Martin Luther King, Jr., was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, the middle child of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr. and Alberta Williams King.^[5] King Jr. had an older sister, Willie Christine King, and a younger brother, Alfred Daniel Williams King.^[6] King sang with his church choir at the 1939 Atlanta premiere of the movie Gone with the Wind.^[7]

King was originally skeptical of many of Christianity's claims.^[8] Most striking, perhaps, was his denial of the bodily resurrection of Jesus during Sunday school at the age of thirteen. From this point, he stated, "doubts began to spring forth unrelentingly."^[9]

Growing up in Atlanta, King attended Booker T. Washington High School. A precocious student, he skipped both the ninth and the twelfth grade and entered Morehouse College at age fifteen without formally graduating from high school.^[10] In 1948, he graduated from Morehouse with a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology, and enrolled in Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1951.^[11][12] King married Coretta Scott, on June 18, 1953, on the lawn of her parents' house in her hometown of Heiberger, Alabama.^[13] They had four children; Yolanda King, Martin Luther King III, Dexter Scott King, and Bernice King.^[14] King became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama when he was twenty-five years old in 1954.^[15] King then began doctoral studies in systematic theology at Boston University and received his Doctor of Philosophy on June 5, 1955, with a dissertation on "A Comparison of the Conceptions of God in the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman." A 1980s inquiry concluded portions of his dissertation had been plagiarized and he had acted improperly but that his dissertation still "makes an intelligent contribution to scholarship."^[16]

Civil rights leader, theologian, and educator Howard Thurman was an early influence on King. A classmate of King's father at Morehouse College,^[17] Thurman mentored the young King and his friends.^[18] Thurman's missionary work had taken him abroad where he had met and conferred with Mahatma Gandhi.^[19] When he was a student at Boston University, King often visited Thurman, who was the dean of Marsh Chapel.^[20] Walter Fluker, who has studied Thurman's writings, has stated, "I don't believe you'd get a Martin Luther King, Jr. without a Howard Thurman".^[21]

With assistance from the Quaker group the American Friends Service Committee and inspired by Gandhi's success with non-violent activism, King visited Gandhi's birthplace in India in 1959.^[22] The trip to India affected King in a profound way, deepening his understanding of non-violent resistance and his commitment to America's struggle for civil rights. In a radio address made during his final evening in India, King reflected, "Since being in India, I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity. In a real sense, Mahatma Gandhi embodied in his life certain universal principles that are inherent in the moral structure of the universe, and these principles are as inescapable as the law of gravitation."^[23] African American civil rights activist Bayard Rustin had studied Gandhi's teachings.^[24] Rustin counseled King to dedicate himself to the principles of non-violence,^[25] served as King's main advisor and mentor throughout his early activism,^[26] and was the main organizer of the 1963 March on Washington.^[27] Rustin's open homosexuality, support of democratic socialism, and his former ties to the Communist Party USA caused many white and African-American leaders to demand King distance himself from Rustin.^[28]

Throughout his career of service, King wrote and spoke frequently, drawing on his experience as a preacher. His "Letter from Birmingham Jail", written in 1963, is a "passionate" statement of his crusade for justice.^[30] On October 14, 1964, King became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, which was awarded to him for leading non-violent resistance to racial prejudice in the United States.^[31]

In March 1955, a fifteen-year-old school girl, Claudette Colvin, refused to give up her bus seat to a white man in compliance with the Jim Crow laws. King was on the committee from the Birmingham African-American community that looked into the case; because Colvin was pregnant and unmarried, E.D. Nixon and Clifford Durr decided to wait for a better case to pursue.^[32] On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat.^[33] The Montgomery Bus Boycott, urged and planned by Nixon and led by King, soon followed.^[34] The boycott lasted for 385 days,^[35] and the situation became so tense that King's house was bombed.^[36] King was arrested during this campaign, which ended with a United States District Court ruling in Browder v. Gayle that ended racial segregation on all Montgomery public buses.^[37]

In 1957, King, Ralph Abernathy, and other civil rights activists founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The group was created to harness the moral authority and organizing power of black churches to conduct non-violent protests in the service of civil rights reform. King led the SCLC until his death.^[38]

On September 20, 1958, while signing copies of his book Stride Toward Freedom in Blumstein's department store on 125th Street, in Harlem,^[39][40] King was stabbed in the chest with a letter opener by Izola Curry, a deranged black woman, and narrowly escaped death.^[41]

Gandhi's nonviolent techniques were useful to King's campaign to change the civil rights laws implemented in Alabama.^[42] King applied non-violent philosophy to the protests organized by the SCLC. In 1959, he wrote The Measure of A Man, from which the piece What is Man?, an attempt to sketch the optimal political, social, and economic structure of society, is derived.^[43] His SCLC secretary and personal assistant in this period was Dora McDonald.

The FBI, under written directive from Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, began telephone tapping King in the fall of 1963.^[44] Concerned that allegations (of Communists in the SCLC), if made public, would derail the Administration's civil rights initiatives, Kennedy warned King to discontinue the suspect associations, and later felt compelled to issue the written directive authorizing the FBI to wiretap King and other leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.^[45] J. Edgar Hoover feared Communists were trying to infiltrate the Civil Rights Movement, but when no such evidence emerged, the bureau used the incidental details caught on tape over the next five years in attempts to force King out of the preeminent leadership position.^[46]

King believed that organized, nonviolent protest against the system of southern segregation known as Jim Crow laws would lead to extensive media coverage of the struggle for black equality and voting rights. Journalistic accounts and televised footage of the daily deprivation and indignities suffered by southern blacks, and of segregationist violence and harassment of civil rights workers and marchers, produced a wave of sympathetic public opinion that convinced the majority of Americans that the Civil Rights Movement was the most important issue in American politics in the early 1960s.^[47]

King organized and led marches for blacks' right to vote, desegregation, labor rights and other basic civil rights.^[48] Most of these rights were successfully enacted into the law of the United States with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.^[49]

King and the SCLC put into practice many of the principles of the Christian Left and applied the tactics of nonviolent protest with great success by strategically choosing the method of protest and the places in which protests were carried out. There were often dramatic stand-offs with segregationist authorities. Sometimes these confrontations turned violent.^[50]

The Albany Movement was a desegregation coalition formed in Albany, Georgia in November, 1961. In December King and the SCLC became involved. The movement mobilized thousands of citizens for a broad-front nonviolent attack on every aspect of segregation within the city and attracted nationwide attention. When King first visited on December 15, 1961, he "had planned to stay a day or so and return home after giving counsel."^[51] But the following day he was swept up in a mass arrest of peaceful demonstrators, and he declined bail until the city made concessions. "Those agreements", said King, "were dishonored and violated by the city," as soon as he left town.^[51] King returned in July 1962, and was sentenced to forty-five days in jail or a $178 fine. He chose jail. Three days into his sentence, Chief Pritchett discreetly arranged for King's fine to be paid and ordered his release. "We had witnessed persons being kicked off lunch counter stools ... ejected from churches ... and thrown into jail ... But for the first time, we witnessed being kicked out of jail."^[51]

After nearly a year of intense activism with few tangible results, the movement began to deteriorate. King requested a halt to all demonstrations and a "Day of Penance" to promote non-violence and maintain the moral high ground. Divisions within the black community and the canny, low-key response by local government defeated efforts.^[52] However, it was credited as a key lesson in tactics for the national civil rights movement.^[53]

Charles Spencer Chaplin was born on 16 April 1889, supposedly in East Street, Walworth, London, England.^[9] (In 2011, a letter, written to him in the 1970s, came to light, suggesting that he had been born in a gypsy caravan at Black Patch Park in Smethwick, Staffordshire.^[10]) His parents were entertainers in the music hall tradition; his father, Charles Spencer Chaplin Sr, was a vocalist and an actor while his mother, Hannah Chaplin, was a singer and an actress who went by the stage name Lilly Harley.^[11] They separated before Charlie was three. He learned singing from his parents. The 1891 census shows that his mother lived with Charlie and his older half-brother Sydney on Barlow Street, Walworth.

As a child, Chaplin also lived with his mother in various addresses in and around Kennington Road in Lambeth, including 3 Pownall Terrace, Chester Street and 39 Methley Street. His paternal grandmother's mother was from the Smith family of Romanichals,^[12] a fact of which he was extremely proud,^[13] though he described it in his autobiography as "the skeleton in our family cupboard".^[14] Charles Chaplin Sr. was an alcoholic and had little contact with his son, though Chaplin and his half-brother briefly lived with him and his mistress, Louise, at 287 Kennington Road.^[15][16] The half-brothers lived there while their mentally ill mother lived at Cane Hill Asylum at Coulsdon. Chaplin's father's mistress sent the boy to Archbishop Temples Boys School. His father died of cirrhosis when Charlie was twelve in 1901.^[17] As of the 1901 Census, Chaplin resided at 94 Ferndale Road, Lambeth, as part of a troupe of young male dancers, The Eight Lancashire Lads,^[18] managed by William Jackson.^[19]

A larynx condition ended the singing career of Hannah Chaplin.^[20] After her re-admission to the Cane Hill Asylum, her son was left in the workhouse at Lambeth in south London, moving several weeks later to the Central London District School for paupers in Hanwell.

In 1903 Chaplin secured the role of Billy the pageboy in Sherlock Holmes, written by William Gillette and starring English actor H. A. Saintsbury. Saintsbury took Chaplin under his wing and taught him to marshal his talents. In 1905 Gillette came to England with Marie Doro to debut his new play, Clarice, but the play did not go well. When Gillette staged his one-act curtain-raiser, The Painful Predicament of Sherlock Holmes as a joke on the British press, Chaplin was brought in from the provinces to play Billy. When Sherlock Holmes was substituted for Clarice, Chaplin remained as Billy until the production ended on 2 December. During the run, Gillette coached Chaplin in his restrained acting style. It was during this engagement that the teenage Chaplin fell hopelessly in love with Doro, but his love went unrequited and Doro returned to America with Gillette when the production closed.^[21]

They met again in Hollywood eleven years later. She had forgotten his name but, when introduced to her, Chaplin told her of being silently in love with her and how she had broken his young heart. Over dinner, he laid it on thick about his unrequited love. Nothing came of it until two years later, when they were both in New York and she invited him to dinner and a drive. Instead, Chaplin noted, they simply “dined quietly in Marie’s apartment alone.” However, as Kenneth Lynn pointed out, “Chaplin would not have been Chaplin if he had simply dined quietly with Marie.”^[22]

Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden ( /oʊˈsɑːmə bɪn moʊˈhɑːmɪd bɪn əˈwɑːd bɪn ˈlɑːdən/) was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia,^[11] a son of Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, a wealthy businessman with close ties to the Saudi royal family,^[12] and Mohammed bin Laden's tenth wife, Hamida al-Attas (then called Alia Ghanem).^[13] In a 1998 interview, bin Laden gave his birth date as March 10, 1957.^[14]

Mohammed bin Laden divorced Hamida soon after Osama bin Laden was born. Mohammed recommended Hamida to Mohammed al-Attas, an associate. Al-Attas married Hamida in the late 1950s or early 1960s. The couple had four children, and bin Laden lived in the new household with three half-brothers and one half-sister.^[13]

Bin Laden was raised as a devout Wahhabi Muslim.^[15] From 1968 to 1976, he attended the élite secular Al-Thager Model School.^[13][16] He studied economics and business administration^[17] at King Abdulaziz University. Some reports suggest he earned a degree in civil engineering in 1979,^[18] or a degree in public administration in 1981.^[19] One source described him as "hard working",^[20]; another said he left university during his third year without completing a college degree.^[21] At university, bin Laden's main interest was religion, where he was involved in both "interpreting the Quran and jihad" and charitable work.^[22] Other interests included writing poetry;^[23] reading, with the works of Field Marshal Montgomery and Charles de Gaulle said to be among his favorites; black stallions; and football, in which he enjoyed playing at centre forward and followed the fortunes of Arsenal F.C..^[24]

In 1974, at the age of 17, bin Laden married Najwa Ghanem at Latakia;^[25] they were divorced before September 11, 2001. Bin Laden's other known wives were: Khadijah Sharif (married 1983, divorced 1990s), Khairiah Sabar (married 1985), Siham Sabar (married 1987), and Amal al-Sadah (married 2000). Some sources also list a sixth wife, name unknown, whose marriage to bin Laden was annulled soon after the ceremony.^[26] Bin Laden fathered between 20 and 26 children with his wives.^[27][28] Many of bin Laden's children fled to Iran following the September 11 attacks and as of 2010 Iranian authorities reportedly continue to control their movement.^[29]

Bin Laden's father Mohammed died in 1967 in an airplane crash in Saudi Arabia when his American pilot misjudged a landing.^[30] Bin Laden's eldest half-brother, Salem bin Laden, the subsequent head of the bin Laden family, was killed in 1988 near San Antonio, Texas in the United States, when he accidentally flew a plane into power lines.

The FBI described bin Laden as an adult as tall and thin, between 6 ft. 4 in and 6 ft. 6 in. (193– 198 cm) in height and weighing about 165 pounds (75 kg). Interviewer Lawrence Wright, on the other hand, described him as quite slender, but not particularly tall.^[31] Bin Laden had an olive complexion and was left-handed, usually walking with a cane. He wore a plain white turban and he had stopped wearing the traditional Saudi male headdress.^[32] Bin Laden was described as soft-spoken and mild-mannered in demeanor

Albin Egger-Lienz (29 January 1868 – 4 November 1926) was an Austrian painter

He was born in Dölsach-Stribach near Lienz, in what was the county of Tyrol. As an artist, he had a special preference for rustic genre and historical paintings; under the influence of Ferdinand Hodler, Egger-Lienz abstracted his formal language into monumental expressiveness.

He trained first under his father (a church painter), later he studied at the Academy in Munich where he was influenced by Franz Defregger and French painter Jean-François Millet. In 1899 he moved to Vienna. During 1911 and 1912 he was professor at the Weimar School of Fine Arts and he served as war painter during World War I. In 1918, he turned down a professorship at the Vienna Academy and settled in the province of Bolzano-Bozen. Egger-Lienz died on 4 November 1926 in St. Justina-Rentsch, Bolzano, Italy.