Portal:Biography

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The Biography Portal

A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts (education, work, relationships, and death), a biography also portrays a subject's experience of these events. Unlike a profile or curriculum vitae (résumé), a biography presents a subject's life story, highlighting various aspects of his or her life, including intimate details of experience, and may include an analysis of a subject's personality.

Biographical works are usually non-fiction, but fiction can also be used to portray a person's life. One in-depth form of biographical coverage is called legacy writing. Biographical works in diverse media—from literature to film—form the genre known as biography.

An authorized biography is written with the permission, cooperation, and, at times, participation of a subject or a subject's heirs.

An autobiography is about a life of a subject, written by that subject or sometimes with a collaborator.

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Albert Einstein (14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the general theory of relativity, one of the two pillars of modern physics (alongside quantum mechanics). While best known for his mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc² (which has been dubbed "the world's most famous equation"), he received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect". The latter was pivotal in establishing quantum theory.

Near the beginning of his career, Einstein thought that Newtonian mechanics was no longer enough to reconcile the laws of classical mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field. This led to the development of his special theory of relativity. He realized, however, that the principle of relativity could also be extended to gravitational fields, and with his subsequent theory of gravitation in 1916, he published a paper on the general theory of relativity. He continued to deal with problems of statistical mechanics and quantum theory, which led to his explanations of particle theory and the motion of molecules. He also investigated the thermal properties of light which laid the foundation of the photon theory of light. In 1917, Einstein applied the general theory of relativity to model the structure of the universe as a whole.He was a great scientist. (Read more...)

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Alex Jones (born February 11, 1974) is an American radio show host, filmmaker, writer. He hosts The Alex Jones Show from Austin, Texas, which airs on the Genesis Communications Network and shortwave radio station WWCR across the United States and online.

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On this day – February 24

Births

1304 - Ibn Battuta, explorer
1836 - Winslow Homer, American artist (d. 1910)
1885 - Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Polish writer and painter (d. 1939)
1934 - Bettino Craxi, Prime Minister of Italy (d. 2000)
1943 - George Harrison, British singer, guitarist and songwriter (The Beatles) (d. 2001) (pictured)

Deaths

616 - King Æthelberht of Kent
1810 - Henry Cavendish, English scientist (b. 1756)
1994 - Dinah Shore, American actress and singer (b. 1916)
2006 - Don Knotts, American actor (b. 1924)

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Did you know

... that actress Shangguan Yunzhu (pictured) was said to have had an affair with Mao Zedong, for which she was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution, leading to her suicide?
... that Munir Hussain was the first to introduce Urdu commentary to cricket?
... that Israeli golfer Laetitia Beck won her first Israeli Ladies Championship at the age of 12?
... that at the 2012 Olympics, Kayla Harrison became the first American to win a gold medal in judo?
... that an alleged first cousin of the King of Spain, Alfonso de Bourbon, was killed by a truck while dumpster diving?
... that Lawrence H. Johnston was the only man to witness the Trinity nuclear test, the bombing of Hiroshima, and the bombing of Nagasaki?
... that as education minister, Abd al-Wahhab Hawmad launched the largest foreign scholarship program in Syrian history, sending 300 students to study abroad at Western universities?