William Goldman was an American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. He first came to prominence in the 1950s as a novelist before turning to screenwriting. Among other accolades, Goldman won two Academy Awards in both writing categories—once for Best Original Screenplay for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and once for Best Adapted Screenplay for All the President's Men (1976).
The Italian Wars were a series of conflicts fought between 1494 and 1559, mostly in the Italian Peninsula, but later expanding into Flanders, the Rhineland and Mediterranean Sea. The primary belligerents were the Valois kings of France, on one side, and their opponents in the Holy Roman Empire and Spain on the other. At different points, various Italian states participated in the war, some on both sides, with limited involvement from England, Switzerland, and the Ottoman Empire.
The Battle of Fornovo took place 30 km southwest of the city of Parma on 6 July 1495. It was fought as King Charles VIII of France left Naples upon hearing the news of the grand coalition assembled against him. Despite the numerical advantage of their opponents, the French won the engagement and Charles was able to march his army out of Italy. It was nonetheless devoid of any strategic result as all of their conquests in the Italian Peninsula were abandoned. Fornovo was the first major pitched battle of the Italian Wars.
Sir John Desmond Patrick Keegan was an English military historian, lecturer, author and journalist. He wrote many published works on the nature of combat between prehistory and the 21st century, covering land, air, maritime, intelligence warfare and the psychology of battle.
Martha Ellis Gellhorn was an American novelist, travel writer, and journalist who is considered one of the great war correspondents of the 20th century.
Vladimir Bogdanovich Rezun, known by his pseudonym of Viktor Suvorov, is a former Soviet GRU officer who is the author of non-fiction books about World War II, the GRU and the Soviet Army, as well as fictional books about the same and related subjects.
John Frederick Norman Lewis was a British writer. While he is best known for his travel writing, he also wrote twelve novels and several volumes of autobiography.
Thomas A. DiCillo is an American film director, screenwriter, cinematographer, and musician.
That Hamilton Woman, also known as Lady Hamilton, is a 1941 black-and-white historical film drama produced and directed by Alexander Korda for his British company during his exile in the United States. Set during the Napoleonic Wars, the film tells the story of the rise and fall of Emma Hamilton, dance-hall girl and courtesan, who married Sir William Hamilton, British ambassador to the Kingdom of Naples, and later became Admiral Horatio Nelson's mistress.
Francesco Rosi was an Italian filmmaker, screenwriter and theatre director. His film The Mattei Affair won the Palme d'Or at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival. Rosi's films, especially those of the 1960s and 1970s, often appeared to have political messages. While the topics of his later films became less politically oriented and more angled toward literature, he continued to direct until 1997, his last film being the adaptation of Primo Levi's book, The Truce.
The 1st King's Dragoon Guards was a cavalry regiment in the British Army. The regiment was raised by Sir John Lanier in 1685 as the 2nd Queen's Regiment of Horse, named in honour of Queen Mary, consort of King James II. It was renamed the 2nd King's Own Regiment of Horse in 1714 in honour of George I. The regiment attained the title 1st King's Dragoon Guards in 1751. The regiment served as horse cavalry until 1937 when it was mechanised with light tanks. The regiment became part of the Royal Armoured Corps in 1939. After service in the First World War and the Second World War, the regiment amalgamated with the 2nd Dragoon Guards in 1959 to form the 1st The Queen's Dragoon Guards.
Marocchinate is a term applied to the mass rape and killings committed during World War II after the Battle of Monte Cassino in Italy. These were committed mainly by the Moroccan Goumiers, colonial troops of the French Expeditionary Corps (FEC), commanded by General Alphonse Juin, and mostly targeted civilian women and girls in the rural areas of Southern Lazio, between Naples and Rome. Mass rapes continued across all the campaign including several locations in Tuscany: Siena, ad Abbadia S. Salvatore, Radicofani, Murlo, Strove, Poggibonsi, Elsa, S. Quirico d'Orcia, Colle Val d'Elsa.
David Armine Howarth was a British naval officer, boatbuilder, historian and author.
During World War II the Italian city of Naples suffered approximately 200 air raids by the Allies from 1940 to 1944; only Milan was attacked more frequently. Almost all of the attacks — a total of 181 — were launched in the first nine months of 1943 before the Four days of Naples and the Allied occupation of the city at the beginning of October. Estimates of civilian casualties vary between 20,000 and 25,000 killed.
James Vincent Sheean was an American journalist and novelist.
Michele Pantaleone was a respected journalist and expert on the Sicilian Mafia and one of the first to shed light on the links between organized crime and political power.
Samuel Alexander Adams, known as Sam Adams, was an analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He is best known for his role in discovering that during the mid-1960s American military intelligence had underestimated the number of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army soldiers. Although his opinion was challenged, he pushed the case for a higher troop count. The issue under debate was called the Order of Battle (O/B). His efforts in 1967 met strong and persistent opposition from the Army which, in the short-term, prevailed against him.
Norris Church Mailer was an American novelist, actress, artist, and model. Norris published two novels, Windchill Summer and Cheap Diamonds, and a memoir, A Ticket to the Circus, which focuses on her nearly thirty-year marriage to Norman Mailer.
Quartered Safe Out Here: A Recollection of the War in Burma is a military memoir of World War II by George MacDonald Fraser, the author of The Flashman Papers series of novels. Quartered Safe Out Here was first published in 1993.
Julian Evans is an Australian writer and presenter.
