Keisha Castle-Hughes Biography
Growing up in New Zealand, Keisha Castle-Hughes dreamed of someday becoming an actress, though she suspected that achieving such a goal would be extremely difficult. In 2001, when Castle-Hughes was just eleven years old, a casting director visited her school searching for a young girl to play the lead role in an upcoming movie.
Hugo Chávez Biography
Venezuela is a South American country rich in natural resources, especially oil. In fact, outside of the Middle East it is the number one supplier of oil to the world.
Richard Clarke Biography
For thirty years Richard Clarke was a central figure in the U.S. federal government, serving seven presidential administrations and acting as a key advisor on national security issues to four presidents: Ronald Reagan (1911–2004), George H.
Coldplay Biography
From the time of British-bred sensation Coldplay's first major-label release in the summer of 2000, music journalists have written that the band doesn't quite fit in with the current popular-music landscape. Their soulful, haunting, intelligent songs have set them apart from bubblegum pop stars, aggressive rap artists, and what Tom Sinclair of Entertainment Weekly described as "the hordes of thuggish, blustering nu-metal bands or Identikit junior-league punk outfits." Much has been made in Britain's music press of lead singer Chris Martin's clean-living ways and general distaste for alcohol—a far cry from the lifestyle of a stereotypical rock star.
Eileen Collins Biography
Throughout her career as an astronaut, Eileen Collins achieved several firsts in the history of space travel. In 1995, when she took the helm of the Discovery, she became the first woman to pilot a space shuttle.
Sofia Coppola Biography
Sofia Coppola was born into Hollywood royalty, the daughter of one of the most applauded film directors of the twentieth century, Francis Ford Coppola (1939–). From the beginning, it seemed she was destined, like her father, for a career in the movies.
Paige Davis Biography
"Even if we got canceled right now, I really believe that Trading Spaces completely affected a genre of television, and it made its mark. Everybody's copying us because they want their own show that people adore and are committed to.
Ellen DeGeneres Biography
Ellen DeGeneres is one of the most popular contemporary comedians and the host of a successful daytime talk show. She is perhaps best known to young audiences as the voice of the endearing but absentminded fish Dory in the blockbuster animated hit Finding Nemo (2003), a role that perfectly captured her rambling, seemingly unrehearsed comic style.
Michael Dell Biography
In 1984, as a first-year college student in Austin, Texas, Michael Dell borrowed $1,000 from his parents to start a computer accessories business. He began by selling kits to help customers upgrade their personal computers, establishing a business model his company, Dell, Inc., still follows today: sell directly to consumers, eliminating the middle step of a retail store or a distributor, and hold on to far more of the profits.
Luisa Diogo Biography
Located in southeastern Africa, the tiny country of Mozambique is one of the poorest in the world, with approximately 70 percent of the population living below the poverty line. It is also a country frequently devastated by drought and floods, and in the early 2000s it was still recovering from a civil war that rocked the nation for nearly seventeen years (1975–92).
Sharon Draper Biography
For thirty years Sharon Draper was an English teacher in the Cincinnati, Ohio, public school system, instilling her love of reading and writing in generations of children, and inspiring them to reach for their greatest dreams. In 1997 she received the highest honor an educator can be given when President Bill Clinton (1946–) named her the U.S.
Hilary Duff Biography
Young teens everywhere first came to know Hilary Duff as Lizzie McGuire, the title character of the Disney Channel show that aired from 2001 until 2003. As Lizzie, Duff played an awkward, slightly clumsy junior high schooler—a bit of a stretch for the confident, multitalented actress.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. Biography
Dale Earnhardt Jr. possesses one of the most familiar names—and faces—in the world of stock-car racing, but he has yet to become a top-ranked champion driver for the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, better known as NASCAR.
Shirin Ebadi Biography
Before October of 2003, most people outside of Iran—and many people inside that country—had never heard of Shirin Ebadi. She was not a major world leader, negotiating to end wars or topple repressive dictators.
Michael Eisner Biography
When Michael Eisner came on board as Disney's chairman of the board of directors and chief executive officer, or CEO, in 1984, many observers wondered if he could handle the business end of running an entertainment company. In his previous jobs as an executive at ABC and as president and CEO of Paramount Pictures, a major Hollywood film studio, Eisner had developed a reputation as a creative genius, an idea man.
Olafur Eliasson Biography
Olafur Eliasson is not a traditional artist. His best-known works cannot be hung on a wall and do not involve paint or a camera or sculpting materials.
Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott Biography
Missy Elliott has accomplished the extraordinary. Hundreds of rap artists have made successful records, written hit songs, and produced other artists' work; some have even headed up their own record labels.
Deborah Estrin Biography
Deborah Estrin is a pioneer in the development of a revolutionary technology called embedded networked sensing, or ENS. ENS involves the use of tiny, acutely sensitive monitoring devices that can "read" their surroundings, picking up extremely detailed information.
Tina Fey Biography
Tina Fey might have single-handedly made it hip to wear glasses in the mid-2000s, but there is more to the writer-actress-comedian than her trademark black-rimmed specs. In 1999 she broke into the boys' club by becoming the first female head writer on the long-running television comedy Saturday Night Live (SNL).
Carly Fiorina Biography
As chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of Hewlett-Packard (HP), a technology company worth $72 billion, Carly Fiorina is the most powerful woman in American business. Many give credit to the savvy businesswoman for leading the technology titan into the twenty-first century.
Jamie Foxx Biography
Although he worked as an actor and comedian for many years, it wasn't until 2005 that Jamie Foxx became hugely famous. In the 1990s Foxx was primarily known as a stand-up comic with an uncanny knack for mimicking almost anyone.
Cornelia Funke Biography
For years Cornelia Funke has been one of the best-known and bestselling children's authors in Germany. In fact, many people have called her the German J.
Neil Gaiman Biography
Neil Gaiman is an extraordinarily imaginative writer who works in a variety of formats, writing graphic novels (or, book-length comics), short stories, novels, children's books, and scripts for television and films. His works are classified in a number of different genres, from horror to fantasy to science fiction, and often he jumps from one genre to another within a single work.
Sonia Gandhi Biography
The story should have had a fairy-tale ending: a beautiful young girl meets her handsome Prince Charming, has two children, and lives happily every after. In 1968, however, when Sonia Maino married Rajiv Gandhi of India, the fairy tale was only half realized.
Frank Gehry Biography
Over the years many adjectives have been used to describe Frank Gehry's creations, including edgy, forward-looking, astonishing, and weird. Anything but ordinary, Gehry challenged the mainstream in the 1970s and 1980s when he used everyday materials such as cardboard to make furniture, and chain-link fencing to construct buildings.