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• 
  

• Archibald Hoxsey
  Archibald Hoxsey (October 15, 1884 – December 31, 1910) was an aviator for the Wright brothers.
  He was born in Staunton, Illinois on October 15, 1884. He moved with his parents to Pasadena, California and by 1909-1910 his mechanical ability led to a meeting with the Wright Brothers. In March 1910 the Wright brothers opened a flight school in Montgomery, Alabama and Hoxey was a teacher there. There he became the first pilot to fly at night.
  On October 11, 1910 at Kinloch Field in St. Louis he took Theodore Roosevelt up in an airplane.
  Because of their dueling altitude record attempts, he and Ralph Johnstone were nicknamed the "heavenly twins".
  On December 30, 1910 Hoxley set the flight altitude record of 11,474 feet.
  He died on December 31, 1910 in Los Angeles, California after crashing from 7,000 feet. He was trying to set a new flight altitude record. The Wright Brothers paid for the funeral.
  
  wn.com/Archibald_Hoxsey
• 
  Azerbaijan
  Azerbaijan (ⁱ/ˌæzərbaɪˈdʒɑːn/ AZ-ər-by-JAHN; Azerbaijani: Azərbaycan), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan (Azerbaijani: Azərbaycan Respublikası) is the largest country in the Caucasus region located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to the south. The exclave of Nakhchivan is bounded by Armenia to the north and east, Iran to the south and west, while having a short borderline with Turkey to the northwest.
  Azerbaijan has an ancient and historic cultural heritage. Aside from having been the first Muslim-majority country to have operas, theater and plays, Azerbaijan today is among the Muslim-majority countries where support for secularism and tolerance is the highest. The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, the first democratic and secular republic in the Muslim world, was established in 1918, but was incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1920. Azerbaijan regained independence in 1991. Shortly thereafter, during the Nagorno-Karabakh War, neighboring Armenia occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, its surrounding territories and the enclaves of Karki, Yukhary Askipara, Barkhudarly and Sofulu. The Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, which emerged in Nagorno-Karabakh, continues to be not diplomatically recognized by any nation and the region is still considered a de jure part of Azerbaijan, despite being de facto independent since the end of the war. Azerbaijan has come under repeated international criticism for its record on human rights.
  
  wn.com/Azerbaijan
• 
  Cape of Good Hope
  The Cape of Good Hope (Afrikaans: die Kaap van Goeie Hoop, Dutch:  Kaap de Goede Hoop (help·info), Portuguese: Cabo da Boa Esperança) is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula, South Africa.
  There is a misconception that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa, because it was once believed to be the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In fact, the southernmost point is Cape Agulhas, about 150 kilometres (90 mi) to the east-southeast. The currents of the two oceans meet at the point where the warm-water Agulhas current meets the cold water Benguela current and turns back on itself—a point that fluctuates between Cape Agulhas and Cape Point.
  When following the western side of the African coastline from the equator, however, the Cape of Good Hope marks the point where a ship begins to travel more eastward than southward. Thus, the first modern rounding of the cape in 1488 by Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias was a milestone in the attempts by the Portuguese to establish direct trade relations with the Far East (although in his histories Herodotus proves, disbelievingly, that some Phoenicians had done so far earlier than this).^{[citation needed]} Dias called the cape Cabo das Tormentas. "Cape of Storms" was the original name of the "Cape of Good Hope".
  
  wn.com/Cape_of_Good_Hope
• 
  Catherine Labouré
  Saint Catherine Labouré (May 2, 1806 – December 31, 1876) (born Zoe Labouré) was a sister of the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul and a Marian visionary who relayed the request from the Blessed Virgin Mary to create the Miraculous Medal worn by millions of Christians, both Roman Catholic and non-denominational.
  She was born in the Burgundy region of France to Pierre Labouré, a farmer, and Louise Madeleine Gontard, the ninth of 11 living children. Catherine's mother died on October 9, 1815, when Catherine was just nine years old. Her father's sister suggested that she care for his two youngest children, Catherine and Tonine. After he agreed, the sisters moved to their aunt's house at Saint-Rémy, a village nine kilometers from their home.
  As a young woman she became a member of the a nursing order founded by Saint Vincent de Paul. She was extremely devout, of a somewhat romantic nature, given to visions and intuitive insights (she chose the Daughters of Charity after a dream about St. Vincent). Having lost her mother at an early age she was very fond of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is said that after her mother's funeral, Catherine picked up a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary and kissed it; saying "Now you will be my mother."
  
  wn.com/Catherine_Labouré
• 
  Ghana
  Ghana ⁱ/ˈɡɑːnə/ is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south. The word Ghana means "Warrior King" and is derived from the ancient Ghana Empire.
  Ghana was inhabited in pre-colonial times by a number of ancient predominantly Akan kingdoms, including the inland Ashanti Empire, the Akwamu, the Akyem, the Bonoman, the Denkyira, and the Fante among others. Non-Akan states created by the Ga also existed as did states by the Dagomba. Prior to contact with Europeans trade between the Akan and various African states flourished due to Akan's gold wealth. Trade with European states began after contact with the Portuguese in the 15th century, and the British established the Gold Coast Crown colony in 1874 over parts but not all of the country.
  The Gold Coast achieved independence from the United Kingdom in 1957, becoming the First sub-Saharan African nation to do so from European Colonialism. The name Ghana was chosen for the new nation to reflect the ancient Empire of Ghana, which once extended throughout much of west Africa.
  
  wn.com/Ghana
• 
  Grozny
  Grozny (Russian: Гро́зный; Chechen: Соьлжа-ГIала, ГIалитIа, Sölƶa-Ġala, or Жовхар, Ƶovxar) is the capital city of the Chechen Republic, Russia. The city lies on the Sunzha River. According to the preliminary results of the 2010 Census, the city had a population of 271,596; up from 210,720 recorded in the 2002 Census, but still only about two-thirds of 399,688 recorded in the 1989 Census.
  In Russian, "Grozny" means "fearsome". During the existence of the separatist republic, it was renamed to Dzokhar-Ghala in 1996, and Chechen separatists sometimes continue refer to the city as Dzhokhar or Djohar (Chechen: Джовхар-ГIала, Dƶovxar-Ġala); it was named so after Dzhokhar Dudaev, the first president of the separatist Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. As of December 2005, the Chechen parliament voted to rename the city Akhmadkala after Akhmad Kadyrov, a proposition which was rejected by his son Ramzan Kadyrov, the prime minister and later president of the republic.
  
  wn.com/Grozny
• 
  Jacques Cartier
  Jacques Cartier (December 31, 1491 – September 1, 1557) was a French explorer of Breton origin who claimed what is now Canada for France. He was the first European to describe and map the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the shores of the Saint Lawrence River, which he named "The Country of Canadas", after the Iroquois names for the two big settlements he saw at Stadacona (Quebec City) and at Hochelaga (Montreal Island).
  Jacques Cartier was born in 1491 in Saint-Malo, the port on the extreme north-east coast of Brittany. Cartier, who was a respectable mariner, improved his social status in 1520 by marrying Mary Catherine des Granches, member of a leading family. His good name in Saint-Malo is recognized by its frequent appearance in baptismal registers as godfather or witness.
  In 1534, the year the Duchy of Brittany was formally united with France in the Edict of Union, Cartier was introduced to King Francis I by Jean le Veneur, bishop of Saint-Malo and abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel, at the Manoir de Brion. The king had previously invited (although not formally commissioned) the Florentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano to explore the eastern coast of North America on behalf of France in 1524. Le Veneur cited voyages to Newfoundland and Brazil as proof of Cartier's ability to "lead ships to the discovery of new lands in the New World".
  
  wn.com/Jacques_Cartier
• 
  Kiribati
  Kiribati ([kɪribas] KIRR-i-bas or ˌkɪrəˈbɑdi;Gilbertese: [ˈkiɾibas]), officially the Republic of Kiribati, is an island nation located in the central tropical Pacific Ocean. The permanent population is just over 100,000 (2011), and the island nation is composed of 32 atolls and one raised coral island, dispersed over 3.5 million square kilometres, (1,351,000 square miles) straddling the equator, and bordering the International Date Line at its easternmost point.
  The name Kiribati is the local pronunciation of "Gilberts", derived from the main island chain, the Gilbert Islands. The capital of South Tarawa consists of a number of islets connected through a series of causeways, located in the Tarawa archipelago. Kiribati became independent from the United Kingdom in 1979. It is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, the IMF and the World Bank, and became a full member of the United Nations in 1999.
  Kiribati was named in French by captains Krusenstern and Louis Isidore Duperrey "îles Gilbert", Gilbert Islands, after the British Captain Thomas Gilbert, who sighted the islands in 1788. The current name, Kiribati, is an adaptation of "Gilberts", from the former European name the "Gilbert Islands". Although the indigenous Gilbertese language name for the Gilbert Islands proper is Tungaru, the new state chose the name "Kiribati", the Gilbertese rendition of "Gilberts", as an equivalent of the former colony to acknowledge the inclusion of islands which were never considered part of the Gilberts chain.
  
  wn.com/Kiribati
• 
  Line Islands
  Coordinates: 0°0′S 157°0′W / 0°N 157°W / 0; -157
  The Line Islands, Teraina Islands or Equatorial Islands, is a chain of eleven atolls and low coral islands in the central Pacific Ocean, south of the Hawaiian Islands, that stretches for 2,350 km in a northwest-southeast direction, making it one of the longest islands chains of the world. Eight of the islands form part of Kiribati, while the remaining three are United States territories grouped with the United States Minor Outlying Islands.
  Those that are part of Kiribati are in the world's farthest forward time zone, UTC+14:00. The time of day is the same as in Hawaiʻi, but the date is one day ahead. The time is 26 hours ahead of some other islands in Oceania like Baker Island which uses UTC-12:00.
  The United States previously claimed all the Line Islands under the Guano Islands Act. This claim was relinquished under the Treaty of Tarawa, which recognised Kiribati's sovereignty over the majority of the chain.
  The group is geographically divided into three subgroups; The Northern, Central, and Southern Line Islands. The Central Line Islands are sometimes grouped with the Southern Line Islands. The table below lists the islands from North to South.
  
  wn.com/Line_Islands
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  Malawi
  Malawi ( /məˈlɑːwi/; Chichewa [malaβi]^{[need tone]}), officially the Republic of Malawi, is a landlocked country in southeast Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the northwest, Tanzania to the northeast, and Mozambique on the east, south and west. The country is separated from Tanzania and Mozambique by Lake Malawi. Malawi is over 118,000 km² (45,560 sq mi) with an estimated population of more than 13,900,000. Its capital is Lilongwe, which is also Malawi's largest city; the second largest is Blantyre and the third is Mzuzu. The name Malawi comes from the Maravi, an old name of the Nyanja people that inhabit the area. The country is also nicknamed "The Warm Heart of Africa".
  The area of Africa now known as Malawi was colonized by migrating tribes of Bantu around the 10th century. In 1891 the area was colonized again, this time by the British. In 1953 Malawi, then known as Nyasaland, became part of the semi-independent Central African Federation (CAF). The Federation was dissolved in 1963 and in 1964, Nyasaland gained full independence and was renamed Malawi. Upon gaining independence it became a single-party state under the presidency of Hastings Banda, who remained president until 1994, when he was ousted from power. Joyce Banda (no relation) is the current president, raised to that position after president Bingu Mutharika died in 2012. She is the first female leader in Malawi. Malawi has a democratic, multi-party government. Malawi has a small military force that includes an army, a navy and an air wing. Malawi's foreign policy is pro-Western and includes positive diplomatic relations with most countries and participation in several international organizations.
  
  wn.com/Malawi
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  Nazi Germany
  The Third Reich, also Nazi Germany, is the common name for Germany when it was a totalitarian state ruled by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP). On 30 January 1933 Hitler became chancellor of Germany, quickly eliminating all opposition to rule as sole leader. The state idolized Hitler as its Führer ("leader"), centralizing all power in his hands. Historians have emphasized the hypnotic effect of his rhetoric on large audiences, and of his eyes in small groups. Kessel writes, "Overwhelmingly...Germans speak with mystification of Hitler's 'hypnotic' appeal..." Under the "leader principle", the Führer's word was above all other laws. Top officials reported to Hitler and followed his policies, but they had considerable autonomy. The government was not a coordinated, cooperating body, but rather a collection of factions struggling to amass power and curry favor with the Führer. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazi government restored prosperity and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending and a mixed economy of free-market and central-planning practices. Extensive public works were undertaken, including the construction of the Autobahns. The return to prosperity gave the regime enormous popularity; the suppression of all opposition made Hitler's rule mostly unchallenged.
  
  wn.com/Nazi_Germany
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  New York City
  New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. The city is referred to as New York City or The City of New York to distinguish it from the State of New York, of which it is a part. As a global power city, New York exerts a significant impact upon commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and entertainment. The home of the United Nations Headquarters, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has been described as the cultural capital of the world.
  Located on one of the world's largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, each of which comprises a state county. The five boroughs—The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island—were consolidated into a single city in 1898. With a Census-estimated 2011 population of 8,244,910 distributed over a land area of just 305 square miles (790 km²), New York is the most densely populated major city in the United States. As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. The New York City Metropolitan Area's population is the United States' largest, with 18.9 million people distributed over 6,720 square miles (17,400 km²), and is also part of the most populous combined statistical area in the United States, containing 22.1 million people as of the 2010 Census.
  
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  Nigeria
  Nigeria ⁱ/naɪˈdʒɪəriə/, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in the north. Its coast in the south lies on the Gulf of Guinea on the Atlantic Ocean. The three largest and most influential ethnic groups in Nigeria are the Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba.
  In terms of religion Nigeria is roughly split half and half between Muslims in the North and Christians in the South; a very small minority practice traditional religion. Since 2002 there have been a spate of clashes, particularly in the North of the country, between government forces and the Islamists Boko Haram, militant jihadists who seek to establish sharia law.
  The people of Nigeria have an extensive history. Archaeological evidence shows that human habitation of the area dates back to at least 9000 BCE. The area around the Benue and Cross River is thought to be the original homeland of the Bantu migrants who spread across most of central and southern Africa in waves between the 1st millennium BC and the 2nd millennium.
  
  wn.com/Nigeria
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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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  Ottawa
  Ottawa (ⁱ/ˈɒtəwɑː/ or /ˈɒtəwə/) is the capital of Canada. It is the second largest city in Ontario and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, located on the north bank of the Ottawa River; together they form the National Capital Region (NCR).
  Founded in 1826 as Bytown and incorporated as "Ottawa" in 1855, the city has evolved into a political and technological centre of Canada. Its original boundaries were expanded through numerous minor annexations and ultimately replaced by a new city incorporation and major amalgamation in 2001 which significantly increased its land area. The name "Ottawa" is derived from the Algonquin word adawe, meaning "to trade". Initially an Irish and French Christian settlement, Ottawa has become a multicultural city with a diverse population.
  The 2011 census had the city's population as 883,391, and the metropolitan population as 1,236,324.Mercer ranks Ottawa with the second highest quality of living of any large city in the Americas, and 14th highest in the world. It is also rated the second cleanest city in Canada, and third cleanest city in the world. In 2012, the city was ranked for the third consecutive year as the best community in Canada to live in by MoneySense.
  
  wn.com/Ottawa
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  Panama
  Panama (ⁱ/ˈpænəmɑː/ PAN-ə-mah; Spanish: Panamá), officially the Republic of Panama (Spanish: República de Panamá [reˈpuβlika ðe panaˈma]), is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The capital is Panama City. Explored and settled by the Spanish in the 16th century, Panama broke with Spain in 1821 and joined a union of Nueva Granada, Ecuador, and Venezuela, named the Republic of Gran Colombia.When Gran Colombia the dissolved in 1831, Panama and Nueva Granada remained joined. Nueva Granada later became the Republic of Colombia.
  With the backing of the United States, Panama seceded from Colombia in 1903, allowing the Panama Canal to be built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers between 1904 and 1914. In 1977, an agreement was signed for the complete transfer of the Canal from the United States to Panama by the end of the century.
  
  wn.com/Panama
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  Panama Canal
  The Panama Canal (Spanish: Canal de Panamá) is an 82-kilometre (51 mi) ship canal in Panama that connects the Atlantic Ocean (via the Caribbean Sea) to the Pacific Ocean. The canal cuts across the Isthmus of Panama and is a key conduit for international maritime trade.
  Work on the canal, which began in 1880, was completed in 1914, making it no longer necessary for ships to sail the lengthy Cape Horn route around the southernmost tip of South America and to navigate the dangerous waters of the Strait of Magellan. One of the largest and most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken, the Panama Canal shortcut made it possible for ships to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans in half the time previously required. The shorter, faster, safer route to the U.S. West Coast and to nations in and along the Pacific Ocean allowed those places to become more integrated with the world economy.
  Ownership of the territory that is now the Panama Canal was first Colombian, then French and then American before coming under the control of the Panamanian government in 1999. The Panama Canal has seen annual traffic rise from about 1,000 ships when it opened in 1914, to 14,702 vessels in 2008, the latter measuring a total of 309.6 million Panama Canal/Universal Measurement System (PC/UMS) tons. By 2008, more than 815,000 vessels had passed through the canal, many of them much larger than the original planners could have envisioned; the largest ships that can transit the canal today are called Panamax. The American Society of Civil Engineers has named the Panama Canal one of the seven wonders of the modern world.
  
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  Panama Canal Zone
  Coordinates: 9°07′03.61″N 79°43′12.60″W / 9.1176694°N 79.720167°W / 9.1176694; -79.720167
  The Panama Canal Zone (Spanish: Zona del Canal de Panamá) was a 553-square-mile (1,430 km²) unorganized U.S. territory located within the Republic of Panama, consisting of the Panama Canal and an area generally extending five miles (8.0 km) on each side of the centerline, but excluding Panama City and Colón, which otherwise would have been partly within the limits of the Canal Zone. Its border spanned two of Panama's provinces and was created on November 18, 1903 with the signing of the Hay-Bunau Varilla Treaty. When reservoirs were created to assure a steady supply of water for the locks, those lakes were included within the Zone.
  On February 26, 1904, the Isthmian Canal Convention was proclaimed. In this, the Republic of Panama granted to the United States in perpetuity, the use, occupation and control of a zone of land and land under water for the construction, maintenance, operation, sanitation and protection of the canal.
  
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  Sicily
  Sicily (Italian and Sicilian: Sicilia, [siˈtʃiːlja]; [sɪˈɕilja]) is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea; along with surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana (Sicilian Autonomous Region).
  Sicily is located in the central Mediterranean. It extends from the tip of the Apennine peninsula from which it is separated only by the narrow Strait of Messina, towards the North African coast. Its most prominent landmark is Mount Etna, which is at 3,320 m (10,890 ft) the tallest active volcano in Europe and one of the most active in the world. The island has a typical Mediterranean climate.
  The earliest archeological evidence of human dwelling on the island dates from 8000 BC. At around 750 BC, Sicily became a Greek colony and for the next 600 years it was the site of the Greek-Punic and Roman-Punic wars, which ended with the Roman destruction of Carthage. After the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century AD, Sicily often changed hands, and during the early Middle Ages it was ruled in turn by the Vandals, Ostrogoths, Byzantines, Arabs and Normans. Later on, the Kingdom of Sicily lasted between 1130 and 1816, subordinated to the crowns of Aragon, Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, and finally the Bourbons, as the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. It was united with the rest of Italy in 1860, but a subsequent economic collapse led to a wave of emigration, separatism, and the emergence of the Mafia, whose criminal activities pose problems to this day. After the birth of the Italian Republic in 1946, Sicily was given special status as an autonomous region.
  
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  Slovakia
  The Slovak Republic (short form: Slovakia ⁱ/sloʊˈvɑːkiə/ or /sləˈvækiə/; Slovak:  Slovensko (help·info), long form  Slovenská republika (help·info)) is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about 49,000 square kilometres (19,000 sq mi). Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south. The largest city is the capital, Bratislava, and the second largest is Košice. Slovakia is a member state of the European Union, NATO, United Nations, OECD and WTO among others. The official language is Slovak, a member of the Slavic language family.
  The Slavs arrived in the territory of present day Slovakia in the 5th and 6th centuries during the migration period. In the course of history, various parts of today's Slovakia belonged to Samo's Empire (the first known political unit of Slavs), Principality of Nitra (as independent polity, as part of Great Moravia and as part of Hungarian Kingdom), Great Moravia, Kingdom of Hungary, the Austro-Hungarian Empire or Habsburg Empire, and Czechoslovakia. A separate Slovak state briefly existed during World War II, during which Slovakia was a dependency of Nazi Germany between 1939 and 1944. From 1945 Slovakia once again became a part of Czechoslovakia. The present-day Slovakia became an independent state on 1 January 1993 after the peaceful dissolution of Czechoslovakia.
  
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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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  Taipei 101
  Taipei 101 (Chinese: 台北101 / 臺北101), formerly known as the Taipei World Financial Center, is a landmark skyscraper located in Xinyi District, Taipei, Taiwan. The building ranked officially as the world's tallest from 2004 until the opening of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai in 2010. In July 2011, the building was awarded LEED Platinum certification, the highest award in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system and became the tallest and largest green building in the world. Taipei 101 was designed by C.Y. Lee & partners and constructed primarily by Samsung C&T and KTRT Joint Venture. The tower has served as an icon of modern Taiwan ever since its opening, and received the 2004 Emporis Skyscraper Award.Fireworks launched from Taipei 101 feature prominently in international New Year's Eve broadcasts and the structure appears frequently in travel literature and international media.
  Taipei 101 comprises 101 floors above ground and 5 floors underground. The building was architecturally created as a symbol of the evolution of technology and Asian tradition (see Symbolism). Its postmodernist approach to style incorporates traditional design elements and gives them modern treatments. The tower is designed to withstand typhoons and earthquakes. A multi-level shopping mall adjoining the tower houses hundreds of fashionable stores, restaurants and clubs.
  
  wn.com/Taipei_101
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  Times Square
  Coordinates: 40°45′28″N 73°59′09″W / 40.75773°N 73.985708°W / 40.75773; -73.985708
  "The Crossroads of the World"
  Times Square is a major commercial intersection in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets. Times Square, iconified as "The Crossroads of the World" and the "The Great White Way", is the brightly illuminated hub of the Broadway theater district, one of the world's busiest pedestrian intersections, and a major center of the world's entertainment industry. According to Travel + Leisure magazine's October 2011 survey, Times Square is the world's most visited tourist attraction, bringing in over 39 million visitors annually.
  Formerly named Longacre Square, Times Square was renamed in April 1904 after The New York Times moved its headquarters to the newly erected Times Building, which is now called One Times Square and is the site of the annual ball drop on New Year's Eve.
  The northern triangle of Times Square is technically Duffy Square, dedicated in 1937 to Chaplain Francis P. Duffy of New York City's "Fighting 69th" Infantry Regiment; a memorial to Duffy is located there, along with a statue of George M. Cohan, and the TKTS discount theatre tickets booth. The stepped red roof of the TKTS booth also provides seating for various events. The Duffy Statue and the square were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.
  
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  United States
  The United States of America (commonly abbreviated to the United States, the U.S., the USA, America, and the States) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and Russia to the west, across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories in the Pacific and Caribbean.
  At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km²) and with over 312 million people, the United States is the third or fourth largest country by total area, and the third largest by both land area and population. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries. The U.S. economy is the world's largest national economy, with an estimated 2011 GDP of $15.1 trillion (22% of nominal global GDP and over 19% of global GDP at purchasing-power parity). Per capita income is the world's sixth-highest.
  
  wn.com/United_States
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  Virginia
  Virginia (ⁱ/vərˈdʒɪnjə/), officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state located in the South Atlantic region of the United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are shaped by the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Chesapeake Bay, which provide habitat for much of its flora and fauna. The capital of the Commonwealth is Richmond; Virginia Beach is the most populous city and Fairfax County the most populous political subdivision. The Commonwealth's population is over eight million.
  The area's history begins with several indigenous groups, including the Powhatan. In 1607 the London Company established the Colony of Virginia as the first permanent New World English colony. Slave labor and the land acquired from displaced Native American tribes each played a significant role in the colony's early politics and plantation economy. Virginia was one of the 13 Colonies in the American Revolution and joined the Confederacy in the American Civil War, during which Richmond was made the Confederate capital and Virginia's northwestern counties separated to form the state of West Virginia. Although the Commonwealth was under conservative single-party rule for nearly a century following Reconstruction, both major national parties are competitive in modern Virginia.
  
  wn.com/Virginia
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  West Virginia
  West Virginia (ⁱ/ˌwɛst vərˈdʒɪnjə/) is a state in the Appalachian region of the Eastern United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Ohio to the northwest, Pennsylvania to the northeast and Maryland to the east. West Virginia is the 41st most extensive and the 37th most populous of the 50 United States. The capital and largest city is Charleston.
  West Virginia became a state following the Wheeling Conventions and broke away from Virginia during the American Civil War. The new state was admitted to the Union on June 20, 1863, and was a key Civil War border state. West Virginia was the only state to form by seceding from a Confederate state, and was one of two states formed during the American Civil War (the other one being Nevada, which separated from Utah Territory).
  The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the South. The northern panhandle extends adjacent to Pennsylvania and Ohio, with the West Virginia cities of Wheeling and Weirton just across the border from the Pittsburgh metropolitan area, while Bluefield is less than 70 miles (110 km) from North Carolina. Huntington in the southwest is close to the states of Ohio and Kentucky, while Martinsburg and Harpers Ferry in the Eastern Panhandle region are considered to be a part of the Washington metropolitan area, in between the states of Maryland and Virginia. The unique position of West Virginia means that it is often included in several geographical regions, including the Mid-Atlantic, the Upland South, and the Southeastern United States. Notably, it is the only state that is entirely within the area served by the Appalachian Regional Commission; the area is commonly defined as "Appalachia".
  
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  Zambia
  Zambia ( /ˈzæmbiə/), officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west. The capital city is Lusaka, located in the south-central part of the country. The population is concentrated mainly around Lusaka in the south and the Copperbelt Province to the northwest.
  Originally inhabited by Khoisan peoples, the region which comprises modern Zambia was colonised during the Bantu expansion of the thirteenth century. After visits by European explorers in the eighteenth century, Zambia became the British colony of Northern Rhodesia towards the end of the nineteenth century. For most of the colonial period, the country was governed by an administration appointed from London with the advice of the British South Africa Company.
  On 24 October 1964, the country declared independence from the United Kingdom and then-prime minister Kenneth Kaunda became the inaugural president. Kaunda's socialist United National Independence Party (UNIP) maintained power from the 1964 until 1991. From 1972 to 1991 Zambia was a single-party state with the UNIP as the sole-legal political party, with the goal of uniting the nation under the banner of 'One Zambia, One Nation'. Kaunda was succeeded by Frederick Chiluba of the social-democratic Movement for Multi-Party Democracy in 1991, during which the country saw a rise in social-economic growth and increased decentralisation of government.
  
  wn.com/Zambia

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  Abraham Lincoln
  Abraham Lincoln ⁱ/ˈeɪbrəhæm ˈlɪŋkən/ (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through its greatest constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union while ending slavery, and promoting economic and financial modernization. Reared in a poor family on the western frontier, Lincoln was mostly self-educated. He became a country lawyer, a Whig Party leader, Illinois state legislator in the 1830s, and a one-term member of the United States House of Representatives in the 1840s. After a series of debates in 1858 that gave national visibility to his opposition to the expansion of slavery, Lincoln lost a Senate race to his arch-rival Stephen A. Douglas. Lincoln, a moderate from a swing state, secured the Republican Party nomination. With almost no support in the South he swept the North and was elected president in 1860. His election was the signal for seven southern slave states to declare their secession from the Union and form the Confederate States of America. The departure of the Southerners gave Lincoln's party firm control of Congress, but no formula for compromise or reconciliation was found. And the war came.
  
  wn.com/Abraham_Lincoln
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  Alan Cranston
  Alan MacGregor Cranston (June 19, 1914 – December 31, 2000) was an American journalist and Democratic Senator from California.
  Cranston was born in Palo Alto, California, the son of Carol (née Dixon) and William MacGregor Cranston. He earned his high school diploma from the old Mountain View High School, where among other things, he was a track star. He attended Pomona College and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México before graduating from Stanford University in Palo Alto in 1936.
  Cranston was born into a well-to-do family from Northern California with interests in real estate. He married and divorced twice. His first wife, Geneva McMath, was the mother of his sons, Robin, who died young in an auto accident, and Kim, who survived him. Cranston was later married to Norma Weintraub.
  Cranston was a correspondent for the International News Service for two years preceding World War II. When an abridged English-language translation of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf was released, sanitized to exclude some of Hitler's anti-semitism and militancy, Cranston published a different translation (with annotations) which he believed more accurately reflected the contents of the book. In 1939, Hitler's publisher sued him for copyright violation in Connecticut; a judge ruled in Hitler's favor and publication of the book was halted.
  
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  Alans
  The Alans, or the Alani, occasionally termed Alauni or Halani, were a group of Sarmatian tribes, nomadic pastoralists of the 1st millennium AD who spoke an Eastern Iranian language which derived from Scytho-Sarmatian and which in turn evolved into modern Ossetian.
  The various forms of Alan — Greek: Αλανοί, Αλαννοί; Chinese: 阿蘭聊 Alanliao (Pinyin) in the 2nd century, 阿蘭 Alan (Pinyin) in the 3rd century — and Iron (a self-designation of the Alans' modern Ossetian descendants, indicating early tribal self-designation) are Iranian dialectical forms of Aryan. These and other variants of Aryan (such as Iran), were common self-designations of the Indo-Iranians, the common ancestors of the Indo-Aryans and Iranian peoples to whom the Alans belonged.
  The Alans were also known over the course of their history by another group of related names including the variations Asi, As, and Os (Bulgarian Uzi, Hungarian Jász, Russian Jasy, Georgian Osi). It is this name that is the root of the modern Ossetian.
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  Albert Plesman
  Dr. Albert Plesman (7 September 1889 – 31 December 1953) was a Dutch pioneer in aviation and founder of KLM, the oldest airline in the world still operating under its original name.
  He was born as the son of an egg trader from The Hague. In 1915 he joined the mobilized Dutch airforce as a professional officer, at the time still called the "militaire luchtvaartafdeling" (military aviation department), in Soesterberg. After World War I in which the Netherlands remained neutral, he began with the organization of the ELTA, the "Eerste Luchtvaart Tentoonstelling Amsterdam" (First Aviation Exhibition Amsterdam), held from 1 August till 15 September 1919. For that occasion enormous halls (hangars) where built. Right after the exhibition these were used by Anthony Fokker, for his new company Nederlandse Vliegtuigenfabriek (Dutch Aircraft Factory), subsequently the Fokker airplane factory.
  All these activities led to the establishment of the Royal Dutch Airlines (KLM), of which Plesman became director and made it a flourishing company. After the Second World War Plesman was appointed president-director of KLM. After the recovery from the war the company became a renowned airline company under his leadership. Plesman pleaded in vain for a displacement of Schiphol Airport to a location near Burgerveen.
  
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  Aleksis Kivi
  Aleksis Kivi ( pronunciation (help·info)), born Alexis Stenvall, (10 October 1834 – 31 December 1872) was a Finnish author who wrote the first significant novel in the Finnish language, Seven Brothers (Finnish title: Seitsemän veljestä). Although Kivi was among the very earliest authors of prose and lyrics in Finnish language, he is still considered one of the greatest of them all.
  Aleksis Kivi was born at Nurmijärvi, Finland, to a tailor's family. In 1846 he left for school in Helsinki, and in 1859 he was accepted to the University of Helsinki, where he studied literature and developed an interest in the theater. His first play was Kullervo, based on a tragic tale from Kalevala. He also met the famous journalist and statesman Johan Vilhelm Snellman.
  From 1863 onwards, Kivi devoted his time to writing. He wrote 12 plays and a collection of poetry. The novel Seven Brothers took him ten years to write. Literary critics, especially the prominent August Ahlqvist, disapproved of the book, at least nominally because of its "rudeness" – romanticism was in its forte at the time – but maybe also because it was written in the south-western dialect of Finnish, while Ahlqvist himself preferred north-eastern dialects of his homelands. The Fennomans also disapproved of its depiction of not-so-virtuous rural life that was far from their idealized point of view, and his excessive drinking may have alienated some.
  
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  Alex Ferguson
  Sir Alexander Chapman "Alex" Ferguson, CBE (born 31 December 1941) is a Scottish football manager and former player who has managed Manchester United since 1986. His tenure has seen the club go through an era of success and dominance both in England and in Europe, giving Ferguson a reputation as one of the most admired and respected managers in the history of the game.
  Ferguson previously managed East Stirlingshire and St. Mirren, before a highly successful period as manager of Aberdeen. After a brief stint as manager of the Scotland national team following the death of Jock Stein, he was appointed manager of Manchester United in November 1986.
  With 25 years as manager of Manchester United, he is the longest serving manager in their history after overtaking Sir Matt Busby's record on 19 December 2010. His tenure is also the longest of all the current League managers. During this time, Ferguson has won many awards and holds many records including winning Manager of the Year most times in British football history. In 2008, he became the third British manager to win the European Cup on more than one occasion.
  
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  Alex Salmond
  Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond ( /ˈsæmənd/; born 31 December 1954) is a Scottish politician and current First Minister of Scotland. He became Scotland's fourth First Minister in May 2007. He is the Leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), having served as Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Gordon. From 1987 to 2010 he served as Member of Parliament for Banff and Buchan in the UK House of Commons. Salmond previously held the position of leader of the SNP from September 1990 until he stepped down in September 2000.
  Originally from Linlithgow, West Lothian, Salmond is a graduate of the University of St Andrews, where he achieved a Joint Honours MA in Economics and History. After earning his degree he began his career in the Government Economic Service (GES), and later joined the Royal Bank of Scotland as an energy economist where he wrote and broadcast extensively for both domestic and international media outlets.
  Following the establishment of the devolved Scottish Parliament in 1999, he was elected MSP for Banff and Buchan, thus simultaneously representing the area as both Member of Parliament (MP) and MSP. Salmond resigned as SNP leader in 2000 and did not seek re-election to the Scottish Parliament. He did however retain his Westminster seat in the 2001 general election. Salmond was once again elected SNP leader in 2004 and the following year held his Banff and Buchan seat in the 2005 general election. In 2006 he announced his intention to contest the Gordon constituency in the 2007 Scottish Parliament election, an election in which Salmond defeated the incumbent MSP and in which nationally, the SNP emerged as the largest single party. Salmond was voted First Minister by the Scottish Parliament on 16 May 2007.
  
  wn.com/Alex_Salmond
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  Alfie Anido
  Alfie Anido (December 31, 1959 – December 30, 1981) was a popular Filipino matinee idol best remembered for his death at the age of twenty one. He was the eldest of four children of Alberto Anido and Sara Serrano, and was the brother of Albert Anido, another Filipino actor.
  Born Alfonso Serrano Anido, he was also a fashion and commercial model before he became a contract star for Regal Films, a leading Filipino film production company. He was dubbed as one of the Regal Babies, along with then-young actors such as Gabby Concepcion, William Martinez, Albert Martinez, Jimi Melendez, Maricel Soriano, Snooky Serna and Dina Bonnevie. He was famously linked with Bonnevie, his co-star in the 1980 camp classic Temptation Island. At the time of his entry into show business, he was in college at the Ateneo de Manila University taking up Management.
  
  wn.com/Alfie_Anido
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  Andreas Vesalius
  Andreas Vesalius (31 December 1514 – 15 October 1564) was a Flemish anatomist, physician, and author of one of the most influential books on human anatomy, De humani corporis fabrica (On the Structure of the Human Body). Vesalius is often referred to as the founder of modern human anatomy. Vesalius is the Latinized form of Andries van Wesel. He is sometimes also referred to as Andreas Vesal, André Vesalio and Andre Vesale.
  Vesalius was born to Andries van Wesele and Isabel Crabbe on 31 December 1514, in Brussels, which was then part of the Habsburg Netherlands. His great grandfather, Jan van Wesel, probably born in Wesel, received his medical degree from the University of Pavia and taught medicine in 1528 at the then newly founded University of Leuven. His grandfather, Everard van Wesel, was the Royal Physician of Emperor Maximilian, while his father, Anders van Wesel, went on to serve as apothecary to Maximillian, and later a valet de chambre to his successor Charles V. Anders encouraged his son to continue in the family tradition, and enrolled him in the Brethren of the Common Life in Brussels to learn Greek and Latin according to standards of the era.
  
  wn.com/Andreas_Vesalius
• Andy Summers
  Andrew James "Andy" Summers (born 31 December 1942) is an English guitarist born in Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire, England. Best known as the guitarist for rock band The Police, he has also recorded twelve solo albums, collaborated with many other artists, toured extensively under his own name, published several books, and composed several film scores.
  His birth name is Andrew James Summers. For a brief two-year period, Summers spelled his name Somers, but subsequently reverted to using his real family name Summers.^{[citation needed]}
  During his early childhood, his family moved to Bournemouth in the county of Dorset. After years of piano lessons, he took up the guitar at the age of thirteen. By age sixteen he was playing in local clubs. By nineteen, he had moved to London with his friend Zoot Money to form Zoot Money's Big Roll Band.
  Summers' professional career began in the mid 1960s in London as the guitarist for the British rhythm and blues band Zoot Money's Big Roll Band, which eventually came under the influence of the spreading psychedelic scene and morphed into the acid rock group Dantalian's Chariot. After the demise of Dantalion's Chariot, Summers joined The Soft Machine for a period of six months and toured the United States. For a brief time in 1968, he was a member of The Animals, then known as Eric Burdon and the Animals, with whom he recorded one album, Love Is. The album features a recording of Traffic's "Coloured Rain", which includes a guitar solo by Summers that runs a full 4 minutes and 15 seconds.
  
  wn.com/Andy_Summers
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  Anthony Hopkins
  Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins, CBE (born 31 December 1937), best known as Anthony Hopkins, is a Welsh actor of film, stage and television, and a composer. Considered to be one of the greatest living actors, Hopkins is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs. Other prominent film credits include The Lion in Winter, Magic, The Elephant Man, 84 Charing Cross Road, Dracula, Legends of the Fall, The Remains of the Day, Amistad, Nixon, The World's Fastest Indian, and Fracture. Hopkins was born and brought up in Wales. Retaining his British citizenship, he became a U.S. citizen on 12 April 2000. Hopkins' films have spanned a wide variety of genres, from family films to horror. As well as his Academy Award, Hopkins has also won three BAFTA Awards, two Emmys and the Cecil B. DeMille Golden Globe Award. Hopkins was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1993 for services to the arts. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2003, and was made a Fellow of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 2008.
  
  wn.com/Anthony_Hopkins
• Archibald Hoxsey
  Archibald Hoxsey (October 15, 1884 – December 31, 1910) was an aviator for the Wright brothers.
  He was born in Staunton, Illinois on October 15, 1884. He moved with his parents to Pasadena, California and by 1909-1910 his mechanical ability led to a meeting with the Wright Brothers. In March 1910 the Wright brothers opened a flight school in Montgomery, Alabama and Hoxey was a teacher there. There he became the first pilot to fly at night.
  On October 11, 1910 at Kinloch Field in St. Louis he took Theodore Roosevelt up in an airplane.
  Because of their dueling altitude record attempts, he and Ralph Johnstone were nicknamed the "heavenly twins".
  On December 30, 1910 Hoxley set the flight altitude record of 11,474 feet.
  He died on December 31, 1910 in Los Angeles, California after crashing from 7,000 feet. He was trying to set a new flight altitude record. The Wright Brothers paid for the funeral.
  
  wn.com/Archibald_Hoxsey
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  Are Kalvø
  Are Kalvø (born 31 December 1969) is a Norwegian writer and satirist.
  He was born in Stranda. His debut work as writer was Absolutt Oslo, released in 1994. Later satirical books were Kunsten å vere neger (1996), Men fjernkontrollen min får du aldri (1997), Harry (1999), Bibelen 2 (2002, with Steffen Kverneland), Syden (2002) and Våre venner kinesarane (2007). His first work as a fiction writer was Nød, released in 2004. He writes in nynorsk.
  He wrote the revues 1000 år og like blid (1998, with Ragnar Hovland), and Det folk vil ha (2005). Both premiered at Det Norske Teatret. He was also one of the main participants in the satiric radio program Hallo i uken in NRK P2 until the summer of 2009, together with Espen Beranek Holm and Else Michelet.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Are_Kalvø
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  Avram Hershko
  Avram Hershko (Hebrew: אברהם הרשקו‎; born 31 December 1937) is a Hungarian-Israeli biochemist and Nobel laureate in Chemistry.
  Born Herskó Ferenc in Karcag, Hungary, Hershko emigrated to Israel in 1950. Received his M.D. in 1965 and his Ph.D in 1969 from the Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, Jerusalem, Israel. He is currently a Distinguished Professor at the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at the Technion in Haifa.
  Along with Aaron Ciechanover and Irwin Rose, he was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation. The ubiquitin-proteasome pathway has a critical role in maintaining the homeostasis of cells and is believed to be involved in the development and progression of diseases such as: cancer, muscular and neurological diseases, immune and inflammatory responses.
  His contributions to science directly helped cure his long-time friend from cancer.
  In 2005, he was voted the co-31st-greatest Israeli of all time, in a poll by the Israeli news website Ynet to determine whom the general public considered the 200 Greatest Israelis. Hershko's work and reception of the Nobel Prize is cited as a historic milestone in the unique history of the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology.
  
  wn.com/Avram_Hershko
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  Barbara Carrera
  Barbara Carrera (born Barbara Kingsbury on December 31, 1945) is a Nicaraguan-born American film and television actress as well as a former model. She is best known for her roles as Bond girl Fatima Blush in Never Say Never Again and as Angelica Nero on the soap opera Dallas.
  Barbara Kingsbury was born in San Carlos, Río San Juan, Nicaragua. Her mother, Doña Florencia Carrera, was a Nicaraguan of European and Native ancestry, and her father, Louis Kingsbury, was a U.S. employee of the American embassy in Nicaragua. There is some uncertainty regarding her year of birth, which some sources give as 1947 or 1951, but most list 1945. (She apparently prefers to say 1953.) Kingsbury came to the U.S. at age ten and studied at the St. Joseph Academy in Memphis. She moved to New York at the age of fifteen.
  Kingsbury began a career as a model at the Eileen Ford agency at the age of 17, at which point she changed her last name to her mother's maiden name, Carrera. In 1972, she appeared on the screen in a publicity role for the Chiquita bananas. Her first film role was as a fashion model in Puzzle of a Downfall Child (1970), which fared poorly at the box office. In 1976, she earned her first Golden Globe nomination for her role in The Master Gunfighter. She later played in such films as The Island of Dr. Moreau, Lone Wolf McQuade, Condorman, Point of Impact, Tryst, and Embryo. For her portrayal of the villainess Fatima Blush in the James Bond film Never Say Never Again, she earned a 1984 Golden Globe nomination for "Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture". She worked opposite Laurence Olivier in Wild Geese II the next year.
  
  wn.com/Barbara_Carrera
• Baron Waqa
  Baron Divavesi Waqa (b. December 31, 1959) is a Nauruan politician.
  He was elected in the May 2003 elections to the Parliament of Nauru, representing the constituency of Boe. Under president Ludwig Scotty he served as Minister of the Interior and of Education; he had, however, to leave the post upon Scotty's replacement by René Harris. He kept his seat in Parliament.
  On April 23, 2004, Waqa and his colleagues Kieren Keke, David Adeang and Fabian Ribauw participated in protests at the Nauru International Airport in Yaren; these were meant to show displeasure regarding government policy against Afghan asylum-seekers in Australia and the Flotilla of Hope, as well as against the deadlock then encountered in Parliament. All four faced up to fourteen years in jail because of their participation in the protest; charges were dropped, however, upon Scotty's re-ascension the following June. Scotty once again appointed Waqa to be Minister of Education.
  Waqa remained loyal to his Administration during the ministerial crisis which occurred in 2007. Consequently, Waqa was not invited to serve in the subsequent Administration of President Marcus Stephen which later took office.
  
  wn.com/Baron_Waqa
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  Barry Hughes
  Barry Hughes (born 31 December 1937) is a Welsh former professional football player and manager, active primarily in the Netherlands.
  Hughes began his career with the youth team of English team West Bromwich Albion, but left without making a first-team appearance in the Football League. Failing to find a new team in the United Kingdom, Hughes moved to the Netherlands to play semi-professional football with Amsterdam-based club side Blauw-Wit.
  After retiring as a player, Hughes began his coaching career in 1966 with Alkmaar'54, and later managed a variety of Dutch club sides including HFC Haarlem, Go Ahead Eagles, Sparta Rotterdam, FC Utrecht, MVV and FC Volendam. While managing Haarlem in 1978, Hughes signed young player Ruud Gullit to his first ever professional football contract.
  Hughes released a 7" music single in 1978 called "Voetbal is Koning."
  
  
  
  
  
  wn.com/Barry_Hughes
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  Bebe Neuwirth
  Beatrice "Bebe" Neuwirth ( /ˌbiːətrɪs ˌbiːbiː ˈnjuːwɜrθ/; born December 31, 1958) is an American actress, musician and dancer. She has worked in television and is known for her portrayal of Dr. Lilith Sternin, Dr. Frasier Crane's wife (later ex-wife), on both the TV sitcom Cheers (in a starring role), and its spin-off Frasier (in a recurring guest role). On stage, she is also known for originating the role of Nickie in the revival of Sweet Charity, the role of Velma Kelly in the revival of Chicago (for both of which she earned a Tony award) and for the role of Morticia Addams in The Addams Family musical.
  Neuwirth was born in Princeton, New Jersey, the daughter of Sydney Anne, a painter, and Lee Paul Neuwirth, a mathematician. She has an older brother Peter, an actuary. Neuwirth is Jewish and attended Chapin School in New Jersey as well as Princeton Day School (New Jersey) of Princeton, but graduated from Princeton High School (a public school) in 1976. She began to study ballet at the age of five, and chose it as her field of concentration when she attended Juilliard in New York City in 1976 and 1977. During this period, she performed with the Princeton Ballet Company in Peter and the Wolf, The Nutcracker, and Coppélia and appeared in community theater musicals. Neuwirth always dreamed of becoming a ballet dancer; the only other career she seriously contemplated was being a veterinarian.
  
  wn.com/Bebe_Neuwirth
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  Belisarius
  Flavius Belisarius (Greek: Βελισάριος, ca. AD 500 – AD 565) was a general of the Byzantine Empire. He was instrumental to Emperor Justinian's ambitious project of reconquering much of the Mediterranean territory of the former Western Roman Empire, which had been lost less than a century previously.
  One of the defining features of Belisarius' career was his success despite the little or no support he received from Justinian. He is also among a select group of men considered by historians to be the "Last of the Romans".
  Belisarius was probably born in Germane or Germania, a city that once stood on the site of present day Sapareva Banya in south-west Bulgaria, in the borders of Thrace and Illyria. Born into an Illyrian or Thracian family, he became a Roman soldier as a young man, serving as bodyguard of Emperor Justin I.
  He came to the attention of Justin and his nephew, Justinian, as a promising and innovative officer. He was given permission by the emperor to form a bodyguard regiment (bucellarii), of heavy cavalry. He was given permission to expand this unit into a personal household regiment, 1,500 strong. Belisarius' bucellarii were the nucleus around which all the armies he would later command were organized. Armed with lance, Hunnish composite bow, throwing darts, and broadsword, they were fully armored to the standard of heavy cavalry of the day. A multi-purpose unit, they were capable of skirmishing at a distance with bow, like the Huns; or could act as heavy shock cavalry, charging and crushing an enemy with lance and sword. In essence, they combined the best and most dangerous aspects of both of Rome's greatest enemies, the Huns and the Goths.
  
  wn.com/Belisarius
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  Ben Kingsley
  Sir Ben Kingsley, CBE (born Krishna Pandit Bhanji;Gujarati:કૃષ્ણા પંડિત ભાનજી; 31 December 1943) is an English actor who has won an Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards in his career. He is known for starring as Mohandas Gandhi in the film Gandhi in 1982, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor. He is also known for his performances in the films Schindler's List (1993), Sexy Beast (2000), House of Sand and Fog (2003), and Hugo (2011).
  Kingsley was born Krishna Pandit Bhanji in Snainton, North Yorkshire, England, the son of Anna Lyna Mary (née Goodman), an actress and model, and Rahimtulla Harji Bhanji, a medical doctor.
  Kingsley's father, born in Kenya, is of Gujarati Indian descent; Kingsley's paternal grandfather was a spice trader who had moved from India to Zanzibar, where Kingsley's father lived until moving to England at the age of 14. Kingsley's mother, born out of wedlock, was "loath to speak of her background". Kingsley's maternal grandfather was believed by the family to have been a Russian or German Jew, while Kingsley's maternal grandmother was English and worked in the garment district of East London.
  
  wn.com/Ben_Kingsley
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  Bianca Maria Sforza
  Bianca Maria Sforza (5 April 1472 – 31 December 1510) was Holy Roman Empress as the second wife of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor. She was the eldest legitimate daughter of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan, by his second wife, Bona of Savoy.
  Bianca was born in Pavia on 5 April 1472, the eldest daughter of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan, by his second wife, Bona of Savoy, whom he had married in 1468, a year after the death of his first wife, Dorotea Gonzaga, who did not bear him children. Bianca's paternal grandparents were Francesco I Sforza and Bianca Maria Visconti, for whom she was named. Her maternal grandparents were Louis, Duke of Savoy and Anne de Lusignan of Cyprus. She had an older brother Gian Galeazzo Sforza, who married their first cousin, Isabella of Naples, by whom he had issue, and a younger sister Anna Sforza, first wife of Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, who, after Anna's death in childbirth, would marry secondly, Lucrezia Borgia. Bianca's older illegitimate half-sister was Caterina Sforza from her father's relationship with Lucrezia Landriani. Her uncle was Ludovico Sforza Il Moro, Duke of Milan, who married Beatrice d'Este, and her aunt was Ippolita Maria Sforza, first wife of King Alfonso II of Naples.
  
  wn.com/Bianca_Maria_Sforza
• Bill Idelson
  Bill Idelson (August 21, 1919 – December 31, 2007) was an actor and scriptwriter best known for his teenage role as Rush Gook on the radio comedy Vic and Sade and his later, recurring television role as Herman Glimscher on The Dick Van Dyke Show in the 1960s, before making a distinguished third career as a television writer, director and producer. Idelson was born in Forest Park, Illinois. His parents were Russian immigrants. He was also the father of television writer/actress Ellen Idelson.
  Idelson's acting career began in 1931 on Chicago's WGN radio, when he played Skeezix on Uncle Walt and Skeezix, a radio drama based on the Gasoline Alley comic strip. One year later he landed the role of Rush on the long-running Vic and Sade, playing the role until he joined the U.S. Navy in World War II. He was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross and four Air Medals as a night fighter pilot.
  After the war, his acting credits included radio and television versions of the daytime drama series One Man's Family.
  
  wn.com/Bill_Idelson
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  Billie Dove
  Billie Dove (May 14, 1903 – December 31, 1997) was an American actress.
  She was born as Bertha Bohny in New York City to Charles and Bertha (née Kagl) Bohny, Swiss immigrants. As a teen, she worked as a model to help support her family and was hired as a teenager by Florenz Ziegfeld to appear in his Ziegfeld Follies Revue. She legally changed her name to Lillian Bohny in the early 1920s. and migrated to Hollywood, where she began appearing in silent films. She soon became one of the most popular actresses of the 1920s, appearing in Douglas Fairbanks' smash hit Technicolor film The Black Pirate (1926), as Rodeo West in The Painted Angel (1929), and was dubbed The American Beauty (1927), the title of one of her films.
  She married the director of her seventh film, Irvin Willat, in 1923. The two divorced in 1929. Dove had a huge legion of male fans, one of her most persistent being Howard Hughes. She shared a three-year romance with Hughes and was engaged to marry him, but she ended the relationship without ever giving cause. Hughes cast her as a comedian in his film Cock of the Air (1932). She also appeared in his movie The Age for Love (1931).
  
  wn.com/Billie_Dove
• Billy Snedden
  Sir Billy Mackie Snedden, KCMG, QC (31 December 1926 – 27 June 1987) was an Australian politician representing the Liberal Party. He was Leader of the Opposition at the 1974 federal election, failing to defeat the Labor incumbent Gough Whitlam.
  Born in Perth, the son of a stonemason, Billy Snedden was educated at Highgate Primary School, Perth Boys School and Perth Technical College. He joined the Royal Australian Air Force in 1945. After the war he was discharged and attended the University of Western Australia, where he completed a law degree in 1950. He was admitted to the bar in 1951. In 1950 Snedden married Joy Forsyth, with whom he had four children. During this time he stood once for the Western Australian state Parliament and twice for the House of Representatives.
  In 1954 he moved to Melbourne, where he practised law until 1955, when he was elected to the House of Representatives for the outer suburban seat of Bruce. He handily defeated Keith Ewert, the former Labor member for nearby Flinders. Snedden defeated Ewert by a similar margin in 1958.
  
  wn.com/Billy_Snedden
• Bob Shaw
  Bob Shaw, born Robert Shaw, (31 December 1931 – 11 February 1996) was a science fiction author and fan from Northern Ireland, noted for his originality and wit. He won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer in 1979 and 1980. His short story "Light of Other Days" was a Hugo Award nominee in 1967, as was his novel The Ragged Astronauts in 1987.
  Shaw was born and raised in Belfast, the eldest of three sons of a policeman. He learned of science fiction at about 11 years old when he read an A. E. van Vogt short story in an early edition of Astounding Science-Fiction magazine. He later described the experience as being more significant and long-lasting than taking LSD. He attended Belfast College of Technology. In 1950 he joined the group Irish Fandom which met at the house of James White, another Northern Irish science fiction writer, on Upper Newtonards Road. The group was influential in the early history of science fiction fandom and produced fanzines Hyphen and Slant, to the latter of which Shaw contributed material. Shaw acquired the nickname "BoSh" during this period. He published his first science-fiction short story in 1951, followed by several others.
  
  wn.com/Bob_Shaw
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  Boies Penrose
  Boies Penrose (November 1, 1860 – December 31, 1921) was an American lawyer and Republican politician from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He represented Pennsylvania in the United States Senate from 1897 until his death in 1921.
  Born into a prominent Philadelphia family of Cornish descent, he was brother to Richard Penrose and Spencer Penrose, who in 1918 would build the elegant Broadmoor Hotel at Colorado Springs, Colorado. Penrose graduated from Harvard Law School in 1881, and was admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar in 1883. He took an interest in politics and began working for Matthew Quay, a Pennsylvania political boss. He was elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 1884, and was elected to the State Senate in 1886, where he served as president pro tempore from 1889 to 1891.
  Penrose stepped down from his position as a State Senator in 1897 to take office as a United States Senator. Penrose was a dominant member of the Senate Finance Committee and supported high protective tariffs.
  
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  Bojana Jovanovski
  Bojana Jovanovski (Serbian: Бојана Јовановски, pronounced: BO-yan-nah yo-vah-NOV-skee; born 31 December 1991) is a Serbian tennis player. As of 28 May 2012, Jovanovski is ranked world no. 101 and is the third highest ranked Serbian player, after world no. 14 Ana Ivanović and no. 21 Jelena Janković. She ended the 2010 season as the youngest player in the top 100.
  Coached by father Zoran Jovanovski, she has won four ITF singles titles, and played for Serbia Fed Cup team in 2009 and 2010. Jovanovski made her WTA Tour debut at 2010 Malaysian Open, losing to Elena Dementieva in the second round. She debuted at a Grand Slam at the 2010 Wimbledon Championships, reaching the second round.
  Jovanovski began playing tennis aged seven at the Red Star Tennis Club. Aged twelve, she won Serbian national U–14 championships and was the finalist of the U–16. She turned professional in 2006 and played her first professional junior event at the tournament in Pančevo, Serbia, losing 4–6, 6–3, 6–2 to Ana Veselinović. That year, she also lost to Simona Halep in the finals of the Heiveld Indoor Junior Championships by a score of 6–1, 6–2. In 2007 Jovanovski won junior events in Citta' Di Santa Croce, defeating Michelle Larcher De Brito, and reached the finals in Prato and Milan, losing to Romana Tabaková and Anastasia Pivovarova, respectively.
  
  wn.com/Bojana_Jovanovski
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  Boris Yeltsin
  Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin (Russian: Бори́с Никола́евич Е́льцин; IPA: [bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈlaɪvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtsɨn] ( listen); 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was the President of Russia, serving from 1991 to 1999.
  Originally a supporter of Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin emerged under the perestroika reforms as one of Gorbachev's most powerful political opponents. On 29 May 1990 he was elected the chairman of the Russian Supreme Soviet. On 12 June 1991 he was elected by popular vote to the newly created post of President of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (SFSR), at that time one of the 15 constituent republics of the Soviet Union. He won 57% of the vote in a six-candidate contest and became the second democratically elected leader of Russia in history. Upon the resignation of Mikhail Gorbachev and the final dissolution of the Soviet Union on 25 December 1991, Yeltsin remained in office as the President of the Russian Federation, the USSR's successor state. Yeltsin was reelected in the 1996 election; in the second round of the election Yeltsin defeated Gennady Zyuganov from the revived Communist Party by a margin of 13%. However, Yeltsin never recovered his early popularity after a series of economic and political crises in Russia in the 1990s.
  
  wn.com/Boris_Yeltsin
• Brandon Teena
  Brandon Teena (December 12, 1972 – December 31, 1993) was an American trans man, a female to male transgender person, who was raped and murdered in Humboldt, Nebraska. His life and death were the subject of the Academy Award-winning 1999 film Boys Don't Cry, which was based on the documentary film The Brandon Teena Story.
  Teena was born Teena Renae Brandon in Lincoln, Nebraska, the younger of two children to Patrick and JoAnn Brandon. His father died in a car accident eight months before he was born, and he was raised by his mother. JoAnn named her second child after their German shepherd dog, Tina Marie. Teena and his older sister Tammy lived with their maternal grandmother in Lincoln, before they were reclaimed by their mother when Teena was three years old and Tammy was six years old. The family resided in the Pine Acre Mobile Home Park in northeast Lincoln, and JoAnn worked as a clerk in a women's retail store in Lincoln to support the family. As young children, Teena and Tammy were sexually abused by their uncle for several years, and Teena and his mother JoAnn sought counselling for this in 1991. JoAnn remarried once from 1975 to 1980, with the marriage having failed due to her husband's alcoholism. Teena's family described him as being a tomboy since early childhood; Teena began identifying as male during adolescence and dated a female student during this period. His mother rejected his male identity and continued referring to him as her "daughter". Teena claimed to be intersex several times, with this later being proven to be false.
  
  wn.com/Brandon_Teena
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  Brent Barry
  Brent Robert Barry (born December 31, 1971) is a former American professional basketball player. The 6 ft 7 in (2.01 m), 210 lb (95 kg; 15 st) shooting guard was selected out of Oregon State University by the Denver Nuggets with the 15th overall pick in the 1995 NBA Draft, but was traded shortly after to the Los Angeles Clippers.
  Barry played professionally for the Los Angeles Clippers, Miami Heat, Chicago Bulls, Seattle SuperSonics, San Antonio Spurs, and Houston Rockets, winning two NBA Championships with the Spurs, in 2005 and 2007. He also won the 1996 NBA Slam Dunk Contest.
  Following the conclusion of his NBA career, Barry works as sports commentator and studio host for the NBA TV show "NBA Gametime."
  Barry, born in Hempstead, New York, is the son of Hall of Famer Rick Barry, and was arguably the best player of the four basketball-playing Barry sons, the others being Scooter, Jon and Drew. His stepmother, Lynn Barry, was also a distinguished basketball player in college. Brent, the second youngest, played his high school basketball at athletic powerhouse De La Salle High School in Concord, California and graduated in 1990. Barry played four years on the Beavers basketball team of Oregon State University after redshirting his freshman season. In 1995, Barry graduated from Oregon State with a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology.
  
  wn.com/Brent_Barry
• Bronson Pelletier
  Bronson Pelletier (born December 31, 1986) is a Canadian television actor, best known for his role as Jack Sinclair in renegadepress.com (2007), and for his role in New Moon.
  Pelletier played Jared, a Quileute shape-shifter, in New Moon, the sequel to Twilight, and reprised his role in Eclipse, the third film in the series. Both New Moon and Eclipse were filmed in Vancouver, Canada. He also had roles in Art Zone and Dinosapien.
  Pelletier is of Plains Cree, descent. He has four brothers. He recently travelled to New Zealand and Denmark to promote New Moon which was a very successful trip, landing many interviews and getting fans excited as he attended the Armageddon Expo in Auckland and the Collectormania in Copenhagen, where he met current girlfriend Sabine Moestrup.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Bronson_Pelletier
• Bryon Russell
  Bryon Demetrise Russell (born December 31, 1970 in San Bernardino, California) is an American basketball player. During an NBA career that spanned from 1993 to 2006, he played for the Denver Nuggets, Washington Wizards and Los Angeles Lakers and was a key member of the Utah Jazz, helping them reach back-to-back NBA finals appearances in 1997 and 1998. He was also a part of the Seattle SuperSonics roster for a brief time but never appeared in a game for them. Russell had his best season with the Jazz in the 1999–2000 season, when he averaged 14.1 points and 5.2 rebounds per game. From 1997 to 2000, he played in every regular season game.
  Russell's alma mater, Long Beach State University, retired his jersey in 2010.
  Russell is best remembered for guarding Michael Jordan at the end of Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals. Jordan made the game-winning shot over Russell, although many fans believe Jordan pushed off Russell during the play. The referees did not call a foul on the play, and Russell later remarked, "Whether he pushed off or not, he was making that shot." He and Jordan were teammates when they played for the Washington Wizards during the 2002-2003 NBA season, which was Jordan's last.
  
  wn.com/Bryon_Russell
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  Burton Cummings
  Burton L. Cummings, OC,OM (born December 31, 1947, in Winnipeg, Manitoba) is a Canadian musician and songwriter.
  He was the lead singer and frequent keyboardist for the Canadian rock band The Guess Who. During his 10 years in The Guess Who, from 1965 to 1975, he sang and wrote or co-wrote many songs including "American Woman," "No Time," "Share the Land," "Hand Me Down World," "Undun," "Laughing," "Star Baby", "New Mother Nature," and "These Eyes." His solo career includes many Canadian singles including "Stand Tall", "My Own Way to Rock" and "You Saved My Soul."
  Cummings was born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba, as were all of the other original members of The Guess Who, and attended St. John's High School. His first band was a local Winnipeg R&B group, The Deverons, with an 'E' (not to be confused with the band The Devrons who had Country/R&B hits in the early 1960s). The Deverons with Cummings released two singles on the tiny REO Records label. The first single, "Blue Is The Night / She's Your Lover", was cut in a Winnipeg radio station. The second single, "Lost Love / Feel Alright", was recorded at Kay Bank Studios in Minneapolis, where The Guess Who frequently recorded. He joined The Guess Who in 1965 to replace keyboardist Bob Ashley and shortly thereafter its previous lead singer, Chad Allan, left the band.
  
  wn.com/Burton_Cummings
• Carl Dudley
  Carl Ward Dudley (December 31, 1910 in Little Rock, Arkansas – September 2, 1973 in Hong Kong) was an American film director and producer best known for the Cinerama feature South Seas Adventure (1958).
  In the 1950s, he produced thirty documentary shorts in the This World of Ours series.
  
  
  
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  Catherine Labouré
  Saint Catherine Labouré (May 2, 1806 – December 31, 1876) (born Zoe Labouré) was a sister of the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul and a Marian visionary who relayed the request from the Blessed Virgin Mary to create the Miraculous Medal worn by millions of Christians, both Roman Catholic and non-denominational.
  She was born in the Burgundy region of France to Pierre Labouré, a farmer, and Louise Madeleine Gontard, the ninth of 11 living children. Catherine's mother died on October 9, 1815, when Catherine was just nine years old. Her father's sister suggested that she care for his two youngest children, Catherine and Tonine. After he agreed, the sisters moved to their aunt's house at Saint-Rémy, a village nine kilometers from their home.
  As a young woman she became a member of the a nursing order founded by Saint Vincent de Paul. She was extremely devout, of a somewhat romantic nature, given to visions and intuitive insights (she chose the Daughters of Charity after a dream about St. Vincent). Having lost her mother at an early age she was very fond of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is said that after her mother's funeral, Catherine picked up a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary and kissed it; saying "Now you will be my mother."
  
  wn.com/Catherine_Labouré
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  Commodus
  Commodus (Latin: Marcus Aurelius Commodus Antoninus Augustus; 31 August 161 – 31 December 192), was Roman Emperor from 180 to 192. He also ruled as co-emperor with his father Marcus Aurelius from 177 until his father's death in 180. His name changed throughout his reign; see changes of name for earlier and later forms. His accession as emperor was the first time a son had succeeded his father since Titus succeeded Vespasian in 79. Commodus was the first (and up until 337 the only) emperor "born in the purple"; i.e., born during his father's reign.
  Commodus was born on 31 August AD 161, as Commodus, in Lanuvium, near Rome. He was the son of the reigning emperor, Marcus Aurelius, and Aurelius' first cousin, Faustina the Younger. Commodus had an elder twin brother, Titus Aurelius Fulvus Antoninus, who died in 165. On 12 October 166, Commodus was made Caesar together with his younger brother, Marcus Annius Verus. The latter died in 169, having failed to recover from an operation, which left Commodus as Marcus Aurelius' sole surviving son. He was looked after by his father's physician, Galen, in order to keep Commodus healthy and alive. Galen treated many of Commodus' common illnesses. Commodus received extensive tuition at the hands of what Marcus Aurelius called "an abundance of good masters." The focus of Commodus' education appears to have been intellectual, possibly at the expense of military training.
  
  wn.com/Commodus
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  Connie Willis
  Constance Elaine Trimmer Willis (born 31 December 1945) is an American science fiction writer. She has won eleven Hugo Awards and seven Nebula Awards. Willis most recently won a Hugo Award for Blackout/All Clear (August 2011). She was inducted to the Science Fiction Museum and Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2009.
  Willis's first published story, "The Secret of Santa Titicaca," appeared in Worlds of Fantasy in 1971. After receiving an NEA grant in 1982, she left her teaching job and became a full-time writer.
  Willis is known for her accessible prose and likable characters. She has written several pieces involving time travel by history students at a faculty of the future University of Oxford. These pieces include her Hugo Award-winning novels Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog, the short story "Fire Watch" (found in the short story collection of the same name), and the two-volume novel Blackout/All Clear. All but one of the Oxford University Time Travel tales have won both the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award. The odd-man out, To Say Nothing of the Dog, won the Hugo Award but lost the Nebula.
  
  wn.com/Connie_Willis
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  Craig Gordon
  Craig Anthony Gordon (born 31 December 1982 ) is a Scottish footballer who plays as a goalkeeper. He is currently a free agent and also was picked in the last Scotland national team squad. He was a nominee for STV's Scotland's Greatest Ever Football Team in 2010.
  Gordon started his career with Scottish Premier League side Hearts, where he won the 2006 Scottish Cup. He spent the 2001-02 seasonon loan to Scottish Second Division side Cowdenbeath. In 2007 English Premier League club Sunderland bought him for £9 million, the highest fee a British club had ever paid for a goalkeeper until the transfer of David de Gea to Manchester United in 2011.
  Born in Edinburgh, Gordon attended Balerno Community High School from 1994 until 1999, a well known Hearts supporter since his time there. He is a graduate of Hearts' youth development programme, which in recent years has also produced fellow Scottish internationals Gary Naysmith, Allan Johnston, Paul Ritchie and Robbie Neilson.
  Craig went on loan to lower league side Cowdenbeath where he played a handful of games before being recalled to the Hearts team. His first professional game was at Forthbank in a match versus Stirling Albion.
  
  wn.com/Craig_Gordon
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  Craig Reucassel
  Craig Bruce Reucassel (born 1 January 1977, in South Africa) is a television and radio comedian from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. He is best known for being a member of satirical team The Chaser. He currently hosts the Australian version of Balls of Steel, which premiered in April 2011.
  Reucassel was born in South Africa and later moved to Adelaide with his parents. There, he attended Semaphore Park Primary School. Reucassel later attended Bowral Public School in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, becoming the only Chaser member to be public school educated. In 1993 while attending the school he represented the school in the The Sydney Morning Herald Plain English Speaking competition, as did future Chaser member Julian Morrow. At the time he was noted for using game theory in his selection of HSC subjects, choosing to major in the humanities. He graduated from Bowral High School with a UAI of 99.90.
  Reucassel attended the University of Sydney, graduating with Arts and Law degrees. With a strong dedication to extracurricular activities on campus, Reucassel ran the Arts revue, the rowing club, and debated at several World Championships including ranking 30th in the World at Manila in 1999, and ranking 167th in Glasgow in 2001. Furthermore, in 2000 he competed in the Philip C. Jessup Cup international law mooting competition, his team winning the Australian rounds. He graduated from the Sydney Law School, along with Chaser colleagues Julian Morrow, Dominic Knight and Chas Licciardello.
  
  wn.com/Craig_Reucassel
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  Crystal Knight
  Crystal Knight (born December 31, 1973) is an American erotic actress and exotic dancer of Cuban and Dominican heritage. She is sometimes credited as Crystal K.
  Crystal Knight started her career in 1994, mainly doing lesbian scenes. Soon after her debut, she became pregnant but continued to act. Movies such as Ready To Drop 5 capitalized on her burgeoning belly. After giving birth to a daughter, she took a break from the adult industry. In late 1996, she returned with enlarged breasts.
  In 1999, Knight became the host of Playboy television's Night Calls 411. She has also appeared in many music videos for rap artists, such as Jay Z, Snoop Dogg, Fat Joe and R. Kelly.
  
  wn.com/Crystal_Knight
• Dal Stivens
  Dal Stivens (31 December 1911 - 16 June 1997) was an Australian writer.
  After serving in the army during the war, from 1944 to 1949, Stivens was on the staff of the Australian Department of Information. He served in the press office at Australia House in London until 1950. He was Foundation President of the Australian Society of Authors, in 1963 and was involved in the creation of the Public Lending Right in 1975.
  He was also a keen amateur naturalist. From 1974 he painted a substantial amount of his time.
  Stivens won the Miles Franklin Award for best Australian novel in 1970 for A Horse of Air and was winner of the Patrick White Award for 1981 for the contribution of his novels Jimmy Brockett and A Horse of Air, and his short stories.
  
  wn.com/Dal_Stivens
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  Danny Holla
  Danny Holla (born December 31, 1987 in Almere, Flevoland) is a Dutch football midfielder who currently plays for VVV-Venlo, on loan from FC Groningen. He played on loan to FC Zwolle during the first half of the 2007–08 season, but returned to FC Groningen to replace Rasmus Lindgren, who had moved to Ajax.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Danny_Holla
• Danny McNamara
  Danny McNamara (born Daniel Anthony McNamara, 31 December 1970, Bailiff Bridge, West Yorkshire, England) is the lead singer of English band Embrace.
  Danny and his brother Richard (guitarist) grew up in the village of Bailiff Bridge, near Bradford, Huddersfield and Halifax, in West Yorkshire, England.
  Aged 11, he passed his 11+ exam and gained entry to Hipperholme Grammar School, near Halifax.^{[citation needed]} When he left school, he studied psychology at Manchester University, but eventually quit to concentrate on the band, and having become tired of commuting.^{[citation needed]}
  Embrace are an English rock band from West Yorkshire. To date they have released five studio albums, one singles album and one b-sides compilation. The band consists of brothers singer Danny McNamara and guitarist Richard McNamara, bassist Steve Firth, keyboardist Mickey Dale and drummer Mike Heaton. The group has released five studio albums: The Good Will Out (1998) which went to number 1; Drawn from Memory (2000); If You've Never Been (2001); Out Of Nothing (2004) which also went to number 1 and This New Day (2006) was their most recent and also went to number one spawning their most successful single to date "Natures Law" which just missed the top spot by a few hundred copies. Their sixth, and as yet untitled, album is expected to be released some time in 2012.^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/Danny_McNamara
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  David Dacko
  David Dacko (March 24, 1930 – November 20, 2003) was the first President of the Central African Republic (CAR), from August 14, 1960 to January 1, 1966, and the third president of the CAR from September 21, 1979 to September 1, 1981. Even after being removed from power twice by coups d'état, Dacko continued to be a very active politician and presidential candidate with a loyal group of supporters. Dacko was thus an important political figure in CAR politics for a period of over half a century.
  
  wn.com/David_Dacko
• Dominik Diamond
  Paul Dominik Diamond (known as Dominik Diamond) is a Scottish television and radio presenter and newspaper columnist. He is best known as the original presenter of Channel 4's video gaming programme GamesMaster, as host of The Dominik Diamond Breakfast Show on Xfm Scotland and as a columnist for the Daily Star. He is currently on air at Q107 in Toronto.
  Born in Arbroath, Diamond attended Strathallan School in Forgandenny, Perthshire.
  He then went on to study drama at Bristol University, also attended by Little Britain star David Walliams. Walliams and Diamond were part of a comedy troupe called "David Icke and The Orphans of Jesus", in which they were also joined by Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz). Walliams and Diamond fell out after Walliams appeared as a guest on Diamond's Paramount show "Dom'n'Kirk's Night O Plenty" - after which Diamond said that Walliams and co-Little Britain star Matt Lucas were "complete arseholes". Diamond has not spoken to Walliams since, yet still refers to him as a "comic genius".
  
  wn.com/Dominik_Diamond
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  Don Diamont
  Don Diamont (born Donald Feinberg on December 31, 1962 in New York City, New York) is an American actor, best known for his long-running portrayal of Brad Carlton on the CBS daytime drama The Young and the Restless. In 1990, he was chosen as one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world by People Magazine, becoming the first daytime drama actor to receive the honor. He currently plays Bill Spencer, Jr. on The Bold and the Beautiful.
  After several years as a successful model, Diamont's first major acting role was as Carlo Forenza on Days of our Lives. He joined the cast in 1984 after being hired by Ken Corday, and was with the show for a year.
  Diamont is best known for his portrayal of opportunistic businessman Brad Carlton on The Young and the Restless. He initially joined the show in 1985 and left the cast in 1996. He returned in 1998, remaining on the show until his character was killed off in early 2009.
  On March 5, 2009 it was announced that Diamont would be joining the cast of the CBS daytime drama The Bold and the Beautiful in the contract role of Bill Spencer, Jr. His first air date was May 12, 2009. "Don is a versatile actor with a vast range of talent," B&B's Executive Producer and Head Writer, Bradley Bell, said in a statement, "It is my pleasure to welcome him to B&B. He has also expressed an interest in being a script writer."
  
  wn.com/Don_Diamont
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  Donald Trump
  Donald John Trump, Sr. (born June 14, 1946) is an American business magnate, television personality and author. He is the chairman and president of The Trump Organization and the founder of Trump Entertainment Resorts. Trump's extravagant lifestyle, outspoken manner and role on the NBC reality show The Apprentice have made him a well-known celebrity who was No. 17 on the 2011 Forbes Celebrity 100 list. He is well-known as a real-estate developer who amassed vast hotel, casino, and other real-estate properties, in the New York City area and around the world.
  Trump is the son of Fred Trump, a wealthy New York City real-estate developer. He worked for his father's firm, Elizabeth Trump & Son, while attending the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and in 1968 officially joined the company. He was given control of the company in 1971 and renamed it The Trump Organization.
  In 2010, Trump expressed an interest in becoming a candidate for President of the United States in the 2012 election. In May 2011, he announced he would not be a candidate, but a few weeks later he said he had not completely ruled out the possibility. In December 2011, Trump was suggested as a possible Vice Presidential selection by Michele Bachmann. Bachmann has since suspended her presidential campaign.
  
  wn.com/Donald_Trump
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  Donna Summer
  LaDonna Adrian Gaines (December 31, 1948 – May 17, 2012), known by the stage name Donna Summer, was an American singer and songwriter who gained prominence during the disco era of the late 1970s. She had a mezzo-soprano vocal range, and was a five-time Grammy Award winner. Summer was the first artist to have three consecutive double albums reach number one on the United States Billboard chart, and she also charted four number-one singles in the United States within a 13-month period.
  Born into a devoutly Christian lower middle class African American family in Boston, Massachusetts, Summer first became involved with singing through church choir groups before joining a number of bands influenced by the Motown Sound. Influenced by the counterculture of the 1960s, she became the front singer of a psychedelic rock band named Crow and moved to New York City. Joining a touring version of the musical Hair, she spent several years living in West Germany, where she married Helmut Sommer, whose surname she adopted as her stage name.
  
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  Dorgon
  Dorgon (Manchu: ; literally "badger" in Manchu; 17 November 1612 – 31 December 1650) was a Manchu prince and regent of the early Qing Dynasty.
  Dorgon was born of the Manchu Aisin Gioro clan as the 14th son of Nurhaci, khan of the Later Jin Dynasty (later renamed to Qing Dynasty by Nurhaci's successor Hong Taiji). His mother was Nurhaci's primary consort Lady Abahai. Ajige and Dodo were his full brothers, and Hong Taiji was his half-brother. Dorgon was one of the most influential of Nurhaci's sons, and his role was instrumental to the occupation of Ming Dynasty's capital Beijing by Qing forces in 1644. During Hong Taiji's reign, Dorgon participated in many military campaigns, including the conquests of Mongolia and Korea.
  After Hong Taiji died in 1643, Dorgon became involved in a power struggle with Hong Taiji's eldest son Hooge over the succession to the throne. The conflict was resolved with a compromise between the two contending parties - both of them backed out, and Hong Taiji's ninth son Fulin ascended to the throne as the Shunzhi Emperor. Since the Shunzhi Emperor was only six years old at that time, Dorgon was appointed regent and became a de facto ruler. Dorgon was conferred the title of "Emperor's Uncle and Prince Regent" (皇叔父攝政王), which later became "Emperor's Father and Prince Regent" (皇父攝政王). It was rumoured that Dorgon had a romantic affair with the Shunzhi Emperor's mother Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang and even secretly married her, but this claim has been disputed.
  
  wn.com/Dorgon
• Edward Bunker
  Edward Heward Bunker (December 31, 1933 – July 19, 2005) was an American author of crime fiction, a screenwriter, and an actor. He wrote numerous books, some of which have been adapted into films.
  Bunker was a bright but troublesome child, who spent much of his childhood in different foster homes and institutions. He started on a criminal career at a very early age, and continued on this path throughout the years, returning to prison again and again. He was convicted of bank robbery, drug dealing, sodomy, extortion, armed robbery, and forgery. A repeating pattern of convictions, paroles, releases and escapes, further crimes and new convictions continued until he was released yet again from prison in 1975, at which point he finally left his criminal days permanently behind and became a writer. Bunker stayed out of jail thereafter, and instead focused on his career as a writer and actor.
  Bunker was born "on New Year's Eve, 1933" into a troubled family in Los Angeles. His mother, Sarah (née Johnston), was a chorus girl from Vancouver, and his father, Edward N. Bunker, a stage hand. His parents lived in a constant state of alcohol-fueled argument. His first clear memories were of his parents screaming at each other and the police arriving to "keep the peace." When they divorced, Bunker ended up in a foster home at the age of five, but he felt profoundly unhappy and ran away. As a result, Bunker went through a progression of increasingly draconian institutions. Consistently rebellious and defiant, young Bunker was subjected to a harsh regime of discipline. He attended a military school for a few months, where peer pressure caused him to take up stealing, but eventually ran away again, ending up in a hobo camp 400 miles away. While Bunker was eventually apprehended by the authorities, this established a pattern he would follow throughout his formative years.
  
  wn.com/Edward_Bunker
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  Eileen Heckart
  Eileen Heckart (March 29, 1919 – December 31, 2001) was an American actress of film, stage, and television.
  Heckart was born Anna Eileen Herbert in Columbus, Ohio, the daughter of Esther Stark, who wed Leo Herbert at her own mother's insistence so her child would not be born with the stigma of illegitimacy. The child was soon after legally adopted by her grandfather, J.W. Heckart, whose surname she was known by her whole life. She had two stepsisters, Anne and Marilyn. She graduated from Ohio State University with a B.A. in drama.
  Heckart began her Broadway career as the assistant stage manager and an understudy for The Voice of the Turtle in 1943. Her many credits include Picnic, The Bad Seed, A View from the Bridge, A Memory of Two Mondays, The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, A Family Affair, Barefoot in the Park, Butterflies Are Free, You Know I Can't Hear You When the Water's Running, Ladies at the Alamo and The Cemetery Club. In 2000, at the age of 81, she appeared Off Broadway in Kenneth Lonergan’s The Waverly Gallery and received more awards for a single performance in a single season than any actress in theatre history, including The Drama Desk Award, The Lucille Lortel Award, The Drama League Award and The Outer Critics Circle Award. That same year, she was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame and received an honorary Tony Award for lifetime achievement. Her other awards include the 1953 Theatre World Award for Picnic. Her nominations include a 1996 Drama Desk Award for Northeast Local and Tony nominations for Butterflies Are Free (play), Invitation to a March, and The Dark at the Top of the Stairs. She was granted three honorary doctorates by Sacred Heart University, Niagara University and Ohio State University.
  
  wn.com/Eileen_Heckart
• Elaine Cassidy
  Elaine Cassidy (born 31 December 1979) is an award-winning Irish actress and is best known for playing the lead character Abby Mills in the American CBS TV series Harper's Island, Felicia in Felicia's Journey opposite Bob Hoskins, Runt in Disco Pigs opposite Cillian Murphy, and Lydia in The Others.
  Elaine Cassidy was born in Kilcoole, County Wicklow. Her first role was as the title character in a school production of Pinocchio when she was five.
  In 1996, she was nominated for the Most Promising Actress at the Geneva Film Festival for her role in The Sun, the Moon and the Stars. She played the starring role in Felicia's Journey with Bob Hoskins, for which she was nominated "Best Actress" at the 20th Genie Awards.^{[citation needed]} She has won 2 Irish Film and Television Awards IFTA, for "Best Actress in a Lead Role in Film" in 2003 for her role as Runt in Disco Pigs, opposite Cillian Murphy, and in 2010 for "Best Actress in a Lead Role in Television" for her role as Abby Mills in the American CBS TV series Harper's Island.^{[citation needed]} She was also nominated for an IFTA in 2005 as "Best Actress in a Lead Role in Television" for her role as "Maud Lilly" in the BBC BAFTA nominated drama Fingersmith,^{[citation needed]} in 2007 as "Best Actress in a Supporting Role in Film" for her role as Sandra in And When Did You Last See Your Father? alongside Jim Broadbent and Colin Firth, and in 2009 as "Best Actress in a Lead Role in Television" for her role as Annie Mulcahy in Little White Lie.
  
  wn.com/Elaine_Cassidy
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  Elizabeth Arden
  Florence Nightingale Graham (December 31, 1884 – October 18, 1966), who went by the business name Elizabeth Arden, was a Canadian-American businesswoman who founded what is now Elizabeth Arden, Incorporated, and built a cosmetics empire in the United States. At the peak of her career, she was one of the wealthiest women in the world.
  Arden was born in 1884 in Woodbridge, Ontario, Canada. Her parents had emigrated to Canada from Cornwall, United Kingdom in the 1870s. Her father, William Graham, was Scottish and her mother, Susan, was Cornish and had arranged for a wealthy aunt in Cornwall to pay for her children's education. Arden dropped out of nursing school in Toronto.
  She then joined her elder brother in New York City, working briefly as a bookkeeper for the E.R. Squibb Pharmaceuticals Company. While there, Arden spent hours in their lab, learning about skincare. She then worked—again briefly—for Eleanor Adair, an early beauty culturist, as a "treatment girl".
  In 1909 Arden formed a partnership with Elizabeth Hubbard, another culturist. When the partnership dissolved, she coined the business name "Elizabeth Arden" from her former partner and from Tennyson's poem "Enoch Arden". With a $6,000 loan from her brother, she then used the shop space to open her first salon on 5th Avenue. The name red door salon was also a stroke of genius. In those days, all building were grey in colour and looked alike so to create a point of difference, she painted the door to her salon red! Thus the name red door salon was born.
  
  wn.com/Elizabeth_Arden
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  Ellen Datlow
  Ellen Datlow (born December 31, 1949) is an American science fiction, fantasy, and horror editor and anthologist.
  Datlow was the fiction editor of Omni magazine and Omni Online from 1981 through 1998, and edited the ten associated Omni anthologies. She co-edited the Year's Best Fantasy and Horror series from 1988 to 2008 (with co-editor Terri Windling through 2003), followed by the team of Gavin Grant and Kelly Link until the series end) She's now editing The Best Horror of the Year published by Night Shade Books. She has edited many original science fiction, fantasy, and horror anthologies on her own, as well as collaborations with Terri Windling, and one with Nick Mamatas.
  She was editor of the webzine Event Horizon: Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror from 1998 through 1999, and was the editor of Sci Fiction until it ceased publication with its last piece of fiction, December 28, 2005.
  Datlow won the Hugo Award for Best Professional Editor in 2002 and 2005, and the Hugo for Best Short Form Editor in 2009 and 2010. Her editing work has also been recognized with three Bram Stoker Awards, nine World Fantasy Awards, two International Horror Guild Awards for Best Anthology, two Shirley Jackson Awards for Best anthology, five Locus Awards for Best Editor. She was named recipient of the 2007 Karl Edward Wagner Award, given at the British Fantasy Convention for "outstanding contribution to the genre." In 2011 she was given the Life Achievement Award by the Horror Writers Association. She is a long time trustee of the Horror Writers Association. She has been the co-host of the Fantastic Fiction reading series at the KGB Bar since 2000, a series which features luminaries and up-and-comers in speculative fiction.
  
  wn.com/Ellen_Datlow
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  Elliot Richardson
  Elliot Lee Richardson (July 20, 1920 – December 31, 1999) was an American lawyer and politician who was a member of the cabinet of Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. As U.S. Attorney General, he was a prominent figure in the Watergate Scandal, and resigned rather than refuse President Nixon's order to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox.
  Richardson is the only individual to serve in four Cabinet-level positions within the United States government: Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare from 1970 to 1973, Secretary of Defense from January to May 1973, Attorney General from May 24 to October 1973, and Secretary of Commerce from 1976 to 1977.
  Richardson was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Clara Lee (née Shattuck) and Edward Peirson Richardson, a doctor and professor at Harvard Medical School. He attended the Park School in Brookline, Massachusetts, and then obtained his undergraduate degree from Harvard University, where he resided in Winthrop House, graduated cum laude in 1941, and was an editor of the Harvard Lampoon.
  
  wn.com/Elliot_Richardson
• Enrico di Giuseppe
  Enrico Di Giuseppe (October 14, 1932 – December 31, 2005) was a celebrated American operatic tenor who had an active performance career from the late 1950s through the 1990s. He spent most of his career performing in New York City, juggling concurrent performance contracts with both the New York City Opera (NYCO) and the Metropolitan Opera during the 1970s and 1980s. In the latter part of his career he was particularly active with the New York Grand Opera.
  Possessing a lyric tenor voice with a bright timbre and easy upper extension, Di Giuseppe excelled in the Italian repertory. He was particularly successful in tackeling the bel canto repertoire, notably partnering Beverly Sills in productions of Donizetti's Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda, and Roberto Devereux, as well as Bellini's I puritani at the NYCO. Di Giuseppe performed in similar repertoire at the Met opposite other notable bel canto interpreters like Dame Joan Sutherland, Marilyn Horne and Renata Scotto.
  Di Giuseppe was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1932. His first musical experience was with the clarinet, which he played in school. He attended the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Richard Bonelli. After service with the United States Army Field Band, he went on to study at The Juilliard School under Hans Heinz.
  
  wn.com/Enrico_di_Giuseppe
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  Esteban Loaiza
  Esteban Antonio Loaiza Veyna [lo-EYE-sa] (born December 31, 1971 in Tijuana, Baja California, México) is a former Major League Baseball pitcher. He is currently signed by the Mexico City Red Devils of the Mexican Summer League.
  A graduate of Mar Vista High School in Imperial Beach, California, Loaiza was signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates as an undrafted free agent on March 21, 1991. With the Gulf Coast Pirates in the Rookie leagues he started five games in 1991, finishing with a 5–1 record and a 2.26 ERA. He moved through the Pirates farm system with stops at Augusta (class A - 1992), Salem (class A - 1993) and Carolina (class AA - 1993-1994). He also played for the Mexico City Red Devils of the Mexican Summer League during the 1993 season. He is currently playing with the Mexicali Aguilas of the Liga Mexicana Del Pacifico.
  Loaiza made the jump to the big league club in 1995, making his major league debut on April 29, 1995, for the Pirates against the Philadelphia Phillies. He worked 4 2/3 innings in the game, giving up five hits and one unearned run to get the first major league win of his career. He finished his rookie season with a 8–9 record and a 5.16 ERA in 31 starts.
  
  wn.com/Esteban_Loaiza
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  Ettore Sottsass
  Ettore Sottsass (14 September 1917 – 31 December 2007) was an Italian architect and designer of the late 20th century. His body of designs included furniture, jewellery, glass, lighting and office machine design.
  Sottsass was born on 14 September 1917 in Innsbruck, Austria, and grew up in Milan, where his father was an architect.
  He was educated at the Politecnico di Torino in Turin and graduated in 1939 with a degree in architecture. He served in the Italian military and spent much of World War II in a concentration camp in Yugoslavia. After returning home in 1947, he set up his own architectural and industrial design studio in Milan.
  In 1959 Sottsass began working as a design consultant for Olivetti, designing office equipment, typewriters and furniture. Sottsass was hired by Adriano Olivetti, the founder, to work alongside his son, Roberto. There Sottsass made his name as a designer who, through colour, form and styling, managed to bring office equipment into the realm of popular culture. Sottsass, Mario Tchou, and Roberto Olivetti won the prestigious 1959 Compasso d’Oro with the Elea 9003, the first Italian mainframe computer.
  
  wn.com/Ettore_Sottsass
• Floyd Cramer
  Floyd Cramer (October 27, 1933 – December 31, 1997) was an American Hall of Fame pianist who was one of the architects of the "Nashville sound". He was known for his "slip note" piano style, where an out-of-key note slides into the correct note.
  Born in Shreveport, Louisiana, Cramer grew up in the small town of Huttig, Arkansas, teaching himself to play the piano. After finishing high school, he returned to Shreveport, where he worked as a pianist for the Louisiana Hayride radio show.
  In 1953, he cut his first single, "Dancin' Diane", backed with "Little Brown Jug", for the local Abbott label. He then toured with an emerging talent who would later figure significantly in his career, Elvis Presley.
  Cramer moved to Nashville in 1955 where the use of piano accompanists in country music was growing in popularity. By the next year he was, in his words, "in day and night doing sessions.” Before long, he was one of the busiest studio musicians in the industry, playing piano for stars such as Elvis Presley, Brenda Lee, Patsy Cline, The Browns, Jim Reeves, Eddy Arnold, Roy Orbison, Don Gibson, and the Everly Brothers, among others. It was Cramer's piano playing, for instance, on Presley's first national hit, "Heartbreak Hotel". However, Cramer remained strictly a session player, a virtual unknown to anyone outside the music industry.
  
  wn.com/Floyd_Cramer
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  Fred Beebe
  Frederick Leonard Beebe (December 31, 1879 – October 30, 1957) was a professional baseball player.
  Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, Beebe played baseball for the Hyde Park High School in Chicago, Illinois and the University of Illinois. He played Major League Baseball from 1906 to 1916. In his rookie year, Beebe led the major leagues with 171 strikeouts. He played for the Chicago Cubs, St. Louis Cardinals, Cincinnati Reds, Philadelphia Phillies and Cleveland Indians. His career record was 62–83. He later served as the head coach of the Indiana Hoosiers college baseball team.
  He died in Elgin, Illinois.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Fred_Beebe
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  George Marshall
  George Catlett Marshall (December 31, 1880 – October 16, 1959) was an American military leader, Chief of Staff of the Army, Secretary of State, and the third Secretary of Defense. Once noted as the "organizer of victory" by Winston Churchill for his leadership of the Allied victory in World War II, Marshall served as the United States Army Chief of Staff during the war and as the chief military adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. As Secretary of State, his name was given to the Marshall Plan, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953.
  George Catlett Marshall was born into a middle-class family in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, the son of George Catlett Marshall, Sr. and Laura Emily (Bradford) Marshall. Marshall was a scion of an old Virginia family, as well as a distant relative of former Chief Justice John Marshall. Marshall graduated from the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), where he was initiated into the Kappa Alpha Order, in 1901.
  Following graduation from VMI, Marshall was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army. Until World War I, he was posted to various positions in the US and the Philippines. He served as an infantry platoon leader and company commander in the Phillipines during the Phillipine-American War and several other guerilla uprisings. He was schooled and trained in modern warfare. His pre-war service included a tour at Fort Leavenworth, KS from 1906 to 1910 as both a student and an instructor.
  
  wn.com/George_Marshall
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  George Meade
  George Gordon Meade (December 31, 1815 – November 6, 1872) was a career United States Army officer and civil engineer involved in coastal construction, including several lighthouses. He fought with distinction in the Second Seminole War and Mexican-American War. During the American Civil War he served as a Union general, rising from command of a brigade to the Army of the Potomac. He is best known for defeating Confederate General Robert E. Lee at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863.
  Meade's Civil War combat experience started as a brigade commander in the Peninsula Campaign and the Seven Days Battles, including the Battle of Glendale, where he was wounded severely. As a division commander he had notable success at the Battle of South Mountain and assumed temporary corps command at the Battle of Antietam. His division was arguably the most successful during the assaults at the Battle of Fredericksburg. During the Gettysburg Campaign, he was appointed to command the Army of the Potomac just three days before the Battle of Gettysburg, but was able to organize his forces to fight a successful defensive battle against Robert E. Lee. This victory was marred by his ineffective pursuit during the Retreat from Gettysburg, by the inconclusive campaigns in the fall of 1863, and by intense political rivalries within the Army, notably with Daniel Sickles.
  
  wn.com/George_Meade
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  Gerry Dee
  Gerry Dee (born Gerard Donoghue on December 31, 1968 in Scarborough, Ontario) is a Canadian stand-up comedian. Prior to his comic career, he was a physical education teacher and hockey coach at De La Salle College (Toronto) "Oaklands", a private co-ed high school in Toronto. He also attended and graduated from De La Salle in high school.
  Dee is of Scottish descent. He was also a University Varsity hockey and golf player during his college years. His earlier education was at St. Gabriel Catholic School (Bayview/Sheppard); he later studied Kinesiology at York University and Education at St. Francis Xavier University. His father was a bus driver for the TTC in Toronto for over 20 years.
  Dee was already relatively successful long before being on Last Comic Standing. He had already had his own comedy special on The Comedy Network in Canada, appeared on the Comedy Network special "The Nubian Disciples", and performed at the world famous Montreal Just for Laughs International Comedy Festival, having his segment aired on Just For Laughs. He has appeared in television commercials and has performed at many comedy clubs, including Just For Laughs and Yuk Yuks. Dee also had a role in the minor hit Trailer Park Boys: The Movie where he played the role of Donny.
  
  wn.com/Gerry_Dee
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  Giovanni Pascoli
  Giovanni Placido Agostino Pascoli (Italian pronunciation: [dʒoˈvanni ˈpaskoli]; December 31, 1855—April 6, 1912) was an Italian poet and classical scholar.
  Giovanni Pascoli was born at San Mauro di Romagna (in his honor renamed "San Mauro Pascoli" in 1932), into a well-to-do family. He was the fourth of ten children of Ruggero Pascoli and Caterina Vincenzi Alloccatelli. His father was administrator of an estate of farm land of the Princes Torlonia on which the Pascoli family lived.
  On the evening of Aug. 10, 1867 as Ruggero Pascoli was returning home from the market at Cesena in a carriage drawn by a black and white mare (una cavalla storna), he was shot and killed by an assassin hiding in a ditch by the road. The mare continued slowly on her way and brought home the body of her slain master. The murderer was never apprehended.
  Giovanni Pascoli had a tragic childhood, struck by the murder of his father and the early deaths of his mother, sister and two brothers, and the subsequent financial decline of the family. The father's assassination echoes in particular in one of his most popular poems, "La cavallina storna" . His whole first work, Myricae (1891), reflects his unhappy childhood.
  
  wn.com/Giovanni_Pascoli
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  Gong Li
  Gong Li (born 31 December 1965) is a Chinese-born Singaporean film actress. Gong first came into international prominence through close collaboration with Chinese director Zhang Yimou and is credited with helping to bring Chinese cinema to Europe and the United States.
  She has twice been awarded the Golden Rooster and the Hundred Flowers Awards as well as the Berlinale Camera, Cannes Festival Trophy, National Board of Review, New York Film Critics Circle Award, and Volpi Cup.
  She married Singaporean businessman Ooi Hoe Soeng in 1996, and became a Singaporean citizen in 2008.
  Gong Li was born in Shenyang, Liaoning, the youngest in a family of five children. Her father was a professor of economics and her mother, who was 40 when Gong was born, was a teacher. Gong grew up in Jinan, the capital of Shandong.
  In 1985, Gong sought to study at China's top music school, but was denied entrance. Later that same year, she was accepted to the prestigious Central Academy of Drama in Beijing and graduated in 1989. While a student at the Central Academy of Drama, she was discovered by Zhang Yimou, who chose her for the lead role in Red Sorghum, his first film as a director.
  
  wn.com/Gong_Li
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  Guru Guru
  Guru Guru is a German Krautrock band formed in 1968 as The Guru Guru Groove by Mani Neumeier (drums), Uli Trepte (bass) and Eddy Naegeli (guitar) later replaced by American Jim Kennedy (guitar). In time for their debut in 1970, Ax Genrich had replaced Kennedy to solidify the classic Guru Guru line up.
  Guru Guru were related to the free jazz music scene both through their work with Swiss pianist Irène Schweizer and through Neumeier, who had already won several jazz prizes. The band was also influenced by rock music, such as Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, The Who, Rolling Stones and early Pink Floyd.
  Among the band's friends were Amon Düül, Can and Xhol Caravan, with whom Guru Guru played jam sessions.
  Frontman Mani Neumeier (drummer and singer) has an original style of playing drums, and is known in the European jazz rock-scene. He was also involved in numerous other projects, as Tiere der Nacht, The Psychedelic Monsterjam, Damo Suzuki's Network, Globe Unity Orchestra, Harmonia, Acid Mothers Guru Guru, Voodootrance & Lover 303.
  
  wn.com/Guru_Guru
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  Gustave Courbet
  Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet (10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting. The Realist movement bridged the Romantic movement (characterized by the paintings of Théodore Géricault and Eugène Delacroix) with the Barbizon School and the Impressionists. Courbet occupies an important place in 19th century French painting as an innovator and as an artist willing to make bold social commentary in his work.
  Courbet painted figurative compositions, landscapes, seascapes, and still-lifes. He courted controversy by addressing social issues in his work, and by painting subjects that were considered vulgar, such as the rural bourgeoisie, peasants, and working conditions of the poor. His work belonged neither to the predominant Romantic nor Neoclassical schools. History painting, which the Paris Salon esteemed as a painter's highest calling, did not interest Courbet, who stated that "the artists of one century [are] basically incapable of reproducing the aspect of a past or future century ..." Instead, he believed that the only possible source for a living art is the artist's own experience.
  
  wn.com/Gustave_Courbet
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  Gérard Debreu
  Gérard Debreu (July 4, 1921 – December 31, 2004) was a French economist and mathematician, who also came to have United States citizenship. Best known as a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, where he began work in 1962, he won the 1983 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics.
  His father was the business partner of his maternal grandfather in lace manufacturing, a traditional industry in Calais. Prior to the start of World War II, he received his baccalauréat and went to Ambert to begin preparing for the entrance examination of a grande école. Later on, he moved from Ambert to Grenoble to complete his preparation, both places being in the so-called "Free Zone" during World War II. In 1941, he was admitted to the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, along with Marcel Boiteux. He was influenced by Henri Cartan and the Bourbaki writers. When he was about to take the final examinations in 1944, D-Day arrived and he, instead, enlisted in the French army. He was transferred for training to Algeria and then served among the French occupational forces in Germany until July 1945. Debreu passed the Agrégation de Mathématiques exams at the end of 1945 and the beginning of 1946. By this time, he had become interested in economics, particularly in the general equilibrium theory of Léon Walras. From 1946 to 1948, he was an assistant in the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. During these two and a half years, he made the transition from mathematics to economics. In 1948, Debreu came to the USA on a Rockefeller Fellowship which allowed him to visit several American universities, as well as those in Uppsala and Oslo in 1949-50.
  
  wn.com/Gérard_Debreu
• Heather McCartney
  Heather Louise McCartney (née See; born December 31, 1962) was born in Tucson, Arizona to Linda McCartney (née Eastman) and Joseph Melville See Jr., an American geologist. She is the adopted daughter of Paul McCartney.
  McCartney's parents divorced after 18 months of marriage, because See had left for Africa and expected his wife and daughter to follow. Linda See refused, and sent a letter to her husband stating that she wanted a divorce, which was granted. After raising her daughter on her own in New York City for several years, Linda married Paul McCartney, of The Beatles, in 1969, when Heather was six years old. Also in 1969, Heather was formally adopted by Paul McCartney through legal process (and with prior consent from See, her biological father) and took the McCartney name. Also in 1969, McCartney appeared in the last Beatles movie, Let It Be. She has stated that, although See had a lifelong influence on her, she considers Paul McCartney to be her father.
  A half-sister, Mary, was born in 1969, followed by another half-sister, Stella, in 1971 and a half-brother, James, in 1977. Heather has six nephews and two nieces: Mary's four sons Arthur Alistair Donald (born 3 April 1999), Elliot Donald (born 1 August 2002), Sam Aboud (born 11 August 2008) and Sid Aboud (born 3 Sept 2011); and Stella's two sons Miller Alasdhair James Willis (born 25 February 2005) and Beckett Robert Lee Willis (born January 8, 2008), and her two daughters Bailey Linda Olwyn Willis (born 8 December 2006) and Reiley Willis (born 23 November 2010).
  
  wn.com/Heather_McCartney
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  Henri Matisse
  Henri-Émile-Benoît Matisse (French pronunciation: [ɑ̃ʁi matis]; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter. Matisse is commonly regarded, along with Picasso and Marcel Duchamp, as one of the three artists who helped to define the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the 20th century, responsible for significant developments in painting and sculpture. Although he was initially labelled a Fauve (wild beast), by the 1920s he was increasingly hailed as an upholder of the classical tradition in French painting. His mastery of the expressive language of colour and drawing, displayed in a body of work spanning over a half-century, won him recognition as a leading figure in modern art. While most widely recognized for his paintings, Matisse actively worked in a variety of media throughout his career.
  
  wn.com/Henri_Matisse
• Henry Carter Adams
  Henry Carter Adams (December 31, 1851 – August 11, 1921) was a U.S. economist, born in Davenport, Iowa to Elizabeth Douglass and Ephraim Adams, a missionary of the "Iowa Band" from New England.
  He graduated from Iowa College -- now called Grinnell College -- which was co-founded by his father . He went to Andover Theological School, then studied in Heidelberg and Berlin for two years, before he went to Johns Hopkins University, where he made Ph.D. in 1878 and became a lecturer from 1880 to 1882. He was afterwards a lecturer in Cornell University. He also became statistician to the Interstate Commerce Committee and was in charge of the transportation department in the 1900 census.
  In 1887, he became professor of political economy and finance at the University of Michigan, and taught there from 1886 to 1921. There, he also worked with John Dewey.
  Adams died in 1921 in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Henry_Carter_Adams
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  Herman Boerhaave
  Herman Boerhaave (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈɦɛrmɑn ˌburˈɦaːvə], Voorhout, 31 December 1668 – Leiden, 23 September 1738) was a Dutch botanist, humanist and physician of European fame. He is regarded as the founder of clinical teaching and of the modern academic hospital. His main achievement was to demonstrate the relation of symptoms to lesions. In addition, he was the first to isolate the chemical urea from urine. His motto was Simplex sigillum veri; Simplicity is the sign of truth.
  From 1950 to 1970, Boerhaave's image was printed on Dutch 25-guilder banknotes. The Leiden University Medical Centre organises medical trainings called Boerhaave-courses.
  He was born at Voorhout near Leiden. Entering the University of Leiden he took his degree in philosophy in 1689, with a dissertation De distinctione mentis a corpore (on the difference of the mind from the body), in which he attacked the doctrines of Epicurus, Thomas Hobbes and Spinoza. He then turned to the study of medicine, in which he graduated in 1693 at Harderwijk in present-day Gelderland.
  
  wn.com/Herman_Boerhaave
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  Hermann Tilke
  Hermann Tilke (born December 31, 1954) is a German engineer and auto racer, who has designed numerous Formula One motor racing circuits.
  Tilke was born on December 31, 1954 in Olpe, Germany.
  During the 1980s, Tilke competed in touring car racing, mainly on the old Nürburgring Nordschleife circuit. He also competed in VLN endurance racing and 24 Hours Nürburgring. He and Dirk Adorf won some VLN races with a V8Star Series in 2003 and 2004.
  After completing his Civil Engineering Degree Program with specialization in Transport and Traffic Management at FH Aachen, Tilke established Tilke Engineering in 1984, combining skills in architecture, civil engineering and electronic engineering to provide complete solutions for motor racing and waste disposal projects.
  Tilke is one of four designers recognised by the FIA but has predominantly been the only one to be commissioned to design Formula One tracks. One of his first, minor tasks was to design and build a short access road at the Nürburgring, earned due to contacts made by his racing efforts there. His first major job was the transformation of the fast Österreichring to the much shorter A1-Ring in Austria, in the 1990s.
  
  wn.com/Hermann_Tilke
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  Hilla Limann
  Hilla Limann (12 December 1934 – 23 January 1998) was the President of Ghana from 24 September 1979 to 31 December 1981. Eventually he became a diplomat, and served in Switzerland. Limann, whose original last name was Babini, was born in the northern Ghanaian town of Gwolu in the Sissala West District of the Upper West Region to a poor family. He managed to gain an excellent education, and took up an academic career.
  Hilla completed his basic school education at the Government Middle School, Tamale, in 1949. Between 1957 to 1960, he studied Political Science at the London School of Economics. He subsequently completed a Diploma in French at the Sorbonne University, France. He also obtained a BA (Hons) degree in History at the University of London and a Ph.D in Political Science and Constitutional Law at the University of Paris.
  Dr. Limann worked as the Head, Europe Desk, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ghana between 1965 and 1968. During 1967, he was a member of the Constitution Commission which drafted the 1969 Constitution of Ghana. In 1968, he became the Head of Chancery/Official Secretary at the Ghana embassy in Lomé, Togo. He was appointed Counsellor at Ghana's Permanent Mission in Geneva, Switzerland in 1971. He assumed the position of Head, Europe, the Americans Southeast Asia Desk back in Ghana at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in June 1975.
  
  wn.com/Hilla_Limann
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  Horacio Quiroga
  Horacio Silvestre Quiroga Forteza (Salto, Uruguay, 31 December 1878 –Buenos Aires, Argentina, 19 February 1937) was an Uruguayan playwright, poet, and short story writer.
  He wrote stories which, in their jungle settings, use the supernatural and the bizarre to show the struggle of man and animal to survive. He also excelled in portraying mental illness and hallucinatory states. His influence can be seen in the Latin American magic realism of Gabriel García Márquez and the postmodern surrealism of Julio Cortázar.
  Horacio Quiroga was born in Salto, Uruguay in 1878 as the sixth child, and second son of Prudencio Quiroga and Pastora Forteza, a middle-class family. At the time of his birth, his father worked for eighteen years as head of the Vice-Consulate Argentine Break. Before Quiroga was two and a half months old, on March 14 of 1879 his father accidentally fired a gun he carried in his hand and died. Quiroga was baptized just about 3 months later in the parish of his birth town.
  His national origin is not entirely clear, having many conflicting reports about whether, besides baptism, he was registered as a citizen of Argentina in Uruguay, or not. It is expressed in several sources that his birth was registered in the Consulate of Argentina which operated in that city and by the fact his father exercising the office of consul of that country.^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/Horacio_Quiroga
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  Ion Creangă
  Ion Creangă (Romanian pronunciation: [iˈon ˈkre̯aŋɡə]; also known as Nică al lui Ştefan a Petrei, Ion Torcălău and Ioan Ştefănescu; March 1, 1837 or June 10, 1839 – December 31, 1889) was a Moldavian-born Romanian writer, raconteur and schoolteacher. A main figure in 19th century Romanian literature, he is best known for his Childhood Memories volume, his novellas and short stories, and his many anecdotes. Creangă's main contribution to fantasy and children's literature includes narratives structured around eponymous protagonists ("Harap Alb", "Ivan Turbincă", "Dănilă Prepeleac", "Stan Păţitul"), as well as fairy tales indebted to conventional forms ("The Story of the Pig", "The Goat and Her Three Kids", "The Mother with Three Daughters-in-Law", "The Old Man's Daughter and the Old Woman's Daughter"). Widely seen as masterpieces of the Romanian language and local humor, his writings occupy the middle ground between a collection of folkloric sources and an original contribution to a literary realism of rural inspiration. They are accompanied by a set of contributions to erotic literature, collectively known as his "corrosives".
  
  wn.com/Ion_Creangă
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  Ivana Trump
  Ivana Trump (born Ivana Marie Zelníčková (Czech pronunciation: [ˈɪvana ˈmarɪjɛ ˈzɛlɲiːtʃkovaː]); February 20, 1949) is a former Olympic athlete, socialite, and fashion model noted for her marriage to mogul Donald Trump.
  Ivana was born to Milos and Maria (née Francova) in Gottwaldov, Czechoslovakia, now Zlín, Czech Republic. From a very young age, her father nurtured and encouraged her skiing talent. In 1972, Ivana Zelníčková was selected as an alternate on the 1972 Czechoslovak Olympic Ski Team which allowed her several opportunities to travel outside the Communist Bloc. A year earlier, she married Austrian skier, Alfred Winklmayr, in order to obtain a foreign passport so that Communist leaders would not deem her a defector.
  In the early 1970s she earned a master's degree in physical education from Charles University of Prague. In 1975 she left Czechoslovakia for Canada to be with a childhood friend, George Syrovatka, who owned a ski boutique there. For the following two years she lived in Montreal and worked as a model for some of Canada's top fur companies. In 1976 she divorced Winklmayr, left Syrovatka and moved to New York to promote the Montreal Olympics. It was in New York that she met Donald J. Trump, son of prominent real estate developer Fred Trump.
  
  wn.com/Ivana_Trump
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  Jacques Cartier
  Jacques Cartier (December 31, 1491 – September 1, 1557) was a French explorer of Breton origin who claimed what is now Canada for France. He was the first European to describe and map the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the shores of the Saint Lawrence River, which he named "The Country of Canadas", after the Iroquois names for the two big settlements he saw at Stadacona (Quebec City) and at Hochelaga (Montreal Island).
  Jacques Cartier was born in 1491 in Saint-Malo, the port on the extreme north-east coast of Brittany. Cartier, who was a respectable mariner, improved his social status in 1520 by marrying Mary Catherine des Granches, member of a leading family. His good name in Saint-Malo is recognized by its frequent appearance in baptismal registers as godfather or witness.
  In 1534, the year the Duchy of Brittany was formally united with France in the Edict of Union, Cartier was introduced to King Francis I by Jean le Veneur, bishop of Saint-Malo and abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel, at the Manoir de Brion. The king had previously invited (although not formally commissioned) the Florentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano to explore the eastern coast of North America on behalf of France in 1524. Le Veneur cited voyages to Newfoundland and Brazil as proof of Cartier's ability to "lead ships to the discovery of new lands in the New World".
  
  wn.com/Jacques_Cartier
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  Jaime Escalante
  Jaime Alfonso Escalante Gutierrez (December 31, 1930 – March 30, 2010) was a Bolivian educator well known for teaching students calculus from 1974 to 1991 at Garfield High School, East Los Angeles, California. Escalante was the subject of the 1988 film Stand and Deliver, in which he is portrayed by Edward James Olmos.
  Escalante was born December 31, 1930 in La Paz, Bolivia. In 1974 he began teaching at Garfield High School. Escalante was initially so disheartened by the lack of preparation of his students that he called his former employer and asked for his old job back. Escalante eventually changed his mind about returning to work when he found 12 students willing to take an algebra class.
  Shortly after Escalante came to Garfield High, its accreditation became threatened. Instead of gearing classes to poorly performing students, Escalante offered AP Calculus. He had already earned the criticism of an administrator who disapproved of his requiring the students to answer a homework question before being allowed into the classroom. "He told me to just get them inside," Escalante reported, "but I said, there is no teaching, no learning going on".^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/Jaime_Escalante
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  James I of Aragon
  
  James I the Conqueror (Catalan: Jaume el Conqueridor, Aragonese: Chaime lo Conqueridor, Spanish: Jaime el Conquistador, Occitan: Jacme lo Conquistaire; 2 February 1208 – 27 July 1276) was the King of Aragon, Count of Barcelona, and Lord of Montpellier from 1213 to 1276. His long reign saw the expansion of the Crown of Aragon on all sides: into Valencia to the south, Languedoc to the north, and the Balearic Islands to the east. By a treaty with Louis IX of France, he wrested the county of Barcelona from nominal French suzerainty and integrated it into his crown. His part in the Reconquista was similar in Mediterranean Spain to that of his contemporary Ferdinand III of Castile in Andalusia.
  As a legislator and organiser, he occupies a high place among the Spanish kings. James compiled the Llibre del Consulat de Mar, which governed maritime trade and helped establish Catalan-Aragonese supremacy in the western Mediterranean. He was an important figure in the development of Catalan, sponsoring Catalan literature and writing a quasi-autobiographical chronicle of his reign: the Llibre dels fets.
  
  wn.com/James_I_of_Aragon
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  James II of England
  James II & VII (14 October 1633^O.S. – 16 September 1701) was King of England and King of Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685. He was the last Roman Catholic monarch to reign over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Members of Britain's political and religious elite increasingly opposed him for being pro-French and pro-Catholic, and for his designs on becoming an absolute monarch. When he produced a Catholic heir, the tension exploded, and leading nobles called on William III of Orange (his son-in-law and nephew) to land an invasion army from the Netherlands, which he did. James fled England (and thus was held to have abdicated) in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. He was replaced by William of Orange who became king as William III, ruling jointly with his wife (James's daughter) Mary II. Thus William and Mary, both Protestants, became joint rulers in 1689. James made one serious attempt to recover his crowns, when he landed in Ireland in 1689 but, after the defeat of the Jacobite forces by the Williamite forces at the Battle of the Boyne in the summer of 1690, James returned to France. He lived out the rest of his life as a pretender at a court sponsored by his cousin and ally, King Louis XIV.
  
  wn.com/James_II_of_England
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  James Remar
  James Remar (born December 31, 1953) is an American actor and voice artist. He has appeared in movies, video games, and TV shows. He played Richard, the on-off tycoon boyfriend of Kim Cattrall's character in Sex and the City, as Ajax in The Warriors, as the homicidal maniac Albert Ganz in the 1982 comedy/thriller 48 Hrs., Dutch Shultz in The Cotton Club, Lord Raiden in Mortal Kombat: Annihilation and more recently as Harry Morgan in Dexter.
  Remar was born William James Remar in Boston, Massachusetts. He has spent the majority of his film career playing villains. He is known for his roles as the aggressively sexual and violent character Ajax in the 1979 cult film The Warriors and as the murdering sociopath Albert Ganz in the 1982 hit 48 Hrs. (both films were directed by Walter Hill and co-starred David Patrick Kelly, who, coincidentally, is named Luther in both). Remar played real-life '30s-era gangster Dutch Schultz in the 1984 film The Cotton Club. He starred in the 1980 film Windwalker as the young Windwalker. He also portrayed a gay man in the 1980 film Cruising. In 1996, he played Quill, one of the main villains in The Phantom.
  
  wn.com/James_Remar
• Jane Badler
  Jane Badler (born December 31, 1953, in Brooklyn, New York) is an American actress and singer. She is best known for her role as Diana, the chief antagonist in NBC's science fiction TV series, V, between 1983-85. Badler also appeared in ABC's "reimagined" version of V in 2011, again playing an alien named Diana, who this time is the mother of the series' chief antagonist, Anna. In recent years, Badler has also become an established nightclub singer in Australia, where she now lives, and has released two albums.
  Badler spent her teen years in Great Neck, New York, moving to Manchester, New Hampshire, when she was in high school. Badler won the title Miss New Hampshire and competed at the 1973 Miss America Pageant. Subsequently, she enrolled at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, to study drama.
  Badler's first television role was Melinda Cramer Janssen on the American daytime soap opera One Life to Live, which she played from 1977 to 1981 and again in 1983. During her run, she also appeared in a 1979 episode of the primetime series Fantasy Island. Badler also starred on the daytime soap opera The Doctors as Natalie Bell from 1981-82.
  
  wn.com/Jane_Badler
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  Jason Campbell
  Jason Campbell (born December 31, 1981 in Laurel, Mississippi) is an American football quarterback for the Chicago Bears of the National Football League. He was drafted by the Washington Redskins in the first round of the 2005 NFL Draft. He played college football at Auburn.
  He has also played for the Oakland Raiders.
  A 2000 graduate of Taylorsville High School in Taylorsville, Mississippi, Campbell went on to play college football at Auburn. As a starter he had a different offensive coordinator every year, finally finding success in his senior year when he led the Tigers to an undefeated season in 2004 and was named the SEC Player of the Year and MVP of the SEC Championship Game. Campbell previously held the record for the longest touchdown completion in Auburn football history, an 87 yard pass to Silas Daniels in a 2004 matchup versus Louisiana Tech, a record that is now held by Cam Newton, who completed a 94-yard pass to Emory Blake on October 2, 2010 in their victory over Louisiana-Monroe. Campbell graduated from Auburn with a degree in public administration.
  
  wn.com/Jason_Campbell
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  Javaris Crittenton
  Javaris Cortez Crittenton (born December 31, 1987) is an American professional basketball player who has most recently played for the Dakota Wizards of the NBA D-League. He was previously the starting point guard for the Georgia Tech men's basketball team.
  Crittenton was born to Sonya Dixon in Atlanta, Georgia. He attended Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy, where, as a high school sophomore, he played alongside Dwight Howard. Crittenton and Howard led Southwest Atlanta to victory in the GHSA class A state championship that season. As a junior, Crittenton averaged 28.4 points, 7.5 assists, and 8.2 rebounds. He led Southwest Atlanta to the GHSA class A state final again which they lost to powerhouse Randolph-Clay, finishing the season with a state championship and finals appearance for the year 2005. As a senior, Crittenton averaged 29 points, 9 assists and 7 rebounds, and led Southwest Atlanta to the GHSA class A state championship. Following the season he was named a McDonald's All American. He was also named Mr. Georgia Basketball by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Crittenton carried a 3.5 GPA in high school, and was a member of the Future Business Leaders of America and the Senior Beta Club.
  
  wn.com/Javaris_Crittenton
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  Jerry Rawlings
  Jerry John Rawlings (born Jeremiah Rawlings John on 22 June 1947 in Accra, Gold Coast) is a former leader of the Republic of Ghana and the current African Union envoy to Somalia. Rawlings ruled Ghana as a military dictator in 1979 and from 1981 to 1992, and then as the first elected president of the Fourth Republic from 1993 to 2001. He initially took power in a coup d'état, but in the 1990s following sustained political and economic pressure from international institutions and governments began a process of economic and then political liberalization. He founded the National Democratic Congress, which won the 1992 general election. He took office in 1993, and was re-elected in 1997.
  Rawlings appeared on the Ghanaian political scene on 15 May 1979, leading a group of junior officers in the Ghana Air Force in a coup attempt on the regime of Fred Akuffo which resulted in his arrest and imprisonment. He was court-martialled in public and sentenced to death.^{[citation needed]} On June 4 military officials overthrew the Akuffo government and released the Rawlings group from prison just weeks before general elections were scheduled.
  
  wn.com/Jerry_Rawlings
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  Jesse Carlson
  Jesse Craig Carlson (born December 31, 1980) is an American professional baseball pitcher for the Boston Red Sox of Major League Baseball. Born in New Britain, Connecticut, Carlson graduated from Berlin High School, where he starred in basketball as well as baseball. Carlson was a member of the team that defeated Seymour Connecticut High School to win the state championship in 1999. After high school, Carlson was awarded Big East rookie honors while pitching for the University of Connecticut, where he lettered in baseball for three straight years (2000 to 2002).
  Carlson was drafted by the Detroit Tigers in 2002. He remained in the minor leagues for seven seasons with four different organizations before making his major league debut with the Toronto Blue Jays on April 10, 2008. He entered the game against the Oakland Athletics in the top of the twelfth inning with the bases loaded after Brandon League allowed two runs to Oakland, breaking the game's tie. Carlson struck out Daric Barton to end the inning.
  
  wn.com/Jesse_Carlson
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  Joe Dallesandro
  Joseph Angelo D'Allesandro (born December 31, 1948), better known as Joe Dallesandro, is an American actor, and Warhol superstar. Although he never became a mainstream film star, Dallesandro is generally considered to be the most famous male sex symbol of American underground films of the 20th century, as well as a sex symbol of gay subculture.
  Dallesandro starred in Flesh as a teenage street hustler. Rolling Stone magazine in 1970 declared his second starring vehicle, Trash, the "Best Film of the Year", making him a star of the youth culture, sexual revolution and subcultural New York art collective of the 1970s.
  A photograph of his crotch bulge encased in a tight-fitting pair of jeans is featured on the cover of the Rolling Stones 1971 album, Sticky Fingers. It was taken by Andy Warhol.
  He was born in Pensacola, Florida. His father, Joseph Angelo D'Allesandro II, was an Italian-American sailor, and his mother was 16-year-old Thelma Testman. By the time Dallesandro was five, his mother was serving five years in a Federal Penitentiary for interstate auto theft. His parents divorced soon afterward. Dallesandro and his brother, Bobby, were taken to New York with their father, who worked as an electrical engineer. Both boys were eventually placed into the Angel Guardian Home in Harlem, prior to being fostered by a couple in Brooklyn. The senior Dallesandro would visit them about once a month at their foster parents' home.
  
  wn.com/Joe_Dallesandro
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  Joey McIntyre
  Joseph Mulrey "Joey" McIntyre (born December 31, 1972) is an American singer-songwriter and actor. He is best known as the youngest member of the group, New Kids on the Block.
  McIntyre was born in Needham, Massachusetts, the son of Thomas, a union official, and Katherine, a community theater actress. McIntyre is the youngest of nine children, (Judy, Alice, Susan, Tricia, Carol, Jean, Kate, Tommy, and Joe) in an Irish-American Catholic family. He shares the same birthday as his sister Carol. One of his sisters, Judith McIntyre, is an actress.
  Just before his 13th birthday, he joined New Kids on the Block, replacing Jamie Kelly. Since the other four members of the group were already long-time school friends, he initially found it difficult to mesh with the group. The New Kids on the Block became one of the most successful boy bands to date, producing two number one albums on the US Billboard charts. In 1991, Forbes listed the band as the highest-earning entertainers, beating Madonna and Michael Jackson. The band eventually disbanded in 1994. After the band broke up, he fell in to a stupor. He locked himself in a hotel room for three months eating nothing but ramen noodles.
  
  wn.com/Joey_McIntyre
• John Allen Muhammad
  John Allen Muhammad (December 31, 1960 – November 10, 2009) was a spree killer from the United States. He, along with his younger partner, Lee Boyd Malvo, carried out the 2002 Beltway sniper attacks, killing at least 10 people. Muhammad and Malvo were arrested in connection with the attacks on October 24, 2002, following tips from alert citizens. Although the pairing's actions were classified as psychopathy attributable to serial killer characteristics by the media, whether or not their psychopathy meets this classification is debated by researchers.
  Born as John Allen Williams, Muhammad joined the Nation of Islam in 1987 and later changed his surname to Muhammad. At Muhammad's trial, the prosecutor claimed that the rampage was part of a plot to kill his ex-wife and regain custody of his children, but the judge ruled that there was insufficient evidence to support this argument.
  His trial for one of the murders (the murder of Dean Harold Meyers in Prince William County, Virginia) began in October 2003, and the following month he was found guilty of capital murder. Four months later he was sentenced to death. While awaiting execution in Virginia, in August 2005, he was extradited to Maryland to face some of the charges there, for which he was convicted of six counts of first-degree murder on May 30, 2006. Upon completion of the trial activity in Maryland, he was returned to Virginia's death row pending an agreement with another state or the District of Columbia seeking to try him. He was not tried on additional charges in other Virginia jurisdictions, and faced potential trials in three other states and the District of Columbia involving other deaths and serious woundings. All appeals of his conviction for killing Dean Harold Meyers had been made and rejected. Appeals for Muhammad's other trials remained pending at the time of his execution.
  
  wn.com/John_Allen_Muhammad
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  John Denver
  Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr. (December 31, 1943 – October 12, 1997), known professionally as John Denver, was an American singer/songwriter, activist, and humanitarian. After traveling and living in numerous locations while growing up in his military family, Denver began his music career in folk music groups in the late 1960s. His greatest commercial success was as a solo singer. Throughout his life Denver recorded and released approximately 300 songs, about 200 of which he composed. He performed primarily with an acoustic guitar and sang about his joy in nature, his enthusiasm for music, and relationship trials. Denver's music appeared on a variety of charts including country & western, the Billboard Hot 100, and adult contemporary, in all earning him 12 gold and 4 platinum albums with his signature songs "Sunshine on My Shoulders", "Take Me Home, Country Roads", "Leaving on a Jet Plane", "Rocky Mountain High", "Annie's Song", and "Calypso".
  Denver further starred in films and several notable television specials in the 1970s and 1980s. In the following decades he continued to record, but also focused on calling attention to environmental issues, lent his vocal support to space exploration, and testified in front of Congress to protest censorship in music. He is known for his love of the state of Colorado, which he sang about numerous times. He lived in Aspen, Colorado, for much of his life, and influenced the governor to name him Poet Laureate of the state in 1974. The Colorado state legislature also adopted "Rocky Mountain High" as one of its state songs in 2007. He was an avid pilot, and died while flying his personal aircraft at the age of 53. Denver was one of the most popular acoustic artists of the 1970s.
  
  wn.com/John_Denver
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  John Flamsteed
  John Flamsteed FRS (19 August 1646 – 31 December 1719) was an English astronomer and the first Astronomer Royal. He catalogued over 3000 stars.
  Flamsteed was born in Denby, Derbyshire, England, the only son of Stephen Flamsteed. He was educated at the free school of Derby, and was educated at Derby School, in St Peter's Churchyard, Derby, near where his father carried on a malting business. At that time, most masters of the school were Puritans. Flamsteed had a solid knowledge of Latin, essential for reading the literature of the day, and a love of history, leaving the school in May, 1662.
  His progress to Jesus College, Cambridge, recommended by the Master of Derby School, was delayed by some years of chronic ill health. During those years, Flamsteed gave his father some help in his business, and from his father learnt arithmetic and the use of fractions, but he also used those years to develop a keen interest in mathematics and astronomy. In July 1662, he was fascinated by the thirteenth century work of Johannes de Sacrobosco, De sphaera mundi, and on 12 September 1662 observed his first partial solar eclipse. Early in 1663, he read Thomas Fale's The Art of Dialling, which set off an interest in sundials. In the summer of 1663, he read Wingate's Canon, William Oughtred's Canon, and Thomas Stirrup's Art of Dialling. At about the same time, he acquired Thomas Street's Astronomia Carolina, or A New Theory of the Celestial Motions (Caroline Tables). He associated himself with local gentlemen interested in astronomy, including William Litchford, whose library included the work of the astrologer John Gadbury which included astronomical tables by Jeremiah Horrocks, who had died in 1641 at the age of twenty-three. Flamsteed was greatly impressed (as Isaac Newton had been) by the work of Horrocks.
  
  wn.com/John_Flamsteed
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  John Wycliffe
  John Wycliffe ( /ˈwɪklɪf/; also spelled Wyclif, Wycliff, Wiclef, Wicliffe, or Wickliffe) (c. 1328 – December 31, 1384) was an English Scholastic philosopher, theologian, lay preacher,translator, reformer and university teacher at Oxford in England, who was known as an early dissident in the Roman Catholic Church during the 14th century. His followers were known as Lollards, a somewhat rebellious movement, which preached anticlerical and biblically-centered reforms. The Lollard movement was a precursor to the Protestant Reformation (for this reason, Wycliffe is sometimes called "The Morning Star of the Reformation"). He was one of the earliest opponents of papal authority influencing secular power.
  Wycliffe was also an early advocate for translation of the Bible into the common language. He completed his translation directly from the Vulgate into vernacular English in the year 1382, now known as Wycliffe's Bible. It is probable that he personally translated the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; and it is possible he translated the entire New Testament, while his associates translated the Old Testament.Wycliffe's Bible appears to have been completed by 1384, with additional updated versions being done by Wycliffe's assistant John Purvey and others in 1388 and 1395.
  
  wn.com/John_Wycliffe
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  Jonah Jones
  Jonah Jones (born Robert Elliott Jones; December 31, 1909 – April 29, 2000) was a jazz trumpeter who is perhaps best known for creating concise versions of jazz and swing standards that appealed to a mass audience. In jazz, he might be best appreciated for his work with Stuff Smith. He was sometimes referred to as "King Louis II," a reference to Louis Armstrong. Jones started playing alto sax at the age of 12 in the Booker T. Washington Community Center band in Louisville before quickly transitioning to trumpet, where he excelled immediately.
  Jones began his career playing on a river boat named "Island Queen" which plied between Kentucky and Ohio.
  Jones was born in Louisville, Kentucky. He began in the 1920s playing on Mississippi riverboats and then in 1928 he joined with Horace Henderson. Later he worked with Jimmie Lunceford and had an early collaboration with Stuff Smith in 1932. From 1932-1936 he had a successful collaboration with Smith, but in the 1940s he worked in big bands like Benny Carter's and Fletcher Henderson's. He would spend most of decade with Cab Calloway's band which later became a combo.
  
  wn.com/Jonah_Jones
• José Greco
  Jose Greco (December 23, 1918 – December 31, 2000) was a flamenco dancer and choreographer.
  He was born in Montorio nei Frentani, Italy of Italian parents. He was raised in New York City from the time he was 10 years old. He began dancing in Brooklyn with his sister Norina at a young age.
  He made his professional dancing debut in 1937 at the Hippodrome Theatre in Manhattan. His most famous partners were La Argentinita (Encarnación López Julvez) and, after her death, her sister Pilar López. In 1949, he started the José Greco Dance Company, with which he toured extensively.
  He also appeared in a number of films, including Sombrero (1953), Around the World in 80 Days (1956), Holiday for Lovers (1959), Ship of Fools (1965), and The Proud and the Damned (1972).
  He received many honors and awards including being knighted by the Spanish government (Cruz Laureada del Caballero del Mérito Civil) and receiving 4 honorary doctorates.
  He started the José Greco Foundation for Hispanic Dance in 1972 and retired from the stage for the first time in 1974. He published an autobiography, Gypsy in My Soul: The Autobiography of José Greco, in 1977. He had six children, three boys and three girls. His sons José Luis and Paolo are composers; his son José Greco II is a dancer as are his three daughters, Alessandra, Carmela and Lola.
  
  wn.com/José_Greco
• Jule Styne
  Jule Styne (December 31, 1905 – September 20, 1994) was a British-born American songwriter especially famous for a series of Broadway musicals, which included several very well known and frequently revived shows.
  Styne was born in London, England as Julius Kerwin Stein of Jewish immigrants from Ukraine. At the age of eight he moved with his family to Chicago, where at an early age he began taking piano lessons. He proved to be a prodigy and performed with the Chicago, St. Louis, and Detroit Symphonies before he was ten years old.
  Styne attended Chicago Musical College, but before then he had already attracted attention of another teenager, Mike Todd, later a successful film producer, who commissioned him to write a song for a musical act that he was creating. It would be the first of over 1,500 published songs Styne would compose in his career.
  Styne established his own dance band, which brought him to the notice of Hollywood, where he was championed by Frank Sinatra and where he began a collaboration with lyricist Sammy Cahn, with whom he wrote many songs for the movies, including "It's Been a Long, Long Time" (#1 for 3 weeks for Harry James and His Orchestra in 1945), "Five Minutes More," and the Oscar-winning "Three Coins in the Fountain". He collaborated on the score for the 1955 musical film My Sister Eileen with Leo Robin. Ten of his songs were nominated for the Oscar, many written with Cahn, including "I've Heard That Song Before" (#1 for 13 weeks for Harry James and His Orchestra in 1943), "I'll Walk Alone", "It's Magic" (a #2 hit for Doris Day in 1948) and "I Fall in Love Too Easily".
  
  wn.com/Jule_Styne
• Julie Doucet
  Julie Doucet (born December 31, 1965 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada) is a Canadian former underground cartoonist and artist, best known for her autobiographical works such as Dirty Plotte and My New York Diary. Her work is concerned with such topics as "sex, violence, menstruation and male/female issues."
  Julie Doucet was educated first at an all-girl's Catholic school, then studied fine arts at Cégep du Vieux Montréal (a junior college) and after at the Université du Québec à Montréal. Her university degree was in printing arts. She began cartooning in 1987. She was published in small-press comics and self-published her own comic called Dirty Plotte. She used the photocopied zine to record "her day to day life, her dreams, angsts, [and] fantasies." It was only when she was published in Weirdo,Robert Crumb's magazine that she began to attract critical attention.
  Doucet began being published by Drawn & Quarterly in January 1991 in a regular sized comic series also named Dirty Plotte. Shortly thereafter, she moved to New York. Although she moved to Seattle the following year, her experiences in New York formed the basis of the critically acclaimed My New York Diary. She moved from Seattle to Berlin in 1995, before finally returning to Montreal in 1998. While in Berlin, she had a book named Ciboire de criss published by L'Association in Paris, her first book in French. Once back in Montreal, she released the twelfth and final issue of Dirty Plotte before beginning a brief hiatus from comics.
  
  wn.com/Julie_Doucet
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  Julio DePaula
  Julio Cesar DePaula (born December 31, 1982 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic) is a former Major League Baseball relief pitcher. He is currently a free agent.
  He appeared in 16 games for the Minnesota Twins in the 2007 season, pitching 20 innings total. He became a free agent at the end of the 2008 season and signed a minor league contract with the Tampa Bay Rays on January 6, 2009.
  He signed with Hanwha Eagles in South Korea on December 10, 2009. He appeared in 41 games for Eagles in the season.
  He was released from Eagles on June 4, 2011 due to poor result.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Julio_DePaula
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  Karl Benz
   Karl Friedrich Benz (help·info) (November 25, 1844 – April 4, 1929) was a German engine designer and car engineer, generally regarded as the inventor of the gasoline-powered automobile, and together with Bertha Benz pioneering founder of the automobile manufacturer Mercedes-Benz. Other German contemporaries, Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach working as partners, also worked on similar types of inventions, without knowledge of the work of the other, but Benz patented his work first, and, subsequently patented all the processes that made the internal combustion engine feasible for use in an automobile. In 1879 his first engine patent was granted to him and in 1886 Benz was granted a patent for his first automobile.
  Karl Benz was born Karl Friedrich Michael Vaillant, in Karlsruhe, Baden, which is part of modern Germany, to Josephine Vaillant and a locomotive driver, Johann George Benz, whom she married a few months later. When he was two years old, his father was killed in a railway accident, and his name was changed to Karl Friedrich Benz in remembrance of his father.
  
  wn.com/Karl_Benz
• Kathryn Ish
  Kathryn Ish (February 18, 1936 – December 31, 2007) was an American Broadway theater, film, television and voiceover actress. She was also a founding member of The Committee political satire improvisational comedy group. Her television credits include Laverne & Shirley.
  Ish was born in San Jose, California. She was reportedly heavily influenced by her high school drama teacher, who was a former vaudeville actor. She soon developed a reputation for her comedic imitations.
  Ish and her husband, actor Richard Stahl, met in New York City in 1959. They were both working as off Broadway theater actors at the time. They were married later in 1959. Together Ish and Stahl performed in several nightclub and cabaret shows throughout the 1960s. The couple also moved to San Francisco. While living in San Francisco, Ish became a founding member of the The Committee Theater, which she performed with during the 1960s and 1970s.
  Ish appeared in over 100 films and television shows throughout her career, including WKRP in Cincinnati, Laverne & Shirley, The Love Boat, and The American President (1995). Additionally, Ish worked as a voiceover actress in over 75 films and television shows. Her voiceover work included the horrified screamers in the 1975 blockbuster, Jaws.
  
  wn.com/Kathryn_Ish
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  King Kelly
  Michael Joseph "King" Kelly (December 31, 1857 – November 8, 1894) was an American right fielder, catcher, and manager in various professional American baseball leagues including the National League, International Association, Players' League, and the American Association. He spent the majority of his 16-season playing career with the Chicago White Stockings and the Boston Beaneaters. Kelly was a player-manager three times in his career – in 1887 for the Beaneaters, in 1890 leading the Boston Reds to the pennant in the only season of the Players' League's existence, and in 1891 for the Cincinnati Kelly's Killers - before his retirement in 1893. He is also often credited with helping to popularize various strategies as a player such as the hit and run, the hook slide, and the catcher's practice of backing up first base.
  In only the second vote since its creation in 1939 the Old Timers Committee elected Kelly to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1945.
  In concluding where to truly give Kelly credit as an innovator, a 2004 book devoted to 19th-century rule bending in baseball—and which came close to exhaustively accounting for all contemporary reporting on various subjects—placed stress on the following: "Kelly's hook slide does sound special, and players probably tried to copy it. Also, he seems to have been the first big leaguer to successfully cut a base (when the usually lone umpire wasn't looking), at least according to the newspaper record." And, "Kelly could have been the first to foul off lots of pitches on purpose. Doing so was a top trick of some Baltimore players of the 1890s. At the turn of the century, that trick was defused when all foul balls began counting as strikes."
  
  wn.com/King_Kelly
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  Lance Reddick
  Lance Reddick (born December 31, 1962) is an American theater, film and TV actor and musician born in Baltimore, Maryland. He starred in The Wire as Cedric Daniels, appeared in Oz as Detective Johnny Basil and appeared in the fourth and fifth seasons of Lost. He now has a prominent role in Fringe. Previously Reddick also starred in two episodes of Law & Order.
  Reddick attended Friends High School in Baltimore, Maryland, graduating in 1980. As a teenager, he studied music both at the Peadbody Preparatory Institute, and a summer program teaching music theory and composition, The Walden School. After attending the Eastman School of Music, he moved to Boston in the 1980s, then enrolled in the Yale School of Drama in 1991.
  Reddick joined ABC's hit series Lost in 2008, where he played Matthew Abaddon, an employee of Charles Widmore, in multiple episodes. He was the third of four actors from Oz to star in the drama (along with Harold Perrineau, Ken Leung and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje). Producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have said they were interested in Reddick for the part of Mr. Eko but he was unavailable due to filming The Wire so they approached Akinnuoye-Agbaje instead.
  
  wn.com/Lance_Reddick
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  Lawrence Beesley
  Lawrence Beesley (31 December 1877 – 14 February 1967) was a Science teacher, journalist and author who was a survivor of the sinking of the RMS Titanic. He was born in Wirksworth, Derbyshire.
  Beesley was educated at Derby School, where he was a scholar, and afterwards at Caius College, Cambridge, again as a scholar. He took a First Class degree in the Natural Science tripos in 1903.
  Beginning as a schoolmaster at Wirksworth Grammar School, he moved to Dulwich College, where he was a science master. In 1957 he was still teaching as Principal of the Northwood School of Coaching, Northwood, Middlesex.
  One of the survivors of the sinking of the Titanic in April 1912, Beesley wrote a successful book about his experience, The Loss of the SS Titanic (June, 1912), published just nine weeks after the disaster. He saw two second class women who tried to get on a lifeboat, who were told to go back to their own deck, and that their lifeboats were waiting there.
  At the time of Lifeboat No. 13's launching on the Boat Deck, no women or children were in immediate sight, but it seemed there was room for more. As a result, Beesley was ordered to jump into it just before it launched. He managed to survive a subsequent incident, where Lifeboat No. 15 nearly came on top of No. 13. A stoker managed to cut the ropes connecting the boat to the falls at the last minute, and those in both boats emerged unhurt. Beesley and the rest of the survivors were picked up by the RMS Carpathia early morning on April 15.
  
  wn.com/Lawrence_Beesley
• Leigh Bowery
  Leigh Bowery (26 March 1961 – 31 December 1994) was an Australian performance artist, club promoter, actor, pop star, model and fashion designer, based in London. Bowery is considered one of the more influential figures in the 1980s and 1990s London and New York art and fashion circles influencing a generation of artists and designers. His influence reached through the fashion, club and art worlds to impact, amongst others, Meadham Kirchhoff, Alexander McQueen, Lucian Freud, Vivienne Westwood, Boy George, Antony and the Johnsons, John Galliano, the Scissor Sisters, David LaChapelle, Lady Bunny plus numerous Nu-Rave bands and nightclubs in London and New York which arguably perpetuated his avant garde ideas.
  Leigh Bowery was born in 1961 in the Melbourne suburb of Sunshine, Victoria. He often compared his early life there to a cultural wasteland in which he did not fit well. He was a sensitive and multi-gifted child in "macho" surroundings and as a teenager discovered a whole new world by reading about the London new romantic scene from British fashion magazines such as i-D. This inspired him to reinvent himself at the centre of the avant-garde art world in London. His family was conservative and he often reflected on his parents who were actively involved in the local Salvation Army. He was the older of two children, his sister Bronwyn being several years younger. He described his father as kind but macho and had a particularly close relationship with his mother from whom he inherited a love of dressmaking.
  
  wn.com/Leigh_Bowery
• Lionel Daunais
  Noël Ferdinand Lionel Daunais, OC (December 31, 1901 – July 18, 1982) was a French Canadian baritone and composer.
  Born in Montreal, Quebec, Daunais studied singing with Céline Marier and harmony and composition with Oscar O'Brien. In 1923 he won first prize at the Montreal Musical Festival. He made his professional opera debut in January 1926 as Ourrias in Charles Gounod's Mireille at the Orpheum in Vancouver. The following March he gave his first recital at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel.
  Daunais was also awarded the Prix d'Europe in 1926 which provided him with the opportuntity to pursue studies in Paris with Émile Marcellin at the Opéra-Comique. In 1929 he joined the roster of principal artists at the Opera of Algiers. With that company he sang several leading roles, including Escamillo in Carmen, Figaro in The Barber of Seville, Giorgio Germont in La traviata, Lescaut in Manon, and Valentin in Faust.
  Upon his return to Canada in 1930, Daunais performed with the Bytown Troubadours at the third annual CPR Festivals in Quebec City. At the festival he also portrayed Samuel de Champlain in Healey Willan's The Order of Good Cheer. Later that year he made his debut with the Société canadienne d'opérette in Montreal as Clément Marot in André Messager's La Basoche. He performed frequently with that company through 1935.
  
  wn.com/Lionel_Daunais
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  Lisa Joyner
  Lisa Marie Joyner (born December 31, 1966) is an American entertainment reporter and television host.
  Joyner has reported on celebrity news in the Los Angeles area for KTTV and KCBS-TV. She first gained national recognition for her InFANity segments on the TV Guide Network. Joyner is married to Two and a Half Men actor Jon Cryer. She and her husband adopted a baby girl, whom they named Daisy.
  Joyner is both an adoptive parent and an adoptee herself. In her 30s, she searched for and found her birth family. Along with Tim Green, she hosts the US version of Find My Family on the ABC network. The show reunites adoptees with their birth families.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Lisa_Joyner
• Liveris Andritsos
  Liveris Andritsos (Greek: Λιβέρης Ανδρίτσος; born December 31, 1959 in Athens, Greece) is a retired Greek professional basketball player.
  Andritsos started his career with Esperos. In 1982, he moved to Panathinaikos BC and he won the Greek Championship in 1984 and the Greek Cup in 1983 and 1986. At the end of his career, Andritsos was the top scorer in Panathinaikos history as he scored 2.088 points for Panathinaikos.
  He was a member of the Greek National Squad that won the gold medal at Eurobasket 1987, and the silver medal at Eurobasket 1989. He also won the 6th place in the 1990 FIBA World Championship.
  
  wn.com/Liveris_Andritsos
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  Lloyd Haynes
  Samuel Lloyd Haynes (October 19, 1934 – January 1, 1987) was an African-American actor and television writer. Haynes was a member of the Bahá'í Faith.
  Haynes served in the Marines from 1952–1964 and during the Korean War. He was a public-affairs officer for the Naval reserve with the rank of Commander.
  Following his military career, Haynes studied acting at the Film Industries Workshop and Actors West in Los Angeles. Haynes appeared in a number of films and television series, such as Batman and the second Star Trek pilot episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before". Haynes was dropped from Star Trek because series Producer Gene Roddenberry preferred actress Nichelle Nichols over him. Haynes received the most recognition for his role as schoolteacher Pete Dixon in the ABC situation comedy series Room 222, with Michael Constantine and Karen Valentine. Haynes and Valentine were both nominated for an Emmy and Golden Globe Award for their roles.
  He died from lung cancer on January 1, 1987.
  
  wn.com/Lloyd_Haynes
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  Louis XIV of France
  Louis XIV (5 September 1638 – 1 September 1715), known as Louis the Great or the Sun King (French: le Roi-Soleil), was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. He holds the distinction of being the longest-reigning king in European history, reigning for 72 years and 110 days.
  Louis began his personal rule of France in 1661 after the death of his chief minister, the Italian Cardinal Mazarin. An adherent of the theory of the divine right of kings, which advocates the divine origin and lack of temporal restraint of monarchical rule, Louis continued his predecessors' work of creating a centralized state governed from the capital. He sought to eliminate the remnants of feudalism persisting in parts of France and, by compelling the nobility to inhabit his lavish Palace of Versailles, succeeded in pacifying the aristocracy, many members of which had participated in the Fronde rebellion during Louis's minority. By these means he consolidated a system of absolute monarchical rule in France that endured until the French Revolution.
  
  wn.com/Louis_XIV_of_France
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  Luciano Szafir
  Luciano Lebelson Szafir (born São Paulo December 31, 1968) is a Brazilian model and soap opera actor.
  Szafir is the son of Gabriel and Betty Szafir. He has a twin sister named Priscila, an older sister named Alexandra and a younger brother named Salomão. He is also uncle to his twin sister's two children, Júlia and Luís Otávio.
  Earlier in his career, Szafir worked as a model. He is the sole actor for Rede Record, and has acted in three novel adaptations for radio.
  He was the highlight of the Alliance samba school of Joaçaba-SC in the year 2006, in the pilot called "Taste like a hug."
  
  
  
  wn.com/Luciano_Szafir
• 
  Ludolph van Ceulen
  Ludolph van Ceulen (28 January 1540 – 31 December 1610) was a German / Dutch mathematician from Hildesheim. He emigrated to the Netherlands.
  Ceulen moved to Delft to teach fencing and mathematics. In 1594 he opened a fencing school in Leiden. In 1600 he was appointed the first professor of mathematics at Leiden University. He died in Leiden.
  Ludolph van Ceulen spent a major part of his life calculating the numerical value of the mathematical constant π, using essentially the same methods as those employed by Archimedes some seventeen hundred years earlier. He published a 20-decimal value in his 1596 book Van den Circkel ("On the Circle"), later expanding this to 35 decimals. After his death, the "Ludolphine number",
  was engraved on his tombstone in Leiden. The tombstone was later lost but was restored in 2000.
  
  wn.com/Ludolph_van_Ceulen
• 
  Luke Schenscher
  Luke Dean Schenscher (born 31 December 1982) is an Australian professional basketball player.
  Schenscher was born and raised in Hope Forest, South Australia, and played three years of basketball with the Australian Institute of Sport. He became the first high school player to represent the Boomers, the Australian men's basketball team.
  He attended the Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech, from 2001 to 2005, starting a majority of his career at the center position, and in the 2003–04 season along with Jarrett Jack was a member of the Yellow Jackets team which played in the NCAA championship game against the Connecticut Huskies where he received all Final Four Team honors.
  After college the 7'1" (216 cm) tall Australian attempted to make an NBA roster. He succeeded in becoming a member of the Denver Nuggets and Sacramento Kings 2005–06 pre-season rosters. He signed to the Fort Worth Flyers to play in the NBA D-League, ranking in the top 50 players for points per game and top 20 for rebounds per game. He then signed a 10-day contract with the Chicago Bulls on 5 March 2006 becoming the third Australian centre to play for the Bulls following in the footsteps of Luc Longley (starting centre for the Bulls 1995–97 championship three-peat) and Chris Anstey who played in Chicago in 1999–2000. He played 12 minutes, scored 4 points and grabbed 1 rebound in his first game. He earned a second 10-day contract as soon as the first expired and was then signed for the rest of the season.
  
  wn.com/Luke_Schenscher
• Ly Chieu Hoang
  Lý Chiêu Hoàng (1218–1278) was the eighth and last sovereign of the Lý Dynasty from 1224 to 1225 and the only empress regnant in the history of Vietnam. Chosen by the Emperor Lý Huệ Tông as his successor at the age of only six, Lý Chiêu Hoàng ruled the country under the total influence of Trần Thủ Độ and the Trần clan in the royal court. It was Trần Thủ Độ who arranged the marriage between the 6-year old empress regnant and his 7-year-old nephew Trần Cảnh and ultimately indeed did overthrow the Lý Dynasty to found the Trần Dynasty in 1225. After the coronation of Trần Cảnh, now Trần Thái Tông, Lý Chiêu Hoàng was downgraded to Empress Chiêu Thánh and finally to Princess Chiêu Thánh when she was forced by Trần Thủ Độ to give up the position of empress consort to her elder sister Princess Thuận Thiên. Afterwards, she was married one more time to general Lê Phụ Trần, with whom she had two children. Lý Chiêu Hoàng's complicated and tragic life was a fine example of the turbulent time of the Late Lý and Early Trần Dynasty in history of Vietnam.
  
  wn.com/Ly_Chieu_Hoang
• 
  Malcolm Campbell
  Sir Malcolm Campbell (11 March 1885 – 31 December 1948) was an English racing motorist and motoring journalist. He gained the world speed record on land and on water at various times during the 1920s and 1930s using vehicles called Blue Bird. His son, Donald Campbell, carried on the family tradition by holding both land speed and water speed records.
  Malcolm Campbell was born in Chislehurst, Kent in 1885, the only son of William Campbell, a Hatton Garden diamond seller. He attended the independent Uppingham School. In Germany, learning the diamond trade, he gained an interest in motorbikes and races. Returning to England, he worked for two years at Lloyd's of London for no pay, then for another year at one pound a week. Between 1906–8, he won all three London to Lakes End Trials (motorbike races). In 1910 he began racing cars at Brooklands. He christened his car Blue Bird, painting it blue, after seeing the play The Blue Bird by Maurice Maeterlinck at the Haymarket Theatre. He married Marjorie D. Knott in 1913 but divorced two years later. He served in World War I in the Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment and in the RAF. He married Dorothy Evelyn Whittall in 1920 in Westminster and their son Donald was born in 1921, and they had a daughter Jean in 1923. He was knighted in 1931. They divorced in 1940. He married Betty Nicory in Aug 1945 in Chelsea.
  
  wn.com/Malcolm_Campbell
• Malcolm Middleton
  Malcolm Bruce Middleton (born 31 December 1973) is a Scottish musician best known for his work with Aidan Moffat in post-folk indie band, Arab Strap, and his subsequent solo career, writing and producing. To date, Middleton has released five solo studio albums, with his most recent, Waxing Gibbous, released on 8 June 2009.
  Whilst promoting Waxing Gibbous, Middleton noted that he would be refraining from performing and recording under his own name in the future, stating "I'm starting to feel like I've done as much as I can with this creative voice.". Performing under the pseudonym, Human Don't Be Angry, Middleton is currently recording a debut album for the moniker, due for release in 2012. Despite previous claims that he would retire his solo work, Middleton has recently resumed performing under his own name, alongside his work as Human Don't Be Angry.
  Middleton was born in Dumfries but raised in Falkirk, Scotland. He attended Graeme High School. He played bass, guitar and sometimes sang in several bands in the 1990s, including Purple Bass Plectrum, Rabid Lettuce, Pigtube and The Laughing Stock.
  
  wn.com/Malcolm_Middleton
• 
  Mani Neumeier
  Mani Neumeier (Manfred Neumeier, born December 31, 1940 in Munich) is a German rock musician, free jazz-drummer, artist, frontman (singer and drummer) of the German Krautrock-band Guru Guru.
  Probably best known for his work with Guru Guru, Neumeier collaborated with numerous bands and artists, such as Dieter Möbius, Damo Suzuki, Harmonia, Hans-Karsten Raecke, Irène Schweizer, Peter Brötzmann, Sonny Sharrock, Uchihashi Kazuhisa, Jojo Hiroshige, Kawabata Makoto, Yoshida Tatsuya, Luigi Archetti. Neumeier has lived in Germany and Japan. The wax museum of Tokyo has a wax figure of him. He has also regularly collaborated with Japanese jam and noise bands Acid Mothers Temple and Hijokaidan.
  See: Guru Guru
  (Source: [1])
  
  
  
  wn.com/Mani_Neumeier
• Mariana Renata
  Mariana Renata Dantec (born December 31, 1983 in Paris, France) is an Indonesian actress.
  Born to a French father Andre Dantec and Indo mother of Javanese-Chinese-Italian descent^{[citation needed]}, Anita Kirana, Mariana modeled on the catwalks of Paris, Jakarta, Singapore, Vietnam before she became one of Indonesia's model for Lux's soap brand.^{[citation needed]}
  She obtained an undergraduate degree in English Literature from the University of Paris (Sorbonne) and is working on master's degree at the University of New South Wales in business and commerce.
  In 2005, she took a supporting role in the Indonesian film Janji Joni, or Joni's Promise, directed by Joko Anwar. She won Most Favorite Supporting Actress at the MTV Indonesia Movie Awards for the role in December 2005.
  Among other appearance, she was featured in the made-for-Indonesian-market version of Josh Groban's music video, She's Out of My Life, appeared in the Indonesian version of Rivermaya's song Balisong (Filipino band), and appeared in the Indonesian TV Series Dunia Tanpa Koma (DTK), in a cameo role.
  
  wn.com/Mariana_Renata
• Marin Sais
  Marin Sais (August 2, 1890 – December 31, 1971) was an American motion picture actress whose career was most prolific during the silent film era of the 1910s and 1920s. Sais' acting career spanned over four decades and she is possibly best recalled for appearing in Western themed films.
  Born in San Rafael, California into a family that was allegedly descended from one of the earliest Spanish families to settle in California, Marin Sais began her acting career as a teenager after travelling to New York City where she appeared in vaudeville.
  In 1910, at the age of twenty, Sais made her screen debut for New York City's Vitagraph Studios in the short film adaptation of William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night opposite the notable actors Florence Turner and Julia Swayne Gordon. Sais would go on to star in a number of well-received comedy shorts for Kalem Company opposite actors Ruth Roland, Marshall Neilan and Edward Coxen. In 1911, Sais made her first appearance in a Western entitled The Ranger's Stratagem - it would become a frequent career choice for the actress and in her later career she would rarely appear in other motion picture genres.
  
  wn.com/Marin_Sais
• 
  Mario Aerts
  Mario Aerts (born 31 December 1974 in Herentals, Belgium) is a former professional road bicycle racer, who competed between 1996 and 2011. He competed for three different teams; Vlaanderen 2002, Team Telekom and the Lotto team through various sponsorships, competing with that particular team for twelve seasons during his career. During this time he raced in the Tours de France, the Giro d'Italia, and the Vuelta. In the 2007 cycling season, he finished in these three major stage races in cycling. He was only the 25th racer in the history of cycling to achieve this.
  Aerts won the GP d'Isbergues in 1996, Circuit Franco Belge in 2001, the Giro della Provincia di Lucca in 2001, and most notably La Flèche Wallonne in 2002; he did not won a professional race after that. In June 2011, he announced his retirement as a professional cyclist at the end of the year, citing heart problems as the major cause.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Mario_Aerts
• Markku Peltola
  Markku Peltola (12 July 1956 – 31 December 2007) was a Finnish actor and musician. He was born in Helsinki and grew up there. He was actively involved in founding and acting with the Telakka Theater in Tampere.
  Peltola is best known for starring opposite Kati Outinen in Aki Kaurismäki's Academy Award nominated film from 2002 The Man Without a Past. Other films that Peltola has been in include V2 – jäätynyt enkeli, Young Gods, Drifting Clouds, Jade Warrior and Perhoshäkki.
  Since the 1980s, Peltola was the singer and bass guitarist of the Finnish band Motelli Skronkle. He also released two solo albums: Buster Keatonin ratsutilalla, released by Ektro Records in 2003 and Buster Keaton tarkistaa idän ja lännen at the beginning of 2006.
  Peltola died in the early hours of 31 December 2007 at his home in Kangasala, Finland.
  
  wn.com/Markku_Peltola
• 
  Marshall McLuhan
  Herbert Marshall McLuhan, CC (July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980) was a Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar—a professor of English literature, a literary critic, a rhetorician, and a communication theorist. McLuhan's work is viewed as one of the cornerstones of the study of media theory, as well as having practical applications in the advertising and television industries.
  McLuhan is known for coining the expressions "the medium is the message" and "the global village" and predicted the World Wide Web almost thirty years before it was invented. Although he was a fixture in media discourse in the late 1960s, his influence started to wane in the early seventies. In the years after his death, he would continue to be a controversial figure in academic circles. With the arrival of the internet, however, there was renewed interest in his work and perspective.
  McLuhan was born in Edmonton, Alberta, to Elsie Naomi (née Hall) and Herbert Ernest McLuhan. His brother, Maurice, was born two years later. "Marshall" was a family name: his maternal grandmother's surname. Both of his parents were born in Canada. His mother was a Baptist schoolteacher who later became an actress. His father was a Methodist and had a real estate business in Edmonton. When war broke out, the business failed, and McLuhan's father enlisted in the Canadian army. After a year of service he contracted influenza and remained in Canada, away from the front. After Herbert's discharge from the army in 1915, the McLuhan family moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba, where Marshall grew up and went to school, attending Kelvin Technical School before enrolling in the University of Manitoba in 1928.
  
  wn.com/Marshall_McLuhan
• 
  Max Pechstein
  Hermann Max Pechstein (December 31, 1881 – June 29, 1955) was a German expressionist painter and printmaker, and a member of the Die Brücke group.
  Max Pechstein was born in Zwickau. His father was a craftsman who worked in a textile mill. Early contact with the art of Vincent Van Gogh stimulated Pechstein's development toward expressionism. After studying art first at the School of Applied Arts and then at the Royal Art Academy in Dresden, Pechstein met Erich Heckel and joined the art group Die Brücke in 1906. He was the only member to have formal art training. Later in Berlin, he helped to found the Neue Sezession and gained recognition for his decorative and colorful paintings that were lent from the ideas of Van Gogh, Matisse, and the Fauves. His paintings eventually became more primitive, incorporating thick black lines and angular figures.
  Beginning in 1933, Pechstein was vilified by the Nazis because of his art. 326 of his paintings were removed from German museums. 16 of his works were displayed in the Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) exhibition of 1937. During this time, Pechstein went into seclusion in rural Pomerania.
  
  wn.com/Max_Pechstein
• Michael Goldberg
  Michael Goldberg (December 24, 1924 – December 31, 2007) was an American abstract expressionist painter and teacher known for his gestural action paintings, abstractions and still-life paintings. His work was recently seen in September 2007 in a solo exhibition at Knoedler & Company in New York City, as well as several exhibitions at Manny Silverman Gallery in Los Angeles. Additionally, a survey of Goldberg's work is exhibited at the University Art Museum at California State University, Long Beach since September 2010.
  A veteran of World War II, Goldberg was one of the last few remaining survivors of the New York School; he was sometimes referred to as a member of the so-called "second generation" of Abstract Expressionists, although he began exhibiting his action paintings in important group shows in galleries in New York City in the early 1950s. Goldberg began taking classes at the Art Students League of New York at age 14. In the 1950s he studied painting with Hans Hofmann, and he discussed painting with Willem de Kooning, Lee Krasner, Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Mark Rothko and several others of the New York School sometimes at The Eighth Street Club, a regular meeting place of modern artists working in and around Tenth Street in New York and sometimes at the Cedar Bar. He began to exhibit his paintings in New York City during the early 1950s, and some of his abstract expressionist peers included artists like Joan Mitchell, Alfred Leslie, Grace Hartigan, Helen Frankenthaler, Knox Martin, Friedel Dzubas, Norman Bluhm and Sam Francis among others.
  
  wn.com/Michael_Goldberg
• Michael Hedges
  Michael Alden Hedges (December 31, 1953 – December 2, 1997) was an American composer, Acoustic guitarist and singer-songwriter.
  Hedges attended Phillips University in Enid, Oklahoma, studying classical guitar.^{[citation needed]} It was here that he studied under his compositional mentor, E. J. Ulrich. Subsequently, from 1979 til 1982, Hedges was a composition major at Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, Maryland who applied his classically-trained musical background in combination with various unusual techniques to the steel-string acoustic guitar. He covered a wide range of musical styles and was considered an extremely dynamic performer in concert. Michael made ends meet playing and singing in pubs and restaurants in the Baltimore Metro area during his tenure at Peabody. In 1980, he made plans to move to California to study music at Stanford University. He was discovered in February 1981 by William Ackerman who heard him performing at The Varsity Theater in Palo Alto and immediately signed him to a recording contract on the Windham Hill label. He was married to flautist Mindy Rosenfeld but the couple divorced in the late 1980s.
  
  wn.com/Michael_Hedges
• 
  Mies Bouwman
  Maria Antoinette "Mies" Bouwman (born 31 December 1929) is a former Dutch television presenter.
  Born in Amsterdam, she started her career on the very first broadcasting evening of the Dutch broadcasting association KRO (Catholic Radio Broadcaster) on 16 October 1951.
  Bouwman made her name as the host of the first large fund-raising programm on Dutch TV, Open Het Dorp. In this show viewers were asked to donate money for charity, in order to open a special village for people with a handicap. This show was broadcast live on 26 and 27 November 1962 and lasted 23 hours. Bouwman presented the entire show.
  Bouwman hosted Één van de 8, known in the UK as The Generation Game. She hosted numerous talk shows, as well as the Dutch version of This is your life. She stopped her regular work after falling sick but has occasionally returned for special programs.
  Bouwman ended her career in 1993 due to an illness. Since then she has appeared on TV for interviews, but never as host, only as a guest.
  
  wn.com/Mies_Bouwman
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  Miguel de Unamuno
  Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo (29 September 1864, Bilbao, Biscay, Basque Country, Spain – 31 December 1936, Salamanca, Salamanca, Castile and León, Spain) was a Spanish essayist, novelist, poet, playwright and philosopher.
  Miguel de Unamuno was born in Bilbao, a port city of Spain, the son of Félix de Unamuno and Salomé Jugo. As a young man, he was interested in the Basque language, and competed for a teaching position in the Instituto de Bilbao, against Sabino Arana. The contest was finally won by the Basque scholar Resurrección María de Azkue.
  Unamuno worked in all major genres: the essay, the novel, poetry and theatre, and, as a modernist, contributed greatly to dissolving the boundaries between genres. There is some debate as to whether Unamuno was in fact a member of the Generation of '98, an ex post facto literary group of Spanish intellectuals and philosophers that was the creation of José Martínez Ruiz — a group that includes Antonio Machado, Azorín, Pío Baroja, Ramón del Valle-Inclán, Ramiro de Maeztu and Ángel Ganivet, among others.
  
  wn.com/Miguel_de_Unamuno
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  Muhammad bin Qasim
  Muhammad bin Qasim Al-Thaqafi (Arabic: محمد بن قاسم‎) (c. 31 December 695–18 July 715) was a Umayyad general who, at the age of 17, began the conquest of the Sindh and Punjab regions along the Indus River (now a part of Pakistan) for the Umayyad Caliphate. He was born & raised in the city of Taif (in modern day Saudi Arabia). Qasim's conquest of Sindh and Punjab laid the foundations of Islamic rule in the Indian subcontinent.
  A member of the Thaqeef tribe, which is still settled in and around the city of Taif ( a city in modern day Saudi Arabia) to this very day, Muhammad bin Qasim's father was Qasim bin Yusuf^{[citation needed]} who died when Muhammad bin Qasim was young, leaving his mother in charge of his education. Umayyad governor Al-Hajjaj Ibn Yusuf Al-Thaqafi, Muhammad bin Qasim's paternal uncle, was instrumental in teaching Muhammad bin Qasim about warfare and governance. Muhammad bin Qasim married his cousin Zubaidah, Hajjaj's daughter, shortly before going to Sindh. Another paternal uncle of Muhammad bin Qasim was Muhammad bin Yusuf, governor of Yemen.^{[citation needed]} Under Hajjaj's patronage, Muhammad bin Qasim was made governor of Persia, where he succeeded in putting down a rebellion.^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/Muhammad_bin_Qasim
• 
  Muhammadu Buhari
  Muhammadu Buhari (born December 17, 1942) was a Major General in the Nigerian Army and a former military ruler of Nigeria from December 31, 1983 to August 27, 1985. He also ran unsuccessfully for the office of the President of Nigeria in the 2003, 2007 and 2011 elections. His ethnic background is Fulani, and his faith is Islam; he is a native of Daura in Katsina State of Nigeria.
  Having joined the army in 1962, Buhari first came to widespread public attention in 1976 when he became the Minister (or "Federal Commissioner") for Petroleum and Natural Resources under then-Head of State General Olusegun Obasanjo. Before then he served as Governor of the newly created North-Eastern State during the regime of Murtala Mohammed. He later became head of the newly created Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation in 1977.
  Major-General Buhari was selected to lead the country by middle and high-ranking military officers after a successful military coup d'etat that overthrew civilian President Shehu Shagari on December 31, 1983. At the time, Buhari was head of the Third Armored Division of Jos. Buhari was appointed Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, and Tunde Idiagbon was appointed Chief of General Staff (the de facto No. 2 in the administration). Buhari justified the military's seizure of power by castigating the civilian government as hopelessly corrupt, and his administration subsequently initiated a public campaign against indiscipline known as "War Against Indiscipline" (WAI). Aspects of this campaign included public humiliation of civil servants who arrived late for work whilst guards were armed with whips to ensure orderly queues at bus stops.
  
  wn.com/Muhammadu_Buhari
• Nathan Milstein
  Nathan Mironovich Milstein (January 13, 1904 [O.S. December 31, 1903] – December 21, 1992) was a Russian-born American virtuoso violinist.
  Widely considered one of the finest violinists of the 20th century, Milstein was known for his interpretations of Bach's solo violin works and for works from the Romantic period. He was also known for his long career: he performed at a high level into his mid 80s, retiring only after suffering a broken hand.
  He was born in Odessa, then part of the Russian Empire (now in Ukraine), the fourth child of seven, to a middle-class Jewish family with virtually no musical background. It was a concert by the 11-year-old Jascha Heifetz that inspired his parents to make a violinist out of Milstein. As a child of seven, he started violin studies (as suggested by his parents, to keep him out of mischief) with the eminent violin pedagogue Pyotr Stolyarsky, also the teacher of renowned violinist David Oistrakh.
  When Milstein was 11, Leopold Auer invited him to become one of his students at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Milstein reminisced:
  
  wn.com/Nathan_Milstein
• 
  Neil Ross
  Neil Ross is an English voice actor and announcer, born in London, England and now resident and working in Los Angeles, in the United States. He has provided voices in many American cartoons, most notably Voltron, G.I. Joe and Transformers. He has also done voice work in numerous video games. Ross has also provided voice roles (such as radio announcers) for many movies, including Back to the Future II, Babe, Quiz Show, and Being John Malkovich.
  Neil Ross was the announcer for the 75th Annual Academy Awards Telecast in 2003, and the Emmy Awards Telecast in 2004. He has also narrated numerous episodes of A&E's Biography, and many editions of NOVA on PBS (including Mars – Dead or Alive, which was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2004).
  Neil Ross was born in London, England, on December 31st, 1944 and subsequently raised in Montreal, Canada. His family moved to Long Beach, California when he was 12 years old. When they moved to San Diego, a young Ross started listening to KFWB, and became obsessed with becoming a disc-jockey. He started working in radio when he finished school. His first station was KMUR in Salt Lake City, Utah. Following this, he moved on to KORL, KGMB and KKUA in Honolulu, Hawaii, before moving to KCBQ in San Diego in 1969. He stayed in California, working on KYA San Francisco and KMPC Los Angeles. He made his last broadcast in 1985.
  
  wn.com/Neil_Ross
• Nicolas Calas
  Nicolas Calas (Greek: Νικόλαος Κάλας) (May 27, 1907-December 31, 1988) was the pseudonym of Nikos Kalamaris (Greek: Νίκος Καλαμάρης), a Greek-American poet and art critic. While living in Greece, he also used the pseudonyms Nikitas Randos (Greek: Νικήτας Ράντος) and M. Spieros (Greek: Μ. Σπιέρος).
  Nicolas Calas was born Nikos Kalamaris in Lausanne, Switzerland, May 27, 1907, but grew up in Athens, the only son of Ioannis Kalamaris who descended from a family of ship-owners and landowners from the island Syros, and Rosa Caradja who was the great-granddaughter of Markos Botsaris, the military leader and hero of the Greek War of Independence, and a descendent from the Phanariot Caradja family, a noble family which supplied high officials to the Ottoman Empire and rotating rulers to Danubian principalities. Calas later rebelled against his wealthy family background by becoming a Trotskyist, strongly influenced in his turn to radical politics by witnessing the human tragedy of the refugees of the 1922 Asia Minor catastrophe flooding the streets of Athens.
  
  wn.com/Nicolas_Calas
• Nikos Ploumpidis
  Nikos Ploumpidis (also Ploumbidis) (Greek: Νίκος Πλουμπίδης) (31 December 1902–14 August 1954) was a leading cadre of the Greek Communist Party and a famous member of the wartime anti-Nazi resistance.
  The son of a poor farming family, he was born in Arcadian Langadia. As a young man he involved himself in politics and in 1926, as a teacher in the village of Milea, near Elassona, he joined the Communist Party of Greece (KKE). At the time he was a teacher and in 1930 became a member of the Executive Committee of the Central Union of Civil Servants. However, in 1931 he had to leave the position after he was sacked from his teaching position on account of his political activism. He began to work full time for the KKE. In 1937 he was responsible for the party in the Thessaly region, and in 1938, he was elected to the Politburo of the KKE.
  In 1939 he was arrested by the secret police of the regime of General Ioannis Metaxas, and was imprisoned in Sotiria hospital until his escape in 1942. He then involved himself in the newly formed National Liberation Front (EAM) and in the communist youth organisation (OKNE).
  
  wn.com/Nikos_Ploumpidis
• 
  Odetta
  Odetta Holmes, (December 31, 1930 – December 2, 2008) known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, songwriter, and a human rights activist, often referred to^[who?] as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement". Her musical repertoire consisted largely of American folk music, blues, jazz, and spirituals. An important figure in the American folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s, she was influential to many of the key figures of the folk-revival of that time, including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Mavis Staples, and Janis Joplin. Time included her song "Take This Hammer" on its list of the All-Time 100 Songs, stating that "Rosa Parks was her No. 1 fan, and Martin Luther King Jr. called her the queen of American folk music."
  Odetta was born in Birmingham, Alabama, grew up in Los Angeles, California, attended Belmont High School, and studied music at Los Angeles City College while employed as a domestic worker. She had operatic training from the age of 13. Her mother hoped she would follow Marian Anderson, but Odetta doubted a large black girl would ever perform at the Metropolitan Opera. Her first professional experience was in musical theater in 1944, as an ensemble member for four years with the Hollywood Turnabout Puppet Theatre, working alongside Elsa Lanchester; she later joined the national touring company of the musical Finian's Rainbow in 1949.
  
  wn.com/Odetta
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  Oliver St John
  Sir Oliver St John (pronounced "Sinjin") (c. 1598–31 December 1673), was an English judge and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1640 to 1653. He supported the Parliamentary cause in the English Civil War.
  St John was the son of Oliver St John of Cayshoe and his wife Sarah Bulkeley, daughter of Edward Bulkeley of Odell, Bedfordshire. His sister, Elizabeth St John, married Reverend Samuel Whiting and immigrated to Boston, Massachusetts in 1636. He matriculated from Queens' College, Cambridge at Lent 1616, and was admitted at Lincoln's Inn on 22 April 1619. He was called to the bar in 1626.
  St John appears to have got into trouble with the court in connection with a seditious publication, and to have associated himself with the future popular leaders John Pym and Lord Saye. In 1638 he defended John Hampden on his refusal to pay Ship Money, on which occasion he made a notable speech. In the same year he married, as his second wife, Elizabeth Cromwell, a cousin of Oliver Cromwell, to whom his first wife also had been distantly related. The marriage led to an intimate friendship with Cromwell.
  
  wn.com/Oliver_St_John
• 
  Ostrogoths
  The Ostrogoths (Latin: Ostrogothi or Austrogothi) were a branch of the Goths (the other branch being the Visigoths), a Germanic tribe who developed a vast empire north of the Black Sea in the 3rd century AD and, in the late 5th century, under Theodoric the Great, established a Kingdom in Italy.
  Invading southward from the Baltic Sea, the Ostrogoths, at the time known as the Greuthungi, built up a huge empire stretching from the Dniester to the Volga river and from the Black Sea to the Baltic shores. The Ostrogoths were probably literate in the 3rd century, and their trade with the Romans was highly developed. Their Danubian kingdom reached its zenith under King Ermanaric, who is said to have committed suicide at an old age when the Huns attacked his people and subjugated them about 370.
  After their subjugation by the Huns, little is heard of the Ostrogoths for about 80 years, after which they reappear in Pannonia on the middle Danube River as federates of the Romans. However, a pocket remained behind in the Crimea when the bulk of them moved to central Europe, and these Crimean Ostrogoths existed until at least the 16th century. After the collapse of the Hun empire after the Battle of Nedao (453), the Ostrogoths under Theodoric the Great first moved to Moesia (c. 475–488) and later conquered the Italian Kingdom of the German warrior Odoacer. Theodoric became King of the Ostrogothic Kingdom in 493 and died in 526. A period of instability then ensued, tempting the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian to declare war on the Ostrogoths in 535 in an effort to restore the former western provinces of the Roman Empire. Initially, the Byzantines were successful, but under the leadership of Totila, the Goths reconquered most of the lost territory until Totila's death at the Battle of Taginae. The war lasted for almost 20 years and caused enormous damage and depopulation of Italy. The remaining Ostrogoths were absorbed into the Lombards who established a Kingdom in Italy in 567 AD.
  
  wn.com/Ostrogoths
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  Pancha Carrasco
  Pancha Carrasco (8 April 1826 – 31 December 1890), born Francisca Carrasco Jiménez, was Costa Rica's first woman in the military. Carrasco is most famous for joining the defending forces at the Battle of Rivas in 1856 with a rifle and bullets. The strength and determination she showed there made her a symbol of national pride and she was later honored with a Costa Rican postage stamp, a Coast Guard vessel, and the creation of the "Pancha Carrasco Police Women's Excellence Award".
  In 1816, Francisca Carrasco Jiménez was born on 8 April in Cartago, Costa Rica, of mixed Indian, Black, and Spanish heritage, the daughter of Jose Francisco and Maria Carrasco. She was married three times, first in 1834 with Juan Solano, and the last one with Gil Zúñiga; however, none of them worked out.
  In 1856 (age 40), when William Walker and his filibusteros invaded Costa Rica, Carrasco volunteered as a cook and a medic. She is most famous for filling her apron pockets with bullets, grabbing a rifle, and joining the defending forces at the Battle of Rivas, becoming Costa Rica's first woman in the military
  
  wn.com/Pancha_Carrasco
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  Patrick Chan
  Patrick Lewis Wai-Kuan Chan (born December 31, 1990) is a Canadian figure skater. He is the 2011 & 2012 World champion, a two-time (2010 & 2011) Grand Prix Final champion, a two-time (2009 & 2012) Four Continents champion and a five-time (2008–2012) Canadian champion.
  At the 2010 Canadian Championships, he was nominated to represent Canada at the 2010 Winter Olympics, where he placed fifth in the men's event.
  On April 27, 2011, Chan set a new world record of 93.02 points for the short program. On April 28, 2011, Chan then set a new world record for his free skate, receiving an overall score of 280.98. In recognition, Chan was named the recipient of the prestigious Lou Marsh Award as Canada's top athlete.
  Chan was born in Ottawa, Ontario, to Lewis Chan and Karen Chan, immigrants from Hong Kong. He is of Han Chinese descent.^{[citation needed]} His Chinese name is Chan Wai-Kuan. His father, a lawyer, immigrated to Canada at the age of 4 and grew up in Montreal, Quebec, while his mother immigrated at the age of 21 in order to study. Chan is an only child. His mother won both singles and doubles tennis championships in her native city, while his father pursues table tennis, golf and weight-lifting. At the age of 5, Chan showed talent in downhill skiing, but focused on other sports after his family moved to Toronto. He has an enduring interest in many sports, including taekwondo, tennis, golf and mountain climbing.
  
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  Paul Westerberg
  Paul Westerberg (born December 31, 1959) is an American musician, best known as the former lead singer, rhythm guitarist, and songwriter of The Replacements, one of the seminal alternative rock bands of the 1980s. He launched a solo career after the dissolution of that band. In recent years, he has cultivated a more independent-minded approach, primarily recording his music at home in his basement.
  In the late 1970s Westerberg was working as a janitor for U.S. Senator David Durenberger, and one day while walking home from work, he happened to hear a band practicing Yes's "Roundabout" in a basement. He talked his way into the band by convincing the singer that the other band members — Bob Stinson, Chris Mars and Tommy Stinson — were going to fire him. The singer quit and Westerberg joined the group. The band was originally called "The Impediments," and played their first gig in the basement of a church, playing to members of a nearby halfway house who did not appreciate their drunken shenanigans, but they soon changed their name to "The Replacements" after several venues declined to advertise the band under their original name.
  
  wn.com/Paul_Westerberg
• Pete Duel
  Pete Deuel (February 24, 1940 – December 31, 1971) was an American actor, best known for his role in the television series Alias Smith and Jones.
  Peter Ellstrom Deuel was born in Rochester, New York, and grew up in nearby Penfield. He attended St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, where he majored in English. Still, he preferred performing in the drama department’s productions to studying for his classes during his two years there. When his father came to see him in The Rose Tattoo, he realized that his son was only wasting time and money at the university, and told him to follow a career in acting. Moving to New York, Duel landed a role in a touring production of the comedy Take Her, She's Mine. To find work in the movies, Duel and his mother drove across the country to Hollywood in 1963, with only a tent to house them each night.
  
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  Pete Quaife
  Peter Alexander Greenlaw "Pete" Quaife (31 December 1943 – 23 June 2010) was an English musician, artist and author. He was a founding member and the original bass guitarist for The Kinks, from 1963 until 1969.
  Quaife founded a group known as The Ravens in 1963 with brothers Ray and Dave Davies. Around late 1963/early 1964, they changed their name to The Kinks, and hired Mick Avory as a drummer. The group scored several major international hits throughout the 1960s. Their early singles, including "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night", have been cited as an early influence on the hard rock and heavy metal genres. In the band's early days, Quaife, who was generally regarded as the best-looking member, was often their spokesman. Following a ban from touring the United States in 1965, The Kinks focused their efforts on the UK market. Singles such as "Sunny Afternoon" (1966) and "Waterloo Sunset" (1967) showcased lead singer Ray Davies' observational writing style and became Top Ten hits throughout Europe and the UK. Quaife played an important role on the group's influential album The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society, which featured a strong theme of nostalgia. He departed from The Kinks in 1969 and formed the band Mapleoak, which he left in April 1970.
  
  wn.com/Pete_Quaife
• Phill Kline
  Phillip D. "Phill" Kline (born December 31, 1959) is the former district attorney of Johnson County, Kansas, USA. From January 2003 to January 2007, he was the Attorney General of Kansas. Kline, a member of the Republican Party, lost re-election as attorney general to Democratic challenger Paul Morrison on November 7, 2006, 58%-41%. Kline became the district attorney of Johnson County on the day he left office as attorney general, effectively switching jobs with Morrison. Kline then ran for a full term as district attorney, but Steve Howe defeated Kline in the August 5, 2008, Republican primary.
  Kline was a polarizing figure in state politics, using his offices to aggressively prosecute abortion providers. He filed charges against George Tiller, a late-term abortion provider, and led a years-long effort to prosecute Planned Parenthood in Kansas. Kline's tactics drew legal and ethical scrutiny; he testified before an ethics investigation that he had the right to deceive other state agencies and had no duty to immediately correct false information provided to a trial judge in the course of his investigations of abortion providers. In 2011, the Kansas state Board of Discipline of Attorneys recommended that Kline's law license be indefinitely suspended, citing a pattern of repeatedly misleading statements, "dishonest and selfish motives", and a failure to "take any responsibility for his misconduct." Kline disputed the Board's findings as politically motivated.
  
  wn.com/Phill_Kline
• Phillip Whitehead
  Phillip Whitehead, (30 May 1937 – 31 December 2005) was a British Labour politician, television producer and writer.
  Born in Matlock Bath, Derbyshire, he was adopted by a local family, and attended Lady Manners School in Bakewell and Exeter College at Oxford University, where he obtained his BA (and MA).
  Whitehead apparently went to Oxford following in his adoptive parents' footsteps as a Conservative. He was President of the Oxford University Conservative Association and the Oxford Union in 1961. However, by the end of his time there he had convinced himself that his true place was in the Labour Party (see ref 1, from Exeter College Register).
  He retained a close association with Derbyshire, especially the Bakewell area, throughout his life. He died of a heart attack on New Year's Eve 2005, aged 68 at a hospital in Chesterfield.
  Whitehead was an independent documentary producer in early 1960s and later as an editor with the BBC and ITV from 1967 to 1970.
  His political career began as a Labour Member of Parliament for Derby North from 1970 to 1983.
  
  wn.com/Phillip_Whitehead
• Pierino Belli
  Pierino Belli (March 20, 1502, Alba - December 31, 1575, Turin) was an Italian soldier and jurist.
  Belli served the Holy Roman Empire as the commander of Imperial forces in Piedmont. In 1560, Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy, named him a councillor of state. He is most notable for his book, De re militari et de bello (1563) which was one of the most comprehensive treatments of military law and the rules of war that had been written up to that time.
  
  
  
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  Pius Ncube
  His Grace the Most Reverend Dr. Pius Alick Mvundla Ncube (born December 31, 1946) served as the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, until he resigned on September 11, 2007. Widely known for his human rights advocacy, Ncube is an outspoken critic of President Robert Mugabe.
  Archbishop Ncube received a Human Rights Award from Human Rights First on October 23, 2003 for speaking out against torture and confronting the Mugabe government for starving certain regions of Zimbabwe for political reasons. He has received many death threats for his activities. He is a member of Zimbabwe's minority Ndebele ethnic group.
  Previous elections in Zimbabwe have been plagued with violence and corruption. Believing that the 2005 Zimbabwe parliamentary elections would be fixed, Ncube called for a "popular mass uprising" in the style of the Orange Revolution or Tulip Revolution to remove Mugabe from power. "I hope people get so disillusioned that they really organise against this government and kick him out by non-violent popular mass uprising," Ncube said.
  
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  Pope Callixtus III
  Pope Callixtus III (31 December 1378 – 6 August 1458) (Catalan: Calixt III, Spanish: Calixto III), né Alfons de Borja, was Pope from 8 April 1455 to his death in 1458.
  Alfonso de Borja was born in La Torreta, now a neighbourhood of Canals, Valencia – today in Spain – but at that time in the Kingdom of Valencia under the Crown of Aragon. He was the son of Domingo de Borja and Francina Llançol. During the western schism he supported Antipope Benedict XIII, and was the driving force behind Antipope Clement VIII's submission to Pope Martin V in 1429. His early career was spent as a professor of law at the University of Lleida and then as a diplomat in the service of the Kings of Aragon, especially during the Council of Basel (1431–1439). He became a cardinal after reconciling Pope Eugene IV with King Alfonso V of Aragon.
  He was raised to the papal chair in 1455 as Callixtus III at a very advanced age, as a "compromise candidate" in the papal conclave that year. He is viewed by historians as being feeble and incompetent. In 1456, he issued the papal bull Inter Caetera to Portugal (not to be confused with Inter Caetera of 1493). This bull reaffirmed the Portuguese right to reduce infidels and the Moors to servitude by the earlier bulls Romanus Pontifex and Dum Diversas, thus reaffirming the papal consent to the enslavement of Africans. This confirmation of Romanus Pontifex also gave the Portuguese the military Order of Christ under Prince Henry the Navigator.
  
  wn.com/Pope_Callixtus_III
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  Pope Sylvester I
  Pope Sylvester I served as pope from 31 January 314 to 31 December 335, succeeding Pope Miltiades. He filled the See of Rome at an important era in the history of the Catholic Church, yet very little is known of him. The accounts of the papacy of Pope Sylvester I preserved in the Liber Pontificalis (7th or 8th century) are little else than a record of the gifts said to have been conferred on the Church by Constantine I, but it does say that he was the son of a Roman named Rufinus.
  During his pontificate were built the great churches founded at Rome by Constantine, e.g. the Basilica of St. John Lateran, Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, St. Peter's Basilica, and several cemeterial churches over the graves of martyrs.
  Sylvester did not himself attend the First Council of Nicaea in 325, but he was represented by two legates, Vitus and Vincentius, and he approved the council's decision.
  Part of the Symmachean forgeries, the Vita beati Sylvestri (c. 501–508), which has been preserved in Greek and Syriac, and in Latin in the Constitutum Sylvestri, is an apocryphal account of an alleged Roman council, introduced legends of Sylvester's close relationship with the first Christian emperor. They also appear in the Donation of Constantine.
  
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  Raj Narain
  Raj Narain (1917 – December 31, 1986) was an Indian politician who, as a candidate of Janata Party for the Lok Sabha in 1977, ran for office in Rae Bareli constituency and defeated Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India. He was the Minister of Health during Morarji Desai's ministry and a commemorative stamp was released in his honor by the former Vice President of India, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat. Raj Narain was the only politician who defeated Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India, in the 1977 Lok Sabha elections in Rai Bareli^{[citation needed]}. (Although he was defeated by her in 1971 elections.) Raj Narain accused Indira Gandhi of election fraud and filed an election petition against her. The Allahabad High Court, on 12 June 1975, upheld the accusations and set aside the election of Indira Gandhi and also disqualified her from running in the Lok Sabha elections for next 6 years.
  Raj Narain was born in 1917 in a Bhumihar Brahmin family in Uttar Pradesh and studied M.A and LLB. He was born in a village named Motikoat, Gangapur in Varanasi. He was from the Royal family of Varanasi and was directly associated with the family of Maharaja Chet Singh and Maharaja Balwant Singh, who were kings of Varanasi over a century back.
  
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  Rami Alanko
  Rami Alanko (born December 31, 1975 in Helsinki, Finland) is a Finnish professional ice hockey player.
  He is currently playing for the Espoo Blues in the Finnish SM-liiga. He joined the club in May 2007. He started his career in 1995 and has played with several finish clubs including HPK, Espoo Blues, Jokerit and Haukat. With Jokerit Alanko won Finnish championship and Continental Cup. He has also played a short stint in Switzerland for Kloten Flyers in 1997. He played with Swedish club Färjestad BK between 2005 and November 2006, during that time he won the Swedish Championship with them in April 2006. When he left Färjestad he signed with German club Frankfurt Lions and played with them until the end of the 2006/07 season. He then moved back home to Finland and signed for Espoo Blues.
  
  
  
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  Raoul Walsh
  Raoul Walsh (March 11, 1887 – December 31, 1980) was an American film director, actor, founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) and the brother of silent screen actor George Walsh. He was known for portraying John Wilkes Booth in the silent classic The Birth of a Nation (1915) and for directing such films as The Big Trail (1930) starring John Wayne, High Sierra (1941) starring Ida Lupino and Humphrey Bogart, and White Heat (1949) with James Cagney and Edmond O'Brien. His last directorial effort came in 1964.
  Born Albert Edward Walsh to Elizabeth T. Bruff, the daughter of Irish immigrants and Thomas W. Walsh, an Englishman of Irish descent. As a young man, Raoul was a close friend of Virginia O'Hanlon of "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" fame. Like his younger brother, he was part of Omega Gamma Delta during his high school days. Growing up in New York, Walsh was also a friend of the Barrymore family. John Barrymore recalled spending time reading in the Walsh family library as a youth.
  
  wn.com/Raoul_Walsh
• René Robert
  René Paul Robert (born December 31, 1948) is a retired professional ice hockey right winger who played 12 seasons in the NHL between 1970 and 1982. Robert was selected to 2 National Hockey League All-Star Games (1972–73, 1974–75) and was selected as the Second NHL All-Star Team right wing in 1974–75.
  Robert played 744 career NHL games, scoring 284 goals and 418 assists for 702 points. His best offensive season was the 1974–75 season while with the Buffalo Sabres, when he scored 40 goals and 60 assists for 100 points, the club's first 100 point season by an individual. Robert's best years were when he played on The French Connection line in Buffalo with Gilbert Perreault and Rick Martin. On October 5, 1979, Scotty Bowman sent Robert to the Colorado Rockies for defenceman John Van Boxmeer, effectively ending the French Connection line forever. He was inducted into the Buffalo Sabres Hall of Fame along with Perreault and Martin in 1989. His number, 14, was retired from the Buffalo Sabres on November 15, 1995 along with Rick Martin. They were reunited with Perreault whose number was retired in a 1990 ceremony.
  
  wn.com/René_Robert
• Rex Allen
  Rex Elvie Allen (December 31, 1920 – December 17, 1999) was an American film actor, singer and songwriter, known as the Arizona Cowboy, particularly known as the narrator in many Disney nature and Western film productions. For contributions to the recording industry, Allen was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
  Allen was born to Horace E. Allen and Luella Faye Clark on a ranch in Mud Springs Canyon, 40 miles from Willcox, Arizona. As a boy he played guitar and sang at local functions with his fiddle-playing father until high school graduation when he toured the Southwest as a rodeo rider. He got his start in show business on the East Coast as a vaudeville singer, then found work in Chicago as a performer on the WLS-AM program, National Barn Dance. He left the show in 1949 and moved to Hollywood. In 1948 he signed with Mercury Records where he recorded a number of successful country music albums until 1952, when he switched to the Decca label where he continued to make records into the 1970s. He also recorded one album for Buena Vista (Disney, pictured) in the 1960s, although sources vary on the date of issue.
  
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  Richard Montgomery
  Richard Montgomery (December 2, 1738 – December 31, 1775) was an Irish-born soldier who first served in the British Army. He later became a Major General in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War and he is most famous for leading the failed 1775 invasion of Canada.
  Montgomery was born and raised in Ireland. In 1754, he enrolled at Trinity College, Dublin, and two years later joined the British army to fight in the French and Indian War. He steadily rose through the ranks, serving in North America and then the Caribbean. After the war he was stationed at Fort Detroit during Pontiac's War, following which he returned to Britain for health reasons. In 1773, Montgomery returned to the Thirteen Colonies, married Janet Livingston, and began farming.
  When the American Revolutionary War broke out, Montgomery took up the Patriot cause, and was elected to the New York Provincial Congress in May 1775. In June 1775, he was commissioned as a Brigadier General in the Continental Army. After Phillip Schuyler became too ill to lead the invasion of Canada, Montgomery took over. He captured Fort St. Johns and then Montreal in November 1775, and then advanced to Quebec City where he joined another force under the command of Benedict Arnold. On December 31, he led an attack on the city, but was killed during the battle. The British found his body and gave it an honorable burial. It was moved to New York City in 1818.
  
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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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  Richie McCaw
  Richard Hugh "Richie" McCaw (born 31 December 1980 in Oamaru, North Otago) is a New Zealand rugby union player, and is the current test captain. He plays in the openside flanker position for the New Zealand, Crusaders and Canterbury rugby teams. McCaw is considered one of the best openside flankers of all time, with his ability to anticipate play and adaptability to the referee's rulings two of his key attributes. He was raised in rural North Otago, before moving to Dunedin in 1994 to board at Otago Boys' High School. In 1999 he moved to Christchurch to study at Lincoln University and was selected in the national under-19 rugby union team. The following year he played for the Under 21s and Canterbury in the National Provincial Championship, before debuting in 2001 for the Crusaders in Super Rugby.
  McCaw was selected for the 2001 New Zealand National Rugby Team's end-of-year tour, despite having played only a total of eight minutes of Super 14 rugby. His debut for the All Blacks was against Ireland, where he put in a man-of-the-match performance and was selected as New Zealand's first choice open-side flanker for the 2003 World Cup. McCaw became a regular selection in the New Zealand national rugby team, only missing a few games due to reoccurring concussions. In 2006 he was named captain of the All Blacks. He led the All Blacks at the 2007 World Cup and his captaincy came under criticism after they were knocked out in the quarter-final. He continued to captain the All Blacks and lead the team to victory in the 2011 Rugby World Cup.
  
  wn.com/Richie_McCaw
• Rick Aguilera
  Richard Warren Aguilera (born December 31, 1961 in San Gabriel, California) is a former Major League Baseball pitcher. During a 16-year baseball career, he pitched from 1985 to 2000 for the New York Mets, Minnesota Twins, Boston Red Sox, and Chicago Cubs.
  Aguilera attended Edgewood High School in West Covina, CA and played third base. Following graduation, he was drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals in the 37th round of the 1980 amateur draft on June 3, but did not sign and instead chose to attend Brigham Young University. After three years at BYU, in which he had made the transition from third base to pitcher, the Mets drafted him in the 3rd round of the 1983 amateur draft on June 6. Although he did not sign until September, he was able to get into 16 games (going 5–6 with a 3.72 ERA in 104 innings) for the Little Falls Mets in the low A-ball New York-Penn League. The following season he was promoted to the Lynchburg Mets in the high-A Carolina League where he was 8–3 with a 2.34 ERA and 101 strikeouts in 88 1/3 innings before being promoted to the Jackson Mets in the AA Texas League. In 1985, Aguilera was promoted to AAA Tides and was 6–4 with a 2.51 ERA in 11 starts before being promoted to the majors.
  
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  Ricky Nelson
  Eric Hilliard Nelson (May 8, 1940 – December 31, 1985), better known as Ricky Nelson or Rick Nelson, was an American singer-songwriter, instrumentalist, and actor. He placed 53 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 between 1957 and 1973 including "Poor Little Fool", which holds the distinction of being the first #1 song on Billboard magazine's then newly created Hot 100 chart. He recorded nineteen additional top-ten hits, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on January 21, 1987.
  Nelson began his entertainment career in 1949 playing himself in the radio sitcom series, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, and, in 1952, appeared in his first feature film, Here Come the Nelsons. In 1957, he recorded his first single, debuted as a singer on the television version of the sitcom, and recorded a number one album, Ricky. In 1958, Nelson recorded his first number one single, "Poor Little Fool", and, in 1959, received a Golden Globe Most Promising Male Newcomer nomination after starring in the western film, Rio Bravo. A few films followed, and, when the television series was cancelled in 1966, Nelson made occasional appearances as a guest star on various television programs.
  
  wn.com/Ricky_Nelson
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  Rita Lee
  Rita Lee Jones Carvalho (born Rita Lee Jones on December 31, 1947), simply known as Rita Lee, is a Brazilian rock singer and composer. Lee continues to be a popular figure in Brazilian entertainment, where she is also known for being an animal rights activist and a vegetarian. She has sold more than 60 million albums worldwide.
  Rita Lee was born in São Paulo, Brazil, to an American Brazilian father, descended from the Confederados, a dentist, and a Brazilian mother of Italian ancestry. She was educated in a French language school and became fluent in Spanish, French and Italian, as well as her native Portuguese and the English that her parents spoke at home. She went to college, where she was a colleague of the popular actress Regina Duarte, but she soon left to pursue her musical career.
  In 1966 Lee formed the band Os Mutantes with Arnaldo Baptista and Sérgio Dias. The band released five albums between 1968 and 1972. In that time, Lee had also released her first two solo works, although these records were produced with fellow members of Os Mutantes. When the band reformed in 2006, she refused to join, calling the reunion an attempt to "earn cash to pay for geriatry".
  
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  Rob Penders
  Rob Penders (born 31 December 1975 in Zaandam, North Holland) is a former Dutch footballer who mainly played for NAC Breda during his career. Penders is a defender who made his debut in professional football, being part of the RBC Roosendaal squad in the 1994–95 season. In the season 1999-2000 he joined NAC Breda. He played there for 10 seasons.
  
  
  
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  Robert Grant Aitken
  Robert Grant Aitken (December 31, 1864 – October 29, 1951) was an American astronomer.
  Born in Jackson, California, he attended Williams College in Massachusetts and graduated with an undergraduate degree in 1887. From 1887–1891, he worked as a mathematics instructor at Livermore, California, then received his M.A. from Williams College in 1892. He became a professor of mathematics at the College of the Pacific, another liberal arts school. He was offered an assistant astronomer position at Lick Observatory in California in 1895.
  He began a systematically study of double stars, measuring their positions and calculating their orbits around one another. From 1899, in collaboration with W. J. Hussey, he methodically created a very large catalog of such stars. This ongoing work was published in Lick Observatory bulletins. In 1905, Hussey left and Aitken pressed on with the survey alone, and by 1915, he had discovered roughly 3,100 new binary stars, with an additional 1,300 discovered by Hussey. The results were published in 1932 and entitled New General Catalogue of Double Stars Within 120° of the North Pole, with the orbit information enabling astronomers to calculate stellar mass statistics for a large number of stars. For his work in cataloguing binary stars, he was warded the prestigious Bruce Medal in 1926.
  
  wn.com/Robert_Grant_Aitken
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  Roberto Clemente
  Roberto Clemente Walker (August 18, 1934 – December 31, 1972) was a Puerto Rican baseball right fielder who played 18 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1955 through 1972. Clemente was awarded the National League (NL) Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award in 1966. He was on the NL All-Star team 15 times, received 12 Gold Glove Awards, and led the NL in batting average four times. In 1972, Clemente got his 3,000th major league hit.
  Off the field, Clemente was involved in charity work in Puerto Rico and other Latin American countries, often delivering baseball equipment and food to those in need. He died in an aviation accident on December 31, 1972, while en route to deliver aid to earthquake victims in Nicaragua. Clemente was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame posthumously in 1973, becoming the first Latin American to be selected and the only current Hall of Fame member for whom the mandatory five-year waiting period had been waived. Clemente is also the first Hispanic player to win a World Series as a starter (1960), receive an MVP Award (1966), and receive a World Series MVP Award (1971).
  
  wn.com/Roberto_Clemente
• Rosalind Cash
  Rosalind Cash (December 31, 1938 – October 31, 1995) was an American singer and actress, whose best known film role was as Charlton Heston's character's love interest Lisa, in the 1971 science fiction cult classic, The Omega Man. To soap audiences, she is probably best remembered as Mary Mae Ward on General Hospital from 1994–1995.
  Cash was the second of four children. Her siblings were John (1936–1998), Robert, and Helen. All were born and raised in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Her older brother, Col. John A. Cash, enjoyed a long illustrious career with the United States Army.^{[citation needed]} He died in 1998 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
  Rosalind Cash graduated with honours from Atlantic City High School in 1956. She attended City College of New York and was an original member of the Negro Ensemble Company founded in 1968. Her career extended to stage, screen, and television. Her films included Klute (1971), The New Centurions (1972) with George C. Scott, Uptown Saturday Night (1974) with Sydney Poitier, and Wrong Is Right (1982). In 1995, she appeared in Tales from the Hood which marks her last film appearance before her untimely death.
  
  wn.com/Rosalind_Cash
• Ryan Sakoda
  Ryan Sakoda (born December 31, 1974) is a Japanese American professional wrestler. He is best known for his appearances in World Wrestling Entertainment and current work for Ultimate Pro Wrestling as a part-time trainer for the wrestlers, as well as working in the independents as Ryan Sakoda.
  Before coming to WWE, Sakoda had a successful stint in the NWA Zero-One promotion in Japan, stemming from his appearances for Ultimate Pro Wrestling. During this time Sakoda often filled in as an instructor at UPW's Ultimate University, while wrestling as part of the faction Team Emblem with Japanese superstars Masato Tanaka and Shinjiro Otani.
  In September 2003, Sakoda was signed to a developmental contract, it wouldn't be long before Sakoda was brought up to SmackDown!'s main roster. He along with Akio made their WWE debuts on October 19, 2003 at No Mercy. Sakoda aligned himself with Akio, forming the heel tag team Kyo Dai, the Yakuza-style henchmen of Tajiri.
  In August 2004, Sakoda was released from his WWE contract. Sakoda returned to UPW in March 2005 as a full-time trainer and made his return to full time in-ring competition in 2007 with MTV's Wrestling Society X.
  
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  Sander Schutgens
  Sander Schutgens (born 31 December 1975 in Belfeld, Limburg) is a Dutch runner.
  
  
  
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  Sarah Miles
  Sarah Miles (born 31 December 1941) is an English theatre and film actress.
  Sarah Miles was born in the small town of Ingatestone, Essex, in South East England. She first attended Roedean, but at the age of 15 she enrolled at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). Shortly after finishing at RADA, Miles debuted as Shirley Taylor in Term of Trial (1962), co-starring with Laurence Olivier. Soon afterwards, Miles became a well-reputed actress of the British New Wave with her roles in Joseph Losey's The Servant (1963) and Michelangelo Antonioni's Blowup (1966).
  After acting in a variety of plays from 1966 to 1969, Miles was cast as Rosy in the title role of David Lean's 1970 film, Ryan's Daughter. Her performance gained a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress.
  Since 1973, Miles has gone through periods of semi-retirement.^{[citation needed]} She most recently appeared in Well at the Trafalgar Studios and the Apollo Theatre opposite Natalie Casey.^{[citation needed]}
  Miles is a practitioner of urine therapy. Citing Gandhi, who was an adherent of it, she has followed the tradition for thirty years, saying that it has kept her healthy and vigorous.
  
  wn.com/Sarah_Miles
• 
  Scott Ian
  Scott Ian Rosenfeld (born December 31, 1963), known by the stage name Scott Ian, is an American musician, best known as the rhythm guitarist for the thrash metal band, Anthrax. Ian is the guitarist and a founding member of the crossover thrash band Stormtroopers of Death. He has hosted The Rock Show on VH1 and has appeared on VH1's I Love the... series, Heavy: The Story of Metal and Supergroup (TV series). Ian is also the rhythm guitarist for the metal band The Damned Things.
  Ian was born to a Jewish family in the Bayside section of the New York City borough of Queens. He has a younger brother named Jason who was involved in Anthrax briefly and a half-brother named Sean. Ian attended Bayside High School, class of 1981.
  Witnessing Kiss live at Madison Square Garden in 1977 made a huge impact on Ian, who has been vocal about his love for the band, and appeared on an episode of Gene Simmons Family Jewels, in which he visited Simmons' home and spoke about the impact Kiss had on his life. Ian went on to be influenced by British heavy metal bands such as Iron Maiden, Motörhead and Judas Priest, as well as by NYC hardcore. Ian also discovered the Ramones around the age of 12 and knew that he could become a famous hard rock/heavy metal star.
  
  wn.com/Scott_Ian
• Seub Nakhasathien
  Seub Nakhasathien (Thai: สืบ นาคะเสถียร, 31 December 1949 – 1 September 1990) was a Thai conservationist who was well known for his efforts to conserve and protect the nature in Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary and Chiew Larn.
  Sueb was born in Prachinburi, Thailand to Salab and Boonyiam Nakhasathien. He had one brother, one sister and a daughter, Chinarat Nakhasathien. He received a master's degree from Kasetsart University in silvic studies, and a master's degree in environmental studies from London University.
  In 1986, Sueb was appointed as wildlife evacuation project leader for the Chiew Larn dam project, with a budget of only ฿800,000 to evacuate an 100,000-acre (400 km²) area.
  He was able to save hundreds of animals but was aware that many more were unable to escape and died. After what he saw as the failure of the Chiew Larn project, he began protesting further logging and dam construction projects.
  In 1989 he accepted a position as Superintendent of Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary.
  
  wn.com/Seub_Nakhasathien
• 
  Shandon Anderson
  Shandon Rodriguez Anderson (born December 31, 1973) is an American former professional basketball forward and guard who played in the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1996 to 2006. Growing up in Atlanta, Anderson attended the University of Georgia and played for four teams during his ten-year NBA career after being drafted by the Utah Jazz in 1996: the Jazz, Houston Rockets, New York Knicks, and Miami Heat.
  Anderson attended Alonzo A. Crim High School in Atlanta, then played basketball at the University of Georgia. He was drafted in the second round (54th overall) of the 1996 NBA Draft by the Utah Jazz, and played for the Jazz, the Houston Rockets, the New York Knicks and the Heat. His best season was in 1999–2000, when he averaged 12.3 points per game with the Rockets. His career average is 7.8 points per game.
  He is the younger brother of former Knicks and Heat player Willie Anderson.
  Anderson won an NBA championship in 2006 with the Miami Heat as a backup.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Shandon_Anderson
• Shimazu Tadayoshi
  Shimazu Tadayoshi (島津 忠良^?, October 14, 1493 – December 31, 1568) was a daimyo (feudal lord) of Satsuma Province during Japan's Sengoku period.
  He was born to a branch family of the Shimazu clan, the Mimasaka Shimazu family (伊作島津家) but after his father Shimazu Yoshihisa died, his mother married Shimazu Unkyu of another branch family, the Soshū(相州家). Tadayoshi thus came to represent two families within the larger Shimazu clan.
  Shimazu Katsuhisa, who presided over the Shimazu family, did not have a son and he was driven out by Shimazu Sanehisa, who was the head of yet another branch, the Sasshū (薩州家). Sanehisa then laid claim to be the head of the clan without being properly recognized by the rest of the families. Katsuhisa asked Tadayoshi for help to regain his position, and Tadayoshi sent his son Shimazu Takahisa to be adopted by Katsuhisa. In 1526, Katsuhisa handed over the position of the head of the family to Takahisa. In 1539 though, during the Battle of Ichirai, Tadayoshi defeated Katsuhisa (who would regain power later) and Takahisa came to be recognized by all members of the Shimazu clan as the head.
  
  wn.com/Shimazu_Tadayoshi
• Silvestre Revueltas
  Silvestre Revueltas Sánchez (December 31, 1899 – October 5, 1940) was a Mexican composer of classical music, a violinist and a conductor.
  He was born in Santiago Papasquiaro in Durango, and studied at the National Conservatory in Mexico City, St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas and the Chicago College of Music. He gave violin recitals and in 1929 was invited by Carlos Chávez to become assistant conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra (Mexico), a post he held until 1935. He and Chávez did much to promote contemporary Mexican music. It was around this time that Revueltas began to compose in earnest.
  He was part of a family of artists, a number of whom were also famous and recognized in Mexico: his brother Fermín (1901–1935) and sister Consuelo (b. before 1908, d. before 1999) were painters, sister Rosaura (ca. 1909–1996) was an actress and dancer, and younger brother José Revueltas (1914–1976) was a noted writer. His daughter from his second marriage, Eugenia (born November 15, 1934), is an essayist. His nephew Román Revueltas Retes, son of José, is a violinist, journalist, painter and conductor of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Aguascalientes (OSA). His daughter from his first marriage to Jules Klarecy (née Hlavacek), Romano Carmen (later Montoya and Peers), enjoyed a successful career as a dancer, taught ballet and flamenco in New York, and died on November 13, 1995, at age 73, in Athens, Greece. She is survived by three sons, and two kindred creative female heirs in Oceanside, CA.
  
  wn.com/Silvestre_Revueltas
• 
  Simon Wiesenthal
  Simon Wiesenthal, KBE (December 31, 1908 – September 20, 2005) was an Austrian Holocaust survivor who became famous after World War II for his work as a Nazi hunter.
  After four and a half years in the German concentration camps such as Janowska, Plaszow, and Mauthausen during World War II, Wiesenthal dedicated most of his life to tracking down and gathering information on fugitive Nazis so that they could be brought to justice for war crimes and crimes against humanity. In 1947, he co-founded the Jewish Historical Documentation Center in Linz, Austria, in order to gather information for future war crime trials. Later he opened the Jewish Documentation Center in Vienna. Wiesenthal wrote The Sunflower, which describes a life-changing event he experienced when he was in the camp.
  Wiesenthal died in his sleep at age 96 in Vienna on September 20, 2005, and was buried in the city of Herzliya in Israel on September 23. He is survived by his daughter, Paulinka Kriesberg, and three grandchildren. The Simon Wiesenthal Center, located in Los Angeles, is named in his honor.
  
  wn.com/Simon_Wiesenthal
• 
  Siné
  Maurice Sinet (born 31 December 1928), known as Siné, is a French cartoonist.
  As a young man he studied drawing and graphic arts, while earning a living as a cabaret singer. After his military service he started publishing his drawings and also worked as a photo-retoucher for porn magazines.^{[citation needed]} His first published drawing appeared in France-Dimanche in 1952. Siné received the Grand Prix de l'Humour Noir in 1955 for his collection Complainte sans Paroles. His series of drawings on cats was his breakthrough. He then started working for L'Express as a political cartoonist.
  Siné's anti-colonialism caused controversy during the Algerian war. He was sued a number of times, being defended by Jacques Vergès, then a lawyer for the Algerian Liberation Front.
  In 1962 Siné left L'Express and launched his own publication, Siné Massacre, noted for its anti-colonialism, anti-capitalism, anti-clericalism and anarchism. On reviewing the book, Private Eye described Siné's cartoons as "grotesque" (9 December 1966), criticising publisher Penguin Books, who subsequently removed all unsold stock and listed the title 'out of print'.^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/Siné
• 
  Spencer Trask
  Spencer Trask (September 18, 1844 – December 31, 1909) was an American financier, philanthropist, and venture capitalist. Beginning in the 1870s, Trask began investing and supporting entrepreneurs, including Thomas Edison's invention of the electric light bulb and his electricity network. In 1896 he reorganized the New York Times, becoming its majority shareholder and chairman.
  Along with his financial acumen, Trask was a generous philanthropist, a leading patron of the arts, a strong supporter of education, and a champion of humanitarian causes. His gifts to his alma mater, Princeton University, set a lecture series in his name that still continues to this day. He was also an initial trustee of the Teachers' College (now Teachers College, Columbia University) and St. Stephen's College.
  Spencer Trask was born in 1844 to Alanson and Sarah (Marquand) Trask in Brooklyn, New York. His father was a direct descendant of Captain William Trask, a leader in the formation of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. After graduating from Princeton University in 1866, Spencer Trask joined his uncle to form the investment firm Trask & Brown, which became Spencer Trask & Company in 1881. Trask was married in 1874 to Katrina Nichols, an author.
  
  wn.com/Spencer_Trask
• 
  Steve Bruce
  Stephen Roger "Steve" Bruce (born 31 December 1960) is an English football manager and former player. Born in Corbridge, Northumberland, he was a promising schoolboy footballer but was rejected by a number of professional clubs. He was on the verge of quitting the game altogether when he was offered a trial with Gillingham. Bruce was offered an apprenticeship and went on to play more than 200 games for the club before joining Norwich City in 1984.
  In 1987, he moved to Manchester United, with whom he achieved great success, winning the Premier League, FA Cup, Football League Cup and European Cup Winner's Cup. He also became the first English player of the twentieth century to captain a team to The Double. Despite his success on the field, he was never selected to play for the England national team. Commentators and contemporaries have described him as one of the best English players of the 1980s and 1990s never to play for his country at full international level.
  Bruce began his managerial career with Sheffield United, and spent short periods of time managing Huddersfield Town, Wigan Athletic and Crystal Palace before joining Birmingham City in 2001. He twice led Birmingham to promotion to the Premier League during his tenure of nearly six years, but resigned in 2007 to begin a second spell as manager of Wigan. At the end of the 2008–09 season he resigned to take over as manager of Sunderland, a post he held until he was dismissed in November 2011.
  
  wn.com/Steve_Bruce
• 
  Steve Rude
  Steve Rude (born 1956) is an American comic book artist.
  In 1981, Rude became widely known in the comics world when he and writer Mike Baron created Nexus, an independent science fiction comic book with a large supporting cast. For the series, Rude designed a dozen or so distinctive alien races, including the Thunes, the Amphibs, the Quattros, the Giz, the Demons, and others. The series ran for eighty issues (although Rude did not pencil them all), and seven short, almost-yearly mini-series after the initial series ended.
  In 2004 Rude co-created and penciled The Moth with writer/inker Gary Martin, while continuing to teach art classes and do commissioned work.^{[citation needed]}
  Announced on November 15, 2006 is Rude's own "Rude Dude Productions", a new publishing entity covering new issues of Nexus and The Moth in 2007 as well as an anthology series. The new Nexus series was Rude's first work with Baron since the last issue published by Dark Horse Comics. The first Nexus issue from Rude Dude was released as issue #99 (part 1 of the "Space Opera" story), and was set immediately following the last Dark Horse issue. After a few delays, issue #100 was published, followed by the final two issues of "Space Opera" printed together as one double-sized issue. The "Space Opera" story arc has since been collected into a trade paperback.^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/Steve_Rude
• Susan Shwartz
  Susan Shwartz (born December 31, 1949) is an American author.
  She received her B.A. in English from Mount Holyoke College in 1972 and a Ph.D. in English from Harvard University.
  Shwartz has published several novels and sixty short stories.
  She has also collaborated with science fiction writer (and fellow Mount Holyoke alumna) Judith Tarr on the following works:
  
  
  
  wn.com/Susan_Shwartz
• Sven Kretschmer
  Sven Kretschmer (born 31 December 1970 in West Berlin) is a former German footballer.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Sven_Kretschmer
• 
  Sándor Petőfi
  Sándor Petőfi (born as Petrovics, Hungarian: Petőfi Sándor; pronounced [ˈpɛtøːfi ˈʃaːndor ]; Slovak: Alexander Petrovič; Serbian: Александар Петровић; 1 January 1823 – most likely 31 July 1849), was a Hungarian poet and liberal revolutionary. He is considered as Hungary's national poet and he was one of the key figures of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. He is the author of the "Nemzeti dal" (National Poem), the poem said to have inspired the revolution in the Kingdom of Hungary that grew into a war for independence from the Austrian Empire. It is most likely that he died in the Battle of Segesvár, one of the last battles of the war.
  Petőfi was born in the early New Year's morning of 1823, in the town of Kiskőrös (Kingdom of Hungary, then part of the Austrian Empire). The population of Kiskőrös was predominantly of Slovak origin as a consequence of the Habsburgs’ reconstruction policy designed to settle, where possible, non-Hungarians in areas devastated during the Turkish wars. His birth certificate in Latin gives his name as "Alexander Petrovics", where "Alexander" is the Latin equivalent of the Hungarian "Sándor". His father, István (Stefan) Petrovics, was a village butcher, innkeeper and he was a second-generation Serb or Slovak immigrant to the Great Hungarian Plain. Mária Hrúz, Petőfi's mother, was a servant and laundress before her marriage. She was of Slovak descent and spoke Hungarian with something of an accent. Petőfi's parents first met in Maglód, married in Aszód and the family moved to Kiskőrös a year before the birth of the poet.
  
  wn.com/Sándor_Petőfi
• Taylor Hackford
  Taylor Edwin Hackford (born December 31, 1944) is an American film director, and the current president of the Directors Guild of America.
  Hackford was born in Santa Barbara, California, the son of Mary (née Taylor), a waitress, and Joseph Hackford. He graduated from the University of Southern California in 1968, where he was a pre-law major focusing on international relations and economics. After graduating, he served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Bolivia, where he started using Super 8 film in his spare time. He decided that he did not want to pursue a career in law, and instead got a mailroom position at KCET-TV.
  Richard Gere balked at shooting the ending of Hackford's movie An Officer and a Gentleman where his character arrives at his lover's factory wearing his Navy dress whites and carries her off from the factory floor. Gere thought the ending wouldn't work because it was too sentimental. Hackford was initially inclined to agree with Gere until during a rehearsal the extras playing the workers began to cheer and cry. When Gere saw the scene later with the music underneath it at the right tempo, he said it sent chills up the back of his neck. Gere is now convinced Hackford made the right decision. Hackford kept Lou Gossett Jr. in separate living quarters from the other actors during An Officer and a Gentleman so he could intimidate them more during his scenes as a drill instructor.
  
  wn.com/Taylor_Hackford
• Taylor Mead
  Taylor Mead (born December 31, 1924) is an American writer, actor, and performer. Mead appeared in several of Andy Warhol's underground films including Tarzan and Jane Regained... Sort of and Taylor Mead's Ass.
  Born in Detroit, Michigan, Mead appeared in Ron Rice's beat classic The Flower Thief, in which he "traipses with an elfin glee through a lost San Francisco of smoke-stuffed North Beach cafes..." Film critic P. Adams Sitney called The Flower Thief "the purest expression of the Beat sensibility in cinema." Village Voice film critic J. Hoberman called Mead "the first underground movie star."
  In the mid 1970s, Gary Weis made some short films of Mead talking to his cat in the kitchen of his Ludlow Street apartment on the Lower East Side called "Taylor Mead's Cat." One film of Mead extemporizing on the virtues of constant television watching aired during the second season of Saturday Night Live.
  Mead lives in New York City, and continues to perform and read poetry regularly at The Bowery Poetry Club. His latest book of poems (published by Bowery Poetry Books) is called A Simple Country Girl. He was the subject of a documentary entitled Excavating Taylor Mead, which debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2005. The film shows him engaging in his nightly habit of feeding stray cats in an East Village cemetery after bar-hopping, and features a cameo by Jim Jarmusch, in which Jarmusch explains that once, when Mead went to Europe, he enlisted Jarmusch's brother to feed the cemetery cats in Mead's absence. Mead appeared in the final segment of Jarmusch's 2003 film Coffee and Cigarettes. He has been "a beloved icon of the downtown New York art scene since the 60s."
  
  wn.com/Taylor_Mead
• The Chaser
  The Chaser are an Australian satirical comedian group, known for their television programmes on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation channel. The group take their name from their production of satirical newspaper, a publication known to challenge conventions of taste. The group's motto is "Striving for Mediocrity in a World of Excellence".
  The Chaser's earliest foundations were Charles Firth, Dominic Knight, and Chas Licciardello who went to Sydney Grammar School together and produced a small satirical school magazine entitled The Tiger. Later on, Firth and Knight met Craig Reucassel and Julian Morrow at the University of Sydney. Firth, Knight, Reucassel, Morrow, Licciardello, and later Chaser members Chris Taylor and Andrew Hansen all went to the University of Sydney. Firth, Knight, Reucassel and Morrow began writing for the University of Sydney student newspaper entitled Honi Soit. In 1999 the four members began The Chaser and their first newspaper project entitled The Chaser. The Chaser members are:
  
  wn.com/The_Chaser
• 
  The Rocket Summer
  The Rocket Summer is the solo-project of Bryce Avary who is based in Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas. Avary is a multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter, and producer. He writes and produces every song on his records, and plays every instrument on them.
  He has released four studio albums and several EPs. His most recent release, Of Men and Angels, held the #1 Top Album spot on iTunes upon its release on February 23, 2010. In April 2008, AP Magazine called him one of "100 bands you need to know."
  Avary was born on December 31, 1982, in Fort Worth, Texas. He first became interested in music around the age of 12 when his father bought him his first guitar which was an imitation brand from a pawn shop for 50 dollars. Avary subsequently began teaching himself other instruments including the drums and piano. He also picked up saxophone by playing one his father had had since his high school band days.
  Avary joined his first band, at the age of 14. He later joined a high school "indie rock punk" band inspired by Pavement, Archers of Loaf and Weezer, called Charlie 27. After the band broke up, Avary began performing local acoustic shows as a teenager in Dallas, Fort Worth and Denton.
  
  wn.com/The_Rocket_Summer
• 
  Thomas Edison
  Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847 – October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. Dubbed "The Wizard of Menlo Park" (now Edison, New Jersey) by a newspaper reporter, he was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of mass production and large-scale teamwork to the process of invention, and because of that, he is often credited with the creation of the first industrial research laboratory.
  Edison is the fourth most prolific inventor in history, holding 1,093 US patents in his name, as well as many patents in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. He is credited with numerous inventions that contributed to mass communication and, in particular, telecommunications. These included a stock ticker, a mechanical vote recorder, a battery for an electric car, electrical power, recorded music and motion pictures.
  
  wn.com/Thomas_Edison
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  Thomas Erastus
  Thomas Erastus (September 7, 1524 – December 31, 1583) was a Swiss physician and theologian best known for a posthumously published work in which he argued that the sins of Christians should be punished by the state, and not by the church withholding the sacraments. A generalization of this idea, that the state is supreme in church matters, is known somewhat misleadingly as Erastianism.
  Erastus was born of poor parents, probably at Baden (later part of the Canton of Aargau) in Switzerland. His original, Lüber, he translated in humanist style to "Erastus".
  In 1540 he was studying arts and theology at Basel. After surviving the plague in 1544, he moved to Bologna as student of philosophy and medicine. In 1553 he became physician to the count of Henneberg, Saxe-Meiningen, and in 1558 held the same post with the elector-palatine, Otto Henry, Elector Palatine, being at the same time professor of medicine at Heidelberg. His patron's successor, Frederick III, made him (1559) a privy councillor and member of the church consistory.
  
  wn.com/Thomas_Erastus
• 
  Tim Matheson
  Tim Matheson (born Timothy Lewis Matthieson; December 31, 1947) is an American actor, director and producer. He is perhaps best known for his portrayal of the smooth-talking Eric 'Otter' Stratton in the 1978 comedy National Lampoon's Animal House and the bitter Vice President John Hoynes in the NBC Drama, The West Wing and has had a variety of other well-known roles, including providing the voice of the lead character in the cartoon TV program Jonny Quest.
  At the age of 13, Matheson appeared as Roddy Miller in Robert Young's CBS nostalgia comedy series Window on Main Street during the 1961-1962 television season. In 1964, he provided the voice of the lead character in the cartoon program Jonny Quest. He was also the voice of Jace in the original animated series of Space Ghost. In addition, he played the role of the oldest son, Mike Beardsley, in the film Yours, Mine and Ours, which also starred Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda.
  In 1969, he joined the cast of NBC's The Virginian western series in the eighth season, as Jim Horn. He had a guest role in the 14th episode of the second season of Night Gallery, in the story "Logoda’s Heads". In the final season of the television western Bonanza in 1972-1973, Matheson played Griff King, a parolee who tries to reform his life as a worker at the Ponderosa Ranch under Ben Cartwright's watch. He portrayed a young motorcycle cop, Phil Sweet, in the 1973 film Magnum Force. Matheson also appeared earlier in the ABC television comedy series My Three Sons and Leave It to Beaver. In 1975, he guest starred in CBS's short-lived family drama, Three for the Road.
  
  wn.com/Tim_Matheson
• 
  Tommy Dickson
  Tommy Dickson (16 July 1929 – 31 December 2007) was a Northern Irish international footballer who played with Linfield from 1948 to 1965. He was born in Belfast. He played 660 times for Linfield, scoring 454 goals.
  Dickson was a favourite player at Windsor Park and was so revered that he was known to Linfield supporters as "The Duke of Windsor." He earned one cap for Northern Ireland, against Scotland in 1956.
  He died aged 78 on 31 December 2007.
  
  
  
  
  
  wn.com/Tommy_Dickson
• 
  Toni Kuivasto
  Toni Kuivasto (born 31 December 1975 in Tampere) is a retired Finnish footballer who last played for Veikkausliigaside FC Haka.
  Kuivasto started his career at home-town club FC Ilves, making his Veikkausliiga debut in 1992. He also played for MyPa and HJK Helsinki in Finland, before moving abroad to play for Viking FK of the Norwegian Tippeligaen in 2001. After a few years in Norway he wanted new challenges, and he was bought by Djurgården in the summer of 2003. Kuivasto has helped Djurgården to two Swedish championships and two Swedish Cups. Kuivasto returned to Finland for the 2010 season after spending 10 years abroad. He signed a one-year contract with FC Haka. He managed to score a vital goal for his team in his second game for Haka, in a league cup match against VPS.
  After his contract with Haka expired after the 2010 season, he became a free agent. On 4 November 2011 it was announced that the 35-year-old Kuivasto would retire due his knee problems. He is currently studying to become a youth coach.
  
  wn.com/Toni_Kuivasto
• Tony Dorigo
  Anthony Robert "Tony" Dorigo (born 31 December 1965) is an Australian-born English former professional footballer who played as a defender from 1983 to 2001.
  He played for Aston Villa, Chelsea, Leeds United and the England national side., as well as Torino, Derby County and Stoke City.
  Despite being born in Australia, Dorigo holds a British passport and during his playing career he represented the England team on 15 occasions. He also made 7 appearances for the England B team and 11 for the England under-21s.
  He made his league debut for Aston Villa against Ipswich in 1984 as an 18 year old and would go on to win the clubs player of the year award during his time at Villa Park.
  He signed for Chelsea from Aston Villa for £475,000 and he won the club's player of the year award in his first season, though they were also relegated. He helped the club win promotion back to the First Division at the first attempt. He left Chelsea in somewhat acrimonious circumstances in the summer of 1991, having made and then withdrawn a transfer request, and then seemingly fallen out with manager Bobby Campbell after being dropped from the side due to declining a new contract. He was sold to Leeds for £1.3m. He made 180 appearances for Chelsea, scoring 11 goals.
  
  wn.com/Tony_Dorigo
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  Tony Kanaan
  Antoine Rizkallah Kanaan Filho, commonly known as Tony Kanaan (born December 31, 1974 in Salvador, Brazil) is a Brazilian race car driver of Lebanese heritage.^{[citation needed]} Kanaan won the 2004 Indy Racing League IndyCar Series championship driving Andretti Green Racing's 7-Eleven sponsored car, winning three times in his Honda-powered Dallara. That season he completed 3,305 laps, making him the first IndyCar Series driver to complete every possible lap in a season. He also led 889 laps in 13 separate races to establish an IndyCar Series record. Kanaan is also the only driver to lead the Indianapolis 500 in each of his first seven starts, though he has yet to win this flagship event. He has a total of 14 IRL race victories. Kanaan was released from Andretti Autosport in October 2010 after 7-Eleven announced it would not return as his primary sponsor in 2011. After initially signing on with de Ferran Dragon Racing, the team shut down when sponsorship could not be materialized. Kanaan currently drives the #11 for KV Racing Technology.
  
  wn.com/Tony_Kanaan
• 
  Tran Thai Tong
  Trần Thái Tông (birth name: Trần Cảnh (陳煚), July 17, 1218 – May 4, 1277) was the first emperor of the Trần Dynasty, seated on the throne for 33 years (1226–1258), being Grand Emperor for 19 years.
  Trần Thái Tông’s given name was “Trần Cảnh” (陳煚). He was born in 1218 at the end of the Lý Dynasty. Trần Thủ Độ, his uncle, prepared the ground for his marriage to Queen Lý Chiêu Hoàng, the last queen of the Lý Dynasty, who later abdicated to make him the founder of the Trần Dynasty in 1226.
  His steps to the throne in particular and the replacement of the Trần Dynasty over the Lý Dynasty in general were mostly thanks to the efforts of Trần Thủ Độ, Trần Cảnh’s uncle. At that time, Trần Thủ Độ was the front commander of citadels of the Lý Dynasty. Trần Cảnh's father, Trần Thừa, was also an official under the Lý Dynasty, like Trần Thủ Độ. He had been "Nội thị khán thủ," one of the most important officials in the Lý Dynasty.
  During the time when he was seated on the throne, Trần Thái Tông used three era names: Kiến Trung (1225–1232), Thiên Ứng Chính Bình (1232–1250) and Nguyên Phong (1251–1258).
  
  wn.com/Tran_Thai_Tong
• Tyrone Corbin
  Tyrone Kennedy Corbin (born December 31, 1962 in Columbia, South Carolina) is the head coach of the Utah Jazz in the National Basketball Association. He was installed as head coach on February 10, 2011 following the resignation of longtime coach Jerry Sloan.
  Corbin played collegiately at DePaul University from 1981 to 1985. He played in 120 games for the Blue Demons, increasing his scoring average and field goal and free throw percentage in each of his four seasons. Corbin posted averages of 11.5 points (on .504 FG and .764 FT), 7.4 rebounds, 1.9 assists, 1.1 steal and 2.3 turnovers in 31.1 minutes per game. He finished seventh on DePaul's career scoring list and was a two-time honorable mention AP All-America selection, as well as an All-NIT choice in 1983, and he was invited to the 1984 Olympic trials. He graduated with a degree in computer science — before becoming a second-round pick of the San Antonio Spurs in the 1985 NBA Draft. He was a team captain in his junior and senior years; the former was Ray Meyer's last as head coach, the latter was Joey Meyer's first. He was inducted into the DePaul University Athletics Hall of Fame in 2005.
  
  wn.com/Tyrone_Corbin
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  Umm Kulthum
  Umm Kulthum (Arabic: أم كلثوم‎ ʾUmm Kulṯūm; Egyptian Arabic pronunciation: [omme kælˈsuːm]; born فاطمة إبراهيم السيد البلتاجي Fātimah ʾIbrāhīm as-Sayyid al-Biltāǧī, [ˈfɑtˤmɑ (ʔe)bɾˤɑˈhiːm esˈsæjjed elbelˈtæːɡi]; see Kunya) (December 30, 1898^{[citation needed]}–February 3, 1975) was an Egyptian singer, songwriter, and actress. Born in Tamay ez-Zahayra village, which belongs to El Senbellawein, she is known as "the star of the East" (kawkab el-sharq). More than three decades after her death, she is widely regarded as the greatest female singer in Arab music history.
  Umm Kulthum was born in Tamay ez-Zahayra village in El Senbellawein, Dakahlia Governorate, Egypt, in Dakahlia, in the Nile Delta, near the Mediterranean Sea. Her birth date is unconfirmed, as birth registration was not enforced throughout the Arab world. The Egyptian Ministry of Information seems to have given either December 31, 1898, or December 31, 1904. She was likely born some time between these two dates.
  At a young age, she showed exceptional singing talent. Her father, an Imam, taught her to recite the Qur'an, and she is said to have memorized the entire book. When she was 12 years old, her father disguised her as a young boy and entered her in a small performing troupe that he directed. At the age of 16, she was noticed by Mohamed Aboul Ela, a modestly famous singer, who taught her the old classical repertoire. A few years later, she met the famous composer and oudist Zakariyya Ahmad, who invited her to come to Cairo. Although she made several visits to Cairo in the early 1920s, she waited until 1923 before permanently moving there. She was invited on several occasions to the house of Amin Beh Al Mahdy, who taught her how to play the oud, a type of lute. She developed a very close relationship to Rawheya Al Mahdi, daughter of Amin, and became her closest friend. Kulthum even attended Rawheya's daughter's wedding, although she always tried to avoid public appearances.
  
  wn.com/Umm_Kulthum
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  Val Kilmer
  Val Edward Kilmer (born December 31, 1959) is an American actor. Originally a stage actor, Kilmer is best known for his role as Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone's The Doors, as Bruce Wayne/Batman in Joel Schumacher's Batman Forever. He became popular in the mid-1980s after a string of appearances in comedy films, starting with Top Secret! (1984), then the cult classic Real Genius (1985), as well as blockbuster action films, including a supporting role in Top Gun and a lead role in Willow.
  Kilmer was born in in Los Angeles, California, the son of Gladys (née Ekstadt) and Eugene Kilmer, an aerospace equipment distributor and real estate developer. Kilmer's grandfather was a gold miner in New Mexico; the poet Joyce Kilmer is a distant cousin of Kilmer's. Kilmer is of German, Swedish, Irish, and Cherokee descent. He grew up in the San Fernando Valley with his two siblings, older brother Mark and younger brother Wesley (who died at 15 due to an epileptic seizure in a swimming pool). His parents divorced when he was nine years old.
  
  wn.com/Val_Kilmer
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  Vandals
  The Vandals were an East Germanic tribe who in 429 under king Genseric entered Africa and by 439 established a kingdom which included the Roman Africa province, besides the islands of Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, Malta and the Balearics. In 455, they sacked the city of Rome. Their kingdom collapsed in the Vandalic War of 533–4, in which Justinian I managed to reconquer the Africa province for the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire.
  Renaissance and Early Modern writers characterized the Vandals as barbarians, "sacking and looting" Rome. This led to the use of the term "vandalism", to describe any senseless destruction, particularly the "barbarian" defacing of artworks. However, modern historians tend to regard the Vandals during the transitional period (from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages) as perpetuators, not destroyers, of Roman culture.
  The name of the Vandals has often been connected to that of Vendel,^{[citation needed]} the name of a province in Uppland, Sweden, which is also eponymous of the Vendel period of Swedish prehistory, corresponding to the late Germanic Iron Age leading up to the Viking Age. The connection would be that Vendel is the original homeland of the Vandals prior to the Migration Period, and retains their tribal name as a toponym.
  
  wn.com/Vandals
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  Vikram Sarabhai
  Vikram Ambalal Sarabhai (Gujarati: વિક્રમ અંબાલાલ સારાભાઇ) (12 August 1919 – 31 December 1971) was an Indian physicist. He is considered to be the father of the Indian space program.
  Vikram Ambalal Sarabhai was born on 12 August 1919 in the city of Ahmedabad, in the state of Gujarat in western India. The Sarabhai family was an important and rich Jain business family. His father Ambalal Sarabhai was an affluent industrialist and owned many mills including some textile mills in Gujarat. Vikram Sarabhai was one of the eight children of Ambalal and Sarla Devi.
  
  Sarabhai matriculated from Gujarat College in Ahmedabad after passing the Intermediate Science examination. After that he moved to England and joined St. John's College, University of Cambridge. He received the Tripos in Natural Sciences from Cambridge in 1940. With the escalation of the Second World War, Sarabhai returned to India and joined the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore and began research in cosmic rays under the guidance of Nobel Laureate C. V. Raman. He returned to Cambridge after the war in 1945 and was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1947, for his thesis titled Cosmic Ray Investigation in Tropical Latitudes.
  
  wn.com/Vikram_Sarabhai
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  Vladimir Putin
  Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (Russian: Влади́мир Влади́мирович Пу́тин; IPA: [vɫɐˈdʲimʲɪr vɫɐˈdʲimʲɪrəvʲɪtɕ ˈputʲɪn] ( listen); born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician who has been the President of Russia since 7 May 2012. Putin previously served as President from 2000 to 2008 and as Prime Minister of Russia from 1999 to 2000, and again from 2008 to 2012. Putin also serves as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus. He became acting President on 31 December 1999, when president Boris Yeltsin resigned in a surprising move. Putin won the 2000 presidential election; in 2004 he was re-elected for a second term lasting until 7 May 2008.
  Because of constitutionally mandated term limits, Putin was ineligible to run for a third consecutive presidential term. After his successor Dmitry Medvedev won the 2008 presidential election, Putin was nominated by Medvedev to be Russia's Prime Minister; Putin took office on 8 May 2008 and a period of so-called "tandemocracy" followed. In September 2011, Putin and Medvedev agreed he should seek a third, non-consecutive term in the 2012 presidential election, which he won in the first round on 4 March 2012.
  
  wn.com/Vladimir_Putin
• Wardy Alfaro
  Wardy Alfaro Pizarro (born 31 December 1977) is a Costa Rican football player.
  He plays as a goalkeeper, and was one of three that were named in the Costa Rica national squad for the 2006 World Cup held in Germany.
  He has been one of the best goalkeepers in Costa Rica in the last few years, been called up to the national team for almost every game, but his team has not had their best seasons lately, only winning 1 local championship and 1 CONCACAF Club Championship in the last 4 years.
  He started up his career playing at the Costa Rican Second Division with Santos de Guapiles and then he moved to AD Guanacasteca. Then in 2001 CS Cartagines set his eyes on his great performance and decided to bring him to the top division. He debuted on September 16 of that year against Perez Zeledon and soon became the most valuable player for this team, helping them to stay at the top division with his great saves. By the end of the 2003-2004 season, his current team LD Alajuelense decided to loan Ricardo Gonzalez to the Guatemalan club Comunicaciones so they asked CS Cartagines to have him loaned. He debuted with his new team on April 25 of 2004 and became usual at the starting line-up soon after he got to the team. By the end of this season LD Alajuelense decided to purchase him.
  
  wn.com/Wardy_Alfaro
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  Wilfrid Noyce
  Cuthbert Wilfrid Francis Noyce (31 December 1917 – 24 July 1962) (usually known as Wilfrid Noyce (often misspelt as 'Wilfred'), some sources give third forename as Frank) was an English mountaineer and author. He was a member of the 1953 British Expedition that made the first ascent of Mount Everest.
  Noyce was born in 1917 in Simla, the British hill station in India. The eldest son of Sir Frank Noyce of the Indian Civil Service and his wife, Enid Isabel, a daughter of W. M. Kirkus of Liverpool, Noyce was educated at Charterhouse, where he became head boy, and King's College, Cambridge, taking a first in Modern Languages. In the Second World War he was initially a conscientious objector, joining the Friends Ambulance Unit. However, he later chose to serve as a private in the Welsh Guards, before being commissioned as a second lieutenant in the King's Royal Rifle Corps on 19 July 1941. He later attained the rank of captain in the Intelligence Corps; John Hunt wrote that "...during a part of the war [Noyce] was employed in training air crews [in mountain techniques] in Kashmir. For a brief period he assisted me in running a similar course for soldiers". He was also employed as a code-breaker, managing to break an important Japanese code.
  
  wn.com/Wilfrid_Noyce
• William Skeffington
  Sir William Skeffington (c. 1465 – 31 December 1535), was a Lord Deputy of Ireland.
  He was born in Skeffington, Leicestershire. His brother John was the patriarch of the Massareene family. He was appointed High Sheriff of Leicestershire and Warwickshire for 1508, 1515 and 1521 in the reign of Henry VII and was knighted by that king for his services. In 1523, he received from Henry VIII property near Tunbridge that had belonged to the executed traitor Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham.
  He was master of the ordnance and a knight of the shire (MP) for Leicestershire from 1529–1535 in the reign of Henry VIII. He was also in 1529 appointed deputy in Ireland to Henry's son, the duke of Richmond, the nominal lord lieutenant of that country. He crossed over in August 1529, but his power was so circumscribed by instructions from Henry that the head of the Fitzgeralds, Gerald, 9th earl of Kildare, and not Skeffington, was the real governor of Ireland.
  This state of affairs lasted for three years and then in 1532 the deputy was recalled. In 1534, Kildare being in prison in England and his son Thomas, afterwards the 10th earl, being in revolt, Skeffington was again appointed deputy, at approximately 70 years of age. After some delay he landed at Dublin in October 1534 and marched at once to relieve Drogheda, but further progress in the work of crushing the rebellion was seriously delayed by his illness. However, in the spring of 1535 he was again in the field. He took Maynooth Castle, killing and executing the entire garrison. The heavy artillery used by him on this occasion earning for him his surname of "The Gunner"; he forced some of Kildare's allies to make peace and captured Dungarvan.
  
  wn.com/William_Skeffington
• Woody Strode
  Woodrow Wilson Woolwine "Woody" Strode (July 25, 1914 – December 31, 1994) was a decathlete and football star who went on to become a pioneering African American film actor. He was nominated for a Golden Globe award for best supporting actor for his role in Spartacus in 1960. He served in the US Army during World War II.
  Strode was born in Los Angeles, California. He attended college at UCLA, where he was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. His world-class decathlon capabilities were spearheaded by a 50 ft (15 m) plus shot put (when the world record was 57 ft (17 m)) and a 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m) high jump (the world record at time was 6 ft 10 in (2.08 m)). Strode posed for a nude portrait, part of Hubert Stowitts's acclaimed exhibition of athletic portraits shown at the 1936 Berlin Olympics (although the inclusion of black and Jewish athletes caused the Nazis to close the exhibit).
  Strode, Kenny Washington and Jackie Robinson starred on the 1939 UCLA Bruins football team, in which they made up three of the four backfield players. Along with Ray Bartlett, there were four African-Americans playing for the Bruins, when only a few dozen at all played on other college football teams. They played eventual conference and national champion USC to a 0–0 tie with the 1940 Rose Bowl on the line. It was the first UCLA–USC rivalry football game with national implications.
  
  wn.com/Woody_Strode
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  Zviad Gamsakhurdia
  Zviad Gamsakhurdia (Georgian: ზვიად გამსახურდია, (March 31, 1939 — December 31, 1993) was a dissident, scientist and writer, who became the first democratically elected President of the Republic of Georgia in the post-Soviet era. Gamsakhurdia is the only Georgian President to have died whilst formally in office.
  Zviad Gamsakhurdia was born in the Georgian capital Tbilisi in 1939, in a distinguished Georgian family; his father, Academician Konstantine Gamsakhurdia (1893–1975), was one of the most famous Georgian writers of the 20th century. Perhaps influenced by his father, Zviad received training in philology and began a professional career as a translator and literary critic.
  Despite (or perhaps because of) the country's association with Joseph Stalin, Soviet rule in Georgia was particularly harsh during the 1950s and sought to restrict Georgian cultural expression. In 1955, Zviad Gamsakhurdia established a youth underground group which he called the Gorgasliani (a reference to the ancient line of Georgian kings) which sought to circulate reports of human rights abuses. In 1956, he was arrested during demonstrations in Tbilisi against the Soviet policy of de-stalinization and was arrested again in 1958 for distributing anti-communist literature and proclamations. He was confined for six months to a mental hospital in Tbilisi where he was diagnosed as suffering from "psychopathy with decompensation", thus perhaps becoming an early victim of what became a widespread policy of using psychiatry for political purposes.
  
  wn.com/Zviad_Gamsakhurdia
• Émilie Le Pennec
  Émilie Le Pennec (born 31 December 1987 in La Garenne-Colombes, Hauts-de-Seine) was the first French gymnast to win an individual Olympic medal in women's artistic gymnastics.
  Coached by Yves Kieffer at Pôle France INSEP in Paris, Le Pennec was the French junior national champion in 2002. At her first senior nationals in 2003, she placed fifth, but won a silver medal on her specialty, the uneven bars. She represented France at the 2002 junior European Championships, where she won a bronze medal in the team event. At the 2003 World Gymnastics Championships, Le Pennec was a member of the tenth-place French team. She also qualified for the all-around and the floor exercise finals, where she finished eleventh and seventh, respectively.
  At the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Le Pennec placed sixth with the French team and fourteenth in the all-around finals. However, she shone in the uneven bars event final, where her challenging routine helped her win a gold medal over a tough field with numerous Olympic and Worlds bars champions, including Svetlana Khorkina (who took an infamous fall from the apparatus, which she traditionally dominated) and 2002 World Champion Courtney Kupets. Her medal marked the first ever for a French female gymnast.
  
  wn.com/Émilie_Le_Pennec
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  Ólafur Thors
  Ólafur Thors (19 January 1892 – 31 December 1964) was an Icelandic politician of the Independence Party, who served as Prime Minister of Iceland on five occasions:
  Ólafur Thors was a member of parliament from 1926 until the day of his death in 1964. His first ministerial post was when he served as a substitute justice minister from 14 November 1932 to 23 December 1932. In his political career he served as Minister of Industrial Affairs from 1939 to 1942, foreign minister in his own governments in 1942 and 1944–1947, social minister in his own government from 1949 to 1950, fisheries and industrial minister from 1950 to 1953 and he served as a fisheries minister in his own government from 1953 to 1956. He attended the General Assembly at the UN in 1947 and 1948. Ólafur Thors led the Independence Party from 1934 to 1961. His fifth government with the social Democrats sat under two other prime ministers from the Independence Party to 1971.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Ólafur_Thors