in December 2009.
  
  wn.com/Makiko_Esumi
• Malcolm Kirk
  Malcolm (Mal) Kirk (18 December 1936 – 24 August 1987) was an English professional wrestler who went by the ring name King Kong Kirk.
  Prior to turning to professional wrestling Kirk was a coal miner and a professional rugby league player. From 1954 he played 38 first team matches at prop forward (number 8) for Featherstone Rovers, scoring one try, and afterwards for the struggling Doncaster club where he was a team mate of another future professional wrestler, Ted Heath.
  Bald and fearsome looking, Kirk was usually cast as the "bad guy" and often tagged with the superheavyweight Giant Haystacks. Kirk's work rose to its prominence in the 1970s and 1980s due to the popularity of televised wrestling in the United Kingdom.
  In August 1987, Kirk died after a tragic turn of events during the final moments of a tag team match at the Hippodrome circus in Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, when he teamed with King Kendo against British wrestling legend Shirley "Big Daddy" Crabtree and his nephew Greg Valentine (Steve Crabtree). After Big Daddy had delivered his signature belly-splash and scored the winning pinfall, Kirk turned an unhealthy colour and was rushed to the James Paget hospital in Gorleston in Norfolk, but was pronounced dead on arrival. The inquest into Kirk's death found that he had a serious heart condition and cleared Crabtree of any responsibility.
  
  wn.com/Malcolm_Kirk
• Marcel Mule
  Marcel Mule (June 24, 1901; December 18, 2001) was a French classical saxophonist.
  Marcel Mule was known worldwide as one of the great classical saxophonists, and many pieces were written for him, premiered by him, and arranged by him. Many of these pieces have become staples in the classical saxophone repertoire. He is considered to be the founder of the French Saxophone School and the most representative saxophone soloist of his time, being a fundamental figure in the development of the instrument. Yet, his beginnings were very humble.
  Marcel Mule was born in a village in Aube, France, to a father who learned the saxophone while doing his military service and became director of the brass band of Beaumont-le-Roger. In a time when Paris lacked saxophone teachers, having contact with brass bands was the only way to learn to play the saxophone. His father introduced him to the saxophone at the age of eight, in addition to violin and piano. He also taught him to play with a "straight" tone (no vibrato), which was the custom of the day.
  
  wn.com/Marcel_Mule
• Marigje Arriens
  Marigje Arriens (c. 1520, Poederoijen, Gelderland – 18 December 1591, Schoonhoven), was an alleged Dutch witch and one of the more known victims of the witch hunt in the Netherlands.
  Arriens was active in medicine. One theory is, that she was accused by an old patient of having threatened to put a spell on a boy. She was judged guilty of sorcery and sentenced to be burned alive at the stake, often mentioned as one of the last people executed for sorcery in the Netherlands, a country where the witch hunt ended earlier than in many other European countries. One of the reasons for this misconception was, that the year of her death had long been confused and believed to be 1597 instead of 1591. In reality, there were several people in the Netherlands executed for sorcery after her; the last people executed for sorcery in the Netherlands were Anna Muggen, burned at the stake in Gorinchem in 1608, and Triene Lancheldes in 1613.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Marigje_Arriens
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  Mario Basler
  Mario Basler (born 18 December 1968 in Neustadt an der Weinstraße) is a German former football winger and current manager.
  In the Bundesliga, Basler played for the 1. FC Kaiserslautern, Werder Bremen and Bayern Munich, after having played for Hertha BSC and Rot-Weiss Essen in the 2. Bundesliga beforehand.
  He won the national championship with Bayern Munich in 1997 and 1999.
  Basler was top-scorer of the Bundesliga in 1995 and was a squad-member of the Euro 1996 winning German National Team (Basler's shirt number was 13), but because of an injury he didn't take part in the final tournament in England. He scored twice in 30 appearances for Germany. He also scored the opening goal for Bayern Munich in their 1999 UEFA Champions League Final against Manchester United at Camp Nou, Barcelona. It was a well taken free-kick in the 6th minute of the game. Bayern went on to lose the match 2–1 after Manchester United made a dramatic recovery late on in the game.
  A dead-ball specialist, Basler scored numerous goals from free-kicks and two direct from corner kicks during his career, called Olympic goals.
  
  wn.com/Mario_Basler
• Mark Goodson
  Mark Goodson (January 14, 1915 – December 18, 1992) was an American television producer who specialized in game shows.
  Mark Goodson was born in Sacramento, California on January 14, 1915. His parents, Abraham Ellis and Fannie Goodson, emigrated from Russia in the early 1900s. As a child, Goodson acted in amateur theater with the Plaza Stock Company. The family later moved to Hayward, California. Originally intending to become a lawyer, Goodson attended the University of California, Berkeley. He financed his education through scholarships and by working at the Lincoln Fish Market. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1937 with a degree in Economics. That year, he began his broadcasting career in San Francisco, working as a disc jockey at station KJBS. In 1939 he joined radio station KFRC, where he produced and hosted a radio quiz called "Pop the Question" in which contestants selected questions by throwing darts at multi-colored balloons.
  In 1941, Goodson married his first wife, Bluma Neveleff, and moved to New York City, where he teamed up with partner Bill Todman. The pair's first radio show, Winner Take All, premiered on CBS in 1946. Outside of television production, Goodson and Todman went on to own several newspapers in New England as well as radio station KOL in Seattle, Washington. Bill Todman died in 1979, and in the early 1980s the Goodsons acquired the Todman heirs' portion of the company.
  
  wn.com/Mark_Goodson
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  Masaki Sumitani
  Masaki Sumitani (住谷 正樹, Sumitani Masaki^?) is a Japanese comedian, retired professional wrestler and tarento ("talent"), best known under his performing name of Razor Ramon Hard Gay (レイザーラモンＨＧ, Reizā Ramon HG^?, occasionally HG, Razor Ramon Sumitani or just Hard Gay). His act gained national attention and popularity when featured on the Bakusho Mondai no Bakuten! (Daibakuten) Saturday variety show on TBS Television in Japan, in 2005.
  Masaki Sumitani was born December 18, 1975 in Harima, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. After graduating from Hyogo Prefectural Kakogawa Higashi High School, he entered Doshisha University and majored in Commerce.
  While at college he picked up wrestling as a hobby and soon joined the Doshisha Professional Wrestling Alliance (DWA). Under his performing name "GiveUp Sumitani," he won the heavy class Kyoto pro-wrestling championship co-hosted by DWA and the Ritsumeikan Wrestling Alliance (RWA) of nearby Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto. Former IWGP Champion Hiroshi Tanahashi was also a participant of these events.
  
  wn.com/Masaki_Sumitani
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  Michael Moorcock
  Michael John Moorcock (born 18 December 1939, in London) is an English writer, primarily of science fiction and fantasy, who has also published a number of literary novels.
  Moorcock has mentioned The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Apple Cart by George Bernard Shaw and The Constable of St. Nicholas by Edwin Lester Arnold as the first three books which captured his imagination. He became editor of Tarzan Adventures in 1956, at the age of 16, and later moved on to edit Sexton Blake Library.
  As editor of the controversial British science fiction magazine New Worlds, from May 1964 until March 1971 and then again from 1976 to 1996, Moorcock fostered the development of the science fiction "New Wave" in the UK and indirectly in the United States. His serialization of Norman Spinrad's Bug Jack Barron was notorious for causing British MPs to condemn in Parliament the Arts Council's funding of the magazine.
  During this time, he occasionally wrote under the pseudonym of "James Colvin", a "house pseudonym" used by other critics on New Worlds. A spoof obituary of Colvin appeared in New Worlds #197 (January 1970), written by "William Barclay" (another Moorcock pseudonym). Moorcock, indeed, makes much use of the initials "JC", and not entirely coincidentally these are also the initials of Jesus Christ, the subject of his 1967 Nebula award-winning novella Behold the Man, which tells the story of Karl Glogauer, a time-traveller who takes on the role of Christ. They are also the initials of various "Eternal Champion" Moorcock characters such as Jerry Cornelius, Jerry Cornell and Jherek Carnelian. In more recent years, Moorcock has taken to using "Warwick Colvin, Jr." as yet another pseudonym, particularly in his "Second Ether" fiction. In 2008, The Times newspaper named Moorcock in their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".
  
  wn.com/Michael_Moorcock
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  Michel Chasles
  Michel Floréal Chasles (15 November 1793 – 18 December 1880) was a French mathematician.
  He was born at Épernon in France and studied at the École Polytechnique in Paris under Siméon Denis Poisson. In the War of the Sixth Coalition he was drafted to fight in the defence of Paris in 1814. After the war, he gave up on a career as an engineer or stockbroker in order to pursue his mathematical studies.
  In 1837 he published his Historical view of the origin and development of methods in geometry, a study of the method of reciprocal polars in projective geometry. The work gained him considerable fame and respect and he was appointed Professor at the École Polytechnique in 1841, then he was awarded a chair at the Sorbonne in 1846. A second edition of his book was published in 1875, and Leonhard Sohncke translated the work into German.
  Jakob Steiner had proposed the problem of enumerating the number of conic sections tangent to each of five given conics, and had answered it incorrectly. Chasles developed a theory of characteristics that enabled the correct enumeration of the conics (there are 3264) (see enumerative geometry). He established several important theorems (all called Chasles' theorem). That on solid body kinematics was seminal for understanding their motions, and hence to the development of the theories of dynamics of rigid bodies.
  
  wn.com/Michel_Chasles
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  Michio Nishizawa
  Michio Nishizawa (西澤 道夫^?, September 1, 1921-December 18, 1977) was a prominent Japanese Nippon Professional Baseball player.
  He debuted with Nagoya at the age of 15 in 1936, the youngest player ever in the history of pro Yakyu. He achieved early fame as a pitcher, developing into a twenty game winner by 1939. His most memorable pitching feats occurred in 1942. On May 24 of that year, Nishizawa pitched a remarkable twenty-eight complete innings, totalling 311 pitches in a 4-4 tie against the Taiyō Whales at Korakuen Stadium. Later that year, he tossed his first and only no-hitter, accomplishing the feat against the Hankyu team. Despite a career Earned Run Average of 2.22, the heavy workload combined with injuries sustained during two years of service in World War II forced him to switch positions to first base, and later the outfield.
  After early struggles with the bat, Nishizawa developed into a feared hitter. He swatted a then league record 46 home runs in 1950. His best season came in 1952, when he led the league in both batting average and runs batted in. Two years later, Nishizawa led the Dragons to the 1954 Central League title, breaking an eight year run by the Yomiuri Giants.
  
  wn.com/Michio_Nishizawa
• Mick Collins
  Mick Collins (born December 18, 1965) is a musician from Detroit, Michigan.
  Collins first played in a band called the U-Boats in 1981 and then in the Floor Tasters from 1984 to 1985. In 1986, the 20-year old Collins helped form the seminal garage punk band, The Gories. The band featured Collins on guitar, Dan Kroha (later of the Demolition Doll Rods) on guitar, and Peg O'Neil on the drums. After three albums and five singles the band suffered an infamous break-up in 1992.
  Collins next worked in a basic garage rock band, Blacktop, from 1994 to 1996. This band had its own share of troubles, as detailed in Collins' liner-notes for the band's compilation release, I've Got a Bad Feeling About This: The Complete Recordings. Another project around this time was The Screws.
  After the demise of Blacktop, Collins helped form the King Sound Quartet, which had one single in 1996 and one album, The Get Down Imperative, in 1997.
  Collins then focused on another of his projects, the wide-ranging, musically eclectic Dirtbombs. Beginning with the "High Octane Salvation" single in 1996, the Dirtbombs have come to be Collins' most durable and arguably most popular project (rivaled only by the legendary status of The Gories). The Dirtbombs had a changing shift of musicians behind Collins on guitar, but since 2004 have had a steady line-up. Throughout, the band has consisted of a 2-drum, 2-bass set-up behind Collins' guitar work.
  
  wn.com/Mick_Collins
• Mike Dickin
  Mike Dickin (September 28, 1943 – December 18, 2006), was a late-night host on the British radio station talkSPORT. Dickin used to present the 1am to 6am slot at weekends on Talk Radio UK from 1995 to 2001. He returned filling in for James Whale during James' battle with kidney cancer. He was given the morning show slot soon afterwards, and then moved to the 10pm to 1am show on weekends before his death. He was apparently known as the King by his fans due to his resemblance to King Henry VIII however this has been disputed and he was certainly never called by this name on his radio show in recent times.
  Starting out as a musician in the 1960s, Dickin was a bass player and singer who found he preferred playing records to making them when he joined the BBC in 1970 as the first presenter on air at Radio Oxford. In 1977, Dickin moved to Australia where he worked for Sydney's biggest radio station, 2UE. Upon returning to the UK in the late '70s he spent 17 years working for BBC Radio 4, LBC and Capital Radio. He started at Talksport (then Talk Radio UK) in 1995 taking over from Nick Miller.
  
  wn.com/Mike_Dickin
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  Miki Ando
  Miki Ando (安藤 美姫, Andō Miki^?, born December 18, 1987) is a Japanese figure skater. She is the 2007 and 2011 World Champion, 2011 Four Continents Champion, 2004 World Junior Champion, and a three-time (2004, 2005 & 2010) Japanese National Champion.
  Ando is the first and only female skater to complete a quadruple jump successfully in competition. She accomplished this at the 2002–2003 Junior Grand Prix Final in The Hague.
  Ando was born in Nagoya, Japan in 1987. Her father died when she was eight years old. In 2006, she joined Toyota and also entered Chukyo University as an adult learner, from which she graduated in March 2011. Ando learned English during her time training in the U.S.
  She began skating in 1996 at the age of eight. She soon turned to Yuko Monna whose students at that time included Mao Asada and Mai Asada. Beginning in the 2000–2001 season, she was coached by Nobuo Satō, and her program already featured a triple lutz-triple loop.
  In the 2001–2002 season she won the Japan Junior Championships, as well as the Junior Grand Prix Final. She also earned bronze medals at the Japanese Championships (senior) and at the Junior Worlds.
  
  wn.com/Miki_Ando
• Miles Marshall Lewis
  Miles Marshall Lewis (born December 18, 1970) is an American pop culture critic, essayist, literary editor, fiction writer, and music journalist. He is a graduate of Morehouse College, class of 1993.
  Lewis was born in The Bronx, New York, at the beginning of hip hop culture in the early 1970s. He expatriated from the United States to Paris, France during 2004 in response to the Iraq War. His debut essay collection, Scars of the Soul Are Why Kids Wear Bandages When They Don't Have Bruises (2004) – a book described as “an observant and urbane B-boy’s rites of passage” – established Lewis as a prose stylist observing American culture in a style directly influenced by Joan Didion, mixing personal reflection with social analysis and humor.
  Lewis’s second book, There’s a Riot Goin’ On (2006), deals with the making of the seminal 1971 album of the same name by Sly and the Family Stone, and the death of the 1960s counterculture. Lewis is the founder and editor of the literary journal Bronx Biannual. He and his French wife Christine Herelle-Lewis live together in France raising their sons, Lucas and Kalel.
  
  wn.com/Miles_Marshall_Lewis
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  Mille Petrozza
  Miland "Mille" Petrozza (born December 18, 1966) is a German (of Italian- from Calabria descent) guitarist and singer. He is best known for being the lead vocalist of the band Kreator (which he started playing in as Tormentor in 1984). He also had a school-band named Tyrant.
  Petrozza also shared lead vocals in union with Tomas Lindberg for the track "Dirty Coloured Knife" on the self-titled 2002 album from Israeli metal act Nail Within.
  In 1994, he played guitar in the metal all-star band Voodoocult, amongst such artists as Dave Lombardo of Slayer and Chuck Schuldiner of Death.
  He appeared on Edguy's 2004 album, Hellfire Club, providing lead vocals on an alternate version of the album's opening song, "Mysteria", featured as a bonus track to the album. He also appeared on Caliban's 2006 album The Undying Darkness on "Moment of Clarity". Also, he acts as himself in the "IchGott"-videoclip of "Honigdieb".
  He also most recently appeared on the 2010 Volbeat album Beyond Hell/Above Heaven on the track titled "7 Shots".
  
  wn.com/Mille_Petrozza
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  Mirza Tahir Ahmad
  Mirza Tahir Ahmad (Urdu: مرزا طاہراحمد) (December 18, 1928 – April 19, 2003) was Khalifatul Masih IV, Caliph of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community and fourth successor to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. He was elected as Caliph on June 10, 1982, the day after the death of his predecessor, Mirza Nasir Ahmad.
  In 1974, he was nominated as a member of the Ahmadiyya delegation which appeared before the Parliament of Pakistan to defend the beliefs of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. As Khalifatul Masih IV, Tahir Ahmad attended the 100th Annual Jalsa Salana (annual gathering) being held in Qadian, India in 1991. It was the first time an Ahmadiyya Caliph had returned to Qadian since the partition of India occurred in 1947 when the community relocated from India to Pakistan.
  Tahir Ahmad is perhaps best known for his "Question & Answers" sessions. During his Caliphate, the community experienced structural and financial growth including the launch of the first Muslim satellite television network, Muslim Television Ahmadiyya, in 1994.
  
  wn.com/Mirza_Tahir_Ahmad
• Natalie Gal
  Natalia Ivanovna Galkina (rus. Наталья Ивановна Галкина; born December 18, 1985) is a Russian-born American fashion model and actress, who made her television debut as runner-up on the eighth series of America's Next Top Model.
  Natalia Ivanovna Galkina was born into the family of an opera singer and a poet; she started studying ballet, arts, along with playing piano, singing, and performing in a theatre at the age of 6. She studied acting at the Moscow Art Theatre and New York University.
  In 2007 Galkina was a contestant on America's Next Top Model, Cycle 8, where she was known as Natasha. She didn't make a strong start, but by the fourth week her hard work was receiving recognition, and from the fifth till the final show she maintained a place in the top three photos. For five consecutive weeks (fifth until tenth) she finished in the top two photos, and received two first-call outs. Natasha made it through to the final against Jaslene Gonzalez, who was announced as the winner, with Natasha finishing as the first runner-up.
  
  wn.com/Natalie_Gal
• Nina Wadia
  Nina Wadia is an Indian British actress, best known for playing Zainab Khan in the British soap opera EastEnders.
  Wadia first came to prominence in BBC sketch show Goodness Gracious Me, playing characters such as Mrs "I can make it at home for nothing!" and one half of The Competitive Mothers. She took over from her Goodness Gracious Me co-star, Meera Syal, in the role of Rupinder in the sitcom All About Me alongside Jasper Carrott and Natalia Kills.
  In 2007, Wadia was cast as Zainab Masood in the long-running BBC soap opera EastEnders. She also had a minor role in the show in 1994, playing a nurse named Viv who treated Michelle Fowler (Susan Tully) when she was hospitalised with a gunshot wound. She also appears as Zainab in the 2010 spin-off EastEnders: E20.
  Wadia has also made several guest appearances in various British comedies and dramas, such as 2point4 Children, The Vicar of Dibley, Thin Ice Chambers, Holby City, Murder in Mind and Doctors. She was a regular presenter on the ITV topical chat show, Loose Women (2005–2006). Wadia has most recently appeared in the E4 teen Comedy/Drama Skins, playing the mother of Anwar Kharral, and, in March 2008, she appeared in the BBC Three pilot West 10 LDN, she also appeared in New Tricks once. In 2011 Wadia appeared in Would I Lie To You?
  
  wn.com/Nina_Wadia
• Noriko Matsueda
  Noriko Matsueda (松枝 賀子, Matsueda Noriko^?, born December 18, 1971) is a Japanese former video game composer. She is best known for her work on the Front Mission series, The Bouncer, and Final Fantasy X-2. Matsueda collaborated with fellow composer Takahito Eguchi on several games. Composing music at an early age, she began studying the piano and electronic organ when she was three years old. She graduated from the Tokyo Conservatoire Shobi, where she met Eguchi.
  She joined Square (now Square Enix) in 1994, where she created music for nine games. Her last credited work was Final Fantasy X-2's piano arrangement album, Final Fantasy X-2 Piano Collection from 2004, after which she decided to leave the company alongside Eguchi. She composed mostly jazz music for the scores she worked on.
  Born in Tochigi, Japan, Noriko Matsueda began creating music at an early age. She received a scholarship in music at the age of three and went on to study the piano and electronic organ. Matsueda took various composition and performance courses at the Tokyo Conservatoire Shobi, where she also met long-term collaborator Takahito Eguchi. She joined Square in 1994, where her first assignment was to score the 1995 title Front Mission alongside Yoko Shimomura. She subsequently contributed the track "Boss Battle 1" to Chrono Trigger, arranged by Nobuo Uematsu. Matsueda's first solo work was Bahamut Lagoon, which also represented her first collaboration with Eguchi, who arranged and orchestrated "Theme of Bahamut Lagoon ~ Opening" for the bonus disc of its original soundtrack. In 1996, she created the composition "Tower Block" for the multi-composer game Tobal No. 1. The following year, she created the soundtrack to Front Mission 2.
  
  wn.com/Noriko_Matsueda
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  Ossie Davis
  Ossie Davis (born Raiford Chatman Davis, December 18, 1917 – February 4, 2005) was an Emmy Award winning and Grammy nominated, African- American film, television and Broadway actor, director, poet, playwright, author, and social activist.
  Davis was born Raiford Chatman Davis in Cogdell, Clinch County, Georgia, a son of Kince Charles Davis, a railway construction engineer, and his wife Laura (née Cooper). The name Ossie came from a county clerk who misheard his mother's pronunciation of his initials "R.C." when he was born. So he inadvertently became "Ossie" when his mother told the courthouse clerk in Clinch River, Ga., who was filing his birth certificate that his name was R.C. Davis. Davis experienced racism from an early age as the KKK threatened to shoot his father, whose job they felt was too advanced for a black man to have. Following the wishes of his parents, he attended Howard University but dropped out in 1939 to fulfill his acting career in New York; he later attended Columbia University School of General Studies. His acting career, which spanned seven decades, began in 1939 with the Rose McClendon Players in Harlem. He made his film debut in 1950 in the Sidney Poitier film No Way Out. He voiced Anansi the spider on the PBS children's television series Sesame Street in its animation segments.
  
  wn.com/Ossie_Davis
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  Ozzy Osbourne
  John Michael "Ozzy" Osbourne (born 3 December 1948) is an English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter, whose musical career has spanned over 40 years. Osbourne rose to prominence as lead singer of the pioneering English band Black Sabbath, whose dark and hard sound helped spawn the heavy metal genre. Due to Sabbath's dark style, Osbourne became known as the "Prince of Darkness". Osbourne is also known as the "Godfather of Heavy Metal".
  In the early 2000s, Osbourne's career expanded when he became a star in his own reality show The Osbournes, alongside wife/manager Sharon and two of their three children, Kelly and Jack. A documentary about his life and career, God Bless Ozzy Osbourne, premiered in April 2011 at the Tribeca Film Festival and was released on DVD in November 2011. Osbourne has achieved multi-platinum status as a solo artist and with Black Sabbath and has sold over 100 million albums worldwide.
  John Michael "Ozzy" Osbourne was born in Aston, Birmingham, England, on 3 December 1948. His father Jack worked shifts as a toolmaker at GEC. His mother Lillian worked for the car components firm Lucas. John was the fourth of six children. Ozzy had two brothers (Paul and Tony) and three sisters (Jean, Iris and Gillian); they lived in a small two bedroom home at 14 Lodge Road in Aston. The nickname "Ozzy" was first used when he was in primary school. Although called "John" by his first wife Thelma, Osbourne states that it has been a long time since he's recognised himself when called by his formal name.
  
  wn.com/Ozzy_Osbourne
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  Paul Klee
  Paul Klee (German pronunciation: [ˈkleː]; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered both a German and a Swisspainter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He was, as well, a student of orientalism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented with and eventually mastered colour theory, and wrote extensively about it; his lectures Writings on Form and Design Theory (Schriften zur Form und Gestaltungslehre), published in English as the Paul Klee Notebooks, are considered so important for modern art that they are compared to the importance that Leonardo da Vinci's A Treatise on Painting had for Renaissance. He and his colleague, the Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky, both taught at the German Bauhaus school of art, design and architecture. His works reflect his dry humour and his sometimes childlike perspective, his personal moods and beliefs, and his musicality.
  
  wn.com/Paul_Klee
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  Paul Siple
  Paul Allman Siple (December 18, 1908 – November 25, 1968) was an American Antarctic explorer and geographer who took part in six Antarctic expeditions, including the two Byrd expeditions of 1928–1930 and 1933–1935, representing the Boy Scouts of America as an Eagle Scout. Siple was also a Sea Scout. His first and third books covered these adventures. With Charles F. Passel he developed the wind chill factor, and Siple coined the term.
  Siple was born in Montpelier, Ohio on December 18, 1908 to Clyde Lavonius Siple and Fannie Hope Allman. His family moved to Erie, Pennsylvania, where he graduated from Central High School in 1926. He became an Eagle Scout in 1923 with 59 merit badges. After an extensive nationwide search in 1928, he was the first Eagle Scout selected for an Antarctic expedition. Siple appeared in the documentary film With Byrd at the South Pole (1930).
  He became a brother of the Alpha Chi Rho fraternity while attending Allegheny College, in Meadville, Pennsylvania. He married Ruth Ida Johannesmeyer on December 19, 1936.
  
  wn.com/Paul_Siple
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  Paul Tortelier
  Paul Tortelier (March 21, 1914 – December 18, 1990) was a French cellist and composer.
  Tortelier was born in Paris, the son of a cabinet maker with Breton roots. He was encouraged to play the cello by his father Joseph and mother Marguerite (Boura), and at 12 he entered the Paris Conservatoire. He studied the cello there with Louis Feuillard and then Gérard Hekking. He won the first prize in cello at the conservatoire when he was 16, and then he studied harmony under Jean Gallon. His debut was with the Orchestre Lamoureux in 1931 at the age of 17. He performed Lalo's Cello Concerto.
  In 1935 Tortelier joined the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra as first cellist and played with them until 1937. He gave performances under Bruno Walter and Arturo Toscanini, and he also played the solo part in Richard Strauss' Don Quixote under the composer. This is a piece which became closely associated with Tortelier, as he gave many performances and recorded it.
  In 1937 he joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Serge Koussevitsky, performing as first cellist through 1940. In 1938 he began a solo career at Boston's Town Hall, accompanied by Leonard Shure. He was first cellist of the Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire, Paris, 1946–47. In 1947 he gave his British debut under Beecham, again performing Don Quixote at the Festival of Richard Strauss in London. "My boy" Beecham said "you will be successful in England because you have temperament". In 1950 Tortelier was selected by Casals to play as the principal cellist in the Prades Festival Orchestra. Tortelier believed that of all the cellists, it was Casals who influenced him the most. A French critic wrote of him: "If Casals is Jupiter, then Tortelier is Apollo." Tortelier performed for the Peabody Mason Concert series in Boston in 1952.
  
  wn.com/Paul_Tortelier
• Pauline Ester
  Pauline Ester (born Sabrina Ocon, born on 18 December 1963 in Toulouse) is a French singer.
  Her album Le Monde est fou, certified Gold disc, met success by the general public between 1989 and 1991 thanks to the songs "Le Monde est fou", "Il fait chaud", "Une Fenêtre ouverte", and particularly "Oui, j'l'adore", which was a hit in 1990. After a second album, De l'autre côté, Pauline Ester faded into the background before making a come back in 2006 with a best-of containing three new songs.
  In 2008, her hit "Oui, j'l'adore" was used in a French TV advert for Groupama.
  
  wn.com/Pauline_Ester
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  Peter Boulware
  Peter Nicholas Boulware (born December 18, 1974) is a former American college and professional football player who was a linebacker in the National Football League (NFL) for nine seasons. He played college football for Florida State University, and was recognized as an All-American. A first-round pick of the Baltimore Ravens in the 1997 NFL Draft, he played his entire pro career for the Ravens.
  Boulware was a Republican candidate for the Florida House of Representatives in the 2008 general election.
  Boulware was born in Columbia, South Carolina. He played at Heathwood Hall Episcopal School, and then graduated first from Spring Valley High School, and went on to play for Florida State University. He was an all-state pick for Spring Valley High School in 1992. He recorded 132 tackles, 14 sacks, and two blocked punts and was named one of the top 50 athletes in the nation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also named one of the nation's top 100 athletes by the Dallas Morning News.
  Boulware accepted an athletic scholarship to attend Florida State University, where he played for coach Bobby Bowden's Florida State Seminoles football team from 1993 to 1996. He redshirted his freshman season in 1993; as a redshirt freshman in 1994, he recorded 37 tackles, five sacks, and five tackles for loss. One of his sacks was recorded against Florida Gators quarterback Danny Wuerffel in the 1995 Sugar Bowl.
  
  wn.com/Peter_Boulware
• Peter Wessel Zapffe
  Peter Wessel Zapffe (December 18, 1899 – October 12, 1990) was a Norwegian metaphysician, author and mountaineer. He was well known for his somewhat pessimistic view of human existence and his philosophy is widely considered to be pessimistic, much like the work of the earlier philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, by whom he was inspired. His thoughts regarding the error of human existence are presented in the essay "The Last Messiah" (original: Den sidste Messias, 1933). This essay is a shorter version of his best-known work, the philosophical treatise On the Tragic (original: Om det tragiske 1941).
  Zapffe's theory is that humans are born with an overdeveloped skill (understanding, self-knowledge) which does not fit into nature's design. The human craving for justification on matters such as life and death cannot be satisfied, hence humanity has a need that nature cannot satisfy. The tragedy, following this theory, is that humans spend all their time trying not to be human. The human being, therefore, is a paradox.
  
  wn.com/Peter_Wessel_Zapffe
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  Phil Cavarretta
  Philip Joseph Cavarretta (July 19, 1916 – December 18, 2010) was an American Major League Baseball first baseman, outfielder, and manager.
  Cavarretta spent almost his entire baseball career with the Chicago Cubs. He was voted the 1945 National League Most Valuable Player after leading the Cubs to the pennant while winning the batting title with a .355 average. His 20 seasons (1934–1953) played for the Cubs is the second-most in franchise history, behind Cap Anson. He managed the Cubs in his final three seasons with the club.
  Cavaretta attended Lane Tech High School in Chicago, and signed a professional contract with the Cubs before finishing high school. In his first professional game with Peoria at age 17 in 1934, Cavaretta hit for the cycle as a right fielder. That same year he was brought up to the Cubs to replace manager Charlie Grimm at first base. He first appeared in a major league game on September 16, 1934, less than two months after his 18th birthday, pinch-hitting unsuccessfully for the Cubs' shortstop Billy Jurges in the fifth inning of the first game of a doubleheader in Brooklyn. A week later, on September 25, in his first start and his first appearance at the Cubs' home park, Wrigley Field, Cavaretta hit a home run that supplied the winning margin in the Cubs' 1–0 win over Cincinnati. In his 1935 rookie season, he batted .275 with 82 runs batted in, also leading the league in double plays, as the Cubs captured their third pennant in seven years by winning 21 straight games in September; however, he batted only .125 in the World Series loss to the Detroit Tigers. Over the next several seasons he provided solid if unspectacular play at first base, routinely batting between .270 and .291 every season but one through 1943, though he lost significant playing time from 1938 to 1940 due to a hip injury and an ankle broken twice while sliding. In the 1938 World Series against the New York Yankees, he batted .462 as the Cubs were swept.
  
  wn.com/Phil_Cavarretta
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  Pierre Cauchon
  Pierre Cauchon (b. 1371 in Rheims, d. December 1442 in Rouen), bishop of Beauvais. A strong partisan of English interests in France during the latter years of the Hundred Years' War, his role in arranging Joan of Arc's downfall led most subsequent observers to condemn his extension of secular politics into an ecclesiastical trial. The Catholic Church overturned his verdict in 1455.
  Cauchon came from a middle class family in Rheims. He entered the clergy as a teenager and went to Paris where he studied at the University. Cauchon was a brilliant student in the liberal arts. He followed with studies in Canon law and theology and became a priest.
  By 1404 Cauchon was curé of Égliselles and sought a post near Rheims. He defended the university of Paris in a quarrel against Toulouse. Cauchon sought advancement through noble patronage. He allied himself with Duke John the Fearless of Burgundy and later his successor Philip the Good.
  In 1407, Cauchon was part of a mission from the crown of France to attempt to reconcile The Great Schism between rival claimants to the papacy Boniface IX and Gregory XII. Although the delegation failed to achieve its goal, it raised Pierre Cauchon's prestige as a negotiator.
  
  wn.com/Pierre_Cauchon
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  Pyotr Klimuk
  Pyotr Ilyich Klimuk (Belarusian: Пётр Ільіч Кліму́к; Russian: Пётр Ильич Климу́к; born July 10, 1942 in Kamaroŭka, Brest Voblast, Byelorussian SSR, is a former Soviet cosmonaut and the first Belarusian to perform space travel. Klimuk made three flights into space.
  Klimuk attended the Leninski Komsomol Chernigov High Aviation School and entered the Soviet Air Force in 1964. The following year, he was selected to join the space programme.
  His first flight was a long test flight on Soyuz 13 in 1973. This was followed by a mission to the Salyut 4 space station on Soyuz 18 in 1975.
  From 1976 he became involved in the Intercosmos and made his third and final spaceflight on an Intercosmos flight with Polish cosmonaut Mirosław Hermaszewski on Soyuz 30.
  He resigned from the cosmonaut team in 1978 to take up a position as the Assistant to the Chief of the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center. In 1991 he was promoted to Chief of that facility and remained in that post until retirement in 2003.
  Klimuk is a graduate of the Gagarin Air Force Academy and the Lenin Military Political Academy.
  
  wn.com/Pyotr_Klimuk
• Rachel Griffiths
  Rachel Anne Griffiths (born 18 December 1968) is an Australian film and television actress. She came to prominence with the 1994 film Muriel's Wedding and her Academy Award nominated performance in Hilary and Jackie (1997). She is best known for her portrayals of Brenda Chenowith in the HBO series Six Feet Under and Sarah Walker on the ABC primetime drama Brothers & Sisters. Her work in film and television has earned her a Golden Globe Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards and three Australian Film Institute Awards.
  Griffiths was born in Melbourne, but spent her early childhood on the Gold Coast. She is the daughter of Anna, an art teacher and arts/education consultant, and Edward Griffiths. She moved to Melbourne at the age of 5, with her mother and two older brothers (when she was 11, her father left home with an 18 year old woman). After earning a Bachelor of Education degree in drama and dance at Victoria College, Rusden, she began her career as a member of Woolly Jumpers, a Geelong based community theatre group. She had her first success as the creator and performer of Barbie Gets Hip, which played at the Melbourne International Film Festival in 1991.
  
  wn.com/Rachel_Griffiths
• Rah Digga
  Rah Digga (born Rashia Fisher) is an American rapper. Well known as a long time member of the Flipmode Squad, a hip hop group led by Busta Rhymes, she parted ways amicably with the group in 2007. She has been called "one of rap's most prominent women MCs" by Allmusic and "one of hip-hop's most skilled female MCs" in the book How to Rap. Rah Digga is a resident of Newark, New Jersey.
  Rah Digga was born in New Jersey and went to study electrical engineering at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. She learned how to rap by studying the raps of KRS-One, Rakim, and Kool G Rap of the Juice Crew.
  She starred in the movie Thirteen Ghost, and she worked with hip-hop group Twice the Flavor before joining the Outsidaz, leading to a feature on the track "Cowboys" from the Fugees album The Score. Being seen by Q-Tip at the Lyricist Lounge lead to her meeting with Busta Rhymes, and joining his Flipmode Squad, later appearing on "numerous Busta Rhymes albums". Her debut solo, Dirty Harriet, was released in 2000 featuring Busta Rhymes and Eve. She also worked with Bahamadia on the track "Be Ok" from Lyricist Lounge, Vol. 1.
  
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  Ram Prasad Bismil
  Ram Prasad Bismil (11 June 1897 - 19 December 1927) was an Indian revolutionary who participated in Mainpuri Conspiracy of 1918, and the Kakori conspiracy of 1925, both against British Empire. As well as being a freedom fighter, he was also a patriotic poet. Ram, Agyat and Bismil were known as his pen names which he used in Urdu and Hindi poetry. But, he became popular with the last name "Bismil" only. He was associated with Arya Samaj where he got inspiration from Satyarth Prakash, a book written by Swami Dayanand Saraswati. He also had a confidential connection with Lala Har Dayal through his guru Swami Somdev, who was a renowned preacher of Arya Samaj.
  Bismil was one of the founder members of the revolutionary organisation Hindustan Republican Association. Bhagat Singh praised him as a great poet-writer of Urdu and Hindi, who had also translated the books Catherine from English and Bolshevikon Ki Kartoot from Bengali. Several inspiring patriotic verses are attributed to him. The famous poem "Sarfaroshi ki Tamanna" is also popularly attributed to him, although some progressive writers have remarked that 'Bismil' Azimabadi actually wrote the poem and Ram Prasad Bismil immortalized it.
  
  wn.com/Ram_Prasad_Bismil
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  Ramsey Clark
  William Ramsey Clark (born December 18, 1927) is an American lawyer, activist and former public official. He worked for the U.S. Department of Justice, which included service as United States Attorney General from 1967 to 1969, under President Lyndon B. Johnson. He supervised the drafting and played an important role in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and Civil Rights Act of 1968. Since leaving public office Clark has led many left-wing activism campaigns, including opposition to the War on Terror, and he has offered legal defense to controversial figures such as Lyndon LaRouche, Slobodan Milošević and Saddam Hussein.
  Clark was born in Dallas, Texas, to Thomas Campbell Clark, who was also a United States Attorney General and a justice of the Supreme Court, and Mary Jane (née Ramsey), the daughter of a prominent Texas judge and lawyer Wiliam Franklin Ramsey. Clark served in the United States Marine Corps in 1945 and 1946, then earned a B.A. degree from the University of Texas at Austin in 1949, and an M.A. and a J.D. from the University of Chicago in 1950. While at the Texas he was a member of Delta Tau Delta International Fraternity.
  
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• Randy Castillo
  Randolpho Francisco Castillo (December 18, 1950 – March 26, 2002) was best known as Ozzy Osbourne's drummer during the mid 1980s to the early 1990s, and later as drummer for Mötley Crüe, from 1999-2002.
  Randy Castillo was born to a Spanish/French/Native American mother, Margaret, and Native American/Hispanic father Frank (Kiko). He was one of five children, and his sisters, Frances, Marilyn, Phyllis and Christine, all play music. His first band experience was at West Mesa High School, playing in the jazz band, orchestra and marching band. He wrote the high school cadence that is still being used to this day. He played trumpet for a short time then realized his passion was the drums. He decided he wanted a drum kit instead, especially after seeing The Beatles play on the Ed Sullivan Show in early February 1964. However, his father refused to buy him one, thinking he would only lose interest, as he had already done with the trumpet.
  When he was 18, Randy played in a band called The Tabbs, who wore mustard coloured Nehru jackets on stage. On 18 June 1970, exactly three months before Jimi Hendrix died, he snuck into one of Hendrix's concerts and hid under the stage to get a closer look. After leaving The Tabbs, he then played with The Mudd and began experimenting heavily with drugs, including mescaline, peyote and heroin. The band's lead singer, Tommy G, died of kidney failure, which Randy blamed on Tommy's addiction to heroin. This caused him to shy away from using the drug again.
  
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  Ray Hnatyshyn
  Ramon John Hnatyshyn PC CC CMM CD QC (Can), QC (Sask) FRHSC(hon) ( /nəˈtɪʃən/; March 16, 1934 – December 18, 2002), commonly known as Ray Hnatyshyn, was a Canadian politician and statesman who served as Governor General of Canada, the 24th since Canadian Confederation.
  Hnatyshyn was born and educated in Saskatchewan and also served in the Royal Canadian Air Cadets prior to being elected to the House of Commons in 1974, whereafter he served as a minister of the Crown in two non-successive governments until 1988. He was in 1989 appointed as governor general by Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada, on the recommendation of Prime Minister of Canada Brian Mulroney, to replace Jeanne Mathilde Sauvé as viceroy, and he occupied the post until succeeded by Roméo LeBlanc in 1995. As the Queen's representative, Hnatyshyn proved to be a populist, reversing some exclusive policies of his predecessor, such as opening up Rideau Hall to ordinary Canadians and tourists alike, and was praised for raising the stature of Ukrainian Canadians.
  
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  Ray Liotta
  Raymond Allen "Ray" Liotta (born December 18, 1954) is an American actor, best known for his portrayal of Henry Hill in the crime-drama Goodfellas, directed by Martin Scorsese and his role as Shoeless Joe Jackson in Field of Dreams. He has won an Emmy Award and been nominated for a Golden Globe Award. He is also known for starring as the protagonist, Tommy Vercetti in the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.
  He was born in Newark, New Jersey, and was adopted at the age of six months by Mary Liotta, an appointed township clerk, and Alfred Liotta, an auto parts store owner, personnel director, and the president of a local Democratic club. Both of his parents unsuccessfully ran for local office. Liotta had believed his biological parents were of Scottish and Italian descent, but eventually reunited with his biological mother and discovered that she is not of Italian descent. In 1973, Liotta graduated from Union High School in Union, New Jersey, and was inducted into the school's Hall of Fame in 1992. Liotta studied acting at the University of Miami, where he performed at the university's Jerry Herman Ring Theatre.
  
  wn.com/Ray_Liotta
• Ray Meyer
  Raymond Joseph Meyer (December 18, 1913 – March 17, 2006) was an American men's collegiate basketball coach from Chicago, Illinois. He was well known for coaching at DePaul University from 1942 to 1984, compiling a 724–354 record. Meyer coached DePaul to 21 post-season appearances (13 NCAA, eight NIT).
  In total, Meyer recorded 37 winning seasons and twelve 20-win seasons, including seven straight from 1978 to 1984. Two Meyer-coached teams reached the Final Four (1943 and 1979), and in 1945, Meyer led DePaul past Bowling Green to capture the National Invitation Tournament, the school's only post-season title. Meyer coached a College All-Star team that played a coast-to-coast series against the Harlem Globetrotters for 11 years. One of his best players was George Mikan, who was a game-changing player and basketball's first great "big man". Meyer recruited Mikan from Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary, a school Meyer had himself earlier attended.
  Other top players coached by Meyer include former NBA players Mark Aguirre and Terry Cummings. During Meyer's tenure the basketball rivalry between DePaul and Loyola reached an extremely high level. Meyer's Great Great Nephew, Mike Starkman, played basketball for Loyola as a walk on. Meyer was a much-beloved figure in Chicago, and is a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. He was succeeded as DePaul coach by his son, Joey, who led the team for several more seasons, but less successfully than had his father.
  
  wn.com/Ray_Meyer
• Raymond Herrera
  Raymond Herrera (born December 18, 1972) is the drummer for industrial metal band Arkaea. He is a former member of the industrial metal band Fear Factory and Mexican metal band Brujeria.
  Raymond Herrera is an award winning composer and producer of music for video games, television, feature films and transmedia. An RIAA certified Platinum-Selling recording artist, Herrera recorded his commercial album debut with his first band Fear Factory in 1992, Soon after the album's release, Herrera began a nearly two decade long recording and touring schedule that included over twelve commercial album releases and numerous world tours.
  In 1996 Herrera started to secure music licensing of Fear Factory's music for dozens of video game titles, this allowed Herrera to branch out and create Herrera Productions (Became 3volution Productions in 2003 with videogame industry veteran Laddie Ervin) as cross-genre composer-producer working on numerous videogame projects. His experience writing and producing rock, metal, industrial and rap music combined with orchestral, techno and other genres lead him to work on projects for many top videogame publishers and developers in North America, Japan and Europe including Microsoft, SEGA, Sony, Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, THQ, Midway, Capcom, Namco, Atari, Majesco and others.
  
  wn.com/Raymond_Herrera
• Renaldo Lapuz
  Renaldo (Reynaldo) Lapuz (born December 18, 1962) is a Filipino-American who auditioned on the seventh season of the television series American Idol, singing the self-written song "We're Brothers Forever."
  Lapuz is a native of the Philippines. His mother is of German descent and lives in Wisconsin. Lapuz immigrated to the United States in 2004, and worked as a janitor at Greyhound and Wal-mart. Lapuz regularly sang as a member of the Filipino Choir at Immaculate Conception Church in Reno, Nevada.^{[citation needed]}
  In 2007 Renaldo Lapuz auditioned for American Idol in Dallas, Texas. For his audition, he sang his own original song, "We're Brothers Forever", while wearing a handsome wide-brimmed, winged, marabou feather-covered white hat with the word "SIMON" printed on it and a metallic silver cape. During his audition, which aired in January, judge Simon Cowell complimented him but gently rejected him by saying of his performance "I'm going to make a prediction here. I have a horrible feeling that it's going to be a hit record. You're very entertaining. I actually like you... but it's going to be a no." (Due to his age he was also ineligible.)^{[citation needed]} Lapuz returned to the show to sing his song during the finale of American Idol Season 7 in May 2008, this time supported instrumentally by the University of Southern California marching band.^{[citation needed]}
  
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  Richard Maury
  Richard Fontaine Maury (Philadelphia, 18 December 1882 - Córdoba, 10 July 1950) was an American railway engineer naturalized Argentine, famous for the project of the Argentine "Ramal C-14" of the Ferrocarril General Manuel Belgrano, better known for the touristic Tren a las Nubes.
  Son of Thompson Brooke Maury, Richard Maury was born in Philadelphia in 1882, as the second of four brothers. He gratuated as engineer in 1902 and his first work was on the Pennsylvania Tunnel New York City-New Jersey. In 1906 he arrived in Argentina to enter, one year later, in the Ferrocarriles del Estado, the national railway company of the country.
  He married Carmen Rosa Pauna and had one child, Ricardo Juan.
  In 1921 was dediced to build the "Ramal C-14" Salta-Socompa, to Chilean borders and, by an executive decree Maury, considered an expert in the choice of mountainous paths for railways and roads, was appointed head of the works, where he worked until 1931. On July 12, 1928 he was appointed honorary professor at the National University of Tucumán, where he also published, in 1929, his Manual para el trazado de ferrocarriles (i.e. "Manual for the railway tracks"). In 1944 he was declared the first honorary member of the Engineering Center of Tucumán.
  
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  Richard Nixon
  Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994) was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961.
  Nixon was born in Yorba Linda, California. After completing his undergraduate work at Whittier College, he graduated from Duke University School of Law in 1937, and returned to California to practice law. He and his wife, Pat Nixon, moved to Washington to work for the federal government in 1942. He subsequently served in the United States Navy during World War II. Nixon was elected to the House of Representatives in 1946 and to the Senate in 1950. His pursuit of the Hiss Case established his reputation as a leading anti-communist, and elevated him to national prominence. He was the running mate of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Republican Party presidential nominee in the 1952 election. Nixon served for eight years as vice president. He waged an unsuccessful presidential campaign in 1960, narrowly losing to John F. Kennedy, and lost a race for Governor of California in 1962. In 1968, he ran again for the presidency and was elected.
  
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  Richard Owen
  Sir Richard Owen, FRS KCB (20 July 1804 – 18 December 1892) was an English biologist, comparative anatomist and paleontologist.
  Owen is probably best remembered today for coining the word Dinosauria (meaning "Terrible Reptile" or "Fearfully Great Reptile") and for his outspoken opposition to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. He agreed with Darwin that evolution occurred, but thought it was more complex than outlined in Darwin's Origin. Owen's approach to evolution can be seen as having anticipated the issues that have gained greater attention with the recent emergence of evolutionary developmental biology. He was the driving force behind the establishment, in 1881, of the British Museum (Natural History) in London.Bill Bryson argues that, "by making the Natural History Museum an institution for everyone, Owen transformed our expectations of what museums are for".
  Owen was born in Lancaster in 1804, one of six children of a West Indian Merchant named Richard Owen (1754–1809). His mother, Catherine Parrin, was descended from Huguenots and he was educated at Lancaster Royal Grammar School. In 1820, he was apprenticed to a local surgeon and apothecary and, in 1824, he proceeded as a medical student to the University of Edinburgh. He left the university in the following year and completed his medical course in St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, where he came under the influence of the eminent surgeon, John Abernethy.
  
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  Richard Wetherill
  Richard Wetherill (1858 – 1910), a member of a prominent Colorado ranching family, was an amateur explorer in the discovery, research and excavation of sites associated with the Ancient Pueblo People. He is credited with the discovery of Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde and was responsible for initially selecting the term Anasazi, Navajo for ancient enemies, as the name for these ancient people. He also discovered Kiet Seel ruin, now included, along with Betatakin ruin, in Navajo National Monument in northeastern Arizona. "Slightly smaller than Cliff Palace, Kiet Seel possesses qualities that, in the eyes of some, lend it greater charm and interest." Wetherill became fascinated by the ruins and artifacts and made a career as an explorer, guide, excavator and trading post operator.
  The Wetherill family's good relations with local Indian tribes, including the Utes, allowed them access to many canyons on Ute controlled land. The family maintained a guest house at their ranch, offering tours and helping people obtain collections of artifacts. Early explorers like the Wetherills were interested in either experiencing the curious ruins and relics or collecting artifacts for museum and university display. Modern archaeologists are appalled at the damage done by early explorers and scholars but note that, in contrast to the modern focus on understanding the people and culture that created the sites, preservation was not a concern at that time.
  
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  Rob Van Dam
  Robert Alexander Szatowski (born December 18, 1970), better known by his ring name Rob Van Dam (RVD), is an American professional wrestler and actor. He is currently under contract with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling. He is best known for his time with World Wrestling Entertainment, and Extreme Championship Wrestling.
  Szatkowski has held 22 championships between ECW, WWE and TNA, as well as several regional titles in various promotions during his career. He is a former WWE champion, ECW champion and the TNA World Heavyweight champion once each. On the independent scene he has also won the World Heavyweight Championships for both American Wrestling Rampage and World Stars of Wrestling once each. He is the only man to achieve both WWE and ECW's version of the Triple Crown. Part of ECW's Triple Crown included the ECW World Television Championship, of which RVD's 700 day reign was the longest.
  Szatkowski grew up in Battle Creek, Michigan and graduated from Pennfield High School. Rob made his first appearance on WWF television in 1987 in a skit with "The Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase. At the time, DiBiase was selecting plants from the audience and offering to pay them to perform degrading acts and offered the 16 year old Szatkowski $100 to enter the ring and kiss his foot, which he did. This early appearance was later included as a bonus feature on WWE's Before They Were Superstars DVD and on WWE's Rob Van Dam: One of a Kind DVD.
  
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  Robert Bresson
  Robert Bresson (pronounced [ʁɔbɛʁ bʁɛˈsɔ̃] in French; 25 September 1901 – 18 December 1999) was a French film director known for his spiritual, ascetic style. He contributed notably to the art of film and influenced the French New Wave. He is often referred to as the most highly regarded French filmmaker after Jean Renoir. As Jean-Luc Godard said, "Robert Bresson is French cinema, as Dostoevsky is the Russian novel and Mozart is the German music."
  Bresson was born at Bromont-Lamothe, Puy-de-Dôme, the son of Marie-Élisabeth (née Clausels) and Léon Bresson. Little is known of his early life, and the year of his birth – 1901 or 1907 – varies depending on the source. He was educated at Lycée Lakanal in Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine, close to Paris, and turned to painting after graduating. Three formative influences in his early life seem to have a mark on his films - Catholicism, art and his experiences as a prisoner of war.
  Initially also a photographer, Bresson made his first short film, Les affaires publiques (Public Affairs) in 1934. During World War II, he spent over a year in a prisoner-of-war camp - an experience which informs Un condamné à mort s'est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut (A Man Escaped). In a career that spanned fifty years, Bresson made only 13 feature-length films. This reflects his meticulous approach to the filmmaking process and his non-commercial preoccupations.^{[citation needed]} Difficulty finding funding for his projects was also a factor.
  
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  Robert Moses
  Robert Moses (December 18, 1888 – July 29, 1981) was the "master builder" of mid-20th century New York City, Long Island, Rockland County, and Westchester County, New York. As the shaper of a modern city, he is sometimes compared to Baron Haussmann of Second Empire Paris, and is one of the most polarizing figures in the history of urban planning in the United States. He changed shorelines, built bridges, tunnels and roadways, and transformed neighborhoods forever. His decisions favoring highways over public transit helped create the modern suburbs of Long Island and influenced a generation of engineers, architects, and urban planners who spread his philosophies across the nation.
  Never elected to public office, Moses was responsible for the creation and leadership of numerous public authorities which he could control without having to answer to the general public or to elected officials. It is due to Moses that there are a disproportionate number of public benefit corporations in New York state, which are the prime mode of infrastructure building and maintenance in New York, and are currently responsible for 90% of the state's debt. As head of various authorities, he controlled millions in income from his projects' revenue generation, such as tolls, and he had the power to issue bonds to borrow vast sums, allowing him to initiate new ventures with little or no approval from legislative bodies, bypassing the usual power of the purse as it normally functioned in the United States, and the cumbersome process of citizen comment on major public works.
  
  wn.com/Robert_Moses
• Robson Green
  Robson Green (born 18 December 1964) is an English actor, singer–songwriter and presenter.
  Robson Golightly Green was born in Hexham, Northumberland, and baptised in Bethel Chapel, (Ford's View), and named in Northeast tradition as first son after family surnames: Robson is his grandmother's maiden surname, while Golightly is after the surname of his maternal grandmother, Cissie Golightly (* born 1906 in Seghill, Northumberland), daughter of William Golightly, born 1874 in Felling, a miner and a famous trade union leader in the 1920s.
  Green grew up in Dudley, a small mining village in North Tyneside, where his privately educated father worked down the coal mining pits. After being inspired by over-flying jets, he decided he wanted to join the Royal Air Force. On starting at Dudley Middle Comprehensive School, he joined the Air Training Corps, and also picked up a guitar for the first time, later forming his first band, Solid State, in 1982. Latterly he also spent one night a week at Backworth Drama Centre, and then played in a series of productions at both school and Backworth.
  
  wn.com/Robson_Green
• Roger Apéry
  Roger Apéry (November 14, 1916 – December 18, 1994) was a Greek-French mathematician most remembered for Apéry's theorem, that ζ(3) is an irrational number where ζ denotes the Riemann zeta function.
  Apéry was born in Rouen in 1916 to a French mother and Greek father. After studies at the École Normale Supérieure (interrupted by a year as prisoner of war during World War II) he was appointed Lecturer at Rennes. In 1949 he was appointed Professor at the University of Caen where he remained until his retirement. He died after a long illness in Caen in 1994.
  In 1979 he published an unexpected proof of the irrationality of ζ(3), which is the sum of the inverses of the cubes of the positive integers. An indication of the difficulty is that the corresponding problem for other odd powers remains unsolved. Nevertheless, many mathematicians have since worked on the so-called Apéry sequences to seek alternative proofs that might apply to other odd powers (F. Beukers, A. van der Poorten, M. Prevost, K. Ball, T. Rivoal, Wadim Zudilin and others).
  
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  Roméo LeBlanc
  Roméo-Adrien LeBlanc PC CC CMM ONB CD (December 18, 1927 – June 24, 2009) was a Canadian journalist, politician, and statesman who served as Governor General of Canada, the 25th since Canadian Confederation.
  LeBlanc was born and educated on Canada's east coast and also studied in France prior to becoming a teacher and then a reporter for Radio-Canada. He was subsequently elected to the House of Commons in 1972, whereafter he served as a minister of the Crown until 1984, when he was moved to the Senate and became that chamber's Speaker. He was in 1994 appointed as governor general by Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada, on the recommendation of Prime Minister of Canada Jean Chrétien, to replace Ramon John Hnatyshyn as viceroy, and he occupied the post until succeeded by Adrienne Clarkson in 1999, citing his health as the reason for his stepping down. His appointment as the Queen's representative caused some controversy, due to perceptions of political favouritism, though he was praised for raising the stature of Acadians and francophones, and for opening up Rideau Hall to ordinary Canadians and tourists alike.
  
  wn.com/Roméo_LeBlanc
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  Ron White
  Ronald "Ron" White (born December 19, 1956) is an American stand up comedian and satirist who has had two Grammy Award-nominations, and is RIAA certified 10x Platinum for CD and DVD sales of over 10 million units. He is a charter member of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour and authored the book I Had the Right to Remain Silent But I Didn't Have the Ability (Dutton 2006, ISBN 978-0-525-94961-9), which appeared on the New York Times best seller list.
  
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  Rosanne Cash
  Rosanne Cash (born May 24, 1955) is an American singer-songwriter and author. She is the eldest daughter of country music icon Johnny Cash and his first wife, Vivian Liberto Cash Distin.
  Although Cash is often classified as a country artist, her music draws on many genres, including folk, pop, rock and blues. In the 1980s, she had a string of chart-topping singles, which crossed musical genres and landed on both C&W and Top 100 charts, the most commercially successful being her 1981 breakthrough hit "Seven Year Ache", which topped the U.S. country singles charts and reached the Top 30 on the U.S. pop singles charts. In 1990, Cash released Interiors, a spare, introspective album which signaled a break from her pop country past. The following year Cash ended her marriage and moved from Nashville to New York City, where she continues to write, record and perform. Since 1991 she has released five albums, written two books and edited a collection of short stories. Her fiction and essays have been published in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Oxford-American, New York Magazine, and various other periodicals and collections.
  
  wn.com/Rosanne_Cash
• Ruth Bernhard
  Ruth Bernhard (October 14, 1905 – December 18, 2006) was an American photographer.
  Bernhard was born in Berlin and studied at the Berlin Academy of Art from 1925–27. Bernhard's father, Lucian Bernhard, was known for his poster and typeface design.
  In 1927 Bernhard moved to New York City, where her father was already living. She worked as an assistant to Ralph Steiner in Delineator magazine, but he terminated her employment for indifferent performance. She used her severance pay to finance her own photographic equipment. In 1935, she chanced to meet Edward Weston on the beach in Santa Monica. She would later say;
  By the late-1920s, while living in Manhattan, Bernhard was heavily involved in the lesbian sub-culture of the artistic community, becoming friends with photographer Berenice Abbott and her lover, critic Elizabeth McCausland. She wrote about her "bisexual escapdes" in her memoir. In 1934 Bernhard began photographing women in the nude. It would be this art form for which she would eventually become best known.
  
  wn.com/Ruth_Bernhard
• Ryan Scott Ottney
  Ryan Scott Ottney (born December 18, 1977) is an American writer and journalist from New Boston, Ohio.
  Ryan's first published comic book work was The Legend of Isis from Alias Enterprises and Blue Water Productions [1]. Also The Prometheus Effect [2] and Bikini Bandits [3]. Ryan is also the founder and co-creator of Scryptic Studios [4] - a Web site devoted to comic book writers and writing. Scryptic Studios earned national attention in Writer's Digest Magazine in 2005, as one of its 101 Best Web sites for Writers.
  According to his site, Ryan is a graduate of Shawnee State University, in Portsmouth, Ohio, and has worked in journalism and public relations. He is also the founder of the Society of Professional Journalists: Southern Ohio Chapter [5], which gained national recognition in the August 2007 issue of Quill Magazine.
  
  
  
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  Saint Sebastian
  Saint Sebastian (died c. 288) was a Christian saint and martyr, who is said to have been killed during the Roman emperor Diocletian's persecution of Christians. He is commonly depicted in art and literature tied to a post or tree and shot with arrows. This is the most common artistic depiction of Sebastian; however, he was rescued and healed by Irene of Rome before criticising the emperor and being clubbed to death. He is venerated in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches.
  The details of Saint Sebastian's martyrdom were first spoken of by 4th century bishop Ambrose of Milan, in his sermon (number 22) on Psalm 118. Ambrose stated that Sebastian came from Milan and that he was already venerated there in the 4th century.
  According to Sebastian's 5th-century Acta Sanctorum, still attributed to Ambrose by the 17th-century hagiographer Jean Bolland, and the briefer account in Legenda Aurea, he was a man of Gallia Narbonensis who was taught in Milan and appointed as a captain of the Praetorian Guard under Diocletian and Maximian, who were unaware that he was a Christian.
  
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  Saki
  Hector Hugh Munro (18 December 1870 – 13 November 1916), better known by the pen name Saki, and also frequently as H. H. Munro, was a British writer whose witty, mischievous and sometimes macabre stories satirised Edwardian society and culture. He is considered a master of the short story and often compared to O. Henry and Dorothy Parker. Influenced by Oscar Wilde, Lewis Carroll, and Kipling, he himself influenced A. A. Milne, Noël Coward, and P. G. Wodehouse.
  Beside his short stories (which were first published in newspapers, as was customary at the time, and then collected into several volumes), he wrote a full-length play, The Watched Pot, in collaboration with Charles Maude; two one-act plays; a historical study, The Rise of the Russian Empire, the only book published under his own name; a short novel, The Unbearable Bassington; the episodic The Westminster Alice (a Parliamentary parody of Alice in Wonderland), and When William Came, subtitled A Story of London Under the Hohenzollerns, a fantasy about a future German invasion of Britain.
  
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  Sam Wanamaker
  Samuel Wanamaker (14 June 1919 – 18 December 1993) was an American film director and actor and is credited as the person most responsible for the modern recreation of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London. He was the father of actress Zoë Wanamaker.
  Wanamaker was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants from Nikolayev, tailor Maurice Wattenmacker (Manus Watmakher) and Molly Bobele. He was the younger of two brothers, the elder being William Wanamaker, long time cardiologist at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. Wanamaker trained at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and began working with summer stock theatre companies in Chicago and northern Wisconsin, where he helped build the stage of the Peninsula Players Theatre in 1937.
  Wanamaker began his acting career in traveling shows and later worked on Broadway. In 1940, he married Charlotte Holland, a Canadian radio soap star of the 1940s and later an actress.
  In 1943, Wanamaker was part of the cast of the play Counterattack at the National Theatre, Washington D.C.. During the play he became enamored of the ideals of Communism and joined the American Communist Party. He attended Drake University prior to serving in the U.S. Army between 1943 and 1946 during the Second World War. In 1947 he returned to civilian life and, before relocating to Hollywood, quit the Communist Party.
  
  wn.com/Sam_Wanamaker
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  Santiago Cañizares
  José Santiago Cañizares Ruiz (born 18 December 1969) is a Spanish retired footballer who played as a goalkeeper.
  After playing with Real Madrid, mostly as a backup, he finished his career at Valencia, where he appeared in 416 official games during one full decade.
  In his prime, he was regarded as one of the best goalkeepers in the world. Prior to Euro 2004 - he represented the Spanish national team in three World Cups and as many European Championships - legendary goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel said that he regarded Cañizares as the finest goalkeeper in world football.
  Born in Puertollano, Ciudad Real, Castile–La Mancha, Cañizares started his club career with Real Madrid in 1988, playing initially with its B team. He started professionally with Elche CF, CP Mérida and Celta de Vigo, making his first top flight appearance with the Galicians in 1992–93, missing only two matches from 1992–94 combined and subsequently returning to Real Madrid.
  Unable to cement a starting place, his best output being 26 matches during 1997–98 (but he lost his place in the final part of the year to Bodo Illgner, thus missing the 1998 Champions League final), Cañizares moved to Valencia CF in 1998 to replace the retired Andoni Zubizarreta. He helped the club to win the Spanish Cup and Supercup finals in 1999, also reaching consecutive UEFA Champions League finals (2000 and 2001) and winning La Liga titles in 2002 and 2004, adding the UEFA Cup and Supercup 2004 finals. Following the latter campaign, he renewed his link to the Che for a further two years.
  
  wn.com/Santiago_Cañizares
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  Sarath Fonseka
  Gardihewa Sarath Chandralal Fonseka, known as Sarath Fonseka (Sinhala: සරත් ෆොන්සේකා, Tamil: சரத் பொன்சேகா, born 18 December 1950) is a former commander and General of the Sri Lanka Army and a former candidate for President of Sri Lanka. As Commander of the Army, he played an instrumental role in ending the 26 year Sri Lankan Civil War in 2009, defeating the terrorist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in the process. He later had a public falling out with President Mahinda Rajapaksa, and unsuccessfully challenged Rajapaksa in the 2010 presidential election.
  Fonseka joined the Sri Lanka Army in 1970 and saw extensive action throughout the 26 year civil war, culminating in a term as Commander of the Army from 6 December 2005 – 15 July 2009. As commander, he oversaw the final phase of the Sri Lankan Civil War, which resulted in the total defeat of the militant Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam organisation. He also survived an assassination attempt when an LTTE suicide bomber attacked his motorcade in April 2006. Following the end of the war Fonseka was promoted to a four star rank in the Sri Lanka Army, becoming the first serving officer to hold a four star rank. He has been described as Sri Lanka's most successful army commander.
  
  wn.com/Sarath_Fonseka
• Shaukat Siddiqui
  Shaukat Siddiqui (March 20, 1923 – December 18, 2006) was a Pakistani writer of fiction who wrote in Urdu. He is known for his novels Khuda Ki Basti (God's Own Land) and Jangloos.
  Shaukat Siddiqui was born on March 20, 1923 in a literary family of Lucknow, India. He got his early education from his home town and earned a B.A. in 1944 and M.A. (Political Science) in 1944. After partition of India, he migrated to Pakistan in 1950 and stayed in Lahore but soon permanently settled in Karachi. His early days in Pakistan were full of financial trouble and political opposition, which he soon overcame. He accompanied Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in a lot of his foreign tours.
  He was an active member of Pakistan Writers' Guild and a partisan of progressive writers association. Shaukat Siddiqi worked at the news-desks of the Times of Karachi, Pakistan Standard and the Morning News. He finally rose to be the editor of the Daily Anajam, the Weekly Al-Fatah and the Daily Musawat Karachi, before bidding goodbye to journalism in 1984.
  
  wn.com/Shaukat_Siddiqui
• 
  Shawn Christian
  Shawn Patrick Christian (born December 18, 1965) is an American television and film actor.
  After graduating Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan in 1989, he moved to Chicago to pursue an acting career. He starred in numerous stage productions, and began appearing in commercials. He worked on stage with improvisational company Improv Olympic.^{[citation needed]}
  In 1994, he was the first male spokesman on Star Search. He landed the role of Mike Kasnoff also in 1994 on As the World Turns. He starred on the show until 1997, moving to Los Angeles in the meantime. From 1998 through 1999 he also had a recurring role in The WB television series Charmed as Josh, the love interest of Piper Halliwell, played by Holly Marie Combs. He also landed the role of Johnny Durant on WB's Summerland. Although the show was a hit the first season, it failed to garner the same attention the second season. He acted with his stepdaughter, Taylor Cole. In February 2008 it was reported that he was cast as doctor, and specialist Daniel Jonas on Days of our Lives.
  
  wn.com/Shawn_Christian
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  Sia Furler
  Sia Kate Isobelle Furler (born 18 December 1975), better known as Sia ( /sɪə/ or  /ˈsiːə/), is an Australian pop, downtempo, and jazz singer and songwriter. In 2000 her single "Taken for Granted" was a top 10 hit in the United Kingdom. Her 2008 album Some People Have Real Problems peaked in the top 30 on the Billboard 200. At the ARIA Music Awards of 2009, she won the award for 'Best Music DVD' and received six nominations at the ARIA Music Awards of 2010 and won 'Best Independent Release' and 'Best Pop Release' for We Are Born and 'Best Video' for the song "Clap Your Hands". Furler has also collaborated and performed with Zero 7, Christina Aguilera and more recently Hilltop Hoods, David Guetta and Flo Rida.
  Furler was born in Adelaide, South Australia on 18 December 1975. She went to North Adelaide Primary School. Her father, Phil B. Colson, was a musician in various bands including Foreday Riders, Rum Jungle, Fat Time, Jump Back Jack, and Mount Lofty Rangers. Her mother, Loene Furler, is a singer, songwriter & musician, and art lecturer who also provided backing vocals for Mount Lofty Rangers. Her parents were both in an Adelaide rockabilly band, The Soda Jerx. Furler is the niece of U.K. based actor/singer Kevin Colson. Singer/songwriter Colin Hay of Men at Work though not related, is affectionately known as "Uncle Colin". "Philby" Colson played slide guitar on Men at Work's last single, "Everything I Need" from their album Two Hearts, then toured extensively with "The Colin Hay Band" in 1988. In her 2008 NPR Music interview, she said that she had mimicked other singers while growing up and counts Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder and Sting as her early influences. She attended Adelaide High School. At fourteen, Furler said, her parents had enough money to pay for her getting her now famous snaggletooth removed, or a chance to attend school in Italy. Furler chose Italy, and she said that she doesn't regret keeping her snaggletooth.
  
  wn.com/Sia_Furler
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  Sneha Ullal
  Sneha Ullal (born 18 December 1985) is an Indian film actress who has appeared in Tollywood and Bollywood films. She is best known for her role in the Telugu film Ullasamga Utsahamga and Simha.
  Ullal was born in Muscat, Oman to Indian immigrants parents from Mangalore. She is of Devadiga ancestry.
  She studied at Indian School Muscat and Indian School Salalah in Oman. Later she moved to Mumbai with her mother and attended Durelo Convent High School and later studied at Vartak College. At college she befriended Arpita Khan, her college mate and the younger sister of Bollywood actor Salman Khan. The friendship led to the chance meeting with Salman Khan and film offers.
  Ullal made her movie debut in the 2005 Hindi movie Lucky: No Time for Love opposite Salman Khan. After the movie, she was noted for striking similarities in appearance with Aishwarya Rai. She later said that although the comparison didn't help her as an actor, but it gave her a lot of recognition. Ullal then appeared with Khan's brother Sohail Khan in Aryan, which did not do well at the box office.
  
  wn.com/Sneha_Ullal
• Soame Jenyns
  Soame Jenyns (1 January 1704 – 18 December 1787) was an English writer.
  He was the son of Sir Roger Jenyns and his second wife Elizabeth Soame, the daughter of Sir Peter Soame. He was born in London, and was educated at St Johns College, Cambridge. In 1742 he was chosen M.P. for Cambridgeshire, in which his property (Bottisham hall, which he inherited from his father in 1740) was situated, and he afterwards sat for the borough of Dunwich and the town of Cambridge. From 1755 to 1780 he was one of the commissioners of the board of trade.
  For the measure of literary repute which he enjoyed during his life Jenyns was indebted as much to his wealth and social standing as to his accomplishments and talents, though both were considerable. His poetical works, the Art of Dancing (1727) and Miscellanies (1770), contain many passages graceful and lively though occasionally verging on licence.
  The first of his prose works was his Free Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil (1756). This essay was severely criticized on its appearance, especially by Samuel Johnson in the Literary Magazine. Johnson condemned the book as a slight and shallow attempt to solve one of the most difficult of moral problems. Jenyns, a gentle and amiable man in the main, was extremely irritated by his review. He put forth a second edition of his work, prefaced by a vindication, and tried to take vengeance on Johnson after his death by a sarcastic epitaph:
  
  wn.com/Soame_Jenyns
• Stan Fox
  Stan Fox (July 7, 1952 in Janesville, Wisconsin – December 18, 2000, near Waiouru, New Zealand) was a United States open wheel race car driver. Fox was one of the last links between the midget car racing world and the Indianapolis 500.
  Fox began his career as a midget car racer. He won the 1979 Badger Midget championship, and the 1979 and 1980 Belleville Nationals. He placed in the top twelve in points in nine seasons, even after he raced sporadically after moving to United States Auto Club (USAC) open wheel events. He had 19 USAC career wins. He won the Turkey Night Grand Prix in 1990 at the last event at Ascot Park. He won the 1991 Turkey Night Grand Prix, two Copper Classics, three Rex Easton Memorials at Springfield, Illinois, two Rodger Mauro Classics, and the midget car portion of the 4-Crown National at Eldora Speedway.
  Fox competed in the Indianapolis 500 eight times between 1987 and 1995 driving for A.J. Foyt and Ron Hemelgarn. He was also a motorcycle racing enthusiast.
  While driving for Ron Hemelgarn, Fox was seriously injured during the 1995 Indianapolis 500 in one of the most horrifying accidents in the history of the race. After starting ninth, Fox went low into the first turn on the first lap of the race and spun. His car connected with the car of Eddie Cheever, Jr. and several other cars were involved in the wreck. The entire front nose cone was ripped from his car leaving the pilot's legs exposed. Fox suffered serious head injuries.
  
  wn.com/Stan_Fox
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  Steve Biko
  Stephen Biko (18 December 1946 – 12 September 1977) was an anti-apartheid activist in South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s.
  A student leader, he later founded the Black Consciousness Movement which would empower and mobilize much of the urban black population. Since his death in police custody, he has been called a martyr of the anti-apartheid movement. While living, his writings and activism attempted to empower black people, and he was famous for his slogan "black is beautiful", which he described as meaning: "man, you are okay as you are, begin to look upon yourself as a human being".
  Despite friction between the African National Congress and Biko throughout the 1970s^{[Need quotation to verify]} the ANC has included Biko in the pantheon of struggle heroes, going as far as using his image for campaign posters in South Africa's first non-racial elections in 1994.
  Biko was born in King William's Town, in the present-day Eastern Cape province of South Africa. He studied to be a doctor at the University of Natal Medical School. Biko was a Xhosa. In addition to Xhosa, he spoke fluent English and fairly fluent Afrikaans.
  
  wn.com/Steve_Biko
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  Steven Spielberg
  Steven Allan Spielberg (born December 18, 1946) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as archetypes of modern Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking. In later years, his films began addressing such issues as the Holocaust, slavery, war and terrorism. He is considered one of the most popular and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. He is also one of the co-founders of DreamWorks movie studio.
  Spielberg won the Academy Award for Best Director for Schindler's List (1993) and Saving Private Ryan (1998). Three of Spielberg's films—Jaws (1975), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), and Jurassic Park (1993)—achieved box office records, each becoming the highest-grossing film made at the time. To date, the unadjusted gross of all Spielberg-directed films exceeds $8.5 billion worldwide. Forbes puts Spielberg's wealth at $3.0 billion.
  
  wn.com/Steven_Spielberg
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  Tara Conner
  Tara Elizabeth Conner (born December 18, 1985) is an American beauty queen and model, who was Miss USA 2006 and has also competed in the Miss Teen USA and Miss Universe pageants. Apart from her role as Miss USA, Conner has been employed as a model. She was a featured model on the HDNet series Bikini Fantasies in 2004, posing in Lake Tahoe. She has also held the titles Miss Kentucky Teen USA 2002, Miss Kentucky County Fair 2004, and Miss Kentucky USA 2006.
  In late 2006, Conner became the center of a public scandal when news reports claimed she had been drinking underage, tested positive for the use of cocaine, heroin and crystal meth, and kissed Miss Teen USA Katie Blair, among other things. She was allowed to retain her title, provided she enter a drug rehabilitation program. On The Oprah Winfrey Show, Donald Trump said that he gave a second chance to Conner for personal reasons. His brother Fred died from alcoholism and Trump said, "I believe in second chances, and sometimes it works when you give somebody a second chance."
  
  wn.com/Tara_Conner
• Tasso Kavadia
  Anastasia (Tasso) Kavadia (Greek: Τασσώ Καββαδία; 10 January 1921 – 18 December 2010) was a Greek film and television actress.
  Kavadia was born on 10 January 1921 in Patras. She studied piano in Athens, writing and decoration in Paris, scenario and clothing with Giannis Tsarouchis, and acting at the Drama School at the Art School with Karolos Coon.
  From 1954 until 1967, Kavadia worked as a radio journalist and radio executive. From 1955 until 1969, she was a newspaper reporter.
  Kavadia died on 18 December 2010 in Athens.
  
  wn.com/Tasso_Kavadia
• Terry Hertzler
  Terry Hertzler (born in Mansfield, Ohio, in 1949) is an American poet and writer.
  Hertzler is the owner of Caernarvon Press, a small literary press based in San Diego, California, that publishes both well-known and emerging writers. Hertzler's own work includes several chapbooks of poetry and fiction as well as The Way of the Snake, a book of poetry based on his experiences as a soldier in the war in Vietnam, and Second Skin (ISBN 0-9716383-2-2), of which Dorianne Laux said, "Second Skin provides ample evidence that poetry can be both accessible and powerful, that writing doesn't have to be obscure or difficult to make us think, to move us. Hertzler paints word pictures whose images stay with the reader long after the book is closed." His work has been nominated for The Pushcart Prize and has been widely published in poetry journals and anthologies, including The Writer, Literal Latte, North American Review, Margie, Nimrod, Stand Up Poetry: An Expanded Anthology (University of Iowa Press) and In the Palm of Your Hand: The Poet’s Portable Workshop (Tilbury House, Publishers). His poetry has also been produced on stage and for radio and television.
  
  wn.com/Terry_Hertzler
• Trevor Chowning
  Trevor Chowning is an American pop artist known for his extensive use of unique materials and strange objects in his work. Paintings have featured precious metals such as gold or silver leaf, and have included everything from antique hummingbird feathers, genuine diamonds, animal bones and obsolete pieces of NASA spacecraft among other things.
  Before picking up the paintbrush, Chowning worked in the New York City music scene and as a Hollywood talent manager and producer representing Johnny Cash's band and MTV celebrities among others. He is widely credited with reviving the career of Cash's band after the singer's death. His TV and film career spans projects such as "Lone Star" for Fox TV, with other projects for Universal Studios, and Doug Liman of Hypnotic (Director of Swingers, Go, Bourne Identity, Mr. & Mrs. Smith). Chowning acted as casting director for the Victor Buhler film "Chaperone", which later won the Martin Scorsese Director's Award and was nominated for an Academy Award.
  He was noted in 2007 for his controversial art piece "Lindsay Lohan Child's Costume" which was originally censored at the World of Wonder gallery but later placed back on exhibit. His "Damien Hearse" homage to Damien Hirst was a large model hearse cast in metal and covered with over 3,000 rhinestones. Chowning's 2008 body of work included a silver leafed painting of the James Dean death car for the "DepARTed" gallery show and a revealing look at Madonna for the "Dial M for Madonna" group show, both in Hollywood, CA. An art show celebrating the American election opened in Los Angeles in October 2008 titled "Hollywood D.C.- Lights, Camera, Election!" and showcased some of his newer work.
  
  wn.com/Trevor_Chowning
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  Trish Stratus
  Patricia Anne Stratigias ( /strætɨˈdʒiːəs/; born December 18, 1975), better known by her ring name Trish Stratus, is a Canadian professional wrestler, actress and television personality currently signed with WWE. She is also a former fitness model.
  After beginning her career as a fitness model, Stratus began working for the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), which was later renamed World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). Early in her career, she was involved in sexually themed storylines, such as managing the team T & A and an affair with Vince McMahon. As Stratus spent more time in the ring, her wrestling skills and popularity strengthened. Because of this, she was a one-time WWE Hardcore Champion, three-time "WWE Babe of the Year" and was proclaimed "Diva of the Decade". After nearly seven years in the business, Stratus retired from professional wrestling at WWE Unforgiven on September 17, 2006, after winning her seventh WWE Women's Championship, the most in WWE history. Since retiring, Stratus has occasionally come out of retirement to compete in one-off matches.
  
  wn.com/Trish_Stratus
• 
  Ty Cobb
  Tyrus Raymond "Ty" Cobb (December 18, 1886 – July 17, 1961), nicknamed "The Georgia Peach," was an American Major League Baseball outfielder. He was born in Narrows, Georgia. Cobb spent 22 seasons with the Detroit Tigers, the last six as the team's player-manager, and finished his career with the Philadelphia Athletics. In 1936, Cobb received the most votes of any player on the inaugural Baseball Hall of Fame ballot, receiving 222 out of a possible 226 votes.
  Cobb is widely credited with setting 90 Major League Baseball records during his career. He still holds several records as of 2012, including the highest career batting average (.366 or .367, depending on source) and most career batting titles with 11 (or 12, depending on source). He retained many other records for almost a half century or more, including most career hits until 1985 (4,189 or 4,191, depending on source), most career runs (2,245 or 2,246 depending on source) until 2001, most career games played (3,035) and at bats (11,429 or 11,434 depending on source) until 1974, and the modern record for most career stolen bases (892) until 1977. He committed 271 errors in his career, the most by any American League outfielder.
  
  wn.com/Ty_Cobb
• Usman Khawaja
  Usman Khawaja (Urdu: عثمان خواجہ; born 18 December 1986) is a Pakistani-born Australian cricketer. He was awarded player of the Australian Under 19 Championship in 2005 and also played for Australia in the 2006 U-19 Cricket World Cup in Sri Lanka as an opening batsman. His club side is Randwick-Petersham.
  A left-hand top order batsman, Khawaja made his first class debut for the New South Wales Blues in 2008. In the same year, he hit consecutive double centuries for the NSW Second XI—a feat never before achieved by a NSW player. On 22 June 2010 it was announced by Cricket Australia that Usman Khawaja would be a part of the Australian touring squad to play Pakistan in a two Test series in England.
  Khawaja was selected as part of the 17-man Australian squad for the 2010–11 Ashes series. During the third test, Ricky Ponting fractured his finger and Khawaja was named as a stand-by if Ponting couldn't recover in time. He was subsequently selected in the Australian cricket team to play England in the fifth Test against England in Sydney on 3 January 2011. On 3 January 2011, Khawaja became the 419th Australian to be presented with an Australian Cricket Test baggy green cap. Khawaja became the first Muslim and first Pakistani-born Australian player to play test cricket for Australia, and only the seventh foreign-born cricketer to do so in the last 80 years.
  
  wn.com/Usman_Khawaja
• Valentin Lebedev
  Valentin Vitaljevich Lebedev (Russian: Валентин Витальевич Лебедев; born April 14, 1942 in Moscow) was a Soviet cosmonaut who made two flights into space. His stay aboard the Space Station Salyut 7 with Anatoly Berezovoy in 1982, which lasted 211 days, was recorded in the Guinness Book of Records.
  Since 1989 Lebedev has dedicated himself to scientific work. In 1991 he started the Scientific Geoinformation Center of the Russian Academy of Science. He continues as that Center's Director through the present day.
  Valentin Lebedev is a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Professor, and Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation.
  After graduation from high school, Valentin Lebedev studied for a year (1960) at the Higher Air Force Navigators School in Orenburg, but he was discharged as a result of an armed forces reduction. He continued his studies at the Moscow Aviation Institute, from which he graduated in 1966.
  In 1975 Lebedev defended his Ph.D. thesis on “Methods of formation of the dynamic test bench for the base service of spaceship and crew training”. In 1985 he defended his doctoral thesis on “Methods of carrying of astrophysical explorations aboard of orbital stations”.
  
  wn.com/Valentin_Lebedev
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  Victoria Pratt
  Victoria Ainsle Pratt (born December 18, 1970 in Chesley, Ontario) is a Canadian actress and fitness model. Her television roles include Xena: Warrior Princess, Once a Thief, Cleopatra 2525, Mutant X, and Day Break. Her film roles include House of the Dead 2.
  Pratt attended Chesley District High School in Chesley, Ontario. Pratt graduated summa cum laude in Kinesiology at Toronto's York University and took at job there in the Human Performance Lab, testing professional athletes including the players of the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Winnipeg Jets and the San Jose Sharks. She was offered a scholarship to the physiotherapy Master's program at the University of Toronto but declined the offer. She co-authored a book about bodybuilding and fitness with one of her former university professors. Pratt was a professional fitness model along with WWE's Trish Stratus and Torrie Wilson.
  Robert Kennedy, publisher of MuscleMag, convinced her to study acting and she began attending classes at the Actors Network in Toronto. She began to land acting roles in 1998, including the science-fiction TV shows Once a Thief (as Jackie Janczyk), Cleopatra 2525 (as Sarge) and Mutant X (as Shalimar Fox).
  
  wn.com/Victoria_Pratt
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  Václav Havel
  Václav Havel (Czech pronunciation: [ˈvaːt͡slaf ˈɦavɛl] ( listen); 5 October 1936 – 18 December 2011) was a Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician.
  Havel was the ninth and last president of Czechoslovakia (1989–1992) and the first president of the Czech Republic (1993–2003). He wrote more than 20 plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally.
  Havel was voted 4th in Prospect magazine's 2005 global poll of the world's top 100 intellectuals. At the time of his death he was Chairman of the New York-based Human Rights Foundation. He was the founder of the VIZE 97 Foundation and the principal organizer of the Forum 2000 annual global conference.
  Havel was one of the signatories of the Charter 77 manifesto, a founding signatory of the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism, and a council member of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. Havel received many recognitions, including the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Gandhi Peace Prize, the Philadelphia Liberty Medal, the Order of Canada, the freedom medal of the Four Freedoms Award, and the Ambassador of Conscience Award.
  
  wn.com/Václav_Havel
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  Wadada Leo Smith
  Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith (born 18 December 1941) is a trumpeter and composer working primarily in the fields of avant-garde jazz and free improvisation.
  Smith was born in Leland, Mississippi. He started out playing drums, mellophone, and French horn before he settled on the trumpet. He played in various R&B groups and by 1967 became a member of the AACM and co-founded the Creative Construction Company, a trio with Leroy Jenkins and Anthony Braxton. In 1971, Smith formed his own label, Kabell. He also formed another band, the New Dalta Ahkri, with members including Henry Threadgill, Anthony Davis and Oliver Lake.
  In the 1970s, Smith studied ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University. He played again with Anthony Braxton as well as recording with Derek Bailey's Company. In the mid-1980s, Smith became Rastafarian and began using the name Wadada. In 1993, he began teaching at Cal Arts, a position he currently holds. In addition to trumpet and flugelhorn, Smith plays several world music instruments, including the koto, kalimba, and atenteben (Ghanaian bamboo flute). He has also taught courses in instrument making. His compositions often use a graphic notation system he calls "Ankhrasmation," which he developed in 1970.
  
  wn.com/Wadada_Leo_Smith
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  Wayne Owens
  Douglas Wayne Owens (May 2, 1937 – December 18, 2002) was a member of the United States House of Representatives for Utah's 2nd congressional district from 1973 to 1975 and again from 1987 to 1993.
  Born and raised in the small town of Panguitch, Utah, Owens graduated from Panguitch High School in 1955, then attended the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, from which he earned his Bachelor's degree in 1961 and his Juris Doctor in 1964. Owens' undergraduate education was interrupted while he served as missionary to France for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS church) from 1957 to 1960. In France, he met his future wife, Marlene, a fellow missionary for the church. Owens reportedly worked his way through college and law school by washing dishes at the Bryce Canyon Café. He then worked as a lawyer in private practice and as a staffer for three United States Senators, Frank Moss of Utah, Robert F. Kennedy of New York, and Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts. He was the Western states coordinator for the presidential campaigns of Robert Kennedy in 1968 and Edward Kennedy in 1980, and served as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1968 and 1980.
  
  wn.com/Wayne_Owens
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  White Lion
  White Lion is an American/Danish hard rock/heavy metal band that was formed in New York City in 1983 by Danish vocalist Mike Tramp and American guitarist Vito Bratta. Mainly active in the 1980s and early 1990s, releasing their debut album Fight to Survive in 1985. The band achieved success with their #8 hit "Wait" and #3 hit "When the Children Cry" from their second album, the double platinum selling Pride. The band continued their success with their third album, Big Game which achieved Gold status and their fourth album Mane Attraction which included a supporting tour. White Lion disbanded in 1992 and not long after their first compilation album, The Best of White Lion was released.
  Tramp reformed White Lion with all new musicians in 1999 and again following a failed attempt to reform the original line up and several legal issues in 2004. The new White Lion released a live album in 2005 and a brand new studio album Return of the Pride in 2008.
  After moving from Denmark to Spain and to New York in 1983, vocalist Mike Tramp (formerly of the bands Mabel and Studs) met Staten Island guitarist Vito Bratta (formerly of Dreamer) and decided to form a band. The two recruited drummer Nicki Capozzi and bassist Felix Robinson (formerly of Angel) and named the group White Lion.
  
  wn.com/White_Lion
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  Willy Brandt
  Willy Brandt (born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm; German pronunciation: [ˈvɪli ˈbʁant]; 18 December 1913 – 8 October 1992) was a German politician, Mayor of West Berlin 1957–1966, Chancellor of West Germany 1969–1974, and leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) 1964–1987.
  Brandt's most important legacy was Ostpolitik, a policy aimed at improving relations with East Germany, Poland, and the Soviet Union. This policy caused considerable controversy in West Germany, but won Brandt the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971.
  In 1974, Brandt resigned as Chancellor after Günter Guillaume, one of his closest aides, was exposed as an agent of the Stasi, the East German secret service.
  Willy Brandt was born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm in the Free City of Lübeck (German Empire) to Martha Frahm, an unwed mother who worked as a cashier for a department store. His father was an accountant from Hamburg named John Möller, whom Brandt never met. As his mother worked six days a week, he was mainly brought up by his mother's stepfather Ludwig Frahm and his second wife Dora.
  
  wn.com/Willy_Brandt
• Winibald
  Winibald (Winebald, Winnibald, Wunebald, Wynbald) (died 18 December 768) was abbot of the Benedictine double monastery of Heidenheim am Hahnenkamm. Traditionally, he is called the brother of Saint Willibald and Saint Walpurga.
  His father was Saint Richard the Pilgrim and his uncle Saint Boniface, Archbishop of Mainz.
  
  
  
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  World War I
  World War I (WWI), which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939 (World War II), and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918. It involved all the world's great powers, which were assembled in two opposing alliances: the Allies (based on the Triple Entente of the United Kingdom, France and Russia) and the Central Powers (originally centred around the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy; but, as Austria–Hungary had taken the offensive against the agreement, Italy did not enter into the war). These alliances both reorganised (Italy fought for the Allies), and expanded as more nations entered the war. Ultimately more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history. More than 9 million combatants were killed, largely because of enormous increases in lethality of weapons, thanks to new technology, without corresponding improvements in protection or mobility. It was the sixth-deadliest conflict in world history, subsequently paving the way for various political changes such as revolutions in the nations involved.
  
  wn.com/World_War_I
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  Zodiac Killer
  The Zodiac Killer was a serial killer who operated in Northern California in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The killer's identity remains unknown. The Zodiac murdered victims in Benicia, Vallejo, Lake Berryessa and San Francisco between December 1968 and October 1969. Four men and three women between the ages of 16 and 29 were targeted. The killer originated the name "Zodiac" in a series of taunting letters sent to the local Bay Area press. These letters included four cryptograms (or ciphers). Of the four cryptograms sent, only one has been definitively solved.
  Numerous suspects have been named by law enforcement and amateur investigators, but no conclusive evidence has surfaced. In April 2004, the San Francisco Police Department marked the case "inactive," yet re-opened the case at some point prior to March 2007.^{[dead link]} The case also remains open in the city of Vallejo, as well as in Napa County and Solano County. The California Department of Justice has maintained an open case file on the Zodiac murders since 1969.
  
  wn.com/Zodiac_Killer
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  Ōuchi Yoshitaka
  Ōuchi Yoshitaka (大内 義隆^?, December 18, 1507 - September 30, 1551) was a daimyo of Suo province and a son of Ōuchi Yoshioki.
  In 1522, he fought the Amago clan along with his father, Yoshioki, to win the control of Aki province. Upon Yoshioki's death in 1528, Yoshitaka became the head of Ōuchi clan. In the 1530s, he led a military actions in the northern Kyūshū, defeating Shoni clan to win control of the area. With his back then secure, in 1540 he again started combatting the Amago clan and by 1541, managed to completely control the Aki province.
  However, in 1542, an invasion into Izumo province ended in a disaster, with Yoshitaka losing his adopted son Ōuchi Harumochi along with large number of troops against Amago Haruhisa. He completely lost his ambitions of expanding his domains and devoted his energy to the arts and culture. His retainers split into two factions. Those led by Sagara Taketō wanted the Ōuchi clan to simply do nothing more than maintain the control of their current domains, while those led by Sue Harukata wanted to continue expanding. Yoshitaka chose former as his advisors and on 1551, the faction led by Sue Harukata revolted and attempted to take over the Ōuchi clan. With the control of troops in Harukata's hand, it was over in few days and Yoshitaka was forced to commit seppuku, after composing his death poem: <poem> Both the victor and the vanquished are but drops of dew, but bolts of lightning - thus should we view the world. </poem>[1]
  
  wn.com/Ōuchi_Yoshitaka