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The Biography Portal

Autobiography

A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description or account 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 its subject, 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

Zerbe c. 1908

Joseph Farran Zerbe (April 16, 1871 – December 25, 1949) was an American coin collector and dealer who was the president of the American Numismatic Association (ANA) in 1908 and 1909. He served as chief numismatist (person responsible for selling government coins) at the World's Fairs in St. Louis (1904), Portland (1905), and San Francisco (1915).

Zerbe was born in Tyrone, Pennsylvania, in 1871, and became interested in coins as a child. By the time he was 20, he was running a corner store in Tyrone, alongside involvement in other businesses. He joined the ANA in 1900, and thereafter made his living from coins. Accumulating a major collection of numismatic items, he exhibited them at the fairs and at local banks throughout the U.S. for over 20 years beginning in 1907. The high prices he charged for the commemorative coins issued by the U.S. Mint for the World's Fairs, as well as the fact that some of the coins sank in value after the fairs closed, earned him a reputation among some numismatists as a huckster. (Full article...)
Image 2

1934 portrait

William Somerset Maugham (/mɔːm/ MAWM; 25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965) was an English writer, known for his plays, novels and short stories.

Born in Paris, where he spent his first ten years, Maugham was schooled in England and went to a German university. He became a medical student in London and qualified as a physician in 1897. He never practised medicine, and became a full-time writer. (Full article...)
Image 3
Thomas Nigel Kneale (18 April 1922 – 29 October 2006) was a Manx screenwriter and author whose career spanned between 1946 and 1997. Predominantly a writer of thrillers that used science fiction and horror elements, he was best known for creating the fictional scientist Professor Bernard Quatermass. He has been described as "one of the most influential writers of the 20th century", and as "having invented popular TV".

Born in England and raised on the Isle of Man, Kneale studied acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, beginning his entertainment career with BBC Radio. He won the 1950 Somerset Maugham Award for his short story collection Tomato Cain & Other Stories. Kneale was most active in television, joining BBC Television in 1951; his final script was transmitted on ITV in 1997. His breakthrough as a screenwriter came in 1953, writing the highly successful BBC television serial The Quatermass Experiment. (Full article...)
Image 4

Picture of Stafford from the New York Sunday News, September 21, 1947

Jo Elizabeth Stafford (November 12, 1917 – July 16, 2008) was an American traditional pop singer, whose career spanned five decades from the late 1930s to the early 1980s. Admired for the purity of her voice, she originally underwent classical training to become an opera singer before following a career in popular music and by 1955 had achieved more worldwide record sales than any other female artist. Her 1952 song "You Belong to Me" topped the charts in the United States and United Kingdom, becoming the second single to top the UK Singles Chart and the first by a female artist to do so.

Born in remote oil-rich Coalinga, California, near Fresno in the San Joaquin Valley, Stafford made her first musical appearance at age 12. While still at high school, she joined her two older sisters to form a vocal trio named the Stafford Sisters, who found moderate success on radio and in film. In 1938, while the sisters were part of the cast of Twentieth Century Fox's production of Alexander's Ragtime Band, Stafford met the future members of the Pied Pipers and became the group's lead singer. Bandleader Tommy Dorsey hired them in 1939 to perform vocals with his orchestra. From 1940 to 1942, the group often performed with Dorsey's new male singer, Frank Sinatra. (Full article...)
Image 5

Andjar, 1930

Abisin Abbas ( Indonesian pronunciation: [aˌbisɪn ˈabas] ; 26 February 1902 – 20 October 1961), better known by his pseudonym Andjar Asmara ( Indonesian pronunciation: [ˌaɲd͡ʒar asˈmara] ), was a dramatist and filmmaker active in the cinema of the Dutch East Indies. Born in Alahan Panjang, West Sumatra, he first worked as a reporter in Batavia (modern-day Jakarta). He became a writer for the Padangsche Opera in Padang, where he developed a new, dialogue-centric style, which later spread throughout the region. After returning to Batavia in 1929, he spent over a year as a theatre and film critic. In 1930 he joined the Dardanella touring troupe as a writer. He went to India in an unsuccessful bid to film his stage play Dr Samsi.

After leaving Dardanella in 1936, Andjar established his own troupe. He also worked at a publishers, writing serials based on successful films. In 1940 he was asked to join The Teng Chun's company, Java Industrial Film, helping with marketing and working as a director for two productions. After the Japanese occupation, during which time he stayed in theatre, Andjar made a brief return to cinema. He directed three films in the late 1940s and wrote four screenplays, which were produced as films in the early 1950s. He published a novel, Noesa Penida (1950). Afterward he worked for the remainder of his life writing serials based on local films and publishing film criticism. Historians recognise him as a pioneer of theatre and one of the first native Indonesian film directors, although he had little creative control of his productions. (Full article...)
Image 6

Coward in 1972

Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 1899 – 26 March 1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".

Coward attended a dance academy in London as a child, making his professional stage début at the age of eleven. As a teenager he was introduced into the high society in which most of his plays would be set. Coward achieved enduring success as a playwright, publishing more than 50 plays from his teens onwards. Many of his works, such as Hay Fever, Private Lives, Design for Living, Present Laughter, and Blithe Spirit, have remained in the regular theatre repertoire. He composed hundreds of songs, in addition to well over a dozen musical theatre works (including the operetta Bitter Sweet and comic revues), screenplays, poetry, several volumes of short stories, the novel Pomp and Circumstance, and a three-volume autobiography. Coward's stage and film acting and directing career spanned six decades, during which he starred in many of his own works, as well as those of others. (Full article...)
Image 7

Sanger in 1936

Margaret Sanger (née Higgins; September 14, 1879 – September 6, 1966) was an American birth control activist, sex educator, writer, and nurse. She opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, founded Planned Parenthood, and was instrumental in the development of the first birth control pill. Sanger is regarded as a founder and leader of the U.S. birth control movement.

In the early 1900s, contraceptives, abortion, and birth control literature were illegal in much of the U.S. Working as a nurse in the slums of New York City, Sanger often treated mothers desperate to avoid conceiving additional children, many of whom had resorted to back-alley abortions. Sanger was a first-wave feminist and believed that women should be able to decide if and when to have children, leading her to campaign for the legalization of contraceptives. As an adherent of the eugenics movement, she argued that birth control would reduce the number of unfit people and improve the overall health of the human race. She was also influenced by Malthusian concerns about the detrimental effects of overpopulation. (Full article...)
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Henry in 2021

Thierry Daniel "Titi" Henry (born 17 August 1977) is a French professional football manager, pundit, and former player. Widely regarded as one of the greatest players in Premier League history, he was known for his speed, technical ability, composure, finesse shots and tactical intelligence.

Henry is a two-time winner of the European Golden Shoe. He was a runner-up for the Ballon d'Or in 2003 and for the FIFA World Player of the Year in 2003 and 2004. He was named the FWA Footballer of the Year a record three times, the PFA Players' Player of the Year twice, and made the PFA Team of the Year six consecutive times. He was included in the FIFA FIFPro World XI once and the UEFA Team of the Year five times. In 2004, Henry was named by Pelé in the FIFA 100 list of greatest living players. (Full article...)
Image 9

Juan Manuel de Rosas in 1840

Juan Manuel José Domingo Ortiz de Rozas y López de Osornio (30 March 1793 – 14 March 1877), nicknamed "Restorer of the Laws", was an Argentine politician and army officer who ruled Buenos Aires Province and briefly the Argentine Confederation. Born into a wealthy family, Rosas independently amassed a personal fortune, acquiring large tracts of land in the process. Rosas enlisted his workers in a private militia, as was common for rural proprietors, and took part in the disputes that led to numerous civil wars in his country. Victorious in warfare, personally influential, and with vast landholdings and a loyal private army, Rosas became a caudillo, as provincial warlords in the region were known. He eventually reached the rank of brigadier general, the highest in the Argentine Army, and became the undisputed leader of the Federalist Party.

In December 1829, Rosas became governor of the province of Buenos Aires and established a dictatorship backed by state terrorism. In 1831, he signed the Federal Pact, recognising provincial autonomy and creating the Argentine Confederation. When his term of office ended in 1832, Rosas departed to the frontier to wage war on the indigenous peoples. After his supporters launched a coup in Buenos Aires, Rosas was asked to return and once again took office as governor. Rosas reestablished his dictatorship and formed the repressive Mazorca, an armed parapolice that killed thousands of citizens. Elections became a farce, and the legislature and judiciary became docile instruments of his will. Rosas created a cult of personality and his regime became totalitarian in nature, with all aspects of society rigidly controlled. (Full article...)
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1794 portrait

Robert Catesby (3 March 1572 – 8 November 1605) was the leader of a group of English Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Born in Warwickshire, Catesby was educated at Oxford University. His family were prominent recusant Catholics, and presumably to avoid swearing the Oath of Supremacy he left college before taking his degree. He married a Protestant in 1593 and fathered two children, one of whom survived birth and was baptised in a Protestant church. In 1601 he took part in the Essex Rebellion but was captured and fined, after which he sold his estate at Chastleton.

The Protestant James I, who became King of England in 1603, was less tolerant of Catholics than many persecuted Recusants had hoped. Catesby therefore planned a decapitation strike which he considered tyrannicide, aimed at the Government of England; by blowing up the King and the House of Lords with gunpowder during the State Opening of Parliament. The assassination of the King was to be the prelude to a popular uprising aimed at regime change, through which a Catholic monarch would be seated upon the English throne. Early in 1604, Catesby began to recruit other Catholics to his cause, including Thomas Wintour, John Wright, Thomas Percy, and Guy Fawkes. Over the following months, Fawkes helped to recruit a further eight conspirators into the plot, which, against the pleas of underground Jesuit superior Fr. Henry Garnet to cancel the plot, was scheduled to be carried out on 5 November 1605. Concerns about possible collateral damage caused an anonymous letter of warning to be sent to William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle, who alerted the authorities. On the night before the planned explosion, Fawkes was arrested underneath the House of Parliament while guarding 38 barrels of gunpowder. News of his arrest caused the other plotters to flee London, warning Catesby along their way. (Full article...)
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As lady mayoress of Reigate in 1913

Margaretta "Etta" Louisa Lemon (née Smith; 22 November 1860 – 8 July 1953) was an English bird conservationist and a founding member of what is now the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).

She was born into an evangelical Christian family in Kent, and after her father's death she increasingly campaigned against the use of plumage in hatmaking which had led to billions of birds being killed for their feathers. She may have been part of the Fur, Fin and Feather Folk with Eliza Phillips in Croydon and Catherine Victoria Hall in London in 1889, which two years later merged with Emily Williamson's Manchester-based Society for the Protection of Birds (SPB), also founded in 1889. The new organisation adopted the SPB title, and the constitution for the merged society was written by Frank Lemon, who became its legal adviser. Etta married Frank Lemon in 1892, and as Mrs Lemon she became the first honorary secretary of the SPB, a post she kept until 1904, when the society became the RSPB. (Full article...)
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Critchley c. 1950

John Owen Critchley, (18 April 1892 – 27 April 1964) was an Australian politician who served as a Labor member of the South Australian House of Assembly from 1930 to 1933 and then the Australian Senate from 1947 to 1959. Born at Callington in the Adelaide Hills of South Australia, and schooled at Sunnybrae and Petersburg (later Peterborough), Critchley completed an apprenticeship as a wheelwright. He was then dismissed for forming a branch of his union. He was a founding member and also served twelve years on the executive committee of the Amalgamated Coach Rolling Stock Makers' and Wheelwrights' Society—later the Australian Coachmakers Employees' Federation then the Vehicle Builders Employees' Federation. He briefly served with the South Australia-raised 10th Battalion on the Western Front in France and Belgium during World War I, but was repatriated as medically unfit, suffering from a neck condition.

Critchley returned to Peterborough and worked for South Australian Railways as a carpenter. He joined the Labor Party and was active in his local community, including serving two terms on the town council. He successfully ran as a Labor candidate for the seat of Burra Burra in the South Australian House of Assembly in the 1930 South Australian state election, but was defeated in 1933 after the Labor Party split over austerity measures, during which he was expelled from the party. He was readmitted to the party the following year, and worked as a vehicle registration clerk, and then managed clothing rations during World War II. In 1946, Critchley was elected to the Australian Senate, and served until 1958, being re-elected twice. He was opposition whip in the Senate from 1950 to 1957, responsible for maintaining party discipline. As a senator, Critchley advocated for returned servicemen and conservation, and was a fierce supporter of Labor's banking policies. He promoted a national perspective on a range of issues, including railway reform and the flying of the Australian flag, and was a strong opponent of state parochialism. Illness caused him to step down as opposition whip in 1957, and he did not contest the 1958 election, retiring in June 1959. When he died five years later, he was described by a fellow senator as "a true Labour man" who was "always ready to fight injustice and to resist it". (Full article...)
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Solomon c. 1880

Margaret Grey Eyes Solomon (November 1816 – August 18, 1890), better known as Mother Solomon, was a Wyandot nanny and cultural activist. Solomon was born along Owl Creek in Marion County, Ohio, to a Wyandot chief father. In 1822, her family moved to the Big Spring Reservation in Wyandot County, where elders relayed oral tradition to her. She learned housekeeping and English at a mission school and began attending the Wyandot Mission Church. Solomon married David Young, a Wyandot man, in 1833 and had several children with him, some of whom died before 1843. That year, the Indian Removal Act forced the Wyandots to move to Kansas. Illness and poor living conditions were initially widespread in the new community. Solomon had more children in Kansas, though by 1860, her husband and remaining children had died.

Solomon became homesick after marrying the Wyandot sheriff John Solomon in 1860. Alongside her nephew, the Solomons relocated to around Upper Sandusky, Ohio, in 1865. When John died in 1876, she began babysitting children, and her village nicknamed her "Mother Solomon". Solomon promoted Wyandot culture and advocated for the restoration of the run-down mission church. During its rededication in 1889, she sang a Wyandot translation of the hymn "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" and impressed many attendees with her stage presence. Solomon died in 1890. She was a popular local figure, and her death was widely reported in newspapers. The Wyandot County Museum has since displayed her belongings. (Full article...)
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Persian painting Al-Mukhtar al-Thaqafi

Al-Mukhtar ibn Abi Ubayd al-Thaqafi (Arabic: الْمُخْتَار ٱبْن أَبِي عُبَيْد الثَّقَفِيّ, romanized: al-Mukhtār ibn Abī ʿUbayd al-Thaqafī; c. 622 – 3 April 687) was an Alid revolutionary based in Kufa, who led a rebellion against the Umayyad Caliphate in 685 and ruled over most of Iraq and parts of northwestern Iran for eighteen months during the Second Fitna. Born in Ta'if, Mukhtar moved to Iraq at a young age and grew up in Kufa. Following the death of Husayn, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, at the hands of the Umayyad army in the Battle of Karbala in 680, Mukhtar captured Kufa in October 685 after expelling its governor Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr, and killed several figures responsible for Husayn's death, including Umar ibn Sa'd, Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad, and Shimr ibn Dhi al-Jawshan. He then allied with the rival caliph Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr in Mecca, but the alliance was short-lived. Mukhtar returned to Kufa where he declared Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya the Mahdi and the Imam, a son of Ali and brother of Husayn, and called for the establishment of an Alid caliphate. Hostile relations with Ibn al-Zubayr ultimately led to Mukhtar's death by the forces of the Zubayrid governor of Basra, Mus'ab ibn al-Zubayr, following a four-month siege.

Although Mukhtar was ultimately defeated, his movement had far-reaching consequences. After his death, his followers formed a distinct Shia sect known as the Kaysanites. It developed a number of distinctive theological doctrines and played an important role in the development of later Shia thought. Mukhtar raised the social status of mawali (non-Arab local converts to Islam) and they became an important political entity. The mawali and Kaysanites went on to play a significant role in the Abbasid Revolution sixty years later. Mukhtar was important as an early proponent of treating Arab and non-Arab Muslims on an equal footing. He is a controversial figure among Sunni Muslims; condemned by them as a false prophet, but revered by Shia Muslims because of his support for the Alids. Modern historians' views range from regarding him as an ambitious opportunist to a sincere revolutionary. His shrine in the Great Mosque of Kufa is a destination for Shia pilgrims. (Full article...)
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Childe in the 1930s

Vere Gordon Childe (14 April 1892 – 19 October 1957) was an Australian archaeologist who specialised in the study of European prehistory. He spent most of his life in the United Kingdom, working as an academic for the University of Edinburgh and then the Institute of Archaeology, London. He wrote twenty-six books during his career. Initially an early proponent of culture-historical archaeology, he later became the first exponent of Marxist archaeology in the Western world.

Born in Sydney to a middle-class English migrant family, Childe studied classics at the University of Sydney before moving to England to study classical archaeology at the University of Oxford. There, he embraced the socialist movement and campaigned against the First World War, viewing it as a conflict waged by competing imperialists to the detriment of Europe's working class. Returning to Australia in 1917, he was prevented from working in academia because of his socialist activism. Instead, he worked for the Labor Party as the private secretary of the politician John Storey. Growing critical of Labor, he wrote an analysis of their policies and joined the radical labour organisation Industrial Workers of the World. Emigrating to London in 1921, he became librarian of the Royal Anthropological Institute and journeyed across Europe to pursue his research into the continent's prehistory, publishing his findings in academic papers and books. In doing so, he introduced the continental European concept of an archaeological culture—the idea that a recurring assemblage of artefacts demarcates a distinct cultural group—to the British archaeological community. (Full article...)

More featured articles

Did you know... - show different entries

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... that Charlie Suff is the third actor to portray Johnny Carter on the soap opera EastEnders?
... that in his autobiography, openly gay footballer Thomas Hitzlsperger criticises high-profile players for promoting gay rights while working in countries where homosexuality is illegal?
... that a novelist and her son wrote a biography on another novelist and her sons?
... that Pope Leo XIV planned to attend Tolentine College, but it closed before he could enroll?
... that B. S. Johnson based an autobiographical novel on his three-week voyage on a fishing trawler?
... that the house of actor Calum Lill was used as a set for the drama Waterloo Road when he was a child?
... that the Taliban supreme leader canceled a 2023 Victory Day military parade so as to "not disturb the public"?
... that La Querida in Palm Beach, Florida, served as the Winter White House for President John F. Kennedy?
... that Nathaniel Chauncey was the first person to receive a degree from Yale?
... that a park in Chile features a 7-metre-tall (23 ft) statue of Pope John Paul II covered in plants?
... that actor Nathaniel Dass found Hollyoaks' exploitation storyline difficult to film?

General images

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

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

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Image 1

Moshe Ya'alon
Photograph: Reuven Kapuscinski

Moshe Ya'alon (b. 1950) is an Israeli politician and current Defense Minister. Ya'alon was called up as a reserve during the Yom Kippur War in 1973. After the war, he rejoined the army as an officer and rose through the ranks, leading the Sayeret Matkal commando unit, the Paratroopers Brigade, and Military Intelligence. In 2002 he was appointed Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, resigning in 2005. Since 2013 he has served as the country's Defense Minister.

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Image 2

Golda Meir
Photo credit: Marion S. Trikosko, U.S. News & World Report

A portrait of Golda Meir from 1973, during her tenure as Prime Minister of Israel. She was the first (and, to date, only) female Prime Minister of Israel, and was the third female Prime Minister in the world, as well as one of the founders of the State of Israel. Born as Golda Mabovitz, she chose her Hebrew name "Meir" upon her appointment as Foreign Minister in 1956. As Prime Minister, Meir oversaw a tumultuous period in Israeli history, with the War of Attrition, Operation Wrath of God, and the Yom Kippur War, all happening during that time.

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Image 3

Edward VI
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 4

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 5

Thomas Cranmer
Painting: Gerlach Flicke

Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556, depicted in 1545) was a leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of three monarchs. Ascending to power during the reign of Henry VIII, under Edward VI he was able to promote a series of reforms in the Church of England. He was executed for treason under Mary I.

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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

Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson
Painting: Lemuel Francis Abbott

Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, (1758–1805) was a British flag officer who served in the Royal Navy, particularly during the Napoleonic Wars. Born in Norfolk, Nelson entered the navy at age 13, and in 1778 he obtained his own command. During his career he suffered from seasickness, and by the time of the Trafalgar Campaign he had already lost his right arm and sight in an eye in battles in Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Corsica, respectively.

In 1805 he took over the Cádiz blockade, and on 21 October of that year Nelson's fleet engaged the Franco-Spanish one at the Battle of Trafalgar. The battle was a British victory, but during the action Nelson was fatally wounded by a French sharpshooter. Numerous monuments, such as Nelson's Column, have been created in his memory, and his signal "England expects that every man will do his duty" has been widely quoted, paraphrased and referenced.

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Image 8

Louis Pasteur
Photograph: Nadar; restoration: Chris Woodrich

Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) was a French chemist and microbiologist renowned for his discoveries of the principles of vaccination, microbial fermentation and pasteurization. He reduced mortality from puerperal fever, and created the first vaccines for rabies and anthrax. His medical discoveries provided direct support for the germ theory of disease and its application in clinical medicine. Together with Ferdinand Cohn and Robert Koch, he is regarded as one of the three main founders of bacteriology.

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Image 9

Antanas Smetona
Photo from: National Museum of Lithuania

A portrait of Antanas Smetona, the first President of Lithuania, a signatory to the Act of Independence of Lithuania, as well as the last President before the country's occupation by the Soviet Union in World War II. During his second term, he expanded the powers of the office and became an authoritarian head of state. Prior to the Soviet invasion, Smetona proposed armed resistance, but was overruled by his army. He fled the country, eventually emigrating to the United States. Smetona died in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1944. His remains are currently buried in Chardon, Ohio.

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Image 10

Lies Noor
Photograph credit: Djakartawood Studio; restored by Chris Woodrich

Lies Noor (c. 1938 – 1961) was an Indonesian actress. She first appeared on film in Pulang (Homecoming) in 1952, while she was still at school. She rose in popularity with a string of successful films, and was able to command high fees for her roles. In the mid-1950s, having married and had a child, she took a break from her career to care full-time for her son. After returning to acting in 1960, however, she developed encephalitis the next year and died in hospital two days later. This photograph of Noor was taken around 1956.

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Image 11

Ada Lovelace
Painting: Alfred Edward Chalon

Ada Lovelace (1815–1852) was an English mathematician and writer, chiefly known for her work on using Charles Babbage's planned mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. Her notes include what is recognised as the first algorithm intended to be carried out by a machine, and as such she is often regarded as the first computer programmer.

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Image 12

Robert William Thomson
Image credit: Illustrated London News

The obituary of Robert William Thomson as it appeared in the Illustrated London News on 29 March 1873. Thomson was the inventor of the pneumatic tyre, the elliptic rotary steam engine and locomotive traction engine, the portable steam crane, and numerous other inventions. The obituary preceding his is for Evelyn Denison, 1st Viscount Ossington.

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Image 13

Buster Keaton
Photo credit: Bain News Service

Along with Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton was one of the most important comic actors of the silent era. His trademark was physical comedy with a stoic, deadpan expression on his face, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face". He appeared in dozens of films, and his The General was voted the fifteenth-best film of all time by Sight & Sound readers. Entertainment Weekly also named him the seventh-greatest film director in history.

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Image 14

Frances Densmore
Photo: Harris & Ewing; Restoration: Michel Vuijlsteke

Frances Densmore (left) and Blackfoot chief Mountain Chief during a recording session for the Bureau of American Ethnology in 1916. Densmore (1867–1957) was an American ethnographer and ethnomusicologist who worked to document the music of Native Americans in the United States and its use in their cultures. She helped preserve their culture in a time when white settlers were encouraging Native Americans to become Americanized.

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Image 15

Edgar Allan Poe
Daguerreotype credit: W.S. Hartshorn

A daguerreotype of Edgar Allan Poe taken in 1848, less than a year before his death. Best known for his tales of the macabre and mystery, Poe was one of the early American practitioners of the short story and a progenitor of detective fiction and crime fiction. He is also credited with contributing to the emergent science fiction genre. A copyright statement is inscribed on this image because it is a photograph of the original daguerreotype.

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On this day – September 10

Births

1169 - Alexius II Comnenus, Byzantine Emperor (d. 1183)
1487 - Pope Julius III (d. 1555) (pictured)
1550 - Alonso de Guzmán El Bueno, 7th Duke of Medina Sidonia, commander of the Spanish Armada (d. 1615)
1659 - Henry Purcell, English composer (d. 1695)
1786 - William Mason, American politician (d. 1860)
1852 - Alice Brown Davis, Seminole chief (d. 1935)
1895 - Kavi Samrat Viswanatha Satyanarayana, Telugu writer (d. 1976).
1917 - Miguel Serrano, Chilean author and diplomat (d. 2009)
1941 - Stephen Jay Gould, American paleontologist (d. 2002)
1960 - Colin Firth, English actor

Deaths

1604 - William Morgan, Welsh Bible translator (b. 1545)
1797 - Mary Wollstonecraft, English author (b. 1759)
1801 - Jason Fairbanks, American murderer (b. 1780)
1935 - Huey Long, American politician (b. 1893)
2006 - King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV of Tonga (b. 1918)

More of today's anniversaries...

In the news

8 September 2026 – Israel–United Kingdom relations, Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Legality of Israeli settlements: To reciprocate the UK sanctions, Israel announces it will close the UK consulate in East Jerusalem. Israel also forbids the UK from participating in the U.S.-led mission for Gaza, and bans some British officials, including former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, from entering the country. (The North West Star)
5 September 2026 – 2026 Diamond League: In track and field, Swiss athlete Audrey Werro wins the women's 800 metres at the Diamond League's Memorial Van Damme in Brussels, Belgium, with a meeting record of 1:54.75. (Athletics Weekly)
1 September 2026 –: Mexican musician Jonathan Meléndez of the band Camilo Séptimo, his pregnant wife, their three-year-old daughter, a domestic worker, and their pet dog are shot dead in a penthouse outside Mexico City, while Meléndez's six-year-old son is found unharmed. Prosecutors arrest two suspects. (Reuters)
31 August 2026 –: Dale Sanders reclaims his record of being the oldest person to hike the entire Appalachian Trail, one of the world's longest hiking-only trails, after completing it at age 91. (AP)
31 August 2026 – Corruption in South Korea, Unification Church and politics: A South Korean court sentences Unification Church leader Hak Ja Han to two years in prison for bribing officials, including former first lady Kim Keon Hee, in an effort to obtain policy favors. (AFP via France 24) (Reuters)
31 August 2026 – Murder of Tupac Shakur: A jury in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States, finds former Crips gang leader Duane Davis guilty of first-degree murder for orchestrating the murder of rapper Tupac Shakur during a drive-by shooting in Paradise in 1996. (ABC News) (BBC News)

Updated: 1:05, 10 September 2026

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Quote of the week

"I think I'd most like to spend a day with Harry. I'd take him out for a meal and apologise for everything I've put him through."

— J. K. Rowling

World Book Day Web Chat, 4 March 2004

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