Albert Schweitzer (1875)

Schweitzer was an Alsatian theologian, musician, philosopher, and physician. Determined to become a medical missionary, he established a hospital at Lambaréné, Gabon, in 1913. He later expanded this facility to include a leper colony. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952 for his "reverence for life" concept of universal ethics, which emphasizes respect for the lives of all beings, and for his medical and humanitarian work.

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Aaliyah (1979)

Aaliyah was a popular American R&B singer, dancer, and actress. Her 1996 album, One in a Million, catapulted her to international stardom with hits like "If Your Girl Only Knew." The album also fueled the careers of Missy Elliott and Timbaland, who wrote and produced it. Aaliyah died tragically at age 22 when her plane crashed shortly after taking off from the Bahamas

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LETS BEGIN IN 2010

Takeshi Kitano (1947)

Kitano is a famous Japanese actor, comedian, TV host, and film director. His films are generally action-oriented and include a great deal of deadpan acting and dark comedy. He is known almost exclusively by the name "Beat Takeshi" and hosts a weekly television program where a panel of entertainers and politicians discuss current events.

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José Martí (1853)

A poet as well as a man of action, Martí was a writer and revolutionary who dedicated his life to the cause of Cuban independence. At the age of 16, he was arrested for treason and exiled to Spain. He returned to Cuba in 1878, only to be exiled again two years later. He fled to the US and founded the Cuban Revolutionary party, but he was killed mere months after proclaiming the uprising that would lead to Cuban independence

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Oscar de la Hoya (1973)

At the age of 19, de la Hoya made his professional debut in the world of boxing, following in the footsteps of his pugilist grandfather, father, and brother. He quickly made a name for himself as an international superstar, earning an Olympic gold medal for the US Boxing Team and winning 38 of 43 professional bouts. When de la Hoya defeated Felix Sturm in 2004, he became the first boxer in history to win world titles in six different weight divisions.

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H.R. Giger (1940)
Giger is a Swiss painter who became popular for providing concept art for the movies Alien and Species and won an Oscar for his work on the former in 1980. His work is often surreal and nightmarish, leading some to classify it as disturbing. His most distinctive stylistic innovation is that of biomechanics, which depicts the connection between human forms and machines.[/b]

H. R. Giger

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LETS BEGIN IN 2010

Sir Thomas More (1478)

More was an English lawyer, writer, and politician who earned a reputation as a leading humanist scholar. He held many public offices during Henry VIII's reign, including that of Lord Chancellor. He is remembered for his book Utopia, which describes an ideal state founded entirely on reason, and for his principled refusal to accept the King as the head of the Church of England—a decision that resulted in his execution on the grounds of treason.

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Afonso IV of Portugal (1291)

Afonso IV, known as "the Brave," was king of Portugal from 1325 until his death in 1357. A soldier and general, he fought several wars against Castile and the Moors and engaged in much political intrigue. Afonso's most important contribution as king was, perhaps, his strengthening of the Portuguese navy, which later became a formidable power in overseas exploration and trade.

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Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleyev (1834 - 1907)

Mendeleyev also spelled Mendeleev

(born Feb. 8, 1834, Tobolsk, Siberia, Russia—died Feb. 2, 1907, St. Petersburg) Russian chemist. He was a professor of chemistry at the University of St. Petersburg (1867–90) and later served as director of Russia's bureau of weights and measures. He made a fundamental contribution to chemistry by announcing in 1869 the principle of periodicity of properties in the chemical elements. His periodic table was based on this principle, arranging the elements in ascending order of atomic weight and grouping them by similarity of properties. Mendeleyev's theory allowed him to predict the existence and atomic weights of several elements not discovered until years later.

Gerhard Richter (1932)

Richter is considered one of the foremost German artists of the post-World War II period, and the prices his paintings fetch at auction reflect this distinction. Unwilling to settle on any one approach, Richter has varied his style from austere photorealism to pure abstraction. Richter's photo-paintings, which reproduce photographic images on canvas in exacting detail, explore the tension between reality and its depiction, between process and material.

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LETS BEGIN IN 2010

Manuel Noriega (1938)
Noriega was a Panamanian general and the country's de facto military leader from 1983 to 1989. A one-time operative for the CIA, he was implicated in drug trafficking, the sale of US secrets to Cuba, and other illegal activities. Following the murder of a US marine on the streets of Panama City, Noriega was captured and brought to America to stand trial for drug trafficking, racketeering, and money laundering.

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LETS BEGIN IN 2010

Leo Szilard (1898-1964)

Physicist, scientist. Born on February 11, 1898, in Budapest, Austria-Hungary (now Hungary). A student of such famed physicists as Albert Einstein and Max Planck, Leo Szilard was instrumental in getting the United States working on the atomic bomb. The son of a civil engineer, he followed his father’s footsteps in 1916. Szilard became an engineering student at a technical university in Budapest.
The physics community was in awe and concern over the discovery of nuclear fission by Otto Hahn and Fritz Straussmann in Germany in 1939. Szilard and several other scientists convinced Albert Einstein to write to President Franklin D. Roosevelt about building the atomic bomb. With the Nazis trying to take over Europe, they were concerned about what would happen if the Germans developed the bomb first.
To this end, Szilard became a part of the famed Manhattan Project, which sought to transform atomic energy for military purposes. He conducted research at the University of Chicago from 1942 to 1945. There Szilard worked with Enrico Fermi to build the first nuclear reactor.

William Roscoe Estep (1920)

Estep was an American Baptist historian, author, and professor of Church history. He was considered to be one of the world's leading authorities on the Anabaptist movement, a Christian sect that rejects infant baptism and practices the ritual of believer's baptism only after a person has made a declaration of faith. Estep wrote numerous works on subjects such as Baptist and Anabaptist history, religious liberty, and world missions.

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Michael Ironside 1950

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With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.

We can't forget Abe. Happy 200th.

Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865)

(born February 12, 1809, near Hodgenville, Kentucky, U.S.—died April 15, 1865, Washington, D.C.) 16th president of the United States (1861–65), who preserved the Union during the American Civil War and brought about the emancipation of the slaves.

William B(radford) Shockley (1910 - 1989)

(born Feb. 13, 1910, London, Eng.—died Aug. 12, 1989, Palo Alto, Calif., U.S.) American engineer and teacher, cowinner (with John Bardeen and Walter H. Brattain) of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1956 for their development of the transistor, a device that largely replaced the bulkier and less-efficient vacuum tube and ushered in the age of microminiature electronics.

Peter Gabriel (1950)

Gabriel is an English singer and songwriter who first rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flutist of the progressive rock group Genesis. In the 1970s and 80s, he became an influential solo artist, producing music videos with groundbreaking special effects and writing the soundtrack for Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ.

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LETS BEGIN IN 2010