|
Aaron
|
(15th-13th-c BC)
|
Biblical Patriarch
|
Biblical Figure
|
1
|
|
Abbott, Bud and Costello, Lou
|
(1896-1974), (1908-1959)
|
American
|
Comedians. Their work, first in Vaudeville and later in film and on radio and television, expressed the value of silliness.
|
1
|
|
Abelard, Peter
|
(1079-1142)
|
French
|
Philosopher and theologian. He was famous for passionate love (Heloise), but also for reintroducing logic to Europe. At different times, both his passion and his logic led to tragic complications: he was assaulted and castrated by angry relatives of Heloise and repeatedly charged with heresy by different Church authorities.
|
3
|
|
Abraham
|
(after 2000 BC)
|
Biblical
|
Biblical patriarch. He was the legendary forebear of both the Jews and the Arabs through different women. His life expressed a fervent devotion to his God and to monotheism.
|
2
|
|
Absalom
|
(11th-c BC)
|
Biblical
|
Prince of Israel. The most cherished son of King David, he betrayed his father.
|
1
|
|
Abu-Bakr
|
(c.573-634)
|
Muslim/Mecca
|
Muslim caliph. He became the first caliph after the prophet's death.
|
2
|
|
Acheson, Dean
|
(1893-1971)
|
American
|
Lawyer and U.S. secretary of state (1949-1953). He expressed values of devotion to country and extreme personal rectitude. Some thought him the embodiment of the so-called White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP).
|
1
|
|
Acton, John 1st Baron
|
(1834-1902)
|
English
|
Celebrated historian and Roman Catholic. He rejected the new doctrine of papal infallibility.
|
1
|
|
Adair, Red (Paul)
|
(1915-2004)
|
American
|
Oil well fire-fighter. He became a symbol of physical derring-do.
|
1
|
|
Adam and Eve
|
|
Biblical
|
First man and woman in the Hebrew and Christian Bible. They combined innocence and disobedience.
|
2
|
|
Adams, Abigail
|
(1744-1818)
|
American
|
Public figure. She took positions that would be described later as feminist, and left a rich literary record in her extensive letters.
|
1
|
|
Adams, Gerry
|
(1948- )
|
Irish
|
Political rebel and the leader of the Sinn Fein, the political party closely linked to the Irish Republican Army of Northern Ireland. Some see him as a murderer and terrorist, others as an Irish patriot.
|
1
|
|
Adams, Henry
|
(1838-1918)
|
American
|
Historian and essayist. He was one of the master expositors of the related values of sense experience (using our eyes, ears, and other sense organs to take in every bit of life) and empiricism (relying on observation, including careful self-observation rather than on logic or on authority). His life and work also expressed the value of a life of contemplation rather than action (in contrast to his immediate forebears, who served as U.S. presidents, congressmen and ambassadors); of friendship and private life; of beauty and estheticism; of knowledge and discovery; and of the appreciation of complexity and paradox.
|
2
|
|
Adams, John
|
(1735-1826)
|
American
|
U.S. president. A founding father of the United States, he exemplified honor, decency, and civility in public life.
|
1
|
|
Adams, John Quincy
|
(1767-1848)
|
American
|
Ambassador, U.S. senator, sixth president of the United States, then Congressman. He was a vocal enemy of slavery.
|
1
|
|
Adams, Samuel
|
(1722-1803)
|
American
|
Merchant, political leader, and rebel. He courageously organized the Boston Tea Party prior to the American Revolutionary War.
|
1
|
|
Adams, Will
|
(1564-1620)
|
English
|
A seaman working for the Dutch. One of first Europeans in Japan, he was initially jailed but became a shipbuilder and samurai.
|
1
|
|
Adamson, Joy
|
(1910-1980)
|
Austrian
|
Autobiographer. She wrote about her love of wild Africa, animals, and especially lions.
|
1
|
|
Adanson, Michel
|
(1727-1806)
|
French
|
Botanist. His classifications combined logic with a love of plants.
|
1
|
|
Addams, Chuck
|
(1912-1988)
|
American
|
Cartoonist. He expressed the humorous possibilities of the macabre.
|
1
|
|
Addams, Jane
|
(1860-1935)
|
American
|
Social worker, feminist, founder of Hull House in Chicago, a place of refuge and assistance for the poor, feminist and pacifist. She became the first woman president of the National Conference of Social Work, president of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931.
|
2
|
|
Addison, Joseph
|
(1672-1719)
|
English
|
Literary figure and politician. He combined writing and literature with public office.
|
1
|
|
Adenauer, Konrad
|
(1876-1967)
|
German
|
Statesman. He courageously opposed Hitler, later restored German democracy and also sought to build Europe-wide institutions.
|
1
|
|
Adler, Alfred
|
(1870-1937)
|
Austrian
|
Psychiatrist, member of Freud's inner circle, then rebel against Freud. His idea of the "inferiority complex," became deeply embedded in popular culture. For a time, especially in the 1950's, almost any degree of ambition or effort was popularly dismissed by some as evidence of a feeling of inferiority.
|
2
|
|
Adler, Mortimer
|
(1902-2001)
|
American
|
Philosopher. His work epitomized the search for moral truth, through verbal logic. He also defended classical learning and "great books."
|
2
|
|
Adorno, Theodor
|
(1903-1969)
|
German
|
Philosopher, sociologist, and music critic. A member of the so-called Frankfurt School, he became an inspiration to the American and European "new left" of the 1960's. Among the values he expressed were: anti-fascism, reinterpreting and rescuing Marxism from Stalinism, a rejection of modern materialism and technologism, and the indispensability of revolution and the revolutionary attitude.
|
1
|
|
Aelfric
|
(c.955-c.1020)
|
English
|
Priest, early writer in English. He was a father of the language, and wrote Lives of the Saints.
|
1
|
|
Aeschylus
|
(c.525-c.456 BC)
|
Greek
|
Dramatist, first great Greek tragedian. He expressed a tragic sense of life, which in modern terms may be equated with romanticism, and an appreciation of the truth as perceived through our emotions.
|
2
|
|
Aesop
|
(?6th-c BC)
|
Greek
|
Storyteller. His fable "The Tortoise and The Hare" taught that modesty, patience, hard-work, and perseverance will outlast the contrary qualities and ultimately triumph. Other fables taught similar lessons.
|
2
|
|
Aga Khan III
|
(1877-1957)
|
Pakistani
|
Imam of Ismali Muslims. He became president of the League of Nations Assembly, the forerunner of the United Nations, and also was widely known as a horse racer.
|
1
|
|
Agee, James
|
(1909-1955)
|
American
|
Author of books, and important film scripts (The African Queen and The Night of the Hunter). He collaborated with Walker Evans in capturing the gritty poverty of the pre-World War II American South in Let us Now Praise Famous Men.
|
1
|
|
Agnes of Assisi, St.
|
(1197-1253)
|
Italian
|
Christian Nun and Saint. She assisted her sister, St. Clare, in founding the order of Poor Clares, the female counterpart of St. Francis's order. Like St. Francis, she and her sister exemplified a simple, pure, uncompromising, and thus revolutionary, Christianity, an attempt to follow Jesus's teachings directly, to reject all forms of worldliness, to embrace the natural world, including animals and birds, to serve the poor and sick and anyone in need, and to live as much as possible as Jesus lived.
|
1
|
|
Agnesi, Maria
|
(1718-1799)
|
Italian
|
Mathematician, child prodigy, and author of a mathematical textbook. She demonstrated that mathematics was not a male preserve.
|
1
|
|
Agrippina
|
(15-59)
|
Roman
|
Infamous figure of Roman history, granddaughter of the first Emperor Augustus, and mother of the Roman Emperor Nero by her first husband. She poisoned anyone (probably including her third husband, the Emperor Claudius) who stood in the way of securing the throne for her son. He in turn murdered her.
|
1
|
|
Ahab
|
(9th-c BC)
|
|
King of Israel. His marriage to the Phoenician princess Jezebel and abandonment of monotheism incurred the wrath of the prophet Elijah and led to his eventual downfall.
|
1
|
|
Ahmose 1
|
(16th-c BC)
|
Egyptian
|
King. He liberated Egypt from the Hyksos (Semites who occupied Egypt for several hundred years), and in effect began the Egyptian Empire. Despite its initial success, this and most later empires exemplify the process by which a country loses or nearly loses its independence, becomes obsessed with the search for security, which in turn make its neighbors feel increasingly insecure, which eventually unites the neighbors or otherwise brings invasion and destruction.
|
1
|
|
Aidan, St.
|
(?-651)
|
Irish
|
Christian missionary, Saint. The Celtic monasteries of Iona (from which he came) and Lindisfarne (which he founded) became famous as beacons of culture, art and learning in a dark and violent time.
|
1
|
|
Aishah
|
(c.613-78)
|
Arab
|
Wife of Mohammed. By supporting her father Abu-Bakr's claim to be the first Caliph and opposing Ali, the prophet's son-in-law, she became identified with the Sunni rather than the Shia branch of Islam.
|
1
|
|
Akbar the Great
|
(1542-1605)
|
Indian
|
Mughal Emperor of India, celebrated Muslim military leader, unifier of India. He encouraged learning and knowledge, outlawed slavery, and promoted religious tolerance.
|
1
|
|
Akhenaton
|
(14th-c BC)
|
Egyptian
|
King, 18th dynasty, the "heretic" Pharaoh. A religious mystic, possibly a pacifist, he instituted the first monotheism known to human history.
|
3
|
|
Akhmatova, Anna
|
(1889-1966)
|
Russian/Ukranian
|
Poet. Her apartment in Leningrad (St. Petersburg) represented a beacon of culture in the midst of the harshest and most barbaric conditions, and she courageously criticized Stalin.
|
1
|
|
Akiba ben Joseph
|
(c.50-135)
|
|
Jewish Rabbi and teacher. After the Romans erected a pagan temple in Jerusalem, he joined with Bar Kokhba leading a fiery revolt, but was killed.
|
1
|
|
Akiba ben Joseph
|
(c.50-135)
|
|
Rabbi and Jewish teacher in Palestine. After the Romans erected a pagan temple in Jerusalem, he joined with Bar Kokhba leading a fiery revolt, but was killed.
|
1
|
|
Akihito
|
(1933- )
|
Japanese
|
Emperor of Japan. He "democratized" the imperial family by attending a school, marrying a commoner, and pursuing interests in science and music.
|
1
|
|
Alaric I
|
(c.370-410)
|
Visigoth
|
King of the Visigoths. A symbol of barbarism, he plundered Rome, which even Attila had not done and thus earned for himself a place in the annals of barbarism.
|
1
|
|
Alaric II
|
(450-507)
|
Visigoth
|
King of the Visigoths. He defended Arian Christianity, but was defeated by Clovis, the king of the Franks and father of Charlemagne, which dealt a fatal blow to Arianism, the doctrine that Christ and God differed in some respects.
|
1
|
|
Alban, St.
|
(3rd-c)
|
Roman
|
Roman soldier and Christian Saint. He became the first Christian martyr in Britain.
|
1
|
|
al-Banna, Hassan
|
(1906-1949)
|
Egyptian
|
Religious leader. He founded the Muslim Brotherhood, an influential and controversial Islamic fundamentalist movement in Egypt. After the Brotherhood was charged with the assassination of the Prime Minister in 1948, he was murdered.
|
1
|
|
Albert, Carl
|
(1908-2000)
|
American
|
U.S. politician, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. He helped President Lyndon Johnson pass civil rights and "Great Society" (social services and welfare) legislation that was widely regarded as the culmination of what President Roosevelt had started in the 1930's with the "New Deal."
|
1
|
|
Albert, Prince
|
(1819-1861)
|
German
|
Prince of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, husband of Britain's Queen Victoria. His relationship with his wife set a new standard of marital fidelity in British aristocratic circles.
|
1
|
|
Alberti, Leon
|
(1404-1472)
|
Italian
|
Florentine Architect and designer. He embodied the Renaissance ideal of "virtu" by mastering nearly every field he touched, including philosophy, literature, music, and art, as well as architecture.
|
1
|
|
Albertus Magnus, St.
|
(Died 1280)
|
German
|
Christian thinker, teacher of St. Thomas Aquinas, and Saint. He helped reintroduce Aristotelian logic into Western theology and thought.
|
1
|
|
Albin, Eleazar
|
(?-1759)
|
English
|
Naturalist, artist. He was a devoted student of British insects and birds.
|
1
|
|
Albright, W. F.
|
(1891-1971)
|
American
|
Archaeologist, leading excavator of biblical sites. He loved history, the Holy Land, and the Bible.
|
1
|
|
Albumazar
|
(787-885)
|
Afghan
|
Astrologer, pre-scientist, student and lover of the stars.
|
1
|
|
Alcibiades
|
(c.450-404 BC)
|
Athenian
|
Statesman and general. His name became synonymous with ancient Greek ideals of male beauty. But in his military career, he betrayed his city, Athens, and was eventually assassinated.
|
1
|
|
Alcman
|
(fl.620 BC)
|
Greek
|
Poet. He celebrated both physical love and wine.
|
1
|
|
Alcuin
|
(c.737-804)
|
English
|
Thinker, writer, and poet. He helped make Charlemagne's court a center of thought and culture as well as of power.
|
1
|
|
Aldus Manutius
|
(c.1450-1515)
|
Italian
|
|
1
|
|
Aleichem, Sholem (Solomon Rabinowitz)
|
(1859-1916)
|
Russian, and then American
|
Writer. He wrote the musical "Fiddler on the Roof" and helped preserve Yiddish culture.
|
1
|
|
Alembert, Jean d'
|
(1717-1783)
|
French
|
Thinker and essayist. In addition to contributing to mathematics and physics, he assisted Diderot with the scientific sections of the Encyclopedia, the central text of the French Enlightenment, and had the honor of authoring its introductory essay. As a passionate believer in the ideas of the Enlightenment, he excoriated superstition in all its forms, which in his view included religion and all social institutions and authorities, whether Church, family, or state, that sought to control and limit freedom of thought, inquiry, discovery, or speech.
|
2
|
|
Alexander I
|
(1777-1825)
|
Russian
|
Czar from 1801. He began his reign with ideas of liberalizing the Russian political regime. However, he became an example of reaction and despotism mixed with religious mysticism.
|
1
|
|
Alexander II
|
(1818-1881)
|
Russian
|
Czar. He freed the serfs in 1861 but was later assassinated.
|
1
|
|
Alexander Nevski, St.
|
(c.1218-1263)
|
Russian
|
Prince. He exemplified the concept of Holy Russia, which combined Russian nationalism with Orthodox Christianity.
|
1
|
|
Alexander the Great
|
(356-323 BC)
|
Macedonian
|
King of Macedonia and conqueror of Persia. Some see in him the spirit of youth, daring, courage, energy, hardihood, curiosity, vision, and the intellectual and artistic heritage of ancient Greece, which he spread widely, together with a tolerance and appreciation of other cultures. Others see drunkenness, superstition, cruelty, vindictiveness, violence, killing both on and off the battlefield, lack of self-control, despotism, and the age-old gods of power, wealth, fame, and glory pursued to the point of madness.
|
2
|
|
Alexander VI
|
(1431-1503)
|
Spanish
|
Pope, member of the Borgia family. He secured the papacy through bribery, tried to enrich his family through means most foul, and began the banning of books.
|
1
|
|
Alexander, Cecil Frances
|
(1818-1895)
|
Irish
|
Poet. She wrote much loved hymns such as "Once in Royal David's City" and "All Things Bright and Beautiful," both included in her Hymns for Little Children.
|
1
|
|
Alexanderson, Ernst
|
(1878-1975)
|
Swedish
|
Electrical engineer and inventor. He was one of several developers of television, first black and white and then color, an invention which along with film has had a dramatic influence on the transmission of values.
|
1
|
|
Alexandra Feodorovna
|
(1872-1918)
|
|
|
1
|
|
al-Farabi, Mohammed
|
(c.870-950)
|
Islami
|
Philosopher, Platonist, and Neoplatonist. He valued both logic and mysticism, and also wrote a utopian political tract (The Perfect City) inspired by Plato's Republic.
|
2
|
|
Alfonso X
|
(1221-1284)
|
|
|
1
|
|
Alfred
|
(849-899)
|
English
|
King of Wessex. He protected what later became Christian England, expressed an uncommon concern for the common people, personally translated books and nurtured learning.
|
1
|
|
Alger, Horatio
|
(1832-1899)
|
American
|
Novelist and Unitarian clergyman. His books about young men who prosper became a by-word for hope, optimism, hard work, persistence, and the importance of good moral character in earning and winning success.
|
2
|
|
Ali
|
(?-661)
|
Arab
|
Fourth caliph of Islam, cousin of Mohammed, and husband of the Prophet's daughter, Fatima. He was assassinated, but his life gave birth to the Shia branch of Islam (contrasted to the Sunni branch). The Shia branch also later gave birth to Sufism, a mystical interpretation of Islam.
|
2
|
|
Ali Pasha
|
(1741-1822)
|
Albanian
|
Regional Ottoman ruler. He came to epitomize Western notions of "oriental luxury and cruelty." His Turkish overlords eventually executed him.
|
1
|
|
Ali, Muhammad
|
(1942- )
|
American
|
|
1
|
|
al-Khwarizmi (Abu ja'far Muhhamad ibn Musa)
|
(c.800-c.850)
|
Arab
|
Mathematician. He may be considered the father of modern mathematics in addition to his many other studies. The word algebra derives from the title of one of his books.
|
2
|
|
al-Kindi
|
(c.800-c.870)
|
Arab
|
Theologian. He helped preserve the work of Aristotle and other ancient thinkers and integrated their style of thought into Islamic theology.
|
1
|
|
Allen, Ethan
|
(1738-1789)
|
|
|
1
|
|
Allen, Woody (Allen Stewart Konigsberg)
|
(1935- )
|
American
|
Film actor and director. His films, which are autobiographical in style, expressed the value of neuroticism, especially of neurotic feelings of inferiority or inadequacy, along with psychoanalysis, self-absorption, social and sexual license, and urban living.
|
2
|
|
Allende, (Gossens) Salvador
|
(1908-1973)
|
Chilean
|
President. He attempted to run Chile on socialist (some said Communist lines) and was killed during a military coup.
|
1
|
|
Almeida, Brites de
|
(fl.1385)
|
Portuguese
|
Patriot. In a war between her native Portugal and Spain, she courageously fought with a baking tool.
|
1
|
|
Almodovar, Pedro
|
(1951- )
|
Spanish
|
Film writer and director. Almodovar combines Bohemian prodigality with comic mania, satire, nonsense, and silliness, as in his film "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" (Mujeres Al Border de Un Atague de Nervous,1988).
|
1
|
|
Alp-Arslan
|
(1032-1072)
|
Seljuk
|
Seljuk (Turkish) leader, devout Muslim, and brilliant military strategist. He wore a burial shroud under his armor when he met a larger Byzantine army at Manzikert in 1071. But he won and secured what became Turkey for Islam.
|
1
|
|
Althusser, Louis
|
(1918-1990)
|
French
|
Intellectual, fervent anti-Nazi, and later leading Marxist theoretician. He was convicted of the murder of his wife in 1980 and committed to an insane asylum.
|
1
|
|
Altizer, Thomas
|
(1927- )
|
American
|
Christian theologian. A leading figure in the "Death of God" theology of the 1960's, his work expresses extreme Christian "liberalism," in which traditional Christian doctrines are largely abandoned. One of his books is titled The Gospel of Christian Atheism.
|
1
|
|
Altman, Benjamin
|
(1840-1913)
|
American
|
Self-made merchant (B. Altman and Co.). He assembled a major collection of art and left it to the Metropolitan Museum. His marriage of business and art collecting illustrates a fairly common theme in the history of money and power.
|
1
|
|
Alva [Alba], Ferdinand Alaverez de Toledo, duque d'
|
(1507-1582)
|
Spanish
|
Aristocrat, military leader, and devoted Catholic. His repression of the Dutch rebellion and of Protestants between 1567 and 1573 became legendary for its brutality.
|
1
|
|
Amado, Jorge
|
(1912-2001)
|
Brazilian
|
Novelist and committed Communist. His novels depicted the poverty and hopelessness of much of the rural population of his native Brazil.
|
1
|
|
Amanullah Khan
|
(1892-1960)
|
Afghan
|
King of Afghanistan. He secured the independence of Afghanistan, but his efforts to Westernize provoked a reaction and he had to flee.
|
1
|
|
Ambedkar, Bhimrao
|
(1893-1956)
|
Indian
|
Political leader. A member of the "Untouchable" caste, he became their leader and exponent. He also played an important role in drafting the Indian Constitution and became a convert to Buddhism before his death.
|
1
|
|
Ambrose, St.
|
(c.339-397)
|
German
|
Roman Catholic Bishop and later Saint. Ambrose resisted Arianism, the doctrine that Christ was of similar but not identical substance to God, which critics felt compromised monotheism. He also introduced the notion of "cardinal virtues."
|
1
|
|
Amenhotep III
|
(c.1411-1379 BC)
|
Egyptian
|
King. His career expressed militarism, killing, conquest, self-aggrandizement, and vanity, but also confidence, courage, and strength. Like all Pharaohs, he poured Egypt's vast treasure, both from plunder and from the agricultural bounty of the Nile, into palaces, temples, and temple endowments, where it was effectively frozen. One can only imagine the enormous wealth and the changes in human welfare that might have resulted if these resources had been invested in private or public enterprises at the very dawn of recorded history.
|
1
|
|
Ames, William
|
(1576-1633)
|
English
|
Theologian and Puritan. He moved to Holland where he further developed Calvinist theology.
|
1
|
|
Amin, Idi
|
(c.1925-2003)
|
Ugandan
|
Soldier and dictator. His regime (1971-1979) came to epitomize cruelty, torture, and barbarism, and he eventually fled to a life of luxury in Saudi Arabia. He jocularly told a U.S. television broadcast reporter that "in politics there are neither permanent friends nor permanent enemies."
|
1
|
|
Amman, Jakob
|
(c.1645-c.1730)
|
Swiss
|
Mennonite. He founded the Amish sect, the strictest branch of the Mennonites, whose members still live simply, wearing black and driving their "horse and buggies," in rural Pennsylvania and other areas of the United States.
|
1
|
|
Ammann, Othmar
|
(1879-1965)
|
Swiss
|
Structural engineer. His work in designing the George Washington Bridge in New York, The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and the Verrazano Narrows Bridge in New York, each one longer and more stupendous than the last, came to symbolize the glamour of American engineering.
|
1
|
|
Ammonius
|
(c.160-242)
|
Greek
|
Philosopher. He was the father of Neoplatonic philosophy, a form of philosophical mysticism, but no written work survives. (See Plotinus, his more famous pupil.)
|
1
|
|
Amos
|
(835-765 BC)
|
Biblical
|
Old Testament prophet. He expressed the value of monotheism, of obedience to God's Laws, and of the right to speak out against the transgressions of the powerful.
|
1
|
|
Amr ibn al-As
|
(died 664)
|
Arab
|
Military leader. He won the Holy Land of Palestine for Islam and also opposed Ali, the founder of the Shiite branch of the religion.
|
1
|
|
Amundsen, Roald
|
(1872-1928)
|
Norwegian
|
The first explorer to reach the South Pole in Antarctica. When his colleague, Umberto Nobile, disappeared somewhere near the North Pole, Amundsen went looking for him. Nobile turned up, but Amundsen was never seen again.
|
1
|
|
Anacreon
|
(c.570-c.475 BC)
|
Greek
|
Poet. He was known for his satire and also for his love poetry.
|
1
|