Former White House intern. Born July 23, 1973 in San Francisco, California. Monica Lewinsky was at the heart of the White House sex scandal involving President Bill Clinton. While a 21-year old unpaid intern at the White House in 1995, Lewinsky began a sexual relationship with Clinton. She later became a salaried employee in the White House Office of Legislative Affairs and moved to the Defense Department in April 1996. At the Pentagon, Lewinsky met Linda Tripp, a career government worker. Unbeknownst to Lewinsky, Tripp began recording their te
Wife of John F. Kennedy, Jr. Born in White Plains, New York, and voted "Ultimate Beautiful Person" of her high school class of 1983, Bessette grew up in a wealthy corner of Connecticut just outside of New York City with twin sisters, Lisa and Lauren, just one year older. She moved to Connecticut with her mother and sisters at age 8 when her parents divorced. Her mother, a school administrator, remarried to a prominent doctor.
After Catholic high school, Bessette earned an undergraduate degree in education at Boston Unive
Actor. Born Marion Michael Morrison, on May 26, 1907, in Winterset, Iowa. He received his nickname "Duke" while still a child, because of his love for a dog of that name. The family's circumstances were moderate. His father was a pharmacist whose business ventures did not succeed. The family moved to California in 1914. His parents were divorced in 1926. From the age of 12 he was forced to help support himself. He did so with a variety of odd jobs, including stints as a delivery boy and as a trucker's helper. A star f
Forty-second president of the United States, born William Jefferson Blythe, on August 19, 1946, in Hope, Arkansas. His father, William Blythe, died in an auto accident three months before he was born. He was adopted by his stepfather, Roger Clinton. As a youth, he thrilled to John F. Kennedy's promise, especially when he got the opportunity to shake his idol’s hand in the Rose Garden in 1963. Clinton attended Georgetown University and traveled to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, receiving what would become a controversial draft deferment duri
Civil rights leader. Born Jesse Louis Jackson on October 8, 1941, in Greenville, South Carolina, a city beset with the problems of racial segregation. From birth, Jackson faced his own personal brand of discrimination. As a young girl his mother, Helen Burns, became pregnant by her married next-door neighbor, Noah Robinson. Her son, Jesse, was shunned and taunted by his neighbors and school classmates for being "a nobody who had no daddy." Instead of letting this adversity defeat him, Jackson developed his exceptional drive and empath
Actor. Born Alonzo "Lon" Chaney, on April 1, 1883, in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Nicknamed "The Man of a Thousand Faces," he appeared in 157 films between 1913 and 1930. Best remembered for his inventive use of makeup and his portrayal of grotesque characters, Chaney’s most famous starring roles were in film productions of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Phantom of the Opera. Chaney was one of four children born to speech and hearing impaired parents. His father worked as a barber. When young Lon was still a child, hi
First Lady, book editor. Born Jacqueline Lee Bouvier on July 28, 1929. Her mother was Janet Lee Bouvier, and her father, though named John Vernon Bouvier III, was known to all as Black Jack. Her sister Caroline Lee (who was called Lee) was born four years later. Jackie was a headstrong child who was initially a discipline problem at Miss Chapin's, the fashionable school on Manhattan's East Side that she attended as a young girl. Janet and Black Jack had a troubled marriage and they separated in 1936. They reconciled briefly in 1937 bu
Actress. Born Ruth Elizabeth Davis, on April 5, 1908, in Lowell, Massachusetts, the elder of the two daughters of Harlow Morrell Davis, a patent lawyer, and Ruthie Favor. Her parents divorced when Davis was seven. She and her sister were raised, often in trying circumstances, in New England by their devoted mother, who became a portrait photographer. Davis attended several boarding schools and, in her teens, began calling herself Bette after Honoré de Balzac's nineteenth-century novel Cousin Bette. She acted in school plays and in semipro
Statesman and 35th U.S. president (1961-63), born on May 29, 1917, in Brookline, Massachusetts; the second of Joseph and Rose Kennedy's nine children. Kennedy was the youngest man elected president of the United States, dying from an assassin’s bullet after serving less than one term in office. Kennedy attended private elementary schools, including a year at Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut, and four years at Choate School in Wallingford, Connecticut. He spent the summer of 1935 studying at the London School of Economics. He
Cuban revolutionary and political leader, premier and president of Cuba, born August 13, 1927 (several sources say 1926), in MayarÍ on his family’s sugar plantation near Biran, Oriente province, Cuba. His father was the owner of a 23,000-acre plantation. As a youth, Castro worked in the family’s sugar cane fields. He attended two Jesuit institutions, the Colegio Lasalle and the Colegio Dolores, both in Santiago. In 1942 he entered the Colegio Belen, a Jesuit preparatory school in Havana, and graduated in 1945. He has a doctorate in law fro
Christian missionary in India. Born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu on August 27, 1910, in Skopje, Yugoslavia. Mother Teresa of Calcutta was a Roman Catholic nun who founded the only Catholic religious order still growing in membership. In 1979, for her work among the poor and dying of India, she won the Nobel Prize for Peace. Her parents were Albanian grocers, and at the time of her birth Skopje lay within the Ottoman Empire. She attended public school in Skopje, and first showed religious interests as a member of a school sodality that focused on forei
Alžbeta Habsburská – Wittelsbachová nazývaná Sissi bola v súkromnom živote rozporuplná osobnosť. Vytvárala si svoj vlastný štýl, ktorý sa len zriedkavo zhodoval so zásadami dvorného ceremoniálu. Každodenne kontrolovala svoju váhu a miery, pretože kult krásy a dokonalej postavy patril k jej hlavným záujmom. Veľa športovala a kvôli postave držala rôzne diéty a aj hladovky. Často bývala chorá a preto absolvovala mnohé liečebné kúry.
Milovala zvieratá, predovšetkým psy a kone, preto niet divu
Pope, leader of the Catholic Church. Born Karol Jozef Wojtyla, on May 18, 1920, in Wadowice (a small town about 35 miles southwest of Kraków), Poland, the second of two boys to parents Karol Sr., a tailor, and Emilia (née Kaczorowska), a schoolteacher. Following the sudden death of Pope John Paul I in 1978, Karol was elected as the first non-Italian pope in over 450 years. Throughout the last quarter of the twentieth century, he has resided in the Vatican in Rome, and has been known throughout the world as a pillar of moral conservatism for t
Singer, songwriter, actress. Born May 16, 1966, in Gary, Indiana. The youngest of 10 children born to Joseph Walter Jackson and his wife, Katherine, Jackson grew up in the affluence of a show business family. Her five brothers—Jackie, Tito, Marlon, Jermaine, and Michael—signed a contract with Motown Records in 1968 and would go on to rule the charts as The Jackson Five, with such hits as "I Want You Back," "Stop, the Love You Save," "ABC," and "Dancing Machine." In late 1969, Jackson took her daughter
Actress. Born Lucille LeSueur (professionally known as Joan Crawford), on March 23, 1906, in San Antonio, Texas. Her parents, Thomas and Anna Bell Johnson LeSueur, had three children. The eldest of the three died in infancy. Their father, a laborer, deserted the family when Crawford was very young. She was raised along with her older brother in Lawton, Oklahoma and Kansas City. Her biological father appeared once, in 1934, when Crawford was 28. She spent a few days with him while making a film. Father and daughter were both intensely emotional
The English writer Jane Austen was one of the most important novelists of the 19th century. In her intense concentration on the thoughts and feelings of a limited number of characters, Jane Austen creates as profound an understanding and as precise a vision of the potentialities of the human spirit as the art of fiction has ever achieved. Although her novels received favorable reviews, she was not celebrated as an author during her lifetime. Jane Austen was born in 1775 at Steventon, in the south of England, where her father was rector of the p
Poet, painter, engraver, and mystic. Born in London on November 28, 1757, Blake was the second of the five children of James and Catherine Blake. Unlike many well-known writers of his day, Blake was born into a family of moderate means. His father sold stockings, gloves, and other apparel. Though he had no formal schooling as a child, Blake was apprenticed at the age of fourteen to engraver James Basire. In 1779 he began studies at The Royal Academy of Arts, but it was as a journeyman engraver that he was to make his living. In 1782 Blake marri
Actress. Born Deborah Jane Kerr-Trimmer, on September 30, 1921, in Helensburgh, Scotland. She was the first child born to Colleen and Arthur Kerr-Trimmer, a civil engineer who died when Kerr was 15. As a child, she expressed an interest in drama, often performing in local productions with her younger brother Teddy. She enrolled in England’s Phyllis Smale School and concentrated on ballet. Kerr soon abandoned a professional dance career when she realized that her height (she was 5’6’’) would limit her ability. At age 17, she directed her
Actor, director, producer. Born March 1, 1954, in Duncan, Oklahoma. He started off in show business at age two, appearing on the Kraft Theatre and the Red Skelton Show and quickly followed in the footsteps of his father, Rance Howard, an actor, director, and writer. His mother, Jean Howard, was an actress until Ron’s birth and his brother, Clint, performed for two seasons on the TV series Gentle Ben and subsequently pursued an acting career, eventually becoming recognizably famous for his bit parts in Hollywood films. Howard spent his childho
Film director, writer, and producer. Born May 14, 1944, in Modesto, California. His parents sold retail office supplies and owned a walnut ranch in California. His experiences growing up in the sleepy suburb of Modesto and his early passion for cars and motor racing would eventually serve as inspiration for his Oscar-nominated low-budget phenomenon, American Graffiti (1973). Before young Lucas became obsessed with the movie camera, he wanted to be a race car driver, but a near fatal accident in his souped-up Fiat just days before his high schoo