Topic: Biography (Page 18)

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πŸ”— Eric Roberts (Spy)

πŸ”— Biography πŸ”— Espionage πŸ”— Germany πŸ”— Military history πŸ”— Military history/Military biography πŸ”— Biography/military biography πŸ”— United Kingdom πŸ”— Military history/World War II

Eric Arthur Roberts (18 June 1907 – 17 or 18 December 1972) was an MI5 agent during the Second World War under the alias Jack King. By posing as a Gestapo agent and infiltrating fascist groups in the UK, Roberts was able to prevent secret information finding its way to Germany. Roberts continued to work for the security services after the war, particularly in Vienna, but it was a time of great anxiety in the services because of the suspicions surrounding double agents such as the Cambridge spy ring.

Roberts never felt completely accepted by MI5 because of his social background and a desk role did not suit him as well as his wartime role had. He is the subject of the biography Agent Jack (2018) by Robert Hutton, and his adventures were the inspiration for the novel Our Friends In Berlin by Anthony Quinn and for a major character in the novel Transcription by Kate Atkinson.

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πŸ”— Basil Zaharoff

πŸ”— Biography πŸ”— Military history πŸ”— Military history/Military biography πŸ”— Military history/World War II

Sir Basil Zaharoff, GCB, GBE, born Vasileios Zacharias (Greek: ΒασίλΡιος Zαχαρίας Ζαχάρωφ; October 6, 1849 – November 27, 1936), was a Greek arms dealer and industrialist. One of the richest men in the world during his lifetime, Zaharoff was described as a "merchant of death" and "mystery man of Europe". His success was forged through his cunning, often aggressive and sharp, business tactics. These included the sale of arms to opposing sides in conflicts, sometimes delivering fake or faulty machinery and skilfully using the press to attack business rivals.

Zaharoff maintained close contacts with many powerful political leaders, including British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos and Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II; he served as a primary inspiration for Ian Fleming's fictional James Bond villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

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πŸ”— Anna Politkovskaya

πŸ”— Biography πŸ”— Human rights πŸ”— Russia πŸ”— Russia/mass media in Russia πŸ”— Politics πŸ”— Guild of Copy Editors πŸ”— Women writers πŸ”— Biography/arts and entertainment πŸ”— Biography/politics and government πŸ”— Journalism πŸ”— Ukraine πŸ”— Russia/politics and law of Russia πŸ”— Russia/history of Russia

Anna Stepanovna Politkovskaya (Russian: Анна Π‘Ρ‚Π΅ΠΏΠ°Π½ΠΎΠ²Π½Π° ΠŸΠΎΠ»ΠΈΡ‚ΠΊΠΎΠ²ΡΠΊΠ°Ρ, IPA:Β [ˈanːə sΚ²tΚ²ΙͺˈpanΙ™vnΙ™ pΙ™lΚ²ΙͺtˈkofskΙ™jΙ™]; Ukrainian: Π“Π°Π½Π½Π° Π‘Ρ‚Π΅ΠΏΠ°Π½Ρ–Π²Π½Π° ΠŸΠΎΠ»Ρ–Ρ‚ΠΊΠΎΠ²ΡΡŒΠΊΠ°, IPA:Β [ΛˆΙ¦Ι‘nːɐ steˈpΙ‘n⁽ʲ⁾iuΜ―nɐ pol⁽ʲ⁾itˈkΙ”uΜ―sΚ²kɐ]; nΓ©e Mazepa, МазСпа, IPA:Β [mɐˈzΙ›pɐ]; 30 August 1958 – 7 October 2006) was a Russian journalist, and human rights activist, who reported on political events in Russia, in particular, the Second Chechen War (1999–2005).

It was her reporting from Chechnya that made Politkovskaya's national and international reputation. For seven years, she refused to give up reporting on the war despite numerous acts of intimidation and violence. Politkovskaya was arrested by Russian military forces in Chechnya and subjected to a mock execution. She was poisoned while flying from Moscow via Rostov-on-Don to help resolve the 2004 Beslan school hostage crisis, and had to turn back, requiring careful medical treatment in Moscow to restore her health.

Her post-1999 articles about conditions in Chechnya were turned into books several times; Russian readers' main access to her investigations and publications was through Novaya Gazeta, a Russian newspaper that featured critical investigative coverage of Russian political and social affairs. From 2000 onwards, she received numerous international awards for her work. In 2004, she published Putin's Russia, a personal account of Russia for a Western readership.

On 7 October 2006, she was murdered in the elevator of her block of apartments, an assassination that attracted international attention. In June 2014, five men were sentenced to prison for the murder, but it is still unclear who ordered or paid for the contract killing.

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πŸ”— Mary Kenneth Keller

πŸ”— United States πŸ”— Biography πŸ”— Computing πŸ”— Women scientists πŸ”— Biography/science and academia πŸ”— Women's History πŸ”— Chicago πŸ”— Catholicism πŸ”— United States/Iowa

Mary Kenneth Keller, B.V.M. (December 17, 1913 – January 10, 1985) was an American Roman Catholic religious sister, educator and pioneer in computer science. She and Irving C. Tang were the first two people to earn a doctorate in computer science in the United States.

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πŸ”— Paul Le Roux

πŸ”— Biography πŸ”— Australia πŸ”— Crime πŸ”— Australia/Australian crime πŸ”— South Africa πŸ”— Zimbabwe

Paul Calder Le Roux (born 24 December 1972) is a former programmer, former criminal cartel boss and informant to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

In 1999, he created E4M, a free and open-source disk encryption software program for Microsoft Windows, and is sometimes credited for open-source TrueCrypt, which is based on E4M's code, though he denies involvement with TrueCrypt.

He was arrested on 26 September 2012 for conspiracy to import narcotics into the United States, and agreed to cooperate with authorities in exchange for a lesser sentence and immunity to any crimes he might admit to afterwards. He subsequently admitted to arranging or participating in seven murders, carried out as part of an extensive illegal business empire.

Le Roux was sentenced to 25 years in prison in June 2020.

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πŸ”— Public Universal Friend

πŸ”— United States πŸ”— Biography πŸ”— Women's History πŸ”— Christianity πŸ”— Gender Studies πŸ”— United States/Rhode Island πŸ”— Christianity/Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)

The Public Universal Friend (born Jemima Wilkinson; November 29, 1752 – July 1, 1819) was an American preacher born in Cumberland, Rhode Island, to Quaker parents. After suffering a severe illness in 1776, the Friend claimed to have died and been reanimated as a genderless evangelist named the Public Universal Friend, and afterward shunned both birth name and gendered pronouns. In androgynous clothes, the Friend preached throughout the northeastern United States, attracting many followers who became the Society of Universal Friends.

The Public Universal Friend's theology was broadly similar to that of most Quakers. The Friend stressed free will, opposed slavery, and supported sexual abstinence. The most committed members of the Society of Universal Friends were a group of unmarried women who took leading roles in their households and community. In the 1790s, members of the Society acquired land in Western New York where they formed the township of Jerusalem near Penn Yan, New York. The Society of Universal Friends ceased to exist by the 1860s. Many writers have portrayed the Friend as a woman, and either a manipulative fraudster, or a pioneer for women's rights; others have viewed the preacher as transgender or non-binary and a figure in trans history.

πŸ”— Claude Shannon

πŸ”— United States πŸ”— Biography πŸ”— Computer science πŸ”— Telecommunications πŸ”— Systems πŸ”— Biography/science and academia πŸ”— Cryptography πŸ”— Cryptography/Computer science πŸ”— Electronics πŸ”— Systems/Systems theory πŸ”— Telecommunications/Bell System πŸ”— Cycling

Claude Elwood Shannon (April 30, 1916 – February 24, 2001) was an American mathematician, electrical engineer, and cryptographer known as "the father of information theory". Shannon is noted for having founded information theory with a landmark paper, "A Mathematical Theory of Communication", that he published in 1948.

He is also well known for founding digital circuit design theory in 1937, whenβ€”as a 21-year-old master's degree student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)β€”he wrote his thesis demonstrating that electrical applications of Boolean algebra could construct any logical numerical relationship. Shannon contributed to the field of cryptanalysis for national defense during World War II, including his fundamental work on codebreaking and secure telecommunications.

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πŸ”— John Colter

πŸ”— United States πŸ”— Biography πŸ”— Virginia πŸ”— Montana πŸ”— United States/Wyoming

John Colter (c.1770–1775 – May 7, 1812 or November 22, 1813) was a member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–1806). Though party to one of the more famous expeditions in history, Colter is best remembered for explorations he made during the winter of 1807–1808, when he became the first known person of European descent to enter the region which later became Yellowstone National Park and to see the Teton Mountain Range. Colter spent months alone in the wilderness and is widely considered to be the first known mountain man.

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πŸ”— Professor Ronald Coase has died aged 102

πŸ”— Biography πŸ”— Economics πŸ”— Biography/science and academia πŸ”— United Kingdom πŸ”— Virginia πŸ”— Chicago πŸ”— Virginia/Albemarle County

Ronald Harry Coase (; 29 December 1910 – 2 September 2013) was a British economist and author. He was the Clifton R. Musser Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago Law School, where he arrived in 1964 and remained for the rest of his life. He received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1991.

Coase, who believed economists should study real markets and not theoretical ones, established the case for the corporation as a means to pay the costs of operating a marketplace. Coase is best known for two articles in particular: "The Nature of the Firm" (1937), which introduces the concept of transaction costs to explain the nature and limits of firms; and "The Problem of Social Cost" (1960), which suggests that well-defined property rights could overcome the problems of externalities (see Coase theorem). Additionally, Coase's transaction costs approach is currently influential in modern organizational economics, where it was reintroduced by Oliver E. Williamson.

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πŸ”— Heilmeier's Catechism: questions for every startup, every project.

πŸ”— Biography πŸ”— Biography/science and academia πŸ”— University of Pennsylvania

George Harry Heilmeier (May 22, 1936 – April 21, 2014) was an American engineer, manager, and a pioneering contributor to liquid crystal displays (LCDs), for which he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Heilmeier's work is an IEEE Milestone.