Marie curie

Marie Curie (1867 - 1934)

Marie Curie was a Polish-born physicist and chemist and one of the most famous scientists of her time. Together with her husband Pierre, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1903, and she went on to win another in 1911.

Marie Sklodowska was born in Warsaw on 7 November 1867, the daughter of a teacher. In 1891, she went to Paris to study physics and mathematics at the Sorbonne where she met Pierre Curie, professor of the School of Physics. They were married in 1895.

The Curies worked together investigating radioactivity, building on the work of the German physicist Roentgen and the French physicist Becquerel. In July 1898, the Curies announced the discovery of a new chemical element, polonium; at the end of the year, they announced the discovery of another, radium. The Curies, along with Becquerel, were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1903.

Pierre's life was cut short in 1906 when he was knocked down and killed by a carriage. Marie took over his teaching post, becoming the first woman to teach at the Sorbonne, and devoted herself to continuing the work that they had begun together. She received a second Nobel Prize, for Chemistry, in 1911.

The Curie's research was crucial in the development of x-rays in surgery. During World War One Curie helped to equip ambulances with x-ray equipment, which she herself drove to the front lines. The International Red Cross made her head of its radiological service and she held training courses for medical orderlies and doctors in the new techniques.

Despite her success, Marie continued to face great opposition from male scientists in France, and she never received significant financial benefits from her work. By the late 1920s her health was beginning to deteriorate. She died on 4 July 1934 from leukaemia, caused by exposure to high-energy radiation from her research. The Curies' eldest daughter Irene was herself a scientist and winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

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muhammad ali

Muhammad Ali

The Champion of the World

Born: 17-Jan-1942
Birthplace: Louisville, KY

Gender: Male
Religion: Muslim
Race or Ethnicity: Black
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Boxing

Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Floated like butterfly, stung like bee

Someone stole Cassius Clay's bicycle when he was 12, and he groused to a policeman that he'd whup the culprit. The cop told him he'd better learn to fight first. The kid never got his bike back, but he did win six Kentucky Golden Glove titles, two National Golden Gloves, two Amateur Athletic Union championships, a Gold Medal in the light heavyweight division at the 1960 Rome Olympic games, and the world professional heavyweight championship -- three times.

As a pro, Clay was 18-0 before meeting the "invincible" heavyweight champ, Sonny Liston. Clay talked tough wherever there was a microphone before the match, promising to whup Liston, and created a hype boxing had never seen before. Then he beat Liston by knock-out, and immediately announced he'd joined the Nation of Islam and dropped his "slave name". His new name was Muhammad Ali, but the media generally continued calling him Cassius Clay (except during interviews).

In 1967, America was at war with Vietnam. When Ali got his draft notice, he arrived as instructed for the physical exam, and cooperated politely until it was time to take the Army oath. He refused, saying, "I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong". A month later an all-white jury found him guilty of draft evasion, and Ali was imprisoned. His boxing license was revoked, and he was stripped of his world championship. Almost four years later, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his conviction, and decided that under the tenets of Islam Ali was a conscientious objector, not a criminal.

Ali fought for the heavyweight championship again 1971, losing to Joe Frazier, but in a 1974 rematch, he knocked out Frazier. He KO'd George Foreman in Zaire to win his second heavyweight championship. In 1978, he lost the title to Leon Spinks, and at 36, it was widely believed that Ali's fighting career was over. Seven months later he KO'd Spinks, and Ali held the title until announcing his retirement in 1979. Even after that, Ali tried one more comeback, but it got ugly fast. Nobody beats the calendar.

His bravado made Ali more popular than any boxer before or since, and he's pronounced himself "the greatest fighter of all time". Parkinson's disease, probably brought on by taking so many blows to the head, has left Ali virtually unable to talk. Still, he's beloved worldwide, and still makes many public appearances. Ali's autobiography, titled The Greatest, was filmed in 1977, with Muhammad Ali playing himself. More recently Will Smith played the role in Ali (2001).

For years, Ali said he'd angrily thrown his Olympic gold medal into the Ohio river after an encounter with white racists. More recently, he simply says the medal "came up missing". He was given a replacement medal at the 1996 Atlanta games, where he also lit the ceremonial torch.

Father: Marcellus Clay (sign painter, piano player)
Mother: Odessa Grady Clay (maid)
Wife: Sonji Roi (cocktail waitress, m. 14-Aug-1964, div. 1966, d. 11-Oct-2005)
Wife: Belinda Boyd ("Khalilah", m. 1967, div. 1977)
Wife: Veronica Porche (m. 1977, div. 1986)
Wife: Yolanda Williams ("Lonnie", m. 1986)

Daughter: Laila Ali (pro boxer, women's middleweight champ, b. 30-Dec-1977)


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Stephenson

The Rocket was designed and built by George Stephenson with the help of his son, Robert, and Henry Booth, for the 1829 Rainhill Trials.

The Trials were held by the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company, to find the best locomotive engine for a railway line that was being built to serve these two English cities. On the day of the Trials, some 15,000 people came along to see the race of the locomotives.

During the race, the Rocket reached speeds of 24mph during the 20 laps of the course. This was due to several new design features. It was the first locomotive to have a multi-tube boiler - with 25 copper tubes rather than a single flue or twin flue.

The blast pipe also increased the draught to the fire by concentrating exhaust steam at the base of the chimney. This meant that the boiler generated more power (steam), so the Rocket was able to go faster than its rival, and thus secure its place in history.

The Rocket can be seen at the Science Museum, in London.

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bernard shaw

George Bernard shaw(1856-1950)
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)





George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was born in Dublin, the son of a civil servant. His education was irregular, due to his dislike of any organized training. After working in an estate agent's office for a while he moved to London as a young man (1876), where he established himself as a leading music and theatre critic in the eighties and nineties and became a prominent member of the Fabian Society, for which he composed many pamphlets. He began his literary career as a novelist; as a fervent advocate of the new theatre of Ibsen (The Quintessence of Ibsenism, 1891) he decided to write plays in order to illustrate his criticism of the English stage. His earliest dramas were called appropriately Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant (1898). Among these, Widower's Houses and Mrs. Warren's Profession savagely attack social hypocrisy, while in plays such as Arms and the Man and The Man of Destiny the criticism is less fierce. Shaw's radical rationalism, his utter disregard of conventions, his keen dialectic interest and verbal wit often turn the stage into a forum of ideas, and nowhere more openly than in the famous discourses on the Life Force, «Don Juan in Hell», the third act of the dramatization of woman's love chase of man, Man and Superman (1903).

In the plays of his later period discussion sometimes drowns the drama, in Back to Methuselah (1921), although in the same period he worked on his masterpiece Saint Joan (1923), in which he rewrites the well-known story of the French maiden and extends it from the Middle Ages to the present.

Other important plays by Shaw are Caesar and Cleopatra (1901), a historical play filled with allusions to modern times, and Androcles and the Lion (1912), in which he exercised a kind of retrospective history and from modern movements drew deductions for the Christian era. In Major Barbara (1905), one of Shaw's most successful «discussion» plays, the audience's attention is held by the power of the witty argumentation that man can achieve aesthetic salvation only through political activity, not as an individual. The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), facetiously classified as a tragedy by Shaw, is really a comedy the humour of which is directed at the medical profession. Candida (1898), with social attitudes toward sex relations as objects of his satire, and Pygmalion (1912), a witty study of phonetics as well as a clever treatment of middle-class morality and class distinction, proved some of Shaw's greatest successes on the stage. It is a combination of the dramatic, the comic, and the social corrective that gives Shaw's comedies their special flavour.

Shaw's complete works appeared in thirty-six volumes between 1930 and 1950, the year of his death.

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Walter Elias Disney

Walter Elias Disney

Real name: Walter Elias Disney

Date of Birth (location): 5 December 1901, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

Date of Death : 15 December 1966

-BIOGRAPHY

During a 43-year Hollywood career, which spanned the development of the motion picture medium as a modern American art, Walter Elias Disney, a modern Aesop, established himself and his product as a genuine part of Americana. David Low, the late British political cartoonist, called Disney "the most significant figure in graphic arts since Leonardo DaVinci." A pioneer and innovator, and the possessor of one of the most fertile imaginations the world has ever known, Walt Disney, along with members of his staff, received more than 950 honors and citations from every nation in the world, including 48 Academy Awards and 7 Emmys in his lifetime. Walt Disney's personal awards included honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, the University of Southern California and UCLA; the Presidential Medal of Freedom; France's Legion of Honor and Officer d'Academie decorations; Thailand's Order of the Crown; Brazil's Order of the Southern Cross; Mexico's Order of the Aztec Eagle; and the Showman of the World Award from the National Association of Theatre Owners.

The creator of Mickey Mouse and founder of Disneyland and Walt Disney World was born in Chicago, Illinois, on December 5, 1901. His father, Elias Disney, was an Irish-Canadian. His mother, Flora Call Disney, was of German-American descent. Walt was one of five children, four boys and a girl.

Raised on a farm near Marceline, Missouri, Walt became interested in drawing at an early age, selling his first sketches to neighbors when he was only seven years old. At McKinley High School in Chicago, Disney divided his attention between drawing and photography, contributing both to the school paper. At night he attended the Academy of Fine Arts.

During the fall of 1918, Disney attempted to enlist for military service. Rejected because he was only 16 years of age, Walt joined the Red Cross and was sent overseas, where he spent a year driving an ambulance and chauffeuring Red Cross officials. His ambulance was covered from stem to stem, not with stock camouflage, but with drawings and cartoons.

After the war, Walt returned to Kansas City, where he began his career as an advertising cartoonist. Here, in 1920, he created and marketed his first original animated cartoons, and later perfected a new method for combining live-action and animation.

In August of 1923, Walt Disney left Kansas City for Hollywood with nothing but a few drawing materials, $40 in his pocket and a completed animated and live-action film. Walt's brother, Roy 0. Disney, was already in California, with an immense amount of sympathy and encouragement, and $250. Pooling their resources, they borrowed an additional $500, and constructed a camera stand in their uncle's garage. Soon, they received an order from New York for the first "Alice Comedy" featurette, and the brothers began their production operation in the rear of a Hollywood real estate office two blocks away.

On July 13, 1925, Walt married one of his first employees, Lillian Bounds, in Lewiston, Idaho. They were blessed with two daughters: Diane, married to Ron Miller, former president and chief executive officer of Walt Disney Productions; and Sharon Disney Lund, who served as a member of Disney's Board of Directors and passed away in 1993. The Millers have seven children and Mrs. Lund had three.

Mickey Mouse was created in 1928, and his talents were first used in a silent cartoon entitled "Plane Crazy." However, before the cartoon could be released, sound burst upon the motion picture screen. Thus Mickey made his screen debut in "Steamboat Willie," the world's first fully-synchronized sound cartoon, which premiered at the Colony Theatre in New York on November 18, 1928.

Walt's drive to perfect the art of animation was endless. Technicolor was introduced to animation during the production of his "Silly Symphonies." In 1932, the film entitled "Flowers and Trees" won Walt the first of his 32 personal Academy Awards. In 1937, he released "The Old Mill," the first short subject to utilize the multiplane camera technique.

On December 21 of that same year, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," the first full-length animated musical feature, premiered at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles. Produced at the unheard cost of $1,499,000 during the depths of the Depression, the film is still accounted as one of the great feats and imperishable monuments of the motion picture industry. During the next five years, Walt completed such other full-length animated classics as "Pinocchio," "Fantasia," "Dumbo," and "Bambi."

In 1940, construction was completed on Disney's Burbank studio. The staff swelled to more than 1,000 artists, animators, story men and technicians. During World War II, 94 percent of the Disney facilities were engaged in special government work, including the production of training and propaganda films for the armed services, as well as health films which are still shown throughout the world by the U.S. State Department. The remainder of his efforts were devoted to the production of comedy short subjects, deemed highly essential to civilian and military morale.

Disney's 1945 feature, the musical "The Three Caballeros," combined live action with the cartoon medium, a process he used successfully in such other features as "Song of the South" and the highly acclaimed "Mary Poppins." In all, 81 features were released by the studio during his lifetime.

Walt's inquisitive mind and keen sense for education through entertainment resulted in the award-winning "True-Life Adventure" series. Through such films as "The Living Desert," "The Vanishing Prairie," "The African Lion," and "White Wilderness," Disney brought fascinating insights into the world of wild animals and taught the importance of conserving our nation's outdoor heritage.

Disneyland, launched in 1955 as a fabulous $17 million Magic Kingdom, soon increased its investment tenfold. By its third decade, more than 250 million people were entertained, including presidents, kings and queens, and royalty from all over the globe.

A pioneer in the field of television programming, Disney began production in 1954, and was among the first to present full-color programming with his "Wonderful World of Color" in 1961. "The Mickey Mouse Club" and "Zorro" were popular favorites in the 1950s.

But that was only the beginning. In 1965, Walt Disney turned his attention toward the problem of improving the quality of urban life in America. He personally directed the design on an Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, or EPCOT, planned as a living showcase for the creativity of American industry.

Said Disney, "I don't believe there is a challenge anywhere in the world that is more important to people everywhere than finding the solution to the problems of our cities. But where do we begin? Well, we're convinced we must start with the public need. And the need is not just for curing the old ills of old cities. We think the need is for starting from scratch on virgin land and building a community that will become a prototype for the future."

Thus, Disney directed the purchase of 43 square miles of virgin land -- twice the size of Manhattan Island -- in the center of the state of Florida. Here, he master planned a whole new Disney world of entertainment to include a new amusement theme park, motel-hotel resort vacation center and his Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. After more than seven years of master planning and preparation, including 52 months of actual construction, Walt Disney World opened to the public as scheduled on October 1, 1971. Epcot Center opened on October 1, 1982.

Prior to his death on December 15, 1966, Walt Disney took a deep interest in the establishment of California Institute of the Arts, a college level, professional school of all the creative and performing arts. Of Cal Arts, Walt once said, "It's the principal thing I hope to leave when I move on to greener pastures. If I can help provide a place to develop the talent of the future, I think I will have accomplished something."

California Institute of the Arts was founded in 1961 with the amalgamation of two schools, the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music and Chouinard Art Institute. The campus is located in the city of Valencia, 32 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles. Walt Disney conceived the new school as a place where all the performing and creative arts would be taught under one roof in a "community of the arts" as a completely new approach to professional arts training.

Walt Disney is a legend and a folk hero of the 20th century. His worldwide popularity was based upon the ideas which his name represents: imagination, optimism and self-made success in the American tradition. Walt Disney did more to touch the hearts, minds, and emotions of millions of Americans than any other man in the past century. Through his work, he brought joy, happiness and a universal means of communication to the people of every nation. Certainly, our world shall know but one Walt Disney.

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Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

Lincoln was the 16th president of the United States and one of the great American leaders. His presidency was dominated by the American Civil War.

Abraham Lincoln was born on 12 February 1809 near Hodgenville, Kentucky. He was brought up in Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois - his parents were poor pioneers and Lincoln was largely self-educated. In 1836 he qualified as a lawyer and went to work in a law practice in Springfield, Illinois. He sat in the state legislature from 1834 to 1842 and in 1846 was elected to Congress, representing the Whig Party for a term. In 1856 he joined the new Republican Party and in 1860 he was asked to run as their presidential candidate.

In the presidential campaign Lincoln made his opposition to slavery very clear. His victory provoked a crisis, with many southerners fearing that he would attempt to ban slavery in the South. Seven southern states left the Union to form the Confederate States of America, also known as the Confederacy. Four more joined later. Lincoln vowed to preserve the Union even if it meant war.

Fighting broke out in April 1861. Lincoln defined the Civil War as a struggle to save the Union but in January 1863 he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed all slaves in areas still under Confederate control. This was an important symbolic gesture that identified the Union's struggle as a war to end slavery.

In the effort to win the war, Lincoln assumed more power than any president before him, declaring martial law and suspending legal rights. He had difficulty finding effective generals to lead the Union armies until the appointment of Ulysses S Grant as overall commander in 1864.

On 19 November 1863 Lincoln delivered his famous Gettysburg Address at the dedication of a cemetery at the site of the Battle of Gettysburg, a decisive Union victory that had taken place earlier in the year.

In 1864, Lincoln stood for re-election and won and, in his second inaugural address, he was conciliatory towards the southern states.

On 9 April 1865, the Confederate general Robert E Lee surrendered, and the war was effectively over. It had lasted for more than four years and 600,000 Americans had died. Less than a week later, Lincoln was shot in Ford's Theatre in Washington DC and died the next morning, 15 April 1865. His assassin, John Wilkes Booth, was a strong supporter of the Confederacy.

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Louis Pasteur

Louis Pasteur (1822 - 1895)

Louis Pasteur was born on 27 December 1822 in Dole in the Jura region of France. His father was a tanner. In 1847 he earned a doctorate from the École Normale in Paris. After several years research and teaching in Dijon and Strasbourg, in 1854 Pasteur was appointed professor of chemistry at the University of Lille. Part of the remit of the faculty of sciences was to find solutions to the practical problems of local industries, particularly the manufacture of alcoholic drinks. He was able to demonstrate that organisms such as bacteria were responsible for souring wine and beer (he later extended his studies to prove that milk was the same), and that the bacteria could be removed by boiling and then cooling the liquid. This process is now called pasteurisation.

Pasteur then undertook experiments to find where these bacteria came from, and was able to prove that they were introduced from the environment. This was disputed by scientists who believed they could spontaneously generate. In 1864, the French Academy of Sciences accepted Pasteur's results. By 1865, Pasteur was director of scientific studies at the École Normale, where he had studied. He was asked to help the silk industry in southern France, where there was an epidemic amongst the silkworms. With no experience of the subject, Pasteur identified parasitic infections as the cause and advocated that only disease-free eggs should be selected. The industry was saved.

Pasteur's various investigations convinced him of the rightness of the germ theory of disease, which holds that germs attack the body from outside. Many felt that such tiny organisms as germs could not possibly kill larger ones such as humans. Pasteur now extended this theory to explain the causes of many diseases - including anthrax, cholera, TB and smallpox - and their prevention by vaccination. He is best known for his work on the development of vaccines for rabies. In 1888, a special institute was founded in Paris for the treatment of diseases. It became known as the Institut Pasteur. Pasteur was its director until his death on 28 September 1895. He was a national hero and was given a state funeral.

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Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 - 1821)

Napoleon Bonaparte was born on 15 August 1769 in Corsica into a gentry family. Educated at military school, he was rapidly promoted and in 1796, was made commander of the French army in Italy, where he forced Austria and its allies to make peace. In 1798, Napoleon conquered Ottoman-ruled Egypt in an attempt to strike at British trade routes with India. He was stranded when his fleet was destroyed by the British at the Battle of the Nile.

France now faced a new coalition - Austria and Russia had allied with Britain. Napoleon returned to Paris where the government was in crisis. In a coup d'etat in November 1799, Napoleon became first consul. In 1802, he was made consul for life and two years later, emperor. He oversaw the centralisation of government, the creation of the Bank of France, the reinstatement of Roman Catholicism as the state religion and law reform with the Code Napoleon.

In 1800, he defeated the Austrians at Marengo. He then negotiated a general European peace which established French power on the continent. In 1803 Britain resumed war with France, later joined by Russia and Austria. Britain inflicted a naval defeat on the French at Trafalgar (1805) so Napoleon abandoned plans to invade England and turned on the Austro-Russian forces, defeating them at Austerlitz later the same year. He gained much new territory, including annexation of Prussian lands which ostensibly gave him control of Europe. The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved, Holland and Westphalia created, and over the next 5 years, Napoleon's relatives and loyalists were installed as leaders (in Holland, Westphalia, Italy, Naples, Spain and Sweden).

In 1810, he had his childless marriage to Josephine de Beauharnais annulled and married the daughter of the Austrian emperor in the hope of having an heir. A son, Napoleon, was born a year later.

The Peninsular War began in 1808. Costly French defeats over the next five years drained French military resources. Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812 resulted in a disastrous retreat. The tide started to turn in favour of the allies and in March 1814, Paris fell. Napoleon went into exile on the Mediterranean island of Elba. In March 1815 he escaped and marched on the French capital. The Battle of Waterloo ended his brief reign. The British imprisoned him on the remote Atlantic island of St. Helena where he died on 5 May 1821.

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Thomas alva edison

Thomas Alva Edison (1847 - 1931)

Thomas Alva Edison was born in Milan, Ohio on February 11, 1847. His parents were Samuel and Nancy Edison. Thomas's three older brothers and sisters died before he was born from very harsh winters. He had brother named Pitt and two sisters named Marion and Harriet Ann. His parents named him Thomas because of his great uncle.

When he was young, everyone called him Al. Al asked a lot of questions and was VERY curious. When young Thomas was six, he started a fire in his father's barn and burned it to the ground. He was charged with arson. To show that he was truly sorry, Samuel Edison spanked his son in front of the whole town the next day. Thomas was very embarrassed.

Sam was afraid that his son had no feelings because when Thomas was at the creek, his friend drowned and he showed no emotion. Al's teachers thought that he could not learn and was stupid, and when his teachers told Nancy Edison, she became very mad and decided to teach Thomas herself. Thomas's mother bought him the Dictionary of Science, and he read it all. After that, all of his allowance was spent buying chemicals at the drug store.

Before Thomas Alva Edison was ten, he had already read History of England, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, History of the World, and The Age of Reason. When he was eleven, he made his own telegraph set from a picture in a book. Then and there, he decided he wanted to become a telegrapher. At age twelve, he started selling candy on trains to people riding.

When he was 13, he was running behind a train, trying to catch it, when a man snatched his ear and pulled him up onto the train by his ears. Right then, he started to slowly become deaf. Another time, at 15, Thomas saw a boy on a train track, and a train was heading right for him. Al swept by, grabbing the boy, and put him on the grass. The boy's father was so happy, he taught Thomas telegraphy in reward.

When Thomas Edison was 21, he experimented with everything. He was fired from his job at the Boston Telegraph Service because he became bored and started playing jokes on his boss. On May 1, 1869, Thomas received a patent for a vote recording machine, but once it was invented, no one wanted it.

Later, Thomas invented a device that would control errors in stock tickers, and engineers liked it. He wanted at the most, $5,000 for it, but he kept quiet and the engineers offered him $40,000. When Thomas brought his check to the bank, the teller began to yell at him, because he could not hear. He took his check and got out of line. Al went back to the engineer's office and the engineer identified him to the teller, and Thomas had his money, which he spent all on shop equipment.

One day, Thomas Edison saw a lady standing out in the rain, and he fell in love with her. Her name was Mary Stilwell. He offered her a job in his lab, and she accepted. He taught her Morse code, and married her. After the wedding, Thomas went to see the new stock tickers. Mary spent her wedding day alone. The next day, Thomas took Mary to Niagara Falls for their honeymoon and Mary took her sister because she was so upset about Thomas leaving on their wedding day.

The telephone was invented a short time later by Alexander Graham Bell. Engineers asked Thomas if he could improve it, and he tried. He invented the first phonograph, and everyone loved it. Mary later had two baby girls: Madeline, and Dot. After his daughters were born, his hard work finally had paid off. He had invented something that would change the world and technology forever. Thomas Alva Edison had invented the light bulb.

He installed a lighting system in New York, and lit it up. Everyone thought that Thomas was a wizard, and gave him the name "Wizard of Menlo Park". After his invention of the light bulb, Mary had two baby boys: Junior and Will. Mary died of Typhoid fever on August 9, 1884. Thomas was sad, but a short time after, he married a young woman named Mina Miller. On their wedding day, he was 38, and she was 22. The next day, they took Thomas's first actual vacation. They went to Paris.

Mina had a baby boy named Charles, and a year later, she had another boy, Theodore. After the birth of his sons, he had invented the motion picture. America was so astounded, they named him the American Wizard.

Thomas Alva Edison died a short time later on October 21, 1931 at age 84. He was buried under an oak tree in Glenmont. The United States were so sad, they turned off their power for one minute and prayed throughout the whole United States for a tribute to Thomas Alva Edison.

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Steven spielberg

Steven Spielberg

Date of Birth

18 December 1946, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

Birth Name

Steven Allan Spielberg

Height

5' 7½" (1.71 m)

Mini Biography

Undoubtedly one of the most influential film personalities in the history of film, Steven Spielberg is perhaps Hollywood's best known director and one of the wealthiest filmmakers in the world. Spielberg has countless big-grossing, critically acclaimed credits to his name, as producer, director and writer. He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1946. He went to California State University Long Beach, but dropped out to pursue his entertainment career. He gained notoriety as an uncredited assistant editor on the classic western "Wagon Train" (1957). Among his early directing efforts were Battle Squad (1961), which combined World War II footage with footage of an airplane on the ground that he makes you believe is moving. He also directed Escape to Nowhere (1961), which featured children as World War Two soldiers, including his sister Anne Spielberg, and The Last Gun (1959), a western. All of these were short films. The next couple of years, Spielberg directed a couple of movies that would portend his future career in movies. In 1964, he directed Firelight (1964), a movie about aliens invading a small town. In 1967, he directed Slipstream (1967), which was unfinished. However, in 1968, he directed Amblin' (1968), which featured the desert prominently, and not the first of his movies in which the desert would feature so prominently. Amblin' also became the name of his production company, which turned out such classics as E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982). Spielberg had a unique and classic early directing project, Duel (1971) (TV), with Dennis Weaver. In the early 1970s, Spielberg was working on TV, directing among others such series as Rod Serling's "Night Gallery" (1970), "Marcus Welby, M.D." (1969) and Columbo: Murder by the Book (1971) (TV). All of his work in television and short films, as well as his directing projects, were just a hint of the wellspring of talent that would dazzle audiences all over the world.

Spielberg's first major directorial effort was The Sugarland Express (1974), with Goldie Hawn, a film that marked him as a rising star. It was his next effort, however, that made him an international superstar among directors: Jaws (1975). This classic shark attack tale started the tradition of the summer blockbuster or, at least, he was credited with starting the tradition. His next film was the classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), a unique and original UFO story that remains a classic. In 1978, Spielberg produced his first film, the forgettable I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978), and followed that effort with Used Cars (1980), a critically acclaimed, but mostly forgotten, Kurt Russell\Jack Warden comedy about devious used-car dealers. Spielberg hit gold yet one more time with Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), with Harrison Ford taking the part of Indiana Jones. Spielberg produced and directed two films in 1982. The first was Poltergeist (1982), but the highest-grossing movie of all time up to that point was the alien story E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982). Spielberg also helped pioneer the practice of product placement. The concept, while not uncommon, was still relatively low-key when Spielberg raised the practice to almost an art form with his famous (or infamous) placement of Reece's Pieces in "E.T." Spielberg was also one of the pioneers of the big-grossing special-effects movies, like "E.T." and "Close Encounters", where a very strong emphasis on special effects was placed for the first time on such a huge scale. In 1984, Spielberg followed up "Raiders" with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), which was a commercial success but did not receive the critical acclaim of its predecessor. As a producer, Spielberg took on many projects in the 1980s, such as The Goonies (1985), and was the brains behind the little monsters in Gremlins (1984). He also produced the cartoon An American Tail (1986), a quaint little animated classic. His biggest effort as producer in 1985, however, was the blockbuster Back to the Future (1985), which made Michael J. Fox an instant superstar. As director, Spielberg took on the book The Color Purple (1985), with Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey, with great success. In the latter half of the 1980s, he also directed Empire of the Sun (1987), a mixed success for the occasionally erratic Spielberg. Success would not escape him for long, though.

The late 1980s found Spielberg's projects at the center of pop-culture yet again. In 1988, he produced the landmark animation/live-action film Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). The next year proved to be another big one for Spielberg, as he produced and directed Always (1989) as well as Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), and Back to the Future Part II (1989). All three of the films were box-office and critical successes. Also, in 1989, he produced the little known comedy-drama Dad (1989), with Jack Lemmon and Ted Danson, which got mostly mixed results. Spielberg has also had an affinity for animation and has been a strong voice in animation in the 1990s. Aside from producing the landmark "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", he produced the animated series "Tiny Toon Adventures" (1990), "Animaniacs" (1993), "Pinky and the Brain" (1995), "Freakazoid!" (1995), "Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain" (1998), "Family Dog" (1993) and "Toonsylvania" (1998). Spielberg also produced other cartoons such as The Land Before Time (1988), We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story (1993), Casper (1995) (the live action version) as well as the live-action version of The Flintstones (1994), where he was credited as "Steven Spielrock". Spielberg also produced many Roger Rabbit short cartoons, and many Pinky and the Brain, Animaniacs and Tiny Toons specials. Spielberg was very active in the early 1990s, as he directed Hook (1991) and produced such films as the cute fantasy Joe Versus the Volcano (1990) and An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991). He also produced the unusual comedy thriller Arachnophobia (1990), Back to the Future Part III (1990) and Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990). While these movies were big successes in their own right, they did not quite bring in the kind of box office or critical acclaim as previous efforts. In 1993, Spielberg directed Jurassic Park (1993), which for a short time held the record as the highest grossing movie of all time, but did not have the universal appeal of his previous efforts. Big box-office spectacles were not his only concern, though. He produced and directed Schindler's List (1993), a stirring film about the Holocaust. He won best director at the Oscars, and also got Best Picture. In the mid-90s, he helped found the production company DreamWorks, which was responsible for many box-office successes.

As a producer, he was very active in the late 90s, responsible for such films as The Mask of Zorro (1998), Men in Black (1997) and Deep Impact (1998). However, it was on the directing front that Spielberg was in top form. He directed and produced the epic Amistad (1997), a spectacular film that was shorted at the Oscars and in release due to the fact that its release date was moved around so much in late 1997. The next year, however, produced what many believe was one of the best films of his career: Saving Private Ryan (1998), a film about World War Two that is spectacular in almost every respect. It was stiffed at the Oscars, losing best picture to Shakespeare in Love (1998).

Spielberg produced a series of films, including Evolution (2001), The Haunting (1999) and Shrek (2001). he also produced two sequels to Jurassic Park (1993), which were financially but not particularly critical successes. In 2001, he produced a mini-series about World War Two that definitely *was* a financial and critical success: "Band of Brothers" (2001), a tale of an infantry company from its parachuting into France during the invasion to the Battle of the Bulge. Also in that year, Spielberg was back in the director's chair for Artificial Intelligence: AI (2001), a movie with a message and a huge budget. It did reasonably at the box office and garnered varied reviews from critics.

Spielberg has been extremely active in films there are many other things he has done as well. He produced the short-lived TV series "SeaQuest DSV" (1993), an anthology series entitled "Amazing Stories" (1985), created the video-game series "Medal of Honor" set during World War Two, and was a starting producer of "ER" (1994). Spielberg, if you haven't noticed, has a great interest in World War Two. He and Tom Hanks collaborated on Shooting War (2000) (TV), a documentary about World War II combat photographers, and he produced a documentary about the Holocaust called A Holocaust szemei (2000). With all of this to Spielberg's credit, it's no wonder that he's looked at as one of the greatest ever figures in entertainment.

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