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Famous people all over the world

Category Archive: Politics

Maggie Lena Walker – civic leader

Maggie Lena Walker - civic leader

Maggie Lena Walker – civic leader


Maggie Lena Walker was an African American entrepreneur and civic leader. Walker was the first woman bank president in the United States.
Maggie Walker was born in 1867 in Richmond, Virginia. Her mother, Elizabeth Draper, married William Mitchell while they were both working in the home of Elizabeth Van Lew, a famous Union spy. A few years later William was found drowned. Elizabeth supported her family by doing laundry. Maggie had to help her mother.
In 1886 she married Armstead Walker and gave birth to three sons, one of whom died in infancy. In 1915 her husband Armstead was shot and killed by their son, Russell, who mistook his father for a burglar.
While she was still in high school Walker joined the Independent Order of St. Luke, which helped African Americans take care of the sick and bury the dead. In 1899, Walker became Grand Secretary Treasurer of the St. Luke organization. She liked to describe the order as a woman’s organization that gave equal opportunity to men.
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Helen Keller – Woman of Courage

Helen Keller – Woman of Courage

Helen Keller – Woman of Courage

Helen Keller was an American writer, lecturer and political activist.
Helen Adams Keller was born on June 27, 1880 in Tuscumbia, Alabama. At the age of nineteen months Keller suffered disease which resulted in completely lost of hearing and vision. When Helen was seven years old her parents decided to find a teacher for their daughter. Alexander Graham Bell examined the girl. He was a doctor for speech correction as well as being the inventor of the telephone. Bell sent a special teacher, Anne Sullivan, to stay with Helen as her governess.
After school Keller entered Radcliffe College, where she received a bachelor’s degree. Later she lived with her constant companion Sullivan.
Though both blind and deaf, Helen traveled the world over, crusading for improvement in the education and life of the physically handicapped.
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James Barry Munnik Hertzog

James Barry Munnik Hertzog - South African soldier

James Barry Munnik Hertzog – South African soldier


James Barry Munnik Hertzog was South African soldier and political figure, one of the leaders of the Afrikaner Nationalist Movement, the Prime Minister of South African Union from June 30, 1924 to September 5, 1939.
James Barry was born on April 3, 1866 near Wellington, Cape Province. James was born in an old Afrikaner family and was named after the surgeon James Barry.
In 1889-1892 he studied law at the University of Amsterdam, and from 1892 to 1895 had a private law practice in Pretoria, after which he was appointed to the Supreme Court of the Orange Free State.
At the beginning of the Second Boer War Hertzog became deputy commander of the army and one of the organizers of the guerrilla war against the British troops.
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Emmeline Pankhurst – English reformer

Emmeline Pankhurst - English reformer

Emmeline Pankhurst – English reformer

Emmeline Pankhurst was the English reformer who led the movement for women’s suffrage in Great Britain.
Emmeline Goulden was born on July 4, 1858 in Manchester. Emmeline was the eldest of five daughters. She also had five brothers. At the age of 14 she accompanied her mother to a women’s suffrage meeting. The next few years Emmeline spent in Paris attending school. After her return she married Richard Pankhurst, a barrister and an activist in radical causes, especially in women’s suffrage. They had four children.
In 1880, Mrs Pankhurst began a campaign to get the vote for women. At first, she and her supporters (known as ‘suffragettes’) spoke at public meetings, wrote articles and gave out leaflets. When politicians ignored their campaign, they threw stones at the windows of the Prime Minister’s house and interrupted Parliamentary debates shouting ‘Votes for Women’. One suffragette even threw herself in front of one of the King’s horses during an important horse race and was killed. Suffragettes were often arrested and sent to prison.
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Eva Peron – first lady of Argentina

Eva Peron – first lady of Argentina

Eva Peron – first lady of Argentina

Eva Peron was the first lady of Argentina, the second wife of the 29th and 41th President Juan Peron.
Maria Eva Duarte was born on May 7, 1919 in a small village in Argentina. She was the youngest of five illegitimate children of Juan Duarte, owner of a small cattle farm, and his servant Juana Ibarguren, came from a poor family, a Basque immigrant. Since her childhood Eva wanted to be a famous actress. When she was 15 years old, she convinced a tango singer to take her to Buenos Aires, the capital city of Argentina. There she became well known as an actress on the radio.
In 1943 Eva met Colonel Juan Peron who was Vice President and Minister of War. They immediately fell in love. He was 48 years old and she was 24.
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Otto von Bismarck – Iron Chancellor

Otto von Bismarck – Iron Chancellor

Otto von Bismarck – Iron Chancellor

Otto von Bismarck was a German statesman. He was largely responsible for the creation of the German Empire in 1871.
Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck was born on April 1, 1815 at his family’s estate of Schoenhausen in Prussia.
He studied at the University of Gottingen and by 1836 had qualified as a lawyer.
All his life, Bismarck was associated with Russia. He, more than anyone else, understood the power and contradictions of the Russian state. He was in love with Russian woman Katerina Orlova-Trubetskaya. They had a passionate romance in the resort of Biarritz.
In 1847, he became religious, entered politics and married Johanna von Puttkamer. Otto and Johanna had three children Herbert, Bill, and Marie.
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Martin Luther King Jr. – Civil Rights Leader

Martin Luther King Jr. - Civil Rights Leader

Martin Luther King Jr. – Civil Rights Leader

Martin Luther King, Jr. was the most popular and effective leader of the African American struggle for civil rights. He was one of the greatest organizers of people the world has ever seen. King has become a national icon in the history of American progressivism. He used nonviolent, or peaceful, protest to get equal rights for African Americans.
Martin was born on January 15, 1929, Atlanta, the USA. He was the son of a popular Baptist pastor.
At the age of 19 he graduated from the Elite Morehouse College. Then he studied theology at Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania. He pursued his doctorate in theology at Boston University. While in Boston he met Coretta Scott. They married on June 18, 1953 and had four children.
At the age of 26, Martin Luther was appointed pastor of the conservative Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.
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