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• 
  

• 
  Adelaide
  Adelaide ( /ˈædəleɪd/) is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million. The demonym "Adelaidean" is used in reference to the city and its residents. Adelaide is located north of the Fleurieu Peninsula, on the Adelaide Plains between the Gulf St Vincent and the low-lying Mount Lofty Ranges which surround the city. Adelaide stretches 20 km (12 mi) from the coast to the foothills, and 90 km (56 mi) from Gawler at its northern extent to Sellicks Beach in the south.
  Named in honour of Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, queen consort to King William IV, the city was founded in 1836 as the planned capital for a freely settled British province in Australia.Colonel William Light, one of Adelaide's founding fathers, designed the city and chose its location close to the River Torrens in the area originally inhabited by the Kaurna people. Light's design set out Adelaide in a grid layout, interspaced by wide boulevards and large public squares, and entirely surrounded by parkland. Early Adelaide was shaped by religious freedom and a commitment to political progressivism and civil liberties, which led to the moniker "City of Churches".
  
  wn.com/Adelaide
• 
  Algeria
  Coordinates: 28°N 2°E / 28°N 2°E / 28; 2
  Algeria ⁱ/ælˈdʒɪəriə/ (Arabic: الجزائر‎, al-Jazā'ir; Berber: ⴷⵣⴰⵢⴻⵔ Dzayer), officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria (الجمهورية الجزائرية الديمقراطية الشعبية, al-Jumhūriyyah al-Jazāʾiriyyah ad-Dīmuqrāṭiyyah ash-Shaʿbiyyah), also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a large country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.
  When referring to its land area, Algeria is the largest country in Africa, Maghreb and the Arab World. It is also the largest of the countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea; it is also the tenth-largest country in the world. The country is bordered in the northeast by Tunisia, in the east by Libya, in the west by Morocco, in the southwest by Western Sahara, Mauritania, and Mali, in the southeast by Niger, and in the north by the Mediterranean Sea. Its size is almost 2,400,000 square kilometres (926,645 sq mi) with an estimated population of 37.1 million as of 2012. Algeria is a member of the African Union, the Arab League, OPEC and the United Nations. The country is also a founding member of the Arab Maghreb Union.
  
  wn.com/Algeria
• 
  Armenia
  Armenia ⁱ/ɑrˈmiːniə/ (Armenian: Հայաստան Hayastan [hɑjɑsˈtɑn]), officially the Republic of Armenia (Հայաստանի Հանրապետություն, Hayastani Hanrapetut’yun, [hɑjɑstɑˈni hɑnɾɑpɛtuˈtʰjun]), is a landlocked, mountainous country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia to the north, the de facto independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and Azerbaijan to the east, and Iran and the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan to the south.
  A former republic of the Soviet Union, Armenia is a unitary, multiparty, democratic nation-state with an ancient and historic cultural heritage. The Kingdom of Armenia became the first state in the world to adopt Christianity as its religion, in the early years of the 4th century (the traditional date is 301 AD). The modern Republic of Armenia recognizes the Armenian Apostolic Church, the world's oldest national church, as the country's primary religious establishment. Armenians have their own unique alphabet invented by Mesrob Mashtots in 406 AD.
  
  wn.com/Armenia
• 
  Australia
  Australia ( /əˈstreɪljə/), officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent as well as the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area. Neighbouring countries include Indonesia, East Timor and Papua New Guinea to the north; the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia to the north-east; and New Zealand to the south-east.
  For at least 40,000 years before European settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who belonged to one or more of roughly 250 language groups. After discovery by Dutch explorers in 1606, Australia's eastern half was claimed by Great Britain in 1770 and settled through penal transportation to the colony of New South Wales from 26 January 1788. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades; the continent was explored and an additional five self-governing Crown Colonies were established.
  
  wn.com/Australia
• Baling
  Baling is a major town in the northern state of Kedah in Malaysia. It is also the name of a district in which Baling town is situated. It is south of Betong, the southernmost town in Thailand.
  The name Baling can be traced to a series of events detailed in the story of Raja Bersiong (The Fanged King), a popular legend of Kedah, recorded in the Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa. Raja Bersiong was a ruthless vampire-like king with a taste for human blood who preyed on his subjects. His subjects finally rose against him and burned down the palace. When the fanged king fled his palace at the Old Kedah capital in Lembah Bujang, he fled to a place named Merbau and began removing his fangs by twisting them by hand. As a result of the twisting act, Merbau was renamed as Merbau Pulas where pulas in Malay means twisting.
  After the king had successfully removed both his fangs, he threw them away to a faraway place. The place where he stood when he threw his fangs is known as Baling which means throw and the place believed to be the site where the fangs landed was named Siong, which means fang in Malay, one of the villages in Baling district.
  
  wn.com/Baling
• 
  Cullompton
  Coordinates: 50°51′18″N 3°23′35″W / 50.855°N 3.393°W / 50.855; -3.393
  Cullompton is a town and civil parish in the district of Mid Devon and the county of Devon, England, locally known as Cully. It is 13 miles (21 km) miles north-north-east of Exeter and lies on the River Culm. In 2010 it had a population of 8,639 and is growing rapidly.
  The earliest evidence of occupation is from the Roman period - there was a fort on the hill above the town and occupation in the current town centre. Columtune was mentioned in Alfred the Great's will. In the past the town's economy had a large component of wool and cloth manufacture, then later leather working and paper manufacture.
  A large proportion of town's inhabitants are commuters but there is still some local manufacturing, including flour and paper mills. It has a monthly farmers' market held on the second Saturday of every month which is the oldest event of its kind in the South West. It is home to two grade I listed buildings: the fifteenth century St Andrew's parish church and the seventeenth century house known as The Walronds. The centre of the town is the only conservation area in Mid Devon and there are seven grade II* listed buildings and ninety grade II listed buildings in the parish.
  
  wn.com/Cullompton
• 
  Dundee
  Coordinates: 56°27′50″N 2°58′12″W / 56.464°N 2.970°W / 56.464; -2.970
  Dundee ⁱ/dʌnˈdiː/ (Scottish Gaelic: Dùn Dè) is the fourth-largest city in Scotland and the 38th most populous settlement in the United Kingdom. It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firth of Tay, which feeds into the North Sea. Under the name of Dundee City, it forms one of the 32 council areas used for local government in Scotland.
  The town developed into a burgh in Medieval times, and expanded rapidly in the 19th century largely due to the jute industry. This, along with its other major industries gave Dundee its epithet as the city of "jute, jam and journalism".
  In mid-2008, the population of the City of Dundee was estimated to be 152,320. Dundee's recorded population reached a peak of 182,204 at the time of the 1971 census, but has since declined.
  Today, Dundee is promoted as 'One City, Many Discoveries' in honour of Dundee's history of scientific activities and of the RRS Discovery, Robert Falcon Scott's Antarctic exploration vessel, which was built in Dundee and is now berthed in the city harbour. Biomedical and technological industries have arrived since the 1980s, and the city now accounts for 10% of the United Kingdom's digital-entertainment industry. Dundee has two universities—the University of Dundee and the University of Abertay Dundee. A £1,000,000,000 master plan to regenerate and to reconnect the Waterfront to the city centre which started in 2001 is expected to be completed within a 30 year period, with the Dundee Victoria & Albert Museum opening within 5.
  
  wn.com/Dundee
• 
  Dvin
  Dvin (Armenian: Դվին; Greek: Δούσιος or Τίβιον; also Duin or Dwin according to ancient sources) was a large commercial city and the capital of early medieval Armenia. It was situated north of the previous ancient capital of Armenia, the city of Artaxata, along the banks of the Metsamor River, 35 km to the south of modern Yerevan. The site of the ancient city is currently not much more than a large hill located between modern Hnaberd (just off the main road through Hnaberd) and Verin Dvin, Armenia. Systematic excavations at Dvin that have proceeded since 1937 have produced an abundance of materials, which have shed light into the Armenian culture of the 5th to the 13th centuries.
  Ancient Armenian literary sources almost always give the name of the ancient city of Dvin as Dwin or Duin. Later authors favored the Dvin appellation, which is the most common form given in scholarly literature.
  The ancient city of Dvin was built by Khosrov III of Armenia in 335 on a site of an ancient settlement and fortress from the third millennium B.C. Since then, the city had been used as the primary residence of the Armenian Kings of the Arsacid dynasty. Dvin boasted a population of about 100,000 citizens in various professions, including arts and crafts, trade, fishing, etc.
  
  wn.com/Dvin
• 
  Ethiopia
  Ethiopia ( /ˌiːθiˈoʊpiə/) (Ge'ez: ኢትዮጵያ ʾĪtyōṗṗyā), officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km². Ethiopia is bordered by Eritrea to the north, Djibouti and Somalia to the east, Sudan and South Sudan to the west, and Kenya to the south. With its capital at Addis Ababa, it is also the most populous landlocked nation in the world.
  Ethiopia was a monarchy for most of its history, and the Ethiopian dynasty traces its roots to the 2nd century BC. Ethiopia is also one of the oldest sites of human existence known to scientists today, having yielded some of humanity's oldest traces. It may be the region from which Homo sapiens first set out for the Middle East and points beyond. Alongside Rome, Persia, China and India, the Ethiopian Aksum Empire was considered one of the great world powers of the 3rd century. During the Scramble for Africa, Ethiopia was the only African country beside Liberia that retained its sovereignty as a recognized independent country, and was one of only four African members of the League of Nations. After a brief period of Italian occupation, Ethiopia became a charter member of the United Nations. When other African nations received their independence following World War II, many of them adopted the colors of Ethiopia's flag, and Addis Ababa became the location of several international organizations focused on Africa.
  
  wn.com/Ethiopia
• 
  Florida
  Florida (ⁱ/ˈflɒrɪdə/) is a state in the southeastern United States, bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. Florida is the 22nd most extensive, the 4th most populous, and the 8th most densely populated of the 50 United States. The state capital is Tallahassee, its largest city is Jacksonville, and the South Florida metropolitan area is the largest metropolitan area in the southeastern U.S.
  Much of Florida is situated on a peninsula between the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Straits of Florida. Its geography is marked by a coastline, by the omnipresence of water and the threat of hurricanes. Florida has the longest coastline in the contiguous United States, encompassing approximately 1,350 miles (2,170 km), and is the only state to border both the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. Much of the state is at or near sea level and its terrain is characterized by sedimentary soils. The climate varies from subtropical in the north to tropical in the south. Its symbolic animals like the American alligator, Florida panther and the manatee, can be found in the Everglades, one of the most famous national parks in the world.
  
  wn.com/Florida
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  Iowa
  Iowa (ⁱ/ˈaɪ.əwə/) is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New France. After the Louisiana Purchase, settlers laid the foundation for an agriculture-based economy in the heart of the Corn Belt. Iowa is often known as the "Food Capital of the World".
  In the latter half of the 20th century, Iowa's agricultural economy transitioned to a diversified economy of advanced manufacturing, processing, financial services, biotechnology, and green energy production. Iowa is the 26th most extensive and the 30th most populous of the 50 United States. Its capital and largest city is Des Moines. Iowa has been listed as one of the safest states to live in.
  Iowa is bordered by the Mississippi River on the east; the Missouri River and the Big Sioux River on the west; the northern boundary is a line along 43 degrees, 30 minutes north latitude. The southern border is the Des Moines River and a not-quite-straight line along approximately 40 degrees 35 minutes north, as decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in Missouri v. Iowa after a standoff between Missouri and Iowa known as the Honey War.
  
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  Messina
  Messina (Italian pronunciation: [mesˈsiːna] ( listen), Sicilian: Missina; Latin: Messana) is the third largest city on the island of Sicily, Italy and the capital of the province of Messina. It has a population of about 250,000 inhabitants in the city proper and about 650,000 in the province. It is located near the northeast corner of Sicily, at the Strait of Messina, just opposite Villa San Giovanni on the mainland.
  The main economical resources of the city are: the port (commercial and military), provided with several shipyards; agriculture (including wine production and the cultivation of lemons, oranges, mandarin oranges and olives); tourism.
  The city has been a Roman Catholic Archdiocese and Archimandrite seat since 1548 and is home to a locally important international fair.
  Founded by Greek colonists in the 8th century BC, Messina was originally called Zancle, from the Greek: ζάγκλον meaning "scythe" because of the shape of its natural harbour (though a legend attributes the name to King Zanclus). A comune of its province, located at the southern entrance of the Strait of Messina, is to this day called 'Scaletta Zanclea'. In the early 5th century BC, Anaxilas of Rhegium renamed it Messene in honour of the Greek city Messene (Greek: Μεσσήνη). (See also List of traditional Greek place names.) The city was sacked in 397 BC by the Carthaginians and then reconquered by Dionysius I of Syracuse.
  
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  Mexico
  Mexico (ⁱ/ˈmɛksɨkoʊ/; Spanish: México, IPA: [ˈmexiko] ( listen)), officially the United Mexican States (Spanish:  Estados Unidos Mexicanos (help·info)), is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States of America; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of Mexico. Covering almost two million square kilometres (over 760,000 sq mi), Mexico is the fifth largest country in the Americas by total area and the thirteenth largest independent nation in the world. With an estimated population of over 113 million, it is the eleventh most populous country and the most populous Spanish-speaking country. Mexico is a federation comprising thirty-one states and a Federal District, the capital city.
  In Pre-Columbian Mexico many cultures matured into advanced civilizations such as the Olmec, the Toltec, the Teotihuacan, the Zapotec, the Maya and the Aztec before the first contact with Europeans. In 1521, Spain conquered and colonized the territory from its base in México-Tenochtitlan, which was administered as the Viceroyalty of New Spain. This territory would eventually become Mexico as the colony's independence was recognized in 1821. The post-independence period was characterized by economic instability, the Mexican-American War and territorial cession to the United States, a civil war, two empires and a domestic dictatorship. The latter led to the Mexican Revolution in 1910, which culminated with the promulgation of the 1917 Constitution and the emergence of the country's current political system. Elections held in July 2000 marked the first time that an opposition party won the presidency from the Institutional Revolutionary Party.
  
  wn.com/Mexico
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  Miami
  Miami ( /maɪˈæmi/ or /maɪˈæmə/) is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States with a population of 2,500,625. The 42nd largest city proper in the United States, with a population of 408,568, it is the principal, central, and most populous city of the South Florida metropolitan area, and the most populous metropolis in the Southeastern United States. According to the US Census Bureau, Miami's metro area is the seventh most populous and fifth-largest urban area in the United States, with a population of around 5.5 million.
  Miami is a major center and a leader in finance, commerce, culture, media, entertainment, the arts, and international trade. In 2010, Miami was classified as a Alpha- World City in the World Cities Study Group’s inventory. In 2010, Miami ranked seventh in the United States in terms of finance, commerce, culture, entertainment, fashion, education, and other sectors. It ranked thirty-third among global cities. In 2008, Forbes magazine ranked Miami "America's Cleanest City", for its year-round good air quality, vast green spaces, clean drinking water, clean streets and city-wide recycling programs. According to a 2009 UBS study of 73 world cities, Miami was ranked as the richest city in the United States, and the world's fifth-richest city in terms of purchasing power. Miami is nicknamed the "Capital of Latin America", is the 2nd largest U.S. city (after El Paso) with a Spanish-speaking majority, and the largest city with a Cuban-American plurality.
  
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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
  New York (/njuː ˈjɔrk/; locally IPA: [nɪu ˈjɔək] or [nuː ˈjɔɹk] ( listen)) is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. New York is the 27th most extensive, the 3rd most populous, and the 7th most densely populated of the 50 United States. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east. The state has a maritime border with Rhode Island east of Long Island, as well as an international border with the Canadian provinces of Ontario to the west and north, and Quebec to the north. The state of New York is often referred to as New York State to distinguish it from New York City.
  New York City, with a population of over 8.1 million, is the most populous city in the United States. Alone, it makes up over 40 percent of the population of New York state. It is known for its status as a center for finance and culture and for its status as the largest gateway for immigration to the United States. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, New York City is also a destination of choice for many foreign visitors. Both the state and city were named for the 17th century Duke of York, James Stuart, future James II and VII of England and Scotland.
  
  wn.com/New_York
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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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  Ontario
  Ontario /ɒnˈtɛərioʊ/ is one of the provinces of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province or territory and fourth largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa.
  Ontario is bordered by the province of Manitoba to the west, Hudson Bay to the north, Quebec to the east, and to the south by the U.S. states of Minnesota, Michigan (portions to the west), New York (portions to the east), Ohio and Pennsylvania. All but a small part of Ontario's 2,700 km (1,677 mi) border with the United States follow inland waterways: from the west at Lake of the Woods, eastward along the major rivers and lakes of the Great Lakes/St. Lawrence River drainage system. These are the Rainy River, the Pigeon River, Lake Superior, the St. Mary's River, Lake Huron, the St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair, the Detroit River, Lake Erie, the Niagara River, Lake Ontario, and along the St. Lawrence River from Kingston, Ontario to the Quebec boundary just east of Cornwall, Ontario.
  
  wn.com/Ontario
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  Oregon
  Oregon (ⁱ/ˈɔrɨɡən/ ORR-ə-gən) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern boundaries, respectively. The area was inhabited by many indigenous tribes before the arrival of traders, explorers, and settlers who formed an autonomous government in Oregon Country in 1843. The Oregon Territory was created in 1848, and Oregon became the 33rd state on February 14, 1859.
  Oregon is the 9th most extensive and the 27th most populous of the 50 United States. Salem is the state's capital and third-most-populous city; Portland is the most populous. Portland is the 29th-largest U.S. city, with a population of 583,776 (2010 US Census) and a metro population of 2,241,841 (2009 estimate), the 23rd-largest U.S. metro area. The valley of the Willamette River in western Oregon is the state's most densely populated area and is home to eight of the ten most populous cities.
  
  wn.com/Oregon
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  Ortona
  Ortona is a coastal town and municipality of the Province of Chieti in the Italian region of Abruzzo, with some 23,000 inhabitants.
  Ortona was the site of fierce fighting between German and Canadian forces during the Italian campaign in World War II. The ferocity of the battle led it to be known as the "Little Stalingrad" as Winston Churchill called this city, (See Battle of Ortona).
  The origins of Ortona are uncertain. Presumably, it was first inhabited by the Frentani, an Italic population. In 2005, during works near the Castle, a Bronze Age settlement was discovered, and the Roman town largely coincided with this first settlement. Some sections of paved roads and urban walls, as well as some archaeological findings are the only remains of this period. Ortona remained a part of the Roman Empire (i.e., the Byzantine Empire) for several centuries, before it was annexed by the Kingdom of the Lombards. In 803 the Franks incorporated Ortona into the county of Chieti. From that date on, the town remained tied to Chieti and its territory.
  
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  San Francisco
  San Francisco (/ˌsæn frənˈsɪskoʊ/), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.6 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of about 46.9 square miles (121 km²) on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, giving it a density of about 17,179 people per square mile (6,632 people per km²). It is the most densely settled large city (population greater than 200,000) in the state of California and the second-most densely populated large city in the United States after New York City. San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 13th most populous city in the United States, with a population of 805,235 as of the 2010 Census. The San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont metropolitan area has a population of 4,335,391.
  In 1776, colonists from Spain established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi a few miles away. The California Gold Rush of 1849 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
  
  wn.com/San_Francisco
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  Scotland
  Scotland (Scottish Gaelic: Alba ([ˈalˠ̪apə]  listen (help·info))) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the southwest. In addition to the mainland, Scotland constitutes over 790 islands including the Northern Isles and the Hebrides.
  Edinburgh, the country's capital and second largest city, is one of Europe's largest financial centres. Edinburgh was the hub of the Scottish Enlightenment of the 18th century, which transformed Scotland into one of the commercial, intellectual and industrial powerhouses of Europe. Glasgow, Scotland's largest city, was once one of the world's leading industrial cities and now lies at the centre of the Greater Glasgow conurbation. Scottish waters consist of a large sector of the North Atlantic and the North Sea, containing the largest oil reserves in the European Union. This has given Aberdeen, the third largest city in Scotland, the title of Europe's oil capital.
  
  wn.com/Scotland
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  Seminole Wars
  The Seminole Wars, also known as the Florida Wars, were three conflicts in Florida between the Seminole — the collective name given to the amalgamation of various groups of native Americans and Black people who settled in Florida in the early 18th century — and the United States Army. The First Seminole War was from 1814 to 1819 (although sources differ), the Second Seminole War from 1835 to 1842, and the Third Seminole War from 1855 to 1858.
  The first conflict with the Seminole arose out of tensions relating to General Andrew Jackson's attack and destruction of Negro Fort in Florida in 1816. Jackson also attacked the Spanish at Pensacola. Ultimately, the Spanish Crown ceded the colony to United States rule.
  The indigenous peoples of Florida declined significantly in number after the arrival of Europeans in the region. The Native Americans had little resistance to diseases newly introduced from Europe. Spanish suppression of native revolts further reduced the population in northern Florida. By 1707, colonial soldiers from the Province of Carolina and their Yamasee Indian allies had killed or carried off nearly all the remaining native inhabitants, having conducted a series of raids extending the full length of the peninsula. In the first decade of the 18th century, 10,000 – 12,000 Indians were taken as slaves according to the governor of La Florida and by 1710, observers noted that north Florida was virtually depopulated. The few remaining natives fled west to Pensacola and beyond or east to the vicinity of St. Augustine; in 1763, when Spain ceded Florida to Great Britain as part of the Treaty of Paris, the Spanish took the few surviving Florida Indians with them to Cuba and New Spain.
  
  wn.com/Seminole_Wars
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  Senegal
  Senegal ⁱ/ˌsɛnɨˈɡɔːl/ (French: le Sénégal), officially the Republic of Senegal (République du Sénégal, IPA: [ʁepyblik dy seneɡal]), is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north. Senegal is externally bounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Mauritania to the north, Mali to the east, and Guinea and Guinea-Bissau to the south; internally it almost completely surrounds The Gambia, namely on the north, east and south, exempting Gambia's short Atlantic Ocean coastline. Senegal covers a land area of almost 197,000 square kilometres (76,000 sq mi), and has an estimated population of about 13 million. The climate is tropical with two seasons: the dry season and the rainy season.
  Dakar, the capital city of Senegal, is located at the westernmost tip of the country on the Cap-Vert peninsula. About 500 kilometres (300 mi) off the coast, in the Atlantic Ocean, lie the Cape Verde Islands. During the 17th and 18th centuries, numerous trading posts, belonging to various colonial empires, were established along the coast. The town of St. Louis became the capital of French West Africa (Afrique occidentale française, or AOF) before it was moved to Dakar in 1902. Dakar later became its capital in 1960 at the time of independence from France.
  
  wn.com/Senegal
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  Somalia
  Somalia ( /soʊˈmɑːliə/ soh-MAH-lee-ə; Somali: Soomaaliya; Arabic: الصومال‎ aṣ-Ṣūmāl), officially the Somali Republic (Somali: Jamhuuriyadda Soomaaliya, Arabic: جمهورية الصومال‎ Jumhūriyyat aṣ-Ṣūmāl) and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic under Socialist rule, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. Since the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in 1991 there has been no central government control over most of the country's territory. The internationally recognized Transitional Federal Government controls only a small part of the country. Somalia has been characterized as a failed state and is one of the poorest and most violent states in the world.
  Somalia lies in the easternmost part of Africa. It is bordered by Djibouti to the northwest, Kenya to the southwest, the Gulf of Aden with Yemen to the north, the Indian Ocean to the east, and Ethiopia to the west. It has the longest coastline on the continent, and its terrain consists mainly of plateaus, plains and highlands. Hot conditions prevail year-round, along with periodic monsoon winds and irregular rainfall.
  
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  South Australia
  Coordinates: 30°0′S 135°0′E / 30°S 135°E / -30; 135
  South Australia (abbreviated as SA) is a state of Australia, located in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of 983,482 square kilometres (379,725 sq mi), it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.
  South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland states and the Northern Territory. It is bordered to the west by Western Australia, to the north by the Northern Territory, to the north-east by Queensland, to the east by New South Wales, to the south-east by Victoria, and to the south by the Great Australian Bight and the Indian Ocean. With over 1.6 million people, the state comprises less than 8% of the Australian population and ranks fifth in population among the states and territories. The majority of its people reside in the state capital, Adelaide, with most of the remainder settled in fertile areas along the south-eastern coast and River Murray. The state's origins are unique in Australia as a freely settled, planned British province, rather than as a convict settlement. Official settlement began on 28 December 1836, when the colony was proclaimed at The Old Gum Tree by Governor John Hindmarsh.
  
  wn.com/South_Australia
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  South Dakota
  South Dakota (ⁱ/ˌsaʊθ dəˈkoʊtə/) is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. South Dakota is the 17th most extensive, but the 5th least populous and the 5th least densely populated of the 50 United States. Once the southern portion of the Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. Pierre is the state capital and Sioux Falls, with a population of nearly 160,000, is South Dakota's largest city.
  South Dakota is bordered by the states of North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Montana. The state is bisected by the Missouri River, dividing South Dakota into two geographically and socially distinct halves, known to residents as "East River" and "West River". Eastern South Dakota is home to most of the state's population, and fertile soil in this area is used to grow a variety of crops. West of the Missouri, ranching is the predominant agricultural activity, and the economy is more dependent on tourism and defense spending.
  
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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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  Spain
  Spain (ⁱ/ˈspeɪn/ SPAYN; Spanish: España, pronounced: [esˈpaɲa] ( listen)), officially the Kingdom of Spain (Spanish: Reino de España), is a sovereign state and a member of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Its mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for a small land boundary with the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar; to the north and north east by France, Andorra, and the Bay of Biscay; and to the northwest and west by the Atlantic Ocean and Portugal.
  Spanish territory also includes the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean, the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean off the African coast, and two autonomous cities in North Africa, Ceuta and Melilla, that border Morocco. Furthermore, the town of Llívia is a Spanish exclave situated inside French territory. With an area of 504,030 square kilometres (194,610 sq mi), it is the second largest country in Western Europe and the European Union after France, and the fourth largest country in Europe after Russia, Ukraine and France.
  
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  Tay Bridge disaster
  The Tay Bridge disaster occurred during a violent storm on 28 December 1879 when the first Tay Rail Bridge collapsed while a train was passing over it from Wormit to Dundee, killing all aboard. The bridge – designed by Sir Thomas Bouch – used lattice girders supported by iron piers, with cast iron columns and wrought iron cross-bracing. The piers were narrower and their cross-bracing was less extensive and robust than on previous similar designs by Bouch.
  Bouch had sought expert advice on "wind loading" when designing a proposed rail bridge over the Firth of Forth; as a result of that advice he had made no explicit allowance for wind loading in the design of the Tay Bridge. There were other flaws in detailed design, in maintenance, and in quality control of castings, all of which were, at least in part, Bouch's responsibility.
  Bouch died within the year, with his reputation as an engineer ruined. Future British bridge designs had to allow for wind loadings of up to 56 pounds per square foot (2.7 kPa). Bouch's design for the Forth Rail Bridge was not used.
  
  wn.com/Tay_Bridge_disaster
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  Thailand
  Thailand ( /ˈtaɪlænd/ TY-land or /ˈtaɪlənd/;Thai: ประเทศไทย, RTGS: Prathet Thai), officially the Kingdom of Thailand (Thai: ราชอาณาจักรไทย, RTGS: Ratcha Anachak Thai; IPA: [râːt.tɕʰā ʔāːnāːtɕàk tʰāj] ( listen)), formerly known as Siam (Thai: สยาม; RTGS: Sayam), is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the west by the Andaman Sea and the southern extremity of Burma. Its maritime boundaries include Vietnam in the Gulf of Thailand to the southeast, and Indonesia and India in the Andaman Sea to the southwest.
  The country is a constitutional monarchy, headed by King Rama IX, the ninth king of the House of Chakri, who, having reigned since 1946, is the world's longest-serving head of state and the longest-reigning monarch in Thai history. The king of Thailand is titled Head of State, Head of the Armed Forces, the Upholder of the Buddhist religion, and the Defender of all Faiths.
  
  wn.com/Thailand
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  Thonburi
  Thon Buri (Thai: ธนบุรี) is an area of modern Bangkok. It was capital of Thailand from 1767 to 1782, during the reign of King Taksin, after the previous capital Ayutthaya was sacked by the Burmese. It is located on the opposite bank of Chao Phraya River to Bangkok. Before being made the capital, Thon Buri was an important garrison town at the mouth of the river.
  King Rama I moved the capital to Bangkok in 1782. Thon Buri remained an independent town and province, until it was merged into Bangkok in 1972. Thon Buri stayed less developed than the other side of the river. Many of the traditional small waterways, Khlongs, still exist there, while they are nearly gone from the other side of the river.
  In 1950, Bangkok had around 1.3m people, and the municipality of Thon Buri around 400,000. In 1970 Thon Buri was Thailand's second largest city proper with around 600,000 residents.
  
  wn.com/Thonburi
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  Toronto
  Toronto (/təˈrɒntoʊ/, colloquially /ˈtrɒnoʊ/) is the largest city in Canada and the provincial capital of Ontario. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from the Mississaugas of the New Credit. The settlement was later established as the Town of York and proclaimed as the new capital of Upper Canada by its lieutenant-governor, John Graves Simcoe. In 1834, York was incorporated as a city and renamed to its present name. The city was ransacked in the Battle of York during the War of 1812 and damaged in two great fires in 1849 and in 1904. Since its incorporation, Toronto has repeatedly expanded its borders through amalgamation with surrounding municipalities, most recently in 1998.
  With over 2.6 million residents, it is the fifth most populous city in North America. Its metropolitan area has over 5.5 million residents. Toronto is at the heart of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), and is part of a densely populated region in Southern Ontario known as the Golden Horseshoe, which has a population of nearly 9 million people as of 2011. The census metropolitan area (CMA) had a population of 5,583,064, and the Greater Toronto Area had a population of 6,054,191 in the 2011 Census. Its cosmopolitan and international population reflects its role as an important destination for immigrants to Canada. Toronto is one of the world's most diverse cities by percentage of non-native-born residents, with about 49% of the population born outside Canada. Toronto is also consistently rated as one of the world's most livable cities by the Economist Intelligence Unit and the Mercer Quality of Living Survey.
  
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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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  Adam Vinatieri
  Adam Matthew Vinatieri (born December 28, 1972) is an American football placekicker currently playing for the Indianapolis Colts. He has played in five Super Bowls, three with the New England Patriots and two with the Colts. Vinatieri won a Super Bowl in 2006 with Indianapolis and won Super Bowls in 2001, 2003, and 2004 with the Patriots. Vinatieri is the first kicker ever to win four Super Bowl rings.
  Vinatieri has been called "Mr. Clutch" by the media due to his reputation for clutch kicking during his tenure in the National Football League. Nicknamed "Automatic Adam" for his accuracy, and "Iceman" for his incredible poise under pressure, Vinatieri has converted several of the most crucial field goals in NFL history, including the game-tying and -winning kicks in blizzard conditions in the infamous "Tuck Rule Game", and game-winning kicks in the final seconds of two Super Bowls (XXXVI, XXXVIII).
  Vinatieri was born the son of Paul and Judy Vinatieri, he is the second of four children. His younger brother Beau was a place kicker at Black Hills State University before graduating in 2003. Vinatieri attended Central High School (Rapid City, South Dakota) and was a letterman in football, wrestling, basketball, soccer, and track. In football, he earned first team All-State honors as a senior. He graduated from Central High School in 1991.
  
  wn.com/Adam_Vinatieri
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  Alaric II
  Alaric II (Gothic: Alareiks II), also known as Alarik, Alarich, and Alarico in Spanish and Portuguese or Alaricus in Latin (d. 507) succeeded his father Euric on December 28, 484, in Toulouse. He established his capital at Aire-sur-l'Adour (Vicus Julii) in Aquitaine. His dominions included not only the whole of Hispania except its north-western corner but also Gallia Aquitania and the greater part of an as-yet undivided Gallia Narbonensis.
  Herwig Wolfram opens his chapter on the eighth Visigothic king, "Alaric's reign gets no full treatment in the sources, and the little they do contain is overshadowed by his death in the Battle of Vouillé and the downfall of the Toulosan kingdom." One example is Isidore of Seville's account of Alaric's reign: consisting of a single paragraph, it is primarily about Alaric's death in that battle.
  The earliest documented event in Alaric's reign concerned providing refuge to Syagrius, the former ruler of the Domain of Soissons (in what is now north western France) who had been defeated by Clovis I King of the Franks. According to Gregory of Tours' account, Alaric was intimidated by Clovis into surrendering Syagrius to Clovis; Gregory then adds that "the Goths are a timorous race." The Franks then imprisoned Syagrius, and once his control over Syagrius' former kingdom was secure Clovis had him beheaded. However, Wolfram points out that at the time "Clovis got no farther than the Seine; only after several more years did the Franks succeed in occupying the rest of the Gallo-Roman buffer state north of the Loire." Any threat of war Clovis could make would only be effective if they were neighbors; "it is nowhere written that Syagrius was handed over in 486 or 487."
  
  wn.com/Alaric_II
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  Alex Chilton
  William Alexander "Alex" Chilton (December 28, 1950 – March 17, 2010) was an American songwriter, guitarist, singer and producer, best known as the lead singer of the Box Tops and Big Star. Chilton's early commercial success in the 1960s as a teen vocalist for the Box Tops was not repeated in later years with Big Star and in his indie music solo career on small labels, but he drew a loyal following in the indie and alternative music fields, and is often cited as an influence by many mainstream rock artists and bands.
  Chilton grew up in a musical family; his father, Sidney Chilton, was a jazz musician. A local band recruited the teenager in 1966 as their lead singer after learning of the popularity of his vocal performance at a talent show at Memphis' Central High School; this band was The Devilles, later renamed Box Tops. The new group recorded with Chips Moman and producer/songwriter Dan Penn at American Sound Studio and Muscle Shoals' FAME Studios.
  As lead singer for the Box Tops, Chilton enjoyed at the age of 16 a number-one international hit, "The Letter." The Box Tops went on to have several other major chart hits, including "Neon Rainbow" (1967), "Cry Like a Baby" (1968), "Sweet Cream Ladies, Forward March" (1969) and "Soul Deep" (1969). Aside from the hits "The Letter", "Neon Rainbow" and "Soul Deep", all written by Wayne Carson Thompson, many of the group's songs were written by Penn, Moman, Spooner Oldham and other top area songwriters, with Chilton occasionally contributing a song. By late 1969, only Chilton and guitarist Gary Talley remained from the original group, and newer additions replaced the members who had departed. The group decided to disband and pursue independent careers in February 1970.
  
  wn.com/Alex_Chilton
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  Alex Dimitriades
  Alex Dimitriades (born 28 December 1973) is a Greek Australian film and television actor.
  Dimitriades was born in Sydney, the son of first generation Greek immigrants and is the youngest of three siblings (He has a brother, George, and a sister, Melinda). He grew up in the suburb of Earlwood. His parents divorced when he was twelve.
  Dimitriades began his career in the 1993 Australian film The Heartbreak Kid.
  Dimitriades played the protagonist Ari in the Ana Kokkinos film Head On (1998). Dimitriades' performance in the role was critically acclaimed and earned him an AFI Award nomination. He appeared in the Australian comedies Let's Get Skase (2001) and La Spagnola (2001). He has had roles in the Hollywood films Ghost Ship (2002) and Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo (2005).^{[citation needed]} He also starred in the Greek film (To Gamilio Party) (English Title "(Bang Bang Wedding)"; 2008). In his latest film, Wog Boy 2: Kings of Mykonos (opened on 20 May 2010) he stars as Mihali, a smooth talking, immaculately dressed Mykonos mogul. He has recently completed shooting the film Summer Code starring alongside Rachael Taylor.
  
  wn.com/Alex_Dimitriades
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  Alfred Edwin McKay
  Captain Alfred Edwin “Eddie” McKay MC (27 December 1892 – 28 December 1917) was a Canadian flying ace who flew with the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War.
  The son of William and Mary McKay, he was born on 27 December 1892 in Brussels, Ontario, Canada. He later moved to London, Ontario to enroll in a Faculty of Arts program at the University of Western Ontario. Once there, McKay excelled in varsity athletics. In particular, his speed was often cited by a student newspaper – The Western University Gazette – as a reason for the success of Western’s 1915 Canadian Junior Championship rugby team.
  
  wn.com/Alfred_Edwin_McKay
• Allan Dwan
  Allan Dwan (April 3, 1885 – December 28, 1981) was a pioneering Canadian-born American motion picture director, producer and screenwriter.
  Born Joseph Aloysius Dwan in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Dwan moved with his family to the United States when he was 11 years old. At the University of Notre Dame, he trained as an engineer and began working for a lighting company in Chicago. However, he had a strong interest in the fledgling motion picture industry and when Essanay Studios offered him the opportunity to become a scriptwriter, he took the job. At that time, some of the East Coast movie makers began to spend winters in California where the climate allowed them to continue productions requiring warm weather. Soon, a number of movie companies worked there year-round and, in 1911, Dwan began working part time in Hollywood. While still in New York, in 1917 he was the founding president of the East Coast chapter of the Motion Picture Directors Association.
  Dwan operated Flying A Studios in La Mesa, California from August, 1911 to July, 1912. Flying A was one of the first motion pictures studios in California history. On August 12, 2011, a plaque was unveiled on the Wolff building at Third Ave and La Mesa Bl commemorating Dwan and the Flying A Studios origins in La Mesa, California.
  
  wn.com/Allan_Dwan
• Allar Levandi
  Allar Levandi (born December 28, 1965 in Tallinn) is an Estonian nordic combined skier who competed during the late 1980s and early 1990s under two different nations in three straight Winter Olympic Games (1988: Soviet Union, 1992 and 1994: Estonia). He trained at Dynamo in Tallinn when Estonia was under Soviet rule in the late 1980s.
  He won a bronze in the 15 km individual at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary. Levandi also won a bronze medal in the 3 x 10 km team event at the 1987 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Oberstdorf.
  He is married to Anna Levandi (née Kondrashova), a retired competitive figure skater and a current figure skating coach and choreographer.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Allar_Levandi
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  Ana Torroja
  Ana Torroja (born 28 December 1959 in Madrid) is a Grammy Award-nominated Spanish singer. She is the lead singer of the pop trio Mecano, considered one of the most popular pop bands from Spain during the 1980s and 1990s. Mecano split in 1998 and she embarked on a solo career.
  Ana Torroja met José María Cano while studying economics at university. The two became good friends, and José María soon introduced her to his younger brother, Nacho. After hearing Ana sing José María's guitar compositions, Nacho suggested that the three form a band. In 1981, Mecano was formed.
  After seven Mecano albums and huge success in Europe and Latin America, the continuous touring began taking its toll on the band. Ana was especially affected and started developing vocal problems. In 1993, the band announced a temporary split. While José and Nacho released solo albums, Ana chose to travel around the world and visited Hawaii, Bombay, and New York—places she had sung about while with Mecano. She eventually settled in New York and took dance classes.
  
  wn.com/Ana_Torroja
• Anne Sargeant
  Anne Sargeant, OAM, (born 28 December 1957) is a retired Australian netball player and current sports commentator. Sargeant played in the Australian national team from 1978–1988, captaining the side for six years.
  After her retirement from competitive netball, Sargeant has had a successful career as a columnist, motivational speaker and sports commentator, and also runs a netball program for young players. Sargeant's representations have included the Australian Sports Commission, the NSW Australia Day Council, Children's Week, Board Member of McDonald's, School Sport 2000 Committee and Patron of the 1994 Year of the Coach.
  Sargeant received the Order of Australia Medal in 1988. In 2004, she was named Sydney's Greatest Ever Netballer. Sargeant was also one of the first inductees into the Australian Netball Hall of Fame, admitted on 29 November 2008. In 2008 she was a commentator for Fox sports- Anz Championship coverage. In 2009 she was rejected to be a commentator for the new One hd sports channel in Australia.
  
  wn.com/Anne_Sargeant
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  Ante Pavelić
  Ante Pavelić (14 July 1889 – 28 December 1959) was a Croatian fascist leader and revolutionary. As Poglavnik, he ruled the Independent State of Croatia, a puppet state of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. He was founder and leader of the Croatian fascist movement Ustaše.
  Pavelić was a lawyer and politician in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia known for his nationalistic beliefs, particularly about an independent Croatia. From 1927 until 1929, he was a member of the Yugoslav Parliament where he declared his beliefs about Croatian independence. In 1920s he radicalized his political activity and called on Croats to revolt against Yugoslavia.
  After King Alexander I declared his 6 January Dictatorship Pavelić escaped to Vienna, where he established contact with Croatian political émigrés and formed a link with the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization in advocating independence for Croatia and Macedonia. He then moved to Italy where he founded the Ustaše (Croatian Revolutionary Movement); initially, this was a Croatian nationalist movement with the goal of creating an independent Greater Croatia via armed revolt. In October 1934 he planned the assassination of King Alexander I and spent time in prison in Italy until 1936. From 1936 until 1939, Italian authorities banned Ustaše, so he dissolved the group. He lived under police watch, eventually seeking German support but without success. After 1939 he was active again, focusing mainly on Ustaše activity in Yugoslavia.
  
  wn.com/Ante_Pavelić
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  Antoine Furetière
  Antoine Furetière (28 December 1619 – 14 May 1688), French scholar and writer, was born in Paris.
  He studied law and practised for a time as an advocate, but eventually took orders and after various promotions became abbé of Chalivoy in the diocese of Bourges in 1662. In his leisure moments he devoted himself to letters, and in virtue of his satires—Nouvelle Allégorique, ou histoire des derniers troubles arrivés au royaume d'éloquence (1658) and Voyage de Mercure (1653)—he was admitted as a member of the Académie française in 1662. The academy had long promised a complete dictionary of the French language; and when the members heard that Furetière was on the point of issuing a work of a similar nature, they interfered, alleging that he had purloined from their stores and that they possessed the exclusive privilege of publishing such a book.
  After much recrimination on both sides, Furetière was expelled in 1685; but he took revenge in his satire, Couches de l'académie (Amsterdam, 1687). His Dictionnaire universel was posthumously published in 1690 (Rotterdam, 2 vols.). It was revised and improved by the Protestant jurist Henri Basnage de Beauval (1656–1710), who published his edition (3 vols.) in 1701, and it was superseded only by the compilation known as the Dictionnaire de Trévoux (Paris, 3 vols., 1704; 7th ed., 5 vols., 1771), a lexicon with which some Jesuits were occasionally affiliated and that drew heavily from the Dictionnaire universel.
  
  wn.com/Antoine_Furetière
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  Antonio Caldara
  Antonio Caldara (1670  – 28 December 1736) was an Italian Baroque composer.
  Caldara was born in Venice (exact date unknown), the son of a violinist. He became a chorister at St Mark's in Venice, where he learned several instruments, probably under the instruction of Giovanni Legrenzi. In 1699 he relocated to Mantua, where he became maestro di cappella to the inept Charles IV, Duke of Mantua, a pensionary of France with a French wife, who took the French side in the War of the Spanish Succession. Caldara removed from Mantua in 1707, after the French were expelled from Italy, then moved on to Barcelona as chamber composer to Charles VI of Austria, the pretender to the Spanish throne who kept a royal court at Barcelona. There, he wrote some operas that are the first Italian operas performed in Spain. He moved on to Rome, becoming maestro di cappella to Francesco Maria Marescotti Ruspoli, 1st Prince of Cerveteri. While there he wrote in 1710 La costanza in amor vince l'inganno (Faithfulness in Love Defeats Treachery) for the public theatre at Macerata. In 1716, he obtained a similar post in Vienna to serve the Imperial Court, and there he remained until his death.
  
  wn.com/Antonio_Caldara
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  Arun Jaitley
  Arun Jaitley (Hindi:अरुण जेटली ) (born 28 December 1952) is a prominent Indian politician and a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is currently the largest Opposition party in India. He is the leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha and has previously served as the Union Minister for commerce, industry, law and justice of the Government of India.
  He was born to Kishen and Ratan Prabha Jaitley. Born to a lawyer father, he did his schooling at St. Xavier's School, New Delhi from 1969-70.^{[citation needed]} He graduated in Commerce from Shri Ram College of Commerce, New Delhi in 1973. He passed his Law degree from the Faculty of Law, University of Delhi, in 1977. During his career as a student, he was the recipient of several distinctions for his outstanding performances both in academics and extra curricular activities. He was President of the Students Union of Delhi University in 1974.
  Jaitley was an Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) student leader in the Delhi University Campus in the seventies and rose to be President of the University Students' Union in 1974. During the period of proclamation of Internal Emergency (1975–77) when civil liberties were suspended, he was under preventive detention for a period of 19 months. He was a prominent leader of a movement against corruption launched in the year 1973 by Raj Narain and Jai Prakash Narayan. He was the Convenor of the National Committee for Students and Youth organisation appointed by Jai Prakash Narayan. He was also active in civil rights movement and helped found PUCL Bulletin along with Satish Jha and Smitu Kothari. After being released from jail he joined Jan Sangh.
  
  wn.com/Arun_Jaitley
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  Ashikaga Yoshiakira
  Ashikaga Yoshiakira (足利 義詮^?, July 4, 1330 – December 28, 1367) was the 2nd shogun of the Ashikaga shogunate who reigned from 1358 to 1367 during the Muromachi period of Japan. Yoshiakira was the son of the founder and first shogun of the Muromachi shogunate, Ashikaga Takauji.
  He spent his childhood in Kamakura as a hostage of the Hōjō clan. His father Takauji joined forces with the banished Emperor Go-Daigo. The Kamakura shogunate was overthrown; and Go-Daigo began the process which will come to be known as the Kemmu Restoration.
  Yoshiakira was dispatched to Kamakura to maintain peace in the eastern provinces.
  In 1349, an internal disturbance of the government caused Yoshiakira to be called back to Kyoto, where he found himself named as Takauji's heir. Yoshiakira succeeded his father Takauji as Seii Taishogun after his death in 1358.
  Significant events shape the period during which Yoshiakira was shogun:
  Some months after his death, he was succeeded by his son Ashikaga Yoshimitsu as the third shogun in 1368. His tomb is in Tōji-in, Kyoto, where his father's also is.
  
  wn.com/Ashikaga_Yoshiakira
• Aurelio Rodríguez
  Aurelio Rodríguez Ituarte, Jr. (December 28, 1947 – September 23, 2000), was a third baseman in Major League Baseball who played for the California Angels (1967–70), Washington Senators (1970), Detroit Tigers (1971–79), San Diego Padres (1980), New York Yankees (1980–81), Chicago White Sox (1982, 1983) and Baltimore Orioles (1983). He also played with the Obregon Yaquis and Cañeros de Los Mochis of the Mexican Pacific League. He batted and threw right-handed.
  A native of Cananea, Mexico, Rodríguez broke into the major leagues with the Angels in 1967, and was traded to Washington early in the 1970 season. Rodríguez went to Detroit with shortstop Ed Brinkman and pitchers Joe Coleman and Jim Hannan before the 1971 season in an eight-player trade that brought Denny McLain to the Senators along with Don Wert, Elliott Maddox, and Norm McRae.
  Rodríguez was a model of consistency at third base for the Tigers during the 1970s. Though a below-average hitter, Rodríguez had sure hands and was blessed with a strong, accurate arm. In 1975, he earned Gold Glove Award honors, becoming the first American League third baseman since 1959 to beat out Brooks Robinson. Rodríguez also led the league third basemen in fielding percentage in 1976 and 1978. Playing for the Yankees in the 1981 World Series, he hit .417 (5-for-12). His big-league career with seven teams ended in 1983.
  
  wn.com/Aurelio_Rodríguez
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  Benny Agbayani
  Benny Peter Agbayani, Jr. (pronounced /æɡbaɪˈɑːni/; born December 28, 1971 in Honolulu, Hawaii) is retired professional baseball player. Born in Hawaii to Filipino and Samoan parents, he attended Saint Louis School and Hawaii Pacific University. He also attended the Oregon Institute of Technology. He formerly played with the New York Mets, Colorado Rockies and Boston Red Sox.
  He was originally drafted by the California Angels but did not sign. Agbayani was later drafted in the 30th round by the New York Mets on June 3, 1993. He became a local star at the Triple-A minor league team, the Norfolk Tides. He has since been part of the Boston Red Sox, Colorado Rockies, Cincinnati Reds, and Kansas City Royals organizations. He last played for the Chiba Lotte Marines in the Japanese Pacific League.
  Agbayani made his major league debut with the New York Mets on June 17, 1998, as part of an 8th inning double-switch in which he defensively replaced center fielder Butch Huskey during a 5-4 loss to the Montreal Expos. He made his first start and picked up his first big league hit on June 19. Agbayani led off the bottom of the first inning by singling to second base off Florida Marlins pitcher Brian Meadows.
  
  wn.com/Benny_Agbayani
• Bernard Youens
  Bernard Arthur Youens (born Bernard Arthur Popley; 28 December 1914 – 27 August 1984) was a British character actor, best remembered for his portrayal of the workshy, beer-swilling Stan Ogden in Coronation Street from 1964 until his death in 1984.
  Born in Hove, Sussex, as Bernard Popley, "Bunny" Youens (as he was nicknamed) began his stage career as a 16-year-old after becoming assistant stage manager at the Players Theatre in Newcastle upon Tyne. Youens was from a working-class family who had no theatre connections. He went on to spend much of the 1930s honing his craft in repertory theatre. His acting career was interrupted by World War II, during which he served in North Africa and Anzio. He was wounded by shrapnel in his right leg in Anzio in February 1944. He returned to rep after the war, while also working as a publican, bread salesman, van driver and a labourer.
  He was a member of Frank Fortesque's Players after the war. Bernard "Bunny" Graham, (Youens then used Graham as a stage name; Bunny was his wife's pet name for him) appears in the film Cup-Tie Honeymoon, a Mancunian Films production, with Betty Jumel. [1] This was the first film to be shot at their Rusholme Studio in Manchester, with exteriors filmed at Maine Road Football Ground and Abney Hall in Cheadle. In the film, veteran comedian Sandy Powell performed one of his stage sketches, The Soldier’s Return Home, with a young actress, Pat Pilkington who later became famous as Pat Phoenix in Coronation Street. Despite dreadful reviews the film was a huge success in the North West and you can see a clip from the film showing Bernard Youens with Betty Jumel, Dan Young and Alec Pleon at — scroll down to Cup Tie Honeymoon (1948) (the contents of the page are listed in date order).
  
  wn.com/Bernard_Youens
• Bidia Dandaron
  Bidia Dandaron (Vidyadhara, Russian: Бидия Дандарович Дандарон) (December 28, 1914, Soorkhoi, Kizhinga, Buryatia — October 26, 1974, Vydrino, Buryatia) was a major Buddhist author and teacher in the USSR. He also worked in academic Tibetology, contributed to the Tibetan-Russian Dictionary (1959) and made several translations from Tibetan into Russian. He is mostly remembered as a Buddhist teacher whose students in Russia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania continued both religious and scholarly work, and as an early Buddhist author who wrote on European philosophy, history, and science within a Buddhist framework. Among his students were Alexander Piatigorsky and Linnart Mäll.
  Born to a Buryat Buddhist tantric practitioner named Dorji Badmaev, Bidia studied both secular and Buddhist subjects from an early age. Then, he was recognized as the tulku of Gyayag Rinpoche (Wilie: rGya yag rin po che), a Buddhist master of Gelug tradition from Kumbum Monastery, who visited Buryatia several times and died not long before Bidia was born. Gyayag Rinpoche's tulku lineage starts from Vimalakirti.
  
  wn.com/Bidia_Dandaron
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  Billy Taylor
  Billy Taylor (July 24, 1921 – December 28, 2010) was an American jazz pianist, composer, broadcaster and educator. He was the Robert L. Jones Distinguished Professor of Music at East Carolina University in Greenville, and since 1994, he was the artistic director for jazz at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.
  Taylor was a Jazz activist. He sat on the Honorary Founders Board of The Jazz Foundation of America. In 1989, Billy Taylor, Ann Ruckert, Herb Storfer and Phoebe Jacobs started The Jazz Foundation to save the homes and the lives of America's elderly jazz and blues musicians, later including musicians that survived Hurricane Katrina.
  Billy Taylor was also one of the foremost jazz educators. He lectured in colleges, served on panels and travelled worldwide as a jazz ambassador. Critic Leonard Feather once said, "It is almost indisputable that Dr. Billy Taylor is the world's foremost spokesman for jazz."
  Taylor was born in Greenville, North Carolina but moved to Washington, D.C. when he was five. He grew up in a musical family and learned to play different instruments as a child, including guitar, drums and saxophone. But he was most successful at the piano and took classical piano lessons with Henry Grant, the same teacher that had educated Duke Ellington a generation earlier. He made his first professional appearance playing keyboard at the age of 13 and the compensation was one dollar. Taylor attended Dunbar High School, America's first high school for African American students. He went to Virginia State College and majored in sociology. Pianist Dr. Undine Smith Moore noticed young Taylor's talent in piano and he changed his major to music, graduating with a degree in music in 1942.
  
  wn.com/Billy_Taylor
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  Birendra of Nepal
  Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev (वीरेन्द्र वीर विक्रम शाह) (28 December 1945 – 1 June 2001) was a King of Nepal. The son of King Mahendra, whom he succeeded in 1972, he reigned until his death in the 2001 Nepalese royal massacre. He is the most internationally well-known Nepalese king in modern history.
  King Birendra was born at the Narayanhity Royal Palace in Kathmandu as the eldest son of the then Crown Prince Mahendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev and his wife Crown Princess Indra Rajya Laxmi.
  King Birendra was the first Nepalese monarch to receive a formal education. He spent eight years studying at St Joseph's College, a Jesuit school in Darjeeling, India. On 13 March 1955 his grandfather King Tribhuvan died and his father succeeded to the Nepalese throne. With his father's ascension King Birendra became the Crown Prince of Nepal.
  In 1959 King Birendra enrolled at Eton College in the United Kingdom. After studying at Eton until 1964 he returned to Nepal where he began to explore the country by travelling incognito to remote parts of the country where he lived on whatever was available in the villages and monasteries. He later completed his education by spending some time at the University of Tokyo before studying political theory at Harvard University from 1967 to 1968. Late King Birendra enjoyed to travel in his youth and went on trips to Canada, Latin America, Africa and a number of Asian countries. He was also an art collector and supporter of Nepalese crafts people and artists. He also learnt to fly helicopters.
  
  wn.com/Birendra_of_Nepal
• Bree Williamson
  Bree Williamson Roberts (born December 28, 1979;Toronto, Ontario) is a Canadian actress.
  After graduating from Bayview Glen School, she completed her education at the University of Toronto. She is the sibling of successful business woman Tarra Williamson (Owner of Forward and Beauty Bar), she has been playing the role of Jessica Buchanan on the ABC soap opera One Life to Live since February 5, 2003. The character is the daughter of original character Viki Lord Buchanan (played by Daytime Emmy Award-winner Erika Slezak since 1971), and gave Williamson the opportunity to portray Jessica's alternate personalities "Tess", from 2005 to 2006 and again starting in 2008 and 2011.
  Williamson had previously auditioned for a role on OLTL but was rejected because of her resemblance to actress Erin Torpey, who was playing Jessica Buchanan on the show at the time. When Torpey resigned in January 2003, Williamson was remembered by the casting department and offered the role of Jessica.^{[citation needed]}
  In 2009, 2010 and 2011 Williamson was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress for the role of Jessica.
  
  wn.com/Bree_Williamson
• Brian Redhead
  Brian Leonard Redhead (28 December 1929 – 23 January 1994) was a British author, journalist and broadcaster. He was probably best known as a co-presenter of the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 which he worked on from 1975 to 1993, shortly before his death. He was a great lover and promoter of the city of Manchester and the North West in general, where he lived for most of his career.
  Redhead was born in Newcastle upon Tyne. He was the only child of Ernest Leonard Redhead, a silk screen printer and advertising agent, and his wife, Janet Crossley (née Fairley). He was educated at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle. After national service, he read history at Downing College, Cambridge.
  His career in journalism started in 1954 as a journalist for the Manchester Guardian newspaper (now The Guardian). He married Jean Salmon (known as Jenni) on 19 June 1954. They had four children: two sons, Stephen and James, and twins, Annabel (known as Abby) and William.
  He became northern editor of The Guardian in 1965, and editor of the Manchester Evening News in 1969. After being passed over for the editorship of The Guardian in favour of Peter Preston in 1975, he left to join the Today programme on BBC Radio 4, replacing Robert Robinson. He was already an experienced broadcaster, having been 'discovered' around 1960 by a BBC Manchester producer, Olive Shapley, who was looking for a presenter of a television programme called Something to Read:
  
  wn.com/Brian_Redhead
• 
  Cain and Abel
  In the Bible, Cain and Abel (Hebrew: הֶבֶל ,קַיִן‎‎ Qayin, Hevel) are two sons of Adam and Eve. The Qur'an mentions the story, calling them the two sons of Adam (Arabic: إبني آدم).
  Cain is described as a crop farmer and his younger brother Abel as a shepherd. Genesis 4:2 Cain is portrayed as sinful, committing the first murder by killing his brother, after God rejected his offerings of produce but accepted Abel's sacrifice "from the firstborn of his flock and from their fats".Genesis 4:1,3 Thus, Cain was the first human born, and Abel the first to die.
  The oldest known copy of the Biblical narration is from the 1st century Dead Sea Scrolls. Cain and Abel also appear in a number of other texts, and the story is the subject of various interpretations. Abel, the first murder victim, is sometimes seen as the first martyr; while Cain, the first murderer, is sometimes seen as an ancestor of evil. A few scholars suggest the pericope may have been based on a Sumerian story representing the conflict between nomadic shepherds and settled farmers. Others think that it may refer to the days in which agriculture began to replace the ways of the hunter-gatherer.
  
  wn.com/Cain_and_Abel
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  Calixa Lavallée
  Calixa Lavallée, (December 28, 1842 – January 21, 1891), born Calixte Lavallée, was a French-Canadian-American musician and Union Army officer during the American Civil War who composed the music for O Canada, which officially became the national anthem of Canada in 1980.
  Calixa Lavallée was born in Verchères, a suburb of Montreal, Quebec. His father, Augustin Lavallée, was accomplished in many trades, including those of blacksmith, logger, bandmaster, and self-taught luthier. Calixa began his musical education with his father and studied in Montréal with Charles Wugk Sabatier. In 1857, he moved to the U.S. and lived in Rhode Island where he enlisted in the 4th Rhode Island Volunteers of the Union army during the American Civil War, attaining the rank of Lieutenant.
  During and after the war, he traveled between Canada and the United States building his career in music. Lavallée resided in Louisiana, California, and in the French Canadian community of Lowell, Massachusetts where he married an American woman, Josephine Gentilly (or "Gently"), in 1867. He conducted major orchestral and operatic productions in important concert halls such as the Montréal Academy of Music in Montréal and directed at the Grand Opera House in New York. Among his notable pupils was composer Alexis Contant.
  
  wn.com/Calixa_Lavallée
• Cassandra Harris
  Cassandra Harris (15 December 1948^{[clarification needed]} – 28 December 1991) was an Australian actress.
  Born Sandra Colleen Waites in Sydney, Australia, Harris was a student at the National Institute of Dramatic Art. She enrolled in 1961, aged 12, under the name Sandra Gleeson. She went on to perform in the successful Sydney stage production of Boeing Boeing from 1964-65.
  She appeared in The Greek Tycoon (1978), Rough Cut (1980), and the James Bond film, For Your Eyes Only as the Countess Lisl von Schlaf, the ill-fated mistress of Milos Colombo (played by Israeli actor Topol). While filming this movie, her third husband, Pierce Brosnan, met with producer Albert R. Broccoli, which eventually led to his casting as James Bond in four films. She guest starred in several episodes of the television series Remington Steele with her husband Brosnan; they married on 27 December 1980.^{[dead link]}
  She had three children; Christopher and Charlotte Harris by her marriage to Dermot Harris, a younger brother of actor Richard Harris, and a son, Sean Brosnan (born 1983), from her marriage to Brosnan. Christopher and Charlotte were adopted by Brosnan after the death of Dermot Harris in 1986.
  
  wn.com/Cassandra_Harris
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  Caterina Volpicelli
  Caterina Volpicelli (1839–1894) was an Italian nun, foundress of the Congregation “Ancelle del Sacro Cuore di Gesù” (Maids of the Sacred Heart of Jesus). She was proclaimed Blessed by John Paul II in 2001 and Saint on April 26, 2009 by Pope Benedict XVI.
  Caterina Volpicelli was born in Naples January 21, 1839 to Peter and Teresa de Micheroux. Her family belonged to the Neapolitan high bourgeoisie and she had a deep Christian faith. After an adolescence spent loving theater, music, literature,and after a strong existential crisis, she began to gain awareness of being called to religious life. At first she thought that her vocation was for contemplative life, which she experienced, but she had had to leave due to her frail health. Especially Father Louis from Casoria helped her understand that she was called to live the evangelical counsels "remaining in the midst of society." She devoted herself to the diffusion of the Apostleship of Prayer with some assistants. Thanks to Father Ramière, Volpicelli encountered a French foundation that had her same objectives.
  
  wn.com/Caterina_Volpicelli
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  Cedric Benson
  Cedric Myron Benson (born December 28, 1982) is an American football running back who is currently a free agent. He was drafted by the Chicago Bears fourth overall in the 2005 NFL Draft. He played college football for the University of Texas at Austin.
  Benson began to emerge as a football stand-out in the eighth grade while attending Abell Junior High School in Midland, Texas under Coach Chris McKinney. Benson attended Robert E. Lee High School in Midland, Texas, and finished his career with 8,423 rushing yards (the most in Texas 5A history and the fourth most in Texas high school football history). He led his team to three consecutive State Championships, and rushed for a total of 15 touchdowns in the three championship games. Cedric rushed for more than 1,900 yards in only 9 games. He was the first high school player to ever make the cover of Dave Campbell's Texas Football annual magazine. Cedric was also a center fielder on the baseball team. As a senior, in District 4-5A games, he hit .361 with 4 home runs and 14 RBIs.
  
  wn.com/Cedric_Benson
• Charlie Pierce
  Charles P. ("Charlie") Pierce (December 28, 1953, Worcester, Massachusetts) is a American sportswriter, author, and game show panelist.
  He graduated from St. John's High School in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts and from Marquette University with a journalism major in 1975.
  Pierce's first job was as a forest ranger for the state of Massachusetts, where among other duties he retrieved disposable diapers from trees so that raccoons would not choke on them. He wrote for Worcester Magazine in the 1970s, where he covered the Blizzard of 1978. In the 1980s and '90, he was a staff reporter for the Boston Phoenix and, later, a sports columnist for the Boston Herald.
  Pierce is currently the lead political blogger for Esquire, a position he has held since September 2011. He also writes for ESPN's Grantland. He has also written for The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Boston Globe Sunday magazine, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Sports Illustrated, The National Sports Daily, GQ, and the e-zine Slate as well as the Media Matters blog Altercation, hosted by historian/pundit Eric Alterman.
  
  wn.com/Charlie_Pierce
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  Chin Peng
  Chin Peng (Chinese: 陳平, Mandarin Chén Píng), former OBE, was born in 1924 as Ong Boon Hua (Chinese: 王文華, Pinyin Wáng Wén Huá) in Sitiawan and was a long-time leader of the Malayan Communist Party (MCP). A determined anti-colonialist, he led the party's guerrilla insurgency in the Malayan Emergency and beyond.
  Chin Peng was born in late October 1924, into a middle class Hokchia (hanyu pinyin: Fuqing) family in the small seaside town of Sitiawan, in Perak state, Malaya. His father had come to the town in 1920 and started a bicycle, tyre and spare motor parts business with the help of a relative from Singapore. He attended a Chinese language school in Sitiawan. In 1937 he joined the Chinese Anti Enemy Backing Up Society (AEBUS), formed that year to send aid to China in response to Japan's aggression. According to Chin and Hack, he was not yet at that time a Communist. He was in charge of anti-Japanese activities at his school. Initially a supporter of Sun Yat-sen, by early 1939 he had embraced communism. He planned to go to Yan'an, the renowned communist base in China, but was persuaded to remain in Malaya and take on heavier responsibilities for the Party there.
  
  wn.com/Chin_Peng
• Choi Soo Jong
  Choi Soo Jong (alternately Choi Su-Jong, born on December 28, 1962) is a South Korean actor. Choi made his debut in 1987 as a young actor in the TV soap opera ‘Love Tree’. He has appeared in movies, television and as an MC on various award shows. He has received worldwide recognition for his leading roles in several highly successful shows. Most recently he garnered acclaim for his portrayals of the principal characters in the Korean historical dramas Emperor of the Sea in the role of Jang Bogo, and as the title character Dae Joyoung in the epic series Dae Jo Yeong (TV series).
  When reflecting on his more than twenty years as an actor, Choi said "To an actor, fame is short, but acting is long."
  As a public figure and social activist, Choi Soo Jong has sought to project an image of integrity and wholesomeness. His fidelity to his wife and dedication to his role as father and husband are widely discussed in the media, although he strives to retain his family's privacy. Choi also openly discusses his commitment to clean living through regular exercise and healthy eating. Despite his advancing age, Choi continues to accept physically challenging roles that require horseback riding, combat and swordsmanship, and exposure to extreme temperatures. His youthful appearance and physical fitness allow Choi to play characters much younger than his actual age.
  
  wn.com/Choi_Soo_Jong
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  Chris Coyne
  Christopher "Chris" Coyne (born 20 December 1978) is an Australian professional association football player who last played for Perth Glory and the Australian national football team as a centre back.
  He began his career with Perth S.C. before moving to England in 1996 to join West Ham United. He spent a season at Scottish Premier League club Dundee and then joined English Football League club, Luton Town, in 2001, where he spent six and a half years, making over 200 league appearances and twice winning promotion. He joined Colchester United in 2007, leaving the club in July 2009 by mutual consent. He made his international debut in June 2008 and has made seven appearances for Australia.
  Coyne, who is the older brother of Jamie Coyne of Perth Glory, started his career with Australia side Perth S.C. before a £20 000 move to England with West Ham United in January 1996, where he was part of the West Ham youth team that reached the FA Youth Cup final in 1996. After loan spells at Brentford and Southend and one appearance for West Ham against Leeds United, Coyne moved to Scottish Premier League club Dundee on a free transfer in March 2000. He made his debut for Dundee in August 2000, and made 28 appearances in all competitions during the 2000–01 season.
  
  wn.com/Chris_Coyne
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  Chris Ware
  Franklin Christenson Ware (born December 28, 1967), known professionally as Chris Ware, is an American comic book artist and cartoonist, notable for his Acme Novelty Library series and the graphic novel Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth. His works explore themes of social isolation, emotional torment and depression.
  Born in Omaha, Nebraska, Ware resides in the Chicago area of Illinois. His earliest published strips appeared in the late 1980s on the comics page of The Daily Texan, the student newspaper of the University of Texas at Austin. In addition to numerous daily strips under different titles, Ware also had a weekly satirical science fiction serial in the paper titled Floyd Farland: Citizen of the Future. This was eventually published in 1988 as a prestige format comic book from Eclipse Publishing, and its publication even led to a brief correspondence between Ware and Timothy Leary. Now embarrassed by the book, which he considers amateurish and naive, Ware is reportedly purchasing and destroying all remaining copies.
  
  wn.com/Chris_Ware
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  Clayton Moore
  Clayton Moore (September 14, 1914 – December 28, 1999) was an American actor best known for playing the fictional western character The Lone Ranger from 1949–1951 and 1954-1957 on the television series of the same name.
  Born Jack Carlton Moore in Chicago, Illinois, Moore became a circus acrobat by age 8 and appeared at the Century of Progress exposition in Chicago in 1934 with a trapeze act.
  As a young man, Moore worked successfully as a John Robert Powers model. Moving to Hollywood in the late 1930s, he worked as a stunt man and bit player between modeling jobs. According to his autobiography, around 1940 Hollywood producer Edward Small persuaded him to adopt the stage name "Clayton" Moore. He was an occasional player in B westerns and the lead in four Republic Studio cliffhangers, and two for Columbia. Moore served in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II and made training films (Target--Invisible, etc.) with the First Motion Picture Unit.
  Moore's career advanced in 1949, when George Trendle spotted him in the Ghost of Zorro serial. As creator-producer of The Lone Ranger radio show (with writer Fran Striker), Trendle was about to launch the television version. Moore landed the role.
  
  wn.com/Clayton_Moore
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  Cliff Arquette
  Clifford Charles Arquette (December 27, 1905 – September 23, 1974) was an actor and comedian, famous for his role as Charley Weaver.
  Arquette was born in Toledo, Ohio, the son of Augustus Arquette, a vaudevillian. He was the patriarch of the Arquette show business family, which became famous because of him. Arquette was the father of the late actor Lewis Arquette and the grandfather of actors Patricia, Rosanna, Alexis (originally Robert), Richmond, and David Arquette. He was a night club pianist, later joining the Henry Halstead orchestra in 1923.
  Arquette had been a busy, yet not nationally known, performer in radio, theatre, and motion pictures until 1956, when he retired from show business. At one time, he was credited with performing in 13 different daily radio shows at different stations in the Chicago market, getting from one studio to the other by way of motorboats along the Chicago River through its downtown. One such radio series he performed on was The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok Arquette and Dave Willock had their own radio show, Dave and Charley, in the early 1950s as well as a television show by the same name that was on the air for three months. Arquette performed on the shows as Charley Weaver.
  
  wn.com/Cliff_Arquette
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  Constance Markievicz
  Constance Georgine Markievicz, Countess Markievicz (Polish: Markiewicz; née Gore-Booth; 4 February 1868 – 15 July 1927) was an Irish Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil politician, revolutionary nationalist, suffragette and socialist. In December 1918, she was the first woman elected to the British House of Commons, though she did not take her seat and along with the other Sinn Féin TDs formed the first Dáil Éireann. She was also one of the first women in the world to hold a cabinet position (Minister for Labour of the Irish Republic, 1919–1922).
  She was born Constance Georgine Gore-Booth at Buckingham Gate in London, the elder daughter of the Arctic explorer and adventurer Sir Henry Gore-Booth, 5th Baronet, an Anglo-Irish landlord who administered an 100 km² (39 sq mi) estate, and Lady Georgina née Hill. During the famine of 1879–80, Sir Henry provided free food for the tenants on his estate at Lissadell House in the north of County Sligo in the north-west of Ireland. Their father's example inspired in Gore-Booth and her younger sister, Eva Gore-Booth, a deep concern for the poor. The sisters were childhood friends of the poet W. B. Yeats, who frequently visited the family home Lissadell House, and were influenced by his artistic and political ideas. Yeats wrote a poem, In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markiewicz, in which he described the sisters as "two girls in silk kimonos, both beautiful, one a gazelle". Eva later became involved in the labour movement and women's suffrage in England, although initially the future countess did not share her sister's ideals.
  
  wn.com/Constance_Markievicz
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  David Archuleta
  David James Archuleta (born December 28, 1990) is an American pop singer-songwriter. At ten years old he won the children's division of the Utah Talent Competition leading to other television singing appearances. When he was twelve years old, Archuleta became the Junior Vocal Champion on Star Search 2. In 2007, at sixteen years old, he became one of the youngest contestants on the seventh season of American Idol. In May 2008 he finished as the runner-up, receiving 44 percent of over 97 million votes.
  In August 2008 Archuleta released "Crush," the first single from his self-titled debut album. The album, released three months later, debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 chart; it has sold over 750,000 copies in the U.S., and over 900,000 worldwide. In October 2010 he released a third album, The Other Side of Down featuring lead single "Something 'Bout Love". In 2011, Archuleta announced he is taking a two-year hiatus to be a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As of February 2012, Archuleta has sold 1,108,000 albums and 3,327,000 tracks in the United States.
  
  wn.com/David_Archuleta
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  David Peterson
  David Robert Peterson, PC, O.Ont (born December 28, 1943) was the 20th Premier of the Province of Ontario, Canada, from June 26, 1985 to October 1, 1990. He was the first Liberal premier of Ontario in 42 years.
  Peterson is married to actress Shelley Peterson, and is the younger brother of Jim Peterson, formerly a federal Liberal MP and cabinet minister. Both his sister-in-law Deb Matthews and Tim Peterson, a third brother, were elected to the Ontario legislature in the 2003 provincial election while Deb Matthews was re elected in 2007 and 2011. He has three children named Benjamin, Chloe and Adam.
  David Peterson earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Western Ontario and his law degree from the University of Toronto. He was called to the bar in 1969. Despite his legal background, most of Peterson's early career was spent in the world of private enterprise. At the age of twenty-six, he became president of C.M. Peterson Company Limited, a wholesale electronics firm founded by his father, and joined the Chamber of Commerce's Young Presidents Club in the same period.
  
  wn.com/David_Peterson
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  Dennis Wilson
  Dennis Carl Wilson (December 4, 1944 – December 28, 1983) was an American rock and roll musician best known as a founding member and the drummer of The Beach Boys. He was a member of the group from its formation until his death in 1983. Dennis was the middle brother of fellow Beach Boys members Brian Wilson and Carl Wilson, as well as cousin of Mike Love.
  His prominence in the group as a writer and lead vocalist increased as their careers went on into the late 1960s and 1970s. He is often considered the dark horse of the Beach Boys members amongst fans and in 1977 he released his solo album Pacific Ocean Blue to wide critical acclaim, near Gold sales in the US and higher sales overseas. Dennis Wilson was also the only real-life surfer of the group, the seminal, most original and famous of the groups to be tagged surf rock in the early 1960s, and his personal life exemplified the beach lifestyle that the group's songs often celebrated.
  Wilson was the son of Audree Neva (née Korthof) and Murry Gage Wilson. He spent his family years with his brothers and parents in Hawthorne, California. Dennis' role in the family dynamic, which he himself acknowledged, was that of the black sheep. Though anxiety-filled and aggressive at times, like the other Wilson brothers he was (over)sensitive and generous. He was the most often spanked of the Wilson brothers, by their strong-willed father Murry. Possessed with an abundance of physical energy and a combative nature, Dennis often refused to participate in family singalongs, and likewise avoided vocalizing on the early recordings made by Brian on a portable tape recorder. However, Dennis would sing with his brothers late at night in their shared bedroom on a song Brian later recalled as "our special one we'd sing," titled Come Down, Come Down from the Ivory Tower. Brian noted of the late night brotherly three-part harmonies: "We developed a little blend which aided us when we started to get into the Beach Boys stuff."
  
  wn.com/Dennis_Wilson
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  Denzel Washington
  Denzel Hayes Washington, Jr. (born December 28, 1954) is an American actor, screenwriter, director, and film producer. He first rose to prominence when he joined the cast of the medical drama, St. Elsewhere, playing Dr. Philip Chandler for six years. He has received much critical acclaim for his work in film since the 1990s, including for his portrayals of real-life figures, such as Steve Biko, Malcolm X, Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, Melvin B. Tolson, Frank Lucas and Herman Boone.
  Washington has received two Academy Awards, two Golden Globe awards, and a Tony Award. He is notable for winning the Best Supporting Actor for Glory in 1989; and the Academy Award for Best Actor in 2001 for his role in the film Training Day.
  Denzel Washington was born in Mount Vernon, near New York City, New York on December 28, 1954. His mother, Lennis "Lynne", was a beauty parlor-owner and operator born in Georgia and partly raised in Harlem. His father, Reverend Denzel Hayes Washington, Sr., a native of Buckingham County, Virginia, served as an ordained Pentecostal minister, and also worked for the Water Department and a local department store, S. Klein.
  
  wn.com/Denzel_Washington
• Desiree Ortíz
  Desiree Ortíz (born December 28, 1982 in Caracas, Venezuela) is a television host, model and journalist. Her career began with Venevision in shows like "Ruge Mania", "Atómico", "A Toda Acción" and "Nubeluz" on the Televen Network.
  Additionally, she has appeared on various advertising campaigns and TV commercials in her country.
  Desiree was born in Caracas where she attended school and learned to ride. Niece of Venezuela's most prominent tenor Alfredo Sadel.
  At the age of 17, she began her studies in social communication in the Universidad Santa María (Caracas), a private university in Venezuela. This university has the largest school of social communication in the country. And at 21 she left to continue her education and pursue work opportunities abroad.
  She lived and worked in Spain, Mexico,Costa Rica,Colombia, Argentina and the United States. After commuting between Los Angeles and Miami, she settled down in the United States. In 2006, she acted as host for DirecTV Latin America's coverage of the 2006 FIFA World Cup, leading to her image being broadcast across the region.
  
  wn.com/Desiree_Ortíz
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  Dhirubhai Ambani
  Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani (Hindi: धीरजलाल हीराचंद अंबानी; 28 December 1932 – 6 July 2002) was an Indian industrialist who founded Reliance Industries, a petrochemicals, communications, power, and textiles conglomerate and one of the 3 privately owned Indian companies in the Fortune 500. Ambani took his company public in 1977. Dhirubhai has been among the select few to be figured in the Sunday Times list of top 50 businessmen in Asia. His life has often been referred to as a true "rags to riches" story.
  Dhirubhai started off as a small time worker with Arab merchants in the 1950s and moved to Mumbai in 1958 to start his own business in spices. After making modest profits, he moved into textiles and opened his mill near Ahmedabad. He founded Reliance Industries in 1966, and today, the company, with over 85,000 employees, provides almost 5% of the Central Government's total tax revenue. Ambani was credited with introducing the stock market to the average Indian investor, and thousands of investors attended the Reliance annual general meetings, which were sometimes held in a football stadium, with millions more watching on television.^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/Dhirubhai_Ambani
• Dick Sudhalter
  Richard "Dick" Sudhalter (December 28, 1938 – September 19, 2008) was an American jazz trumpeter, scholar, critic, and album annotator.
  Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Sudhalter was inspired to pursue a musical career by his father Al Sudhalter, a noted Boston-area saxophone soloist. He began playing the cornet at 12 and within a few years was performing professionally. After graduating from Oberlin College, he moved to Europe in 1964, later becoming a United Press International correspondent. In 1968 he covered the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia from Prague for UPI and was subsequently assigned the role of Manager for Eastern Europe. During his twelve years living in Europe and the UK, he also wrote under the pseudonym "Art Napoleon." He wrote jazz criticism for the New York Post from 1978 to 1984.
  In 1974 Sudhalter and Philip R. Evans co-wrote Bix: Man and Legend, the standard biography of jazz cornetist Bix Beiderbecke and the first jazz biography ever to be nominated for a National Book Award. Music critic Terry Teachout has called the book "a 'landmark of jazz scholarship' and the 'first jazz biography written to the standards' of a serious study of a classical composer or other major historical figure." Sudhalter's other books are Lost Chords: White Musicians and Their Contribution to Jazz, 1915-1945 (1999) and Stardust Melody (2002), the first full-length biography of Hoagy Carmichael. Lost Chords ignited some controversy for its assertion that jazz was shaped by both black and white musicians. Sudhalter received an ASCAP Deems Taylor Special Citation for Excellence for Lost Chords, and a Grammy Award in 1983 for his liner notes for Bunny Berigan: Giants of Jazz.
  
  wn.com/Dick_Sudhalter
• Dorsey Burnette
  Dorsey Burnette (December 28, 1932, Memphis, Tennessee - August 19, 1979, Canoga Park, California) was an early Rockabilly singer. With his younger brother, Johnny Burnette, and a friend named Paul Burlison, he was a founder member of The Rock and Roll Trio.
  Dorsey Burnett was born on December 28, 1932 to Willie May and Dorsey Burnett Sr. in Memphis, Tennessee. The 'e' at the end of his surname was added later. His younger brother, John Joseph "Johnny" Burnett, was born on March 25, 1934. The family lived in a public housing project in the Lauderdale Courts area of Memphis, Tennessee.^{[citation needed]}
  Dorsey was a competent athlete with an interest in boxing. Both of the Burnette Brothers turned out to be successful amateur boxers, becoming local Golden Gloves champions. In 1949, Dorsey was introduced to another young boxing contender named Paul Burlison by his boxing teacher, Jimmy Denson and they were to become firm friends. Later, Burlison was introduced to Johnny Burnette and they also become firm friends. All three men had a mutual interest in music to which they had had an early introduction to music. Burlison had begun to receive guitar lessons when he was eight years old. In 1939, Dorsey Sr. gave his two sons a pair of Gene Autry guitars. According to most sources, each brothers immediately broke them over the other's head.^{[citation needed]} Dorsey Sr. doggedly bought them two more guitars. Dorsey later recalled that their father had said, "Learn to play those guitars. You can be like those folks on the Grand Ole Opry if you want to ……." Dorsey said that "he learned the G, C and E chords and when the strings broke, he would use bailing wire".^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/Dorsey_Burnette
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  Earl Hines
  Earl Kenneth Hines, universally known as Earl "Fatha" Hines, (December 28, 1903 – April 22, 1983) was an American jazz pianist. Hines was one of the most influential figures in the development of modern jazz piano and, according to one major source, is "one of a small number of pianists whose playing shaped the history of jazz".
  Earl Hines was born in Duquesne, Pennsylvania 12 miles from Pittsburgh city center. His father played cornet and was leader of Pittsburgh's Eureka Brass Band, his stepmother a church organist. Hines intended to follow his father on cornet but "blowing" hurt him behind the ears - while the piano didn't. The young Hines took classical piano lessons - at eleven he was playing organ in his local Baptist church - but he also had a "good ear and a good memory" and could re-play songs and numbers he heard in theaters and park 'concerts': "I'd be playing songs from these shows months before the song copies came out. That astonished a lot of people and they'd ask where I heard these numbers and I'd tell them at the theatre where my parents had taken me." Later Hines was to say that he was playing piano around Pittsburgh "before the word 'jazz' was even invented".
  
  wn.com/Earl_Hines
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  Edgar Winter
  Edgar Holland Winter (born December 28, 1946) is an American musician. He is famous for being a multi-instrumentalist. He is a highly skilled keyboardist, saxophonist and percussionist. He often plays an instrument while singing. He was most successful in the 1970s with his band, The Edgar Winter Group, notably with their popular songs "Frankenstein" and "Free Ride". He has albinism.
  Winter was born to John Winter II and Edith Winter on December 28, 1946, in Beaumont, Texas. Both he and his brother Johnny have albinism, and both were required to take special education classes in high school. Winter states, "In school I had a lot of friends. I wore a lot of white shirts to, like, blend in I guess. No one really gave me a hard time about being albino or taking special education classes. Then again, I wasn't really popular."
  By the time Edgar Winter left his hometown of Beaumont, Texas, in the 1960s, he was already a proficient musician. A child prodigy who achieved international success early on, Edgar has found an audience in a number of major entertainment media, including music, film and television.
  
  wn.com/Edgar_Winter
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  Eduard Strauss
  Eduard Strauss (15 March 1835 – 28 December 1916) was an Austrian composer who, together with brothers Johann Strauss II and Josef Strauss made up the Strauss musical dynasty. The family dominated the Viennese light music world for decades, creating many waltzes and polkas for many Austrian nobility as well as dance-music enthusiasts around Europe. He was affectionately known in his family as 'Edi'.
  Eduard Strauss' style was individual and did not attempt to emulate the works of his other brothers or his contemporaries. But he was primarily remembered and recognized as a dance music conductor rather than as a major composer in the Strauss family, and his popularity was overshadowed by that of his elder brothers. Realising this, he stamped his own mark with the quick polka, known in German as the "polka-schnell". Among the more popular polkas that he ever penned for the Strauss Orchestra, which he continued to conduct until its disbandment on 13 February 1901, were "Bahn Frei", op. 45, "Ausser Rand und Band", op.168, and "Ohne Bremse", op. 238. He also found time to pen a few lovely waltzes, of which only a handful survived obscurity. The most famous is probably the "Doctrinen", op.79.
  
  wn.com/Eduard_Strauss
• Elaine Hendrix
  Elaine Hendrix (born December 28, 1970) is an American actress, producer, singer, dancer, and activist. She is best known for her roles in the 1998 remake of The Parent Trap, Inspector Gadget 2, and the 2004 documentary What the Bleep Do We Know!?.
  Hendrix was born as Katherine Elaine Hendrix in Oak Ridge, Tennessee to Thomas Hendrix, Jr., and Mary Elaine DePersio, and was raised in Morristown, Tennessee. When Elaine was 15 she and her mother moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where she attended the Northside School of Performing Arts.
  She has a brother, David Maher, and a sister, Veronica Smith; both are married and have children. Hendrix has maternal Italian, Irish, and Danish heritage.
  In her senior year of high school Hendrix won a model search and became a professional dancer with the Gary Harrison Dance Co. She soon split her time as a professional model and dancer for such companies as Nike, Levi's, Mattel, and Sun Microsystems, and for a number of hip-hop artists including Whodini, Keith Sweat, and MC Hammer.
  
  wn.com/Elaine_Hendrix
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  Emperor Hanazono
  Emperor Hanazono (花園天皇 Hanazono-tennō) (August 14, 1297 – December 2, 1348) was the 95th emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. His reign spanned the years from 1308 through 1318.
  Before his ascension to the Chrysanthemum Throne, his personal name (his imina) was Tomihito-shinnō (富仁親王).
  He was the fourth son of the 92nd Emperor, Fushimi. He belonged to the Jimyōin-tō branch of the Imperial Family.
  Tomihito-shinnō became emperor upon the abdication of his second cousin, the Daikakuji-tō Emperor Go-Nijō.
  Hanazono's father, the retired-Emperor Fushimi, and Hanazono's brother, the retired-Emperor Go-Fushimi, both exerted influence as cloistered emperors during this reign.
  In these years, negotiations between the Bakufu and the two imperial lines resulted in an agreement to alternate the throne between the two lines every 10 years (the Bumpō Agreement). This agreement was not long-lasting. The negotiated provisions would soon broken by Hanazono's successor.
  In 1318, he abdicated to his second cousin, the Daikakuji-tō Emperor Go-Daigo, who was the brother of Go-Nijō.
  
  wn.com/Emperor_Hanazono
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  Emperor of Japan
  The Emperor of Japan is "the symbol of the state and of the unity of the people" according to the 1947 Constitution of Japan, which dissolved the Empire of Japan when it was adopted by the Postwar Japanese government. He is a ceremonial figurehead under a form of constitutional monarchy and is head of the Japanese Imperial Family with functions as head of state. He is also the highest authority of the Shinto religion as he and his family are said to be direct descendants of Amaterasu.
  The Emperor is called the Tennō (天皇) in Japanese, literally meaning "heavenly sovereign". He is also referred to in English as the Mikado (帝) of Japan. Currently the Emperor of Japan is the only remaining monarch in the world reigning under the title of emperor.
  The Imperial House of Japan is the oldest continuing hereditary monarchy in the world. In Nihon Shoki, a book of Japanese history finished in the eighth century, it is said that the Empire of Japan was founded in 660 BC by Emperor Jimmu. The current emperor is His Imperial Majesty the Emperor Akihito, who has been on the Chrysanthemum Throne since his father the Showa Emperor (Hirohito) died in 1989.
  
  wn.com/Emperor_of_Japan
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  Emperor Rokujō
  Emperor Rokujō (六条天皇 Rokujō-tennō) (December 28, 1164 – August 23, 1176) was the 79th emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. His reign spanned the years from 1165 through 1168.
  Before his ascension to the Chrysanthemum Throne, his personal name (his imina) was Nobuhito-shinnō. He was as Yoshihito- or Toshihito-shinnō.
  He was the son of Emperor Nijō. He left no children.
  He was made Crown Prince before his first birthday, and was enthroned at the age of 8 months.
  He was pressured by the Taira clan to abdicate in favor of his uncle, who became Emperor Takakura.
  Rokujō died at the age of eleven. Because of his youth, he had neither consorts nor children. Government affairs were run by his grandfather, Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa as cloistered emperor. His imperial mausoleum is designated as Seikanji no misasagi (清閑寺陵), located in Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto.
  Kugyō (公卿) is a collective term for the very few most powerful men attached to the court of the Emperor of Japan in pre-Meiji eras.
  
  wn.com/Emperor_Rokujō
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  Eugenio Espejo
  Francisco Javier Eugenio de Santa Cruz y Espejo (Royal Audiencia of Quito, 1747–1795) was a medical pioneer, writer and lawyer of mestizo origin in colonial Ecuador. Although he was a notable scientist and writer, he stands out as a polemicist who inspired the separatist movement in Quito. He is regarded as one of the most important figures in colonial Ecuador. He was Quito's first journalist and hygienist. As a journalist he spread enlightened ideas in the Royal Audiencia, and as a hygienist he composed an important treatise about sanitary conditions in colonial Ecuador that included interesting remarks about microorganisms and the spreading of disease.
  Espejo was noted in his time for being a satirist. His satirical works, inspired by the philosophy of the Age of Enlightenment, were critical of the lack of education of the Audiencia of Quito, the way economy was being handled in the Audiencia, the corruption of its authorities, and aspects of its culture in general. Because of these works he was persecuted and finally imprisoned shortly before his death.
  
  wn.com/Eugenio_Espejo
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  Eugeniusz Bodo
  Eugeniusz Bodo (born Bohdan Eugène Junod; 1899 – 1943) was a film director, producer and one of the most popular Polish actors and comedians of the inter-war period. He starred in some of the most popular Polish film productions of the 1930s, including His Excellency, The Shop Assistant, Czy Lucyna to dziewczyna? and Pieśniarz Warszawy. A skilled singer, he became one of the icons of Polish musical comedies of the time and a symbol of Polish commercial cinema. Towards the end of that decade he also became a successful entrepreneur, a co-owner of a successful film studio, a café and a producers company. Arrested by the Soviets in the aftermath of the German and Soviet invasion of Poland, he perished in the Gulag.
  Bohdan Eugène Junod was born December 28, 1899. His birthplace however is not certain, sources mention Warsaw, Łódź and Geneva, Switzerland.. His mother was Jadwiga Anna Dorota née Dylewska. His father, Teodor Junod, was a Swiss citizen (possibly of Jewish ancestry) who moved to Russian-held Poland and in 1903 settled in Łódź. There he opened a revue-cinema Urania - the first permanent cinema theatre in that city. It was there that Bodo made his stage debut at the age of six.
  
  wn.com/Eugeniusz_Bodo
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  Euric
  Euric (Gothic: Aiwareiks), also known as Evaric, or Eurico in Spanish and Portuguese (c. 440 – 484), Son of Theodoric I and the younger brother of Theodoric II and ruled as king of the Visigoths, with his capital at Toulouse, from 466 until his death in 484.
  He inherited a large portion of the Visigothic possessions in the Aquitaine region of Gaul, an area that had been under Visigothic control since 415. Over the decades the Visigoths had gradually expanded their holdings at the expense of the weak Roman government, advancing well into Hispania in the process.
  Upon becoming king, Euric defeated several other Visigothic kings and chieftains in a series of civil wars and soon became the first ruler of a truly unified Visigothic nation. Taking advantage of the Romans' problems, he extended Visigothic power in Hispania, driving the Suevi into the northwest of Iberia. By the time the Western Roman Empire ended in 476 he controlled nearly the entire Iberian peninsula.
  In 470 Euric defeated an attempted invasion of Gaul by the British king Riothamus and expanded his kingdom even further north, possibly as far as the Somme River, the March of Frankish territory.
  
  wn.com/Euric
• Ferry Rotinsulu
  Ferry Rotinsulu (born 28 December 1982 in Palu, Central Sulawesi, Indonesia) is an Indonesian footballer. He plays as goalkeeper and he stands 182 cm.
  He is a goalkeeper for the Indonesia national football team. In the Asian Cup 2007 Rotinsulu was the third goalkeeper after Yandri Pitoy and Markus Horison. He was also a former member of Indonesia U-23 Team at Sea Games 2005 Manila, Philippines, where he was the second choice goalkeeper after Samsidar.
  "I want to be the son of Palu with good contribution for nation by playing football. I wouldn't reach only halfway in my career. I want to be number one goalkeeper." Ferry said.
  Ferry currently plays for the club Sriwijaya. He is a spider on the web that's difficult to be perforated by enemies, said Arjuna Rinaldi, Sriwijaya's goalkeeping coach. Trying to be consistent and determined, Ferry wants to bring his club to the top achievement. His efforts came to be paid when Sriwijaya FC won double titles as the champion of Liga Indonesia 2007 and Piala Indonesia 2007. He became one of the key players to the success of the team's double winners.
  
  wn.com/Ferry_Rotinsulu
• Fletcher Henderson
  James Fletcher Hamilton Henderson, Jr. (December 18, 1897 – December 29, 1952) was an American pianist, bandleader, arranger and composer, important in the development of big band jazz and swing music. His was one of the most prolific black orchestras and his influence was vast. He was often known as "Smack" Henderson (apparently named due to his college baseball hitting skills).
  Fletcher Henderson was born in Cuthbert, Georgia. He attended Atlanta University in Atlanta, Georgia and graduated in 1920. After graduation, he moved to New York City to attend Columbia University for a master's degree in chemistry. However, he found his job prospects in chemistry to be very restricted due to his race, and turned to music for a living.
  He was recording director for the fledgling Black Swan label from 1921-1923. Throughout the early and mid 1920s, Henderson provided solo piano accompanyment for many blues singers. In 1922 he formed his own band, which was resident first at the Club Alabam then at the Roseland Ballroom, and quickly became known as the best African-American band in New York. Even though he did not do band arrangements in the 1920's, for a time his ideas of arrangement were heavily influenced by those of Paul Whiteman, but when Louis Armstrong joined his orchestra in 1924 Henderson realized there could be a much richer potential for jazz band orchestration. Henderson's band also boasted the formidable arranging talents of Don Redman (from 1922 to 1927). During the 1920s and very early 1930s, Henderson actually wrote few, if any, arrangements; most of his recordings were arranged by Redman (c. 1923-1927) or Benny Carter (after 1927-c. 1931). As an arranger, Henderson came into his own in the mid-1930s.
  
  wn.com/Fletcher_Henderson
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  Florence Lawrence
  Florence Lawrence (January 2, 1886 – December 28, 1938) was a Canadian inventor and silent film actress. She is often referred to as "The First Movie Star." When she was popular, she was known as "The Biograph Girl," "The Imp Girl," and "The Girl of a Thousand Faces." Lawrence appeared in close to 300 films for various motion picture companies.
  Born Florence Annie Bridgwood in Hamilton, Ontario, she was the child of Charlotte A. Bridgwood, a vaudeville actress known professionally as Lotta Lawrence, who was the leading lady and director of the Lawrence Dramatic Company. Her father was George Bridgwood (born Stafforshire, England; died 1898, Hamilton, Wentworth, Ontario, Canada). Florence's surname was changed at age four to her mother's stage name. After her father's death, Florence, her mother and two older brothers moved from Hamilton, Ontario to Buffalo, New York. Florence attended local schools and developed athletic skills, in particular horseback riding and ice-skating.
  After graduating from school, Lawrence joined her mother's dramatic company. However, the company disbanded after a series of disputes made it impossible for the members to continue working together. Lawrence and her mother moved to New York City around 1906.
  
  wn.com/Florence_Lawrence
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  Francesca Le
  Francesca Le (born December 28, 1970) is an American pornographic actress and director.
  Le started in the adult industry in 1990 and retired from performing around 1994. She worked in sales at Extreme Associates where she met her future husband, Mark Wood. She returned to performing in 2000 and started LeWood with her husband in 2002.
  She has starred in over 200 productions, with over 40 films to her credit as director.
  In 2011, she also made a small ironic cameo appearance in Norwegian Hardstyle producers Da Tweekaz song and music video "P.A.P (People against Porn)" for the record label Dirty Workz.^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/Francesca_Le
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  Francis de Sales
  Francis de Sales, T.O.M., A.O.F.M. Cap., (French: François de Sales) (August 21, 1567 – December 28, 1622) was a Bishop of Geneva and is honored as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church. He became noted for his deep faith and his gentle approach to the religious divisions in his land resulting from the Protestant Reformation. He is known also for his writings on the topic of spiritual direction and spiritual formation, particularly the Introduction to the Devout Life and the Treatise on the Love of God.
  Francis de Sales was born on the 21 August 1567 in the Château de Sales into the noble Sales family of the Duchy of Savoy, in what is today Thorens-Glières, Haute-Savoie, France. His father was François de Sales, Lord of Boisy, Sales and Novel, and his mother was Françoise de Sionnz, the only child of a prominent magistrate. Because he was the first of six children, his father wanted him to attend the best schools, and he enjoyed a privileged education in the nearby towns of La Roche-sur-Foron and Annecy and his spiritual formation and academics were entrusted to the Jesuits. In 1583, he went to the Collège de Clermont in Paris.
  
  wn.com/Francis_de_Sales
• Frank Sepe
  Frank Sepe (born December 28, 1971 in Rosedale, New York) is an American fitness author, publisher, TV personality, and a fitness model of Italian and German descent.
  Sepe has been featured on more than 100 magazine covers all over the world, on romance book covers, in hundreds of bodybuilding magazine articles, and on such television programs as Inside Edition, The Late Show with David Letterman, The Howard Stern Show, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and Hard Copy. Sepe was fitness host for ESPN2 Cold Pizza. Frank appeared in two movies: Carlito's Way and Shortcut to Happiness. He also hosted a call-in fitness radio show called The Truth on HayHouseradio.com in 2006.
  Sepe is a columnist in fitness magazines and has contributed to dozens of magazines such as Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, MuscleMag and American Health & Fitness. He was the managing editor for magazines AXL, HealthSmart Today and Healthwatchers. He currently is the editor and chief of the MET-Rx Fitness Magazine and owned magazine MAQ -Men's Athletic Quarterly (www.maqmag.com) which he sold in 2009.
  
  wn.com/Frank_Sepe
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  Frank Turner
  Frank Turner (born 28 December 1981) is an Englishfolk/punk singer-songwriter from Meonstoke, Winchester. Initially the vocalist of post-hardcore band Million Dead, Turner embarked upon a primarily acoustic-based solo career following the band's split in 2005. To date, Turner has released four solo albums, two rarities compilation albums and four EPs. Turner began recording for his new album England Keep My Bones, in January 2011. It was released on 6 June 2011 in the UK, and 7 June 2011 worldwide.
  Turner was educated on a scholarship at Eton College, where he studied alongside Prince William, and later went on to attend the London School of Economics where he read History. His father, Roger Turner, is the son of Sir Mark Turner, formerly chairman of high street retailer BHS, and had himself also attended Eton before becoming a City investment banker, while his mother, Jane, the daughter of a bishop, is a primary school headmistress.
  Turner's musical career began at school, with the short-lived alternative band Kneejerk. The band released three records and played several shows around the UK (including a support slot for Boysetsfire), before disbanding in November 2001. The last record, their only full length, was entitled 'The half life of kissing' and was released by Yorkshire DIY hardcore label Sakari Empire after the band had actually broken up.
  
  wn.com/Frank_Turner
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  François Gourmet
  François Gourmet (born 28 December 1982 in Libramont) is a Belgian decathlete. His personal best score is 7974 points, achieved at the 2007 World Championships in Osaka, Japan. He is a former Belgian record holder.
  
  
  
  
  
  wn.com/François_Gourmet
• Freddie King
  Freddie King (September 3, 1934 – December 28, 1976), thought to have been born as Frederick Christian, originally recording as Freddy King, and nicknamed "the Texas Cannonball", was an influential American blues guitarist and singer. He is often mentioned as one of "the Three Kings" of electric blues guitar, along with Albert King and B.B. King, as well as the youngest of the three.
  Freddie King based his guitar style on Texas and Chicago influences and was one of the first bluesmen to have a multi-racial backing band onstage with him at live performances. He is best known for singles such as "Have You Ever Loved A Woman" (1960) and his Top 40 hit "Hide Away" (1961). He is also known for albums such as the early, instrumental-packed Let's Hide Away and Dance Away with Freddy King (1961) and the later album Burglar (1974), which displayed King's mature versatility as both player and singer in a range of blues and funk styles.
  King had a twenty-year recording career and became established as an influential guitarist with hits for Federal Records, in the early 1960s. He inspired American musicians such as Jerry Garcia, Stevie Ray Vaughan and his brother Jimmie Vaughan and others. His influence was also felt in UK, through recordings by blues revivalists such as Eric Clapton,Peter Green, and Chicken Shack.
  
  wn.com/Freddie_King
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  Galileo Galilei
  Galileo Galilei (Italian pronunciation: [ɡaliˈlɛːo ɡaliˈlɛi]; 15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642), was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations and support for Copernicanism. Galileo has been called the "father of modern observational astronomy", the "father of modern physics", the "father of science", and "the Father of Modern Science".
  His contributions to observational astronomy include the telescopic confirmation of the phases of Venus, the discovery of the four largest satellites of Jupiter (named the Galilean moons in his honour), and the observation and analysis of sunspots. Galileo also worked in applied science and technology, inventing an improved military compass and other instruments.
  Galileo's championing of heliocentrism was controversial within his lifetime, when most subscribed to either geocentrism or the Tychonic system. He met with opposition from astronomers, who doubted heliocentrism due to the absence of an observed stellar parallax. The matter was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615, and they concluded that it could only be supported as a possibility, not as an established fact. Galileo later defended his views in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, which appeared to attack Pope Urban VIII and thus alienated him and the Jesuits, who had both supported Galileo up until this point. He was tried by the Inquisition, found "vehemently suspect of heresy", forced to recant, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest. It was while Galileo was under house arrest that he wrote one of his finest works, Two New Sciences. Here he summarized the work he had done some forty years earlier, on the two sciences now called kinematics and strength of materials.
  
  wn.com/Galileo_Galilei
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  Gayle King
  Gayle King (born December 28, 1954) is a co-anchor of CBS This Morning and an editor-at-large for O, The Oprah Magazine.
  King was born in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Her father was an electrical engineer and her mother was a homemaker. As a result of her father's work, King spent several years of her childhood in Turkey, where she attended an American school. The family later returned to Maryland. She graduated from the University of Maryland in 1976 with a double degree in psychology and sociology. King then moved to Kansas City, Missouri where she was a reporter and weekend anchor at WDAF-TV. In 1981, she was hired as a news anchor for WFSB in Hartford, Connecticut, where she worked for 18 years. In 1991, King briefly cohosted an NBC daytime talk show with Robin Wagner called Cover to Cover until it was cancelled. She was married to Bill Bumpus, an attorney and an assistant attorney general in Connecticut, from 1982 to 1993. In 1997 she was offered her own syndicated talk show, The Gayle King Show, which was later cancelled due to low ratings.
  
  wn.com/Gayle_King
• Guy Debord
  Guy Ernest Debord (December 28, 1931 – November 30, 1994) was a French Marxist theorist, writer, filmmaker, member of the Letterist International, founder of a Letterist faction, and founding member of the Situationist International (SI). He was also briefly a member of Socialisme ou Barbarie.
  Guy Debord was born in Paris in 1931. Guy's father, Martial, was a pharmacist who died due to illness when Guy was young. Guy's mother, Paulette Rossi, sent Guy to live with his grandmother in her family villa in Italy. During World War II, the Rossis left the villa and began to travel from town to town. As a result, Guy attended high school in Cannes, where he began his interest in film and vandalism. As a young man, Debord actively opposed the French war in Algeria and joined in demonstrations in Paris against it.
  Debord joined the Letterist International when he was 19. The Letterists were led dictatorially by Isidore Isou until a widely agreed upon schism ended Isou's authority. This schism birthed several factions of Letterists, one of which was decidedly led by Debord upon Gil Wolman's unequivocal recommendation. In the 1960s, Debord led the Situationist International group, which influenced the Paris Uprising of 1968. Some consider his book The Society of the Spectacle (1967) to be a catalyst for the uprising.
  
  wn.com/Guy_Debord
• Herborg Kråkevik
  Herborg Kråkevik (born December 28, 1973) is a Norwegian singer and actress, known for her works with Norwegian folksongs and some stage works and many movies. Her more famous roles being her debut as Eliza in My Fair Lady (1997) and Julie in Romeo og Julie (1997).
  Kråkevik gained much success when she in 2000 released Kråkeviks Songbok, a CD that included her interpretations of several Norwegian folk songs, including Den Fyrste Sang and a musical version of the poem Til Ungdommen by Norwegian poet and author Nordahl Grieg (distant cousin of the composer Edvard Grieg).
  Kråkevik then had a leading role in Det største i verden (2001) as Petra. More recently, she was chosen one of Norway's ambassadors to the 2005 Hans Christian Andersen Association.
  
  
  
  
  
  wn.com/Herborg_Kråkevik
• Hermann Finck
  Hermann Finck (21 March 1527 – 28 December 1558) was a German composer.
  The great-nephew of composer Heinrich Finck, Hermann was born in Pirna, and died at Wittenberg. After 1553 he lived at Wittenberg, where he was organist, and there, in 1555, was published his collection of wedding songs. Few details of his life have been preserved.
  His theoretical writing was good, particularly his observations on the art of singing and of making ornamentations in song. His most celebrated work is entitled Practica musica, exempla variorum signorum, proportionum, et canonum, judicium de tonis ac quaedam de arte suaviter et artificiose cantandi continens (Wittenberg, 1556). It is of great historic value, but very rare.
  
  
  
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  Hermann Oberth
  Hermann Julius Oberth (25 June 1894 – 28 December 1989) was an Austro-Hungarian-born German physicist and engineer. He is considered one of the founding fathers of rocketry and astronautics.
  Oberth was born to a Transylvanian Saxon family in Nagyszeben (German: Hermannstadt, today Sibiu, Romania), Austria-Hungary. By his own account and that of many others, around the age of 11 years old, Oberth became fascinated with the field in which he was to make his mark through reading the writings of Jules Verne, especially From the Earth to the Moon and Around the Moon, re-reading them to the point of memorization. Influenced by Verne's books and ideas, Oberth constructed his first model rocket as a school student at the age of 14. In his youthful experiments, he arrived independently at the concept of the multistage rocket, but he lacked then the resources to pursue his idea on any but a pencil-and-paper level.
  In 1912, Oberth began the study of medicine in Munich, Germany, but at the outbreak of World War I, he was drafted into the Imperial German Army, assigned to an infantry battalion, and sent to the Eastern Front against Russia. In 1915, Oberth was moved into a medical unit at a hospital in Segesvár, Transylvania, in Austria-Hungary (today Sighişoara, Romania). There he found the spare time to conduct a series of experiments concerning weightlessness, and later resumed his rocketry designs. By 1917, he showed how far his studies had reached by firing a rocket with liquid propellant in a demonstration to Hermann von Stein, the Prussian Minister of War.
  
  wn.com/Hermann_Oberth
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  Hildegard Knef
  Hildegard Frieda Albertine Knef (December 28, 1925 – February 1, 2002) was a German actress, singer and writer. She was billed in some English language films as Hildegard Neff or Hildegarde Neff.
  Hildegard Knef was born in Ulm. She began studying acting in 1940, aged 14. She appeared in several films before the fall of the Third Reich, but most were not released until after World War II.
  During the Battle of Berlin, Knef dressed as a soldier in order to stay with her then lover Ewald von Demandowsky, joining him in defence of Schmargendorf. She was later sent to a prisoner of war camp.
  Her best known film roles were "Susanne Wallner" in Wolfgang Staudte's film Die Mörder sind unter uns (The Murderers Are Among Us), the first film released after the Second World War in East Germany and produced by DEFA); and in 1950, "Marina" in Die Sünderin (The Sinner), in which she performed a brief nude scene, the first in German film history, causing a scandal. When the Roman Catholic Church protested, she responded vehemently, “I can't understand all the tumult - five years after Auschwitz.”
  
  wn.com/Hildegard_Knef
• Howard Caine
  Howard Cohen (January 2, 1926 – December 28, 1993), was a popular character actor, probably best known as Gestapo agent Major Wolfgang Hochstetter in the television series Hogan's Heroes. He also played Lewis Morris of New York in the musical film, 1776 and Everett Scovill a thinly disguised portrait of Charles Manson's attorney, Irving Kanarek in the television movie, Helter Skelter.
  Howard Caine was born on January 2, 1926 in Nashville, Tennessee into a Jewish family. At the age of 13, Cohen moved with his family from his hometown of Nashville, Tennessee to New York City, where he began studying acting. Learning to erase his Southern accent, he went on to became a master of 32 foreign and American dialects. After serving in World War II, he joined the United States Navy fighting the Japanese in the Pacific theater - Caine continued his studies at The School of Drama, Columbia University, where he graduated summa cum laude.
  He appeared on Broadway in Wonderful Town, Inherit the Wind, Lunatics and Lovers and Tiger at the Gates. He succeeded Ray Walston as "Mr. Applegate" in the original production of Damn Yankees. He was featured in such films as From the Terrace (1960), Pay or Die (1960), Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), Brushfire (1962), The Man from the Diner's Club (1963), Pressure Point (1962) and Alvarez Kelly (1966). He co-starred with Godfrey Cambridge and Estelle Parsons in Watermelon Man (1970). He was a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science.
  
  wn.com/Howard_Caine
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  Ian Buruma
  Ian Buruma (born December 28, 1951) is a British-Dutch writer and academic. Much of his work focuses on the culture of Asia, particularly that of 20th-century Japan.
  He was born in The Hague, the Netherlands, to a Dutch father and British mother. He studied Chinese literature at Leiden University, and then Japanese film at Nihon University in Tokyo. He has held a number of editorial and academic positions, and has contributed numerous articles to The New York Review of Books. He has been noted as a "well-regarded European intellectual."
  In 2000 he delivered the Huizinga Lecture – Neoromanticism of writers in exile – in the Pieterskerk in Leiden, The Netherlands. He has held fellowships at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C and St Antony's College, Oxford. In 2003 he became Luce Professor of Democracy, Human Rights & Journalism at Bard College, New York.
  Since 2005 he has resided in New York, USA.
  In 2008 Buruma was awarded the Erasmus Prize, which is awarded to an individual who has made "an especially important contribution to culture, society or social science in Europe."
  
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  Igor Žiković
  Igor Žiković (born 28 December 1976 in Pula) is a Croatian footballer.
  Žiković made a total of 20 appearances in the German 2. Fußball-Bundesliga during his playing career.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Igor_Žiković
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  Irene Lieblich
  Irene Lieblich (1923–2008) was a Polish-born artist and Holocaust survivor noted for illustrating the books of Nobel laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer and for her paintings highlighting Jewish life and culture. She is also a cousin of noted Yiddish language author and playwright Isaac Leib Peretz.
  Irene Lieblich was born in Zamość, Poland, on the second night of Passover in 1923 to Leon and Chana (née Brondwajn) Wechter. Her father was in the medical profession. Her only sibling, a younger brother named Nathan, was killed at age 16 during the Holocaust. When asked about her experience as a Holocaust survivor, Lieblich said:
  I do not speak of my experiences during the Holocaust. I do not dwell on these moments. What we must remember are the Jewish souls that did not survive and this is what I am trying to do-- capture them to bring back their spirit. They have much to tell us and show us of their lives. Maybe beside[s] an artist, I am now also a historian.
  She and her husband, Jakob Lieblich, married in 1946 and emigrated from West Germany to Chicago, Illinois, with their son Nathan in 1952. Daughter Mahli was born in Chicago, in 1953.
  
  wn.com/Irene_Lieblich
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  Jack Blackham
  John McCarthy Blackham (11 May 1854 – 28 December 1932) was a Test cricketer who played for Victoria and Australia.
  A specialist wicket-keeper, Blackham played in the first Test match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in March 1877 and the famous Ashes Test match of 1882. Such was his skill in the position that he revolutionised the art of wicket-keeping and was known as the "prince of wicket-keepers". Late in his career, he captained the Australian team.
  Blackham was born in the inner-Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy North, the son of newsagent Frederick Kane Blackham and his wife Lucinda (née McCarthy). Blackham became a bank clerk, and held a position in the Colonial Bank of Australasia for many years. It is said that his thick dark beard, perceived then as a sign of an equable and reliable nature, reassured his customers.
  Blackham was included in the first eleven of the Carlton Cricket Club as a batsman at the age of sixteen. He first appeared for the Victorian team in 1874, and remained an automatic selection as the team's wicket-keeper for over twenty years. He was a member of the first eight Australian cricket teams to visit England.
  
  wn.com/Jack_Blackham
• Jack Lovelock
  John ("Jack") Edward Lovelock (5 January 1910 – 28 December 1949) was a New Zealand athlete, and the 1936 Olympic champion in the 1500 metres.
  He was born in the town of Crushington (near Reefton) as the son of English immigrants. From his early days at school Lovelock participated and excelled in fields beyond athletics. At Fairlie School (1919–23) he was dux of the primary school, represented the school in rugby, competed in swimming and athletics, and was a prefect. At Timaru Boys' High School, which he attended as a boarder from 1924, he set school athletics records but was also involved in nearly every area of school life. In 1928, his final year, Lovelock was school dux, head prefect, and won the school's boxing championship cup. The following year he went to University of Otago to study medicine. Lovelock showed a talent for sports while at the university, and competed for the university team in the New Zealand 1-mile (1.6 km) championships. In 1931 he became a Rhodes Scholar at Exeter College, Oxford from 1931 to 1934. He graduated as a medical practitioner.
  
  wn.com/Jack_Lovelock
• Jacques Mesrine
  Jacques Mesrine (French pronunciation: [meʁin] or [mɛsʁin]; 28 December 1936–2 November 1979) was the most infamous criminal in modern French history. He was responsible for numerous bank robberies, burglaries, and kidnappings in France and Canada. Mesrine repeatedly escaped from prison and made international headlines during a final period as a fugitive when his exploits included trying to kidnap a judge who had sentenced him. An aptitude for disguise earned him the moniker "The Man of a Hundred Faces" and enabled him to remain at large while receiving massive publicity as a wanted man. Mesrine was widely seen as an anti-establishment 'Robin Hood' figure. In keeping with his charismatic image, he was rarely without a glamorous female companion. A pair of films which came out in 2008 were based on Mesrine's life.
  
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  James Blake
  James Riley Blake (born December 28, 1979) is an American professional tennis player. Blake is known for his speed and powerful, flat forehand. As of April 2012, Blake is ranked World No. 74 among active male players with 24 career finals appearances (10–14 record), whilst his career-high singles ranking is World No. 4. His career highlights include reaching the final of the 2006 Tennis Masters Cup, the semifinals of the Beijing Olympics and the quarterfinals of the Australian Open (2008) and US Open (2005, 2006). His two titles for the United States at the Hopman Cup are an event record. Blake was a key performer for the United States 2007 Davis Cup championship team, going 2–0 in the championship tie vs. Russia at second singles. In 2005, Blake was presented with the Comeback Player of the Year award for his remarkable return to the tour. Later, in 2008, Blake was awarded another honor by the ATP where he was named the Arthur Ashe Humanitarian of the Year. On July 3, 2007, Blake's autobiography Breaking Back: How I Lost Everything and Won Back My Life, which discussed his comeback after his unlucky 2004 season, was released and debuted at No. 22 on the New York Times Best Seller list. He co-wrote this book with Andrew Friedman.
  
  wn.com/James_Blake
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  James Van Ness
  James Van Ness (1808 Burlington, Vermont – December 28, 1872) was the seventh mayor of San Francisco, USA from 1855 to 1856.
  He was the son of Dutch-American Vermont Governor Cornelius Van Ness and father-in-law of future San Francisco mayor Frank McCoppin. Prior to being mayor, he had been a lawyer in the U.S. South and then a San Francisco city alderman. As alderman, he sponsored the "Van Ness Ordinance", which ordered all land within the city limits that was undeveloped at that time (that is, west of Larkin Street and southwest of Ninth Street) to be surveyed and then to be transferred to their original deedholders. Because there were many fraudulent deed holders at that time, this law led to many lawsuits for many years.
  Van Ness was elected mayor as a Democrat in 1855. However, his administration proved ineffectual in the face of three major crises that arose. First, his election was called into question following allegations of irregularities in the outcome. Then, On November 18, 1855, Charles Cora fatally shot U.S. Marshal William H. Richardson. Cora sought the safety of the sheriff at the city jail and Van Ness pleaded with the mob that had surrounded the jail to disperse. Another high-profile murder occurred on May 14, 1856, when James P. Casey shot newspaper editor, James King of William after King wrote an unfavorable article about Casey. After King died on May 20, the Vigilantes reformed and tried Cora and Casey and convicted them of murder.
  
  wn.com/James_Van_Ness
• Jan Nieuwenhuys
  Jan Nieuwenhuys (January 8, 1922 – December 28, 1986) was a Dutch painter and one of the early active founders of the Dutch Experimentalists group (Reflex) that later became part of CoBrA.
  Nieuwenhuys was born in Amsterdam.
  Around the age of 14, Nieuwenhuys and his two year older brother decided to become painters. From 1938 to 1941 he attended the Rijksnormaalschool in Amsterdam. Later in the Second World War he also took lessons at the Rijksacademie in Amsterdam. At the Rijksacademie he met Karel Appel and Corneille.
  During World War II Nieuwenhuys painted almost only clowns, nudes and couples making love. Just after the war he started painting fantasy animals like aggressive cocks, cats and bulls. He and his brother Constant had many arguments about his paintings. During the war Constant himself painted only Catholic scenes like Pietà and Maria portraits or still lifes and thought that Nieuwenhuys chose his subjects too lightly.
  In 1948 Appel, Elburg, Kouwenaar, Wolvekamp, Corneille, Constant Nieuwenhuys, Brands, Rooskens and Nieuwenhuys founded the Experimentele Groep in Holland that a few months later became the European group CoBrA. Jan was in his paintings of this period influenced by dreams, children's drawings, the artistic expressions of mentally handicapped people and primitive art. Animals such as birds and cats play a leading role in most of his works, along with fantastic creatures and beings that are made up of a combination of human, animal and mechanical elements. A lot of the creatures balance on a rope or wear boats as a hat.
  
  wn.com/Jan_Nieuwenhuys
• Jason Ridge
  Jason Ridge (born on December 28, 1974) is a former American porn star who appeared in gay porn with about 50 films and in one bisexual porn video and gay skin magazines.
  He used to work for Hot House Entertainment. He launched his own porn company in 2007 named RIDGELINE FILMS. and made quite a success with 3 movies so far. He got Roman Heart to star in one of these, 'A Rising Star'. His other screen name is Jake Lavelle. He was rumoured to have been romantically linked to fellow porn stars Brad Slater and Caleb Carter, but he has denied these rumours. He has even appeared on the The Howard Stern Show in September 6, 2007 , one of the only few porn stars ever to do so.
  He is a winner of two GayVN awards and two Grabby awards.^{[citation needed]}
  
  
  
  wn.com/Jason_Ridge
• Jerry Orbach
  Jerome Bernard "Jerry" Orbach (October 20, 1935 – December 28, 2004) was an American actor and singer. He was well known for his starring role as Detective Lennie Briscoe in the Law & Order television series and as the voice of Lumière in Disney's Beauty and the Beast. Orbach was also a noted musical theatre star. His prominent roles included originating the character of El Gallo in The Fantasticks, the longest-running musical play in history, Chuck Baxter in the original production of Promises, Promises (for which he won a Tony Award), Julian Marsh in 42nd Street and Billy Flynn in the original production of Chicago.
  Orbach was born in The Bronx, the only child of Emily (née Olexy), a greeting card manufacturer and radio singer, and Leon Orbach, a restaurant manager and vaudeville performer. His father was a Jewish immigrant from Hamburg, Germany. His mother, a native of Pennsylvania, was Polish American and Catholic, and Orbach was raised Catholic (a religious background later replicated in his character on Law and Order). Throughout his childhood, the Orbach family moved frequently, living in Mount Vernon, New York; Wilkes-Barre, Nanticoke, and Scranton, Pennsylvania; Springfield, Massachusetts; and Waukegan, Illinois. He studied drama at University of Illinois and Northwestern University and then went to New York, where he studied with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio.
  
  wn.com/Jerry_Orbach
• Jimmy Demaret
  James Newton Demaret (May 24, 1910 – December 28, 1983) was an American professional golfer. He won 31 PGA Tour events in a long career between 1935 and 1957, and was the first three-time winner of the Masters.
  Demaret was born in Houston, Texas. He reached his peak in the late 1940s with wins in the Masters in 1947, runner-up to Ben Hogan in the 1948 U.S. Open, and leading money winner and Vardon Trophy winner in 1947. He reached the semifinals of the PGA Championship four times in all but never won. He lost a playoff for the 1957 U.S. Open, at age 47. He played on three Ryder Cup teams: 1947, 1949, and 1951. His career declined in the 1950s, although he managed several key wins including the 1952 Bing Crosby Pro-Am. His last Tour win came in 1957 at age 47, although he also teamed at age 51 with Sam Snead to win the Canada Cup for the U.S. in Puerto Rico.
  His playing style was developed by necessity through the windy conditions of his native Texas. Demaret favored a low fade (left-to-right flight) on his longer shots; the method gave good distance and excellent control. His skills were highly rated by his contemporaries; Ben Hogan, whose career overshadowed Demaret's, opined that Demaret was the best player he had ever seen in windy conditions.
  
  wn.com/Jimmy_Demaret
• 
  Johann Krieger
  Johann Krieger (28 December 1651 – 18 July 1735) was a German composer and organist, younger brother of Johann Philipp Krieger. Born in Nuremberg, he worked at Bayreuth, Zeitz, and Greiz before settling in Zittau. He was one of the most important keyboard composers of his day, highly esteemed by, among others, George Frideric Handel. A prolific composer of church and secular music, he published several dozen of his works, and others survive in manuscript. However, hundreds more were lost when Zittau was destroyed by fire in 1757, during the Seven Years' War.
  Krieger's keyboard music places him among the most important German composers of his time. The two published collections, Sechs musicalische Partien (1697) and Anmuthige Clavier-Übung (1698), contain harpsichord suites, organ toccatas, fugues, ricercars, and other works. Krieger's contemporaries praised his contrapuntal skill, evident in the extant fugues and ricercars. Johann Mattheson was particularly impressed with Krieger's double fugues, remarking that he knew nobody who surpassed Krieger in this form, except Handel. Handel himself admired and studied Krieger's work, even taking a copy of Anmuthige Clavier-Übung with him to England.
  
  wn.com/Johann_Krieger
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  Johannes Rydberg
  Johannes Robert Rydberg (November 8, 1854 – December 28, 1919) was a Swedish physicist mainly known for devising the Rydberg formula, in 1888, which is used to predict the wavelengths of photons (of light and other electromagnetic radiation) emitted by changes in the energy level of an electron in a hydrogen atom.
  The physical constant known as the Rydberg constant is named after him, as is the Rydberg unit. Excited atoms with very high values of the principal quantum number, represented by n in the Rydberg formula, are called Rydberg atoms. Rydberg's anticipation that spectral studies could assist in a theoretical understanding of the atom and its chemical properties was justified in 1913 by the work of Niels Bohr (see hydrogen spectrum). An important spectroscopic constant based on a hypothetical atom of infinite mass is called the Rydberg (R) in his honour.
  He was active at Lund University, Sweden, for all of his working life. The crater Rydberg on the Moon and asteroid 10506 Rydberg are named in his honour.
  
  wn.com/Johannes_Rydberg
• 
  John Legend
  John Roger Stephens (born December 28, 1978), better known by his stage name John Legend, is an American singer-songwriter and actor. He has won nine Grammy Awards, and in 2007, he received the special Starlight award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
  Prior to the release of his debut album, Stephens' career gained momentum through a series of successful collaborations with multiple established artists. Stephens added his voice to those of other artists, assisting in them reaching chart-topper hits. He lent his voice to Kanye West's All of the Lights, on Slum Village's "Selfish" and Dilated Peoples' "This Way". Other artists included Jay-Z's "Encore", and he sang backing vocals on Alicia Keys' 2003 song "You Don't Know My Name" and Fort Minor's "High Road." Stephens played piano on Lauryn Hill's "Everything Is Everything."
  Stephens was born on December 28, 1978, in Springfield, Ohio. He is the son of Phyllis, a seamstress, and John Mills, a factory worker and former National Guardsman. Throughout his childhood, Stephens was homeschooled on and off by his mother. At the age of four, he began playing the piano and at the age of seven, he performed with his church choir. When he was ten, his parents divorced, causing his mother to suffer a breakdown. At the age of 12, Stephens attended North High School, from which he graduated four years later. He graduated salutatorian.
  
  wn.com/John_Legend
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  John Molson
  John Molson (December 28, 1763 – January 11, 1836) was an English-speaking Quebecer who was a major brewer and entrepreneur in Canada, starting the Molson Brewing Company.
  In 1763, John Molson was born in the village of Moulton near Spalding, Lincolnshire. His mother was Mary Elsdale (1739-1772), the eldest daughter of Samuel Elsdale (1704-1788), of Surfleet. She married John Molson (1730-1770) Sr. in 1760. Her brother, Robinson Elsdale (1744-1783), was a celebrated privateer, whose unpublished exploits formed the basis of the novel by Frederick Marryat, The Privateersman (1846). About two weeks before the marriage, John Molson Sr. inherited a property known as Snake Hall, in Lincolnshire, which consisted of a home and various outbuildings associated with 38 acres (15 ha) of land. John Molson Sr. died on June 4, 1770. His will promised various properties to his wife and five surviving children. Under their marriage settlement, Snake Hall went to Mary, and was to then pass on to his eldest son, John, upon her death. Mary Molson died on September 21, 1772. John Sr. had named four guardians and trustees for the estate, and initially, the young John Molson's financial affairs were overseen by his paternal uncle, Thomas Molson. But in September 1771 Thomas turned over the duties of trustee and guardian to Samuel Elsdale, possibly due to poor health, as he died the following spring. Under Samuel Elsdale's oversight, all of the Molson children were removed from Snake Hall while it was rented out for income, ultimately to the benefit of their trusts. John went to live with a man named William Robinson, and at age 12 in 1776 was consigned to the care of a Mr. Whitehead, who was paid for his board and education until 1780, when he turned 16. Writers have criticized Samuel Elsdale for his oversight and stinginess, but he seems to have performed his duties prudently, although John Molson plainly chafed under his guardianship.
  
  wn.com/John_Molson
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  John von Neumann
  John von Neumann ( /vɒn ˈnɔɪmən/; December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian-American mathematician and polymath who made major contributions to a vast number of fields, including set theory, functional analysis, quantum mechanics, ergodic theory, geometry, fluid dynamics, economics, linear programming, game theory, computer science, numerical analysis, hydrodynamics, and statistics, as well as many other mathematical fields. He is generally regarded as one of the greatest mathematicians in modern history. The mathematician Jean Dieudonné called von Neumann "the last of the great mathematicians", while Peter Lax described him as possessing the most "fearsome technical prowess" and "scintillating intellect" of the century, and Hans Bethe stated "I have sometimes wondered whether a brain like von Neumann's does not indicate a species superior to that of man". Even in Budapest, in the time that produced geniuses like Theodore von Kármán (b. 1881), George de Hevesy (b. 1885), Leó Szilárd (b. 1898), Eugene Wigner (b. 1902), Edward Teller (b. 1908), and Paul Erdős (b. 1913), his brilliance stood out.
  
  wn.com/John_von_Neumann
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  Johnny Isakson
  John Hardy "Johnny" Isakson (born December 28, 1944) is the junior United States Senator from Georgia and a member of the Republican Party. Previously, he represented Georgia's 6th Congressional district in the House.
  Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Isakson served in the Georgia Air National Guard (1966–1972) and graduated from the University of Georgia. He opened a real estate branch for Northside Realty and later served 22 years as the company's president. After a failed bid for the Georgia House of Representatives in 1974, he was elected in 1976. He served five terms, including two as minority leader. Isakson was the Republican candidate for governor of Georgia in 1990, but lost. Two years later, he was elected to the Georgia Senate and served one term. He unsuccessfully ran in the Republican primary in the 1996 U.S. Senate elections.
  After 6th District Congressman and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich resigned, Isakson ran in the February 1999 special election to succeed him, winning by a 40-point margin. He ran for the U.S. Senate in November 2004 after conservative Democratic incumbent Zell Miller opted not to run for re-election. With the backing of much of Georgia's Republican establishment, he won both the primary and general elections by large margins. He is serving his second term after re-election to the Senate in 2010.
  
  wn.com/Johnny_Isakson
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  Johnny Otis
  Ioannis Alexandres Veliotes (December 28, 1921 – January 17, 2012), better known as Johnny Otis, was an American singer, musician, composer, and record producer. Born in Vallejo, California, he is commonly referred to as the "Godfather of Rhythm and Blues".
  Otis was the child of Greek immigrants Alexander J. Veliotes, a Mare Island longshoreman and grocery store owner, and his wife, the former Irene Kiskakes, a painter.
  He was the older brother of Nicholas A. Veliotes, former U.S. Ambassador to Jordan (1978–1981) and to Egypt (1984–1986).
  Otis grew up in a predominantly black neighborhood in Berkeley, California, where his father owned and operated a neighborhood grocery store. Otis became well known for his choice to live his professional and personal life as a member of the African-American community. He has written, "As a kid I decided that if our society dictated that one had to be black or white, I would be black."
  He was the father of musician Shuggie Otis.
  After playing drums in a variety of swing orchestras, including Lloyd Hunter's Serenaders, and Harlan Leonard's Rockets, he founded his own band in 1945 and had one of the most enduring hits of the big band era, "Harlem Nocturne". His band included Wynonie Harris and Charles Brown. In 1947, he and Bardu Ali opened the Barrelhouse Club in the Watts district of Los Angeles, California. He reduced the size of his band and hired singers Mel Walker, Little Esther Phillips and the Robins (who later became the Coasters). He discovered the teenaged Phillips when she won one of the Barrelhouse Club's talent shows. With this band, which toured extensively throughout the United States as the California Rhythm and Blues Caravan, he had a long string of rhythm and blues hits through 1950.
  
  wn.com/Johnny_Otis
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  Kamani Hill
  Kamani Helekunihi Hill (born December 28, 1985 in Berkeley, California) is an American professional soccer player who currently plays for Colorado Rapids in Major League Soccer.
  Hill was born in Berkeley, California to a Trinidadian father and an American mother of Hawaiian origin. He grew up playing in various Bay Area youth leagues and attended Berkeley High School, where he was a star forward on their soccer team. He then attended UCLA, where he played in 40 games (32 starts), scored nine goals, and assisted on 13 more in his two seasons with the team. During his college years he also played with Orange County Blue Star and San Fernando Valley Quakes in the USL Premier Development League.
  At the beginning of October 2006, Hill went to Germany for a trial with Bundesliga team VfL Wolfsburg, and in November he signed a two-and-a-half year contract with the team. He made his first-team debut on January 27, 2007 as a substitute in a 2–1 defeat away at Hertha Berlin. However, after a promising start, the arrival of coach Felix Magath at the club saw Hill relegated to the second team, where he spent most of his time at Wolfsburg. During November 2008, he trained with Norwegian club FK Bodø/Glimt. However, he was not offered a contract. In April 2009, he began a ten-day trial with Vitoria Guimaraes upon the recommendation of his Wolfsburg teammate Alex, and on May 8 the club announced his signing to a three-year contract.
  
  wn.com/Kamani_Hill
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  Kary Mullis
  Kary Banks Mullis (born December 28, 1944) is a Nobel Prize winning American biochemist, author, and lecturer. In recognition of his improvement of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique, he shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Michael Smith and earned the Japan Prize in the same year. The process was first described by Kjell Kleppe and 1968 Nobel laureate H. Gobind Khorana, and allows the amplification of specific DNA sequences. The improvements made by Mullis allowed PCR to become a central technique in biochemistry and molecular biology, described by The New York Times as "highly original and significant, virtually dividing biology into the two epochs of before P.C.R. and after P.C.R."
  Since winning the Nobel Prize, Mullis has been criticized in The New York Times for promoting ideas in areas in which he has no expertise. He has promoted AIDS denialism,climate change denial and his belief in astrology.
  Mullis was born in Lenoir, North Carolina, near the Blue Ridge Mountains, on December 28, 1944. His family had a background in farming in this rural area. As a child, Mullis recalls, he was interested in observing organisms in the countryside. He grew up in Columbia, South Carolina, where he attended Dreher High School.
  
  wn.com/Kary_Mullis
• Kateřina Kramperová
  Kateřina Kramperová (born 28 December 1988) is a professional Czech tennis player. On 5 March 2012 she reached her highest WTA singles ranking of 446 whilst her best doubles ranking was 400 on 14 May 2012.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Kateřina_Kramperová
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  Katharine Byron
  Katharine Edgar Byron (October 25, 1903 – December 28, 1976), a Democrat, was a U.S. Congresswoman who represented the 6th congressional district of Maryland from May 27, 1941 to January 3, 1943. She was the first woman elected to Congress from Maryland.
  Born in Detroit, Michigan, Byron attended public schools, the Westover School of Middlebury, Connecticut, and Holton Arms School of Washington, D.C., and later moved to Williamsport, Maryland, in 1922. The Byrons were communicants of Saint John's Church. She was elected to Congress in a special election held May 27, 1941 to replace her husband, Representative William D. Byron, after his death in an airplane crash in Georgia on February 27, 1941. She was not a candidate for reelection and retired in Washington, D.C., where she died. She is interred in Riverview Cemetery of Williamsport, Maryland.
  Byron was a granddaughter of U.S. Senator Louis E. McComas and her son Goodloe Byron was also a representative from the 6th district.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Katharine_Byron
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  Katharine McCormick
  Katharine Dexter McCormick (August 27, 1875 – December 28, 1967) was a U.S. biologist, suffragist, philanthropist and, after her husband's death, heir to a substantial part of the McCormick family fortune. She is remembered for funding most of the research necessary to develop the first birth control pill.
  Katherine Dexter was born August 27, 1875 in Dexter, Michigan, in her grandparents' mansion, Gordon Hall, and grew up in Chicago where her father, Wirt Dexter, was a prominent lawyer. Following the early death of her father of a heart attack at age 57 when she was 14 years old, she and her mother Josephine moved to Boston in 1890. Four years later, her brother Samuel died of meningitis at age 25. In 1904 McCormick became the second woman to graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the first woman to receive a science degree from MIT, a BSc with major in biology.
  She planned to attend medical school, but chose to marry Stanley McCormick, youngest son of Cyrus McCormick, an heir to the International Harvester fortune. They married on September 15, 1904. In September 1905, they moved into a home in Brookline, Massachusetts. The couple did not have any children.
  
  wn.com/Katharine_McCormick
• Kathleen Clifford
  Kathleen Clifford (February 16, 1887 – December 28, 1962) was an American vaudeville and Broadway stage and film actress of the early twentieth century.
  Born in Charlottesville, Virginia, Kathleen Clifford's career acting was initially built on the vaudeville stages as a comedienne. Clifford was renowned for her impersonations of men and was often humorously billed as "The Smartest Chap in Town". At one point, as a male impersonator, she was working as a duo with female impersonator Bothwell Browne.
  In January 1907, Clifford made her Broadway stage debut at the Lincoln Square Theatre in the J.J. and Lee Schultz produced musical The Bell of London Town. Clifford's stage career was prolific and lasted throughout the 1910s. Some of her most notable roles were in the 1911 musical triple bill Hell, Tempations and Gaby at the Folies Bergère theatre, the 1911-1912 original musical comedy Vera Violetta at the Winter Garden Theatre, the Florenz Ziegfeld musical production A Winsome Widow (1912) and the 1916 H. H. Frazee produced A Pair of Queens opposite actor Edward Abeles at the Longacre Theatre.
  
  wn.com/Kathleen_Clifford
• Keith Floyd
  Keith Floyd (28 December 1943 – 14 September 2009) was a British celebrity chef, television personality and restaurateur, who hosted cooking shows for the BBC and published many books combining cookery and travel. On television, his eccentric style of presentation endeared him to millions of viewers worldwide.
  Floyd was born at Folly Farm near Reading, Berkshire on 28 December 1943 to working-class parents Sydney and Winnifred Floyd. He was brought up in a council house in the village of Wiveliscombe in Somerset. His family made financial sacrifices to enable him to be educated privately at Wellington School, Somerset.
  Floyd became a cub reporter on the Bristol Evening Post and after watching the film Zulu decided to join the British Army, attaining the rank of Second Lieutenant in the Royal Tank Regiment, where he pestered the mess cook to produce gourmet dinners.
  After three years, finding that he and the Army were "mutually incompatible", Floyd found employment in several catering-related jobs including barman, dishwasher and vegetable peeler.
  
  wn.com/Keith_Floyd
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  Kent Nielsen
  Kent Nielsen (born 28 December 1961) is a Danish association football manager and former player, who was named 2006 Danish Coach of the Year. He is the current head coach of Aalborg BK.
  He started his coaching career as caretaker of AGF Aarhus, before getting his breakthrough with AC Horsens, guiding the club to the top-flight Danish Superliga championship in 2005. He also coached Superliga club Brøndby IF for 15 months.
  In his active career, Nielsen played as a centre back. He won two Danish championships and a Danish Cup trophy with Brøndby IF. He played three years in England with Aston Villa, before ending his career after winning the Danish Cup with AGF Aarhus. He played 54 games and scored three goals for the Denmark national football team, winning the Euro 1992 championship and representing Denmark at the 1986 FIFA World Cup and Euro 1988 tournaments.
  The son of former Danish international Erik Nielsen, Kent Nielsen started his career in Erik's former club Brønshøj BK. He switched to the Danish team Brøndby IF in 1987, with whom he won the 1987 and 1988 Danish championships, as well as the 1989 Danish Cup. Following 91 first team games for Brøndby, Nielsen left the club in 1989. He was bought by English club Aston Villa for a reported £500,000 transfer fee, and secured himself a place in the starting line-up in his two first seasons with the club. New Aston Villa manager Ron Atkinson did not see Nielsen as fitting into his 4-4-2 tactics and brought in replacement Shaun Teale, and Nielsen looked to leave the club. In early 1992, he moved back to Denmark, to play for AGF Aarhus. He won the 1992 Danish Cup with AGF, before he retired in 1994.
  
  wn.com/Kent_Nielsen
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  Kevin Pereira
  Kevin Pereira (born December 28, 1982) is best known as a former co-host of G4's Attack of the Show!.
  While in high school, Pereira hosted Pointless Audio under the pseudonym Captain Immy. The show featured many prank calls and was hosted on such gaming sites as Planet Quake and ShugaShack (now Shacknews); it later evolved into Pointless TV, and finally LickMySweaty.com. One of the projects featured on the latter site, a short film created for his video production class at Deer Valley High School, earned him three California Media Festival awards in 2001. A different film project was recognized in 2002. He studied film and television production with a scholarship to the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, California for one semester.
  After working as a network administrator at an internet service provider for five years and also at a television network, he pursued a career at G4. He started as a production assistant on the talk show in 2002 G4tv.com, then moved on to Arena and Pulse and then quickly moved to another G4 show, The Screen Savers, in 2004. Pereira was a co-host of Attack of the Show!, G4's live tech info show, and was the last original cast member to leave. He co-hosted the show for a year with Sarah Lane, who left in 2006, followed by Olivia Munn, who left in 2010. In 2011 Candace Bailey joined Pereira as cohost. He hosted his last episode of AOTS on May 31, 2012 after it was announced on May 8, 2012 by G4 that his final broadcast on Attack of the Show! would take place on that day. His final broadcast for the channel is scheduled to take place during their Electronic Entertainment Expo coverage, preceded by a month-long retrospective of highlights from the show.
  
  wn.com/Kevin_Pereira
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  Khalid Boulahrouz
  Khalid Boulahrouz (born 28 December 1981, in Maassluis, Netherlands) is a Dutch footballer of Berber Moroccan Rif descent, who plays for the Netherlands and VfB Stuttgart. His nickname is "Khalid the Cannibal" for his ability to "eat up" the opposition. He is noted for his tackling and versatility in the back.
  Boulahrouz was born into a Rifi Berber Moroccan family living in the Netherlands. He has eight siblings. As a youngster he went to the youth academies of Ajax and Haarlem. When he was sixteen his father died and he had to take responsibility for his family.
  While Boulahrouz was in Switzerland preparing for the Euro 2008 quarter finals against Russia, his wife Sabia gave birth to a prematurely born daughter Anissa who died in a Lausanne hospital. He opted to play against Russia a few days later, during which the Dutch team wore black armbands in his daughter's memory.
  A second daughter, Amaya, was born in March 2010.
  In his youth Boulahrouz played consecutively for Excelsior Maassluis, DSOV, Ajax, Haarlem and AZ.
  
  wn.com/Khalid_Boulahrouz
• Lagumot Harris
  HE Lagumot Gagiemem Nimidere Harris (c. 1938 - 6 September 1999) was a political figure from the Pacific nation of the Republic of Nauru, and served as President of the Republic of Nauru. He was a cousin of René Harris.
  Lagumot Harris first served briefly as President of Nauru from 19 April, to 15 May 1978. He was thus the Nauru's third head of state in the country's post-Independence history. In terms of Nauru's emerging post-Independence political cuture, the shortness of Harris's first term of Presidential office anticipated the very frequent changes of President to which Nauruans were to become accustomed, in contrast with the many years of Hammer DeRoburt's continuous first term of office.
  Subsequently, a period of nearly twenty years elapsed before Harris assumed the Presidency of Nauru for a second term.
  He was elected again, for a longer period of time, as President, between 22 November 1995, and 11 November 1996.
  Much of Lagumot Harris's active involvement in political leadership revolved around troubled issues surrounding the veteran Nauruan politician, Bernard Dowiyogo, who served as President of Nauru seven times. It may be recalled that, especially during Harris' periods of public office and political activity, Nauru's Parliamentary system did not have well-developed party organizations.
  
  wn.com/Lagumot_Harris
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  Lanny Poffo
  Lanny Mark Poffo (born December 28, 1954 in Calgary, Alberta), better known by his ring names "Leaping" Lanny and The Genius is an American professional wrestler. Poffo was born in Calgary, Canada, to Angelo Poffo, an Italian American Catholic, and Judy, a Jewish American. He is also the brother of wrestling legend "Macho Man" Randy Savage. Poffo grew up in Downers Grove, Illinois. He still wrestles regularly and is the co-owner of a new wrestling promotion in Canada called Hannibal Pro Wrestling along with Devon Nicholson.
  He began wrestling in the NWA territories in the 1970s before becoming a star in his father's promotion, International Championship Wrestling, where he held the promotion's title. Over the course of his regional career, Poffo both tag teamed and feuded with older brother Randy. Upon the ICW's folding in 1984, he joined Randy in the CWA before traveling with him again to the World Wrestling Federation in June 1985. The brother angle was never worked in the WWF and the relationship was never mentioned on-air.
  
  wn.com/Lanny_Poffo
• Lawrence Schiller
  Lawrence Julian Schiller (born December 28, 1936) is a noted American film producer, director and screenwriter.
  Schiller was born in 1936 in Brooklyn, and grew up outside of San Diego, California. After attending Pepperdine College in Los Angeles, he worked for Life magazine, Paris Match, The Sunday Times, Time, Newsweek, Stern, and The Saturday Evening Post as a photojournalist. He published his first book, LSD, in 1966. Since then he has published eleven books, including W. Eugene Smith's Minamata and Norman Mailer's Marilyn. He collaborated with Albert Goldman on Ladies and Gentleman, Lenny Bruce and with Norman Mailer on The Executioner's Song and Oswald's Tale. His own books that became national bestsellers and made the New York Times Bestseller list include American Tragedy, Perfect Murder, Perfect Town, Cape May Court House, and Into the Mirror. He has directed seven motion pictures and miniseries for television; The Executioner's Song and Peter the Great won five Emmys. American Tragedy, Perfect Murder, Perfect Town and Into the Mirror were made into television mini-series for CBS. Schiller produced and directed each of the motion pictures listed above.
  
  wn.com/Lawrence_Schiller
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  Leroy Lita
  Leroy Halirou Bohari Lita (born 28 December 1984 Kinshasa, DR Congo), is a Congolese-born English footballer who plays for Swansea City. Lita was a product of the Chelsea youth system. He failed to play for Chelsea, and moved to Bristol City and Reading, where his form helped him earn a place with the England under-21 side. He has also played on loan with Charlton Athletic and Norwich City.
  Born in Kinshasa, Lita signed his first professional contract for Bristol City at the age of 18 at the start of the 2003–04 season, after being discovered by scout Roger Barton. It wasn't until Brian Tinnion took over from Danny Wilson as manager at the start of the 2004–05 season that Lita really established himself in the first team. That year he scored 29 goals in all competitions for club and one U21 international goal taking his tally to 30 for the season.
  Lita moved to Reading (then in the Football League Championship) on 13 July 2005 for a then club record fee of £1 million. Lita's potential was confirmed when he hit a hat-trick against West Bromwich Albion in the third round of the FA Cup on 17 January 2006.
  
  wn.com/Leroy_Lita
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  Lew Ayres
  Lew Ayres (born Lewis Frederick Ayres III; December 28, 1908 – December 30, 1996) was an American actor, best known for starring as Paul in All Quiet on the Western Front and for playing Dr. Kildare in several movies, which was apt since originally he had studied medicine at the University of Arizona.
  Ayres was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota and reared in San Diego, California. Ayres began acting in bit player roles in films in 1927. He was discovered that year playing banjo in the Henry Halstead Orchestra as Halstead was recording one of the earliest Vitaphone movie shorts called Carnival Night in Paris (Warner Brothers, 1927). Ayres wrote, "I was a member of Henry Halstead's orchestra in 1927 at the Mission Beach Ballroom in San Diego, California for the summer. My instruments were tenor banjo, long-neck banjo and guitar. After a hiatus, I rejoined Mr. Halstead with a new group, including Phil Harris, on New Year's Eve the same year for the opening night of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, a memorable occasion."
  
  wn.com/Lew_Ayres
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  Linus Torvalds
  Linus Benedict Torvalds (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈliːn.ɵs ˈtuːr.valds] ( listen); born December 28, 1969 in Helsinki, Finland) is a Finnish Americansoftware engineer and hacker, best known for having initiated the development of the open source Linux kernel. He later became the chief architect of the Linux kernel, and now acts as the project's coordinator. He also created the revision control system Git. He was honored (shared with Dr Shinya Yamanaka) with the 2012 Millennium Technology Prize by the Technology Academy Finland "in recognition of his creation of a new open source operating system for computers leading to the widely used Linux kernel".
  Torvalds was born in Helsinki, Finland. He is the son of journalists Anna and Nils Torvalds, and the grandson of poet Ole Torvalds. Both of his parents were campus radicals at the University of Helsinki in the 1960s. His family belongs to the Swedish-speaking minority (5.5% of Finland's population). Torvalds was named after Linus Pauling, the American Nobel Prize-winning chemist, although in the book Rebel Code: Linux and the Open Source Revolution, Torvalds is quoted as saying, "I think I was named equally for Linus the Peanuts cartoon character", noting that this makes him half "Nobel-prize-winning chemist" and half "blanket-carrying cartoon character".
  
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  Liu Xiaobo
  Liu Xiaobo (born 28 December 1955) is a Chinese literary critic, writer, professor, and human rights activist who called for political reforms and the end of communist single-party rule in China. He is currently incarcerated as a political prisoner in China.
  Liu has served from 2003 to 2007 as President of the Independent Chinese PEN Center, an organization funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, which in turn is almost entirely funded by the US Congress. He was also the President of NED-funded MinZhuZhongGuo (Democratic China) magazine since the mid-1990s. On 8 December 2008, Liu was detained because of his participation with the Charter 08 manifesto. He was formally arrested on 23 June 2009 on suspicion of "inciting subversion of state power." He was tried on the same charges on 23 December 2009, and sentenced to eleven years' imprisonment and two years' deprivation of political rights on 25 December 2009.
  During his fourth prison term, he was awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize for "his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China." He is the first Chinese citizen to be awarded a Nobel Prize of any kind while residing in China. Liu is the third person to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize while in prison or detention, after Germany's Carl von Ossietzky (1935) and Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi (1991). Liu is also the second person (the first being Ossietzky) to be denied the right to have a representative collect the Nobel prize for him.
  
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  Lomana LuaLua
  Lomana Trésor LuaLua ( /ləˈmɑːnə ˈtrɛzɔr luːˌɑːluːˈɑː/; born 28 December 1980) is a Congolese footballer who plays for Blackpool and the Congo DR national team.
  LuaLua was born in Kinshasa, but moved to England at a young age. After impressing in a college football match, he signed for Colchester United. There, he scored a total of 21 goals in 68 appearances which prompted Newcastle United to sign him. However, the competition for places meant he was less of a regular in the first team, and after four seasons and 88 appearances, he transferred to Portsmouth, the club that had previously loaned him for three months while at Newcastle. He remained there for three seasons, but his spell was marred by disciplinary problems and malaria. After this, he moved to Greek club Olympiacos and spent a season there, helping them to win their fourth straight Super League Greece title, before joining Al-Arabi in 2008. LuaLua received his first cap in 2002, and has since represented his national team in the 2004 and 2006 Africa Cup of Nations.
  
  wn.com/Lomana_LuaLua
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  Lou Jacobi
  Louis Harold "Lou" Jacobi (December 28, 1913 – October 23, 2009) was a Canadian character actor.
  Jacobi was born Louis Harold Jacobovitch in Toronto, Ontario to Joseph and Fay Jacobivitch. He began acting as a boy, making his stage debut in 1924 at a Toronto theater, playing a violin prodigy in The Rabbi and the Priest. After working as the drama director of the Toronto Y.M.H.A., the social director at a summer resort, a stand-up comic in Canada’s equivalent of the Borscht Belt, and the entertainment at various weddings and bachelor parties, Jacobi moved to London to work on the stage, appearing in Guys and Dolls and Pal Joey. Jacobi made his Broadway debut in 1955 in The Diary of Anne Frank as Hans van Daan, a role he reprised in the 1959 film version. Other Broadway performances included Paddy Chayefsky’s The Tenth Man (1959); Woody Allen’s Don’t Drink the Water (1966); and Neil Simon’s debut play Come Blow Your Horn (1961).
  Jacobi made his film debut in the 1953 British comedy Is Your Honeymoon Really Necessary?, alongside Diana Dors. Other notable film roles include Uncle Morty in My Favorite Year; Moustache in Irma La Douce; Penelope (1966), which starred Natalie Wood; a transvestite husband in Woody Allen's Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask); Barry Levinson's Avalon; and Amazon Women on the Moon. His final film role was in 1994's I.Q., playing philosopher/mathematician Kurt Gödel.
  
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  Léon Bakst
  Léon Samoilovitch Bakst (Russian: Лео́н Никола́евич Бакст) (May 10, 1866 – December 28, 1924) was a Russian painter and scene- and costume designer. He was a member of the Sergei Diaghilev circle and the Ballets Russes, for which he designed exotic, richly coloured sets and costumes
  Born as Lev (Leib) Samoilovich Rosenberg (Лев Самойлович Розенберг), he was also known as Leon (Lev) Nikolayevich Bakst (Леон (Лев) Николаевич Бакст).
  Leon was born in Grodno (currently Belarus) in a middle-class Jewish family. After graduating from gymnasium, he studied at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts as a noncredit student, working part-time as a book illustrator.
  At the time of his first exhibition (1889) he took the surname of "Bakst," based on his mother's maiden name. The surname "Rosenberg" was thought to be too Jewish and not good for business. At the beginning of the 1890s he exhibited his works with the Society of Watercolourists. From 1893 to 1897 he lived in Paris, where he studied at the Académie Julian while still visiting Saint Petersburg often. After the mid-1890s he became a member of the circle of writers and artists formed by Sergei Diaghilev and Alexandre Benois, which later became the Mir Iskusstva art movement.
  
  wn.com/Léon_Bakst
• Mackenzie Rosman
  Mackenzie Lyn Rosman (born December 28, 1989) is an American actress. She is best known for her television role as Ruthie Camden on The WB longest-running show 7th Heaven.
  Rosman was born in Charleston, South Carolina.
  She currently resides in West Hollywood, California. Outside of acting Rosman enjoys animals, especially horses, of which she owns many. She is a competitive equestrian show jumper and rides in jumping competitions using her horse Mentos Junior. Mackenzie showed off her singing skills twice on "7th Heaven".
  Rosman is an active supporter of fundraising for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and wishes to educate the public about the need for organ donation. Mackenzie's stepsister, Katelyn Salmont, lived with Cystic fibrosis and in late 2005, Salmont underwent a successful double lung-transplant. Sadly Katelyn died from Pneumonia and Cystic fibrosis on Christmas 2008. Her stepfather Randy donated one organ. Both girls were featured in Teen People's "20 Teens Who Will Change the World". 7th Heaven produced a special episode about cystic fibrosis titled "Back in the Saddle Again" which featured Salmont as herself, and Rosman and Salmont rode horses together, as they did at home. In 2005, 7th Heaven again brought Salmont on the show, post-transplant, which gave her a chance to explain about the new life she had been given in the episode entitled "X-Mas". Rosman also supports Childhelp Inc. and is an ambassador for the organization, which helps severely abused children. Rosman is also the national honorary chairman for CureFinders, a school fundraising program to help fund the search for a cure for cystic fibrosis.
  
  wn.com/Mackenzie_Rosman
• Madison De La Garza
  Madison Rose De La Garza (born December 28, 2001) is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Juanita Solis on Desperate Housewives.
  Madison De La Garza was born to Eddie De La Garza and Dianna Bonheur Hart De La Garza. She is the maternal half-sister of singer and actress Demi Lovato, and of Dallas Lovato.
  She is best known for her role as Juanita Solis on Desperate Housewives.
  De La Garza has been bullied about her weight and her sister Demi Lovato has spoken out about Madison and herself being bullied.
  In December 2010, De La Garza announced via her Twitter page that she was making a Christmas present for her sister Demi who was undergoing treatment for "physical and emotional issues". This present included messages from Lovato's fans along with their usernames on Twitter.
  
  wn.com/Madison_De_La_Garza
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  Maggie Smith
  Dame Margaret Natalie "Maggie" Smith, DBE (born 28 December 1934) is an English film, stage and television actress. She has had an extensive career both on screen and in live theatre, and is known as one of Britain's pre-eminent actors. She made her stage debut in 1952 and is still performing after 60 years. She has won numerous awards for acting, both for the stage and for film, including seven BAFTA Awards (five competitive awards and two special awards including the Bafta Fellowship in 1996), two Academy Awards, two Golden Globes, two Emmy Awards, a Laurence Olivier Award, two SAG Awards and a Tony Award. Dame Maggie is the only actor ever to win this collective of awards and is one of the most successful and acclaimed actors of the film era.
  Her critically acclaimed films include Othello (1965), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), Travels with My Aunt (1972), California Suite (1978), Clash of the Titans (1981), A Room with a View (1985) and Gosford Park (2001). She has also appeared in a number of widely-popular films, including Hook (1991), Sister Act (1992) and as Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter film series. She currently stars in the critically acclaimed drama Downton Abbey as Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess of Grantham, for which she has won an Emmy.
  
  wn.com/Maggie_Smith
• Maite Zúñiga
  Maite Zúñiga Domínguez (born 28 December 1964 in Eibar) is a retired Spanish middle distance runner.
  
  
  
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  Majorian
  Majorian (Latin: Flavius Julius Valerius Majorianus Augustus; ca. 420 – August 7, 461), was the Western Roman Emperor from 457 to 461.
  A prominent general of the Late Roman army, Majorian deposed Emperor Avitus in 457 and succeeded him. Majorian was one of the last emperors to make a concerted effort to restore the Western Roman Empire. Possessing little more than Italy, Dalmatia, and some territory in northern Gaul, Majorian campaigned rigorously for three years against the Empire's enemies.
  After defeating a Vandal attack on Italy, Majorian launched a campaign against the Visigothic Kingdom in southern Gaul. Defeating king Theodoric II at the Battle of Arelate, Majorian forced the Goths to abandon their possessions in Septimania and Hispania and return to federate status immediately. Majorian then attacked the Burgundian Kingdom, defeating them at the Siege of Lugdunum, expelling them from the Rhone valley and reducing them to federate status.
  In 460, Majorian left Gaul to consolidate his hold on Hispania. His generals launched a campaign against the Suebic Kingdom in northwest Hispania, defeating them at the battles of Lucus Augusti and Scallabis and reducing them to federate status as well. His fleet for his campaign to restore Africa to the empire from the Vandals was destroyed due to treachery.
  
  wn.com/Majorian
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  Manuel Puig
  Manuel Puig (born Juan Manuel Puig Delledonne) (General Villegas, Argentina, December 28, 1932 - Cuernavaca, Mexico, July 22, 1990) was an Argentine author. Among his best known novels are La traición de Rita Hayworth (1968) (Betrayed by Rita Hayworth), Boquitas pintadas (1969) (Heartbreak Tango), and El beso de la mujer araña (1976) (Kiss of the Spider Woman), which was made into a film by the Argentine-Brazilian director, Héctor Babenco and in 1993 into a Broadway musical.
  Manuel Puig was born in General Villegas (in Buenos Aires province). After unsuccessfully studying architecture in the Universidad de Buenos Aires, he began working as a film archivist and editor in the city of Buenos Aires and later, in Italy after winning a scholarship from the Italian Institute of Buenos Aires. Puig's dream was to become a screenwriter to write TV shows and movies. His career as a screenwriter never took off, however. In the 1960s, he moved back to Buenos Aires, where he penned his first major novel, La traición de Rita Hayworth. Because he had leftist political tendencies and also foresaw a rightist wave in Argentina, Puig moved to Mexico in 1973, where he wrote his later works (including El beso de la mujer araña).
  
  wn.com/Manuel_Puig
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  Margaret of Parma
  Margaret, Duchess of Parma (28 December 1522 – 18 January 1586), Governor of the Netherlands from 1559 to 1567 and from 1578 to 1582, was the illegitimate daughter of Charles V and Johanna Maria van der Gheynst. She was a Duchess consort of Florence and a Duchess consort of Parma and Piacenza by marriage.
  Her mother, Johanna Maria van der Gheynst, a servant of Charles de Lalaing, Seigneur de Montigny, was a Fleming. Margaret was brought up by the Douwrin family, under the supervision of her great-aunt, Archduchess Margaret of Austria, and her aunt, Maria of Austria, who were successively governors of the Netherlands from 1507 to 1530 and from 1530 to 1555, respectively. In 1529 she was acknowledged by her father and allowed to assume the name Margaret of Austria, and in 1533, she was brought to Italy. Though she was multi-lingual, she was to prefer the Italian language for the rest of her life.
  In 1527, in the year she turned five, she became engaged to the Pope's nephew, Alexander de Medici, Duke of Florence, to assist her father's ambition in gaining influence in Italy. The marriage negotiations had been initiated in 1526, and in 1529, the agreement was officially signed by her father and the Pope. In 1536, she married her betrothed, but he was assassinated in 1537. On 4 November 1538 she married Ottavio Farnese, Duke of Parma, the grandson of Pope Paul III. He was fourteen years old, she fifteen. She did not wish to marry him, as she wished to marry Cosimo de Medici instead. The union, which proved an unhappy one, produced twin sons, one of whom died in infancy. The couple lived periodically separated lives. She was in a somewhat difficult position, as the Pope and the Emperor argued about the authority over Parma. In 1555, the Farnese family was acknowledged rulers of Parma by Spain in exchange for the custody of her son.
  
  wn.com/Margaret_of_Parma
• Markus Weinzierl
  Markus Weinzierl (born 28 December 1974 in Straubing) is a German football coach and former player. As the manager of SSV Jahn Regensburg, a position he held from 2008 to 2012, Weinzierl achieved promotion into the 2. Fußball-Bundesliga. On 17 May 2012, Weinzierl has been appointed the new manager of the Bundesliga club FC Augsburg.
  Weinzierl was named head coach of FC Augsburg on 17 May 2012.
  
  wn.com/Markus_Weinzierl
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  Mary II of England
  Mary II (30 April 1662 – 28 December 1694) was joint Sovereign of England, Scotland, and Ireland with her husband and first cousin, William III and II, from 1689 until her death. William and Mary, both Protestants, became king and queen regnant, respectively, following the Glorious Revolution, which resulted in the deposition of her Roman Catholic father, James II and VII. William became sole ruler upon her death in 1694. Popular histories usually refer to their joint reign as that of "William and Mary".
  Mary wielded less power than William when he was in England, ceding most of her authority to him, though he heavily relied on her. She did, however, act alone when William was engaged in military campaigns abroad, proving herself to be a powerful, firm, and effective ruler.
  Mary, born at St. James's Palace in London on 30 April 1662, was the eldest daughter of James, Duke of York (the future James II & VII), and his first wife, Lady Anne Hyde. Mary's uncle was King Charles II, who ruled the three kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland; her maternal grandfather, Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, served for a lengthy period as Charles's chief advisor. She was baptised into the Anglican faith in the Chapel Royal at St. James's, and was named after her ancestress, Mary, Queen of Scots. Her godparents included her father's cousin, Prince Rupert of the Rhine. Although her mother bore eight children, all except Mary and her younger sister Anne died very young, and the King had no legitimate children. Consequently, for most of her childhood, Mary was second in line to the throne after her father.
  
  wn.com/Mary_II_of_England
• Mary Weiss
  Mary Weiss, born on December 28, 1948 in Queens, New York, found fame in the 1960s as the lead singer of The Shangri-Las. She then vanished from the music scene for decades, returning in 2007 to record her first solo album with Norton Records.
  Growing up in Queens, Mary, her older sister Elizabeth and her older brother George lived in Cambria Heights, where Mary sang in school plays and church choirs. She listened to her brother and his friends perform popular songs of the day; George was an Elvis Presley fan. Mary appreciated such performers as Neil Sedaka and the Everly Brothers; she attended her first concert of the Everly Brothers in 1963.
  After Mary, Betty, Mary Ann and Margie became good friends in grammar school, they sang at local dances and hops. That brought them to the attention of local producer Artie Ripp, who later signed them on to Kama Sutra Productions. From doing demos to making it to the Brill Building in 1964 and signing with Red Bird Records), they recorded songs: "Remember (Walking in the Sand)", which was their first hit, "Leader of the Pack" that had made its way to #1 on the charts in 1964.
  
  wn.com/Mary_Weiss
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  Matthias Schwarz
  Matthias Schwarz (born 28 December 1987) is a German footballer who plays as a midfielder for Kickers Offenbach.
  He joined VfB Stuttgart in July 2009 from FC Ingolstadt 04. Prior to this, he played for Bayern Munich II.
  
  
  
  
  
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  Maurice Ravel
  Joseph-Maurice Ravel (March 7, 1875 – December 28, 1937) was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects. Much of his piano music, chamber music, vocal music and orchestral music has entered the standard concert repertoire.
  Ravel's piano compositions, such as Jeux d'eau, Miroirs, Le tombeau de Couperin and Gaspard de la nuit, demand considerable virtuosity from the performer, and his orchestral music, including Daphnis et Chloé and his arrangement of Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, uses a variety of sound and instrumentation.
  Ravel is perhaps known best for his orchestral work Boléro (1928), which he considered trivial and once described as "a piece for orchestra without music".
  According to SACEM, Ravel's estate earns more royalties than that of any other French composer. According to the law of most countries (including all members of the World Trade Organization), Ravel's works have been in the public domain since January 1, 2008, in most countries.
  
  wn.com/Maurice_Ravel
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  Maurice Richard
  Joseph Henri Maurice "The Rocket" Richard, PC OC OQ (/rɨˈʃɑrd/; French: [ʁiʃaʁ]; August 4, 1921 – May 27, 2000) was a Canadian professional ice hockey player who played for the Montreal Canadiens of the National Hockey League (NHL) from 1942 to 1960. The "Rocket" was the most prolific goal-scorer of his era, the first to achieve the feat of 50 goals in 50 games. He lived most of his life in Ahuntsic, Montreal.
  Richard was the first to score 50 goals in one season (the 1944–45 NHL season), doing so in 50 games, and the first to score 500 goals in a career. He finished his career with 544 goals in the regular season, with 82 in the playoffs which included a record six overtime winners (surpassed only by Joe Sakic who has eight), and led the league in goals five times. He also amassed 421 assists for a total of 965 points in 978 games. He retired as the NHL's all-time leading scorer.
  Richard won the Stanley Cup eight times in Montreal, was captain for four of the five straight cup wins from 1955-56 to 1959-60, won the Hart Trophy in 1947, was elected eight times to the first all-star team and six times to the second all-star team, and played in every National Hockey League All-Star Game from 1947 to 1959. Teamed with Elmer Lach as centre and Hector 'Toe' Blake playing left-wing, they formed the "Punch Line".
  
  wn.com/Maurice_Richard
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  Max Steiner
  Max Steiner (May 10, 1888 – December 28, 1971) was an Austrian composer of music for theatre productions and films. He later became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Trained by the great classical music composers Brahms and Mahler, he was one of the first composers who primarily wrote music for motion pictures, and as such is often referred to as "the father of film music". Along with such composers as Franz Waxman, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Alfred Newman and Miklós Rózsa, Steiner played a major part in creating the tradition of writing music for films.
  Steiner composed hundreds of film scores, including The Informer (1935), Now, Voyager (1942), and Since You Went Away (1944), which won him Academy Awards. He was nominated for the Academy Award a total of twenty-four times. He was also the first recipient of the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score, which he won for his score to Life with Father.
  Steiner was one of the best-known composers in Hollywood, and is widely regarded today as one of the greatest film score composers in the history of cinema. He was a frequent collaborator with some of the most famous film directors in history, including John Ford and William Wyler. Besides his Oscar-winning scores, some of Steiner's popular works include King Kong (1933), Little Women (1933), Jezebel (1938), Casablanca (1942), and the film score for which he is possibly best known, Gone with the Wind (1939). Despite being one of the most popular film soundtracks ever written, Gone with the Wind failed to win an Oscar for him.
  
  wn.com/Max_Steiner
• Melvin Turpin
  Melvin Harrison "Mel" Turpin (December 28, 1960 – July 8, 2010) was an American professional basketball player.
  A 6'11" center, Turpin was born in Lexington, Kentucky and attended Fork Union Military Academy in Fork Union, Virginia from 1979–80. He was FUMA's most valuable player for the postgraduate squad under coach Fletcher Arritt, also being voted the number one player in the state for varsity basketball; he averaged 19 points, 12 rebounds and six blocked shots, being inducted into the Fork Union Military Academy Hall of Fame in 2000.
  At the University of Kentucky, Turpin made the 1st Team All-SEC for 1982 and 1983, and was a starter for the NCAA Final Four Kentucky Wildcats team in 1983–84. In 1984, he was the Southeastern Conference scoring leader, holding the record for the most field goals made in SEC tournament play in addition to co-holding the honour of the most points scored in a single tournament game. Turpin scored 42 points in a game against University of Tennessee as a junior, making 18 of 22 shots from the field; he similarly dominated Louisiana State University as a senior, shooting 15 of 17 from the floor and five of six from the free throw line.
  
  wn.com/Melvin_Turpin
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  Michel Petrucciani
  Michel Petrucciani (28 December 1962, Orange, Vaucluse, France – 6 January 1999, New York City, USA) was a French jazz pianist.
  Michel Petrucciani came from an Italo-French family with a musical background. His father Tony played guitar, his brother Louis played bass and his brother Philippe also plays the guitar. Michel was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, which is a genetic disease that causes brittle bones and in his case short stature. It is also often linked to pulmonary ailments. This disease caused his bones to fracture over one hundred times until he reached adolescence. The disease caused pain that continued throughout his entire life. “I have pain all the time. I’m used to having hurt arms,” he said. In Michel's early career his father and brother occasionally carried him, literally, because he could not walk far on his own unaided. In certain respects though he considered his disability an advantage as he got rid of distractions, like sports, that other boys tended to become involved in. And he hints that his disability was helpful in other parts of his life. He said: "Sometimes I think someone upstairs saved me from being ordinary."
  
  wn.com/Michel_Petrucciani
• Michelle Urry
  Michelle Urry (28 December 1939–15 October 2006, born Michelle Dorothy Kaplan) was the cartoon editor of Playboy magazine for over 30 years. Together with Hugh Hefner, she edited the retrospective Playboy: 50 Years The Cartoons. Among the cartoonists whose career she is credited with developing is B. Kliban. On learning of her death, Jules Feiffer told the New York Times she was the "mother superior to cartoonists."
  Urry was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. As a child, she collected comic books rather than the dolls favored by other girls of her age. She graduated from UCLA, and after running a dress shop she moved to Chicago, taking a low-level staff job with Playboy in the late 1960s. By 1971 Urry had become the magazine's cartoon editor, and she held that post until her death.
  In 1974, while visiting B. Kliban in his San Francisco studio, Urry was struck by a group of Kliban's offhand cartoons of cats, bought several of them, and prodded Kliban to create a book-length collection of similar work. Kliban's Cat became a best-selling book the next year, and spawned a wide range of popular merchandise.
  
  wn.com/Michelle_Urry
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  Mike Beebe
  Mickey Dale "Mike" Beebe (born December 28, 1946) is the 45th and current Governor of Arkansas, since January 9, 2007. He was elected to a second term in 2010. Beebe is a member of the Democratic Party.
  Beebe was born in Amagon, a small town in Jackson County, Arkansas. He was raised by his mother, a waitress, and never met his father. As a child, he moved often with his family. They lived in Detroit, St. Louis, Chicago, Houston and Alamogordo, New Mexico. They returned to Arkansas, and he graduated from Newport High School in 1964.
  Beebe received a bachelor of arts degree in political science from Arkansas State University in 1968, where he was a member of Sigma Pi fraternity. He earned a law degree from the University of Arkansas in 1972. Beebe served in the U.S. Army Reserve. He practiced law in Searcy in White County for ten years after his graduation from law school.
  In 1982, he was elected to the Arkansas State Senate, where he would serve for 20 years. In 2002, he was elected Arkansas Attorney General, a position he held until getting elected Governor of Arkansas.
  
  wn.com/Mike_Beebe
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  Milton Obote
  Apolo Milton Obote (28 December 1925 – 10 October 2005) was a Ugandan socialist political leader who led Uganda towards independence from the British colonial administration in 1962. Following the nation's independence, he served as Prime Minister of Uganda from 1962 to 1966 and President of Uganda from 1966 to 1971, then again from 1980 to 1985. He was overthrown by Idi Amin in 1971, but regained power after Amin's 1979 overthrow. His second rule was marred by repression and the deaths of many civilians as a result of a civil war known as the Ugandan Bush War.
  Milton Obote was born at Akokoro village in Apac district in northern Uganda. He was the son of a local chief of the Lango ethnic group. He began his education in 1940 at the Protestant Missionary School in Lira, and later attended Gulu Junior Secondary School, Busoga College and eventually university at Makerere University. Having intended to study law, a subject not taught at the university, Obote instead took a general arts course, including English and geography. At Makerere, Obote honed his natural oratorical skills, he may have been expelled for participating in a student strike, or alternatively left after a place to study law abroad was not funded by the protectorate government. He worked in Buganda in southern Uganda before moving to Kenya, where he worked as a construction worker at an engineering firm.
  
  wn.com/Milton_Obote
• Moe Koffman
  Moe Koffman, OC (December 28, 1928 - March 28, 2001) was a Canadian jazz musician and composer. He played the flute, soprano, alto and tenor saxophone and clarinet. Although some jazz purists did not appreciate his sensitivity to popular tastes, his ability to adapt to changing styles reflected his technical skill as a musician and diverse musical interests.
  Born Morris Koffman in Toronto, he began his musical studies in his native city with Gordon Delamont. He attended the Toronto Conservatory of Music, now the Royal Conservatory of Music of Toronto, where he was a student of Samuel Dolin but later dropped out of school to perform in dance bands. In 1950, he moved to the United States, where he played with big bands including those of Sonny Dunham and Jimmy Dorsey. In 1955, he returned to Toronto where he formed a quartet and later a quintet. He recorded Swinging Shepherd Blues in 1958 which helped establish his reputation as a flautist and ranked him alongside Herbie Mann and Yusef Lateef and later Jeremy Steig as great influential jazz flute players. "Swinging Shepherd Blues" was a hit in the United States, reaching #23 on the Billboard pop chart.
  
  wn.com/Moe_Koffman
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  Mustafa II
  Mustafa II Ghazi (Ottoman Turkish: مصطفى ثانى Muṣṭafā-yi sānī) (February 6, 1664 – December 28/30, 1703) was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1695 to 1703.
  He was born at Edirne Palace a son of sultan Mehmed IV (1648–87) and Valide Sultan Mah-Para Ummatullah Rabia Gül-Nush, originally named Evemia, who was of Greek Cretan descent. Mustafa II abdicated in favor of his brother Ahmed III (1703–30) in 1703.
  The most traumatic event of his reign was the loss of Hungary by the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699. This event marked the beginning of the long decline of the Ottoman Empire.
  At the end of his reign, Mustafa II sought to restore power to the Sultanate, which had been an increasingly symbolic position since the middle of the 17th century, when Mehmed IV had signed over his executive powers to the Grand Vizier. Mustafa II's strategy was to create an alternative base of power for himself by making the position of timars, the Ottoman cavalrymen, hereditary and thus loyal to him. The timars, however, were at this point increasingly an obsolete part of the Ottoman military machine.
  
  wn.com/Mustafa_II
• Narsha
  Narsha (born December 28, 1981), born Park Hyo-jin, is a Korean singer and dancer, who is part of the Korean girl group Brown Eyed Girls. She made her solo debut in 2010. The name Narsha comes from an old Korean word meaning "to fly".^{[citation needed]}
  She became a member of Brown Eyed Girls after a suggestion by Jea, who had been her friend since their high-school years. The four members held several small size concerts, and was actually known as "Crescendo" before officially debuting as "Brown Eyed Girls". After more than 3 years of training in singing and holding several small size concerts, the Brown Eyed Girls released their debut album Your Story in South Korea in February 2006, with the ballad track, "Come Closer" as their single.
  Entertainer
  During 2009, her popularity began to increase after she started appearing on many entertainment programs, including Invincible Youth, on which she gained the nickname "Adult-dol". She returned as a guest on the episode 22 of season 2 alongside Girls Generation's Taeyeon. She also appeared as a regular member in Heroes.. She was featured in the Anycall LIVE CF promotional music video 'Phone Heart' alongside Kim Taewoo. She became a DJ on "Pump up the Volume" on KBS Cool FM, from 8 PM until 10 PM, first appearing on April 19, 2010 but due to Brown Eyed Girls' overseas promotions Narsha decided to leave the show, with her last broadcast on Dec. 28, 2010. She made her debut as an MC through OnStyle‘s fashion program, Style Show Fiㄹ on June 16, 2011. On February 7, 2012 Narsha made her acting debut through MBC's drama series Light and Shadow playing the role of Hye Bin, a singer aspirant. She was also featured in fellow BEG member Miryo's solo album 'Miryo AKA JOHONEY' and performed with her for Music Bank. It was also revealed that Narsha was hosting the 2012 Korean Music Festival as one out of two MC's alongside G.O.D.'s Son Ho Young.
  
  wn.com/Narsha
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  Nichelle Nichols
  Nichelle Nichols (born Grace Dell Nichols; December 28, 1932) is an American actress, singer and voice artist. She sang with Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton before turning to acting. Her most famous role is that of communications officer Lieutenant Uhura aboard the USS Enterprise in the popular Star Trek television series, as well as the succeeding motion pictures, where her character was eventually promoted in Starfleet to the rank of commander.
  Nichols was born in Robbins, Illinois, near Chicago, to Samuel Earl Nichols, a factory worker who was both the town mayor of Robbins and its chief magistrate, and his wife Lishia (Parks) Nichols. Later, the family moved into an elegant apartment in Chicago.
  She studied in Chicago as well as New York and Los Angeles. Her break came in an appearance in Kicks and Co., Oscar Brown, Jr.'s highly touted, but ill-fated musical. In the thinly veiled satire of Playboy magazine, she played Hazel Sharpe, a voluptuous campus queen who was being tempted by the devil and Orgy Magazine to become "Orgy Maiden of the Month." Although the play closed after its brief try-out in Chicago, in an ironic twist, she attracted the attention of Hugh Hefner, the publisher of Playboy, who was so impressed with her appearance that he booked her immediately at his Chicago Playboy Club. While still in Chicago, she performed at the "Blue Angel", and in New York, Nichols appeared at that city's "Blue Angel" as a dancer and singer.^{[citation needed]} She also appeared in the role of Carmen for a Chicago stock company production of Carmen Jones and performed in a New York production of Porgy and Bess. Between acting and singing engagements, Nichols did occasional modeling work.
  
  wn.com/Nichelle_Nichols
• Niel van der Watt
  Niel van der Watt (born Gerhardus Daniel van der Watt, on 28 December 1962 in Pretoria) is a South African composer. Well known for his choral compositions, he has also established himself as a leading composer of chamber music.
  Born into a family of teachers, Niel attended high school in Pietersburg (now Polokwane) in South Africa. After matriculating in 1980 he studied at the University of Pretoria, where he attained the BA Ed(Mus), BMus(Hons) cum laude and an MMus in Composition.
  In 1997 he completed his Doctorate in Musicology at the University of South Africa with a doctoral dissertation on the life and works of the British composer Gerald Finzi.
  After his military service in the old South African Defence Force, he joined the staff of Pretoria Boys High School, a prominent South African public school, where he is currently head of the Music Department and conductor of both the orchestra and Dixie Band. While he is a full-time teacher, he dedicates much of his time to composition. Van der Watt has also arranged a significant amount of traditional African music for choir as well as setting leading Afrikaans poetry to music, including the works of Antjie Krog and N.P. van Wyk Louw.
  
  wn.com/Niel_van_der_Watt
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  Nigel Kennedy
  Nigel Kennedy (born 28 December 1956) is a British-born violinist and violist. He made his early career in the classical field, and he has performed and recorded most of the major violin concerti. He later included jazz, klezmer, and other genres in his repertoire.
  Nigel Kennedy's grandfather was Lauri Kennedy, a British-born musician and principal cellist with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, who played with Fritz Kreisler, Jascha Heifetz, Arthur Rubinstein, and others. His grandmother was Dorothy Kennedy, a pianist, who accompanied John McCormack and taught Enrico Caruso's children. Lauri and Dorothy settled in Australia, where their son, the cellist John Kennedy, was born. At the age of 24, John moved to England and joined the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, later becoming the principal cellist of Sir Thomas Beecham's Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. While in England, John developed a relationship with an English pianist, Scylla Stoner, with whom he eventually toured in 1952 as part of the Llewellyn-Kennedy Piano Trio (with the violinist Ernest Llewellyn; Stoner was billed as "Scylla Kennedy" although she and John never married). However, John ultimately left Stoner and returned to Australia, unaware she was pregnant by him. John remained unaware of the existence of his son, Nigel Kennedy, until they met for the first time when Nigel was 11. Nigel Kennedy has about 30 close relatives in Australia, whom he visits whenever he tours there.
  
  wn.com/Nigel_Kennedy
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  Noomi Rapace
  Noomi Rapace ( /ˈnoʊmi rəˈpɑːs/ NOH-mee rə-PAHSS),née Norén (born 28 December 1979), is a Swedish actress. She is best known for her portrayal of Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish/Danish film adaptations of the Millennium series: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest. She recently played Madame Simza Heron in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows and will star as Elizabeth Shaw in the upcoming Ridley Scott science fiction film Prometheus. As of March, 2012, she is shooting Brian De Palma's thriller Passion in Berlin.
  Rapace was born in Hudiksvall. Her mother, Nina Norén (b. 1954), is a Swedish actress, and her father, Rogelio Durán (1953–2006), was a Spanish cantaor (Flamenco singer) from Badajoz. She has said that her father may have been of part Roma descent, and though she is "not sure if it is true," she has "always been interested in the culture." Rapace's sister, Særún Norén, is a photographer. Rapace has said that she saw her father only occasionally before his death. At the age of five, she moved from Sweden to Flúðir, Iceland, with her mother and stepfather. At the age of seven she made her film debut in the Icelandic film In the Shadow of the Raven playing a minor role.
  
  wn.com/Noomi_Rapace
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  Olavo Bilac
  Olavo Brás Martins dos Guimarães Bilac (December 16, 1865 – December 28, 1918) was a Brazilian Parnassian poet, journalist and translator. Alongside Alberto de Oliveira and Raimundo Correia, he was a member of the "Parnassian Triad". Elected the "Prince of Brazilian Poets" in 1907 by the magazine Fon-Fon, he is famous for writing the lyrics of the Brazilian Flag Anthem.
  He founded and occupied the 15th chair of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, from 1897 until his death in 1918.
  Bilac was born in the city of Rio de Janeiro, to Brás Martins dos Guimarães Bilac and Delfina Belmira dos Guimarães Bilac. As a young man, he was a brilliant student, gaining acceptance to Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro at the age of 15.
  He began studying medicine, but did not finish the course. He also tried to study Law at the Faculdade de Direito da Universidade de São Paulo, but did not finish the course either. Instead, he found pleasure in writing and journalism.
  His first work was the sonnet "Sesta de Nero" ("Nero's Nap") in the newspaper Gazeta de Notícias, in 1884, which received praise from Artur Azevedo.
  
  wn.com/Olavo_Bilac
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  Orlando Smeekes
  Orlando Smeekes (born 28 December 1981 in Amsterdam, Netherlands) is a Curaçaoan footballer. He plays for SV Wehen Wiesbaden.
  On 10 September 2008 Smeekes left Go Ahead Eagles and moved to German 3. Fußball-Liga club Stuttgarter Kickers. After the relegation of the Kickers he signed with FC Carl Zeiss Jena on 26 June 2009. In July 2010 joined for a trial week at Coventry City F.C., which did not result in a full time contract. He is now attempting to get a contract at Charlton Athletic F.C.. On 21 March 2011 he signed a contract with SV Wehen Wiesbaden and joined the club on 30 June 2011.
  Smeekes is also an active member of the Curaçao national football team.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Orlando_Smeekes
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  Osceola
  Osceola, also known as Billy Powell (1804 – January 30, 1838), became an influential leader with the Seminole in Florida. He was of Creek, Scots-Irish and English parentage, and had migrated to Florida with his mother after the defeat of the Creek in 1814.
  Osceola led a small band of warriors in the Seminole resistance during the Second Seminole War, when the United States tried to remove the Seminoles from their lands. He exercised a great deal of influence on Micanopy, the highest-ranking chief of the Seminole.^{[dead link]}
  Osceola was named Billy Powell at birth in 1804 in the Creek village of Talisi, now known as Tallassee, Alabama, around current Macon County. "The people in the town of Tallassee...were mixed-blood Native American/English/Irish/Scottish, and some were black. Billy was all of these." His mother Polly Coppinger was the daughter of Ann McQueen, whose mother was mixed-race Creek and whose father James McQueen was Scots-Irish. Ann was likely the sister or aunt of Peter McQueen, a prominent Creek leader and warrior.^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/Osceola
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  Patrick Rafter
  Patrick "Pat" Michael Rafter (born 28 December 1972) is an Australian former World No. 1 tennis player. He twice won the men's singles title at the US Open and was twice the runner-up at Wimbledon. Rafter was elected to the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2006. He was known for his natural serve-and-volley style of play. He became the first man in the Open Era to win Montreal/Toronto, Cincinnati and the US Open in the same year (1998); this achievement has been dubbed the American Summer Slam.
  Rafter turned professional in 1991 and won his first career singles title in 1994 in Manchester. Prior to 1997, this was the only ATP singles title he had won.
  Rafter's breakthrough came in 1997. At that year's French Open he reached the semifinals, falling in four sets to Sergi Bruguera. Then he surprised many by winning the US Open, defeating Greg Rusedski in a four-set final and Andre Agassi and Michael Chang, among others, in earlier rounds; he was the first non-American to win the title since Stefan Edberg in 1992. This was his first Grand Slam title, and catapulted him ahead of Chang to finish the year ranked #2 in the world, behind only Pete Sampras. The unexpected nature of his U.S. Open title led many, including Hall-of-famer and four-time U.S. Open champion John McEnroe to criticise Rafter as a "one-slam wonder".
  
  wn.com/Patrick_Rafter
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  Paul Hindemith
  Paul Hindemith (16 November 1895 – 28 December 1963) was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist and conductor.
  Born in Hanau, near Frankfurt am Main, Hindemith was taught the violin as a child. He entered Frankfurt's Hoch’sche Konservatorium, where he studied violin with Adolf Rebner, as well as conducting and composition with Arnold Mendelssohn and Bernhard Sekles. At first he supported himself by playing in dance bands and musical-comedy groups. He became deputy leader of the Frankfurt Opera Orchestra in 1914, and was promoted to leader in 1917. He played second violin in the Rebner String Quartet from 1914. In 1921 he founded the Amar Quartet, playing viola, and extensively toured Europe.
  In 1922, some of his pieces were played in the International Society for Contemporary Music festival at Salzburg, which first brought him to the attention of an international audience. The following year, he began to work as an organizer of the Donaueschingen Festival, where he programmed works by several avant garde composers, including Anton Webern and Arnold Schoenberg. From 1927 he taught composition at the Berliner Hochschule für Musik in Berlin. Hindemith wrote the music for Hans Richter's 1928 avant-garde film Ghosts Before Breakfast (Vormittagsspuk), although the score was subsequently lost, and he also acted in the film.
  
  wn.com/Paul_Hindemith
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  Pavel Postyshev
  Pavel Petrovich Postyshev (Russian: Па́вел Петро́вич По́стышев) (September 18 [O.S. September 6] 1887 – February 26, 1939) was a Soviet politician. He is considered to be one of the principal architects of the man-made famine of 1932–33, or Holodomor.
  Postyshev was born in Ivanovo-Voznesensk into a religious Jewish family.
  He was a member of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party from 1904, then a member of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) in Siberia. In 1923 he was reassigned from his position in the Far Eastern Republic to supervise organization of the Communist Party committee in Kiev Governorate (guberniya) in central Ukraine. In 1925 Postyshev became secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine, or CP(b)U. In 1926–30 he became a member of the Politburo and Organizational Bureau of Ukraine's Bolshevik Party.
  In his role of secretary of the Kharkiv Oblast and city Party committees Postyshev organized the purge of Trotskyists and Ukrainian national-communists as well as industrialization and collectivization campaigns in the region.^{[citation needed]} In July 1930 he was promoted to the office of secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik) in Moscow and put in charge of propaganda and organization.
  
  wn.com/Pavel_Postyshev
• Philip Anschutz
  Philip Frederick Anschutz (pronounced /ˈænʃuːts/ AN-shoots; born December 28, 1939) is an American entrepreneur. Anschutz bought out his father's drilling company in 1961 and earned large returns in Wyoming. He has invested in stocks, real estate and railroads. He then began investing in entertainment companies, co-founding Major League Soccer as well as multiple teams, including the Los Angeles Galaxy, Chicago Fire, Houston Dynamo, San Jose Earthquakes, and the New York / New Jersey Metro Stars. Anschutz owns stakes in the Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Kings, and venues including the Staples Center, O2 Arena, and the Home Depot Center. Anschutz also invests in family films such as The Chronicles of Narnia. Forbes ranks him the 34th richest person in the U.S. with an estimated net worth of $7 billion as of October 2010.
  Anschutz was born in Russell, Kansas, the son of Marian (née Pfister) and Frederick Benjamin "Fritz" Anschutz. His father was a land investor who invested in ranches in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, and eventually went into the oil-drilling business. Anschutz's grandfather, Karl Anschütz (born November 10, 1859, in the largely German region^{[citation needed]} of Samara), emigrated from Russia and started the Farmers State Bank in Russell, Kansas. Anschutz grew up in Hays, Kansas, with part of the family located in Wisconsin (the location of his father's oil-exploration business, Circle A Drilling, where he lived near Bob Dole). In later years, Anschutz contributed to Dole's political campaigns. He graduated from Wichita High School East in 1957, and graduated with a bachelor's degree in business from the University of Kansas in 1961, where he was also a brother of the Sigma Chi Fraternity. His first cousin was fellow Russell native and long-time KCTV news anchor Wendall Anschutz.
  
  wn.com/Philip_Anschutz
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  Pierre Bayle
  Pierre Bayle (18 November 1647 – 28 December 1706) was a French philosopher and writer best known for his seminal work the Historical and Critical Dictionary, published beginning in 1695.
  Bayle was a self-pronounced Protestant, and as a fideist he advocated a separation between the spheres of faith and reason, on the grounds of God being incomprehensible to man. As a forerunner of the Encyclopedists and an advocate of the principle of the toleration of divergent beliefs, his works subsequently influenced the development of the Enlightenment.
  Bayle was born at Carla-le-Comte (later renamed Carla-Bayle in his honour), near Pamiers (Ariège), France, and was educated by his father, a Calvinist minister, and at an academy at Puylaurens. He afterwards entered a Jesuit college at Toulouse, and became a Roman Catholic a month later (1669). After seventeen months, he returned to Calvinism and fled to Geneva. There he became acquainted with the teachings of René Descartes. For some years he worked under the name of Bèle as a tutor for various Parisian families, but in 1675 he was appointed to the chair of philosophy at the Protestant Academy of Sedan.
  
  wn.com/Pierre_Bayle
• Pierre Falardeau
  Pierre Falardeau (December 28, 1946 – September 25, 2009) was a Quebec film and documentary director, pamphleteer and noted activist for Quebec independence.
  Falardeau studied anthropology at university and he taught that subject for a brief period. During the 1960s, he became involved in the pro-independence Rassemblement pour l'indépendance nationale, and his passionate belief in the need for the succession of the province of Quebec from Canada features prominently in most of his films. In the "Elvis Gratton" series; a sarcastic trilogy about a local Elvis impersonator, Falardeau sharply satirizes federalist Quebecers. This tendency is also seen in more serious efforts such as "Octobre", about the October crisis, 15 février 1839, about the quelling of the "Patriotes" movement which led to the Lower Canada Rebellion and "Le steak", about Quebec boxer Gaetan Hart.
  Falardeau linked his support for Quebec independence to the struggles for national independence and decolonization movements abroad. That linkage, too, is a prominent part of his work, for instance in an unidentified documentary he prepared on political issues confronting the Algerian people.
  
  wn.com/Pierre_Falardeau
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  Pope Leo I
  Pope Leo I, also known as Leo the Great (c. 391 or 400 – 10 November 461) was the Bishop of Rome—the Pope—of the Catholic Church from 29 September 440 to his death on 10 November 461.
  He was an Italian aristocrat, and was the first pope of the Catholic Church to have been called "the Great". He is perhaps best known for having met Attila the Hun in 452 and persuading him to turn back from his invasion of Italy. He is also a Doctor of the Church, most remembered theologically for issuing the Tome of Leo, a document which was foundational to the debates of the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon. The Council of Chalcedon, the fourth ecumenical council, dealt primarily with Christology, and elucidated the orthodox definition of Christ's being as the hypostatic union of two natures—divine and human—united in one person, "with neither confusion nor division". The Council of Chalcedon gave rise to the first major schism in Christian history, the Monophysite schism.
  According to the Liber Pontificalis, he was a native of Tuscany. By 431, as a deacon, he occupied a sufficiently important position for Cyril of Alexandria to apply to him in order that Rome's influence should be thrown against the claims of Juvenal of Jerusalem to patriarchal jurisdiction over Palestine—unless this letter is addressed rather to Pope Celestine I. About the same time John Cassian dedicated to him the treatise against Nestorius written at his request. But nothing shows more plainly the confidence felt in him than his being chosen by the emperor to settle the dispute between Aëtius and Caecina Decius Aginatius Albinus, the two highest officials in Gaul.
  
  wn.com/Pope_Leo_I
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  Pops Staples
  Roebuck "Pops" Staples (December 28, 1914 – December 19, 2000) was an American gospel and R&B musician.
  A "pivotal figure in gospel in the 1960s and 70s," he was an accomplished songwriter, guitarist and singer. He was the patriarch and member of singing group The Staple Singers, which included his son Pervis and daughters Mavis, Yvonne, and Cleotha.
  Roebuck Staples was born on a cotton plantation near Winona, Mississippi, the youngest of 14 children. When growing up he heard, and began to play with, local blues guitarists such as Charlie Patton, who lived on the nearby Dockery Plantation, Robert Johnson, and Son House. He dropped out of school after the eighth grade, and sang with a gospel group before marrying and moving to Chicago in 1935.
  There he sang with the Trumpet Jubilees while working in the stockyards, in construction work, and later in a steel mill. In 1948 Roebuck and his wife Oceola Staples formed The Staple Singers to sing as a gospel group in local churches, with their children. The Staples Singers first recorded in the early 1950s for United and then the larger Vee-Jay Records, with songs including "This May Be the Last Time" (later covered by The Rolling Stones) and "Uncloudy Day".
  
  wn.com/Pops_Staples
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  Rachel Z
  Rachel Carmel Nicolazzo better known as Rachel Z, is a jazz pianist. She attended the Berklee College of Music Summer School and Manhattan School of Music pre-college, where she launched the quintet, Nardis, whilst studying with Joanne Brackeen and Richie Beirach in NYC. Later Rachel Z graduated from the New England Conservatory with a 'Distinction in Performance' award. Meanwhile she was playing professionally in and around Boston in a small group.
  In 1988, Rachel returned to New York and co-wrote Tokyo Blue with schoolmate turned pro-saxophonist Najee and then played mostly keyboards with classic fusion band Steps Ahead where leader Mike Mainieri suggested she altered her name as to be easier to pronounce.
  Rachel Z remained with Steps Ahead until 1996; however, she collaborated with a number of different artists during this time, establishing her name within the jazz scene. In 1995 she worked with Wayne Shorter, on his album High Life, which won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Jazz Album. She was responsible for the CD's synthesized orchestral settings, acoustic piano solos and several concurrent world tours.
  
  wn.com/Rachel_Z
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  Rainer Maria Latzke
  Rainer Maria Latzke (born December 28, 1950) is a German artist working in the field of trompe l'oeil and mural painting. He teaches at the Utah State University and is Founder of the Institute of Frescography in Logan, Utah. He also is Honorary Professor of the Shanghai Institute of Visual Art of Fudan University and Master of the Beijing De Tao Masters Academy. Latzke is ranked by Artists Trade Union of Russia amongst the world-best artists of the last four centuries.
  Rainer Maria Latzke was born in Germany in 1950. He was raised near Cologne along with his 8 siblings by his Father Alfons, an art teacher, and his mother Lisa who was also an artist. Latzke studied art, Philosophy, and Educational Science at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz Germany, and then continued Art studies from 1972 to 1976 at the Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts under the supervision of Joseph Beuys and Gerhard Richter.
  In 1974 he was awarded a Terminal Degree in Pedagogy, Philosophy and in 1976 in Arts. After holding lectures on Art at Colleges in his home town, he traveled to Italy in 1980 where he studied Renaissance painting techniques and fresco painting in Florence and Rome. In 1981 he married Doris Boecke, with whom he had three children, Rene Marcus (born 1981), who is married to English artist Paula Hammond, Katharina Maria (born 1983) and Maurice Amadeus (born 1985). In 2008 his first grandchild, Tristan Francis, was born to Katharina who is married to US citizen Paul Smith.
  
  wn.com/Rainer_Maria_Latzke
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  Ray Bourque
  Raymond Jean "Ray" Bourque (born December 28, 1960) is a former Canadian professional ice hockey player. He currently holds records for most goals, assists and points by a defenceman in the National Hockey League (NHL). Bourque has become near-synonymous with the Boston Bruins franchise, for which he played 21 seasons and became its longest-serving captain. He finished off his career with the Colorado Avalanche where he won the Stanley Cup in his last NHL game.
  Raymond Bourque was born in Saint-Laurent, Quebec, Canada, December 28, 1960 then moved with his family to Montreal at the age of 10. Bourque was the third-round pick of the Trois-Rivières Draveurs of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL). Half-way through his rookie season, coach and GM Michel Bergeron traded Bourque to Sorel for high-scoring Benoit Gosselin. After a stellar junior career with Sorel and Verdun of the QMJHL, in which he was named the league's best defenceman in 1978 and 1979, Raymond Bourque's NHL debut came in 1979 after being drafted 8th overall by the Bruins, with a first-round draft choice obtained from the Los Angeles Kings in a 1977 trade for goaltender Ron Grahame, whose son John would be a future teammate of Bourque's.
  
  wn.com/Ray_Bourque
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  Richard Clayderman
  Richard Clayderman (born Philippe Pagès, 28 December 1953, Paris, France) is a French pianist who has released numerous albums including the compositions of Paul de Senneville and Olivier Toussaint, instrumental renditions of popular music, rearrangements of movie soundtracks, ethnic music, and easy-listening arrangements of most popular works of classical music.
  Clayderman learned piano from his father, a piano teacher.
  At the age of twelve, he was accepted into the Conservatoire de Paris, where he won great acclaim in his later adolescent years. Financial difficulties, not the least precipitated by his father's illness, forestalled a promising career as a classical pianist. So in order to earn a living, he found work as a bank clerk and as an accompanist to contemporary bands. He accompanied French singers such as Johnny Hallyday, Thierry Le Luron, and Michel Sardou.
  In 1976, he was invited by Olivier Toussaint, a French record producer, and his partner Paul de Senneville, to record a gentle piano ballad. de Senneville had composed this ballad as a tribute to his new daughter "Adeline". The 23-year-old Pagès was auditioned along with 20 other pianists and got the job. "He was an interesting musician with a soft touch and good technique", said Toussaint. "And he looked good, too".
  
  wn.com/Richard_Clayderman
• Richard Whiteley
  Richard Whiteley, born John Richard Whiteley, OBE DL (28 December 1943 – 26 June 2005) was an English broadcaster and journalist, best known for his twenty-three years as host of the game show Countdown. Countdown was the launch programme for Channel 4 at 4:45 pm on 2 November 1982, and Whiteley was the first person to be seen on the channel (not counting a programme montage). Despite his intelligence, Whiteley enjoyed projecting the image of an absent-minded eccentric. His trademarks were his jolly, avuncular manner, his fondness for excruciatingly bad puns, and his bold, sometimes garish wardrobe.
  Thanks to over twenty years' worth of nightly instalments of Countdown as well as his work on the Yorkshire magazine programme Calendar and various other television projects, at the time of his death Whiteley was believed to have clocked more hours on British television screens—and more than 10,000 appearances—than anyone else alive, apart from Carole Hersee, the young girl who appeared on the BBC's iconic Test Card F.
  
  wn.com/Richard_Whiteley
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  Rob Niedermayer
  Robert W. Niedermayer, Jr. (born December 28, 1974) is a Canadian professional ice hockey player who currently plays for HC Lugano of the National League A in Switzerland. He also played for the Florida Panthers, Calgary Flames, Anaheim Ducks, New Jersey Devils and Buffalo Sabres. He is the younger brother of former NHL defenceman Scott Niedermayer (the two were teammates for four seasons) and cousin of Edmonton Oilers defenceman Jason Strudwick.
  Although Rob was born in Cassiar, British Columbia, he and his brother Scott grew up living in Cranbrook, British Columbia.
  Niedermayer was drafted 5th overall by the Florida Panthers in the 1993 NHL Entry Draft. At the time he was playing for the Medicine Hat Tigers of the Western Hockey League (WHL). He started his NHL career right away, without playing a game in the minors. During the 1996 NHL season he set career highs in goals, assists, and points in the regular season. In the playoffs, the Panthers went on an improbable playoff drive to the Stanley Cup Finals, before being swept in four games by the Colorado Avalanche. Niedermayer was hurt by concussions in the next years and has never been able to achieve the same level of scoring ability again. His NHL role soon turned into a defensive forward.
  
  wn.com/Rob_Niedermayer
• Roberto Palacios
  Roberto Carlos Palacios Mestas (born December 28, 1972) is a retired Peruvian footballer who played as a midfielder. He played most of his career for Sporting Cristal, which was the team he started his career and later retired with at the end of the 2011 season. He was born in the district of Chorrillos in Lima, the capital of Peru.
  Roberto Palacios grew up in the Chorrillos District in Lima, to a Creole mother, and a Haitian father^{[citation needed]}. Palacios was introduced to soccer at an early age by his soccer-loving dad, and he played on regional teams in his early years^{[citation needed]}.
  Palacios became a player of Sporting Cristal, where he played in his youth. Palacios made his debut with Sporting Cristal in 1991, when his team faced Deportivo Municipal in late October 1991. Palacios then scored his first goal in the following week against Universitario de Deportes. Palacios was a successful player, and scored many goals for both his clubs and the National Team.
  He is nicknamed "El Chorrillano" or "Chorri". He was regarded, at his peak, by some as one of the best Peruvian players of the 90's. In Peru, Palacios has only played for one club, Sporting Cristal. Outside of Peru he has played for several clubs such as Puebla F.C. (Mexico), Cruzeiro Esporte Clube (Brasil), Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara (Mexico), Monarcas Morelia (Mexico), Deportivo Cali (Colombia) and Liga Deportiva Universitaria de Quito from Ecuador. While playing for LDU Quito, "Chorri" was involved in a fight and got suspended. This was caused because he scored a chalaca goal.
  
  wn.com/Roberto_Palacios
• Roger Swerts
  Roger Swerts (born 28 December 1942 in Heusden-Zolder) is a Belgian former road bicycle racer.
  
  
  
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  Roy Hattersley
  Roy Sydney George Hattersley, Baron Hattersley FRSL (born 28 December 1932) is a British Labour politician, author and journalist from Sheffield. He served as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party from 1983 to 1992.
  Roy Hattersley has been a socialist and Labour supporter from his youth, electioneering at the age of 12 for his local MP and city councillors, beginning in 1945. His own mother, Enid Hattersley, was a city councillor, and later, Lord Mayor of Sheffield (in 1981). Enid Hattersley kept the fact secret from her son (until he was in his 50s) that his father, who died an atheist, had been a Roman Catholic priest, Father Frederick Hattersley, and had renounced the Church to marry her.
  He won a scholarship to Sheffield City Grammar School and went from there to study at the University of Hull. Having been accepted to read English at the University of Leeds, he was diverted into reading Economics when told by a Sheffield colleague of his mother that it was necessary for a political career.
  
  wn.com/Roy_Hattersley
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  Rudi Faßnacht
  Rudolf "Rudi" Faßnacht (28 December 1934 in Neu-Ulm, Bavaria – 25 July 2000 in Gonesse) was a German football manager.
  Faßnacht coached MSV Duisburg to a 7th place finish in the 1970–71 Fußball-Bundesliga season.
  Faßnacht died along with his wife on board Air France Flight 4590, the concorde which crashed in Gonesse, near Paris, on 25 July 2000.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Rudi_Faßnacht
• 
  Sal Maglie
  Salvatore Anthony Maglie (April 26, 1917 – December 28, 1992) was an American Major League Baseball pitcher. He played from 1945 to 1958 for the New York Giants, Cleveland Indians, Brooklyn Dodgers, New York Yankees, and St. Louis Cardinals. Maglie was known as "Sal the Barber", because he gave close shaves—that is, pitched inside to hitters. Coincidentally, he also sported a five o'clock shadow look. He also had the distinction of being one of the few players to play for all three New York City baseball teams. During a 10-year baseball career, Maglie compiled 119 wins, 862 strikeouts, and an 3.15 earned run average.
  Maglie broke into the major leagues with the Giants in 1945, but jumped to the Mexican League prior to the 1946 season. For this, Maglie was banned from organized baseball by Commissioner Happy Chandler, and Maglie was unable to return to the Giants until 1950. The ban had been lifted in 1949, but Maglie chose to remain with the Drummondville Cubs, with whom he was playing at the time, and for whom he was making more money than he did with the Giants.
  
  wn.com/Sal_Maglie
• Sam Peckinpah
  David Samuel "Sam" Peckinpah (February 21, 1925 – December 28, 1984) was an American film director and screenwriter who achieved prominence following the release of the Western epic The Wild Bunch (1969). He was known for the innovative and explicit depiction of action and violence, as well as his revisionist approach to the Western genre.
  Peckinpah's films generally deal with the conflict between values and ideals, and the corruption of violence in human society. He was given the nickname "Bloody Sam" owing to the violence in his films. His characters are often loners or losers who desire to be honorable, but are forced to compromise in order to survive in a world of nihilism and brutality.
  Peckinpah's combative personality, marked by years of alcohol and drug abuse, affected his professional legacy. Many of his films were noted for behind-the-scenes battles with producers and crew members, damaging his reputation and career during his lifetime. Many of his films, such as Straw Dogs (1971), Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973) and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974), remain controversial.
  
  wn.com/Sam_Peckinpah
• 
  Seminole
  The Seminole are a Native American people originally of Florida, who now reside primarily there and in Oklahoma. The Seminole nation emerged in a process of ethnogenesis out of groups of Native Americans, most significantly Creek from what is now Georgia and Alabama, who settled in Florida in the early 18th century. The word Seminole is a corruption of cimarrón, a Spanish term for "runaway" or "wild one", historically used for certain Native American groups in Florida. The Seminole are closely related to the Miccosukee, who were recognized as a separate tribe in 1962.
  After an initial period of colonization in Florida, during which they distanced themselves increasingly from other Creek groups, the Seminole established a thriving trade network during the British and second Spanish periods (roughly 1767–1821). The tribe expanded considerably during this time, and was further supplemented from the late 18th century with the appearance of the Black Seminoles – free blacks and escaped slaves who settled in communities near Seminole towns, where they paid tribute to the Native Americans in exchange for protection. However, tensions grew between the Seminole and the United States to the north, leading to a series of conflicts known as the Seminole Wars (1818–1858). Over the course of the wars most Seminoles were forced to relocate west of the Mississippi River in a process of Indian removal. Perhaps fewer than 200 Seminoles remained in Florida, but those who did fostered a resurgence in traditional customs and a culture of staunch independence.
  
  wn.com/Seminole
• 
  Senna Guemmour
  Senna Guemmour (born 28 December 1979) is a German singer-songwriter and a member of the pop group Monrose.
  Guemmour was born in Frankfurt to an Algerian father and a Moroccan mother. She grew up in the housing estate of Frankfurt-Nordweststadt. Senna Guemmour's father died in 1992. Shaped by her life in the urban area, Guemmour became interested in hip hop culture and music.
  In 2003, Senna Guemmour auditioned for the television show Popstars – Das Duell but was eliminated during the callback. In 2006 she auditioned yet another time, this time for Popstars – Neue Engel braucht das Land where she made it throughout the entire competition and became a member of the girl group Monrose. Monrose turned out to be very popular reaching two number-one hits on the German Singles Charts ("Shame" and "Hot Summer") and landing six top-ten hits as of mid-2008.
  Guemmour acts as a spokesperson for Monrose, dominating the interviews and cutting the other band members short. From time to time she does solo projects such as the single "Melodie" from rapper Kool Savas' album Tot oder Lebendig and her appearance on Dieter Falk's album Volkslieder with the track "Kein Schöner Land".
  
  wn.com/Senna_Guemmour
• 
  Seth Meyers
  Seth Adam Meyers (born December 28, 1973) is an American actor and comedian. He currently serves as head writer for Saturday Night Live and hosts its news parody segment Weekend Update.
  Meyers was born in Evanston, Illinois, the son of Hilary Claire (née Olson), a middle school French teacher, and Laurence Meyers, Jr. He attended Manchester High School West in Manchester, New Hampshire. He went on to graduate from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where he was a member of the fraternity Phi Gamma Delta. Meyers is the older brother of Josh Meyers, who was best known as a cast member of MADtv.
  Before SNL, Meyers got his improv comedy start as a member of the Northwestern University improv sketch group Mee-Ow, created by Paul Warshauer and Josh Lazar. He continued his career at ImprovOlympic with the group Preponderate as well as overseas as a cast member of Boom Chicago, an English language improv troupe based in Amsterdam, where his brother was also a cast member.
  Meyers appeared with Brendan Fraser and Anita Briem in the 2008 3D film Journey to the Center of the Earth. He also makes a cameo in the 2008 film Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist as a drunk man who mistakes the main character's Yugo for a taxi. Meyers is currently writing and will star in a movie called Key Party. He also starred in the 2004 comedy See This Movie with John Cho. In July 2008, Meyers directed the web series The Line on Crackle. Meyers has hosted the Webby Awards twice, in 2008 and 2009. In 2009, Meyers hosted the Microsoft Company Meeting at Safeco Field in Seattle, WA. Meyers hosted the 2010 and 2011 ESPY Awards on ESPN. In 2011, Seth Meyers was the keynote speaker at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner on April 30; during his introductory remarks, he made a joke about Osama bin Laden's actions while in hiding, unaware that US intelligence had found bin Laden and he would be dead within hours.
  
  wn.com/Seth_Meyers
• 
  Shane Elford
  Shane Elford (born 28 December 1977 in Penrith, New South Wales), is an Australian rugby league player for the Penrith Panthers. He has previously played for the Wests Tigers in the National Rugby League (NRL) and his position of choice is at Centre.
  Elford had missed Penrith's 2003 NRL grand final-winning team. Had he played he would have been the other dual-premiership winning player at the Tigers at the time (the other being Paul Whatuira who did play in Penrith's 2003 premiership winning team).
  He is a member of the Wests Tigers' 2005 NRL Grand Final-winning team, playing at centre in their 30–16 win over the North Queensland Cowboys.
  Following injuries to Benji Marshall and Paul Whatuira during the 2006 season, Elford was trialled at five-eighth during rounds 21 to 26. His first assignment was handling Brisbane Broncos captain Darren Lockyer. The Tigers won that match 20–6 and were the third-last club to beat the eventual premiers before the finals. This was seen as a massive upset as the Tigers were without Marshall, Whatuira and captain Brett Hodgson for the remainder of the 2006 season, and the Broncos were at full strength.
  
  wn.com/Shane_Elford
• 
  Shen Congwen
  Shen Congwen (simplified Chinese: 沈从文; traditional Chinese: 沈從文; pinyin: Shěn Cóngwén; Wade–Giles: Shen Ts'ung-wen, December 28, 1902—May 10, 1988) was the pen name of a Miao Chinese writer from the May Fourth Movement. He was known for combining the vernacular style of writing with classical Chinese writing techniques, and his writing also reflects a strong influence from western literature.
  He was born as Shen Yuehuan (沈岳煥) on December 28, 1902 in Fenghuang County (凤凰县) in Hunan Province. He died on May 10, 1988 in Beijing. He is described as "a novelist, short-story writer, lyricist and passionate champion of literary and intellectual independence". Although almost entirely unknown to Western readers, Mr. Shen's oeuvre, much of it embued with the folklore and customs of his native western Hunan, has been compared to that of William Faulkner."
  Shen was initially trained for a career in the military. As a soldier in the Chinese army, he observed border fighting and the lives of the Miao tribesmen, which later became the subject matter of his early short fiction stories. He began writing fiction in 1922 and wrote almost continually until 1949. He taught Chinese literature at various universities during the Second Sino-Japanese War out of monetary necessity.
  
  wn.com/Shen_Congwen
• 
  Shigematsu Sakaibara
  Shigematsu Sakaibara (酒井原 繁松, Sakaibara Shigematsu^?, December 28, 1898 – June 18, 1947) was an admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy and the Japanese garrison commander on Wake Island during World War II.
  A native of Yamagata prefecture in northern Japan, Sakaibara was a graduate of the 46th class of the Imperial Japanese Navy Academy in 1918, placing 36th in a class of 124. He served his midshipman tour on the cruiser Tokiwa, and after commissioning as an ensign was assigned to Hirado. He later served on the destroyer Kaba and battleship Mutsu.
  As a sub-lieutenant he served on the Iwate and after his promotion to lieutenant on December 1, 1924, he was assigned to the Hiei, Yura, and Sendai. He was chief gunnery officer on the Tatsuta. Promoted to lieutenant commander in 1930, he served as chief gunnery officer on Takao in 1934, followed by Mutsu in 1935. He was executive officer on Chikuma in 1939. After his promotion to captain in 1940, he served on a number of staff positions.
  After the Battle of Wake Island on December 23, 1941, Sakaibara was appointed garrison commander of the Japanese occupation force. Fearing an imminent attempt by American forces to retake the island, Sakaibara ordered the American prisoners of war to build a series of bunkers and fortifications. However, instead of attempting an amphibious invasion, the United States Navy established a submarine blockade, causing the Japanese garrison to starve. United States forces bombed the island periodically from 1942 until Japan's surrender in 1945.
  
  wn.com/Shigematsu_Sakaibara
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  Sienna Miller
  Sienna Rose Miller (born December 28, 1981) is an American born English actress, model, and fashion designer. She is best known for her roles in Layer Cake, Alfie, Factory Girl, The Edge of Love and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. In 2007, the London Film Critics named her British Actress of the Year for Interview. In 2006, she designed a fashion capsule for Pepe Jeans.
  Born in a theatre in New York City, Miller moved to London with her family when she was just over a year old. Her mother, Josephine, is a South African-born former model. Her father, Edwin Miller, is an American banker turned dealer of Chinese art. Miller has a sister, Savannah, and two half-brothers, Charles and Stephen. Miller attended Heathfield St Mary's School, a boarding school in Ascot, Berkshire, and later studied for a year at the Lee Strasberg Institute in New York City. She carries both British and American passports, and acquired her first driving licence in the US Virgin Islands, as it was easier to qualify there, thus allowing her to drive in both the US and UK.
  
  wn.com/Sienna_Miller
• 
  Stan Lee
  Stan Lee (born December 28, 1922) is an American comic book writer, editor, actor, producer, publisher, television personality, and the former president and chairman of Marvel Comics.
  In collaboration with several artists, most notably Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, he co-created Spider-Man, the Hulk, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Thor, and many other fictional characters, introducing complex, naturalistic characters and a thoroughly shared universe into superhero comic books. In addition, he headed the first major successful challenge to the industry's censorship organization, the Comics Code Authority, and forced it to reform its policies. Lee subsequently led the expansion of Marvel Comics from a small division of a publishing house to a large multimedia corporation.
  He was inducted into the comic book industry's Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1995.
  Stan Lee was born Stanley Martin Lieber in New York City on December 28, 1922, in the apartment of his Romanian-born Jewish immigrant parents, Celia (née Solomon) and Jack Lieber, at the corner of West 98th Street and West End Avenue in Manhattan. His father, trained as a dress cutter, worked only sporadically after the Great Depression, and the family moved further uptown to Fort Washington Avenue, in Washington Heights, Manhattan. When Lee was nearly 9, his only sibling, brother Larry Lieber, was born. He said in 2006 that as a child he was influenced by books and movies, particularly those with Errol Flynn playing heroic roles. By the time Lee was in his teens, the family was living in a one-bedroom apartment at 1720 University Avenue in The Bronx. Lee described it as "a third-floor apartment facing out back", with him and his brother sharing a bedroom and his parents using a foldout couch.
  
  wn.com/Stan_Lee
• 
  Susan Sontag
  Susan Sontag (/ˈsɒntɑːɡ/; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American essayist, literary icon, and political activist whose works include On Photography, Against Interpretation, The Way We Live Now, and Regarding the Pain of Others.
  Sontag, born Susan Rosenblatt, was born in New York City to Jack Rosenblatt and Mildred Jacobsen, both Jewish. Her father managed a fur trading business in China, where he died of tuberculosis in 1939, when Susan was five years old. Seven years later, her mother married Nathan Sontag. Susan and her sister, Judith, were given their stepfather's surname, although he never adopted them formally. Sontag did not have a religious upbringing. She claimed not to have entered a synagogue until her mid-twenties.
  
  wn.com/Susan_Sontag
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  Szymon Askenazy
  Szymon Askenazy (December 28, 1866, Zawichost - June 22, 1935, Warsaw) was a Polish historian, diplomat and politician, founder of the Askenazy school.
  Starting in 1902, he served as a professor at the University of Lwów. In 1909 he was inducted into the Polish Academy of Learning (Polska Akademia Umiejętności). After Poland regained independence, Askenazy was chosen to be the first Polish representative at the League of Nations (1920-23), but was forced to resign because of an anti-Semitic campaign against him
  In his studies, he focused chiefly on Poland's political and economic history in the 18th and 19th centuries and thus laid the foundations for the Lwów-Warsaw School of History (also known as the "Askenazy school"). He was the first historian to emphasize the Partitions period as crucially important to the creation of the modern Polish nation.
  Askenazy's idea of describing a nation's history through its social and economic development as well as its international and diplomatic backdrop remains influential in modern Polish historical studies.
  
  wn.com/Szymon_Askenazy
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  Taksin
  Taksin (Royal Institute: Somdet Phra Chao Taksin Maharat; Thai: สมเด็จพระเจ้าตากสินมหาราช  listen (help·info) or The King of the Thonburi Kingdom; Thai: สมเด็จพระเจ้ากรุงธนบุรี, Somdet Phra Chao Krung Thonburi;Chinese: 鄭昭; pinyin: Zhèng Zhāo; Teochew: Dênchao; Vietnamese: Trịnh Quốc Anh) ; (April 17, 1734 – April 7, 1782) was the only King of the Thonburi Kingdom. He is greatly revered by the Thai people for his leadership in liberating Siam from Burmese occupation after the Second Fall of Ayutthaya in 1767, and the subsequent unification of Siam after it fell under various warlords. He established the city Thonburi as the new capital, as the city Ayutthaya had been almost completely destroyed by the invaders. His reign was characterized by numerous wars, fought to repel new Burmese invasions and to subjugate the northern Thai kingdom of Lanna, the Laotian principalities, and a threatening Cambodia. He was succeeded by the Chakri dynasty and the Rattanakosin Kingdom under his long time friend King Buddha Yodfa Chulaloke.
  
  wn.com/Taksin
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  Taryn Terrell
  Taryn Nicole Terrell (born December 28, 1985), better known by her ring name Tiffany is an American model and professional wrestler. She is best known for her time in World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). She also trained at WWE's developmental territory, Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW). Terrell was released from her WWE contract on November 19, 2010
  Terrell tried out for the 2007 WWE Diva Search. Eventually, she made it to the Final 8. Taryn was eventually eliminated fourth. In the month of February 2008, WWE signed her to a development contract and she later debuted in their development facility Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW).
  
  wn.com/Taryn_Terrell
• Tatsumi Fujinami
  Tatsumi Fujinami (藤波 辰爾, Fujinami Tatsumi^?) (born Tatsumi Fujinami (藤波 辰巳, Fujinami Tatsumi^?)) is a Japanese professional wrestler who is famous for his gimmick as "The Dragon." He is the one who is credited for inventing the Dragon Sleeper and the Dragon Suplex. He is also the owner & founder of the Dradition wrestling promotion.
  Fujinami started in the old Japanese Wrestling Association under Antonio Inoki's wing at the age of 17. When Inoki was fired from JWA in 1971, Fujinami and a few others followed him in forming a new promotion, New Japan Pro Wrestling. Inoki, Fujinami, Osamu Kido and Kotetsu Yamamoto are recognized as NJPW's founding fathers.
  In those early days, he served as opponent for debuting rookies, such as Mr. Pogo, Yoshiaki Fujiwara and Gran Hamada. Fujinami, Fujiwara, Hamada and three other rookies competed in the 1974 Karl Gotch Cup (a tournament for rookies, forerunner to the later Young Lions Cup).
  In the late 1970s, Fujinami was sent abroad, to Mexico's Universal Wrestling Association and to Jim Crockett Promotions in the U.S. In the late 1970s he went to the WWWF where he first made a name for himself. He won the WWWF Junior Heavyweight Championship on January 23, 1978. and brought it back to Japan, establishing it as the premier junior heavyweight title in Japan. In October 1981, he graduated to the heavyweight division. Fujinami would be the first wrestler to be successful in both the junior heavyweight and heavyweight divisions.
  
  wn.com/Tatsumi_Fujinami
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  Terry Sawchuk
  Terrance Gordon Sawchuk (December 28, 1929 – May 31, 1970) was a Ukrainian-Canadian professional ice hockey goaltender who played 21 seasons in the National Hockey League for the Detroit Red Wings, Boston Bruins, Toronto Maple Leafs, Los Angeles Kings and New York Rangers.
  
  wn.com/Terry_Sawchuk
• 
  The Beach Boys
  The Beach Boys are an American rock band, formed in 1961 in Hawthorne, California. The group was initially composed of brothers Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine. They were managed early on by the Wilsons' father, Murry. The band's leader, composer, arranger and producer Brian Wilson was responsible for writing most of the band's early singles and albums. After signing with Capitol Records in mid-1962, Wilson wrote or co-wrote more than two dozen Top 40 hits including "Surfin' Safari", "Surfin' USA", "Surfer Girl", "Little Deuce Coupe", "Be True to Your School", "In My Room", "Fun, Fun, Fun", "I Get Around", "Dance Dance Dance", "Help Me Rhonda" and "California Girls". These songs and their accompanying albums were internationally popular, making The Beach Boys one of the biggest acts of their time. The band's early music gained popularity across the United States for its close vocal harmonies and lyrics reflecting a Southern California youth culture of surfing, cars, and romance. By the mid-1960s, Brian's growing creative ambition and songwriting ability would dominate the group's musical direction. The primarily Brian-composed Pet Sounds album and "Good Vibrations" single (both released in 1966) featured a complex, intricate and multi-layered sound.
  
  wn.com/The_Beach_Boys
• 
  The Rev
  James Owen Sullivan (February 9, 1981 – December 28, 2009), more commonly known by his stage name The Reverend Tholomew Plague, generally shortened to The Rev, was an American musician, best known as the drummer for the American heavy metal band Avenged Sevenfold. He was also the lead vocalist/pianist in Pinkly Smooth, a side project where he was known by the name Rat Head, with fellow Avenged Sevenfold member, guitarist Synyster Gates, and the drummer for Suburban Legends from 1998 to 1999.
  Sullivan grew up and lived in Huntington Beach California. He got his first pair of drum sticks at the age of four and received his own drum set at the age of ten. In high school, he started playing in bands. Before leaving to join Avenged Sevenfold as one of the band's founding members, Sullivan was the drummer for the third wave ska band Suburban Legends. At the age of eighteen he recorded his first album with Avenged Sevenfold titled Sounding the Seventh Trumpet. His early influences included Frank Zappa and King Crimson. The Rev said in a Modern Drummer Magazine interview that "I was raised on that stuff as much as rock and metal."
  
  wn.com/The_Rev
• 
  Theodore Dreiser
  Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser (August 27, 1871 – December 28, 1945) was an American novelist and journalist of the naturalist school. His novels often featured main characters who succeeded at their objectives despite a lack of a firm moral code, and literary situations that more closely resemble studies of nature than tales of choice and agency. Dreiser's best known novels include Sister Carrie (1900) and An American Tragedy (1925).
  Dreiser was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, to Sarah and John Paul Dreiser, a strict Catholic family. John Paul Dreiser was a German immigrant from Mayen in the Eifel region, and Sarah was from the Mennonite farming community near Dayton, Ohio; she was disowned for marrying John and converting to Roman Catholicism. Theodore was the twelfth of thirteen children (the ninth of the ten surviving). The popular songwriter Paul Dresser (1857–1906) was his older brother.
  After graduating from high school in Warsaw, IN, Theodore attended Indiana University in the years 1889-1890 before dropping out.. Within several years, he was writing for the Chicago Globe newspaper and then the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. He wrote several articles on writers such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, William Dean Howells, Israel Zangwill, John Burroughs, and interviewed public figures such as Andrew Carnegie, Marshall Field, Thomas Edison, and Theodore Thomas. Other interviewees included Lillian Nordica, Emilia E. Barr, Philip Armour and Alfred Stieglitz. After proposing in 1893, he married Sara White on December 28, 1898. They ultimately separated in 1909, partly as a result of Dreiser's infatuation with Thelma Cudlipp, the teenage daughter of a work colleague, but were never formally divorced.
  
  wn.com/Theodore_Dreiser
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  Tom Huddlestone
  Thomas Andrew Huddlestone (born 28 December 1986) is an English footballer who plays for Tottenham Hotspur and the England national team as a midfielder.
  Born in Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, Huddlestone was taken on by Nottingham Forest at an early age but was released at 12 as he was claimed to be "not strong enough". After Forest he joined Derby and after progressing well, made his debut for Derby County's reserve side at the age of just 15, when he appeared as an 80th minute sub at right-wing back in a match against Coventry City.
  He was given his full debut by George Burley at the age of 16 on the opening day of the 2003–04 season in a 3–0 home defeat to Stoke City, where he was voted Man of the Match. Though Derby struggled in Huddlestone's first full season, Huddlestone was one of Derby's few bright points, with Burley saying "He's a terrific talent. As a young player, he (is) the best passer of a ball I (have) ever seen, and I've worked with some good young players." He eventually went on to appear in 43 of Derby's 46 league games that season. He enjoyed an equally successful 2004-05 as Derby reached the Football League Division One playoffs, where they lost to Preston North End in the semifinals. However, half way through the season Huddlestone signed for Tottenham Hotspur in January 2005 for a fee reported to be worth up to £2.5 million, though he remained at Derby for the rest of the campaign. He left Pride Park with 95 appearances to his credit.
  
  wn.com/Tom_Huddlestone
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  Tunku Abdul Rahman
  Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj ibni Almarhum Sultan Abdul Hamid Halim Shah, AC, CH (Jawi: تونكو عبدالرحمن ڤوترا الهاج ابن المرحوم سلطان عبدالحميد حاليم شه, Chinese: 東姑阿都拉曼) (February 8, 1903 – December 6, 1990) was Chief Minister of the Federation of Malaya from 1955, and the country's first Prime Minister from independence in 1957. He remained as the Prime Minister after Sabah, Sarawak, and Singapore joined the federation in 1963 to form Malaysia. He is widely known simply as "Tunku" or "The Tunku" (a princely title in Malaysia) and also called Bapa Kemerdekaan (Father of Independence) or Bapa Malaysia (Father of Malaysia),
  Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj was born on February 8, 1903, in Alor Setar, Kedah. Tunku was the 7th child of Sultan Abdul Hamid Halim Shah, the 24th ruler of Kedah. Tunku's mother was Che Manjalara (née Nueng Nonthanakorn), the fourth wife of Sultan Abdul Hamid. Together with his mother and her other children, Tunku lived in the pagoda. As soon as he was old enough, Tunku ran outside the palace enclosure to play with boys of his own age who lived in the town. His mother strongly disapproved of it but she was too preoccupied with caring for the Sultan and Tunku's nurses were unable to control him. At that time, cholera and malaria were very common all over Kedah and at least two of Tunku's brothers and older sister died from cholera while Tunku himself suffered from intermittent attacks of malaria until he left for London in 1920 .
  
  wn.com/Tunku_Abdul_Rahman
• Twila Paris
  Twila Paris Wright (born (1958-12-28)December 28, 1958 in Fort Worth, Texas) is a Contemporary Christian Music songwriter, author, vocalist and pianist.
  Since 1980, Twila Paris has released 22 albums, amassed 33 number one Christian Radio singles, and was named the Gospel Music Association Female Vocalist of the Year three years in a row. Many of her earlier songs such as "He Is Exalted", "We Will Glorify," "Lamb of God," and "We Bow Down," are found in church hymnals or otherwise sung in church settings.
  As a child she released her first album, Little Twila Paris, in 1965. The album included songs drawn from among those she sang with her family in their evangelistic outreaches.
  Paris released her first full-length album, Knowin' You're Around, in 1980, and along the way she has written books, recorded children's music, and created worship songs. Her song "God Is In Control" won a GMA Song of the Year award in 1995 and her 1992 Sanctuary release won the GMA Praise & Worship Album of the Year. She has won five GMA Dove Awards and three American Songwriter Awards.
  
  wn.com/Twila_Paris
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  Vanessa Ferlito
  Vanessa Ferlito (born December 28, 1977) is an American actress.
  An Italian American, Ferlito was born in Brooklyn, New York. Her father died when she was three. Her mother and stepfather own a hair salon in Brooklyn. Her first child, a boy, was born, in September 2007.
  She is known for her roles in The Sopranos, Man of the House, Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof, for her role as Claudia Hernandez during 24's third season, but she is most commonly known for her role as Detective Aiden Burn on CSI: NY. She chose to leave the show because she wanted to focus on theatre and films, where her biggest role to date has been as the trader Audrey in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps who helps Jake, the main protagonist get revenge against the film's antagonist Bretton James.
  Ferlito gave birth to her first child, a son, in September 2007. She was inspired by her vegan makeup artist Kara to become a vegetarian, and is a supporter of animal rights, and an active member of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). Even though she is of Italian descent she often plays Latinas on TV and in films.
  
  wn.com/Vanessa_Ferlito
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  Victoria Atkin
  Victoria Atkin (born 28 December 1986) is an English actress best known for playing the character Jason Costello, previously known as Jasmine, in the British soap opera Hollyoaks and Hollyoaks Later as the soap's first character with Gender Identity Disorder. Hollyoaks is Atkin's first television role. Victoria went to Fernhill School and Language College, studied Dance and Theatre Performance at The University of Chichester in 2008 as well as taking a postgraduate course in Musical Theatre at the Central School of Speech & Drama in 2009
  Before she was cast as Jasmine Costello in Hollyoaks Victoria Atkin performed in a touring version of Cinderella with the Globe Players. She also worked with Frantic Assembly in various workshops. Atkin first appeared on Hollyoaks as Jasmine Costello on the 2 August 2010. She has admitted that the trans-gendered role she played has been tough. In September 2011 Atkin announced she would be leaving Hollyoaks to take on new challenges in the TV industry.
  
  wn.com/Victoria_Atkin
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  Visigoths
  The Visigoths (Latin: Visigothi, Wisigothi, Vesi, Visi, Wesi, or Wisi) were one of two main branches of the later Goths, the Ostrogoths being the other. These tribes were among the Germanic peoples who spread through the late Roman Empire during Late Antiquity or the Migration Period. The Visigoths emerged out of the Gothic groups who entered the Roman Empire in and after 376 and defeated the Romans at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. The Visigoths invaded Italy under Alaric I and famously sacked Rome in 410 AD, eventually settling in Spain and Portugal, where they founded a powerful Kingdom.
  After numerous years of migration, which led the Visigoths to compare themselves to the Biblical Hebrew people wandering for 40 years in the Sinai Desert, the Visigoths settled in southern Gaul as foederati of the Romans in 418. For unknown reasons, they soon fell out with their hosts and established their own kingdom with its capital at Toulouse. Extending their authority into Hispania at the expense of the Vandals, their rule in Gaul was ended by the Franks under Clovis I at the Battle of Vouillé in 507. Thereafter the only territory north of the Pyrenees that the Visigoths held was Septimania, such that their kingdom became limited to Hispania. The province came to be dominated by the Visigothic small governing elite at the expense of the Byzantine province of Spania and the Suebic Kingdom of Galicia.
  
  wn.com/Visigoths
• Werner Kolhörster
  Werner Heinrich Gustav Kolhörster (December 28, 1887 – August 5, 1946) was a German physicist and a pioneer of research into cosmic rays.
  Kolhörster was born in Schwiebus (Świebodzin), Province of Brandenburg. While attending the University of Halle, he studied physics.
  Repeating the cosmic ray experiments of Victor Hess, in 1913-14 Kolhörster ascended by balloon to an altitude of 9 km, where he confirmed Hess' result that the ionization rate from cosmic rays was greater at that altitude than at sea level. This was evidence that the source for these ionizing rays came from above the Earth's atmosphere.
  Kolhörster continued his physics studies at the Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt in Berlin, beginning in 1914. During World War I he made measurements of atmospheric electricity in Turkey. Following the war he became a teacher. He joined the Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt in 1922.
  In 1928–29, Walter Bothe and Kolhörster used the Geiger-Muller detector to demonstrate that cosmic rays were actually charged particles. The ability of these particles to penetrate the Earth's atmosphere meant that they must be highly energetic.
  
  wn.com/Werner_Kolhörster
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  Wilhelm Röntgen
  Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (German pronunciation: [ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈʁœntɡən]; 27 March 1845 – 10 February 1923) was a German physicist, who, on 8 November 1895, produced and detected electromagnetic radiation in a wavelength range today known as X-rays or Röntgen rays, an achievement that earned him the first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901.
  Röntgen was born in a traditional Catholic family in Lennep, Germany as the only child of a merchant and manufacturer of cloth. His mother was Charlotte Constanze Frowein of Amsterdam. In March 1848, the family moved to Apeldoorn and Wilhelm was raised in the Netherlands. He received his early education at the boarding school, Institute of Martinus Herman van Doorn, in Apeldoorn. From 1861 to 1863, he attended the ambachtsschool in Utrecht. He was expelled for refusing to reveal the identity of a classmate guilty of drawing an unflattering portrait of one of the school's teachers. Not only was he expelled, he subsequently found that he could not gain admittance into any other Dutch or German gymnasium.
  
  wn.com/Wilhelm_Röntgen
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  William and Mary
  The phrase William and Mary usually refers to the coregency over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland, of first-cousins King William III & II and Queen Mary II. Their joint reign began in February 1689, when they were offered the throne by the Parliament of England, replacing James II & VII, Mary's father and William's uncle/father-in-law, who was "deemed to have fled" the country in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. After Mary died in 1694, William ruled alone until his death in 1702. William and Mary were childless and were ultimately succeeded by Mary's younger sister, Anne.
  To end the Glorious Revolution, William and Mary signed the English Bill of Rights and began a new co-operation between the Parliament and the monarchs, leading to a greater measure of personal liberty and democracy in Britain. This action both signaled the end of several centuries of tension and conflict between the crown and parliament, and the end of the idea that England would be restored to Roman Catholicism, King William being a Protestant leader. The English Bill of Rights also inspired the English colonists in North America to revolt against the rule of James II and his proposed changes in colonial governance. These colonial revolts occurred in Massachusetts, New York, and Maryland.
  
  wn.com/William_and_Mary
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  William Carstares
  William Carstares (also Carstaires) (11 February 1649 – 28 December 1715), a minister of the Church of Scotland, was born at Cathcart, near Glasgow, Scotland.
  He was the son of the Rev John Carstares, a member of the Covenanting party of Protestors. He was educated at the university of Edinburgh, and then passed over to Utrecht, where he commenced his lifelong friendship with the Prince of Orange, and began to take an active part in the politics of his country. The government disliked Carstares for several reasons. He was the intimate of William; he had been the bearer of messages between the disaffected in Scotland and Holland; and he was believed to be concerned with Sir James Steuart (1635-1715) in the authorship of a pamphlet An Account of Scotland's Grievances by reason of the D. of Lauderdale's Ministrie, humbly tendered to his Sacred Majesty.
  Accordingly, on his return to England, at the close of 1674, he was committed to the Tower; the following year he was transferred to Edinburgh Castle, and it was not till August 1679 that he was released. After this he visited Ireland, and then became pastor to a Nonconformist congregation at Cheshunt. During 1682 he was in Holland, but in the following year he was again in London, and was implicated in the Rye House Plot. On its discovery he was examined before the Privy Council of Scotland; though the torture of the thumbscrew was applied, he refused to utter a word until he was assured that his admissions would not be used in evidence, and in the disclosures he then made he displayed great discretion.
  
  wn.com/William_Carstares
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  William Corby
  Rev. William Corby, CSC (October 2, 1833 – December 28, 1897) was an American priest of the Congregation of Holy Cross, and a Union Army chaplain attatched to the Irish Brigade. Corby is perhaps best known for his giving general absolution to the Irish Brigade on the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg, which was dramatized in the film Gettysburg. Fr. Corby also served twice as President of the University of Notre Dame. The school's Corby Hall is named for him, and a statue of him similar to that at Gettysburg stands outside this building on the Notre Dame campus.
  Fr. Corby was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Daniel Corby, an Irish native, and his wife Elizabeth, a Canadian.
  Widely remembered among military chaplains and celebrated by Irish-American fraternal organizations, his statue with right hand raised in the gesture of blessing was the first statue of a non-general erected on the Gettysburg Battlefield.
  
  wn.com/William_Corby
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  William Demarest
  Carl William Demarest (February 27, 1892 – December 28, 1983) was an American character actor. He frequently played crusty but good-hearted roles.
  He was born Carl William Demarest in St. Paul, Minnesota, the son of Samuel and Wilhelmina (née Lindgren) Demarest. He moved to New Bridge, a hamlet in Bergen County, New Jersey, in infancy. A veteran of World War I. Demarest was a prolific film and television actor, having worked on over 140 films.
  He started in show business working in vaudeville, appearing with his wife as "Demarest and Colette", then moved on to Broadway. His film career began in 1926 and spanned the decades up to the 1970s. Demarest worked regularly with director Preston Sturges, becoming part of a "stock" troupe of actors that Sturges repeatedly cast in his films. He appeared in ten films written by Sturges, eight of which were under his direction, including The Lady Eve, Sullivan's Travels, and The Miracle of Morgan's Creek. His most famous TV role was in the ABC and then CBS sitcom My Three Sons from 1965 to 1972, playing Uncle Charley O'Casey. He replaced William Frawley, whose failing health had made procuring insurance impossible. William Demarest had worked with Fred MacMurray previously in the 1935 film Hands Across the Table, the 1945 film Pardon My Past, the 1948 film On Our Merry Way and the 1955 film The Far Horizons and was a personal friend of MacMurray.
  
  wn.com/William_Demarest
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  Woodrow Wilson
  Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856 – February 3, 1924) was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913. Running against Progressive ("Bull Moose") Party candidate Theodore Roosevelt and Republican candidate William Howard Taft, Wilson was elected President as a Democrat in 1912.
  In his first term as President, Wilson persuaded a Democratic Congress to pass major progressive reforms. Historian John M. Cooper argues that, in his first term, Wilson successfully pushed a legislative agenda that few presidents have equaled, and remained unmatched up until the New Deal. This agenda included the Federal Reserve Act, Federal Trade Commission Act, the Clayton Antitrust Act, the Federal Farm Loan Act and an income tax. Child labor was curtailed by the Keating–Owen Act of 1916, but the U.S. Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in 1918. He also had Congress pass the Adamson Act, which imposed an 8-hour workday for railroads. Wilson, after first sidestepping the issue, became a major advocate for the women's suffrage.
  
  wn.com/Woodrow_Wilson
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  Yujiro Ishihara
  Yujiro Ishihara (石原 裕次郎, Ishihara Yūjirō^?, December 28, 1934 – July 17, 1987) was a Japanese actor and singer born in Kobe. His elder brother, Shintaro Ishihara, is an author, politician, and the current Governor of Tokyo. Yujiro debuted in 1956 in "Season of the Sun," based on a novel written by his brother. As a representative youth star in films of the postwar era, and subsequently as a macho movie hero, he was called a Japanese Elvis Presley and beloved by many fans, who extravagantly mourned his early death at age 52.
  Yujiro Ishihara won a prize for best new actor at the 1958 Blue Ribbon Awards for the films Washi to taka (1957) and Man Who Causes a Storm (1957).
  His movies and music are still followed by lovers of the Shōwa period. On the date of his death, 17 July, his mourning ceremony is often rebroadcast on TV.
  Spouse: Mie Kitahara.
  He founded the Ishihara Productions film company.
  He died on July 17, 1987 from liver cancer.
  His image is on a 1997 Japanese postage stamp. [1]
  (Filmography 1956-1959 is complete.)
  
  wn.com/Yujiro_Ishihara
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  Zlatko Hebib
  Zlatko Hebib (born 28 December 1990) is a Swiss footballer.
  Hebib was born in Dubrovnik, SR Croatia, SFR Yugoslavia, but moved to Switzerland at an early age. He joined Grasshopper Club Zürich as a 7-year old, coming through the ranks of the Swiss club, but not having made a first team appearance. After a season spent at Yverdon-Sport FC and four months spent without a team, Hebib joined SV Babelsberg 03 in November 2011. The Swiss youth international made his professional debut in the German 3. Liga in a 3–1 away win over VfR Aalen.
  
  
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  wn.com/Zlatko_Hebib
• Øivind Blunck
  Øivind Blunck (December 28, 1950) is a Norwegian comedian and actor.
  He is best known for his numerous performances with the Norwegian Theatre, and for playing the eccentric, moped-driving ladies' man "Fridtjof", living in Enebakk. He has also reappeared several times in Olsenbanden as "Holm", the aide of superintendent "Hermansen", played by Sverre Wilberg.
  Blunck was married to actress Guri Schanke. They lived in Oslo.
  
  wn.com/Øivind_Blunck