George Harrison was an English musician, singer and songwriter who achieved international fame as the lead guitarist of the Beatles. Sometimes called "the quiet Beatle", Harrison embraced Indian culture and helped broaden the scope of popular music through his incorporation of Indian instrumentation and Hindu-aligned spirituality in the Beatles' work.
Hezbollah is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and paramilitary group, led since 1992 by its Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. Hezbollah's paramilitary wing is the Jihad Council, and its political wing is the Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc party in the Lebanese Parliament. Its armed strength was assessed to be equivalent to that of a medium-sized army in 2016.
James Maitland Stewart was an American actor. Known for his distinctive drawl and everyman screen persona, Stewart's film career spanned 80 films from 1935 to 1991. With the strong morality he portrayed both on and off the screen, he epitomized the "American ideal" in the mid-twentieth century. In 1999, the American Film Institute (AFI) ranked him third on its list of the greatest American male actors. He received numerous honors including the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1980, the Kennedy Center Honor in 1983, as well as the Academy Honorary Award and Presidential Medal of Freedom, both in 1985.
Michael Schumacher is a German former racing driver who competed in Formula One for Jordan, Benetton, Ferrari, and Mercedes. Schumacher has a joint-record seven World Drivers' Championship titles ; at the time of his retirement from the sport in 2012, he also held the records for the most wins (91), pole positions (68), and podium finishes (155)—which have since been broken by Hamilton—while he maintains the record for consecutive Drivers' Championships and number of total fastest laps (77), among others.
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy and one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. He is a laureate professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona and an institute professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Among the most cited living authors, Chomsky has written more than 150 books on topics such as linguistics, war, and politics. In addition to his work in linguistics, since the 1960s Chomsky has been an influential voice on the American left as a consistent critic of U.S. foreign policy, contemporary capitalism, and corporate influence on political institutions and the media.
The Sex Pistols are an English punk rock band formed in London in 1975. Although their initial career lasted just two and a half years, they became one of the most culturally influential acts in popular music. The band initiated the punk movement in the United Kingdom and inspired many later punk, post-punk and alternative rock musicians, while their clothing and hairstyles were a significant influence on the early punk image.
Walter Elias Disney was an American animator, film producer, voice actor, and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film producer, he holds the record for most Academy Awards earned (22) and nominations (59) by an individual. He was presented with two Golden Globe Special Achievement Awards and an Emmy Award, among other honors. Several of his films are included in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress and have also been named as some of the greatest films ever by the American Film Institute.
Vickie Lynn Marshall, known professionally as Anna Nicole Smith, was an American model, actress, and television personality. Smith started her career as a Playboy magazine centerfold in May 1992 and won the title of 1993 Playmate of the Year. She later modeled for fashion companies, including Guess, H&M, Lane Bryant, Conair, and Heatherette.
The 2006 FIFA World Cup was the 18th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international football world championship tournament. It was held from 9 June to 9 July 2006 in Germany, which had won the right to host the event in July 2000. Teams representing 198 national football associations from all six populated continents participated in the qualification process which began in September 2003. Thirty-one teams qualified from this process along with hosts Germany for the finals tournament. It was the second time that Germany staged the competition and the first as a unified country along with the former East Germany with Leipzig as a host city, and the 10th time that the tournament was held in Europe.
Jacob Benjamin Gyllenhaal is an American actor who has worked prolifically on screen and stage in a career spanning over thirty years. Born into the Gyllenhaal family, he is the son of film director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner, and the younger brother of actress Maggie Gyllenhaal. He began acting as a child, making his acting debut in City Slickers (1991), followed by roles in his father's films A Dangerous Woman (1993) and Homegrown (1998). His breakthrough roles were as Homer Hickam in the biographical drama film October Sky (1999) and as a psychologically troubled teenager in the thriller film Donnie Darko (2001). Gyllenhaal expanded to big-budget films with a starring role in the 2004 disaster film The Day After Tomorrow.
Myspace is a social networking service based in the United States. Launched on August 1, 2003, it was the first social network to reach a global audience and had a significant influence on technology, pop culture and music. It also played a critical role in the early growth of companies like YouTube and created a developer platform that launched the successes of Zynga, RockYou and Photobucket, among others. From 2005 to 2009, Myspace was the largest social networking site in the world.
Brokeback Mountain is a 2005 American neo-Western romantic drama film directed by Ang Lee and produced by Diana Ossana and James Schamus. Adapted from the 1997 short story by Annie Proulx, the screenplay was written by Ossana and Larry McMurtry. The film stars Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway, and Michelle Williams. Its plot depicts the complex romantic relationship between two American cowboys, Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist, in the American West from 1963 to 1983.
Prison Break is an American drama television series created by Paul Scheuring for Fox. The series revolves around two brothers, Lincoln Burrows and Michael Scofield ; Burrows has been sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit, while Scofield devises an elaborate plan to help his brother escape prison and clear his name. Along with creator Paul Scheuring, the series is executive-produced by Matt Olmstead, Kevin Hooks, Marty Adelstein, Dawn Parouse, Neal H. Moritz, and Brett Ratner who directed the pilot episode. The series' theme music, composed by Ramin Djawadi, was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in 2006. Prison Break is a joint production between Original Film, Adelstein/Parouse Productions, Dawn Olmstead Productions, Adelstein Productions, One Light Road Productions and 20th Century Fox Television, and is syndicated by 20th Television.
Hurricane Katrina was a devastating and deadly tropical cyclone that caused 1,392 fatalities and damages estimated at $186.3 billion in late August 2005, particularly in the city of New Orleans and its surrounding area. Katrina was the twelfth tropical cyclone, the fifth hurricane, and the third major hurricane of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. It was also the fourth-most intense Atlantic hurricane to make landfall in the contiguous United States, gauged by barometric pressure.
Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. was an American politician who served as the 38th president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. He previously served as the leader of the Republican Party in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1965 to 1973, and as the 40th vice president under President Richard Nixon from 1973 to 1974. Ford succeeded to the presidency when Nixon resigned in 1974, but was defeated for election to a full term in 1976. Ford is the only person to serve as president without winning an election for president or vice president.
Stephen Robert Irwin, known as "The Crocodile Hunter", was an Australian zookeeper, conservationist, television personality, wildlife educator, and environmentalist.
English is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family, whose speakers, called Anglophones, originated in early medieval England on the island of Great Britain. The namesake of the language is the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to Britain.
Lost is an American science fiction adventure drama television series created by Jeffrey Lieber, J. J. Abrams, and Damon Lindelof that aired on ABC from September 22, 2004, to May 23, 2010, with a total of 121 episodes over six seasons. It contains elements of supernatural fiction, and follows the survivors of a commercial jet airliner flying between Sydney and Los Angeles, after the plane crashes on a mysterious island somewhere in the South Pacific Ocean. Episodes typically feature a primary storyline set on the island, augmented by flashback or flashforward sequences which provide additional insight into the involved characters.
The Spanish Civil War was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republicans and the Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the left-leaning Popular Front government of the Second Spanish Republic, and consisted of various socialist, communist, separatist, anarchist, and republican parties, some of which had opposed the government in the pre-war period. The opposing Nationalists were an alliance of Falangists, monarchists, conservatives, and traditionalists led by a military junta among whom General Francisco Franco quickly achieved a preponderant role. Due to the international political climate at the time, the war had many facets and was variously viewed as class struggle, a religious struggle, a struggle between dictatorship and republican democracy, between revolution and counterrevolution, and between fascism and communism. According to Claude Bowers, U.S. ambassador to Spain during the war, it was the "dress rehearsal" for World War II. The Nationalists won the war, which ended in early 1939, and ruled Spain until Franco's death in November 1975.
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was a South African anti-apartheid activist, politician, and statesman who served as the first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the country's first black head of state and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election. His government focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid by fostering racial reconciliation. Ideologically an African nationalist and socialist, he served as the president of the African National Congress (ANC) party from 1991 to 1997.