Born: March 3, 1962, East St. Louis, Illinois, U.S. Jackie Joyner-Kersee is an American track-and-field athlete, who won the heptathlon event (an all-around event) at the Olympic Games in 1988 and 1992. She is considered one of the greatest female athletes.She was born Jacqueline Joyner in East Saint Louis, Illinois, and educated at the University […]
Born: April 8, 1912, Kristiania [now Oslo], NorwayDied: October 12, 1969, in an aeroplane en route to Oslo Sonja Henie was Norwegian figure skater and movie actress who helped increase the popularity of competitive figure skating. She won the gold medal for figure skating at the 1928, 1932, and 1936 Winter Olympics.Born in Oslo, Norway,
Born: March 17, 1972, Selma, Alabama, U.S. Mia Hamm is an American soccer player, one of the greatest female players ever. In 1999 Hamm scored her 108th career goal, making her the all-time leading scorer in international soccer-women’s or men’s.Mariel Margaret Hamm was born in Selma, Alabama. Her father served in the military, and Hamm’s
Born: September 4, 1937, Balmain, near Sydney,New South Wales, Australia Dawn Fraser is an Australian swimmer, who was the first swimmer to win a gold medal in the same event at three consecutive Olympic Games. Dawn Lorraine Fraser was born in Adelaide and began to be coached in swimming by Australian Harry Gallagher at the
Born: October 23, 1906, New York, U.S.Died: November 30, 2003, Wyckoff, New Jersey Gertrude Caroline Ederle was an American swimmer, the first woman to swim across the English Channel. Born in New York City, Ederle learnt to swim as a young child and began competing as a teenager. Between 1921 and 1925, she broke many
Born: May 3, 1942, Prague, Czechoslovakia[now in Czech Republic] Vera Caslavska is a Czechoslovak gymnast, the first of the great present-day stylists. She won a record 21 world, Olympic, and European gold medals from 1959 to 1968; she also won eight silver and three bronze medals.At the 1964 and 1968 Olympics Caslavska was an overall
Born: December 26, 1954, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.Susan Butcher is an American sled-dog racer, four-time winner of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, the most demanding race of its kind. Butcher was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. After graduating from high school in 1972, she moved to Boulder, Colorado, and became involved in sled-dog racing or mushing.
Born: April 26, 1918, Baarn, NetherlandsDied: January 25, 2004, Amsterdam Fanny Blankers-Koen was Dutch track-and-field athlete, who won four gold medals at the 1948 Olympic Games in London. She is considered one of the greatest female athletes in history. Born Francina Elsje Koen in Amsterdam, Netherlands, she first participated in the Olympics at the 1936
Born: April 16, 1755, Paris, FranceDied: March 30, 1842, Paris Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun was a French portraitist, who supported herself as an artist beginning at the age of 15. A painting of Marie-Antoinette (1779, Versailles), the first of many Vigée-Lebrun did of the queen, established her reputation. In 1783, she became a member of the Académie
Born: August 3, 1941, Jersey City, New JerseyStewart was an American entrepreneur and domestic lifestyle innovator who built a catering business into an international media and home furnishing corporation, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc.Raised in Nutley, New Jersey, Stewart grew up in a Polish American household where the traditional arts of cooking, sewing, canning and
Born: August 22, 1902, Berlin, GermanyDied: September 8, 2003, Pöcking Leni Riefenstahl was a German motion-picture actress and director, best known for her documentary films of the 1930s on the National Socialist movement in Germany. Born Helena Bertha Amalie in Berlin, she trained as a painter and dancer. She began her career in cinema with
Born: September 23?, 1899/1900, KievDied: April 17, 1988, New York CityLouise Nevelson was Russian-American sculptor, best known for her abstract vertical wood sculptures.Born September 23, 1900, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Nevelson studied at the Art Students League in New York City from 1928 to 1930 and with the German painter Hans Hofmann in Munich in 1931.
Born: July 28, 1609, Haarlem, NetherlandsDied: Feb 10, 1660, Heemstede, near Amsterdam Judith Leyster was the most renowned Dutch female artist of her era. Leyster specialized in portraits, still life and genre scenes (scenes of common people and everyday life). She is often associated with Dutch painter Frans Hals, with whom she is thought to
Born: July 8, 1867, Königsberg, East Prussia [now Kaliningrad, Russia]Died: April 22, 1945, near Dresden, Germany Käthe Schmidt Kollwitz was a German graphic artist and sculptor, born in Königsberg (now Kaliningrad, Russia), and educated in Berlin and Königsberg. In 1898, her illustrations for Die Weber (The Weavers), a play by the German playwright Gerhart Hauptmann,
Born: July 6, 1907, Coyoacán, MexicoDied: July 13, 1954, Coyoacán Frida Kahlo was a Mexican painter, who produced mostly small, highly personal self-portraits using elements of fantasy and a style inspired by native popular art. Kahlo was born in Coyoacán, Mexico, near Mexico City. While a student at Mexico City’s National Preparatory School in 1925,