Biographies

Biographies

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus
1756-91, Austrian composer whose oeuvre represents one of the great peaks of musical history. His works, written in every genre, combine beauty of sound with classical grace and technical perfection. He learned to play harpsichord, violin, and organ from his father, Leopold Mozart, 1719-87, a composer and violinist. A remarkable prodigy, the young Mozart was composing by age five, presenting concerts throughout Europe as a child, and by age 13 had written concertos, sonatas, symphonies, and operettas. In Italy (1768-71) he absorbed Italian style, and in 1771 he was appointed concertmaster to the archbishop of Salzburg, a position in which he was restless. Idomeneo (1781), one of the best examples of 18th-cent. OPERA seria, was the first opera of his maturity. He moved to Vienna (1781), married, and met HAYDN, to whom he dedicated six string quartets (1782-85), testimony to the two composers' influence on each other. The Abduction from the Seraglio (1782), a singspiel combining songs and German dialogue, brought some success. He turned to the Italian opera buffa, creating the comic masterpiece The Marriage of Figaro (1786). Don Giovanni, considered difficult in its day but now recognized as one of the most brilliant operas ever written, followed in 1787. In the same year Mozart succeeded GLUCK as court composer to Joseph II; Eine kleine Nachtmusik (1787) is an example of the elegant occasional music he wrote in this role. In 1788 he wrote his last three symphonies, Nos. 39-41, which display his complete mastery of classical symphonic form and intense personal emotion. In Vienna he produced his last opera buffa, Cosi fan tutte (1790). In The Magic Flute (1791) he returned to the singspiel, bringing the form to a lyrical height. He then worked feverishly on a requiem commissioned by a nobleman; it proved to be Mozart's own, and the work was completed by his pupil Franz Süssmayr. The composer died at 35 in poverty and was buried in a pauper's grave. A catalogue of Mozart's works was made in 1862 by Ludwig von Köchel; they are usually identified accordingly, e.g., the Piano Concerto in B Flat, K. 595.

Beethoven, Ludwig van
1770-1827, German composer, universally recognized as one of the greatest composers who ever lived. Young Beethoven's musical gifts were acknowledged by MOZART and HAYDN, and his piano virtuosity and extraordinary compositions won him the generous support of the Viennese aristocracy despite his notoriously boorish manners. Despite the onset (1801) of deafness, which became progressively worse and was total by 1817, his creative work was never restricted. Beethoven's work may be divided into three distinct periods. The early works, influenced by the tradition of Mozart and Haydn, include the First and Second Symphonies, the first three piano concertos, and a number of piano sonatas, including the Pathétique. From 1802, his work broke the formal conventions of classical music. This most productive middle period included the Third Symphony (Eroica); the Fourth through Eighth Symphonies; his one Violin Concerto; and his sole opera, Fidelio. Beethoven's final period, dating from about 1816, is characterized by works of greater depth, including the Hammerklavier Sonata; the monumental Ninth Symphony, with its choral finale based on SCHILLER's Ode to Joy; the Missa Solemnis; and the last five string quartets. A prolific composer, Beethoven produced numerous smaller works besides his major symphonies, concertos, sonatas, and quartets. His work crowned the classical period and initiated the romantic era in music.

Picasso, Pablo
(Pablo Ruiz y Picasso), 1881-1973, Spanish painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and ceramicist who worked in France; the foremost figure in 20th-cent. art. Leader of the SCHOOL OF PARIS, he was remarkable for his technical virtuosity, incredible originality, and prolificacy. Admitted to the Royal Academy of Barcelona at 15, he later moved to Paris, where he remained until 1947, then moving to the South of France. His early works, e.g., Old Woman (1901; Philadelphia Mus. Art), show the influence of TOULOUSE-LAUTREC. His production is usually described in series of overlapping periods. In his melancholy blue period such works as The Old Guitarist (1903; Art Inst., Chicago) depicted, in blue tones, the world of the poor. His rose period is characterized by a lighter palette and subjects from the circus. In 1907, Picasso painted Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (Mus. Mod. Art, N.Y.C.), the most significant work in the development of CUBISM and abstraction, and a herald of analytic cubism. In the synthetic phase of cubism (after 1912), his forms became larger and more representational, e.g., The Three Musicians (1921; Mus. Mod. Art, N.Y.C.). In the 1920s he also introduced COLLAGE. His second landmark work was Guernica (Reina Sofía, MadridCentro de Arte Reina Sofía), an impassioned condemnation of war and fascism. In his later years, Picasso turned to creations of fantasy and comic invention. Working consistently in sculpture, ceramics, and the graphic arts, he continued to explore his personal vision until his death at 91.

Van Gogh, Vincent
1853-90, Dutch postimpressionist painter. His works are perhaps better known generally than those of any other painter. The great majority were produced in 29 months of frenzied activity interspersed with epileptoid seizures and despair that finally ended in suicide. His early work, the Dutch period (1880-85), consists of dark, greenish-brown, heavily painted studies of peasants and miners, e.g., The Potato Eaters (1885; Municipal Mus., Amsterdam). After moving from the Netherlands to Paris, he met PISSARRO, who encouraged him to adopt a colorful palette, e.g., Père Tanguy (1887; Niarchos Coll., Paris). His work from his last months at Arles is characterized by the heavy impasto and rhythmic linear style so identified with him; it includes the incomparable series of sunflowers (1888). His last works include the swirling, climactic Starry Night (Mus. Mod. Art, N.Y.C.) and the ominously distressed Wheatfield with Crows (Van Gogh Foundation, Amsterdam).

Renoir, Pierre Auguste
1841-1919, French impressionist painter and sculptor; father of Jean RENOIR. At 13 he was a decorator of factory-made porcelain. Later he was a friend of Bazille, MONET, and SISLEY. In the 1870s he began to earn his living with portraiture, e.g., Madame Charpentier and her Children (1876; Metropolitan Mus.). Simultaneously he developed the ability to paint joyous, shimmering color and flickering light in outdoor scenes such as the festive Moulin de la Galette (1876; Louvre). His ecstatic sensuality, opalescent colors, and admiration of the Italian masters carried him beyond IMPRESSIONISM. His most celebrated paintings include Luncheon of the Boating Party (1881; Phillips Coll., Wash., D.C.).

Hugo, Victor Marie, vicomte
1802-85, French poet, dramatist, and novelist and 19th century France's leading literary figure. His father was a general under Napoleon. As a child he was taken to Italy and Spain and at a very early age had published his first book of poems, resolving "to be Chateaubriand or nothing. The preface to his drama Cromwell (1827) placed him at the head of the romanticists; he remained the greatest exponent of the school and was considered by many the greatest poet of his day. His principal poetic works are Les Orientales (1829), Les Feuilles d'automne (1831), Les Chants du crépuscule (1835), Les Voix intérieures (1837), Les Rayons et les ombres (1840), Les Châtiments (1853), Les Contemplations (1856), and La Légende des siècles (1859). The production of his poetic drama Hernani (tr. 1830), which broke with conventions of the French theater, caused a riot between the classicists and the romanticists. The drama was the basis of Verdi's opera Ernani; Verdi also made use of Hugo's play Le Roi s'amuse (1832) for Rigoletto. Other plays include Marion Delorme (1831, tr. 1872), Ruy Blas (1838, tr. 1850), and Les Burgraves (1843), the failure of which spelled the end of the romantic drama. The tragic deaths in that year of Hugo's daughter and her husband were reflected in a moving series of poems of childhood, including The Art of Being a Grandfather (1877). Hugo's two greatest novels are Notre Dame de Paris (1831, tr. 1833) and Les Misérables (1862, tr. 1862), which are epic in scope and portray the sufferings of humanity with great compassion and power. His other important novels include Les Travailleurs de la mer (1866, tr. Toilers of the Sea, 1866), and Quatre-vingt-treize (1874, tr. Ninety-three, 1874). He began his political career as a supporter of the duke of Reichstadt, Napoleon's son; later Hugo espoused the cause of Louis Philippe's son, and then for a short time of Louis Bonaparte. Because he afterward opposed Napoleon III, Hugo was banished and went first to Brussels, then to the isle of Jersey, and later (1855) to Guernsey, where he lived until 1870, refusing an amnesty. In 1870 he returned to Paris in triumph. He was elected to the national assembly and the senate. His last years were marked by public veneration and acclaim, and he was buried in the Panthéon. Critics are divided as to his relative greatness, but he was a towering figure in 19th-century French literature.

Molière, Jean Baptiste Poquelin
1622-73, French playwright and actor, the creator of high French COMEDY; b. Jean Baptiste Poquelin. The son of a merchant, Molière early joined the Béjart troupe of actors. After touring the provinces for 13 years, the company, now headed by Molière, returned to Paris under the patronage of Louis XIV. It performed with continuous success at the Palais Royal and was the forerunner of the Comédie Française. At once actor, director, stage manager, and writer, Molière produced farces, comedies, masques, and ballets for the entertainment of the court. Best known are the comedies of character that ridicule a vice or a type of excess by caricaturing a person who incarnates it. Among these satires are Tartuffe (1664)-the religious hypocrite; Le Misanthrope (1666)-the antisocial man; The Miser (1668); The Would-be Gentleman (1670)-the parvenu; The Learned Women (1672)-affected intellectuals; The Imaginary Invalid (1673)-the hypochondriac. Molière's genius is equally apparent in his broad farces: The Doctor in Spite of Himself (1666), George Dandin (1668), and Scapin, the Trickster (1671). Other works include the poetic Amphitryon (1668), after PLAUTUS, and The Forced Marriage (1664).

Shakespeare, William
1564-1616, English dramatist and poet, b. Stratford-on-Avon. He is considered the greatest playwright who ever lived. His father, John Shakespeare, was successful in the leather business during Shakespeare's early childhood but later met with financial difficulties. During his prosperous years his father was also involved in municipal affairs, holding the offices of alderman and bailiff during the 1560s. While little is known of Shakespeare's boyhood, he probably attended the grammar school in Stratford, where he would have been educated in the classics, particularly Latin grammar and literature. Whatever the veracity of Ben Jonson's famous comment that Shakespeare had small Latine, and less Greeke, much of his work clearly depends on a knowledge of Roman comedy, ancient history, and classical mythology.

In 1582 Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, eight years his senior and pregnant at the time of the marriage. They had three children: Susanna, born in 1583, and twins, Hamnet and Judith, born in 1585. Nothing is known of the period between the birth of the twins and Shakespeare's emergence as a playwright in London (c.1592). However, various suggestions have been made regarding this time, including those that he fled Stratford to avoid prosecution for stealing deer, that he joined a group of traveling players, and that he was a country schoolteacher. The last suggestion is given some credence by the academic style of his early plays; The Comedy of Errors, for example, is an adaptation of two plays by Plautus.

In 1594 Shakespeare became an actor and playwright for the Lord Chamberlain's Men, the company that later became the King's Men under James I. Until the end of his London career Shakespeare remained with the company; it is thought that as an actor he played old men's roles, such as the ghost in Hamlet and Old Adam in As You Like It. In 1596 he obtained a coat of arms, and by 1597 he was prosperous enough to buy New Place in Stratford, which later was the home of his retirement years. In 1599 he became a partner in the ownership of the Globe theatre, and in 1608 he was part owner of the Blackfriars theatre. Shakespeare retired and returned to Stratford c.1613. He undoubtedly enjoyed a comfortable living throughout his career and in retirement, although he was never a wealthy man.

Monet, Claude
1840-1926, French landscape painter, b. Paris. Monet was a founder of impressionism. He adhered to its principles throughout his long career and is considered the most consistently representative painter of the school as well as one of the foremost painters of landscape in the history of art.
As a youth in Le Havre, Monet was encouraged by the marine painter Boudin to paint in the open air, a practice he never forsook. After two years (1860-62) with the army in Algeria, he went to Paris, over parental objections, to study painting. In Paris, Monet formed lasting friendships with the artists who would become the major impressionists, including Pissarro, Cézanne, Renoir, Sisley, and Bazille. He and several of his friends painted for a time out-of-doors in the Barbizon district.

Monet soon began to concern himself with his lifelong objective: portraying the variations of light and atmosphere brought on by changes of hour and season. Rather than copy in the Louvre, the traditional practice of young artists, Monet learned from his friends, from the landscape itself, and from the works of his older contemporaries Manet, Corot, and Courbet. Monet's representation of light was based on his knowledge of the laws of optics as well as his own observations of his subjects. He often showed natural color by breaking it down into its different components as a prism does. Eliminating black and gray from his palette, Monet rejected entirely the academic approach to landscape.

In his later works Monet allowed his vision of light to dissolve the real structures of his subjects. To do this he chose simple matter, making several series of studies of the same object at different times of day or year: haystacks, morning views of the Seine, the Gare Saint-Lazare (1876-78), poplars (begun 1890), the Thames, the celebrated group of Rouen Cathedral (1892-94), and the last great lyrical series of water lilies (1899, and 1904-25), painted in his own garden at Giverny (one version, a vast triptych c.1920; Mus. of Modern Art, New York City).

In 1874 Sisley, Morisot, and Monet organized the first impressionist group show, which was ferociously maligned by the critics, who coined the term impressionism after Monet's Impression: Sunrise, 1872 (Mus. Marmottan, Paris). The show failed financially. However, by 1883 Monet had prospered, and he retired from Paris to his home in Giverny. In the last decade of his life Monet, nearly blind, painted a group of large water lily murals (Nymphéas) for the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris.

Monet's work is particularly well represented in the Louvre, the Marmottan (Paris), the National Gallery (London), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago. It is also included in many famous private collections.

Christie, Dame Agatha
1891-1976, English detective story writer. Christie was married to the archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan, and gained much material for her later novels during his excavations in the Middle East. An extraordinarily popular author, Christie wrote over 80 books, most of them featuring one of her two famous detectives; Hercule Poirot, the egotistical Belgian, and Miss Jane Marple, the elderly spinster. Her novels, noted for their skillful plots, include The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920), The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926), Murder on the Orient Express (1934), Death on the Nile (1937), And Then There Were None (1940), Death Comes as the End (1945), Funerals Are Fatal (1953), The Pale Horse (1962), Passenger to Frankfurt (1970), Elephants Can Remember (1973), and Curtain (1975); her plays include The Mousetrap (1952), one of the longest running plays in theatrical history, and Witness for the Prosecution (1954). Christie also published novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. She was named Dame Commander, Order of the British Empire, in 1971.

Marx, Karl
1818-83, German social philosopher and revolutionary; with Friedrich ENGELS, a founder of modern SOCIALISM and COMMUNISM. The son of a lawyer, he studied law and philosophy; he rejected the idealism of G.W.F. HEGEL but was influenced by Ludwig FEUERBACH and Moses HESS. His editorship (1842-43) of the Rheinische Zeitung ended when the paper was suppressed. In 1844 he met Engels in Paris, beginning a lifelong collaboration. With Engels he wrote the Communist Manifesto (1848) and other works that broke with the tradition of appealing to natural rights to justify social reform, invoking instead the laws of history leading inevitably to the triumph of the working class. Exiled from Europe after the REVOLUTIONS OF 1848, Marx lived in London, earning some money as a correspondent for the New York Tribune but dependent on Engels's financial help while working on his monumental work Das Kapital (3 vol., 1867-94), in which he used DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM to analyze economic and social history; Engels edited vol. 2 and 3 after Marx's death. With Engels, Marx helped found (1864) the International Workingmen's Association, but his disputes with the anarchist Mikhail BAKUNIN eventually led to its breakup. MARXISM has greatly influenced the development of socialist thought; further, many scholars have considered Marx a great economic theoretician and the founder of economic history and sociology.

Einstein, Albert
1879-1955, American theoretical physicist; b. Germany; recognized as one of the greatest physicists of all time. He became (1914) titular professor of physics and director of theoretical physics at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin. The Nazi government confiscated (1934) his property and revoked his German citizenship because he was Jewish, and in 1940 Einstein became an American citizen, holding a post at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton from 1933 until his death. Although an ardent pacifist, he urged Pres. F.D. ROOSEVELT to investigate the possible use of atomic energy in bombs. In one of three important 1905 papers, he explained BROWNIAN MOVEMENT on the basis of his study of the motion of atoms. His special theory of RELATIVITY (1905) dealt with systems or observers in uniform (unaccelerated) motion with respect to one another. He asserted (1911) the equality of GRAVITATION and INERTIA and formulated (c.1916) a general theory of relativity that included gravitation as a determiner of the curvature of a SPACE-TIME continuum. Einstein contributed to the development of QUANTUM MECHANICS, postulating (1905) light quanta (PHOTONS), on which he based his explanation of the PHOTOELECTRIC EFFECT, and developing the quantum theory of SPECIFIC HEAT. Working on a unified field theory, he attempted to explain gravitation and electromagnetism with one set of laws. For his work in theoretical physics, notably on the photoelectric effect, he received the 1921 Nobel Prize in physics.

Leonardo da Vinci
1452-1519, Italian painter, sculptor, architect, musician, engineer, and scientist, probably the supreme example of RENAISSANCE genius. Born in Vinci, Tuscany, he was the illegitimate son of a Florentine notary and a peasant girl. His precocious artistic talent brought him to VERROCCHIO's workshop in 1466, where he met BOTTICELLI and GHIRLANDAIO. The culmination of his art in this first period in Florence is seen in the magnificent, unfinished Adoration of the Magi (Uffizi), with its characteristic dramatic movement and chiaroscuro. In c.1482 Leonardo went to the court of Ludovico SFORZA in Milan and there composed most of his Trattato della pittura and the notebooks that demonstrate his versatile genius. The severe plagues in 1484 and 1485 drew his attention to town planning, and his drawings and plans for domed churches reflect his concern with architectural problems. In 1483, Leonardo and his pupil Ambrogio de Predis were commissioned to execute the famous Madonna of the Rocks (two versions: 1483-c.1486, Louvre; 1483-1508, National Gall., London). The now badly damaged Last Supper (c.1495-1498; Milan) was executed during the period when he was experimenting with the FRESCO medium, and this partly accounts for its damage. Despite this, a sublime spiritual content and power of invention mark it as one of the world's masterpieces. Leonardo's model for an equestrian monument to Francesco Sforza was never cast, and in 1500 he returned to Florence, where he did much theoretical work in mathematics and pursued his anatomical studies in the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova. As a military engineer for Cesare BORGIA he studied swamp reclamation and met Niccolò MACHIAVELLI. In c.1503 he executed the celebrated Mona Lisa (Louvre). Then, as architect and engineer in Milan to the French king LOUIS XII, he continued his scientific investigations into geology, botany, hydraulics, and mechanics. In 1510-11 he painted St. Anne, Mary, and the Child (Louvre), a work that exemplifies his handling of sfumato-misty, subtle transitions in tone. His enigmatic St. John the Baptist (c.1513; Louvre) was executed for Pope LEO X and his brother Giuliano de' Medici in Rome. Shortly after 1515, Leonardo accepted an invitation from FRANCIS I of France to settle in the castle of Cloux. Here he pursued his own researches until his death. His versatility and creative power, as well as the richness and originality expressed in his notebooks, drawings, and paintings, mark him as one of the great minds of all time.

Newton, Sir Isaac
1642-1727, English mathematician and natural philosopher (physicist); considered by many the greatest scientist of all time. He was Lucasian professor of mathematics (1669-1701) at Cambridge Univ. Between 1664 and 1666 he discovered the law of universal GRAVITATION, began to develop the CALCULUS, and discovered that white light is composed of every color in the SPECTRUM. In his monumental Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica [Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy] (1687), he showed how his principle of universal gravitation explained both the motions of heavenly bodies and the falling of bodies on earth. The Principia covers DYNAMICS (including Newton's three laws of MOTION), FLUID MECHANICS, the motions of the planets and their satellites, the motions of the comets, and the phenomena of TIDES. Newton's theory that LIGHT is composed of particles-elaborated in his Opticks (1704)-dominated optics until the 19th cent., when it was replaced by the wave theory of light; the two theories were combined in modern QUANTUM MECHANICS. Newton also built (1668) the first reflecting TELESCOPE, anticipated the calculus of variations, and devoted much energy towards alchemy, theology, and history. He was president of the Royal Society from 1703 until his death.

Copernicus, Nicholas
1473-1543, Polish astronomer. After studying law and medicine at the Univ. of Cracow and at Bologna, Padua, and Ferrara, he took up (1512) his duties as canon of a cathedral in Frauenberg, East Prussia. Copernicus laid the foundation for modern astronomy with his heliocentric theory of planetary motion (see COPERNICAN SYSTEM). This theory, first presented (1512 or earlier) in a short form in his unpublished manuscript Commentariolus, was probably completed by 1530 and was published in his classic work De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (1543).

Galileo
(Galileo Galilei), 1564-1642, Italian astronomer, mathematician, and physicist. At the age of 19 he discovered the principle of isochronism-that each oscillation of a pendulum takes the same time despite changes in amplitude. Soon thereafter he became known for his invention of a hydrostatic balance and his treatise on the center of gravity of falling bodies. He found experimentally that bodies do not fall with velocities proportional to their weights, a conclusion received with hostility because it contradicted the accepted teaching of ARISTOTLE. Galileo discovered that the path of a projectile is a parabola, and he is credited with anticipating Isaac NEWTON's laws of motion. In 1609 he constructed the first astronomical telescope, which he used to discover the four largest satellites of Jupiter and the stellar composition of the Milky Way, and in 1632 he published his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, a work that upheld the COPERNICAN SYSTEM rather than the PTOLEMAIC SYSTEM and marked a turning point in scientific and philosophical thought. Brought (1633) before the INQUISITION in Rome, he was made to renounce all his beliefs and writings supporting the Copernican theory. His last book, Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences (1638), contains most of his contributions to physics.

Kennedy, John Fitzgerald
1917-63, 35th president of the U.S. (1961-63); son of Joseph P. Kennedy; brother of Robert Francis Kennedy and Edward Moore Kennedy (see KENNEDY, family); b. Brookline, Mass. After enlisting in the U.S. navy in World War II, he served with distinction as commander of a PT boat in the Pacific. He was a Democratic congressman from Massachusetts (1947-53) and in 1952 won a seat in the U.S. Senate. The next year he married Jacqueline Lee Bouvier (see ONASSIS, JACQUELINE BOUVIER). Kennedy narrowly lost the Democratic vice presidential nomination in 1956 and in 1960 won the party's presidential nomination. He defeated Republican Richard NIXON, becoming at 43 the youngest man to be elected president. His domestic program, the New Frontier, called for tax reform, federal aid to education, medical care for the aged under Social Security, and the extension of civil rights. Many of his reforms, however, stalled in Congress, and foreign-affairs crises occupied much of his time. He was much criticized for his approval for the abortive BAY OF PIGS INVASION (1961) of Cuba. In Oct. 1962 U.S. reconnaissance planes discovered Soviet missile bases there. In the ensuing CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS, Kennedy ordered a blockade of Cuba and demanded the removal of the missiles. After a brief and tense interval, the USSR complied with his demands. The next year the U.S. and the Soviet Union signed a limited treaty banning nuclear tests. Kennedy also increased the number of U.S. military advisers in South Vietnam to about 16,000 (see VIETNAM WAR). He established the Alliance for Progress to give economic aid to Latin America and created the PEACE CORPS. He also pressed hard to achieve racial INTEGRATION in the South. On Nov. 22, 1963, Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas, Tex. Vice Pres. Lyndon JOHNSON succeeded him as president. The WARREN COMMISSION, appointed to investigate the assassination, concluded that it was the work of a single gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald. In 1979, however, the House Select Committee on Assassinations, relying in part on acoustical evidence, concluded that a conspiracy was likely and that it may have involved organized crime.

King, Martin Luther, Jr.
1929-68, African-American clergyman and civil-rights leader; b. Atlanta, Ga. An active Baptist minister and a moving orator, he first gained national prominence by advocating passive resistance to segregation and leading a year-long boycott (1955-56) against the segregated bus lines in Montgomery, Ala. He subsequently set up the Southern Christian Leadership Conference as a base for nonviolent marches, protests, and demonstrations for African-American rights, such as the 1963 March on Washington and the 1965 voter-registration drive in Selma, Ala. King was awarded the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize, but his leadership was challenged as civil-rights activists became more militant. In the late 1960s he intensified his opposition to the war in Vietnam and to economic discrimination. While planning a multiracial Poor People's March for antipoverty legislation, he was shot and killed in Memphis, Tenn. James Earl Ray was convicted of the murder. King's wife, Coretta Scott King, 1927-, b. Heiberger, Ala., carried on his civil-rights work after his assassination. She wrote My Life with Martin Luther King (1989).

Hitler, Adolph
1889-1945, German dictator, founder and leader of NATIONAL SOCIALISM, or Nazism; b. Austria. In World War I he served in the Bavarian army, was gassed and wounded, and received the Iron Cross (first class) for bravery. The war embittered him, and he blamed Germany's defeat on the Jews and Marxists. Settling in Munich, he joined with other nationalists to found (1920) the Nazi party. In the famous beer-hall putsch (1923), Hitler attempted to overthrow BAVARIA's republican government, but the army put down the revolt, and Hitler was imprisoned. He thus became known throughout Germany and used his nine months in prison to write Mein Kampf [my struggle], filled with anti-Semitism, power worship, disdain for morality, and his strategy for world domination. It became the bible of the Nazi party. The Nazi movement grew slowly until 1929, when the economic depression brought it mass support. Hitler made prime use of his frenzied but magnetic oratory of hate and power, his insight into mass psychology, and his mastery of deceitful strategy, or the big lie. He used his virulent ANTI-SEMITISM and anti-Communism to win the support both of the workers and of the bankers and industrialists. Although he was defeated when he ran for president in 1932, Pres. Paul von HINDENBURG was persuaded to name him chancellor (1933), and the REICHSTAG gave him dictatorial powers. With other Nazi leaders, among them GOERING, HIMMLER, and GOEBBELS, he crushed the opposition and took control of all facets of German life. Anti-Semitism was enacted into law, and CONCENTRATION CAMPS were established. In 1934, voters approved the union of the presidency and chancellorship in Hitler's person. His aggressive foreign policy, abetted by English and French appeasement, culminated in the triumph of the MUNICH PACT (1938). As he prepared Germany for war, he bullied smaller nations into making territorial concessions. He became allied with MUSSOLINI in Italy, and he helped FRANCO come to power in Spain. Austria was absorbed into the Third Reich, and Czechoslovakia was dismembered. In 1939 he signed a nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union that gave him a free hand to invade Poland. With that act WORLD WAR II began, and Hitler took complete control of Germany's war efforts. At first Germany was triumphant, but the tide turned, and by July 1944 the German military situation was desperate. Despite a well-planned assassination attempt against him, in which he was injured, Hitler remained in charge and insisted that Germany fight to the death. As the Third Reich collapsed, Hitler remained in an underground bunker in Berlin while the Russians approached the city. On April 29, 1945, he married his longtime mistress, Eva BRAUN, and on April 30 they committed suicide. He left Germany a devastated nation. Hitler's legacy is the memory of the most dreadful tyranny of modern centuries.

Mao Zedong
1893-1976, founder of the People's Republic of China. Born in Hunan prov., he was one of the original members of the Chinese Communist party. Mao organized unions for the KUOMINTANG, but after the Communist-Kuomintang split (1927) he worked to establish rural soviets and to build the Red Army. He led (1934-35) the LONG MARCH from Jiangxi N to Yan'an in Shaanxi prov. and became head of the Chinese Communist party. In 1949, when the Communists had seized most of the mainland, Mao became the first chairman of the People's Republic of China. In 1958 he launched the Great Leap Forward, a program for industrial growth; after it failed he was replaced (1959) as chairman by LIU SHAOQI, but still retained his party leadership. Mao successfully attacked Liu by directing the CULTURAL REVOLUTION (1966-69), a period of widespread agitation. In the 1970s he consolidated his position as China's most powerful figure. Mao's policies often strained relations with the USSR, but his ideas on revolutionary struggle became very influential in the Third World. In 1972 he developed closer ties with the West by meeting U.S. Pres. NIXON in Beijing.

source: www.encyclopedia.com