Portal:Biography

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The Biography Portal

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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Featured biography

Mary Wollstonecraft (pronounced /ˈwʊlstənkrɑːft/; 27 April 1759 – 10 September 1797) was an eighteenth-century British writer, philosopher, and feminist. During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book. Wollstonecraft is best known for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), in which she argues that women are not naturally inferior to men, but appear to be only because they lack education. She suggests that both men and women should be treated as rational beings and imagines a social order founded on reason. (read more...)

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Selected portrait

Buzz Aldrin (born January 20, 1930 as Edwin Eugene Aldrin, Jr.) is an American pilot and astronaut. He was the Lunar Module Pilot for the Apollo 11 mission, the first lunar landing. He was the second person to set foot on the Moon and was the second human ever to step on an extraterrestrial world. Here, he walks on the surface of the Moon near the leg of the Lunar Module. (read more...)

Photograph taken by Neil A. Armstrong, mission commander, with a 70mm lunar surface camera. Source:NASA

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Did you know...

• ...that former child actor Richard Eyer, who played the boy who runs "afowl" of the goose in William Wyler's 1956 film Friendly Persuasion, is now an elementary school teacher in Bishop, California?
• ...that 1985 NCAA hurdling champion Thomas Wilcher won the Michigan High School Athletic Association team track & field championship three consecutive times, both as an athlete and a coach?
• ...that after winning three medals at the 1992 Summer Olympics as a 16-year-old, Anita Nall retired from competitive swimming in 2000 due to chronic fatigue syndrome?

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WikiProjects

See also: Biographies of living persons

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Categories

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Lists of People

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On this day - October 1

Births

• 1207 - King Henry III of England (d. 1272)
• 1507 - Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola, Italian architect (d. 1573)
• 1760 - William Thomas Beckford, English writer and politician (d. 1844)
• 1881 - William Boeing, American engineer (d. 1956)
• 1896 - Liaquat Ali Khan, first Prime Minister of Pakistan (d. 1951)
• 1903 - Vladimir Horowitz, Ukrainian-American pianist (d. 1989)
• 1910 - Bonnie Parker, American outlaw (d. 1934)
• 1924 - Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (pictured)
• 1924 - William Rehnquist, 16th Chief Justice of the United States (d. 2005)

Deaths

• 1040 - Alan III, Duke of Brittany (poisoned) (b. 997)
• 1588 - Execution of Blessed Edward James, Christian martyr
• 1901 - Abdur Rahman Khan, Afghan amir
• 2000 - Reginald Kray, British gangster (b. 1933)
• 2006 - André Viger, French Canadian wheelchair marathoner (b. 1952)

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Quote of the week

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