Ashoka, also known as Ashoka the Great, was an Indian emperor of the Maurya Dynasty, who ruled almost all of the Indian subcontinent from c. 268 to 232 BCE. A grandson of the dynasty's founder Chandragupta Maurya, Ashoka promoted the spread of Buddhism across ancient Asia. Considered by many to be one of India's greatest emperors, Ashoka expanded Chandragupta's empire to reign over a realm stretching from present-day Afghanistan in the west to Bangladesh in the east. It covered the entire Indian subcontinent except for parts of present-day Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala. The empire's capital was Pataliputra, with provincial capitals at Taxila and Ujjain.
Charles I was King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. He was born into the House of Stuart as the second son of King James VI of Scotland, but after his father inherited the English throne in 1603, he moved to England, where he spent much of the rest of his life. He became heir apparent to the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland in 1612 on the death of his elder brother Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales. An unsuccessful and unpopular attempt to marry him to the Spanish Habsburg princess Maria Anna culminated in an eight-month visit to Spain in 1623 that demonstrated the futility of the marriage negotiations. Two years later, he married the Bourbon princess Henrietta Maria of France.
Eugene Wesley Roddenberry was an American television screenwriter, producer and creator of Star Trek: The Original Series, and its sequel spin-off series Star Trek: The Animated Series and Star Trek: The Next Generation. Born in El Paso, Texas, Roddenberry grew up in Los Angeles, where his father was a police officer. Roddenberry flew 89 combat missions in the Army Air Forces during World War II, and worked as a commercial pilot after the war. Later, he followed in his father's footsteps and joined the Los Angeles Police Department, where he also began to write scripts for television.
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American musician, singer, and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most influential electric guitarists in the history of popular music, and one of the most celebrated musicians of the 20th century. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame describes him as "arguably the greatest instrumentalist in the history of rock music".
Joy Division were an English rock band formed in Salford in 1976. The group consisted of vocalist Ian Curtis, guitarist/keyboardist Bernard Sumner, bassist Peter Hook and drummer Stephen Morris.
The PlayStation is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released on 3 December 1994 in Japan, 9 September 1995 in North America, 29 September 1995 in Europe, and 15 November 1995 in Australia, and was the first of the PlayStation line of video game consoles. As a fifth generation console, the PlayStation primarily competed with the Nintendo 64 and the Sega Saturn.
Tupac Amaru Shakur, better known by his stage name 2Pac, was an American rapper and actor. He is considered by many to be one of the most influential rappers of all time. Much of Shakur's work has been noted for addressing contemporary social issues that plagued inner cities, and he is considered a symbol of activism against inequality.
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization that aims to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations. It is the largest, most familiar, most internationally represented and most powerful intergovernmental organization in the world. The UN is headquartered on international territory in New York City, with its other main offices in Geneva, Nairobi, Vienna, and The Hague.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, baptised as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period.
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and as chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev stunned the communist world with his denunciation of Stalin's crimes and began De-Stalinization. He sponsored the early Soviet space program, and enactment of relatively liberal reforms in domestic policy. After some false starts, and a near-nuclear war over Cuba, he conducted successful negotiations with the United States to reduce Cold War tensions. His proclivity toward recklessness led the Kremlin leadership to strip him from power, replacing him with Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary and Alexei Kosygin as Premier.
Selena Quintanilla-Pérez was an American singer, songwriter, spokesperson, businesswoman, model, actress, and fashion designer. Referred to as the "Queen of Tejano music", her contributions to music and fashion made her one of the most celebrated Mexican-American entertainers of the late 20th century. Billboard magazine named her the top-selling Latin artist of the 1990s decade, while her posthumous collaboration with MAC cosmetics became the best-selling celebrity collection in cosmetics history. Media outlets called her the "Tejano Madonna" for her clothing choices. She also ranks among the most influential Latin artists of all time and is credited for catapulting a music genre into the mainstream market.
Sense and Sensibility is a 1995 period drama film directed by Ang Lee and based on Jane Austen's 1811 novel of the same name. Emma Thompson wrote the screenplay and stars as Elinor Dashwood, while Kate Winslet plays Elinor's younger sister Marianne. The story follows the Dashwood sisters, members of a wealthy English family of landed gentry, as they must deal with circumstances of sudden destitution. They are forced to seek financial security through marriage. Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman play their respective suitors. The film was released on December 13, 1995, in the United States.
Eric Lynn Wright, known professionally as Eazy-E, was an American rapper, songwriter, record producer, and entrepreneur who propelled West Coast rap and gangsta rap by leading the group N.W.A and its label, Ruthless Records, pushing the boundaries of lyrical content.
Yolanda Saldívar is an American former nurse and fan club president who was convicted of the murder of Tejano singer Selena Quintanilla-Pérez on March 31, 1995, in Corpus Christi, Texas. Saldívar will be eligible for parole on March 30, 2025.
The Ballon d'Or is an annual football award presented by French news magazine France Football that is one of the oldest and generally regarded as the most prestigious individual award for football players. It has been awarded since 1956, although between 2010 and 2015, an agreement was made with FIFA, and the award was temporarily merged with the FIFA World Player of the Year and known as the FIFA Ballon d'Or. However, the partnership ended in 2016, and the award reverted to the Ballon d'Or, while FIFA also reverted to its own separate annual award The Best FIFA Men's Player. The recipients of the joint FIFA Ballon d'Or are considered as winners by both award organisations.
The O. J. Simpson murder case was a criminal trial held in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Former National Football League (NFL) player, broadcaster and actor O. J. Simpson was tried and acquitted on two counts of murder for the June 12, 1994, deaths of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman. At 12:10 a.m. on June 13, 1994, Brown and Goldman were found stabbed to death outside her condominium in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. Simpson became a person of interest after police found a bloody glove behind his house and was formally charged with the murders on June 17. When he did not turn himself in at the agreed time, he became the object of a low-speed pursuit in a white 1993 Ford Bronco SUV owned and driven by his friend Al Cowlings. TV stations interrupted coverage of the 1994 NBA Finals to broadcast the incident. The pursuit was watched live by an estimated 95 million people. The pursuit, arrest, and trial were among the most widely publicized events in American history. The trial—often characterized as the trial of the century because of its international publicity—spanned eleven months, from the jury's swearing-in on November 9, 1994. Opening statements were made on January 24, 1995, and the verdict was announced on October 3, 1995 when Simpson was acquitted on two counts of murder. According to USA Today, the case has been described as the "most publicized" criminal trial in history.
Rabindranath Tagore was a Bengali poet, writer, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He reshaped Bengali literature and music, as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of the "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse" of Gitanjali, he became in 1913 the first non-European as well as the first lyricist to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Tagore's poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; however, his "elegant prose and magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal. He is sometimes referred to as "the Bard of Bengal".
Theodore John Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, is an American domestic terrorist, primitivist and former mathematics professor. He was a mathematics prodigy, but abandoned his academic career in 1969 to pursue a more primitive life. Between 1978 and 1995, he killed three people and injured 23 others in a nationwide bombing campaign against people he believed to be advancing modern technology and the destruction of the environment. He issued a social critique opposing industrialization and advocating a nature-centered form of anarchism.
Rutherford Birchard Hayes was an American politician and attorney who served as the 19th president of the United States from 1877 to 1881, after serving in the U.S. House of Representatives and as governor of Ohio. A lawyer and staunch abolitionist, he had defended refugee slaves in court proceedings during the antebellum years. He negotiated the political agreement to end federal support of Reconstruction.
