director, screenwriterBorn: 9/11/1940Birthplace: Newark, New Jersey Contemporary film director who has been, at times, as controversial as he has been successful. With movies such as Carrie (1976…
politicianBorn: 10/3/1789Birthplace: Tecoh, Yucatan, Mexico De Zavala played a pivotal role in Texas' battle for independence from Mexico. He was imprisoned in 1814 for his outspoken support of…
Born: 1873Birthplace: Council Bluffs, Iowa Audion amplifier—De Forest inserted a third electrode between the cathode and anode to make his audion tube. Radio signals are picked up by connecting an…
(Rebecca George)actressBorn: 8/29/1961Birthplace: Los Angeles Making her film debut in Francis Ford Coppola's One from the Heart (1982), she achieved popular success after starring as the call…
film producerBorn: 8/8/1918Birthplace: Torre Annunziata, Italy Having produced several widely acclaimed Italian films in the 1950s, including Fellini's La Strada (1954) and Nights of Cabiria (1956…
actressBorn: 7/1/1916Birthplace: Tokyo, Japan The sister of actress Joan Fontaine, she is probably best remembered as the long-suffering Melanie in Gone With the Wind (1939). She starred opposite…
(Simone-Lucie-Ernestine-Marie-Bertrand de Beauvoir)writer, feministBorn: 1/9/1908 Birthplace: Paris, France Best known for the classic feminist treatise, Le Deuxième Sexe (1949, The Second Sex), de…
A U.S. celebration of Mexican Heritage
Cinco de Mayo (Spanish for the Fifth of May) began with a proclamation from President Benito Juárez of Mexico, but ever since it's been a mostly…
(Encyclopedia) Malherbe, François deMalherbe, François defräNswäˈ də mälĕrbˈ [key], 1555–1628, French poet and critic, official poet of Henry IV and Louis XIII. His own poems approach technical…
(Encyclopedia) Villeroi, François de Neufville, duc deVilleroi, François de Neufville, duc defräNswäˈ də növēlˈ dük də vēlrwäˈ [key], 1644–1730, marshal of France and favorite of King Louis XIV. In…