…(849–99), king of Wessex 871–99; known as Alfred the Great. Alfred’s military resistance saved SW England from Viking occupation. A great reformer, he is credited with the foundation of the English navy and with a revival of learning…
…a US song-and-dance comedy trio. The act, developed in 1925, consisted of the Joachim brothers Alfred (1901–65), Jimmy (1904–85), and Harry (1907–86). They appeared in such movies as Sing, Baby, Sing (1936), On the Avenue (1937), and Kentucky Moonshine (1938). After 1965, Jimmy and Harry performed as a duo until 1978…
…(1870–1937), Austrian psychologist and psychiatrist. Adler disagreed with Freud’s idea that mental illness was caused by sexual conflicts in infancy, arguing that society and culture were significant factors. He introduced the concept of the inferiority complex…
…(1857–1911), French psychologist. He devised a mental age scale which described performance in relation to the average performance of students of the same physical age, and with the psychiatrist Théodore Simon (1873–1961) pioneered a system of intelligence tests…
…(1856–1919), Australian Liberal statesman, Prime Minister 1903-4, 1905-8, and 1909–10…
…(1873–1907), French dramatist. His satirical farce Ubu Roi (1896) anticipated surrealism and the Theatre of the Absurd…
…(1812–87), German arms manufacturer. His company played a pre-eminent part in German arms production from the 1840s through to the end of the Second World War…
…(1953-), British actor. Notable films include Enchanted April (1992), Chocolat (2000), and Frida (2002). He received a Tony nomination for his performance in Broadway’s Fiddler on the Roof (2004)…
…(1755–1810), US Supreme Court associate justice 1799–1804. A native of North Carolina, he was appointed to the Court by President John Adams…
…(1839–99), French impressionist painter, of English descent. He is chiefly remembered for his paintings of the countryside around Paris in the 1870s, with their concentration on reflecting surfaces and fluid brushwork…
…(1866–1919), French-born Swiss chemist. He showed that stereochemistry was general to the whole of chemistry and was a pioneer in the study of coordination compounds. Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1913)…
…(1859–1935), French army officer, of Jewish descent. In 1894 he was falsely accused of providing military secrets to the Germans; his trial and imprisonment caused a major political crisis in France. He was eventually rehabilitated in 1906…
… 1st Baron Tennyson of Aldworth and Freshwater (1809–92), English poet, Poet Laureate from 1850. His reputation was established by In Memoriam (1850), a long poem concerned with immortality, change, and evolution. Other notable works: ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ (1854) and Idylls of the King (1859)…
…(1898–1995), US photojournalist; born in Dirschau, Germany (now part of Poland). He was one of the original photographers for Life magazine 1936–72…
…(1864–1946), American photographer, husband of Georgia O’Keefe. He was important for his pioneering work to establish photography as a fine art in the US…
…(1830–1905), English architect. His designs include the Manchester Assize courts (1859) and Town Hall (1869–77), and the Natural History Museum in London (1873–81)…
…(1892–1984) US publisher; full name Alfred Abraham Knopf. He founded Alfred A. Knopf, a publishing firm, in 1915…
…(1899–1980), English film director; full name Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock. Acclaimed in Britain for films such as The Thirty-Nine Steps (1935), he moved to Hollywood in 1939. Among his later works, notable for their suspense and their technical ingenuity, are the thrillers Strangers on a Train (1951), Psycho (1960), and The Birds (1963)…
…(1873–1944), US politician. He served as governor of New York 1919–20 and 1923–28 and was a Democratic presidential candidate in 1928, losing to Republican Herbert Hoover…
… Comte de (1797–1863), French poet, novelist, and dramatist. His poetry reveals his faith in ‘man’s unconquerable mind’. Other works include the play Chatterton (1835)…
…(1894–1956), American zoologist and sex researcher. He carried out pioneering studies into sexual behaviour by interviewing large numbers of people. His best-known work, Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male (1948, also known as the Kinsey Report), was controversial but highly influential…
…(1833–96), Swedish chemist and engineer. He invented dynamite (1866), gelignite, and other high explosives, making a large fortune which enabled him to endow the prizes that bear his name…
…(1823–1913), English naturalist and a founder of zoogeography. He independently formulated a theory of the origin of species very similar to that of Charles Darwin…
…(1880–1930), German meteorologist and geologist. He was the first serious proponent of the theory of continental drift…
…(1861–1947), English philosopher and mathematician. He is remembered chiefly for Principia Mathematica (1910–13), on which he collaborated with his pupil Bertrand Russell…
…(1914–2006), American physicist. He used balloons and rockets to study cosmic radiation in the upper atmosphere, showing that specific zones of high radiation were the result of charged particles from the solar wind being trapped in two belts around the earth…
…Al (1939-), Bobby’s brother; full name Alfred Unser. Indy 500 champion 1970, 1971, 1978, 1987…
…(1865–1922), British newspaper proprietor; born Alfred Charles William Harmsworth. He built up a large newspaper empire, including The Times, the Daily Mail, and the Daily Mirror…
…Al (1939-), Bobby’s brother; full name Alfred Unser. Indy 500 champion 1970, 1971, 1978, 1987…
…(1888–1918) US poet; full name Alfred Joyce Kilmer. He was killed in action during World War I. His poetry is collected in Summer of Love (1911) and Trees and Other Poems (1914)…
…(1925–92), English comedian; born Alfred Hawthorne. His risqué humour, as seen in the series The Benny Hill Show, had an international appeal…
…(1887–1987), US politician; full name Alfred Mossman Landon. The governor of Kansas 1933–37, he was the unsuccessful Republican presidential candidate in 1936, losing to Franklin D. Roosevelt…
…(1936–2007), US track and field athlete; full name Alfred Adolf Oerter, Jr. He established an Olympic record for consecutive gold medals, winning the discus throw in the four Olympic games from 1956 to 1968…
…(849–99), king of Wessex 871–99; known as Alfred the Great. Alfred’s military resistance saved SW England from Viking occupation. A great reformer, he is credited with the foundation of the English navy and with a revival of learning…
…(1910–89), English philosopher; full name Alfred Jules Ayer. Involved with the Vienna Circle in the 1930s, he was an important proponent of logical positivism. Notable work: Language, Truth, and Logic (1936)…
…(1916–1995), English short-story writer and veterinary surgeon; pseudonym of James Alfred Wight. His experiences as a vet in North Yorkshire inspired a series of stories including All Creatures Great and Small (1972)…
…(1888–1918) US poet; full name Alfred Joyce Kilmer. He was killed in action during World War I. His poetry is collected in Summer of Love (1911) and Trees and Other Poems (1914)…
…(1884–1946), American author and journalist; full name Alfred Damon Runyon. His short stories about New York’s underworld characters are written in a highly individual style with much use of colourful slang…
…Al, Jr. (1962-), Al’s son; full name Alfred Unser, Jr. Indy 500 champion 1992, 1994…
…(1909–79), American cartoonist; full name Alfred Gerald Caplin. He is best known for his comic strip ‘Li’l Abner’, which appeared in the New York Mirror from 1934 to 1977…
…(1908–2004), British journalist and broadcaster; in the US from 1937; full name Alfred Alistair Cooke. His BBC broadcasts of “Letter from America” began in 1946 and continued until shortly before his death. He hosted Omnibus on CBS 1952–60 and Masterpiece Theatre on PBS 1971–92…
…(1859–1936), English poet and classical scholar; full name Alfred Edward Housman. He is now chiefly remembered for the poems collected in A Shropshire Lad (1896), a series of nostalgic verses largely based on ballad forms…
…(b.1923), German-born American statesman and diplomat, Secretary of State 1973-7; full name Henry Alfred Kissinger. In 1973 he helped negotiate the withdrawal of US troops from South Vietnam, for which he shared the Nobel Peace Prize. He later restored US diplomatic relations with Egypt in the wake of the Yom Kippur War and headed the commission investigating the attacks of September 11…
…(1892–1984) US publisher; full name Alfred Abraham Knopf. He founded Alfred A. Knopf, a publishing firm, in 1915…
…(1887–1987), US politician; full name Alfred Mossman Landon. The governor of Kansas 1933–37, he was the unsuccessful Republican presidential candidate in 1936, losing to Franklin D. Roosevelt…
…(1920–99), English footballer and manager; full name Alfred Ernest Ramsey. He played as a defender for Southampton, Tottenham Hotspur, and England, and managed England from 1963 to 1974, winning the World Cup in 1966…
…(1925–66), American comedian; born Leonard Alfred Schneider. He gained notoriety for flouting the bounds of respectability with his humour, and was imprisoned for obscenity in 1961. He died following an accidental drugs overdose…
…(1907–86), US actor; born in Wales; born Reginald Alfred John-Truscott-Jones. His many movies include The Lost Weekend (1945), A Life of Her Own (1950), and Dial M for Murder (1954)…
