Brad Pitt * Actor * USA

BIOGRAPHIES * FILM INDUSTRY
Brad Pitt
Actor Born: 18 December 1963
Birthplace: Shawnee, Oklahoma
Best known as: The hunky movie star who's with Angelina Jolie
Name at birth: William Bradley Pitt

Brad Pitt is one of the leading movie heartthrobs of the 1990s and 2000s and the Oscar-nominated star of the David Fincher film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2998).
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Pitt grew up in Missouri and studied journalism in college before dropping out to become an actor.
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He scored as the sexy scoundrel hitchhiker in the 1991 movie Thelma and Louise (with Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon), a small role that nonetheless catapulted him to leading man status. Despite the golden glow of a leading man, Pitt quickly became known as a movie star who didn't always have to be the star.
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Pitt co-starred with Tom Cruise in Anne Rice's Interview With A Vampire (1994), with Bruce Willis in Twelve Monkeys (1995) and with Harrison Ford in The Devil's Own (1997). As a leading man he appeared in Fincher's Se7en (1995, with Morgan Freeman), in Fincher's brutal urban psychodrama Fight Club (1999, with Edward Norton), and in Spy Game (2001, with Robert Redford).

He's done ensemble comedy in Ocean's Eleven (2001,

with George Clooney) and its sequels, and in the Coen brothers 2008 comedy Burn After Reading. And, of course, he's done big-budget star vehicles like Troy (2004, with Pitt as the weak-heeled Achilles) and Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005, opposite Angelina Jolie).

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His other films include A River Runs Through It (1992), Seven Years in Tibet (1997), The Mexican (2001, with Julia Roberts), Babel (2006) and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007, with Casey Affleck).

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Extra credit: Once engaged to actress Gwyneth Paltrow, Pitt married actress Jennifer Aniston in 2000. They divorced in 2005, amid rumors that Pitt had begun a romantic relationship with Angelina Jolie, his co-star from Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Those rumors were confirmed early in 2006, when Jolie legally changed her two adopted children's names to Zahara Jolie-Pitt and Maddox Jolie-Pitt. Pitt and Jolie then had a daughter together -- Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, who was born on 27 May 2006 in the country of Namibia -- adopted a four-year-old boy, Pax Thien Jolie-Pitt (b. 2003 in Vietnam), and then had twins named Knox Léon and Vivienne Marcheline on 12 July 2008.

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Pitt's children are, in order of age: Maddox (b. 2001 in Cambodia), Pax (b. 2003 in Vietnam), Zahara (b. 2005 in Ethiopia), Shiloh (b. 2006 in Namibia), and the twins Knox and Vivienne (b. 2008).

Steven Spielberg1946, Dec 18th * USA

BIOGRAPHIES * MOVIE INDUSTRY
Steven Spielberg * USA

Steven Spielberg 1946–, American Film Director. * December 18, 1946 * Spielberg began his career as a television director, admired for his understanding portrayal of human character.

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His film Jaws (1975) was the first to earn more than $100 million, a record he surpassed first with E.T. (1983) and then with Jurassic Park (1993), which grossed more than $900 million.

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Spielberg's love of older movies was demonstrated with his serial-inspired trilogy of movies featuring Indiana Jones.

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Other films, many based on literary works, include The Color Purple (1985), Empire of the Sun (1987), and the widely acclaimed Holocaust drama Schindler's List (1993), for which he won an Academy Award.

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In 1994, Spielberg, former Disney executive Jeffrey Katzenberg, and recording industry mogul David Geffen formed Dreamworks SKG, a movie studio and entertainment company.
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The director later explored a slave revolt and trial in Amistad (1997) and won his second Oscar for the chillingly realistic war drama Saving Private Ryan (1998).

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He subsequently examined a ghastly future world of neurotic humans and sentient robots (the result of a collaboration with Stanley Kubrick) in A.I. (2001), for which he also wrote the screenplay, and portrayed another dark future in which crime is detected and stopped before it is committed in the allegory-thriller Minority Report (2002).

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He turned to a lighter, more comic vision in his tales of a young imposter and his implacable pursuer in Catch Me If You Can (2002) and of an Eastern European stranded in New York's Kennedy Airport in The Terminal (2004). By the early years of the 21st cent., Spielberg was mainstream Hollywood's most famous, influential, and successful director.

Milla Jovovich * Model / Actress / Singer / Ukraine

BIOGRAPHIES * BLOGSPOT
Milla Jovovich
Model / Actress / Singer
Born: 17 December 1975
Birthplace: Kiev, Ukraine
Best known as: The redhead Leeloo in The Fifth Element

Milla Jovovich is a legitimate triple threat: she began modeling at age 11, appeared in the movie Two Moon Junction at age 13, and released her first musical album (The Divine Comedy) at age 18.
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Her role as Leeloo, the exotic beauty in Luc Besson's 1997 fantasy The Fifth Element, kicked her film career into high gear. Jovovich was born in the Ukraine; she and her parents emigrated to the U.S. when she was five. In 1997 she married Besson; the two were divorced in 1999.


Her other movies include the comedy Zoolander (2001, with Ben Stiller), Dummy (2003, with Jovovich as an aspiring punk rocker), and the video-game crossover Resident Evil (2002, with Michelle Rodriguez) and its sequels Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004) and Resident Evil: Extinction (2007).
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Extra credit: According to her official site, her name is pronounced mee-luh yo-vo-vitch... Jovovich married Paul W.S. Anderson, her director on Resident Evil, on 22 August 2009. She and Anderson have a daughter, Ever Gabo J. Anderson, who was born on 3 November 2007.
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Jovovich wrote on her blog, "Ever is a Scottish boy's name... while her middle name Gabo -- pronounced 'Gabeau' -- is a mixture of my parents names! The first two letters are after my mom's first name, Galina and the last two letters are after my dad's first name Bogie!"
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Note that Anderson is not the Paul Anderson who directed Boogie Nights and Magnolia; that's Paul Thomas Anderson... Jovovich played Joan of Arc in the 1999 movie The Messenger.
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BIOGRAPHIES * BLOGSPOT
Milla Jovovich
Model / Actress / Singer
Born: 17 December 1975
Birthplace: Kiev, Ukraine
Best known as: The redhead Leeloo in The Fifth Element

Milla Jovovich * Model / Actress / Singer / Ukraine

FIRST * For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology

Home * About us: All-Girl Team Our Achievements
About FIRST: US FIRST Robotics The Challenge
Upcoming Events: 10-Oct-09: CalGames
Photo Albums * Media and Outreach * Our Sponsors * Our Blog
Support Us: Join the team Sponsor us Volunteer as a mentor * Contact Us

FIRST and FIRST ROBOTICS
GO TO THE ORIGINAL SITE * PRESS HERE
http://s182200198.onlinehome.us/USFIRSTRobotics.html

FIRST stands for "For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology." Its goal is "To create a world where science and technology are celebrated, and where young people dream of becoming science and technology heroes."A Maverick Founder

FIRST was founded by inventor Dean Kamen (Segway) in 1989.
Having dropped out of Worcester Polytechnic Institute before graduating, Mr. Kamen is a self-made man. He is well known for inventing a number of important medical devices, including the AutoSyringe, a mobile dialysis system for medical applications, the first insulin pump, and the Segway Personal Transporter.

Here are some significant excerpts from an article on Mr. Kamen in Wired magazine (Issue 8.09, Sept 2000):
As a teen, Kamen read Newton, heckled his science teacher, and built high-profile projects in New York. By graduation, he was earning $60,000 a year.What drives Kamen's imagination? Things he decided ought to exist, like a water purifier/power generator that zaps tainted H2O with a laser.The Ibot chair has a balance mode that raises up the front wheels, like a dog begging for a treat. "Technically," says Kamen, "it's magic."The "NCAA of smarts" (FIRST Robotics) is just as Kamen would have it: High school kids treat engineers like celebrities. And build robots that make the crowd roar.

FIRST Robotics
FIRST supports three programs for students in elementary school to high school: FIRST Lego League, FIRST Tech Challenge, and FIRST Robotics Competition.The most famous program supported by FIRST is the FIRST Robotics Competition. The participation in FIRST Robotics in 2009 competition is impressive:
1,680 robotics teams
42,000 high-school students
Teams from 48 states in the U.S., Brazil, Canada, Chile, Germany, Israel, Mexico, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Turkey, and the U.K.
40 Regional events in the U.S., Canada, and Israel; seven District competitions and one State Championship in Michigan

FIRST Robotics Competition Championship at the FIRST Championship in Atlanta, GA, April 16-18, 2009
Robots are built in 6 weeks from a common kit of parts provided by FIRST, and weigh up to 120 lbs. (excluding battery and bumpers)

Those Who Participate in FIRST Robotics Are More Successful and More Involved
Recently, Brandeis University's Center for Youth and Communities conducted an independent, retrospective survey of past FIRST Robotics Competition participants and compared the results to a group of non-FIRST students with similar backgrounds and academic experiences, including in math and science. Highlights of the study's findings include, when compared with the comparison group, FIRST students are:
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More than 3 times as likely to major specifically in engineering.
Roughly 10 times as likely to have had an apprenticeship, internship, or co-op job in their freshman year of college.
Significantly more likely to expect to achieve a post graduate degree.
More than twice as likely to expect to pursue a career in science and technology.
Nearly 4 times as likely to expect to pursue a career specifically in engineering.
More than twice as likely to volunteer in their communities.

Dean Kamen * Island

The idea of a brilliant visionary secluding himself on a private island is an old one, from Doctor Moreau’s tropical isle of genetic mishaps, to the secret lair of James Bond’s arch nemesis Dr. No.

But few would argue that inventor Dean Kamen qualifies as an evil super villain. Holder of more than 150 patents including the Segway, Kamen is a pioneer not only in the field of eco-friendly transportation, but is also the engineer of invaluable medical and robotic devices like prosthetic limbs and mobility chairs. And when he wants relative peace and quiet, he retires to North Dumpling Island, a 2-acre speck in Connecticut’s Long Island Sound.

Bought for a reported $2.5M in 1986, the island has a sprawling remodelled lighthouse for a home and boasts a small replica of Stonehenge. Living up to the “eccentric inventor” stereotype, denial of a permit for a wind-electricity turbine led him to (jokingly) secede as his own little country- complete with a newspaper, constitution and currency- not to mention an extensive cabinet of Kamen’s friends (including the Minister of Nepotism). But Americans can breath a sigh of relief, because the inventor’s island nation won’t pose much of a threat- “Lord Dumpling” willingly signed a non-aggression pact with his buddy, former president George H. W. Bush.
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http://www.privateislandsmag.com/2008/11/segway-inventor-dean-kamen’s-private-island/

Dean L. Kamen * USA * Inventor

Dean L. Kamen

(born 5 April 1951) is an American entrepreneur and inventor from New Hampshire.
Born in Rockville Centre, New York, he attended Worcester Polytechnic Institute, but dropped out before graduating. His father was Jack Kamen, an illustrator of Mad Magazine, Weird Science and other EC Comics.

Inventions * Segway
Kamen is best known for inventing the product that eventually became known as the Segway PT, an electric, self-balancing human transporter with a complex, computer-controlled gyroscopic stabilization and control system. The device balances on two parallel wheels and is controlled by moving body weight. The machine's development was the object of much speculation and hype after segments of a book quoting Steve Jobs and other notable IT visionaries espousing its society-revolutionizing potential were leaked in December 2001.

Kamen has worked extensively on a project involving Stirling engine designs, attempting to create two machines; one that would generate power and one that would serve as a water purification system. He hopes the project will help improve living standards in developing countries.[1][2] Kamen has a patent issued on his water purifier, U.S. Patent 7,340,879, and other patents pending. Kamen claims that his company DEKA is now working on solar power inventions.[2]
Kamen is also the co-inventor of a compressed-air-powered device which would launch a human into the air in order to quickly launch SWAT teams or other emergency workers to the roofs of tall, inaccessible buildings.[3]
However, Kamen was already a successful and wealthy inventor, after inventing the AutoSyringe, a new type of mobile dialysis system for medical applications, the first insulin pump, and an all-terrain electric wheelchair known as the iBOT, using many of the same gyroscopic balancing technologies that later made their way into the Segway.
[edit] FIRST
In 1989, Kamen founded FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), a robotics competition for high school students. In 2005, it held over 30 regional competitions and one international competition. In 2007, 37 competitions were held in places across the world such as Israel, Brazil, Canada, and the United States. In 2009, the First Open Arab Robotics Competition was held at Dead Sea, Jordan. Kamen remains the driving force behind the organization, providing over 2,500 high schools with the tools needed to learn valuable engineering skills.[citation needed] FIRST has gained a great deal of publicity from companies such as Autodesk, BAE Systems, Bausch and Lomb, CNN, General Motors, Google, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Boston Gears, Motorola, Delphi, Kodak, Johnson and Johnson, Xerox, Harris, Underwriter's Laboratories, Microchip, and Caterpillar as well as many Universities and colleges.
FIRST has many competitions, including the JFLL (Junior FIRST Lego League) and the FLL (FIRST Lego League) for younger students, and the FTC (FIRST Tech Challenge) and the FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition) for high school aged students.[citation needed]
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[edit] Awards
During his career Kamen has won numerous awards. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1997 for his biomedical devices and for making engineering more popular among high school students. In 1999 he was awarded the 5th Annual Heinz Award in Technology, the Economy and Employment[4], and in 2000 received the National Medal of Technology from then President Clinton for inventions that have advanced medical care worldwide. In April 2002, Kamen was awarded the Lemelson-MIT Prize for inventors, for his invention of the Segway and of an infusion pump for diabetics. In 2003 his "Project Slingshot," a cheap portable water purification system, was named a runner-up for "coolest invention of 2003" by Time magazine.[5] In 2005 he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for his invention of the AutoSyringe. In 2006 Kamen was awarded the Global Humanitarian Action Award by the United Nations. Kamen received an honorary "Doctor of Engineering " degree from Kettering University in 2001, an honorary "Doctor of Science" degree from the University of Arizona on May 16, 2009, and an honorary doctorate from the Wentworth Institute of Technology when he spoke at the college's centennial celebration in 2004, and other honorary doctorates from Bates College in 2007 [1], the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2008, the Illinois Institute of Technology in 2008 and Plymouth State University in May 2008. Kamen, "One of the world's most prominent and prolific inventors", received the prestigious Stevens Honor Award on Nov. 6, 2009, given by the Stevens Institute of Technology and the Stevens Alumni Association.
[edit] Personal life
His primary residence is a hexagonal, shed style mansion he has dubbed Westwind,[1] located in Bedford, New Hampshire, just outside of the larger city of Manchester. The house has at least four different levels and is very eclectically conceived, with such things as hallways resembling mine shafts, 1960s novelty furniture, a collection of vintage wheelchairs, spiral staircases and secret passages, an observation tower, a torture chamber, a fully equipped machine shop, and a huge cast-iron steam engine which once belonged to Henry Ford built into the center atrium of the house (which is actually small in comparison), which Kamen has had converted into a Stirling engine-powered kinetic sculpture.
Also on the property there is a softball field regularly used by the local police force. Kamen owns two helicopters, which he regularly uses to commute to work, and has a hangar built into the house as well.[6][7][8][9]
He is the main subject of Code Name Ginger: the Story Behind Segway and Dean Kamen's Quest to Invent a New World, a nonfiction narrative book by journalist Steve Kemper published by Harvard Business School Press in 2003 (in paperback as Reinventing the Wheel). During 2007 at the FIRST Robotics competition held in Atlanta, Georgia, YouTube (which sponsors FIRST) co-founder Chad Hurley announced a competition for the teams to create a video in which they would describe what it takes to start a FIRST robotics team in an imaginative way. The prize for the winning team was a visit and guided tour of Dean Kamen's house and property.
His company, DEKA, annually creates intricate mechanical presents for him. Recently, the company created a robotic chess player, which is a mechanical arm attached to a chess board, as well as a vintage-looking computer with antique wood, and a converted typewriter as a keyboard. In addition, DEKA has recently received funding from DARPA to work on a brain-controlled prosthetic limb called the Luke Arm.[10]
Dean Kamen owns and pilots two Raytheon 390 Beechcraft Premier I jets.[7][11][12]

Dean Kamen

GENIUS * MODERN INVENTORS

Cuando pensamos en un inventor, seguramente vienen a nuestra mente imágenes de [muy] extraños hombres en oscuros sótanos o misteriosos laboratorios, generalmente fabricando extraños aparatos de de dudosa utilidad práctica.

Y es que esa dorada época de los grandes (y famosos) inventores como Graham Bell, Edison o Marconi, quienes contribuyeron al progreso de la humanidad al tiempo que lograron hacer negocio, han quedado atrás.

Dean Kamen es seguramente el último representante de esta especie en extinción: Un gran inventor, con un negocio rentable; quien por cierto, no encaja para nada con la descripción del primer párrafo. Conocemos a Kamen seguramente por su más famoso invento: El Segway.

Rompiendo Paradigmas: Una suerte de “transportador personal” (como ha sido definido), que ha venido a revolucionar el paradigma de lo que debe de ser un vehículo de tierra.

Dotado solamente de dos ruedas, el Segway basa su locomoción en un sistema giroscópico que logra mantener el equilibrio y la vertical de su centro de gravedad respecto al eje de estas, mediante el uso de servomotores controlados por computadoras.

Los sensores del Segway lo hacen capaz de moverse hacia adelante o hacia atrás con sólo inclinar el cuerpo en la dirección deseada. Otra característica importante del Segway es el torque de sus motores. De este modo, el vehículo puede transitar tanto en superficies planas como off road, haciéndolo terriblemente versátil.

El Segway se ha popularizado en diversas vertientes como vehículo recreativo, deportivo, de exploración y hasta policiaco. Es aquí donde la mente brillante de Kamen se fusiona con el espíritu emprendedor. Segway es hoy una empresa con un rápido crecimiento, con ventas de miles de unidades a todo el mundo. La venta de estos vehículos se ha convertido sin duda en un negocio muy rentable del cual su inventor ciertamente ha obtenido buenas ganancias. Pero Segway no nació de la nada. Los sistemas que logran mantener el equilibrio y la estabilidad de el aparato fueron inventados por Kamen con un propósito mas noble en mente: fabricar una mejor y más amigable silla de ruedas.

La clave del éxito: Buscar soluciones a problemas: En una ocasión, Kamen observó a una persona tratando de subir una banqueta con su silla de ruedas. Una idea vino de inmediato: El mundo nunca se adaptaría completamente para el acceso de las personas discapacitadas, luego entonces, habría que solucionar ese problema de otra manera. Fue así como surgió iBOT®. Una silla de ruedas motorizada, capaz de mantener el equilibrio en dos ruedas, logrando con esto que el usuario pueda: * Elevar su posición, lo cual le ayuda a tener mejor contacto visual con la gente o ser atendido en un mostrador. * Tener un perfil mas delgado para por ejemplo, abordar un elevador. Otra de las características de iBOT® es combinar un sistema rotacional de las ruedas con el cual el usuario puede subir y bajar banquetas de 15 cm de altura. El sistema de tracción del iBOT® lo hace muy versátil y su locomoción puede variar de dos a seis ruedas. Provisto de un gran torque, iBOT® se ha convertido en la única silla de ruedas rotorizada que puede ser utilizada en campo traviesa. Pero seguramente la característica más impresionante de iBOT® es su capacidad de subir y bajar escaleras. La conjunción de todos sus motores y servomecanismos controlados por computadoras redundantes, hacen que la silla (el vehículo) facilite el acceso hacia arriba y hacia abajo de escaleras con ayuda de un tercero, o con solamente la cooperación del usuario si es que este tiene la capacidad de tirarse de un barandal. iBOT® Mobility System (su nombre completo) es comercializado por Independence Technology, una empresa de Johnson & Johnson en sociedad con DEKA, la empresa de desarrollo tecnológico de Kamen.

Innovación constante en pro de la salud: Dean Kamen a sido un no-declarado apasionado de la biomédica que ha obtenido reconocimientos de la Casa Blanca por sus aportaciones a las Ciencias de La Salud. DEKA ha diseñado una máquina para diálisis peritoneal casera: la HomeChoice™ PD comercializada por Baxter, la bomba de irrigación para endoscopía Hidroflex® comercializada por Davol y ha participado en el desarrollo de stents para Cordis (empresa de Johnson & Johnson). Recientemente, el gobierno de Estados Unidos ha solicitado a Kamen que pensara en una solución para ayudar a los miles de veteranos que vuelven con heridas mutilantes de Ia guerra. En la pasada All Things Digital Conference, organizada por The Wall Street Journal que reúne a grandes personalidades de los negocios digitales y donde se conjugan las Visiones empresariales más avanzadas y ambiciosas, Kamen presentó sus avances con prótesis biomédicas con resultados impresionantes. Un paciente con 13 años amputado de ambos brazos logró tomar unas llaves, pelotas, servirse agua de una botella y alimentarse sólo por primera vez. Puede apreciar estos avanzados brazos biónicos en el siguiente video:

Dean Kamen es si duda un inventor revolucionario. Posee más de 400 patentes y sus investigaciones más recientes se encaminan a la conservación de energía o a la producción de ésta en una máquina que al mismo tiempo purifica agua. Una solución muy útil en los países en desarrollo. Es sin duda, la conjugación del ingenio, el talento, pero sobre todo la Visión; lo que ha hecho que Kamen haya logrado combinar dos talentes: Ser un impresionante inventor y un empresario exitoso. Seguramente que podemos aprender mucho de Kamen. Fuente: fuente: http://blogs.strat-cons.com/?tag=ibot

Leonardo DiCaprio * Actor * USA

Leonardo Di Caprio * Actor
Born: 11 November 1974
Birthplace: Los Angeles, California
Best known as:
Heartthrob star of the 1997 film Titanic
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Leonardo DiCaprio
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Leonardo DiCaprio has been an international superstar since the box office megahit Titanic (1997, directed by James Cameron). In front of the camera since childhood, his first big role came in 1991, on the television series Growing Pains.
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As a young movie actor he won critical raves for his role in This Boy's Life (1993, with Robert DeNiro), and an Oscar nomination for What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993, with Johnny Depp).
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His performance in 1996's Romeo and Juliet proved his bankability as a leading man and heartthrob, and after the success of Titanic (with Kate Winslet), DiCaprio became a favorite of the tabloids, with a party-boy reputation.
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He kept on working, however, and has since grown into one of Hollywood's top movie actors. Along the way he appeared in Woody Allen's Celebrity (1998, with Gretchen Mol), starred in Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can (2002, with Christopher Walken) and made three movies with Martin Scorsese: Gangs of New York (2002, co-starring Cameron Diaz), The Aviator (he was nominated for an Oscar for playing eccentric innovator Howard Hughes) and The Departed (2006, starring Matt Damon).
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His performance in Blood Diamond (2006, with Djimon Hounsou) brought him another Oscar nomination. Off-screen DiCaprio is an advocate for environmental protection, an issue he became publicly involved with after he and the makers of The Beach (2000) were criticized for the environmental impact their filming had on locations in Thailand.

Carl Sagan * 1934–1996 * Astronomer

BIOGRAPHY * USA * ASTRONOMER
Carl Sagan - 1934 (Nov 09) – 1996, American astronomer and popularizer of science. Born in New York City.
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Early in his career he investigated radio emissions from Venus and concluded that the cause was a surface temperature of c.900°F (500°C) and crushing atmospheric pressure.
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He also studied color variations on Mars' surface, concluding that they were not seasonal changes as most believed but shifts in surface dust caused by windstorms. Both conclusions were substantially confirmed years later by space probes.
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Sagan is best known, however, for his research on the possibilities of extraterrestrial life (see exobiology), including experimental demonstration of the production of amino acids from basic chemicals by radiation.
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A professor of astronomy and space sciences at Cornell Univ. after 1968, he was involved with numerous NASA planetary space probes and was the creator and host of the 1980 public television science series Cosmos.
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His publications include The Dragons of Eden (1977; Pulitzer); a novel, Contact (1985); with Richard Turco, A Path Where No Man Thought (1990), on nuclear winter; with Ann Druyan, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1992); Pale Blue Dot (1994); and The Demon-Haunted World (1995).
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Bibliography:
See biographies by K. Davidson (1999) and W. Poundstone (1999).

Madame Curie * 1867 (Nov 07) –1934 * Scientist * France

BIOGRAPHY * FRANCE
Madame Curie * 1867 (Nov 07) –1934

Curie (kürē') [key], family of French scientists. Pierre Curie,. 1859–1906, scientist, and his wife, Marie Sklodowska Curie,. 1867–1934, chemist and physicist, b. Warsaw, are known for their work on radioactivity and on radium. The Curies' daughter Irène (see under Joliot-Curie, family) was also a scientist.

Pierre Curie's early work dealt with crystallography and with the effects of temperature on magnetism; he discovered (1883) and, with his brother Jacques Curie, investigated piezoelectricity (a form of electric polarity) in crystals.
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Marie Sklodowska's interest in science was stimulated by her father, a professor of physics in Warsaw. In 1891 she went to Paris to continue her studies at the Sorbonne. In 1895 she married Pierre Curie and engaged in independent research in his laboratory at the municipal school of physics and chemistry where Pierre was director of laboratories (from 1882) and professor (from 1895).

Following A. H. Becquerel's discovery of radioactivity, Mme Curie began to investigate uranium, a radioactive element found in pitchblende. In 1898 she reported a probable new element in pitchblende, and Pierre Curie joined in her research.
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They discovered (1898) both polonium and radium, laboriously isolated one gram of radium salts from about eight tons of pitchblende, and determined the atomic weights and properties of radium and polonium.
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The Curies refused to patent their processes or otherwise to profit from the commercial exploitation of radium. For their work on radioactivity they shared with Becquerel the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics.

The Sorbonne created (1904) a special chair of physics for Pierre Curie; Marie Curie was appointed his successor after his death in a street accident.
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She also retained her professorship (assumed in 1900) at the normal school at Sèvres and continued her research. In 1910 she isolated (with André Debierne) metallic radium. As the recipient of the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry she was the first person to be awarded a second Nobel Prize.
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She was made director of the laboratory of radioactivity at the Curie Institute of Radium, established jointly by the Univ. of Paris and the Pasteur Institute, for research on radioactivity and for radium therapy.

During World War I, Mme Curie devoted her energies to providing radiological services for hospitals. In 1921 a gram of radium, a gift from American women, was presented to her by President Harding; this she accepted in behalf of the Curie Institute.
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A second gram, presented in 1929, was given by Mme Curie to the newly founded Curie Institute in Warsaw. Five years later she died from the effects of radioactivity. In 1995 Marie and Pierre Curie's ashes were enshrined in the Panthéon, Paris; she was the first woman to be honored so in her own right.

Among the numerous and valuable writings of the Curies are Marie Curie's doctoral dissertation, Radioactive Substances (1902, 2 vol.; tr. 1961); Traité de radioactivité (1910); Radioactivité (1935); and her biography of Pierre Curie (1923, tr. 1923).
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Pierre Curie's collected works appeared in 1908. A biography of Marie Curie was written by a daughter, Ève Curie (tr. 1937). See also biographies by R. W. Reid (1974), F. Giroud (tr. 1986), S. Quinn (1995), and B. Goldsmith (2004).

John Fitzgerald Kennedy * USA

John F. Kennedy * All about him in this homework network
http://bilingual-newspaper.blogspot.com/search?q=john+f+kennedy

John F. Kennedy * USA

IMMORTAL SPEECHES * JOHN F. KENNEDY
PRESIDENT OF THE USA 1960 * 1963
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January/ 20th / 1961 * (Final fragment)

''Can we forge against these enemies a grand and global alliance, North and South, East and West, that can assure a more fruitful life for all mankind?
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Will you join in that historic effort? In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger.
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I do not shank from this responsibility - I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavour will light our country and all who serve it -- and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.
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''And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.''
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''My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.''
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Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you.
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With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own.''

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John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, Friday, January 20, 1961

John Fitzgerald Kennedy * USA

John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Born: 5/29/1917
Birthplace: Brookline, Mass.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born in Brookline, Mass., on May 29, 1917. His father, Joseph P. Kennedy, was ambassador to Great Britain from 1937 to 1940.
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Kennedy was graduated from Harvard University in 1940 and joined the navy the next year. He became skipper of a PT boat that was sunk in the Pacific by a Japanese destroyer. Although given up for lost, he swam to a safe island, towing an injured enlisted man.
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After recovering from a war-aggravated spinal injury, Kennedy entered politics in 1946 and was elected to Congress. In 1952, he ran against Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., of Massachusetts, and won.
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Kennedy was married on Sept. 12, 1953, to Jacqueline Lee Bouvier, by whom he had three children: Caroline, John Fitzgerald, Jr. (died in a 1999 plane crash), and Patrick Bouvier (died in infancy).
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In 1957 Kennedy won the Pulitzer Prize for a book he had written earlier, Profiles in Courage.
After strenuous primary battles, Kennedy won the Democratic presidential nomination on the first ballot at the 1960 Los Angeles convention. With a plurality of only 118,574 votes, he carried the election over Vice President Richard M. Nixon and became the first Roman Catholic president.
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Kennedy brought to the White House the dynamic idea of a “New Frontier” approach in dealing with problems at home, abroad, and in the dimensions of space. Out of his leadership in his first few months in office came the 10-year Alliance for Progress to aid Latin America, the Peace Corps, and accelerated programs that brought the first Americans into orbit in the race in space.
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Failure of the U.S.-supported Cuban invasion in April 1961 led to the entrenchment of the Communist-backed Castro regime, only 90 mi from United States soil.
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When it became known that Soviet offensive missiles were being installed in Cuba in 1962, Kennedy ordered a naval “quarantine” of the island and moved troops into position to eliminate this threat to U.S. security. The world seemed on the brink of a nuclear war until Soviet premier Khrushchev ordered the removal of the missiles.
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A sudden “thaw,” or the appearance of one, in the cold war came with the agreement with the Soviet Union on a limited test-ban treaty signed in Moscow on Aug. 6, 1963.
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In his domestic policies, Kennedy's proposals for medical care for the aged and aid to education were defeated, but on minimum wage, trade legislation, and other measures he won important victories.
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Widespread racial disorders and demonstrations led to Kennedy's proposing sweeping civil rights legislation. As his third year in office drew to a close, he also recommended an $11-billion tax cut to bolster the economy. Both measures were pending in Congress when Kennedy, looking forward to a second term, journeyed to Texas for a series of speeches.
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November 22th, 1963 * Dallas, Texas, USA.
While riding in an automobile procession in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, he was shot to death by an assassin firing from an upper floor of a building. The alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was killed two days later in the Dallas city jail by Jack Ruby, owner of a strip-tease club.
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At 46 years of age, Kennedy became the fourth president to be assassinated and the eighth to die in office.
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See also Encyclopedia: John Fitzgerald Kennedy.Died: 11/22/1963

November 2009 * Biographies

Carl Sagan1934–1996, American astronomer
Nadia Comaneci * gymnast (Nov/12/1961)
Grace Kelly * actress, Princess of Monaco (Nov/12/1929).
Charles, Prince of Walesheir to the British throne (Nov/14/1948)
Condoleezza Ricegovernment official (Nov/14/1954)
Louis XVIIIking of France (Nov/17/1755)
Voltaire Nov/21/1694–1778, French Philosopher and Author whose name was François Marie Arouet de Voltaire.
French philosopher and author, whose original name was Arouet. One of the towering geniuses in literary and intellectual history, Voltaire personifies the Enlightenment. Voltaire's
James Cook - Cook, James Cook, James, (Nov/22)1728–79, English explorer and navigator. The son of a Yorkshire ...
Thomas Cook * travel agent (Nov/22/1808)
Cook, Thomas
Cook, Thomas, 1808–92, English travel agent. In Leicester in 1841 he founded the travel agency that bears his name. The idea of the guided tour met with quick success, and by 1852 Cook had moved his office to London. Shortly thereafter he set up (1856) his Circular Tour of Europe, and 10 years later he was arranging tours of the United States. His most spectacular achievement was the transportation of an entire expeditionary force (18,000 men) up the Nile for the attempted relief of Gen. Charles George Gordon in 1884.
November / 27th /
Anders Celsiusastronomer (1701)
Charles A. Beardhistorian (1874)
Chaim Weizmannscientist and Zionist leader (1874)
James Agee writer (1909)
Alexander Dubčekstatesman (1921)
Bruce Leemartial-arts actor (1940)
Jimi Hendrixrock musician, guitarist (1942)
Caroline Kennedy Schlossbergwriter (1957)
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December
Maria Callas * December / 2nd

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Sir John Lennon / UK / Beatles

John Lennon
1940–1980, singer, guitarist, songwriter, born in Liverpool, England. British singer, guitarist and harmonica player for The Beatles. After The Beatles broke up in 1970, Lennon launched a successful solo career, releasing Imagine (1971). See more on John Lennon and the Beatles


John Lennon
Rock Musician / Songwriter Born: 9 October 1940 Died: 8 December 1980 (shot to death) Birthplace: Liverpool, England Best known as: One of The Beatles

As half of The Beatles, John Lennon and Paul McCartney were one of the most successful songwriting teams of the century. Together they wrote dozens of hit tunes, ranging from "Help!" and "Ticket to Ride" to "Penny Lane" and "Let It Be." Lennon's romance with Yoko Ono was a major influence on his post-Beatles career, and he collaborated with her on everything from the modern pop hymn "Imagine" to avant-garde noise and poetry. The Beatles broke up in 1970, and Lennon followed with a solo career marked by uneven recordings and public pleas for world peace. After a reclusive five years as a family man, Lennon released an album with Yoko in 1980, Double Fantasy. As their new song "Just Like Starting Over" was reaching the top of the charts, Lennon was shot to death outside his New York home by Mark David Chapman, a schizophrenic fan.

Extra credit:
Lennon published two illustrated books of poetry and wit in the mid-1960s, In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works... His son Julian Lennon is also a singer and musician... Lennon's political positions gained him the enmity of J. Edgar Hoover's F. B. I. and the U.S. State Department, and researchers are still trying to get files on Lennon made public.
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Chuck Berry / Oct 18th / 1926 / USA

Chuck Berry * Oct / 18 / 1926
American rock music guitarist, singer, and songwriter
Born in San Jose, Calif.

He was brought up in St. Louis, Mo., where he still lives.

Berry is widely regarded as one of the leading pioneers of rock music, having blended the blues with country music and added a rhythm-and-blues beat, and he is thought by many to be the inventor of the rock music form. His distinctive playing of the electric guitar and his witty lyrics were a major inspiration for the English pop renaissance and for a wide variety of other rock musicians.
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A dynamic performer, he also became known for his signature crouching and gliding “duck walk.” Berry produced a string of hits in the late 1950s, including “Maybellene,” “Rock and Roll Music,” “Roll Over Beethoven,” and “Johnny B. Goode.”
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In 1962 he was sentenced to two years in prison on the charge of transporting a minor across state lines for immoral purposes.
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His creative output subsequently dwindled and he cut his last record in 1981, butt he continued to be an active and popular performer into the 21st cent. Berry was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986.
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Martina Navratilova
tennis player (1956)
Jean-Claude Van Damme

Celia Cruz / Oct 21st / 1929 - 2003 / Cuba

Cruz, Celia
Cruz, Celia, 1929–2003,
Cuban-American singer, b. Havana.

The “Queen of Salsa” began singing as a teenager, and in 1950 joined Sonora Matancera, Cuba's most popular band.

She left Cuba a year after Fidel Castro came to power (1960) and was an exile in the United States for the rest of her life. Over the years Cruz sang with nearly every major Latin band, and was particularly noted for her appearances with Tito Puente's orchestra.

A fiery performer who wore skintight costumes and billowing blonde wigs, she sang (in Spanish) a range of Afro-Cuban songs, from traditional Santería chants to popular mambos, cha-chas, and the salsa for which she was famous.

An international star and an icon to the Cuban-American community, she toured widely, sang in clubs and concert venues, and made more than 70 recordings.
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More on Celia Cruz from Infoplease: Celia Cruz -
Celia Cruz Age: 77
Cuban singer whose rich contralto voice, persistently upbeat songs, and effusive ...

Alfred Nobel / Oct 21st / 1833–96

Alfred Nobel
Oct 21st / 1833–96
Swedish chemist and inventor.

Educated in St. Petersburg, Russia, he traveled as a youth and returned to St. Petersburg in 1852 to assist his father in the development of torpedoes and mines.
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Manufacture of a mixture of nitroglycerine and gunpowder, developed cooperatively by the family, was begun in the small Nobel works in Heleneborg, near Stockholm, in 1863. After a number of serious explosions, which killed several people, Nobel continued experimentation with nitroglycerine in order to find a safer explosive.

In 1866 he perfected a combination of nitroglycerine and kieselguhr, a diatomaceous earth, to which he gave the name dynamite.
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His other inventions include an explosive gelatin more powerful than dynamite and the smokeless powder Ballistite.
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Nobel, who inclined toward pacifism, had long had reservations about his family's industry, and he developed strong misgivings about the potential uses of his own invention.
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On his death in San Remo, Italy, he left a fund from the interest of which annual awards, called Nobel Prizes, were to be given for work in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, and literature, and toward the promotion of international peace.

Franz Liszt / Oct 22 / 1811 - 1886

October 22
Franz Liszt
1811–86, Hungarian composer and pianist.

Liszt was a revolutionary figure of romantic music and was acknowledged as the greatest pianist of his time.

He made his debut at nine, going thereafter to Vienna to study with Czerny and Salieri.
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In Paris (1823–25) he knew all the principal artistic figures of the period and was influenced by Berlioz, Chopin, and Paganini.
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He lived with Mme d'Agoult (better known by her pen name, Daniel Stern) from 1833 to 1844, and they had three children; their daughter Cosima became the wife of Hans von Bülow and later of Wagner.
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As a piano virtuoso, Liszt enthralled his audiences with his expressive interpretations and grand style of playing, augmented with dramatic gestures.
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In 1848 he decided to make a career as a composer, and became musical director to the duke of Weimar.
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He remained at Weimar until 1859, and two years later went to Rome, where he became an abbé (1865).
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During the years between 1880 and 1885, in Rome, Weimar, and Budapest, he taught most of the famous pianists of the succeeding generation. In his compositions he favored program music over traditional musical forms.
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Liszt originated the symphonic poem, and although he wrote symphonies, such as the Faust Symphony (1857), most of his orchestral pieces, including Les Préludes and Mazeppa (both 1854), are symphonic poems.
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In his Sonata in B Minor (1853) he developed the technique of transformation of themes, which completely altered the concept of sonata construction. This technique, together with his chromatic harmony, strongly influenced both Wagner and Richard Strauss.
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For the piano Liszt composed prolifically in addition to transcribing many works of other composers.
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His most outstanding works for the piano include Années de pèlerinage (1855–83), Douze Études d'exécution transcendante (final version, 1852), Six Paganini Études (final version, 1851), concertos in E Flat (1855) and A (1848–61), and 20 Hungarian Rhapsodies (of which he published 19).
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Some of his most popular pieces, including Liebestraüme (c.1850), are characterized by lyrical, romantic sentiment; many of his later compositions are somber in tone, full of dissonance and unusual harmonic effects that foreshadow 20th-century music.
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Catherine Deneuve
actress (1943)
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Pele / Brazil / South America

Pelé 23 / Oct / 1940–,
Brazilian soccer (football) player.

Edson Arantes do Nascimento

His real name is Edson Arantes do Nascimento. Perhaps the greatest player in the history of soccer, Pelé began playing at the age of 5 and joined the Santos team at 16.

Playing inside left forward, he led his team to numerous championships and the Brazilian national team to world championships in 1958, 1962, and 1970.
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He held every scoring record in Brazil, and in international matches he scored an average of one goal per game. His playing style was marked by superb ball control and great tactical ability. In 1971 he retired from the Brazilian national team but continued to play with Santos.
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He retired (1974) from the Santos team and played in the United States with the New York Cosmos (1975–77). He scored 1,281 goals during his career. Pelé became Brazil's minister of sports in 1995, serving until 1998.

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Sophia Loren / Italy / Biography

Sophia Loren
Loren, Sophia (sōfē'u lôren') [key], 1934–, Italian film actress, b. as Sophia Scicoloni. She grew up in the slums of Naples. With the help of Italian producer Carlo Ponti (later her husband) she gained international fame as a beautiful and accomplished film actress in both tragic dramas and boisterous comedies. She won the first Academy Award for a foreign-language performance for her role in Two Women (1961), and she received a special Academy Award in 1991 for her body of work. Her movies include The Gold of Naples (1954), The Pride and the Passion (1957), Houseboat (1958), Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963), Marriage Italian Style (1964), and A Special Day (1977). In the autobiographical television movie Sophia Loren: Her Own Story (1980), she played herself and her mother.
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Sophia Loren / Italy / Biography -
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Sophia Loren
Actress Born: 9/20/1934Birthplace: Rome, Italy
Academy Award-winning film actress known for her stunning beauty and for her roles opposite Marcello Mastroianni. Her films include Two Women (1961), El Cid (1961), Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1964), and Grumpier Old Men (1995). Her husband is producer Carlo Ponti.

Sophia LorenActress
Born: 20 September 1934
Birthplace: Rome, Italy
Best known as: Italian film queen and sex symbol
Name at birth: Sofia Scicolone

Sophia Loren was one of Italy's great 20th-century sex symbols. She hit it big in the movies in 1950s, thanks especially to film producer Carlo Ponti (whom she married in 1957). In 1961 she won an Oscar for the Italian wartime drama Two Women (La Ciociara). In addition to her va-va-voom image, Loren has always been a respected actress; in 1991 she won an honorary Oscar in recognition of her full body of work. Her films include The Pride and the Passion (1957, with Frank Sinatra), It Started in Naples (1960, with Clark Gable) and El Cid (1961, with Charlton Heston and based on the life of Spanish legend El Cid).
Extra credit: Loren is sometimes compared with another Italian star of the era, Gina Lollobrigida.