Johnny Depp Biography (1963-)

Actor, director, musician. Born John Christopher Depp, Jr. in Owensboro, Kentucky, on June 9, 1963, to parents John and Betty Sue Depp. Johnny’s father worked as a civil engineer, and his mother came from full-blooded Cherokee stock, and worked as a waitress and homemaker. The youngest of four children, Depp was withdrawn and a self-admitted oddball. “I made odd…

Humphrey Bogart Biography (1899-1957)

(born Dec. 25, 1899, New York, New York, U.S.—died Jan. 14, 1957, Hollywood, California) American actor who became a preeminent motion picture “tough guy” and was a top box office attraction during the 1940s and ’50s. In his performances he projected the image of a worldly wise, individualistic adventurer with a touch of idealism hidden beneath a hardened exterior….

Albert Camus Biography (1913 – 1960)

(born Nov. 7, 1913, Mondovi, Alg.—died Jan. 4, 1960, near Sens, France) French novelist, essayist, and playwright, best known for such novels as L’Étranger (1942; The Stranger), La Peste (1947; The Plague), and La Chute (1956; The Fall) and for his work in leftist causes. He received the 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Early years

Less than a year after Camus…

Charles Darwin Biography (1809-1882)

(born Feb. 12, 1809, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, Eng.—died April 19, 1882, Downe, Kent) British naturalist. The grandson of Erasmus Darwin and Josiah Wedgwood, he studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and biology at Cambridge. He was recommended as a naturalist on HMS Beagle, which was bound on a long scientific survey expedition to South America and the South Seas…

Karl Marx Biography (1818 – 1883)

(born May 5, 1818, Trier, Rhine province, Prussia —died March 14, 1883, London, Eng.) German political philosopher, economic theorist, and revolutionary. He studied humanities at the University of Bonn (1835) and law and philosophy at the University of Berlin (1836–41), where he was exposed to the works of G.W.F. Hegel. Working as a writer in Cologne and…

Vladimir Lenin Biography (1870-1924)

(born April 22, 1870, Simbirsk, Russia—died Jan. 21, 1924, Gorki, near Moscow) Founder of the Russian Communist Party, leader of the Russian Revolution of 1917, and architect and builder of the Soviet state. Born to a middle-class family, he was strongly influenced by his eldest brother, Aleksandr, who was hanged in 1887 for conspiring to assassinate the…

Joseph Stalin Biography (1879 – 1953)

(born Dec. 21, 1879, Gori, Georgia, Russian Empire—died March 5, 1953, Moscow, Russia, U.S.S.R.) Soviet politician and dictator. The son of a cobbler, he studied at a seminary but was expelled for revolutionary activity in 1899. He joined an underground revolutionary group and sided with the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party in 1903. A disciple of…

Brittany Murphy Biography (1977-2009)

Actress. Born November 10, 1977, in Atlanta, Georgia, to parents Sharon Murphy and Angelo Bertolotti. Murphy’s father was heavily involved in organized crime, and spent most of his life in and out of prison. As a result, Murphy’s parents split when she was only two years old.

Murphy and her mother moved to Edison, New Jersey, shortly after the divorce….

ALEXANDER THE GREAT

An inspiring inheritance: 356 BC

Alexander is born in Pella, the Macedonian capital, at about the time his father becomes king of Macedonia. Philip II’s expansion of the kingdom, an unfolding saga of glory and excitement, is Alexander’s boyhood.

At an early age he proves himself well equipped to share in these military adventures. He is only sixteen when he is…

Kristen Stewart Biography (1990-)

Actress. Born Kristen Jaymes Stewart on April 9, 1990, in Los Angeles, California. Her father John—a stage manager, producer and director—and mother Jules—a scriptwriter—immersed their daughter in the Hollywood scene at an early age. She made her first television appearance at the age of eight after her performance in a grade school Christmas play caught the eye of a…

Johnny Cash Biography (1932-2003)

Country singer, guitarist, songwriter. Born February 26, 1932, in Kingsland, Arkansas. The son of poor Southern Baptist sharecroppers, Cash, one of seven children born to Ray and Carrie Rivers Cash, moved with his family at the age of three to Dyess, Arkansas, so that his father could take advantage of the New Deal farming programs instituted by President Roosevelt….