Frederique Darragon (29 May 1949, Paris) is a French explorer known for her documentary film The Secret Towers of the Himalayas , which chronicled her expedition to the mystifying stone towers of Sichuan and Tibet. She wrote a book also titled The Secret Towers of the Himalayas. She is founder and president of the Unicorn Foundation, to which profits from the film were contributed. She is the co-founder of the Sichuan University Unicorn Heritage Institute.
She made several important discoveries. By carbon-dating bits of wood from the internal structure of the towers, she confirmed that they were built 500 to 1,800 years ago. The fact that many of the towers have survived hundreds of earthquakes and tremors over the years, is probably due to their star-shaped design as well as to their construction method which intersperses masonry with wood planks or beams – an anti-seismic technique specific to this part of China and still employed in the region today. Combined with the vast numbers and size of the towers, this is evidence that a sophisticated civilization once existed in these remote areas.
Darragon believes these areas are now sure to become a major tourist attraction and has lobbied for the towers to be listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site for their protection and preservation.
Enid Mary Blyton was an English children's writer, whose books have been worldwide bestsellers since the 1930s, selling more than 600 million copies. Her books are still enormously popular and have been translated into ninety languages. As of June 2019, Blyton held 4th place for the most translated author. She wrote on a wide range of topics, including education, natural history, fantasy, mystery, and biblical narratives. She is best remembered for her Noddy, Famous Five, Secret Seven, the Five Find-Outers, and Malory Towers books, although she also wrote many others, including; St. Clare's, The Naughtiest Girl, and The Faraway Tree series.
Ira Samuel Einhorn, known as "The Unicorn Killer", was an American environmental activist and convicted murderer. His moniker, "the Unicorn", was derived from his surname; Einhorn means "unicorn" in German. As an environmental activist, Einhorn was a speaker at the first Earth Day event in Philadelphia in 1970. On September 9, 1977, Einhorn's ex-girlfriend Holly Maddux disappeared following a trip to collect her belongings from the apartment she and Einhorn had shared in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Eighteen months later, police found her partially decomposed body in a trunk in Einhorn's closet.
Sir Peter Alexander Ustinov was a British actor, director and writer. An internationally known raconteur, he was a fixture on television talk shows and lecture circuits for much of his career. Ustinov received numerous accolades including two Academy Awards, a BAFTA Award, three Emmy Awards, and a Grammy Award.
Shangri-La is a fictional place in Tibet's Kunlun Mountains, described in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by English author James Hilton. Hilton portrays Shangri-La as a mystical, harmonious valley, gently guided from a lamasery, enclosed in the western end of the Kunlun Mountains. Shangri-La has become synonymous with any earthly paradise, particularly a mythical Himalayan utopia – an enduringly happy land, isolated from the world. In the novel, the people who live in Shangri-La are almost immortal, living hundreds of years beyond the normal lifespan and only very slowly aging in appearance.
The Mütter Museum is a medical history and science museum located in the Center City area of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It contains a collection of anatomical and pathological specimens, wax models, and antique medical equipment. The museum is part of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia. The original purpose of the museum, founded with a gift from Dr. Thomas Dent Mütter on December 11, 1858, was for the education of medical professionals, medical students, and invited guests of College Fellows, and did not become open to non-Fellows until the mid-1970s. The College of Physicians of Philadelphia is itself not a teaching organization, but rather a member organization or "scientific body dedicated to the advancement of science and medicine".
Robert Greenwald is an American filmmaker, and the founder of Brave New Films, a nonprofit film and advocacy organization whose work is distributed for free in concert with nonprofit partners and movements in order to educate and mobilize for progressive causes. With Brave New Films, Greenwald has made investigative documentaries such as Uncovered: The War on Iraq (2004), Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism (2004), Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price (2005), Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers (2006), Rethink Afghanistan (2009), Koch Brothers Exposed (2012), and War on Whistleblowers (2013), Suppressed 2020: The Fight to Vote (2020), Suppressed and Sabotaged: The Fight to Vote (2022), Beyond Bars: A Son's Fight for Justice (2022) as well as many short investigative films and internet videos.
Anne Wood, CBE is an English children's television producer, responsible for creating shows such as Teletubbies with Andrew Davenport. She is also the creator of Tots TV and Rosie and Jim. She was a recipient of the Eleanor Farjeon Award.
Judy Yung was a historian and professor emerita in American Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She specialized in oral history, women's history, and Asian American history. She died on December 14, 2020, in San Francisco, where she had returned in retirement.
Sabriye Tenberken is a German tibetologist and co-founder of the organisation Braille Without Borders.
The Himalayan Towers, also called Stone star-shaped towers, are stone tower houses built for defensive purpose, found mostly in Kham, a region of Tibet, as well as in the area inhabited by the modern Qiang people and in the historical region inhabited by the Tanguts.
Heather Rae is an American film and television producer and director. She has worked on documentary and narrative film projects, specializing in those with Native American themes, and is best known for Frozen River, Trudell, and Tallulah.
Carla Garapedian is a filmmaker, director, writer and broadcaster. She directed Children of the Secret State about North Korea and was an anchor for BBC World News. After leaving BBC World, she directed Dying for the President about Chechnya, Lifting the Veil, about women in Afghanistan, Iran Undercover and My Friend the Mercenary about the coup in Equatorial Guinea. Her feature, Screamers, was theatrically released in the U.S. in December 2006 and early 2007, and was on Newsweek's pick of non-fiction films for 2006/7. The Independent called it "powerful" and Larry King for CNN described it as "a brilliant film. Everyone should see it." The New York Times deemed it "invigorating and articulate," while the Los Angeles Times called it "eye-opening." "Carla Garapedian is a screamer, too," said the Washington Post.
Fís Éireann / Screen Ireland, formerly known as Bord Scannán na hÉireann or the Irish Film Board, is Ireland's state development agency for the Irish film, television and animation industry. It provides funding for the development, production and distribution of feature films, feature documentaries, short films, TV animation series and TV drama series.
Elena Ochoa Foster, Lady Foster of Thames Bank is a Spanish publisher and art curator, and formerly a professor of psychopathology. She is the founder and chief executive officer of Ivorypress.
Sushma Joshi is a Nepali writer, filmmaker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. Her fiction and non-fiction deal with Nepal's civil conflict, as well as stories of globalization, migration and diaspora.
Laura Poitras is an American director and producer of documentary films.
The Siberian Ice Maiden, known locally as the Princess of Ukok, the Altai Princess, Devochka ("Girl") and Ochy-bala, is a mummy of a woman from the 5th century BC, discovered in 1993 in a kurgan belonging to one of the Pazyryk burials, from the Pazyryk culture in the Republic of Altai, Russia. It was among the most significant Russian archaeological findings of the late 20th century. In 2012 she was moved to a special mausoleum at the Republican National Museum in Gorno-Altaisk.
Susan O'Neal Stryker is an American professor, historian, author, filmmaker, and theorist whose work focuses on gender and human sexuality. She is a professor of Gender and Women's Studies, former director of the Institute for LGBT Studies, and founder of the Transgender Studies Initiative at the University of Arizona, and is currently on leave while holding an appointment as Barbara Lee Distinguished Chair in Women's Leadership at Mills College. Stryker serves on the Advisory Council of METI and the Advisory Board of the Digital Transgender Archive. Stryker, who is a transgender woman, is the author of several books about LGBT history and culture. She is a leading scholar of transgender history.
Jiang Zhuyun was a Chinese communist resistance fighter and revolutionary martyr. She is the basis of the character of Jiang Xueqin, or "Sister Jiang" in the semi-fictional novel Red Crag.
Wang Jianwei is a new media, performance, and installation artist based in Beijing, China.
