Portal:Biography

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Biography (from the Greek words bíos (βίος), meaning 'life', and gráphein (γράφειν), meaning 'to write') is a genre of literature or film which presents a relatively full account of the most interesting and important events of a notable person's life. While a biography may focus on a fictional person, the term usually refers to non-fiction works. As opposed to summaries of people's lives, such as profiles or curriculum vitae, a biography is a continuous narrative which interprets and explains the person's character, personality, and social context.

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Rabindranath Tagore was a Bengali poet, Brahmo philosopher, visual artist, playwright, composer, and novelist whose avant-garde works reshaped Bengali literature and music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A celebrated cultural icon of Bengal, he became Asia's first Nobel laureate when he won the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature. His home schooling, life in Shelidah, and extensive travels made Tagore an iconoclastic pragmatist; however, growing disillusionment with the British Raj caused the internationalist Tagore to back the Indian Independence Movement and befriend Mahatma Gandhi. Despite the loss of virtually his entire works included Gitanjali and Ghare-Baire, while his verse, short stories, and novels — many defined by rhythmic lyricism, colloquial language, meditative naturalism, and philosophical contemplation — received worldwide acclaim. (read more...)

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Thomas Young (June 13, 1773 – May 10, 1829) was an English scientist, researcher, physician and polymath. In addition to contributing to the fields of optics, physics and physiology. He wrote articles on linguistics and egyptology for Encyclopedia Britannica. (read more...)

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• ... that former Regimental Sergeant Major Harry Lapwood was known as having the loudest voice in the New Zealand House of Representatives?
• ... that in 1951, Bulgarian politician and exile G. M. Dimitrov helped found the first Bulgarian NATO company?
• ... that Edith Killgore Kirkpatrick published a short book of favorite songs titled Louisiana Let's Sing in honor of her husband Claude's unsuccessful candidacy for Governor of Louisiana in 1963?
• ... that canal engineer Hugh Henshall was both pupil of and brother-in-law to James Brindley, the famous canal architect of the Industrial Revolution?
• ... that it took Peter Steinfeld six and a half weeks to write the opening eleven pages of his first screenplay, Drowning Mona?

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See also: Biographies of living persons • Manual of Style (biographies)

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Births

• 1412 - Joan of Arc, Roman Catholic Saint and national heroine of France (legendary date) (d. 1431)
• 1878 - Carl Sandburg, American poet and historian (d. 1967) (pictured)
• 1914 - Danny Thomas, American actor (d. 1991)
• 1925 - John De Lorean, American auto maker (d. 2005)

Deaths

• 1840 - Fanny Burney, English novelist and diarist (b. 1752)
• 1852 - Louis Braille, French teacher of the blind (b. 1809)
• 1919 - Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States (b. 1858)
• 1949 - Victor Fleming, American director (b. 1883)
• 1993 - Dizzy Gillespie, American jazz trumpeter (b. 1917)
• 1993 - Rudolf Nureyev, Russian ballet dancer (b. 1938)
• 2006 - Lou Rawls, American singer (b. 1933)

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