BIOGRAPHIES ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY: DECEMBER 1
Born On
Woody Allen
American actor and director
Woody Allen, American motion-picture director, screenwriter, actor, comedian, playwright, and author, best known for his bittersweet comic films containing elements of parody, slapstick, and the absurd...
Born On
Richard Pryor
American comedian and actor
Richard Pryor, American comedian and actor, who was one of the leading comics of the 1970s and ’80s. His comedy routines drew on a variety of downtrodden urban characters, rendered with brutal emotional...
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Matthew Shepard
American murder victim
Matthew Shepard, American college student who because of his sexual orientation was severely beaten and left to die. Shepard’s death, which was evidence of the physical danger that homosexuals still sometimes...
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Bette Midler
American actress and singer
Bette Midler, American actress and singer who was known for her dynamic energy, comedic wit, and campy humour. Midler was raised in rural Aiea, Oahu, the third of four children of a house painter and his...
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Alexander I
emperor of Russia
Alexander I, emperor of Russia (1801–25), who alternately fought and befriended Napoleon I during the Napoleonic Wars but who ultimately (1813–15) helped form the coalition that defeated the emperor of...
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Henry I
king of England
Henry I, youngest and ablest of William I the Conqueror’s sons, who as king of England (1100–35) strengthened the crown’s executive powers and, like his father, also ruled Normandy (from 1106). Henry was...
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James Baldwin
American author
James Baldwin, American essayist, novelist, and playwright whose eloquence and passion on the subject of race in America made him an important voice, particularly in the late 1950s and early 1960s, in...
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Georgy Zhukov
Soviet marshal
Georgy Zhukov, marshal of the Soviet Union, the most important Soviet military commander during World War II. Having been conscripted into the Imperial Russian Army during World War I, Zhukov joined the...
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David Ben-Gurion
prime minister of Israel
David Ben-Gurion, Zionist statesman and political leader, the first prime minister (1948–53, 1955–63) and defense minister (1948–53; 1955–63) of Israel. It was Ben-Gurion who, on May 14, 1948, at Tel Aviv,...
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Alexandra
queen consort of Great Britain
Alexandra,, queen consort of King Edward VII of Great Britain. The eldest daughter of Christian IX of Denmark, Alexandra was married to Edward (then Albert Edward, prince of Wales) in St. George’s Chapel,...
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Leo X
pope
Leo X, one of the leading Renaissance popes (reigned 1513–21). He made Rome a cultural centre and a political power, but he depleted the papal treasury, and, by failing to take the developing Reformation...
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Alfred Thayer Mahan
United States naval officer
Alfred Thayer Mahan, American naval officer and historian who was a highly influential exponent of sea power in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Mahan was the son of a professor at the U.S. Military...
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Lou Rawls
American singer
Lou Rawls, American singer whose smooth baritone adapted easily to jazz, soul, gospel, and rhythm and blues. As a child, Rawls sang in a Baptist church choir, and he later performed with Sam Cooke in the...
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G.H. Hardy
English mathematician
G.H. Hardy, leading English pure mathematician whose work was mainly in analysis and number theory. Hardy graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1899, became a fellow at Trinity in 1900, and lectured...
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Mary Martin
American actress
Mary Martin, American singer and actress best known for her work in Broadway musicals. Martin attended private schools and for a year the University of Texas. After a brief first marriage (1930–35), she...
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Alvin Ailey, Jr.
American choreographer
Alvin Ailey, Jr., American dancer, choreographer, and director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Having moved with his family to Los Angeles in 1942, Ailey became involved with the Lester Horton...
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Takeda Shingen
Japanese military leader
Takeda Shingen, daimyo (feudal lord) and one of the most-famous military leaders of Japan, who struggled for mastery of the strategic Kantō Plain in east-central Honshu during the chaotic Sengoku (“Warring...
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Medha Patkar
Indian activist
Medha Patkar, Indian social activist known chiefly for her work with people displaced by the Narmada Valley Development Project (NVDP), a large-scale plan to dam the Narmada River and its tributaries in...
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Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit
Indian politician and diplomat
Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, Indian political leader and diplomat, one of the world’s leading women in public life in the 20th century. She was the daughter of Motilal Nehru, a wealthy and aristocratic nationalist...
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Lorenzo Ghiberti
Italian sculptor
Lorenzo Ghiberti, early Italian Renaissance sculptor, whose doors (Gates of Paradise; 1425–52) for the Baptistery of the cathedral of Florence are considered one of the greatest masterpieces of Italian...
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Minoru Yamasaki
American architect
Minoru Yamasaki, American architect whose buildings, notable for their appeal to the senses, departed from the austerity often associated with post-World War II modern architecture. Following his graduation...
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Lee Trevino
American golfer
Lee Trevino, American professional golfer who became an immediate success when he joined the Professional Golfers’ Association of America (PGA) tour in 1967 and soon was recognized as one of the finest...
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J.B.S. Haldane
British geneticist
J.B.S. Haldane, British geneticist, biometrician, physiologist, and popularizer of science who opened new paths of research in population genetics and evolution. Son of the noted physiologist John Scott...
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Bernhard, prince of the Netherlands, prince of Lippe-Biesterfeld
prince of the Netherlands
Bernhard, prince of the Netherlands, prince of Lippe-Biesterfeld, prince of the Netherlands who, during World War II, served as liaison between the Dutch government-in-exile and the British armed forces...
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Sir George Everest
British geodesist
Sir George Everest, British geodesist who completed the trigonometric survey of India, on which depended the accurate mapping of the subcontinent. Everest distinguished himself during engineering training...
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Marie Tussaud
French modeler
Marie Tussaud, French-born founder of Madame Tussaud’s museum of wax figures, in central London. Her early life was spent first in Bern and then in Paris, where she learned the art of wax modeling from...
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Sergei Kirov
Russian official
Sergei Kirov, Russian Communist leader whose assassination marked the beginning of the Great Purge in the Soviet Union (1934–38). A Bolshevik Party member and organizer, Kirov was arrested several times...
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George J. Stigler
American economist
George J. Stigler, American economist whose incisive and unorthodox studies of marketplace behaviour and the effects of government regulation won him the 1982 Nobel Prize for Economics. After graduating...
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Sebastián Piñera
president of Chile
Sebastián Piñera, Chilean businessman and politician who served as president of Chile (2010–14) and was elected to a second term in December 2017. When Piñera was a baby, his family moved to the United...
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Zhu De
Chinese military leader
Zhu De, one of China’s greatest military leaders and the founder of the Chinese communist army. Born into a peasant family, Zhu was initially a physical education instructor. In 1911 he graduated from...
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Nicholas Negroponte
American architect and computer scientist
Nicholas Negroponte, American architect and computer scientist who was the founding director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Laboratory and founded One Laptop per Child (OLPC)....
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Vittorio Orlando
prime minister of Italy
Vittorio Orlando, Italian statesman and prime minister during the concluding years of World War I and head of his country’s delegation to the Versailles Peace Conference. Educated at Palermo, Orlando made...
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Ernst Toller
German writer
Ernst Toller, dramatist, poet, and political activist, who was a prominent exponent of Marxism and pacifism in Germany in the 1920s. His Expressionist plays embodied his spirit of social protest. Toller...
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Gary Peters
United States senator
Gary Peters, American politician who was elected as a Democrat to the U.S. Senate in 2014 and began representing Michigan in that body the following year. He previously served in the U.S. House of Representatives...
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Nikolay Ivanovich Lobachevsky
Russian mathematician
Nikolay Ivanovich Lobachevsky, Russian mathematician and founder of non-Euclidean geometry, which he developed independently of János Bolyai and Carl Gauss. (Lobachevsky’s first publication on this subject...
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Rex Stout
American author
Rex Stout, American author who wrote genteel mystery stories revolving around the elegantly eccentric and reclusive detective Nero Wolfe and his wisecracking aide, Archie Goodwin. Stout worked odd jobs...
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Sun Yang
Chinese swimmer
Sun Yang, At the 2012 Olympic Games in London, Chinese distance specialist Sun Yang was one of only two male swimmers to capture two individual gold medals. (The other was American Michael Phelps.) When...
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Isabella Clara Eugenia, archduchess of Austria
archduchess of Austria
Isabella Clara Eugenia, archduchess of Austria, infanta of Spain who became the instrument of her father’s claims to the thrones of England and France; as archduchess of Austria, she ruled the Spanish...
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Magnus II Eriksson
king of Sweden and Norway
Magnus II Eriksson, king of Sweden (1319–63) and of Norway (1319–55, as Magnus VII) who devoted himself to defending his Swedish sovereignty against rebellious nobles aided by various foreign leaders,...
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James D. Wolfensohn
American banker
James D. Wolfensohn, Australian-born American banker who served as president of the World Bank (1995–2005), where he tried to shift the institution’s focus toward humanitarian efforts. Wolfensohn was a...
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Saint Edmund Campion
English saint
Saint Edmund Campion, English Jesuit martyred by the government of Queen Elizabeth I. The son of a London bookseller, Campion was teaching at Oxford University at the time of his ordination (1568) as a...
Born On
Charles Theodore
elector of the Palatinate
Charles Theodore,, elector (1742–77) of the Palatinate branch of the House of Wittelsbach and thereafter (1777–99) of the united Palatinate lands after inheriting Bavaria. The latter inheritance touched...
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Margaret of Austria
regent of The Netherlands [1480-1530]
Margaret of Austria, Habsburg ruler who, as regent of the Netherlands (1507–15, 1519–30) for her nephew Charles (later the Holy Roman emperor Charles V), helped consolidate Habsburg dominion there. The...
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Charles Eugène, vicomte de Foucauld
French ascetic
Charles Eugène, vicomte de Foucauld, French soldier, explorer, and ascetic who is best known for his life of study and prayer after 1905 in the Sahara desert. Foucauld first visited North Africa in 1881...
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Walter Alston
American baseball manager
Walter Alston, professional National League baseball manager whose career with the Los Angeles (formerly Brooklyn) Dodgers was the third longest for managers, after Connie Mack and John McGraw. Alston...
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Rick Majerus
American basketball coach
Rick Majerus, American basketball coach (born Feb. 17, 1948, Sheboygan, Wis.—died Dec. 1, 2012, Los Angeles, Calif.), was known for his knowledge of and devotion to basketball, coaching college teams to...
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Christa Wolf
German author
Christa Wolf, German novelist, essayist, and screenwriter most often associated with East Germany. Wolf was reared in a middle-class, pro-Nazi family. With the defeat of Germany in 1945, she moved with...
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Fred Rose
American singer and songwriter
Fred Rose, U.S. singer and songwriter, a pioneer of country music. He grew up in St. Louis, and he performed at Chicago nightclubs as a teenager. He wrote and recorded popular music in the 1920s, including...
Born On
George Creel
American journalist
George Creel, writer and newspaperman who, as head of the U.S. publicity bureau during World War I, did much to shape subsequent government programs of publicity and propaganda. Creel began his career...
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Vaira Vike-Freiberga
president of Latvia
Vaira Vike-Freiberga, Latvian psychologist who served as president of Latvia (1999–2007). She was the first woman to head a postcommunist eastern European country. Near the end of World War II, Vike fled...
