William Howard Taft was the twenty-seventh president of the United States from 1909 to 1913. He later served as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. He is the only person to have held the country’s two highest offices.
William Howard Taft was born on September 15, 1857 in Cincinnati, Ohio into a wealthy family. Both his father and grandfather had served terms as judges, and young Taft aspired to a judicial career.
In 1878 Taft graduated from Yale University and in 1880 from Cincinnati Law School.
Between 1880 and 1890 he served successively as assistant prosecuting attorney for Hamilton County, Ohio, collector of internal revenue for Cincinnati, and judge of the Superior Court of Ohio.
In 1886 he married Helen Herron and they had three children.
In 1887 Taft became a judge of the superior court of Ohio. In 1892 he was named a judge of a U.S. circuit court.
In 1900 President William McKinley asked Taft to organize a government for the Philippines and next year Taft became governor of the Philippines. There he established an educational system, built roads and harbors.
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Benjamin Franklin was a world-famous celebrity – famous for his written words and for his amazing achievements. That fame continues to the present day as Franklin is one of the most recognised names from his time. He was a leader of America’s Revolutionary generation.
Franklin was born on January 17, 1706 in Boston. He was the eighth of 10 children.
At the age of 12, he took a printing apprenticeship with his older brother James who was the publisher of the New England Courrant.
At the age of 16, Franklin became a vegetarian to save money and a year later he left Boston for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he quickly found work in the printing business.
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Mohandas Gandhi was the leader of the campaign for Indian independence from Britain. A Hindu and a religious man, he didn’t believe in violence. He just told people not to obey certain laws. Many times he stopped eating (‘fasted’) as a protest and twice he went to prison. His supporters called him Mahatma, which means ‘great love’. Gandhi’s beliefs have influenced many political movements throughout the world, including the civil rights movement in the United States. Through ahimsa (nonviolence) and satyagraha (true force, nonviolent protest), he led one of the largest mass movements in world history. Gandhi dedicated his life to the quest for truth and justice.
During the Second World War (1939-1945) he told Indians not to fight for Britain. In 1947, the British government finally gave India independence but the country was divided into India and Pakistan.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869 in Porbandar, India. His wealthy family was of a Modh Bania subcaste. He was the fourth child. Mohandas was a small, quiet boy who disliked sports and was only an average student. At the age of 13 he was married to a girl of his own age, Kasturbai.
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John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr. was an American journalist and lawyer, the third child and first son of the 35th US President John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy. In the American press he was also called John Jr., John-John, or JFK Jr., or America’s Son, because he became the first infant to live in the White House since the Grover Cleveland administration in the late 1800s.
John was born on November 25, 1960, 16 days after his father, John F. Kennedy, was elected as the President of the USA. During the first three years of his life he lived in the White House. His father was killed on November 22, 1963 in Dallas. The funeral of President John F. Kennedy took place on November 25, 1963. It was John F. Kennedy, Jr.’s birthday.
After the murder of his father, John lived in Manhattan in New York with his mother Jacqueline Kennedy. In 1968, his mother married a Greek tycoon Aristotle Onassis. His stepfather died in 1975, when Kennedy Jr. was 14 years old.
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Diego Rivera was a Mexico’s most famous painter, muralist, and political activist.
His full name was Diego Maria de la Concepcion Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodriguez.
Diego was born on December 8, 1886 in the city of Guanajuato in the northwest of Mexico into a wealthy family. Diego had a twin brother who died at the age of two. As a child, he was very intelligent and curious about everything.
Since 1896 to 1902 Rivera took lessons in drawing and painting at the Art Academy in Mexico City. He was awarded a scholarship that enabled him to go to Spain. From 1907 to 1921 he lived in Europe. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid (1907), then lived and worked in Paris (1909-1920), in Italy (1920-1921), also visited Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK. He was familiar with the Parisian artistic elite, including Pablo Picasso and Alfonso Reyes.
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Eamon de Valera was an Irish revolutionary leader and statesman. He served as prime minister and later president of Ireland (1959-1973).
Eamon was born on October 14, 1882 in New York. He was the son of a Spanish father and an Irish mother and, as a child, lived on his uncle’s farm in Ireland. At this time, Eire, as it is known today, was part of the United Kingdom.
De Valera graduated from the Royal University of Ireland in 1904 and became a mathematics teacher.
In 1916, de Valera took part in a rebellion against the British and he was sent to prison; in 1917 he was released in an amnesty. He became leader of Sinn Fein, the nationalist movement. In 1918 he was sent to prison again but managed to escape to the USA.
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Georges d’Anthes went down in history primarily as a murderer of great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin. After the deportation from Russia, he made a brilliant political and business career and died at the age of 83.
Georges Charles de Heeckeren d’Anthes was born on February 5, 1812 in Colmar, Upper Rhine, France.
His ancestors were Scandinavians from the island of Gotland, in the XVI century they moved to Germany. In 1720 they appeared in France. In 1730, the great-grandfather of Georges opened armory manufacture in Alsace and 10 years later he received a heraldic title.
Georges was the third child in the family and the eldest of the sons.
D’Anthes was the relative of Pushkin and Natalia Goncharova. His grandmother, Countess Gattsfeld, was the wife of a Russian diplomat Count Musin-Pushkin, a distant relative of Musina-Pushkina, grandmother of Natalia Nikolaevna Goncharova.
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