The May Overthrow (Serbian: Мајски преврат) was a 1903 coup d'état in which the Serbian King Alexander Obrenović and his wife, Queen Draga, were assassinated inside the Royal Palace in Belgrade on the night between 28 and 29 May 1903 by the Julian calendar (between 10 and 11 June by the Gregorian calendar). This act resulted in the extinction of the House of Obrenović which had been ruling Serbia since the middle of the 19th century. The assassination of the royal couple was organised by a group of Army officers led by then-Captain Dragutin Dimitrijević Apis. After the May Overthrow, the Serbian throne passed to the rival House of Karađorđević. The coup had a significant influence on Serbia's relations with other European powers; the house of Obrenović was allied to Austria-Hungary, while the Karađorđević dynasty had close ties both with Russia and France. Both dynasties were receiving financial support from their powerful foreign sponsors.

Together with the royal couple, the conspirators killed the Prime Minister Dimitrije Cincar-Marković and the Minister of the Army Milovan Pavlović.

Steve Pieczenik, MD, PhD (born December 7, 1943, in Havana, Cuba) is an American psychiatrist, former State Department official, author, and publisher.

Pieczenik was born of Russian-Polish parents in Cuba and reared in France. His father, a doctor from Dombrovicz who studied and worked in Toulouse, fled Poland before World War II. His mother, a Russian Jew from Bialystok, fled Europe after many of her family members were killed. The couple met in Portugal, where both had fled ahead of the Nazi invaders. Pieczenik was born in Cuba—out of wedlock in 1943. After living in Toulouse, France for six years, Pieczenik's family migrated to the United States where they settled in the Harlem area of New York City, New York. Steve Pieczenik was eight years old when his parents received their visa to the US.

Pieczenik is a classical pianist who wrote a full-length musical at the age of eight.

Pieczenik is a Harvard-trained psychiatrist and has a doctorate in international relations from MIT.

According to Pieczenik's autobiography, he attended Booker T. Washington High School in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. Pieczenik received a full scholarship to Cornell University at the age of 16. In 1964, Pieczenik claims he received a B.A. degree in Pre-Medicine and Psychology from Cornell, later attending Cornell University Medical College. In his spare time, he attained a PhD in international relations from MIT while studying at Harvard Medical School. Pieczenik claims to be the first psychiatrist ever to receive a PhD focusing on international relations.

David Bash is the founder and CEO of The International Pop Overthrow Music Festival, which is currently held annually in 16 cities around the world, including Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, San Diego, Phoenix, Denver, Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, Dallas, Austin, Boston, New York, Toronto, Vancouver BC, London, and Liverpool UK (at The Cavern Club).

The festival is dedicated to bring classic pop music - music with the kind of strong melodies and catchy lyrics that tend to stick in your head and make you feel good - to the hearts and minds of the mainstream public. Although the festival has over the years featured several major label acts, such as Phantom Planet, Maroon 5 (under their previous incarnation, Kara's Flowers), and The Click Five, Bash tries to maintain the grassroots feel of the festival by featuring primarily unsigned bands, and presenting them in a festival platform with similar minded artists, where they will be appreciated by both the festival audiences and by each other. True to this grassroots ethic, Bash personally selects all the artists and is a fan of their music, something the bands tend to recognize and appreciate. Each year, Bash produces a CD compilation on the Not Lame Recordings label featuring bands that have played in any of the cities in which the festival has appeared.

Maryam Rajavi (born Maryam Azodanlu in 1953 in Tehran, Iran) is the wife of Massoud Rajavi, a founder of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI). She's the "president-elect" of the National Council of Resistance of Iran., a coalition of exiled groups opposed to the Islamic Republic regime. In 1985, she became co-leader of the PMOI along with Massoud Rajavi, and together they made women a main portion of the group's fighting force.

Maryam Rajavi was born in 1953 to a middle class family in Tehran. She has a degree in metallurgical engineering. She speaks English, French and Persian. Mrs. Rajavi became acquainted with the anti-Shah movement in 1970.

In 1982 Maryam Rajavi left Iran for Paris, where the headquarters of the National Council of Resistance was located. In 1993 Rajavi was elected President-Elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, an umbrella coalition of which the PMOI is the primary member organization. As President-Elect, Rajavi has continued to place women in nearly all of the leadership roles within her resistance movement, and believes that women should have equal opportunity with men to participate in social and political activities.