Christian Archibald Herter (March 28, 1895 – December 30, 1966) was an American politician and statesman; 59th governor of Massachusetts from 1953 to 1957, and United States Secretary of State from 1959 to 1961.

Herter was born in Paris, France, to American artist and expatriate parents, Albert Herter and Adele McGinnis, and attended the École Alsacienne there (1901–1904) before moving to New York City, where he attended the Browning School (1904–1911). He graduated from Harvard University in 1915 and did graduate work in architecture and interior design before joining the diplomatic corps in the following year.

Herter married the wealthy heiress Mary Caroline Pratt (1895–1980) in 1917. She was the daughter of Frederic B. Pratt, longtime head of the Pratt Institute and granddaughter of Standard Oil magnate Charles Pratt. They had three sons and one daughter, including Christian A. Herter, Jr., who was active in international relations.

He was made attaché to the U.S. Embassy in Berlin, and he was briefly arrested while in Mainz as a possible spy. He was part of the U.S. delegation to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, where he helped draft the Covenant of the League of Nations. Later, he was the assistant to Herbert Hoover when he was instrumental in providing starvation relief to post–World War I Europe and was later Commerce Secretary. Herter also participated in the 1919 meeting that resulted in the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations.

Albert Herter (1871–1950) was an artist and painter. He was born in New York, New York, and studied in Paris and then in New York's Art Students League. He had come from an artistic family; before Albert was born, his father, Christian Herter, and his father's half-brother Gustave formed Herter Brothers, a prominent New York interior design and furnishings firm.

Albert Herter's paintings include Young Girl, Garden of the Hesperides, and Still Life with Flowering Dogwood and Japanese Figurines; he was commissioned to execute many portrait paintings and he created a number of civic and private murals. He married fellow artist Adele McGinnis. Their son Christian Herter became a politician, serving as governor of Massachusetts and later as Secretary of State under Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Herter was the original owner of "The Creeks", the extravagant 60-acre (240,000 m²) estate crowned with a Mediterranean style villa designed by Grosvenor Atterbury and built in 1899 on Georgica Pond, East Hampton. The villa contained "his and hers" artist studios so that Albert and Adele would each have their own space within which to work.

Arturo José Cruz Porras (born December 18, 1923), sometimes called Arturo Cruz, Sr. to distinguish him from his son, is a Nicaraguan banker and technocrat. He became prominent in politics during the Sandinista (FSLN) era. After repeatedly resigning from positions in protest, opinion divided between those who lauded him as a statesman and man of principle, and those who derided him as an ineffectual hand-wringer.

Cruz grew up in Jinotepe, Nicaragua. His father despised Anastasio Somoza García, despite the family's traditional Liberal loyalties. Cruz graduated from the military academy in 1944, but refused his commission rather than serve Somoza's dictatorship. He went on to attend Georgetown University in the United States. Cruz participated in a 1947 coup plot against Somoza, for which he was imprisoned for four months. After joining the April Rebellion of 1954, together with his brother-in-law, Adolfo Báez Bone, and Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal, he was jailed again for about a year, while Báez was executed. However, his wife persuaded him not to join Edmundo and Fernando "El Negro" Chamorro in their November 1960 rising, which included an attack on the Jinotepe barracks. He would avoid rebel politics for nearly two decades.

The Dalai Lama is a high lama in the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" branch of Tibetan Buddhism. The name is a combination of the Sino-Mongolian word далай (dalai) meaning "Ocean" and the Tibetan word བླ་མ་ bla-ma (with a silent "b") meaning "chief, high priest".

In religious terms, the Dalai Lama is believed by his devotees to be the rebirth of a long line of tulkus who are considered to be manifestations of the bodhisattva of compassion, Avalokiteśvara. Traditionally, the Dalai Lama is thought of as the latest reincarnation of a series of spiritual leaders who have chosen to be reborn in order to enlighten others. The Dalai Lama is often thought to be the leader of the Gelug School, but this position belongs officially to the Ganden Tripa, which is a temporary position appointed by the Dalai Lama who, in practice, exerts much influence. The line of Dalai Lamas began as a lineage of spiritual teachers; the 5th Dalai Lama assumed political authority over Tibet.

For certain periods between the 17th century and 1959, the Dalai Lamas sometimes directed the Tibetan government, which administered portions of Tibet from Lhasa. The 14th Dalai Lama remained the head of state for the Central Tibetan Administration ("Tibetan government in exile") until his retirement on March 14, 2011. He has indicated that the institution of the Dalai Lama may be abolished in the future, and also that the next Dalai Lama may be found outside Tibet and may be female. The Chinese government was very quick to reject this and claimed that only it has the authority to select the next Dalai Lama.

James George Janos (born July 15, 1951), better known as Jesse Ventura, is an American statesman, actor, author, and former professional wrestler who served as the 38th Governor of Minnesota from 1999 to 2003.

Ventura served as a Navy UDT during the Vietnam War. He later embarked on an 11-year professional wrestling career from 1975 to 1986, taking up the stage name Jesse "The Body" Ventura. He had a long tenure in the World Wrestling Federation as a performer and color commentator, and was inducted into the company's Hall of Fame in 2004. After leaving wrestling, Ventura began a successful film career, appearing in films such as 1987's Predator.

Ventura first entered politics as Mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota from 1991 to 1995. He ran as the Reform Party candidate in the Minnesota gubernatorial election of 1998, running a campaign centered on grassroots events and unusual ads that implored citizens not to "vote for politics as usual". The campaign was successful, and Ventura served from January 4, 1999, to January 6, 2003, without running for a second term.