Pramod Mahajan was born to Venkatesh Devidas and Prabhavati Mahajan in Mahbubnagar, Andhra Pradesh, India in a Deshastha Brahmin family. The Mahajan family had migrated from their home in Mahajan gully in Osmanabad to Ambajogai and was staying in a rented house in Mangalwar Peth. Mahajan spent his childhood in Ambejogai. He was the second child of his parents, with …

Prafulla Chandra Ray — The neighbours did not know what to make of the young man. That he was a college lecturer and scientist, they knew. And he did experiments in the small laboratory he had set up at his house. But what scientific purpose could he hope to serve by dumping on the terrace sackfuls of cattle bones he …

Pablo Picasso — Pablo Ruiz y Picasso, also known as Pablo Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973), was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, stage designer, poet and playwright who spent most of his adult life in France. As one of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century, he is known for co-founding the Cubist …

Oprah Winfrey — Oprah Gail Winfrey (born January 29, 1954) is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist. Winfrey is best known for her multi-award-winning talk show The Oprah Winfrey Show, which was the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011. Dubbed the “Queen of All Media”, she …

Omar E. Rivera 43, employee of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, will never forget the violent and terrifying sound of the Sept. 11, 2001 disaster. He and his yellow Labrador retriever, Salty, escaped unharmed with many of his co-workers from the 71st floor office. He was sitting on his desk when the first of the hijacked …

Soldiers wear khaki for camouflage, of course, to ensure that they blend with their background and make them less easily spotted by their enemies. In early times camouflage was not so important to soldiers; fighting at that time was usually hand to hand, and distinctive uniforms were necessary so that the combatants could discriminate between friend and foe. The uniforms …

When the British retreated from Washington during the war of 1812 they took prisoner a Dr William Beanes and held him aboard a warship in Chesapeake Bay. Francis Scott Key, an American lawyer, obtained permission to intercede for the release of his friend as the British fleet was preparing to bombard Fort McHenry, which protected Baltimore. The British agreed to …

William Morris was an eminent Victorian, born in 1834. He had a many-sided career as poet, artist, manufacturer and socialist. At Oxford he began a life-long friendship with Edward Burne-Jones, the painter and designer, who subsequently introduced him to Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the poet and painter, and a leader of the Pre-Raphaelites. At one time Morris intended to enter the …

In 1822, Hugh Clapperton, a young naval lieutenant, agreed to go with Walter Oudney and Dixon Denham to try and discover the source of the River Niger in North Africa. They journeyed south cross the Sahara from Tripoli to Lake Chad, the first white men to visit the region. Oudney died at Murner, and the other two separated, Clapperton going …

In 1800, Matthew Flinders was a young naval lieutenant with a passion for exploring. He sailed around the Australian coast with a friend called George Bass in a small boat they named ‘Tom Thumb’. Once, on going ashore, they were menaced by hostile natives but Flinders won them over by trimming their hair and beards! Later, in 1801, finders sailed …