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.

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William Matthews (December 16, 1770 – April 30, 1854), occasionally spelled Mathews, was an American who became the fifth Roman Catholic priest ordained in the United States and the first such person born in British America. Born in the colonial Province of Maryland, he was briefly a novice in the Society of Jesus. After being ordained, he became influential in establishing Catholic parochial and educational institutions in Washington, D.C. He was the second pastor of St. Patrick's Church, serving for most of his life. He served as the sixth president of Georgetown College, later known as Georgetown University. Matthews acted as president of the Washington Catholic Seminary, which became Gonzaga College High School, and oversaw the continuity of the school during suppression by the church and financial insecurity.

Matthews was vicar apostolic and apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Philadelphia during a period of ecclesiastical turmoil. He was a co-founder and president of the Washington Library Company for thirteen years—the first public library in the District of Columbia. He also was co-director and trustee of the District of Columbia Public Schools, where he was one of the superintendents of a school. He played a significant role in the founding of Washington Visitation Academy for girls, St. Peter's Church on Capitol Hill, and the parish that now includes the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle. Matthews was involved in Catholic charitable organizations as well; he was the founder and president of St. Vincent's Female Orphan Asylum and the co-founder and president of St. Joseph's Male Orphan Asylum. (Full article...)
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Disraeli in 1878

Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield (born Benjamin D'Israeli; 21 December 1804 – 19 April 1881), was a British statesman, Conservative politician and writer who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He played a central role in the creation of the modern Conservative Party, defining its policies and its broad outreach. Disraeli is remembered for his influential voice in world affairs, his political battles with the Liberal Party leader William Ewart Gladstone, and his one-nation conservatism or "Tory democracy". He made the Conservatives the party most identified with the British Empire and military action to expand it, both of which were popular among British voters. He is the only British prime minister to have been born Jewish.

Disraeli was born in Bloomsbury, at that time a part of Middlesex. His father left Judaism after a dispute at his synagogue; Benjamin became an Anglican at the age of 12. After several unsuccessful attempts, Disraeli entered the House of Commons in 1837. In 1846, Prime Minister Robert Peel split the party over his proposal to repeal the Corn Laws, which involved ending the tariff on imported grain. Disraeli clashed with Peel in the House of Commons, becoming a major figure in the party. When Lord Derby, the party leader, thrice formed governments in the 1850s and 1860s, Disraeli served as Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons. (Full article...)
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Soberano in 2016

Hope Elizabeth Soberano (born January 4, 1998) is a Filipino and American actress. Known for playing supporting characters in dramas and comedies as a teenager, she has since expanded her repertoire to leading roles in television and film. She has received several major accolades, including a FAMAS Award, a PMPC Star Award, and six Box Office Entertainment Awards. Tatler Asia named her one of the most influential people in Asia in 2022 and 2023.

Born in Santa Clara, California, Soberano relocated to Quezon City and began her career as a model at thirteen. She made her television debut in the fantasy anthology series Wansapanataym (2011), before her breakthrough in the second season of the romantic drama series Got to Believe (2014). She gained wider recognition for portraying the strawberry plantation farmer Agnes in the romantic drama series Forevermore (2014), which was the first of her collaborations with actor Enrique Gil. (Full article...)
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George Washington and enslaved workers on his Mount Vernon plantation

The history of George Washington and slavery reflects Washington's changing attitude toward the ownership of human beings. The preeminent Founding Father of the United States and a hereditary slaveowner, Washington became privately regretful about it, but continued the practice until his death. Slavery was then a longstanding institution dating back over a century in Virginia where he lived; it was also longstanding in other American colonies and in world history. Washington's will immediately freed one of his slaves, and required his remaining 123 slaves to serve his wife and be freed no later than her death; they ultimately became free one year after his own death.

In the Colony of Virginia where Washington grew up, he became a third generation slave-owner at 11 years of age upon the death of his father in 1743, when he inherited his first ten slaves. In adulthood his personal slaveholding grew through inheritance, purchase, and the natural increase of children born into slavery. In 1759, he also gained substantial control of dower slaves belonging to the Custis estate on his marriage to Martha Dandridge Custis. Washington's early attitudes about slavery reflected the prevailing Virginia planter views of the day, which included few moral qualms, if any. In 1774, Washington publicly denounced the slave trade on moral grounds in the Fairfax Resolves. After the Revolutionary War, he continued to own enslaved human beings, but supported the abolition of slavery by a gradual legislative process. (Full article...)
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Air Vice-Marshal Drummond in the Middle East, 1940

Air Marshal Sir Peter Roy Maxwell Drummond, (2 June 1894 – 27 March 1945) was an Australian-born senior commander in the Royal Air Force (RAF). He rose from private soldier in World War I to air marshal in World War II. Drummond enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in 1914 and the following year saw service as a medical orderly during the Gallipoli campaign. He joined the Royal Flying Corps in 1916 and became a fighter ace in the Middle Eastern theatre, where he was awarded the Military Cross and the Distinguished Service Order and Bar. Transferring to the RAF on its formation in 1918, he remained in the British armed forces for the rest of his life.

Between the wars, Drummond saw action in the Sudan—earning appointment as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire—and was posted to Australia on secondment to the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) as Director of Operations and Intelligence. In Britain, he commanded RAF stations Tangmere and Northolt. Ranked air commodore at the outbreak of World War II, he was Air Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder's Deputy Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief RAF Middle East from 1941 to 1943. Drummond was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1941 for his services in the Middle East, and knighted in the same order two years later. He was twice offered command of the RAAF during the war but the RAF was unwilling to release him to take up the position. Britain's Air Member for Training from 1943, Drummond was killed in a plane crash at sea in 1945. (Full article...)
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Horrocks while commanding XIII Corps in North Africa, 1942

Lieutenant-General Sir Brian Gwynne Horrocks, (7 September 1895 – 4 January 1985) was a British Army officer, chiefly remembered as the commander of XXX Corps in Operation Market Garden and other operations during the Second World War. He also served in the First World War and the Russian Civil War, was taken prisoner twice, and competed in the modern pentathlon at the 1924 Paris Olympics. Later he was a television presenter, wrote books on military history, and was Black Rod in the House of Lords for 14 years.

In 1940 Horrocks commanded a battalion during the Battle of France, the first time he served under Bernard Montgomery, the most prominent British commander of the war. Montgomery later identified Horrocks as one of his most able officers, appointing him to corps commands in both North Africa and Europe. In 1943, Horrocks was seriously wounded and took more than a year to recover before returning to command a corps in Europe. It is likely that this period out of action meant he missed out on promotion; his contemporary corps commanders in North Africa, Oliver Leese and Miles Dempsey, went on to command at army level and above. Horrocks' wound continued to impair his health and led to his early retirement from the army after the war. (Full article...)
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Kalven in 2016

James Ewan Kalven (born 1948) is an American journalist, author, human rights activist, and community organizer based in Chicago, Illinois. He is the founder of the Invisible Institute, a non-profit journalism organization based in Chicago's South Side. His work in the city has included reporting on police misconduct and poor conditions of public housing. Kalven has been referred to as a "guerrilla journalist" by Chicago journalist Studs Terkel.

He is the son of Harry Kalven, a law professor who left behind an unfinished manuscript on freedom of speech upon his death in 1974. Jamie finished the manuscript over the following 14 years. Following a sexual assault on his wife, Patricia Evans, Kalven wrote a memoir as a resource to support victims of rape. He also reported on living conditions at the Stateway Gardens housing development in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago. Along with Evans and an associate, Kalven founded the Invisible Institute as an informal journalism and community organizing team at Stateway. His reporting on abuse by Chicago police at Stateway eventually led to litigation seeking the release of police misconduct records, which Kalven won in 2014. The case – Kalven v. City of Chicago – resulted in a landmark decision, holding that police misconduct records are public information under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act. (Full article...)
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Richard Hawes Jr. (February 6, 1797 – May 25, 1877) was a United States representative from Kentucky and the second Confederate governor of Kentucky. He was part of the politically influential Hawes family. His brother, uncle, and cousin also served as U.S. Representatives, and his grandson Harry B. Hawes was a member of the United States Senate. He was a slaveholder.

Hawes began his political career as an ardent Whig and was a close friend of the party's founder, Henry Clay. When the party declined and dissolved in the 1850s, Hawes became a Democrat, and his relationship with Clay cooled. (Full article...)
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Robert George Windle (born 7 November 1944) is an Australian freestyle swimmer of the 1960s, who won four Olympic medals, including an individual gold medal. Windle won the 1500 m freestyle and took bronze in the 4 × 100 m freestyle relay at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, and silver and bronze in the 4 × 200 m and 4 × 100 m freestyle relays respectively at the 1968 Summer Olympics. Known for his versatility, he is the only male swimmer to represent Australia at the Olympics in all freestyle distances from 100 m to 1500 m. During his career, Windle set six world records and won six Commonwealth Games gold medals. He won 19 Australian championships in all distances from 220 yd to 1650 yd.

Growing up in eastern Sydney, Windle was trained by Frank Guthrie from the age of 12. Windle's first major swimming competition was the 1960 Australian Championships. Aged 15, his second-place finish in the 1650 yd freestyle earned him a place on the team for the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. However, the Australian coaches only took him along to gain experience and he did not compete. He won his first national title in 1961—the 1650 yd freestyle—and claimed the 220–440–1650 yd treble in 1962. Windle made his international debut at the 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Perth, winning gold in the 4 × 220 yd freestyle and silver and bronze in the 1650 and 440 yd freestyle respectively. In 1963, he won four individual national titles, adding the 880 yd event to the successful defence of his three titles. He won three individual titles in 1964 and proceeded to the Tokyo Olympics where he was eliminated in the heats of the 400 m freestyle after attempting to save energy for the final. In response, Windle took an aggressive approach in the 1500 m and set Olympic records in the heats and final to win gold. He added a bronze in the 4 × 100 m freestyle relay. (Full article...)
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Group Captain Bill Hely on Bougainville, January 1945

Air Vice Marshal William Lloyd Hely, CB, CBE, AFC (24 August 1909 – 20 May 1970) was a senior commander in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). He graduated from the Royal Military College, Duntroon, in 1930 before transferring to the RAAF as a cadet pilot. Hely came to public attention in 1936–37, first when he crashed on a survey flight in the Northern Territory, and later when he undertook two successful missions to locate missing aircraft in the same vicinity. His rescue efforts earned him the Air Force Cross. After occupying staff positions during the early years of World War II, Hely was appointed Officer Commanding No. 72 Wing in Dutch New Guinea in May 1944. Later that year he formed No. 84 (Army Cooperation) Wing, commanding it during the Bougainville campaign until the end of the Pacific War.

Hely spent the immediate post-war period on the staff of RAAF Headquarters, Melbourne. From 1951 to 1953 he served as Air Officer Commanding (AOC) Western Area Command in Perth, after which he was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. He was Deputy Chief of the Air Staff from 1953 to 1956, AOC Training Command from 1956 to 1957, and Head of the Australian Joint Services Staff in Washington, D.C. from 1957 to 1960. He then served as Air Member for Personnel (AMP) for six years, his tenure coinciding with a significant increase in manpower to meet commitments in South East Asia and the demands of a major re-equipment program. Having been promoted acting air vice marshal in 1953 (substantive in 1956), he was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1964 for his service as AMP. He retired from the Air Force in 1966 and made his home in Canberra, where he died in 1970 at the age of sixty. (Full article...)
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William Robinson Brown (January 17, 1875 – August 4, 1955), known professionally as W.R. Brown, was an American corporate officer of the Brown Company of Berlin, New Hampshire. An authority on Arabian horses, he was also an influential Arabian horse breeder, and also the founder and owner of the Maynesboro Stud.

After graduating from Williams College, Brown joined the family business, then known as the Berlin Mills Company, and became manager of the Woods Products Division, overseeing the company's woodlands and logging operations. He became an early advocate for sustainable forest management practices, was a member of the New Hampshire Forestry Commission from 1909 until 1952, and served on the boards of several forestry organizations. As chair of the Forestry Commission, Brown helped send sawmills to Europe during World War I to assist the war effort. He was influenced by the Progressive movement, instituting employee benefits such as company-sponsored care for injured workers that predated modern workers' compensation laws. A Republican, he served as a presidential elector for New Hampshire in 1924. (Full article...)
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Top: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Bottom (left to right): Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Alexander Glazunov and Anatoly Lyadov

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's relations with the group of composers known as the Belyayev circle, which lasted from 1887 until Tchaikovsky's death in 1893, influenced all of their music and briefly helped shape the next generation of Russian composers. This group was named after timber merchant Mitrofan Belyayev, an amateur musician who became an influential music patron and publisher after he had taken an interest in Alexander Glazunov's work. By 1887, Tchaikovsky was firmly established as one of the leading composers in Russia. A favorite of Tsar Alexander III, he was widely regarded as a national treasure. He was in demand as a guest conductor in Russia and Western Europe, and in 1890 visited the United States in the same capacity. By contrast, the fortunes of the nationalistic group of composers known as The Five, which preceded the Belyayev circle, had waned, and the group had long since dispersed; of its members, only Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov remained fully active as a composer. Now a professor of musical composition and orchestration at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, Rimsky-Korsakov had become a firm believer in the Western-based compositional training that had been once frowned upon by the group.

As a result of the time Tchaikovsky spent with the Belyayev circle's leading composers—Glazunov, Anatoly Lyadov and Rimsky-Korsakov—the somewhat fraught relationship he had previously endured with The Five would eventually meld into something more harmonious. Tchaikovsky's friendship with these men gave him increased confidence in his own abilities as a composer, while his music encouraged Glazunov to broaden his artistic outlook past the nationalist agenda and to compose along more universal themes. This influence grew to the point that Glazunov's Third Symphony became known as the "anti-kuchist" symphony of his oeuvre ("kuchist" refers to "kuchka", the shortened Russian name for The Five) and shared several stylistic fingerprints with Tchaikovsky's later symphonies. Nor was Glazunov the only composer so influenced. Rimsky-Korsakov wrote about the Belyayev composers' "worship of Tchaikovsky and ... tendency toward eclecticism" that became prevalent during this period, along with a predilection toward "Italian-French music of the time of wig and farthingale" (that is, of the 18th Century) typified in Tchaikovsky's late operas The Queen of Spades and Iolanta. (Full article...)
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Statue of Simeon I in Vidin

Simeon I the Great (Church Slavonic: цѣсар҄ь Сѷмеѡ́нъ А҃ Вели́къ; Bulgarian: цар Симеон I Велики, romanized: Simeon I Veliki [simɛˈɔn ˈpɤrvi vɛˈliki]; Greek: Συμεών Αʹ ὁ Μέγας, romanized: Sumeṓn prôtos ho Mégas) was the ruler of the First Bulgarian Empire from 893 until his death in 927. Simeon's successful campaigns against the Byzantines, Magyars and Serbs led Bulgaria to its greatest territorial expansion ever, making it the most powerful state in contemporary Eastern and Southeast Europe. His reign was also a period of unmatched cultural prosperity and enlightenment later deemed the Golden Age of Bulgarian culture.

During Simeon's rule, Bulgaria spread over a territory between the Aegean, the Adriatic and the Black seas. The newly independent Bulgarian Orthodox Church became the first new patriarchate besides the Pentarchy, and Bulgarian Glagolitic and Cyrillic translations of Christian texts spread all over the Slavic world of the time. It was at the Preslav Literary School in the 890s that the Cyrillic alphabet was developed. Halfway through his reign, Simeon assumed the title of "emperor" (Tsar), having prior to that been styled "prince" (Knyaz). (Full article...)
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David Christopher Kelly (14 May 1944 – 17 July 2003) was a Welsh scientist and authority on biological warfare (BW). A former head of the Defence Microbiology Division working at Porton Down, Kelly was part of a joint US-UK team that inspected civilian biotechnology facilities in Russia in the early 1990s and concluded they were running a covert and illegal BW programme. He was appointed to the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) in 1991 as one of its chief weapons inspectors in Iraq and led ten of the organisation's missions between May 1991 and December 1998. He also worked with UNSCOM's successor, the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and led several of their missions into Iraq. During his time with UNMOVIC he was key in uncovering the anthrax production programme at the Salman Pak facility, and a BW programme run at Al Hakum.

A year after the publication of the 2002 dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction—which stated that some of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons were deployable within 45 minutes—Kelly had an off-the-record conversation with Andrew Gilligan, a BBC journalist, about the claim. When Gilligan reported this on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he stated that the "45 minutes" claim was included at the insistence of Alastair Campbell, the Downing Street Director of Communications; Kelly denied that he said Campbell had forced in the reference. The government complained to the BBC about the claim, but they refused to recant on it; political tumult between Downing Street and the BBC developed. Kelly informed his line managers in the Ministry of Defence that he might have been the source, but did not think he was the only one, as Gilligan had reported points he had not mentioned. Kelly's name became known to the media, and he was called to appear on 15 July before the parliamentary Intelligence and Security and Foreign Affairs select committees. Two days later Kelly was found dead near his home, having killed himself. (Full article...)
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Monroe in 1953

Marilyn Monroe (/ˈmærəlɪn mənˈroʊ/ MARR-ə-lin mən-ROH; born Norma Jeane Mortenson; June 1, 1926 – August 4, 1962) was an American actress and model. Known for playing comic "blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s, as well as an emblem of the era's sexual revolution. She was a top-billed actress for a decade, and her films grossed $200 million (equivalent to $2 billion in 2025) by her death in 1962.

Born in Los Angeles, Monroe spent most of her childhood in foster homes and an orphanage before marrying James Dougherty at the age of 16. She was working in a factory during World War II when she met a photographer from the First Motion Picture Unit and began a successful pin-up modeling career, which led to short-lived film contracts with 20th Century Fox and Columbia Pictures. After roles as a freelancer, she began a longer contract with Fox in 1951, becoming a popular actress with roles in several comedies, including As Young as You Feel and Monkey Business, and in the dramas Clash by Night and Don't Bother to Knock. Monroe faced a scandal when it was revealed that she had posed for nude photographs prior to fame, but the story resulted in increased interest in her films. (Full article...)

More featured articles

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... that Laura Kenny is the most decorated British female athlete in Olympic history?
... that Mohamed Aw-Ali Abdi campaigned in Birmingham, England, while running to become the vice president of Somaliland?
... that tea-garden labour leader Prem Oraon lost his right leg in 1970 during a protest against a factory closure?
... that educational writer Ștefan Tita gave Romanian students impractical advice on mending damaged bark with bandages of dirt?
... that The True Record closed shortly after implicating Provisional President Yuan Shikai in the assassination of Song Jiaoren?
... that Jerzy Broszkiewicz, a louse-feeder during World War II, later became a writer of youth literature and drama?
... that mining engineer William H. Shockley found specimens that were used to describe Aquilegia shockleyi and Lupinus shockleyi?
... that with the appointment of Michael Martin as Bishop of Charlotte, the Conventual Franciscans are now the most represented religious order among American Catholic bishops?
... that Javanese rebel leader Diponegoro partly blamed his sexual infidelity for his defeat at the Battle of Gawok?
... that the author of the comic book Timeless Voyage was the leader of a UFO religion?

General images

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

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

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Selected portrait

Image 1
Walt Whitman
Photograph: George C. Cox; restoration: Adam Cuerden
Walt Whitman (1819–1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse. His work was very controversial in its time, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass (first published in 1855, but continuously revised until Whitman's death), which was described as obscene for its overt sexuality.
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Image 2
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 3
Al Grey
Photograph credit: William P. Gottlieb; restored by Adam Cuerden
Al Grey (June 6, 1925 – March 24, 2000) was an American jazz trombonist who was known for his plunger-mute technique. After serving in World War II, he joined Benny Carter's band, then the bands of Jimmie Lunceford, Lucky Millinder, and Lionel Hampton. In the 1950s, he was a member of the big bands of Dizzy Gillespie and Count Basie before forming his own bands in the 1960s. This photograph by William P. Gottlieb shows Grey still performing into the 1980s.
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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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Célestine Galli-Marié
Photograph credit: Nadar; restored by Adam Cuerden
Célestine Galli-Marié (1837–1905) was a French mezzo-soprano who is most famous for creating the title role in the opera Carmen by Georges Bizet. It was said that, during the opera's 33rd performance on 2 June 1875, Galli-Marié had a premonition of Bizet's death while singing in the third act, and fainted when she left the stage; the composer in fact died that night and the next performance was cancelled due to her indisposition. This photograph by Nadar depicts Galli-Marié as the titular character in Carmen.
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Alice Manfield
Photo: Unknown; Restoration: John O'Neill
Alice Manfield (1878–1960), commonly known as Guide Alice, was a mountain guide, amateur naturalist, chalet owner, photographer, and early feminist figure from Victoria, Australia. Her pioneering work at Mount Buffalo from the 1890s to the 1930s led to her becoming a tourist attraction in her own right, and helped lead to the establishment of the Mount Buffalo National Park. Manfield's parents ran a hotel at Mount Buffalo, and she led tours up the mountain from her youth. Because of her enthusiasm and extensive knowledge of the area, she quickly became a highly sought-after guide. She continued guiding tourists until the 1930s.
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Lucy Arbell
Photograph credit: Nadar; restored by Adam Cuerden
Lucy Arbell (8 June 1878 – 21 May 1947), was a French mezzo-soprano whose operatic career was largely centred in Paris. Her career was particularly associated with the composer Jules Massenet, who created a number of operatic roles for her before his death in 1912. This carte de visite of Arbell was created by the French photographer Nadar.
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Image 8
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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Image 9
Stephen Merchant
Photo: Carolyn Djanogly
Stephen Merchant (b. 1974) is an English writer, director, radio presenter, comedian, and actor. He is best known for his collaborations with Ricky Gervais, with whom he co-wrote and co-directed the popular British sitcom The Office, co-hosts The Ricky Gervais Show, and co-wrote, co-directed, and co-starred in Extras.
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Image 10
T206 Honus Wagner
Image credit: American Tobacco Company
The T206 Honus Wagner is a rare baseball card depicting Honus Wagner (February 24, 1874 – December 6, 1955), a dead-ball era shortstop considered one of the best players of all time. The card was designed and issued by the American Tobacco Company from 1909 to 1911. Only 50 to 200 cards were ever distributed to the public, and as a result of the card's rarity and popularity, prices have soared. In 2007, a collector paid $2.8 million for one, making it the most valuable baseball card in history. This specimen belongs to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York.
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Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck
Photo credit: Royal family of Bhutan
Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck is the fifth and current Bhutan Dragon King and head of the Wangchuck dynasty. He became king on 14 December 2006, and was officially crowned on 6 November 2008. The young king began his unusual reign overseeing the democratization of Bhutan, stating that the responsibility for this generation of Bhutanese was to ensure the success of democracy.
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Image 12
Peter Oliver (painter)
Portrait: Peter Oliver
An 8.8-centimetre (3.5 in) tall self-portrait of the English miniaturist Peter Oliver (1594–1648). He often worked with watercolours.
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Image 13
Ida B. Wells
Photograph: Mary Garrity; restoration: Adam Cuerden
Ida B. Wells (1862–1931) was an African-American journalist, newspaper editor, suffragist, sociologist, and an early leader in the civil rights movement. Born into slavery in Holly Springs, Mississippi, Wells and her family were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. Despite losing her parents to yellow fever when she was sixteen, Wells attended Fisk University and became a teacher. Politically active since her youth, she also became a writer on race issues and campaigned against lynching; in this latter capacity she published two influential pamphlets and traveled throughout the United States and the United Kingdom. Wells also helped establish the National Association of Colored Women and the National Afro-American Council.
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Image 14
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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Image 15
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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On this day – March 6

Births

1475 - Michelangelo, Italian artist (d. 1564)
1619 - Cyrano de Bergerac, French soldier, poet (d. 1655)
1806 - Elizabeth Barrett Browning, British poet (d. 1861) (pictured)
1928 - Gabriel García Márquez, Colombian writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2014)
1937 - Valentina Tereshkova, cosmonaut
1947 - Rob Reiner, American actor, comedian, and film producer
1972 - Shaquille O'Neal, American basketball player

Deaths

1836 - Davy Crockett, American frontiersman (b. 1786)
1888 - Louisa May Alcott, American novelist (b. 1832)
1932 - John Philip Sousa, American band leader, conductor, and composer (b. 1854)
1973 - Pearl S. Buck, American writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1892)
1986 - Georgia O'Keeffe, American artist (b. 1887)

More of today's anniversaries...

In the news

3 March 2026 –: Purported yakuza leader Takeshi Ebisawa is convicted by a New York federal court and sentenced to 20 years in prison for trafficking nuclear material, drugs, and weapons. (Japan Times)
1 March 2026 – 2026 Iran war: Iran confirms the death of supreme leader Ali Khamenei in an attack yesterday in Tehran by Israel and the United States. Forty days of mourning are declared. (Al Jazeera)
1 March 2026 – 2026 Iranian Supreme Leader election: Iran appoints Ayatollah Alireza Arafi to the Interim Leadership Council that assumed authority following the assassination of supreme leader Ali Khamenei, with the body set to govern alongside president Masoud Pezeshkian and chief justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje'i until the Assembly of Experts selects a new supreme leader. (AFP via Al Arabiya)
1 March 2026 –: Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado says she will return to the country in the coming weeks. (Reuters)
28 February 2026 – 2026 Iran war: Israel launches an attack on Iran, calling it a preemptive strike, killing several Iranian high-ranking officials including supreme leader Ali Khamenei. (CNN) (NBC News)
22 February 2026 – Mexican drug war: Nemesio "El Mencho" Oseguera, leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), and six other gunmen are killed during a security operation carried out by the Mexican Armed Forces near Tapalpa, Jalisco. In response, CJNG members launched coordinated retaliatory attacks, including road blockades involving burning vehicles and improvised checkpoints across multiple states. (N+) (AP)

Updated: 1:05, 6 March 2026

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Quote of the week

"Biography should be written by an acute enemy."

— Arthur Balfour

Quoted by S. K. Ratcliffe, The Observer, 30 January 1927

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