Biographies
![Gwendolyn Brooks](jpg/gwendolyn-brooks-19500d31.jpg)
Gwendolyn Brooks
She was one of the most influential poets of the 20th century and the first African American poet to win the Pulitzer Prize (1950).
Ch—AP/Shutterstock.com
![Peter Higgs](jpg/peter-higgs-20080d31.jpg)
Claudia Marcelloni/© CERN
Peter Higgs
This British scientist was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for proposing the existence of the Higgs boson.
Claudia Marcelloni/© CERN
Editor's Picks
![Pablo Neruda](jpg/pablo-neruda9a9f.jpg)
Pablo Neruda
Pablo Neruda was a Chilean poet, diplomat, and politician who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. He is perhaps the most important Latin American poet of the 20th century. Neruda was the son of José del Carmen Reyes, a railway worker, and Rosa Basoalto. His mother died within a
![Engraving of Solomon Northup, c. 1853. (Twelve Years a Slave, 12 Years a Slave, slavery, African-American, Black History)](jpg/solomon-northup-portrait-slavery-memoir-twelve-years-18539a9f.jpg)
9 Mysterious Disappearances of People Other Than Amelia Earhart
People other than Amelia Earhart have disappeared without a trace. Really!
![Maya Angelou, 1996.](jpg/maya-angelou-19969a9f.jpg)
Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou was an American poet, memoirist, and actress whose several volumes of autobiography explore the themes of economic, racial, and sexual oppression. Although born in St. Louis, Angelou spent much of her childhood in the care of her paternal grandmother in rural Stamps, Arkansas. When she
![Shadow of a man holding large knife in his hand inside of some dark, spooky buiding](jpg/shadow-man-spooky-building-knife9a9f.jpg)
7 of History's Most Notorious Serial Killers
Don’t read this list before bed.
![William Blake](jpg/william-blake-oil-canvas-thomas-phillips-national-18079a9f.jpg)
William Blake
William Blake was an English engraver, artist, poet, and visionary, author of exquisite lyrics in Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794) and profound and difficult “prophecies,” such as Visions of the Daughters of Albion (1793), The First Book of Urizen (1794), Milton
!["John Dee performing an experiment before Queen Elizabeth I" by Henry Gillard Glindoni. Oil painting 18th century. Pentimento, occult, sorcery, magic.](jpg/elizabeth-i-john-dee-experiment-oil-henry9a9f.jpg)
Queen Elizabeth's Court Occultist
Was John Dee a sorcerer or a scholar?
![Shirley Chisholm](jpg/shirley-chisholm-african-american-united-states-congress9a9f.jpg)
Shirley Chisholm
Shirley Chisholm made history as the first African American woman to be elected to the U.S. Congress, serving in the House of Representatives from 1969 to 1983. In 1972 Chisholm also became the first woman to run for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. Shirley St. Hill was the daughter
![Jane Goodall. British ethologist Dr. Jane Goodall (b. 1934) with chimpanzee Freud at Gombe National Park in Tanzania. Goodall researches the chimpanzees of Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania.](jpg/jane-goodall-freud-british-tanzania-gombe-national9a9f.jpg)
10 Women Who Advanced Our Understanding of Life on Earth
Boldly going where no woman had gone before.
Spotlight: Marie Curie
The Polish-born French physicist was famous for her work on radioactivity, becoming the first woman to win a Nobel Prize in 1903 (for Physics), and later becoming the only woman to win a Nobel in two different fields when, in 1911, she won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
Quizzes
![Usain Bolt of Jamaica reacts after breaking the world record with a time of 19.30 to win the gold medal as Churandy Martina (left) of Netherlands Antilles and Brian Dzingai of Zimbabwe come in after him in the Men's 200m Final at the National Stadium during Day 12 of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on August 20, 2008 in Beijing, China. (Summer Olympics, track and field, athletics)](jpg/usain-bolt-jamaica-gold-medal-breaking-world-record-200m-beijing-summer-olympics-august-20-20089a9f.jpg)
I Am the Greatest (Athlete)
Think you know a lot about famous athletes? This quiz might get your GOAT.
![Wheat Field with Cypresses, oil on canvas by Vincent van Gogh, 1889; in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, 73 x 93.4 cm.](jpg/wheat-field-with-cypresses-vincent-van-gogh-metropolitan-museum-of-art9a9f.jpg)
Name that Painter!
Can you tell a Monet from a Manet?
![a postage stamp printed in USA showing an image of Jackie Robinson, CIRCA 1999.](jpg/postage-stamp-jackie-robinson-circa-19999a9f.jpg)
Who's on that Stamp?
This quiz requires attention—you can't just mail it in.
![(From left): First Ladies Barbara Bush, Nancy Reagan, Rosalynn Carter, Betty Ford, Pat Nixon, and Lady Bird Johnson at the Dedication of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California; November 4, 1991. (first lady)](jpg/first-ladies-dedication-of-ronald-reagan-presidential-library-november-19919a9f.jpg)
First Ladies of the United States Quiz
They have been hostesses, helpers, advisers, gatekeepers, guardians, confidantes, and sometimes formidable powers behind the scenes. How much do you know about the first ladies of the United States?
Videos
![David Attenborough: An explorer's life](jpg/biography-sir-david-attenborough.jpg)
David Attenborough: An explorer's life
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Galleries
![English naturalist Charles Darwin; undated engraving.](jpg/charles-darwin.jpg)
Charles Darwin
![Kaiser William II with his second wife Hermine Reuss on their wedding day, November 9, 1922.](jpg/william-ii-hermine-reuss-of-greiz-november-9-1922.jpg)
Royal Weddings
![Bust of ancient greek philosopher and scientist Aristotle.](jpg/bust-aristotle.jpg)
Aristotle
Featured Categories
Actors
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn was an indomitable American stage and film actress, known as a spirited performer with a touch of eccentricity. She introduced into her roles a strength of character previously considered to be undesirable in Hollywood leading ladies. As an actress, she was noted for her brisk
Sidney Poitier
Sidney Poitier was a Bahamian American actor, director, and producer who broke the colour barrier in the U.S. motion-picture industry by becoming the first African American to win an Academy Award for best actor (for Lilies of the Field [1963]) and the first Black movie star. He also redefined
Dorothy Dandridge
Dorothy Dandridge was an American singer and film actress who was the first black woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for best actress. Dandridge’s mother was an entertainer and comedic actress who, after settling in Los Angeles, had some success in radio and, later, television. The young
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier was a towering figure of the British stage and screen, acclaimed in his lifetime as the greatest English-speaking actor of the 20th century. He was the first member of his profession to be elevated to a life peerage. The son of an Anglican minister, Olivier attended All Saints
Philosophers
Avicenna
Avicenna was a Muslim physician, the most famous and influential of the philosopher-scientists of the medieval Islamic world. He was particularly noted for his contributions in the fields of Aristotelian philosophy and medicine. He composed the Kitāb al-shifāʾ (Book of the Cure), a vast
Plato
Plato ancient Greek philosopher, student of Socrates (c. 470–399 bce), teacher of Aristotle (384–322 bce), and founder of the Academy, best known as the author of philosophical works of unparalleled influence. He is one of the major figures of Classical antiquity. Building on the demonstration by
Cornel West
Cornel West is an American philosopher, scholar of African American studies, and political activist. His influential book Race Matters (1993) lamented what he saw as the spiritual impoverishment of the African American underclass and critically examined the “crisis” of Black leadership in the
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell was a British philosopher, logician, and social reformer, a founding figure in the analytic movement in Anglo-American philosophy, and recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950. Russell’s contributions to logic, epistemology, and the philosophy of mathematics established
Aviation Legends
Amelia Earhart
Amelia Earhart was an American aviator, one of the world’s most celebrated, who was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Her disappearance during a flight around the world in 1937 became an enduring mystery, fueling much speculation. Earhart’s father was a railroad lawyer, and her
Charles Lindbergh
Charles Lindbergh was an American aviator, one of the best-known figures in aeronautical history, remembered for the first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean, from New York City to Paris, on May 20–21, 1927. Lindbergh’s early years were spent chiefly in Little Falls, Minnesota, and in
Harriet Quimby
Harriet Quimby American aviator, the first female pilot to fly across the English Channel. Quimby’s birth date and place are not well attested. (She sometimes claimed 1884 in Arroyo Grande, California.) By 1902, however, it is known that she and her family were living in California, and in that
Wright brothers
Wright brothers, American brothers, inventors, and aviation pioneers who achieved the first powered, sustained, and controlled airplane flight (1903). Wilbur Wright (April 16, 1867, near Millville, Indiana, U.S.—May 30, 1912, Dayton, Ohio) and his brother Orville Wright (August 19, 1871,