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Last login: 2 hours agoAlokeKumar: Aloke is a 52 year old guy from Calcutta(kolkata), WB, India.; Likes 37,388 pages, 423 videos, 6,208 photos • 856 fans • Received 323 reviews; Member since May 29, 2007

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Jul 4, 10:19pm: Welcome to The First Post. It is a blogazine on extraordinary people, who made a difference. It is also for extraordinary human beings, who care for others.

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Jul 4, 10:19pm: This is a Biography Site.This is a Biography Site.This is a Biography Si
IGOR STRAVINSKY.ANDRé BRETON.ANNE FRANK .FREDERICK OLMSTEAD.THOMAS YOUNG. ALEXANDER FLEMING.GANDHI
FRANZ KAFKA.SOPHIA LOREN. FRé DéRIC FRANCOIS CHOPIN. INDIRA GANDHI.PELE KURT GöDEL.ROSA. FRANçOIS BERNIER . FERNANDO PESSOA . CHRISTIAN DIOR . ROSA PARKS .JOSIAH WEDGWOOD . AMARTYA SEN. ANNA PAVLOVA. ALFRED HITCHCOCK.YVES SAINT LAURENT.JOHN ERNST STEINBECK. MARGARET MEAD .PHIL BORGES .ALAIN ROBBE-GRILLET .BOB DYLAN. GEORGE ORWELL . EWARD ST.JOHN GOREY. ARTHUR C CLARKE.DALAI LAMA.EIFFEL
HARPER LEE .LEONARD BERNSTEIN .FRIDA KAHLO . JOHN DAVISON ROCKEFELLER.BOB DYLAN.NAZIM HIKMET .MAURITS CORNELIS ESCHER .CONSTANCE COLLIER.FIDEL CASTRO .SEAN DEVEREUX .UMBERTO ECO. FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE . NOSTRADAMUS. CHIEF JOSEPH NEZ PERCE .BUDDHA.OMAR KHAYYAM. GAUTAMA BUDDHA. XENOPHON.
HOMER. EDMUND HILLARY. JEAN-BAPTISTE TAVERNIER.PHILIPP WESDIN.CARL SAGAN.SIGMUND FREUD. HIPPOCRATES.FRANK LLYOD WRIGHT.STEVEN SPIELBERG.
te.This is a Biography site.This is a Biography Site.This is a Biography
For Archive of Biographies in this Site.Click Here.

Vladimir Majakovski Biography and Bibliography at LitWeb.net: Jul 4, 10:18pm 1 review russia, biographies, poet, vladimir-mayakovsky •http://www.litweb.net/biography/278/V...; VLADIMIR MAYAKOVYSKY

(1893-1930)

The Russian poet is best known for his colorful, declamatory style and his use of the language of the streets as poetic material. His artistic innovations strongly influenced the development of Soviet poetry.

Vladimir Mayakovsky was born on July 19, 1893, in Russian Georgia. When his father, a forester, died in 1906, the family moved to Moscow. This was to be Mayakovsky's city until his death. Between 1906 and 1911 Mayakovsky was arrested several times for his political activities. He joined the Bolshevik party in 1908. In 1909, during one of his terms in prison, he wrote his first verses.

Mayakovsky studied at the Moscow Institute of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture from 1911 until he was expelled in 1914. During this period he published his first book of poetry, I! (1913), and became the leading figure in the avant-garde futurist movement in Russian poetry.

Russian futurism was as much a way of life as it was a poetic doctrine. It arose as a reaction to the extreme estheticism of Russian poetry at the turn of the century and to the prevailing mysticism in Russian intellectual life. Mayakovsky and his companions advocated the abandonment of the Russian tradition and the creation of a new art, one free of the past. They took their cause to the streets, declaiming their verses to chance audiences and going to any lengths to shock a tradition-bound public. Their shocking behavior and mode of dress gained them an instant reputation. Mayakovsky's poetry of these prerevolutionary years is polemical but not devoid of poetic content. It is an exceptionally personal poetry. Often it takes the form of a monologue addressed to the poet's mother and sister. The poet bares his self to the public in a style which is by turns ironic and sad. The title of his long verse drama is Vladimir Mayakovsky (1913), and it is subtitled "A Tragedy." In his most successful book, A Cloud in Trousers (1915), he acclaims the poet as the thirteenth apostle. Increasingly after 1915 Mayakovsky appears to have been trapped between his public role of apostle and his private suffering, the well-spring of his poetry.

Mayakovsky welcomed revolution in 1917 and put himself wholeheartedly at the service of the new Soviet state. He wrote popular verse, created propaganda posters, and lent his name to numerous public causes. In his own poetry, Mayakovsky continued his attack on the classical Russian tradition and proclaimed a poetry of the masses. He sought to write only for the masses, excluding any reference to the poetic self. Thus, his epic poem 150,000,000 (1921) was published anonymously. Mayakovsky described his postrevolutionary poetry as "tendentious realism," and there is no doubt that he achieved this realism at the expense of his true poetic talent.

Mayakovsky traveled widely in the 1920s. He went several times to western Europe and in 1925 to America. During a trip to Paris, he fell in love with a Russian émigré. Toward the end of the 1920s it became more and more difficult for Mayakovsky to get permission to travel abroad. He felt increasingly the burden of his public posture and the pain of having abandoned his private poetic self.

This alienation from his very self led him to commit suicide on April 14, 1930. He could no longer maintain the dual role of public apostle and private poet.

Nanda Devi :: History :: Gaura Devi & Chipko: Jul 4, 12:44am 1 review environment, biographies, chipko, hug-the-tree, gaura-devi •http://nandadevi.prayaga.org/chipko.html; GAURA DEVI

1925-1991

Gaura Devi was an activist of The Chipko movement ,literally "to cling" in Hindi, and `Hug the Tree' in English, was a group of peasants in the Uttarakhand region of India who acted to prevent the felling of trees and reclaim their traditional forest rights that were threatened. The movement began in Chamoli district in 1973 and spread throughout the Uttarakhand Himalayas by the end of the decade. In Tehri district, Chipko activists would go on to protest limestone mining in the Dehradun hills in the 1980s as well as the Tehri dam.

One of Chipko's most salient features was the mass participation of women villagers. At its height, Chipko gained widespread attention from the international environmental movement that was making major headway in drawing global attention to ecological concerns. Unlike, environmentalists of the West, Chipko was thought to embody an "environmentalism of the poor" and thus a novel example of the growing reach of environmental concerns. The tactic of tree hugging, long an epithet for environmental activists in general, also inspired and fired the imagination of activists in the West.

During the activist phase of Chipko in the 1970s, the courage and vigilance of Uttarakhandi women saved many forests and earned them a hallowed place in the history of the global environmental movement. Most prominent amongst these women was Lata village's own Gaura Devi who led the first all-women action to save their community forest in March 1974. As a widow with no formal education, Gaura Devi would nevertheless assume leadership of the village Mahila Mangal Dal and work tireless on behalf of her community long beyond those fateful few days when the axemen were chased away. Her example would be repeated by countless women who would come to form the backbone of the Chipko movement.

Gaura Devi's story was recently detailed in the wonderful little booklet, "The People Who Hugged The Trees"
Here is a short excerpt:

"A WISE person once said that forestry is not about trees. It is about people. No one has realised this more than the women of the Uttarakhand region. Everyone by now knows about the Chipko Movement. But not many know about the women of the Uttarakhand region who have made it their lifetime mission to leave undestroyed forests for their children and grandchildren... One woman whom future generations in Uttarakhand are not likely to forget is Gaura Devi who has mobilised the women of this region to protect their natural heritage."

The movement was honoured with a `Right Livelihood Award' ,by the Sweedish Parliament, in 1987.

This spot is for my friend, Sabi from Mexico, who is an environmentalist.......solar power and sunshine where the desert meets the sea....For more on her visit thisoldyurt.stumbleupon.com [thisoldyurt.stumbleupon.com]

History of JOAN OF ARC: Jul 1, 11:41pm 3 reviews biographies, joan-of-arc, french-history, women-extraorinaire •http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/P...; JOAN OF ARC

(1412 -1431)

Jeanne d'Arc in French, was a 15th century national heroine of France. She was tried and executed for heresy when she was only 19 years old. The judgment was broken by the Pope and she was declared innocent and a martyr 24 years later. She was beatified in 1909 and canonized as a saint in 1920.

Joan asserted that she had visions from God which told her to recover her homeland from English domination late in the Hundred Years' War. The uncrowned King Charles VII sent her to the siege at Orléans as part of a relief mission. She gained prominence when she overcame the dismissive attitude of veteran commanders and lifted the siege in only nine days.

Joan of Arc ,born at Domrémy (Champagne), the daughter of a peasant farmer, Joan was a pious girl brought up during the Hundred Years War: she was three years of age when the battle of Agincourt took place and only nine when Henry V of England and Charles VI of France died. After this the English armies under the duke of Bedford fought a successful campaign and took numerous fortified towns. Intelligent but illiterate, Joan first heard her famous voices when only fourteen; these she identified as belonging to Michael and the dubious Catherine of Alexandria and Margaret of Antioch; they told her to save France.

At this time the military situation looked almost hopeless, and she had no success in persuading the commander of the French forces, but her voices persisted and gave her no rest. Her credibility was increased when some predictions and prophecy of further defeat were fulfilled. Eventually she was sent to the Dauphin (later Charles VII), who was impressed by her recognizing him in disguise and to whom she is said to have given some secret sign (never divulged) which attested the supernatural origin of her message. Theologians then gave her a searching examination, found there was no reason for disapproval, and advised the Dauphin to make good use of her abilities.

She asked for troops to relieve Orléans; in April 1429 they left Blois with Joan riding at their head wearing white armour. Orléans was saved. Her presence and belief in her mission had enormously strengthened the morale of the troops. Her wound in the breast by an arrow enhanced rather than diminished her reputation. With the duke of Alençon she took part in a short campaign on the Loire which led to the victory of Patay. In July the Dauphin was crowned at Rheims with Joan standing at his side with her standard. This completed her mission; her voices had warned her that she would not live for very long.

Joan's attack on Paris was a failure, after she was cut off from the main body of troops and captured. The duke of Burgundy imprisoned her and Charles made no attempt to save her .The Burgundians sold her to the English and was imprisoned at Rouen. She was tried for witchcraft by the court of the Bishop of Beauvais. The judges declared that her visions were false and burnt her at the stake in the market-place at Rouen.

This spot is for Christi from South Carolina , USA who believes in Christianity, miracles, courage, passion and God. For more on her visit : kissy1.stumbleupon.com [kissy1.stumbleupon.com]

Nelson Mandela Biography: Jun 26, 10:38pm 1 review biography, non-violence, nelson-mandela, icon-hero •http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history...; .
NELSON MANDELA

(1918-Present)

"I am not a messiah, but an ordinary man who had become a leader because of extraordinary circumstances." Clearly, a changing world demands redefinition of old concepts.

In the revolution led by Mandela to transform a model of racial division and oppression into an open democracy, he demonstrated that he didn't flinch from taking up arms, but his real qualities came to the fore after his time as an activist -- during his 27 years in prison and in the eight years since his release, when he had to negotiate the challenge of turning a myth into a man.

Nelson Mandela was the first black president of South Africa and a legendary figure of the African National Congress, or ANC. From 1964 to 1990, Mandela was imprisoned for opposing South Africa's white minority government and its policy of racial separation, known as apartheid. Instead of disappearing from view, Mandela became a prison-bound martyr and worldwide symbol of resistance to racism. In 1993 Mandela won the Nobel Peace Prize. Mandela was elected the country's president in 1994. He served until 1999.

Rolihlahla Mandela was born deep in the black homeland of Transkei on July 18, 1918. His first name could be interpreted, prophetically, as "troublemaker." The Nelson was added later, by a primary school teacher with delusions of imperial splendor.Mandela's boyhood was peaceful enough, spent on cattle herding and other rural pursuits, until the death of his father landed him in the care of a powerful relative, the acting regent of the Thembu people. But it was only after he left the missionary College of Fort Hare, where he had become involved in student protests against the white colonial rule of the institution, that he set out on the long walk toward personal and national liberation.

Having run away from his guardian to avoid an arranged marriage, he joined a law firm in Johannesburg as an apprentice. Years of daily exposure to the inhumanities of apartheid, where being black reduced one to the status of a nonperson, kindled in him a kind of absurd courage to change the world. It meant that instead of the easy life in a rural setting he'd been brought up for, or even a modest measure of success as a lawyer, his only future certainties would be sacrifice and suffering, with little hope of success in a country in which centuries of colonial rule had concentrated all political and military power, all access to education, and most of the wealth in the hands of the white minority. The classic conditions for a successful revolution were almost wholly absent: the great mass of have-nots had been humbled into docile collusion, the geographic expanse of the country hampered communication and mobility, and the prospects of a race war were not only unrealistic but also horrendous.

Jun 26, 10:37pm: In these circumstances Mandela opted for nonviolence as a strategy. He joined the Youth League of the African National Congress and became involved in programs of passive resistance against the laws that forced blacks to carry passes and kept them in a position of permanent servility.In total Mandela spent twenty-seven consecutive years in detention. From 1964 to 1982 he was held on Robben Island, from 1982 to 1988 in Pollsmoor Prison, Cape Town, and from 1988 to 1990 in Victor Verster Prison, Paarl. From 1985 on he rejected several offers of "conditional" release which would have imposed severe limits on his political activities. In many ways his imprisonment increased his, already considerable, political status and resulted in a worldwide campaign for his release. In February 1990 he was unconditionally released to scenes of joyous celebration at home and abroad.

Helped by a combination of acute intelligence, total moral integrity, and an approach to politics which combined idealism and pragmatism, Mandela has been the key pivotal figure in a political transformation which few believed was possible. Mandela went on to become an advocate for a variety of social, and human-rights organizations.

Nelson Mandela's greatest pleasure, his most private moment, is watching the sun set with the music of Handel or Tchaikovsky playing.

This tribute to an extraordinary personae, is for my dear friend Princess Betsy, an extraordinary human being. My friend, says, `The most lovable quality anyone can possess is tolerance. It is the vision that enables one to see things from another's viewpoint. It is the generosity that concedes to others the right to their own opinion and their own peculiarities. It is the bigness that enables us to let people be happy in their own way instead of our way.She has started to join Group. Click here

For more on her visit : waschabad.stumbleupon.com [waschabad.stumbleupon.com]

Dr Nelson Mandela is one of the humans I respect the most, and you did a great `Bio Review'. I remember, when I was a young girl,I saw slogans written on walls, "libérez Mandela" - freedom for Mandela. I asked my teacher and he told me how unjust it was for colored people in South Africa, and what Mandela was doing for it. I waited for years for his freedom and was so proud of what he did after coming out of prison. Vero (Bella)
bella019.stumbleupon.com [bella019.stumbleupon.com]

The piece on Nelson Mandela is well written. Comprehensive, factual but most important of all,it tells the complete truth, and says a lot in a few words. I used to counsel in his old prison cell in Pollsmoor. They turned his cell into a room for counselors and psychologists for therapy sessions. Today the walls of his cell are lined with huge paintings of him. He is truly a heroe of the world.....regards Michele (Snilloc Creations) snillocreations.stumbleupon.com [snillocreations.stumbleupon.com]

I enjoyed the piece on Mandela, we South Africans call him Madiba, which is a special loving title given to an old man in the African tradition. I had the wonderful opportunity to be in his presence twice, in 1993 and again in 1997. An amazing man. Rosalind Franklin. rosalindfranklin.stumbleupon.com [rosalindfranklin.stumbleupon.com]

Originaly posted on 30th.of August 2007

Edward Lear poems, biography and picture: Jun 25, 9:20pm 1 review biographies, illustrator, edward-lear, landscape-artist, nonsense-poems •http://www.love-poems.me.uk/biography...; EDWARD LEAR

(1812-1888)

The English writer and artist Edward Lear achieved fame as a lithographer, landscape artist, and author and illustrator of numerous travel books. He is now remembered, however, for his nonsense poetry and prose.

Edward Lear was born on May 12, 1812, in Halloway, one of the last of 21 children of a prosperous stockbroker. His childhood was passed in a comfortable home in Highgate, where, because of his epilepsy and asthma, he was educated by his sisters Anne and Sarah. They introduced him to sketching and coloring. He lacked formal training, but his interest and energy made him a skilled draftsman.

When Edward was 13, his father's financial disasters disrupted the family.
A small income enabled Anne to provide a home for Edward. From the age of 15 to 18, he helped support himself by drawings made for doctors and hospitals. A friend got him a commission from the Zoological Society to draw the birds in the London zoo. The 42 hand-colored lithographs of his book The Family of Psittacidae or Parrots have been compared favorably to the drawings of J. J. Audubon.

While working at the zoo, Lear was invited by Lord Derby to make drawings of the menagerie on his estate of Knowsley. In the 4 years he spent there, he became a favorite with the grandchildren. For them he created his first Nonsense Book, a collection of 50 limericks illustrated with delightful nonsense drawings. Trips to northern England at this time woke a desire to paint romantic landscape, especially because close drawing injured his sight. He resolved to go to Rome, where he hoped to sell his watercolors to English residents. Until 1848 Rome remained his center of activity from which he made trips about Europe, Asia, and Africa in search of subject matter for his landscapes.

The need to improve his art induced Lear to invest a legacy in study at the Royal Academy in London. Two years of the slow, outmoded course discouraged him. He accepted an invitation from Holman Hunt to exchange lessons in Italian for help in oil painting. The relationship was fruitful. Hunt became "Daddy Hunt," an artistic support to the older, lonely man. He did a number of oil landscapes between 1840 and 1853 and exhibited the most ambitious of these at the Royal Academy from 1850 to 1853. They did not sell at the price he asked, so he returned to the smaller watercolors and the lithographs for his travel books.

Lear met the children for whom he wrote the poems and prose and drew the illustrations that were published at intervals from 1846 to 1877. He created the inimitable "Owl and the Pussy Cat," "The Pobble's Toes," "The Jumblies," and others.Lear lived in San Remo in Italy for the last years of his life and died there in 1888.

. This spot is for Frenchtwist who likes the work of Edward Lear. For more on her visit : frenchtwist.stumbleupon.com [frenchtwist.stumbleupon.com]

Leo Burnett - World of Biography: Jun 25, 9:20pm 1 review biographies, advertising, media, communication, leo-burnett •http://www.worldofbiography.com/9129-...; LEO BURNETT

(1891-1971)

Leo Burnett founded the advertising agency that carried his name as well as the "Chicago School" of advertising. In Burnett's ads, visual,meaningful images were emphasized over text-filled explanations of the product's features.

Born in St. Johns, Michigan, he studied journalism at the University of Michigan. His first job was as a reporter at the Peoria Journal in Peoria, Illinois. In 1917 he moved to Detroit, where he went to work for the Cadillac Motor Company as a copywriter.

After a marriage to Naomi Geddes in 1918 he moved to Indianapolis, Indiana, where he worked for an advertising agency from 1923-1930.In 1935, he created his own agency in Chicago, which is now known as Leo Burnett Worldwide. He was inducted into the Copywriters Hall of Fame in 1961, and retired in 1967.

Burnett followed Walter Lippman's philosophy of creating an image around the product. Until his time, advertising centered on long text descriptions of the product, with detailed arguments as to why it was better than competing products. Burnett concentrated on style, creating icons as a symbol of the product. He stressed that the creator of an ad needed to somehow capture and reflect what he called the "inherent drama" of the product.

One of his most important uses of internal corporate symbols were the red apples placed on every receptionist's desk. Any visitor or employee was free to take one. This stemmed from a prediction from a Chicago newspaper columnist that Leo would fail miserably in his agency launch in 1935, made in the depths of the Great Depression, and would soon be on the street selling apples instead. Upon reading those words, Leo vowed to give away apples instead.

Another important internal symbol Leo Burnett created was an icon of a 'hand reaching for the stars', which he explained with the saying, "When you reach for the stars you may not quite get one, but you won't come up with a handful of mud either".A third symbol was the "black pencil", an Alpha 245 of the type commonly used by Burnett in his lifetime. To Burnett it symbolised a commitment to the warmth and humanity of ideas, and to the work of the people who create them.

Burnett's use of the animation medium to sell products was slyly given a nod in the anime series Pokémon.

. This spot is for Requiemm from Turkey who likes Advertising. For more on her visit : requiemm.stumbleupon.com [requiemm.stumbleupon.com]

Leonardo da Vinci - Biography: Jun 11, 2:17am 2 reviews biographies, architect, leonardo-da-vinci, painter-sculptor, scientist-mathematician •http://www.artinthepicture.com/artist...; LEONARDO DA VINCI

(1452-1519)

Leonardo da Vinci was a polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician,scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist and writer.

Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the "Renaissance man" or universal genius, a man whose seemingly infinite curiosity was equalled only by his powers of invention. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived. Leonardo da Vinci means "Leonardo from the town of Vinci," and thus he is generally referred to in short as "Leonardo" rather than as "da Vinci"... He received a fresh burst of public interest in 2003 with the publication of The Da Vinci Code, the bestselling thriller by author Dan Brown.

It is primarily as a painter that Leonardo was and is renowned. Two of his works, the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper occupy unique positions as the most famous, most reproduced and most parodied portrait and religious painting of all time, their fame approached only by Michelangelo's Creation of Adam. Leonardo's drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also iconic. Perhaps fifteen paintings survive, the small number due to his constant, and frequently disastrous, experimentation with new techniques, and his chronic procrastination. Nevertheless these few works, together with his notebooks, which contain drawings, scientific diagrams, and his thoughts on the nature of painting, comprise a contribution to later generations of artists only rivalled by that of his contemporary, Michelangelo.

As an engineer, Leonardo conceived ideas vastly ahead of his own time, conceptualising a helicopter, a tank, concentrated solar power, a calculator, and the double hull, and outlining a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics. Relatively few of his designs were constructed or even feasible during his lifetime, but some of his smaller inventions such as an automated bobbin winder and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire entered the world of manufacturing unheralded. As a scientist, he greatly advanced the state of knowledge in the fields of anatomy, civil engineering, optics, and hydrodynamics.

Leonardo Da Vinci was the illegitimate son of a young notary and a farm girl, both of whom married other people of their own social station shortly after his birth, Leonardo was adopted into his father's household when his stepmother remained childless. Unlike his father, Ser Pietro, who had learned Latin in connection with his profession, Leonardo, for all his evident intelligence, proved a poor and distracted student; he received the arithmetical training known as "abacus school" and then seems to have quit his formal schooling to be apprenticed to the famous Florentine sculptor Andrea del Verrocchio (1435-1488).

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