Mussolini’s (29 July 1883-28 April, 1945) rise to power was rapid; his Fascist Party Blackshirts marched into Rome in 1922, a year before Hitler’s failed first attempt to seize power, the Munich Beer Hall Putch, landed the German in prison. By the time Hitler became the Fuehrer (Leader) of Germany, Mussolini had been ‘IL DUCE’ […]

Benazir Bhutto, the eldest child of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, was born on June 21, 1953, at Karachi. She attended Lady Jennings Nursery School and then Convent of Jesus and Mary in Karachi. After two years of schooling at the Rawalpindi Presentation Convent, she was sent to the Jesus and Mary Convent at Murree. She passed

Ban Ki Moon became Secretary-General of the United Nations in January of 2007, succeeding Kofi Annan of Ghana. A career diplomat, Ban has a professional reputation as a calm and efficient consensus-builder. He graduated from Seoul University in 1970 and joined the Korean Ministry ofForeign Affairs the same year.Over the next 25 years he served

Sir Ben Kingsley (born Krishna Bhanji on December 31, 1943) is an English actor.Kingsley was born in Scarborough, Yorkshire. His father, Harji Bhanji, was a Kenya-born medical doctor of Indian (Gujarati) descent, and his mother, Anna Lyna Mary, was a fashion model and actress; one of his maternal grandparents was a Jewish immigrant from Russia.Young

The Bengali novelist Bankimchandra Chatterji (1838-1894) was the first writer to use the Western form of the novel successfully in an Indian language.Bankimchandra Chatterji was born on June 26, 1838, in the village of Kanthalpara near Calcutta. His father, Jadavchandra, an orthodox Kulin Brahmin, was a deputy collector of revenues. Bankimchandra received much of his

She was the first Indian woman to climb to the summit of Mt. Everest, in 1984. Her father was a border tradesman who took atta and rice from India to Tibet on mules, horses and goats. He eventually settled near Uttarkashi, where he married and they raised their five children. Bachendri, the middle child, was

Murlidhar Devidas Amte (born December 24, 1914), or Baba Amte, as he is fondly known, was born in Wardha in a family of jagirdars. Trained in law, Baba Amte started a lucrative practice at Wardha, but, moved by the poverty he saw around him, he decided to dedicate himself to social justice.One of India’s most

Azim Hasham Premji, founder of Wipro Limited, India’s biggest and most competitive IT company based in Bangalore, was born on July 24th 1945 in Bombay. Premji was forced to leave his studies in computer science from Stanford University, California, USA at the age of 21 to take over the familybusiness of vegetable oils when his father

Ayrton Senna da Silva (March 21, 1960 – May 1, 1994), better known as Ayrton Senna, was a Brazilian racing driver who won the Formula One world championship title three times. His tragic death in 1994 is still mourned by Brazilians and he remains one of the most beloved Formula One personalities.Born in Sao Paulo,

Known as a revolutionary, ascetic, patriot, philosopher and yogi, Sri Aurobindo was a many faceted brilliant personality. Born in Calcutta on 15th August 1872, he tried to assimilate both Indian and Western philosophical thoughts and find the paths of divine communion and spiritual realization.His father, Dr. Krishnadhan Ghosh, was an Anglophile, and so sent little

Aung San Suu Kyi is one of the world’s most renown freedom fighters and advocates of nonviolence, having served as the figurehead for Burma’s struggle for democracy since 1988.Born on June 19th, 1945 to Burma’s independence hero, Aung San, Aung San Suu Kyi was educated in Burma, India, and the United Kingdom. Her father was

The famous playback singer, Asha Bhonsle has sung over 20,000 songs in practically every Indian language and also in English. She has a unique style of singing. Asha was born on 8th September, 1933 in Goar, Maharastra to a family of musicians, the Mangeshkar’s. Asha started her career in her elder sister Lata Mangeshkar’s shadow. Her

Born in 1961 in Bengal, Arundhati Roy grew up in Kerala. She trained as an architect at the Delhi School of Architecture, but abandoned the field and became better known for her complex, scathing film scripts. She wrote and starred in In Which Annie Gives it Those Ones, and wrote the script for Pradip Kishen’s

Arnold Schwarzenegger was born as the son of a policeman in Graz. Because he wanted to get into the local soccer team, he started to workout. Already at this time was his destiny to obtain a perfect body and muscles. In 1965, when he joined the Austrian Army, his commanding officer withheld the pass to

Aristotle, one of Plato’s greatest students, was born in 384 BC. Aristotle’s father was a physician to the king of Mecadonia, and when Aristotle was seven years old, his father sent him to study at the Academy. He was there at the beginning as a student, then became a researcher and finally a teacher.He seemed