Portal:Biography

The Biography Portal

A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or curriculum vitae (résumé), a biography presents a subject's life story, highlighting various aspects of their life, including intimate details of experience, and may include an analysis of the 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. 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 unauthorized biography is one written without such permission or participation. An autobiography is written by the person themselves, sometimes with the assistance of a collaborator or ghostwriter. (Full article...)

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Featured articles are displayed here, which represent some of the best content on English Wikipedia.

Image 1

Cartwright in 2019

Nancy Jean Cartwright (born October 25, 1957) is an American actress. She has served as the long-time voice of Bart Simpson on The Simpsons, which won her a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance and an Annie Award for Best Voice Acting in the Field of Animation. Cartwright also voices other characters for the show, including Maggie Simpson, Ralph Wiggum, Todd Flanders, and Nelson Muntz. She is also the voice of Chuckie Finster in the Nickelodeon series Rugrats and its spin-off All Grown Up!, succeeding Christine Cavanaugh.

Cartwright was born in Dayton, Ohio. She moved to Hollywood in 1978 and trained under voice actor Daws Butler. Her first professional role was voicing Gloria in the animated series Richie Rich, which she followed with a starring role in the television movie Marian Rose White (1982) and her first feature film, Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983). In 1987, Cartwright auditioned for a role in a series of animated shorts about a dysfunctional family that was to appear on The Tracey Ullman Show. Cartwright intended to audition for the role of Lisa Simpson, the middle child; when she arrived at the audition, she found the role of Bart—Lisa's brother—to be more interesting. Series creator Matt Groening allowed her to audition for Bart and offered her the role on the spot. She voiced Bart for three seasons on The Tracey Ullman Show, and in 1989, the shorts were spun off into a half-hour show called The Simpsons. (Full article...)
Image 2

Toshack in about 1947

Ernie Toshack was a member of Donald Bradman's famous Australian cricket team, which toured England in 1948 and was undefeated in their 34 matches. This unprecedented feat by a Test side touring England earned Bradman's men the sobriquet The Invincibles.

A left-arm medium-pace seam bowler, Toshack was a member of the first-choice team, and played in the first four Test matches before succumbing to a persistent knee injury. Toshack contained the English batsmen with leg theory in between the new ball bursts of Keith Miller and Ray Lindwall. He took 11 wickets in the Tests; his most notable performance was the 5/40 he took in the second innings of the Second Test at Lord's. However, his knee failed in the first innings of the Fourth Test when he took 1/112. He was unable to bowl in the second innings and missed the Fifth Test, marking the end of his Test career. (Full article...)
Image 3

Berman performing with Silver Jews at Webster Hall in 2006.

David Cloud Berman (born David Craig Berman; January 4, 1967 – August 7, 2019) was an American musician, singer-songwriter and poet who founded – and was the only constant member of – the indie rock band Silver Jews with Pavement's Stephen Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich.

Initially lo-fi and increasingly country-inspired, Berman helped develop the sound of band and provided the lyrical material, whose themes overlapped with his poetry, of which he published one volume; his lyrics concerned many subjects, including his depression, which culminated in Berman attempting suicide in 2003. Afterward, he underwent rehabilitation, engaged with Judaism and toured for the first time, but soon dissolved the band and largely withdrew from public life. (Full article...)
Image 4

Official portrait, 2022

Mary Elizabeth Truss (born 26 July 1975) is a British politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from September to October 2022. On her fiftieth day in office, she stepped down amid a government crisis, making her the shortest-serving prime minister in British history. The member of Parliament (MP) for South West Norfolk from 2010 to 2024, Truss held various Cabinet positions under three prime ministers—David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson—lastly as foreign secretary from 2021 to 2022.

Truss studied philosophy, politics and economics at Merton College, Oxford, and was the president of the Oxford University Liberal Democrats. In 1996 she joined the Conservative Party. She worked at Royal Dutch Shell and Cable & Wireless and was the deputy director of the think tank now called Re:State. After two unsuccessful attempts to be elected to the House of Commons, she became the MP for South West Norfolk at the 2010 general election. As a backbencher she called for reform in several policy areas including the economy, childcare and mathematics in education. Truss co-founded the Free Enterprise Group of Conservative MPs and wrote or co-wrote a number of papers and books, including After the Coalition and Britannia Unchained. (Full article...)
Image 5

Brown in 1948

Jesse LeRoy Brown (October 13, 1926 – December 4, 1950) was a United States Navy officer. He was the first African-American aviator to complete the United States Navy's basic flight training program (though not the first African-American Navy aviator), the first African-American naval officer killed in the Korean War, and a recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, to an impoverished family, Brown was avidly interested in aircraft from a young age. He graduated as salutatorian of his high school, notwithstanding its racial segregation, and later earned a degree from Ohio State University. Brown enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1946, becoming a midshipman. Brown earned his pilot wings on October 21, 1948, amid a flurry of press coverage. In January 1949 he was assigned to Fighter Squadron 32 (VF-32) aboard the aircraft carrier USS Leyte based at Naval Air Station Quonset Point. (Full article...)
Image 6

The commemorative plaque to Parsley in Norwich Cathedral

Osbert Parsley (1510/1511 – 1585) was an English Renaissance composer and chorister. Few details of his life are known, but he evidently married in 1558, and lived for a period in the parish of St Saviour's Church, Norwich. A boy chorister at Norwich Cathedral, Parsley worked there throughout his musical career. He was first mentioned as a lay clerk, was appointed a "singing man" in c. 1534, and was probably the cathedral's unofficial organist for half a century. His career spanned the reigns of Henry VIII and all three of his children. After the Reformation of 1534, the lives of English church musicians changed according to the official policy of each monarch.

Parsley wrote mainly church music for both the Latin and English rites, as well as instrumental music. His Latin settings are considered to be more fluent and attractive-sounding than those he wrote to be sung in English. His longest composition, Conserva me, domine, has a graceful polyphonic style. Parsley's other liturgical works include Daily Offices (two morning services and an evening service), and the five-part Lamentations (notable for the difficulty in singing the top notes of the highest part). His instrumental music, nearly all for viols, including six consort pieces, was written in a style that combines both his Latin and English vocal styles. Some of his incomplete instrumental music has survived. (Full article...)
Image 7

Ali demonstrating his skills, c. 1927

Hadji Ali (Arabic: حاج علي; c. 1888–1892 – November 5, 1937) was a vaudeville performance artist, thought to be of Egyptian descent, who was famous for acts of controlled regurgitation. His best-known feats included water spouting, smoke swallowing, and swallowing nuts and handkerchiefs before disgorging them in an order chosen by the audience. Ali's most famous stunt, and the highlight of his act, was drinking copious amounts of water followed by kerosene, and then acting by turns as a human flamethrower and fire extinguisher as he expelled the two liquids onto a theatrical prop. While these stunts were performed, a panel of audience members was invited to watch the show up close to verify that no trickery was employed.

Although he never gained wide fame, Ali had a dedicated following on the vaudeville circuit in the United States. He performed for heads of state including Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. Judy Garland named him her favorite vaudevillian and David Blaine identified Ali as his favorite magician. Portions of his act were captured in the short film Strange as It Seems (1930) and in Politiquerias (1931), the Spanish-language version of Laurel and Hardy's Chickens Come Home. Two documentaries contain footage of Ali taken from Politiquerias: 1977's Gizmo!, and 1999's Vaudeville. Ali's unusual gastric abilities led to rumors that the Rockefeller Institute had offered a large sum of money to obtain his stomach post-mortem. After he died in England, his body was offered to Johns Hopkins University for study, though the offer was declined. (Full article...)
Image 8
John Le Mesurier (/lə ˈmɛʒərə/, born John Elton Le Mesurier Halliley; 5 April 1912 – 15 November 1983) was an English actor. He is probably best remembered for his comedic role as Sergeant Arthur Wilson in the BBC television situation comedy Dad's Army (1968–1977). A self-confessed "jobbing actor", Le Mesurier appeared in more than 120 films across a range of genres, normally in smaller supporting parts.

Le Mesurier became interested in the stage as a young adult and enrolled at the Fay Compton Studio of Dramatic Art in 1933. From there he took a position in repertory theatre and made his stage debut in September 1934 at the Palladium Theatre in Edinburgh in the J. B. Priestley play Dangerous Corner. He later accepted an offer to work with Alec Guinness in a John Gielgud production of Hamlet. He first appeared on television in 1938 as Seigneur de Miolans in the BBC broadcast of The Marvellous History of St Bernard. During the Second World War Le Mesurier was posted to British India, as a captain with the Royal Tank Regiment. Following the war, he returned to acting and made his film debut in 1948, starring in the second feature comedy short Death in the Hand, opposite Esmé Percy and Ernest Jay. (Full article...)
Image 9

Official portrait, 1978

Judith Arlene Resnik (April 5, 1949 – January 28, 1986) was an American electrical engineer, software engineer, biomedical engineer, pilot and NASA astronaut who died in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. She was the fourth woman, the second American woman and the first Jewish woman of any nationality to fly in space, logging 145 hours in orbit.

Recognized while still a child for her intellectual brilliance, Resnik was accepted at Carnegie Institute of Technology after becoming only the 16th woman in the history of the United States to have attained a perfect score on the SAT exam. She graduated with a degree in electrical engineering from Carnegie Mellon before attaining a PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Maryland. (Full article...)
Image 10

Æthelwulf in the early fourteenth-century Genealogical Roll of the Kings of England

Æthelwulf (Old English: [ˈæðelwuɫf]; Old English for "Noble Wolf"; died 13 January 858) was King of Wessex from 839 to 858. In 825, his father, King Ecgberht, defeated King Beornwulf of Mercia, ending a long Mercian dominance over Anglo-Saxon England south of the Humber. Ecgberht sent Æthelwulf with an army to Kent, where he expelled the Mercian sub-king and was himself appointed sub-king. After 830, Ecgberht maintained good relations with Mercia, and this was continued by Æthelwulf when he became king in 839, the first son to succeed his father as West Saxon king since 641.

The Vikings were not a major threat to Wessex during Æthelwulf's reign. In 843, he was defeated in a battle against the Vikings at Carhampton in Somerset, but he achieved a major victory at the Battle of Aclea in 851. In 853, he joined a successful Mercian expedition to Wales to restore the traditional Mercian hegemony, and in the same year, his daughter Æthelswith married King Burgred of Mercia. In 855, Æthelwulf went on a pilgrimage to Rome. In preparation he gave a "decimation", donating a tenth of his personal property to his subjects; he appointed his eldest surviving son Æthelbald to act as King of Wessex in his absence, and his next son Æthelberht to rule Kent and the south-east. Æthelwulf spent a year in Rome, and on his way back he married Judith, the daughter of the West Frankish king Charles the Bald. (Full article...)
Image 11

Disney in 1946

Walter Elias Disney (/ˈdɪzni/ DIZ-nee; December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer, voice actor, and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film producer, he holds the record for most Academy Awards earned (22) and nominations (59) by an individual. He was presented with two Golden Globe Special Achievement Awards and an Emmy Award, among other honors. Several of his films are included in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress and have also been named as some of the greatest films ever by the American Film Institute.

Born in Chicago in 1901, Disney developed an early interest in drawing. He took art classes as a boy and took a job as a commercial illustrator at the age of 18. He moved to California in the early 1920s and set up the Disney Brothers Studio (now the Walt Disney Company) with his brother Roy. With Ub Iwerks, he developed the character Mickey Mouse in 1928, his first highly popular success; he also provided the voice for his creation in the early years. As the studio grew, he became more adventurous, introducing synchronized sound, full-color three-strip Technicolor, feature-length cartoons and technical developments in cameras. The results, seen in features such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Pinocchio, Fantasia (both 1940), Dumbo (1941), and Bambi (1942), furthered the development of animated film. New animated and live-action films followed after World War II, including Cinderella (1950), Sleeping Beauty (1959), and Mary Poppins (1964), the last of which received five Academy Awards. (Full article...)
Image 12

Phleps in 1942

Artur Gustav Martin Phleps (German pronunciation: [ˈaʁtuːɐ̯ ˈɡʊstaf ˈmaʁtiːn ˈflɛps]; 29 November 1881 – 21 September 1944) was an Austro-Hungarian, Romanian and Nazi German army officer who held the rank of SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Waffen-SS (lieutenant general) in the Waffen-SS during World War II. An Austro-Hungarian Army officer before and during World War I, Phleps specialised in mountain warfare and logistics, and had been promoted to Oberstleutnant (lieutenant colonel) by the end of the war. During the interwar period he joined the Romanian Army, reaching the rank of General de divizie (major general), and also became an adviser to King Carol. After he spoke out against the government, he was sidelined and asked to be dismissed from the army.

In 1941, he left Romania and joined the Waffen-SS as an SS-Standartenführer (colonel) under his mother's maiden name of Stolz. Seeing action on the Eastern Front as a regimental commander with the SS Motorised Division Wiking, he later raised and commanded the 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division Prinz Eugen, raised the 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar (1st Croatian), and commanded the V SS Mountain Corps. Units under his command committed many crimes against the civilian population of the Independent State of Croatia, German-occupied territory of Serbia and Italian governorate of Montenegro. His final appointment was as plenipotentiary general in south Siebenbürgen (Transylvania) and the Banat, during which he organised the evacuation of the Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans) of Siebenbürgen to the Reich. In addition to the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, Phleps was awarded the German Cross in Gold, and after he was shot and killed in the aftermath of the 1944 Romanian coup d'état, he was awarded the Oak Leaves to his Knight's Cross. (Full article...)
Image 13

John Milton Hay (October 8, 1838 – July 1, 1905) was an American statesman and official whose career in government stretched over almost half a century. Beginning as a private secretary for Abraham Lincoln, he became a diplomat. He served as United States Secretary of State under Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. Hay was also a biographer of Lincoln, and wrote poetry and other literature throughout his life.

Born in Salem, Indiana to an anti-slavery family that moved to Warsaw, Illinois, Hay showed great potential from an early age, and his family sent him to Brown University. After graduation in 1858, Hay read law in his uncle's office in Springfield, Illinois, adjacent to that of Lincoln. Hay worked for Lincoln's successful presidential campaign and became one of his private secretaries in the White House. Throughout the American Civil War, Hay was close to Lincoln and stood by his deathbed after the President was shot. In addition to his other literary works, Hay co-authored, with John George Nicolay, Lincoln's other private secretary, a ten-volume biography of Lincoln that helped shape the assassinated president's historical image. (Full article...)
Image 14
The Red Barn, so called for the red clay-tiled roof to the left of its main door. The remaining roof was thatched.

The Red Barn Murder was an 1827 murder in Polstead, Suffolk, England. A young woman, Maria Marten, was shot dead by her lover William Corder at the Red Barn, a local landmark. The two had arranged to meet before eloping to Ipswich. Corder sent letters to Marten's family claiming that she was well, but after her stepmother spoke of having dreamed that Maria had been murdered, her body was discovered in the barn the next year.

Corder was located in London, where he had married. He was returned to Suffolk and found guilty of murder in a well-publicised trial. In 1828, he was hanged at Bury St Edmunds in an execution witnessed by a huge crowd. The story provoked numerous newspaper articles, songs and plays. The village where the crime had taken place became a tourist attraction and the barn was stripped by souvenir hunters. Plays, ballads and songs about the murder remained popular throughout the next century and continue to be performed today. (Full article...)
Image 15

Reg Saunders in 1940

Reginald Walter Saunders, MBE (7 August 1920 – 2 March 1990) was the first Aboriginal Australian to be commissioned as an officer in the Australian Army. He came from a military family, his forebears having served in the Boer War and the First World War. Enlisting as a soldier in 1940, he saw action during the Second World War in North Africa, Greece and Crete, before being commissioned as a lieutenant and serving as a platoon commander in New Guinea during 1944–1945. His younger brother Harry also joined the Army, and was killed in 1942 during the Kokoda Track campaign.

After the war, Saunders was discharged and returned to civilian life. He later served as a company commander with the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (3 RAR) during the Korean War, where he fought at the Battle of Kapyong. Saunders left the Army in 1954 and worked in the logging and metal industries, before joining the Office of Aboriginal Affairs (later the Department of Aboriginal Affairs) as a liaison officer in 1969. In 1971, he was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for his community service. He died in 1990, aged 69. (Full article...)

More featured articles

Did you know... - show different entries

... that Dani Sanchez-Lopez wanted to be an actor but switched to cinematography after realizing that actors deliver others' lines?
... that some people chanted "USA, USA!" and others waved Peruvian flags at the inauguration of Pope Leo XIV?
... that Jean-Mohammed Abd-el-Jalil, a Moroccan Franciscan friar, was permitted by the Pope to keep "Muhammad" as his baptismal name?
... that mining engineer William H. Shockley found specimens that were used to describe Aquilegia shockleyi and Lupinus shockleyi?
... that Alberic II of Spoleto appointed five popes and fathered another?
... that just seven years after being elected to a local school board, Nancy Ross was a candidate for Vice President of the United States?
... that President Paul Kagame pardoned more than five hundred people who had been arrested for abortion in Rwanda?
... that 9 to 5 actor Dabney Coleman flew to New York City to pursue acting the day after an actor stopped by for a drink?
... that one writer criticized the College Football Playoff system before its first edition had even begun?
... that Margaret Reid is the first woman to have served as President of the Australian Senate?
... that Sans's boss theme, "Megalovania", was played at the Vatican as part of a circus act during an audience with Pope Francis?
... that the identity of "Barbara O'Brien", the author of Operators and Things, a 1958 autobiographical account of schizophrenia, has not been publicly revealed?

General images

The following are images from various biography-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Third volume of a 1727 edition of Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans printed by Jacob Tonson (from Biography)
Image 2Einhard as scribe (from Biography)
Image 3Cover of the first English edition of Benjamin Franklin's autobiography, 1793 (from Autobiography)
Image 4Saint Augustine of Hippo wrote Confessions, the first Western autobiography ever written, around 400. Portrait by Philippe de Champaigne, 17th century. (from Autobiography)
Image 5John Foxe's The Book of Martyrs, was one of the earliest English-language biographies. (from Biography)
Image 6Eminent Victorians set the standard for 20th century biographical writing, when it was published in 1918. (from Biography)
Image 7A scene from the Baburnama (from Autobiography)
Image 8James Boswell wrote what many consider to be the first modern biography, The Life of Samuel Johnson, in 1791. (from Biography)

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Selected portrait

Image 1
Portrait of Cardinal Niccolò Albergati
Artwork credit: Jan van Eyck
The Portrait of Cardinal Niccolò Albergati is an oil-on-oak-panel painting by the Early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck, dating to the 1430s. It is of considerable interest to art historians because van Eyck's preliminary drawing survives. The work depicts Niccolò Albergati, an Italian cardinal and a diplomat working under Pope Martin V, as a visibly ageing cleric, his face seamed with deep lines below the eyes; it is accompanied by notes on the colours to be used in the final painting. A comparison between this drawing and the portrait shows that van Eyck changed several details, such as the depth of the shoulders, the lower curve of the nose, the depth of the mouth and the size of the ear. The finished painting hangs at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, while the drawing is in the collection of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden.
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Image 2
Raden Saleh
Painting: Friedrich Carl Albert Schreuel
Raden Saleh (1811–1880) was a Romantic painter of Arab-Javanese ethnicity from the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). Born in Semarang, in 1829 he was sent to the Netherlands to study portraiture and landscape painting under artists such as Cornelis Kruseman and Andreas Schelfhout. Upon returning to Java in 1851, Saleh focused predominantly on the day-to-day lives of the Javanese, although he also completed his magnum opus, The Arrest of Pangeran Diponegoro, in this period.

This painting, though long thought to be a self-portrait, is now attributed to Friedrich Carl Albert Schreuel, a German artist whom Saleh knew during his time in Europe.
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Image 3
Sonia Sotomayor
Photograph: Steve Petteway
Sonia Sotomayor is an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. She was nominated in 2009 by President Barack Obama to replace retiring Justice David Souter. Sotomayor is the first Hispanic and the third woman to be appointed to the Court.
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Image 4
David Suchet
Photo credit: Phil Chambers
A portrait of David Suchet OBE, an English actor best known for his television portrayal of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot in the television series Agatha Christie's Poirot. For this role, he earned a 1991 British Academy Television Award (BAFTA) nomination. In preparation for the role he says that he read every novel and short story, and compiled an extensive file on Poirot.
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Image 5
Francisco Goya
Painting: Vicente López y Portaña
Francisco Goya (1746–1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker regarded as both the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns. Goya was a court painter to the Spanish Crown, and through his works was both a commentator on and chronicler of his era. This portrait was completed when Goya was 80 years old.
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Image 6
Lillian Gish
Photo credit: Bain News Service
A portrait of Lillian Gish from 1921. Gish was one of the first female movie stars, called "The First Lady of the Silent Screen", starting in 1912 and continuing to appear in films until 1987. The American Film Institute named Gish 17th among the greatest female stars of all time and awarded her a Life Achievement Award, making her the only recipient who was a major figure in the silent era. Remarkably, she never won an Academy Award for her work, although she did receive a Special Academy Award in 1971.
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Image 7
L-to-R: Allan Pinkerton, Abraham Lincoln, Maj. Gen. John A. McClernand
Photo credit: Alexander Gardner
Allan Pinkerton (left), President Abraham Lincoln (center), and Major General John A. McClernand (right). This photo was taken not long after the Civil War's first battle on northern soil in Antietam, Maryland, on October 3, 1862. Pinkerton was the head of Union Intelligence Services at the time. He also, allegedly, foiled an assassination attempt against Lincoln. His wartime work was critical in Pinkerton's development, which he later used to pioneer the American private detective industry when he formed the Pinkerton National Detective Agency.
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Image 8
Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom
Photo credit: NASA
Elizabeth II is the Queen regnant of sixteen independent states and their overseas territories and dependencies. Though she holds each crown and title separately and equally, she is resident in and most directly involved with the United Kingdom. She is currently the second longest serving head of state in the world.

The 16 countries of which she is Queen are known as Commonwealth Realms, and their combined population is over 129 million. In practice she herself wields almost no political power in any of her realms.
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Image 9
Edward VI of England
Artist: Unknown, probably of the Flemish School
A portrait of Edward VI of England, when he was Prince of Wales. He is shown wearing a badge with the Prince of Wales's feathers. It was most likely painted in 1546 when he was eight years old, during the time when he was resident at Hunsdon House. Edward became King of England, King of France and Edward I of Ireland the following year. He was the third monarch of the Tudor dynasty and England's first ruler who was Protestant at the time of his ascension to the throne. Edward's entire rule was mediated through a council of regency. He died at the age of 15 in 1553.
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Image 10
Knut Steen
Photo: Nina Aldin Thune
Knut Steen (1924–2011) was a Norwegian sculptor based in Italy. Born in Oslo, Steen is best known for his work on the Norwegian National Academy of Fine Arts with the Danish sculptor Per Palle Storm. There is a museum dedicated to his work located in Sandefjord.
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Image 11
Maxim Gorky
Photo: Herman Mishkin; Restoration: Fallschirmjäger
Maxim Gorky (1868–1936) was a Russian political activist and writer who helped establish the Socialist Realism literary method. This portrait dates from a trip Gorky made to the United States in 1906, on which he raised funds for the Bolsheviks. During this trip he wrote his novel The Mother.
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Image 12
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Painting: Vasily Perov
Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–81; depicted in 1872) was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist and philosopher. After publishing his first novel, Poor Folk, at age 25, Dostoyevsky wrote (among others) eleven novels, three novellas, and seventeen short novels, including Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1869), and The Brothers Karamazov (1880).
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Image 13
George IV
Artist: Sir Thomas Lawrence
An oil on canvas portrait of George IV of the United Kingdom as the Prince Regent, by Sir Thomas Lawrence. In 1814, Lord Stewart, who had been appointed ambassador in Vienna and was a previous client of Thomas Lawrence, wanted to commission a portrait by him of the Prince Regent. He arranged that Lawrence should be presented to the Prince Regent at a levée. Soon after, the Prince visited Lawrence at his studio in Russell Square. Lawrence wrote to his brother that: To crown this honour, [he] engag'd to sit to me at one today and after a successful sitting of two hours, has just left me and comes again tomorrow and the next day.
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Image 14
Ksenia Semenova
Photo: Bolshoi Sport
Ksenia Semenova (b. 1992) is a Russian artistic gymnast. She was the 2007 World Champion on the uneven bars. At the 2008 European Championships, she was a member of the silver-medal-winning Russian team, as well as champion on the uneven bars and the balance beam. She followed this up by winning the all-around championship at the 2009 European Championships and was part of the gold-medal Russian team at the 2010 European and 2010 World Championships. Injuries have prevented her from competing since then.
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Image 15
Frédéric Chopin
Photo credit: Louis-Auguste Bisson
The only known photograph of Frédéric Chopin, often incorrectly described as a daguerreotype. It is believed to have been taken in 1849 during the degenerative stages of his tuberculosis, shortly before his death. Chopin, a Polish pianist and composer of the Romantic era, is widely regarded as one of the most famous, influential, admired and prolific composers for the piano. He moved to Paris at the age of twenty, adopting the French variant of his name, "Frédéric-François", by which he is now known.
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On this day – September 19

Births

AD 86 - Antoninus Pius, Roman Emperor (pictured) (d. 161)
1882 - Christopher Stone, first disc jockey in the United Kingdom (d. 1965)
1905 - Leon Jaworski, American Watergate scandal special prosecutor (d. 1982)
1911 - Sir William Golding, English writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1993)
1922 - Emil Zátopek, Czech athlete (d. 2000)
1928 - Adam West, American actor (d 2017)
1934 - Brian Epstein, English musical group manager (the Beatles) (d. 1967)
1940 - Bill Medley, American singer and songwriter (The Righteous Brothers)
1948 - Jeremy Irons, English actor
1949 - Twiggy, English model
1963 - David Seaman, English footballer
1963 - Jarvis Cocker, English musician

Deaths

1356 - Killed at Poitiers:
- Peter I, Duke of Bourbon (b. 1311)
- Walter VI of Brienne, Constable of France (born 1304)
1692 - Giles Corey, American farmer killed in the Salem Witch Trials
1881 - James Garfield, 20th President of the United States (b. 1831)
1973 - Gram Parsons, American musician (b. 1946)

More of today's anniversaries...

In the news

16 September 2025 –: The Seoul Central District Court issues an arrest warrant for former People Power Party floor leader Kweon Seong-dong on charges of receiving illegal political funds from the Unification Church during the 2022 South Korean presidential election campaign. (The Korea Herald)
16 September 2025 – Internet in Afghanistan: Afghan supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada orders a complete ban on Wi-Fi internet in the northern Balkh Province to "prevent immorality". (The Independent)
14 September 2025 – 77th Primetime Emmy Awards: English actor Owen Cooper wins the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for his role in Adolescence, becoming the youngest male recipient of an Emmy Award. (Daily Tribune)
14 September 2025 – 2025 Turkish protests: Over 50,000 people march in Ankara, Turkey, to protest against and call for President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to resign following the government's judicial coup against the country's opposition party, Republican People's Party, and its leader Özgür Özel. (DW)
12 September 2025 –: The South African high court reopens an inquest into the 1977 death in police custody of anti-apartheid leader Steve Biko to determine possible crimes committed. (Reuters)
11 September 2025 – Foreign relations of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Foreign relations of Slovenia: Slovenia bars Bosnian Serb separatist leader Milorad Dodik from entering the country after he refuses to acknowledge his removal as the president of Republika Srpska by the Bosnian court and electoral authority. (AP)

Updated: 23:05, 18 September 2025

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Quote of the week

"From without, no wonderful effect is wrought within ourselves, unless some interior, responding wonder meets it. That the starry vault shall surcharge the heart with all rapturous marvelings, is only because we ourselves are greater miracles, and superber trophies than all the stars in universal space."

— Herman Melville

In Pierre: or, The Ambiguities, 1852

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