Articles with unsourced statements from July 2017

Václav Havel (Czech pronunciation: [ˈvaːtslav ˈɦavɛl] ; 5 October 1936 – 18 December 2011) was a Czech statesman, author, poet, playwright and dissident. Havel served as the last president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until 1992, prior to the dissolution of Czechoslovakia on 31 December, before he became the first president of the Czech Republic from 1993 to 2003. He was the first democratically elected president of either country after the fall of communism. As a writer of Czech literature, he is known for his plays, essays and memoirs.
His educational opportunities having been limited by his bourgeois background, when freedoms were limited by the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, Havel first rose to prominence as a playwright. In works such as The Garden Party and The Memorandum, Havel used an absurdist style to criticize the Communist system. After participating in the Prague Spring and being blacklisted after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, he became more politically active and helped found several dissident initiatives, including Charter 77 and the Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly Prosecuted. His political activities brought him under the surveillance of the StB secret police, and he spent multiple periods as a political prisoner, the longest of his imprisoned terms being nearly four years, between 1979 and 1983. In this period, Samuel Beckett wrote a play Catastrophe in Havel's Support. Havel wrote his short play Mistake in response to Beckett. Both plays were published by Index On Censorship in 1984. In 2022, Reza Shirmarz, an Iranian playwright, was asked by Index to write a play (Muzzled) in response to both playwright after a couple decades presenting the ongoing issue of censorship and self-censorship.[1]
Havel's Civic Forum party played a major role in the Velvet Revolution that toppled the Communist system in Czechoslovakia in 1989. He assumed the presidency shortly thereafter, and was re-elected in a landslide the following year and after Slovak independence in 1993. Havel was instrumental in dismantling the Warsaw Pact and enlargement of NATO membership eastward. Many of his stances and policies, such as his opposition to Slovak independence, condemnation of the treatment of Sudeten Germans and their mass expulsion from Czechoslovakia after World War II, as well as granting of general amnesty to all those imprisoned under the Communist era, were very controversial domestically. By the end of his presidency, he enjoyed greater popularity abroad than at home. Havel continued his life as a public intellectual after his presidency, launching several initiatives including the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism, the VIZE 97 Foundation, and the Forum 2000 annual conference.
Havel's political philosophy was one of anti-consumerism, humanitarianism, environmentalism, civil activism, and direct democracy. He supported the Czech Green Party from 2004 until his death. He received numerous accolades during his lifetime, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Gandhi Peace Prize, the Philadelphia Liberty Medal, the Order of Canada, the Four Freedoms Award, the Ambassador of Conscience Award, and the Hanno R. Ellenbogen Citizenship Award. The 2012–2013 academic year at the College of Europe was named in his honour. He is considered by some to be one of the most important intellectuals of the 20th century. The international airport in Prague was renamed Václav Havel Airport Prague in 2012.

Lonnie Alfred "Bo" Pilgrim (May 8, 1928 – July 21, 2017) was the co-founder of Pilgrim's Pride, which at one time was one of the largest chicken producers in the United States. Pilgrim founded Pilgrim's Pride when he opened a feed store in 1946 in Pittsburg, Texas, with his older brother, Aubrey. He became the CEO of the company upon the death of his brother Aubrey in 1966, eventually amassing a net worth of $1 billion US.In 1989, when the Texas Senate was debating a bill to make major changes to the state workers' compensation system, Pilgrim handed out $10,000 US checks to nine of the 31 state senators while on the Senate floor two days before the vote. Pilgrim was not a supporter of the bill, and defended his actions by saying the checks were campaign contributions, not an attempt at bribery. The episode led to changes in the state's ethics laws.In addition to his holdings in Pilgrim's Pride, Pilgrim was also a principal shareholder of NETEX Bancorporation, a bank holding company which operated Pilgrim Bank, a bank with branches in Pittsburg and nearby Mount Pleasant.Pilgrim was also a noted philanthropist, giving money to many different charities and community organizations, including Dallas Baptist University to build the Pilgrim Chapel as well as the Patty and Bo Pilgrim Cancer Center in Mount Pleasant.Pilgrim gave the maximum amount allowed by law to Jeb Bush's 2016 Presidential Campaign. He was a frequent contributor to conservative politicians. For several consecutive years he would donate $25,000 to the NRCC.
Pilgrim died on July 21, 2017, in Pittsburg, Texas. He was 89 years old.

Antoinette Corisande Élisabeth, Duchess of Clermont-Tonnerre (née de Gramont; 23 April 1875 – 6 December 1954) was a French writer of the early 20th century, best known for her long-term lesbian relationship with Natalie Clifford Barney, an American writer. Élisabeth de Gramont had grown up among the highest aristocracy; when she was a child, according to Janet Flanner, "peasants on her farm... begged her not to clean her shoes before entering their houses". She looked back on this lost world of wealth and privilege with little regret, and became known as the "red duchess" for her support of socialism and feminism.She was a close friend, and sometimes critic of writer Marcel Proust, whom she first met in 1903.

Egil Ragnar Monn-Iversen (14 April 1928 – 7 July 2017) was a Norwegian musician, one of the most influential modern composers in Norway. He has had many important roles in Norwegian music, film, opera, television, comedy and theater. For some time he had so much influence in Norwegian culture that he got the nickname The Godfather, even though he always considered himself a down-to-earth musician.
Monn-Iversen owned a film production company, a record label, and an agency for musical artists, he was the founder of the vocal group The Monn Keys, he was the CEO at the Chat Noir theatre, chairman at The Norwegian Opera and from the 1960s until his death in 2017 worked in NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation) and Det norske teatret (The Norwegian Theatre). He composed scores to over 100 Norwegian movies and TV series.
Monn-Iversen was married to the Norwegian actor and singer Sølvi Wang until her death in 2011.

Bernardino Ramazzini (Italian pronunciation: [bernarˈdino ramat'tsini]; 4 October 1633 – 5 November 1714) was an Italian physician.
Ramazzini, along with Francesco Torti, was an early proponent of the use of cinchona bark (from which quinine is derived) in the treatment of malaria. His most important contribution to medicine was his book on occupational diseases, De Morbis Artificum Diatriba ("Diseases of Workers").