Articles with NSK identifiers

Wilhelm_Roentgen

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (; German pronunciation: [ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈʁœntɡən] ; 27 March 1845 – 10 February 1923) was a German mechanical engineer and physicist, who, on 8 November 1895, produced and detected electromagnetic radiation in a wavelength range known as X-rays or Röntgen rays, an achievement that earned him the inaugural Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901. In honour of Röntgen's accomplishments, in 2004 the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) named element 111, roentgenium, a radioactive element with multiple unstable isotopes, after him. The unit of measurement roentgen was also named after him.

Bertold_Brecht

Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a playwright in Munich and moved to Berlin in 1924, where he wrote The Threepenny Opera with Kurt Weill and began a life-long collaboration with the composer Hanns Eisler. Immersed in Marxist thought during this period, he wrote didactic Lehrstücke and became a leading theoretician of epic theatre (which he later preferred to call "dialectical theatre") and the Verfremdungseffekt.
During the Nazi Germany period, Brecht fled his home country, first to Scandinavia, and during World War II to the United States, where he was surveilled by the FBI. After the war he was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Returning to East Berlin after the war, he established the theatre company Berliner Ensemble with his wife and long-time collaborator, actress Helene Weigel.

Dennis_Lehane

Dennis Lehane (born August 4, 1965) is an American author. He has published more than a dozen novels; the first several were a series of mysteries featuring recurring characters, including A Drink Before the War. Four of his novels have been adapted into films of the same names: Clint Eastwood's Mystic River (2003), Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island (2010), and Gone Baby Gone (2007) and Live by Night (2016), both directed by Ben Affleck. His short story "Animal Rescue" was also adapted into the film The Drop, noted for being the final film role for actor James Gandolfini.

Roland_Gérard_Barthes

Roland Gérard Barthes (; French: [ʁɔlɑ̃ baʁt]; 12 November 1915 – 26 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popular culture. His ideas explored a diverse range of fields and influenced the development of many schools of theory, including structuralism, anthropology, literary theory, and post-structuralism.
Barthes is perhaps best known for his 1957 essay collection Mythologies, which contained reflections on popular culture, and the 1967/1968 essay "The Death of the Author," which critiqued traditional approaches in literary criticism. During his academic career he was primarily associated with the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) and the Collège de France.

Erich_Segal

Erich Wolf Segal (June 16, 1937 – January 17, 2010) was an American author, screenwriter, educator, and classicist who wrote the bestselling novel Love Story (1970) and its hit film adaptation.

Daniel_Moynihan

Daniel Patrick Moynihan (March 16, 1927 – March 26, 2003) was a racist American politician and diplomat. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented New York in the United States Senate from 1977 until 2001 after serving as an adviser to President Richard Nixon, and as the United States' ambassador to India and to the United Nations.
Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Moynihan moved at a young age to New York City. Following a stint in the navy, he earned a Ph.D. in history from Tufts University. He worked on the staff of New York Governor W. Averell Harriman before joining President John F. Kennedy's administration in 1961. He served as an Assistant Secretary of Labor under Presidents Kennedy and President Lyndon B. Johnson, devoting much of his time to the War on Poverty. In 1965, he published the controversial Moynihan Report on black poverty. Moynihan left the Johnson administration in 1965 and became a professor at Harvard University.
In 1969, he accepted Nixon's offer to serve as an Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, and he was elevated to the position of Counselor to the President later that year. He left the administration at the end of 1970, and accepted appointment as United States Ambassador to India in 1973. He accepted President Gerald Ford's appointment to the position of United States Ambassador to the United Nations in 1975, holding that position until early 1976; later that year he won election to the Senate.
Moynihan served as Chairman of the Senate Environment Committee from 1992 to 1993 and as Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee from 1993 to 1995. He also led the Moynihan Secrecy Commission, which studied the regulation of classified information. He emerged as a strong critic of President Ronald Reagan's foreign policy and opposed President Bill Clinton's health care plan. He frequently broke with liberal positions, but opposed welfare reform in the 1990s. He also voted against the Defense of Marriage Act, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and the Congressional authorization for the Gulf War. He was tied with Jacob K. Javits as the longest-serving Senator from the state of New York until they were both surpassed by Chuck Schumer in 2023.

King_of_Prussia_Frederick_II

Frederick II (German: Friedrich II.; 24 January 1712 – 17 August 1786) was the monarch of Prussia from 1740 until 1786. He was the last Hohenzollern monarch titled King in Prussia, declaring himself King of Prussia after annexing Royal Prussia from the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1772. His most significant accomplishments include his military successes in the Silesian wars, his reorganisation of the Prussian Army, the First Partition of Poland, and his patronage of the arts and the Enlightenment. Prussia greatly increased its territories and became a major military power in Europe under his rule. He became known as Frederick the Great (German: Friedrich der Große) and was nicknamed "Old Fritz" (German: der Alte Fritz).
In his youth, Frederick was more interested in music and philosophy than in the art of war, which led to clashes with his authoritarian father, Frederick William I of Prussia. However, upon ascending to the Prussian throne, he attacked and annexed the rich Austrian province of Silesia in 1742, winning military acclaim for himself and Prussia. He became an influential military theorist, whose analyses emerged from his extensive personal battlefield experience and covered issues of strategy, tactics, mobility and logistics.
Frederick was a supporter of enlightened absolutism, stating that the ruler should be the first servant of the state. He modernised the Prussian bureaucracy and civil service, and pursued religious policies throughout his realm that ranged from tolerance to segregation. He reformed the judicial system and made it possible for men of lower status to become judges and senior bureaucrats. Frederick also encouraged immigrants of various nationalities and faiths to come to Prussia, although he enacted oppressive measures against Catholics in Silesia and Polish Prussia. He supported the arts and philosophers he favoured, and allowed freedom of the press and literature. Frederick was almost certainly homosexual, and his sexuality has been the subject of much study. Because he died childless, he was succeeded by his nephew, Frederick William II. He is buried at his favourite residence, Sanssouci in Potsdam.
Nearly all 19th-century German historians made Frederick into a romantic model of a glorified warrior, praising his leadership, administrative efficiency, devotion to duty and success in building Prussia into a great power in Europe. Frederick remained an admired historical figure through Germany's defeat in World War I, and the Nazis glorified him as a great German leader prefiguring Adolf Hitler, who personally idolised him. His reputation became less favourable in Germany after World War II, partly due to his status as a Nazi symbol. Historians in the 21st century tend to view Frederick as an outstanding military leader and capable monarch, whose commitment to enlightenment culture and administrative reform built the foundation that allowed the Kingdom of Prussia to contest the Austrian Habsburgs for leadership among the German states.

k.d._lang

Kathryn Dawn Lang (born November 2, 1961), known by her stage name k.d. lang, is a Canadian pop and country singer-songwriter and occasional actress. Lang has won Juno Awards and Grammy Awards for her musical performances. Hits include the songs "Constant Craving" and "Miss Chatelaine".
A mezzo-soprano, lang has contributed songs to movie soundtracks and has collaborated with musicians such as Roy Orbison, Tony Bennett, Elton John, The Killers, Anne Murray, Ann Wilson, and Jane Siberry. She performed at the closing ceremony of the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta, and at the opening ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia, where she performed Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah".
Lang has also been active as an animal rights, gay rights, and Tibetan human rights activist. She is a tantric practitioner of the old school of Tibetan Buddhism.

Laurence_Chirac#Family.2C_early_life.2C_education.2C_and_early_career

Jacques René Chirac (French: [ʒak ʁəne ʃiʁak] ; UK: , US: ,; 29 November 1932 – 26 September 2019) was a French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. He was previously Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and 1986 to 1988, as well as Mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995.
After attending the École nationale d'administration, Chirac began his career as a high-level civil servant, entering politics shortly thereafter. Chirac occupied various senior positions, including minister of agriculture and minister of the interior. In 1981 and 1988, he unsuccessfully ran for president as the standard-bearer for the conservative Gaullist party Rally for the Republic (RPR). Chirac's internal policies initially included lower tax rates, the removal of price controls, strong punishment for crime and terrorism, and business privatisation. After pursuing these policies in his second term as prime minister, he changed his views. He argued for different economic policies and was elected president in 1995, with 52.6% of the vote in the second round, beating Socialist Lionel Jospin, after campaigning on a platform of healing the "social rift" (fracture sociale). Chirac's economic policies, based on dirigisme, allowing for state-directed investment, stood in opposition to the laissez-faire policies of the United Kingdom under the ministries of Margaret Thatcher and John Major, which Chirac described as "Anglo-Saxon ultraliberalism".He was also known for his stand against the American-led invasion of Iraq, his recognition of the collaborationist French government's role in deporting Jews, and his reduction of the presidential term from seven years to five through a referendum in 2000. At the 2002 presidential election, he won 82.2% of the vote in the second round against the far-right candidate, Jean-Marie Le Pen, and was the last president to be re-elected until 2022.
In 2011, the Paris court declared Chirac guilty of diverting public funds and abusing public confidence, giving him a two-year suspended prison sentence.

Ian_Anderson_(musician)

Ian Scott Anderson (born 10 August 1947) is a British musician best known for his work as the singer, flautist, acoustic guitarist, primary songwriter, and sole continuous member of the rock band Jethro Tull. He is a multi-instrumentalist who also plays harmonica, keyboards, bass guitar, bouzouki, balalaika, saxophone and a variety of whistles. His solo work began with Walk into Light in 1983; since then he has released another five albums, including the sequel to the 1972 Jethro Tull album Thick as a Brick, titled TaaB 2: Whatever Happened to Gerald Bostock? (2012).