FACES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
THE MISSION: To complete condensed biographies of at least two famous Europeans who were alive at some point during the twentieth century. Your descriptions will be placed on the course web-site as contributions towards a class project and should also be added to your Journal. Recommended length per biography: one page double-spaced.
THE PROCESS: Choose your two individuals in consultation with the class. Research each selection. Then, in your own words, write a capsule description that captures the essence of the person and his or her contribution to the century. Break up your description into the following sections: 1) a picture of the individual; 2) the name of the person and dates; 3) the place of birth and death (unless not quite dead yet!); 4) an interesting quotation from the person; 5) a few sentences called "LIFE;" 6) a paragraph called "HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE;" 7) a Factoid (a one-sentence strange-but-true detail about the individual); and 8) Recommended Links. Research your individuals exhaustively. But don't get too bogged down in extraneous detail in your description. Highlight those points that help to make sense of the person discussed. Try to capture the tumult, excitement, thought, pathos, and legacies of the twentieth-century through some of its prominent actors. E-mail me your biographies as you finish them for posting on the web-site.
Include a copy in your journal as well. Check in with me if you finish the required two biographies and want to move on to do more. It will, of course be possible to write about people selected by your classmates for inclusion in the journal alone, but I would like to end up with as many historical figures as possible covered by the web-site presentation.
|
INDIVIDUAL |
IDENTIFICATION |
DATES |
|
Gerry Adams |
Irish politician |
1948- |
|
Konrad Adenauer |
German politician |
1876-1967 |
|
Anna Akhamatova |
Russian poet |
1889-1966 |
|
Jean Anouilh |
French playwright |
1910-1987 |
|
Guillaume Apollinaire |
French poet |
1880-1918 |
|
Hannah Arendt |
German-American philosopher |
1906-1975 |
|
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk |
Turkish national founder and President |
1881-1938 |
|
Clement Attlee |
British prime minister |
1883-1967 |
|
W.H. Auden |
British writer |
1907-1973 |
|
Robert Baden-Powell |
British soldier and founder of the Boy Scout movement |
1857-1941 |
|
Arthur James Balfour |
British statesman |
1848-1930 |
|
Klaus Barbie |
Gestapo officer |
1913-1991 |
|
Brigitte Bardot |
French actress |
1934- |
|
Roland Barthes |
French philosopher |
1915-1980 |
|
Bela Bartok |
Hungarian composer |
1881-1945 |
|
Simone de Beauvoir |
French philosopher |
1908-1986 |
|
Lord Beaverbrook |
British financier, statesman and newspaper owner |
1879-1964 |
|
Samuel Beckett |
Irish writer |
1906-1989 |
|
Max Beckmann |
German painter |
1884-1950 |
|
Gertrude Bell |
British writer |
1868-1926 |
|
Walter Benjamin |
German philosopher |
1892-1940 |
|
Ingmar Bergman |
Swedish film director |
1918- |
|
Laurenti Beria |
Soviet security official |
1899-1953 |
|
Isaiah Berlin |
British philosopher |
1909-1997 |
|
Sarah Bernhardt |
French actress |
1845-1923 |
|
Annie Besant |
British social reformer and theosophist |
1847-1933 |
|
Bruno Bettelheim |
Austrian psychologist |
1903-1990 |
|
Tony Blair |
British prime minister |
1953- |
|
Louis Bleriot |
French pilot |
1872-1936 |
|
Karen Blixen |
Danish writer |
1885-1962 |
|
Alexsandr Blok |
Russian poet |
1880-1921 |
|
Leon Blum |
French politician |
1872-1950 |
|
Niels Bohr |
Danish scientist |
1885-1962 |
|
Dietrich Bonhoeffer |
German Lutheran theologian |
1906-1945 |
|
Willy Brandt |
West German statesman |
1913-1992 |
|
Eva Braun |
Hitler's mistress |
1912-1945 |
|
Wernher von Braun |
German-American scientist |
1912-1977 |
|
Bertolt Brecht |
German writer |
1898-1956 |
|
Andre Breton |
French poet and literary theorist |
1896-1966 |
|
Leonid Brezhnev |
Soviet politician |
1906-1982 |
|
Joseph Brodsky |
Russian poet |
1940- |
|
Rupert Brooke |
British soldier and writer |
1887-1925 |
|
Martin Buber |
Jewish philosopher |
1878-1965 |
|
Nikolai Bukharin |
Russian revolutionary |
1888-1938 |
|
Albert Camus |
French philosopher |
1913-1960 |
|
Elias Canetti |
Bulgarian novelist and dramatist |
1905-1994 |
|
Henri Cartier-Bresson |
French photographer |
1908- |
|
Edith Cavell |
British nurse and martyr |
1865-1915 |
|
Nicolae Ceasescu |
Romanian dictator |
1918-1989 |
|
Aime Cesaire |
French poet and dramatist |
1913- |
|
Paul Cezanne |
French artist |
1839-1906 |
|
Marc Chagall |
Russian artist |
1887-1985 |
|
Joseph Chamberlain |
British imperialist statesman |
1836-1914 |
|
Neville Chamberlain |
British prime minister |
1869-1940 |
|
Charlie Chaplin |
British actor and comedian |
1889-1977 |
|
Anton Chekhov |
Russian playwright |
1860-1904 |
|
Giorgio de Chirico |
Italian artist |
1888-1978 |
|
Winston Churchill |
British prime minister |
1874-1965 |
|
Georges Clemenceau |
French statesman |
1841-1929 |
|
Jean Cocteau |
French writer, film-maker and artist |
1889-1963 |
|
Colette |
French novelist |
1873-1954 |
|
Michael Collins |
Irish nationalist |
1890-1922 |
|
Joseph Conrad |
British writer |
1857-1924 |
|
Baron Pierre de Coubertin |
French sportsman |
1863-1937 |
|
Marie Curie |
French scientist |
1867-1934 |
|
Lord Curzon |
British statesman |
1859-1925 |
|
Salvador Dali |
Spanish artist |
1904-1989 |
|
Claude DeBussy |
French composer |
1862-1918 |
|
Edgar Degas |
French artist |
1834-1917 |
|
Charles DeGaulle |
French general and statesman |
1890-1970 |
|
Serge Diaghilev |
Russian ballet impresario |
1872-1929 |
|
Marlene Dietrich |
German actress |
1901-1992 |
|
Otto Dix |
German artist |
1891-1969 |
|
Alfred Dreyfus |
French soldier |
1859-1935 |
|
Alexander Dubcek |
Czech statesman |
1921-1992 |
|
Marcel Duchamp |
French artist |
1887-1968 |
|
Emile Durkheim |
French sociologist |
1857-1917 |
|
Anthony Eden |
British statesman |
1897-1977 |
|
Adolf Eichmann |
German Nazi official |
1906-1962 |
|
Albert Einstein |
German-American scientist |
1879-1955 |
|
Sergei Eisenstein |
Russian film director |
1898-1948 |
|
T.S. Eliot |
British-American poet |
1888-1965 |
|
Elizabeth II |
British monarch |
1926- |
|
Max Ernst |
German artist |
1891-1976 |
|
Frantz Fanon |
Martiniquean anti-colonialist |
1925-1961 |
|
Federico Fellini |
Italian film director |
1920-1993 |
|
Archduke Franz Ferdinand |
Austrian prince |
1863-1914 |
|
Michel Foucault |
French philosopher |
1926-1984 |
|
Francisco Franco |
Spanish ruler |
1892-1975 |
|
Anne Frank |
Dutch diarist |
1929-1945 |
|
James Frazer |
British anthropologist |
1854-1941 |
|
Anna Freud |
Austrian psychologist |
1895-1982 |
|
Sigmund Freud |
Austrian psychoanalyst |
1856-1939 |
|
Erich Fromm |
German-American philosopher |
1900-1980 |
|
Yuri Gagarin |
Russian astronaut |
1934-1968 |
|
Abel Gance |
French film director |
1889-1981 |
|
Father Gapon |
Russian priest and labour organizer |
|
|
Antonio Gaudi |
Spanish architect |
1852-1926 |
|
Paul Gauguin |
French artist |
1848-1903 |
|
Jean Genet |
French dramatist and novelist |
1910-1986 |
|
George V |
British monarch |
1865-1936 |
|
Andre Gide |
French writer |
1869-1951 |
|
Joseph Goebbels |
German Nazi propagandist |
1897-1945 |
|
Hermann Goering |
German Nazi leader |
1893-1946 |
|
Emma Goldman |
Russian-American-Canadian anarchist |
1869-1940 |
|
Wladyslaw Gomulka |
Polish statesman |
1905-1982 |
|
Mikhail Gorbachev |
Soviet statesman |
1931- |
|
Maksim Gorky |
Russian writer |
1868-1936 |
|
Antonio Gramsci |
Italian writer |
1891-1937 |
|
Gunter Grass |
German writer |
1927- |
|
Graham Greene |
British writer |
1904-1991 |
|
Juan Gris |
Spanish artist |
1887-1927 |
|
Andrei Gromyko |
Soviet diplomat |
1909-1989 |
|
Walter Gropius |
German architect |
1883-1969 |
|
George Grosz |
German artist |
1893-1959 |
|
H. Rider Haggard |
British writer |
1856-1925 |
|
Douglas Haig |
British soldier |
1861-1928 |
|
Dag Hammarskjold |
Swedish diplomat |
1905-1961 |
|
Thomas Hardy |
British writer |
1840-1928 |
|
Arthur "Bomber" Harris |
British general |
1892-1984 |
|
Vaclav Havel |
Czech dramatist and statesman |
1936- |
|
Stephen Hawking |
British scientist |
1942- |
|
Friedrich August von Hayek |
Austrian economist |
1899-1992 |
|
Martin Heidegger |
German philosopher |
1889-1976 |
|
Werner Heisenberg |
German scientist |
1901-1976 |
|
Theodor Herzl |
Hungarian journalist and Zionist leader |
1860-1904 |
|
Rudolf Hess |
German Nazi leader |
1894-1987 |
|
Herman Hesse |
German writer |
1877-1962 |
|
Reinhard Heydrich |
German Nazi police official |
1904-1942 |
|
Heinrich Himmler |
German Nazi police official |
1900-1945 |
|
Paul Von Hindenburg |
German soldier and statesman |
1847-1934 |
|
Alfred Hitchcock |
British film director |
1899-1980 |
|
Adolf Hitler |
German dictator |
1889-1945 |
|
Erich Honecker |
East German leader |
1912-1994 |
|
Aldous Huxley |
British writer |
1894-1963 |
|
Henrik Ibsen |
Norwegian dramatist |
1828-1906 |
|
Eugene Ionesco |
French-Romanian dramatist |
1912-1994 |
|
Mick Jagger |
British musician |
1943- |
|
John XXIII |
Pope |
1881-1963 |
|
John Paul II |
Polish Pope |
1920- |
|
Franz Josef |
Emperor of Austria |
1830-1916 |
|
James Joyce |
Irish writer |
1882-1941 |
|
Carl Jung |
Swiss psychologist |
1875-1961 |
|
Franz Kafka |
Czech writer |
1883-1924 |
|
Alexander Kerensky |
Russian statesman |
1881-1970 |
|
John Maynard Keynes |
British economist |
1883-1946 |
|
Nikita Khrushchev |
Soviet leader |
1894-1971 |
|
Mary Kingsley |
British explorer |
1862-1900 |
|
Rudyard Kipling |
British writer |
1865-1936 |
|
Sergei Kirov |
Soviet revolutionary leader |
1886-1934 |
|
Lord Kitchener of Khartoum |
British soldier |
1850-1916 |
|
Paul Klee |
Swiss artist |
1879-1940 |
|
Gustav Klimt |
Austrian artist |
1862-1918 |
|
Helmut Kohl |
German statesman |
1930- |
|
Aleksandra Kollontai |
Russian writer |
1872-1952 |
|
Kathe Kollwitz |
German artist |
1867-1945 |
|
Bela Kun |
Hungarian communist leader |
1886-1937 |
|
D.H. Lawrence |
British writer |
1885-1930 |
|
T.E. Lawrence |
Lawrence of Arabia |
1888-1935 |
|
Jean-Marie Le Pen |
French politician |
1928- |
|
Vladimir I. Lenin |
Russian revolutionary leader |
1870-1924 |
|
John Lennon |
British-American singer |
1940-1980 |
|
Primo Levi |
Italian writer |
1919-1987 |
|
Claude Levi-Strauss |
French anthropologist |
1908- |
|
Joseph Lister |
English surgeon |
1827-1912 |
|
David Lloyd-George |
British statesman |
1863-1945 |
|
Rosa Luxemburg |
Polish revolutionary socialist |
1871-1919 |
|
Lady Constance Georgina Lytton |
British suffragette |
1869-1923 |
|
Ramsay MacDonald |
British prime minister |
1866-1937 |
|
Harold Macmillan |
British prime minister |
1894-1987 |
|
Rene Magritte |
Belgian artist |
1898-1967 |
|
Kasemir Malevich |
Russian artist |
1878-1935 |
|
Andre Malraux |
French writer |
1901-1976 |
|
Thomas Mann |
German writer |
1875-1955 |
|
Jean-Baptiste Marchand |
French explorer and general |
1863-1934 |
|
Jan Masaryk |
Czech statesman |
1886-1948 |
|
Henri Matisse |
French artist |
1869-1954 |
|
Josef Mengele |
Auschwitz doctor |
1911-1979 |
|
Slobodan Milosevic |
Serbian leader |
1941- |
|
Joan Miro |
Spanish artist |
1893-1983 |
|
Francois Mitterand |
French statesman |
1916-1996 |
|
Claude Monet |
French artist |
1840-1926 |
|
Jean Monnet |
French economist |
1888-1979 |
|
Maria Montessori |
Italian educator |
1870-1952 |
|
Bernard Law Montgomery |
British soldier |
1887-1976 |
|
Henry Moore |
British sculptor |
1898-1986 |
|
Aldo Moro |
Italian politician |
1916-1978 |
|
Oswald Mosley |
British politician |
1896-1980 |
|
Earl Mountbatten of Burma |
British admiral and administrator |
1900-1979 |
|
Edvard Munch |
Norwegian artist |
1863-1944 |
|
Benito Mussolini |
Italian dictator |
1883-1945 |
|
Vladimir Nabokov |
Russian writer |
1899-1977 |
|
Imre Nagy |
Hungarian statesman |
1896-1958 |
|
Nicholas II |
Russian czar |
1868-1918 |
|
Friedrich Nietzsche |
German philosopher |
1844-1900 |
|
Florence Nightingale |
British hospital reformer |
1820-1910 |
|
George Orwell |
British writer |
1903-1950 |
|
Emmeline Pankhurst |
British reformer |
1858-1928 |
|
Boris Pasternak |
Russian writer |
1890-1960 |
|
Ivan Pavlov |
Russian physiologist |
1849-1936 |
|
Henri-Philippe Petain |
French soldier and politician |
1856-1951 |
|
Edith Piaf |
French singer |
1915-1963 |
|
Pablo Picasso |
Spanish artist |
1881-1973 |
|
Pius XII |
Pope |
1876-1958 |
|
Georgi Plekhanov |
Russian revolutionary and Marxist theorist |
1857-1918 |
|
Karl Popper |
Austrian philosopher |
1902-1994 |
|
Gavrilo Princip |
Serbian assassin |
1894-1918 |
|
Marcel Proust |
French writer |
1871-1922 |
|
Giacomo Puccini |
Italian composer |
1858-1924 |
|
Vidkun Quisling |
Norwegian fascist leader |
1887-1945 |
|
Sergei Rachmaninoff |
Russian composer |
1873-1943 |
|
Karl Radek |
German Marxist |
1885- c.1939 |
|
Ayn Rand |
Russian-American philosopher |
1905-1982 |
|
Grigori Rasputin |
Russian monk |
1872-1916 |
|
Hanna Reitsch |
Nazi test pilot |
1912-1979 |
|
Erich Maria Remarque |
German writer |
1898-1970 |
|
Auguste Renoir |
French artist |
1841-1919 |
|
Jean Renoir |
French film director |
1894-1979 |
|
Ilya Repin |
Russian artist |
1844-1930 |
|
Cecil Rhodes |
British businessman and colonialist |
1853-1902 |
|
Manfred von Richthofen ("The Red Baron") |
German fighter pilot |
1892-1918 |
|
Leni Riefenstahl |
Nazi film director |
1902-2003 |
|
Rainer Maria Rilke |
Austro-German writer |
1875-1926 |
|
Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov |
Russian composer |
1844-1908 |
|
Auguste Rodin |
French sculptor |
1840-1917 |
|
Erwin Rommel |
German soldier |
1891-1944 |
|
Henri Rousseau |
French artist |
1844-1910 |
|
Bertrand Russell |
British philosopher |
1872-1970 |
|
Antoine de Saint-Exupery |
French pilot and writer |
1900-1944 |
|
Andrei Sakharov |
Soviet physicist |
1921-1989 |
|
Bobby Sands |
Irish hunger striker |
1954-1981 |
|
Jean-Paul Sartre |
French philosopher |
1905-1980 |
|
Siegfried Sassoon |
British poet |
1886-1967 |
|
Oskar Schindler |
German industrialist |
1908-1974 |
|
Alfred Graf von Schlieffen |
German military strategist |
1833-1913 |
|
Max Schmeling |
German boxer |
|
|
Albert Schweitzer |
German doctor and missionary |
1875-1965 |
|
Robert Scott |
British explorer |
1868-1912 |
|
Ernest Henry Shackleton |
British explorer |
1874-1922 |
|
George Bernard Shaw |
Irish dramatist |
1856-1950 |
|
Dmitri Shostakovich |
Russian composer |
1906-1975 |
|
Alexandr Solzhenitsyn |
Russian writer |
1918- |
|
Albert Speer |
Nazi architect |
1905-1981 |
|
Diana Spencer |
British princess |
1961-1997 |
|
Herbert Spencer |
British philosopher and sociologist |
1820-1903 |
|
Oswald Spengler |
German philosopher |
1880-1936 |
|
Alexei Stakhanov |
Russian coal miner |
|
|
Josef Stalin |
Russian dictator |
1879-1953 |
|
Henry Morton Stanley |
British-American explorer |
1841-1904 |
|
Igor Stravinsky |
Russian composer |
1882-1971 |
|
Mother Teresa |
Romanian humanitarian |
1910-1997 |
|
Margaret Thatcher |
British prime minister |
1925- |
|
Josep Broz Tito |
Yugoslav leader |
1892-1980 |
|
Leo Tolstoy |
Russian writer |
1828-1910 |
|
Arnold Toynbee |
British historian |
1889-1975 |
|
Leon Trotsky |
Russian revolutionary leader |
1879-1940 |
|
Jules Verne |
French writer |
1828-1905 |
|
Queen Victoria |
British monarch |
1819-1901 |
|
Lech Walesa |
Polish statesman |
1943- |
|
Raoul Wallenberg |
Swedish diplomat |
1912-? |
|
Max Weber |
German sociologist |
1864-1920 |
|
Simone Weil |
French philosopher |
1909-1943 |
|
Chaim Weizmann |
Russian-British Zionist leader |
1874-1952 |
|
H.G. Wells |
British writer |
1866-1946 |
|
Elie Wiesel |
Romanian writer |
1928- |
|
Simon Wiesenthal |
Austrian "Nazi hunter" |
1908- |
|
Oscar Wilde |
British playwright |
1854-1900 |
|
Wilhelm II |
German kaiser |
1859-1941 |
|
Ludwig Wittgenstein |
Austrian-British philosopher |
1889-1951 |
|
Virginia Woolf |
British writer |
1882-1941 |
|
Percy Wyndham-Lewis |
British artist and writer |
1882-1957 |
|
William Butler Yeats |
Irish poet |
1865-1939 |
|
Boris Yeltsin |
Russian statesman |
1931- |
|
Georgi Zhukov |
Soviet general |
1896-1969 |
|
Grigori Zinoviev |
Soviet communist leader |
1883-1936 |
|
Emile Zola |
French writer |
1840-1902 |
|
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