Famous People Flashcards
Painted Persistence of Memory (Melting Clocks)
Salvador Dali
Composer of Carnival of the Animals, the Danse Macabre, 1986 Egyptian Piano Concerto
Camille Saint-Saëns
developed first polio vaccine but refused to patent it
Jonas Salk
Invisible Hand, born in Scotland, “The Wealth of Nations”
Adam Smith
defense mechanisms, clashed with Melanie Klein
Anna Freud
art critic, wrote “Fors Clavigera”, wrote “Stones of Venice”, wrote “Modern Painters”, said “Pathetic fallacies”
John Ruskin
choreographed “Appalachian Spring”, Graham technique is a breathing technique used by ballet dancers, sets designed by Isamu Noguchi and preacher played by Merce Cunningham, “Simple Gifts”
Martha Graham
father of eugenics, wrote “Hereditary Genius”, first to use the phrase “nature vs. nurture”
Francis Galton
Famous choreographer of Rite of Spring (little girl dances herself to death), crashed airplane while little boy looks for a tennis ball, appeared to masturbate at the end of Afternoon of a Faun.
Vaslav Nijinsky
the first Black Supreme Justice
Thurgood Marshall
first Roman emperor, formed Second Triumvirate with Marc Anthony and Marucs Lepidus, ruled as princeps, created Praetorian Guard, added Egypt to empire, got defeated at Battle of Teutoburg Forest
Augustus
stepson of Augustus, unhappy as emperor, mostly resided in villa on Capri, left Lucius Sejanus in control, when Sejanus tried to usurp, Tiberius executed him, Tiberius was emperor when Jesus was crucified
Tiberius
Son of Germanicus, nephew of Tiberius, “little boot”, tried to make his horse (Incitatus) a consul, Cassius Chaerea led conspiracy that killed Caligula
Caligula
Caligula’s uncle, last person to read Etruscan, conquest of Britain, married niece Agrippina the Younger who poisoned him
Claudius
Son of Agrippina the Younger, performed as actor and musician, ordered deaths of many after the Pisonian Conspiracy, fiddled during the great fire of Rome, persecuted Christians
Nero
led the roman empire to its greatest extent, conquered Dacia, built Trajan’s Column and Trajan’s Bridge
Trajan
Trajan’s cousin, withdrew from Trajan’s eastern conquests, beloved companion Antinous drowned in the Nile, Hadrian’s Wall in Britain, crushed the Bar Kokhba revolt
Hadrian
last of the five good Roman Emperors, inherited throne from Antoninus Pius, secured victory over Parthian Empire, dealt with Antonine Plague, Marcomannic War, wrote the Meditations
Marcus Aurelius
stabilized empire after the crisis of the third century, took power by defeating Carinus at the battle of the margus, created tetrarchy where there were two senior emperors and two junior emperors. Unsuccessful edict on Maximum prices to curb inflation, led the last and largest persecution of Christians, first emperor to voluntarily step down
Diocletian
defeated Maxentius at the Battle of Milvian Bridge to seize Italy, proposed Edict of Milan to tolerate Christians, oversaw Council of Nicea, converted Byzantium into Constantinople
Contantine
Roman Emperor who commissioned the Colosseum
Vespasian
first Roman emperor to be born in Africa
Septimius Severus
last man to rule over both east and west empires
Theodosius
last Roman emperor
Romulus Augustulus
author of the Massachusetts Constitution, died on July 4th, fifty years after the Declaration of Independence was adopted, last words were “Thomas Jefferson survives”
John Adams
5’4’’, chief author of Declaration of Independence, pet parrot named Polly, Princeton’s first graduate student
James Maddison
studied law under Thomas Jefferson, created first foreign policy - his namesake doctrine, During his presidency, slavery was outlawed above the thirty-sixth parallel in the Missouri Compromise, held office during the Era of Good Feelings
James Monroe
name this signatory of a treaty gaining Florida with Spanish diplomat Luis de Onis, James Monroe’s Secretary of State, This man was accused of being a pimp for czar Alexander I during his tenure as the first American ambassador to Russia, drafted the Monroe Doctrine
John Quincy Adams
only president to be a prisoner of war, founded the Democratic Party, kept large block of cheese in White House
Andrew Jackson
This principal founder of the Democratic party ran on the Free Soil ticket in 1848, This man’s posh lifestyle was attacked by a political opponent in the “Golden Spoon” oration, and this man resigned as secretary of state following the Petticoat Affair
Martin Van Buren
With the shortest presidential term, this president passed one month into his presidency from pneumonia that fell on him after standing in the rain for an hour giving his inauguration speech, longest speech
William Henry Harrison
The first president to serve without being elected, worked for the annexation of Texas to the United States, a strong belief in states’ rights, had 15 children which is most of any president, “His Accidency”
John Tyler
expanded into Pacific Ocean, built Washington Monument, creation of first postage stamp
James K. Polk
President nicknamed “Old Rough-and-Ready”, better known for defeating an army more than three times his size at the Battle of Buena Vista during the Mexican-American War
Zachary Taylor
Compromise of 1850, didn’t have VP, Commodore Perry was sent on his voyage to Japan during his administration
Millard Fillmore
President whose nickname is “Young Hickory”, As a brigadier general, he tied himself to his saddle but passed out when fighting at Churubusco, helping to earn the derogatory nickname “Fainting.” his 4th of July speech denouncing the Civil War as “fruitless” was interrupted by news of victory at Gettysburg. signed the Kansas-Nebraska Act
Franklin Pierce
last president before the Civil War, served without a wife, this man signed the Ostend Manifesto, name this president during the Fort Sumter crisis
James Buchanan
tallest president, wrestling hall of fame, The Emancipation Proclamation, created Secret Service hours before being assassinated
Abraham Lincoln
“veto president”, was one of three presidents to be impeached, never went to school
Andrew Johnson
Union war hero, diversion of tax revenues in a scandal during this man’s administration, which led to the resignation of his personal secretary, Orville Babcock. The Whiskey Ring Scandal happened, his VP was under investigation for taking bribes from a railroad construction company Credit Mobilier.
Ulysses S. Grant
didn’t serve alcohol at the White House, started Easter Egg Roll, Congress overturned his veto of a bill to put silver into circulation, the Bland-Allison Act, president who ended Reconstruction after the Compromise of 1877, controversial 1876 election
Rutherford B. Hayes
was shot 200 days into his term
James A. Garfield
third president to serve in 1881, rebuilt the Navy, signed the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, signed a compromise tariff that raised some duties and lowered others, leading it to be known as the “Mongrel Tariff.” Chinese Exclusion Act
Chester Arthur
only president to serve nonconsecutive terms, “Veto president”, Panic of 1893
Grover Cleveland
He failed to enforce the Sherman Antitrust Act. served between Grover Cleveland’s two terms. criticized for spending a billion dollars, During his presidency, American sailors were attacked by a Chilean mob, sparking the Baltimore crisis.
Benjamin Harrison
President during Spanish-American War
William McKinley
trust buster, won Nobel Peace Prize, first president to leave the country while in office
Theodore Roosevelt
federal tax through 16th Amendment, got stuck in White House bathtub, began tradition of throwing first pitch at MLB game, turned down Supreme Court position
William Howard Taft
in office during WW1, Nobel Peace prize for League of Nations, printed on 100,000 bill
Woodrow Wilson
presided over the Teapot Dome Scandal. linchpin of the “Ohio Gang” focused on a “return to normalcy”. was succeeded by Calvin Coolidge after dying in office.
Warren G. Harding
Indian Citizenship Act, which gave full U.S. citizenship rights to all Native Americans, only president to be born on Independence Day
Calvin Coolidge
Great Depression, made “Star-spangled banner” national anthem, donated his salary to charity, self-made millionaire, geology degree from Stanford
Herbert Hoover
brought america out of great depression, WW2, served four terms, worked on UN, stamp collector
Franklin D. Roosevelt
dropped atomic bombs on Japan, initiated the Marshall Plan and his namesake Doctrine, and embarked on the Korean War.
Harry S Truman
The commander and 5-Star General of the Allied forces during WW2, this president established the current Interstate Highway System, helped to negotiate an end to the Korean War, and created a permanent civil rights office in the Department of Justice.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
starting the Peace Corps, staying cool through the Cuban Missile Crisis, assassinated
John F. Kennedy
President for The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Vietnam War
Lyndon B. Johnson
Improved relations with the Soviet Union and China and the conclusion of the Vietnam War, the Watergate Scandal and resignation — the only president to do so.
Richard Nixon
The only man to serve without being elected as either President or Vice President, this president spent a great deal of his term mending the country’s feelings towards its leaders while brokering a temporary truce in the Middle East.
Gerald Ford
the Department of Energy and the Department of Education were created, 1979 oil crisis, returned the Panama Canal to Panama, and signed SALT II with Leonid Brezhnev.
Jimmy Carter
Hollywood actor, Cold war, fall of Berlin Wall, escaped assassination
Ronald Reagan
President during Persian Gulf War, knighted by the queen, youngest pilot in the Navy
George Bush
Holding term during the longest period of peace and economic growth, the second of three presidents to be impeached, saxophone
Bill Clinton
In office during 9/11 and deciding to lead the U.S. into Afghanistan and Iraq, overthrew Saddam Hussein.
George W. Bush
Harvard professor who wrote “What Money Can’t Buy”
Michael Sandel
Annual dog sled race in Alaska
Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race
This mathematician invented calculus at the same time as Newton, 17th-century rationalist and philosopher; argued that God created a good world; in order to know, understand, and ultimately choose good, we must have an understanding of its opposite– evil; coexisting with evil was “the best of all possible worlds”; his belief is misconstrued and satirized in Voltaire’s Candide
Gottfried Leibniz
Mathematician who wrote “Elements”, father of geometry
Euclid
“Prince of Mathematics”, famous summation problem when he was a kid, number theory, names the normal distribution
Carl Friedrich Gauss
found the value of pi, has a namesake screw used to pump water upwards, has a namesake property - given any positive x and y in F there is an integer n > 0 so that nx > y
Archimedes
Has namesake “little” and “last” theorem (last thm states no solutions exist for a to the n plus b to the n equals c to the n), has a namesake primality test, first five numbers of his namesake numbers are 3, 5, 17, 257, 65537
Pierre de Fermat
named the base of the natural logarithm e, names the identity “e to the i-pi equals negative 1.”, founded graph theory with his solution to the Seven Bridges of Konigsberg problem
Leonhard Euler
Has two incompleteness theorems, namesake numbering technique that codes formal expressions as natural numbers.
Kurt Godel
Proved Fermat’s Last Theorem, increased the notoriety of the Taniyama-Shimura conjecture
Andrew Wiles
invented quaternions, namesake operator represents total energy of system, revised Lagrangian mechanics, the Cayley-??? Theorem states each square matrix satisifies its characteristic equation
William Rowan Hamilton
King who was victorious at “Battle of the Boyne”, led Glorious Revolution, Nine Year’s War, the Grand Alliance, group known as “Immortal Seven”, first Jacobites rising, Glencoe Massacre
William of Orange
fails to convince a jury not to execute him for impiety in the Apology, taught Plato, “wise because he knew that he knew nothing”
Socrates
the author of dialogues such as Symposium and The Republic, founded school “Academy”, “Allegory of the Cave.”
Plato
Author of “Metaphysics”, taught Alexander the Great, founded the Lyceum, “Nicomachean Ethics”
Aristotle
conceived when his mother saw a baby wrapped in the sun, moon, and clouds, stayed in mother’s womb for 62 years, teaches inaction, wrote Tao Te Ching, “He who knows does not speak”
Lao Tzu
lived in a tub while carrying a lantern around in broad daylight searching for “one honest man.” refuted the idea that man was a “featherless chicken,” told Alexander the Great to “get out of my sunlight,”
Diogenes
namesake school of philosophy is considered to be a form of hedonism, “death is nothing for us” , inspired a later thinker came up with the “swerve”, often considered the first person to state the problem of evil, which is his namesake paradox.
Epicurus
A flying arrow and Achilles and the Tortoise figure in two of the paradoxes of this man. used a form of argument called epicheirema, denied the possibility of motion
Zeno of Elea
considered water to be the original principle of nature, “all things are full of gods,” founder of the Milesian school, discovered that a circle is bisected by its diameter, predicted solar eclipse
Thales of Miletus
Roman consul and orator of the Catiline Orations, denunciations of Marc Anthony in the Philippics, executed people to suppress the Cataline Conspiracy, This man was killed and his corpse displayed in the Forum, cut out his tongue and hands, “When… do you mean to cease abusing our patience?”
Marcus Tullius Cicero
believed the world was in constant flux and made from fire, “all things are in accordance with logos,” , “war is common” and “strife is justice.” you cannot step into the same river twice, “the weeping philosopher,” says “everything flows”
Heraclitus
First people to climb Mount Everest
Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay
first person to reach south pole
Roald Amundsen
namesake renaissance, made the Holy Roman emperor by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day, ordered the construction of Aachen Cathedral, Massacre of Verden, Alcuin of York
Charlemagne
known for the cloak he wore, succeeded the last Carolingian ruler Louis V to form Capetian Dynasty, put on the throne with the help of Sylvester II
Hugh Capet
nicknamed ‘the Hammer”, rebuffed the Islamic advance into Europe through his victory at the Battle of Tours, grandfather of Charlemagne
Charles Martel
captured at the Battle of Fariskur, only canonized king of France, leader of the Seventh and Eighth Crusades, Henry VIII was his vassal, built Sainte-Chapelle
Louis IX
rival of Charles V of Spain who patronized Leonardo da Vinci, brought about French Renaissance, lost to Charles V at the Battle of Pavia, extragant two-week meeting with Henry VIII at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, Jacques Cartier made his explorations in the ‘new world’.
Francis I
first Bourbon king of France, the victor of the “War of the Three Henrys.”, “Paris is well worth a mass”, promulgated religious toleration in the Edict of Nantes, assassinated by Francois Ravaillac, ‘Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre.’
Henry IV
longest reign of any European monarch, AKA Sun King, relocated to Palace of Versailles, Edict of Fontainebleau abolished Edict of Nantes, War of the Spanish Succession, declared “I am the state”, made his son Philip King of Spain, was opposed by the League of Augsburg, one of his mistresses was implicated in the Affair of the Poisons
Louis XIV
French King during French Revolution, Marie Antoinette, deregulation of the grain market caused his country’s peasants to revolt in the Flour War, allowed non-Catholics to practice their religions by signing the Edict of Versailles, his finance minister Jacques Necker, captured in the town of Varennes
Louis XVI
lost to the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo, lost the Peninsular War, crowning as emperor in Notre Dame cathedral, defeated Archduke Charles at the Battle of Wagram, tried to destroy England’s economy with the Continental System, Rosetta Stone was discovered during this person’s conquests into Egypt
Napoleon Bonaparte
last leader of the Second French Empire, Baron Haussmann renovated Paris under this ruler. sponsored a contest to create a low-cost alternative to butter (inventing margarine), entered into the Franco-Prussian War, allowed the establishment of Catholic schools with the Falloux law, named Archduke Maximilian the ruler of Mexico
Napoleon III
first president of the Fifth French Republic, signed the Evian Accords giving Algeria its independence, led Free France during World War II, helped to start the “empty chair” crisis, OAS attempted to assassinate this leader
Charles de Gaulle
founder of the Merovingian Dynasty, first Frankish king to accept Christianity, united Gaul, patronized the first written version of the Salic Law
Clovis I
suppressed the Knights Templar, the Battle of the Golden Spurs, Tour de Nesle Affair
Philip IV or Phillip the Fair
Mentally ill, “Mad King”, king during Hundred Year’s War, lost to King Henry V at the battle of Agincourt, signed Treaty of Troyes
Charles VI
This king, aided by Joan of Arc, ended the Hundred Year’s War
Charles VII
defeated Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings to take the English throne, first Norman king of England, Domesday Book, “Harrying of the North”
William the Conqueror
left the Catholic Church in order to marry Anne Boleyn, named “Defender of the Faith” by Pope Leo X, founded the Church of England, Act of Supremacy, six marriages
Henry VIII
