Alice Paul (1885 - 1977)

In 1907, after completing her master’s degree at the University of Pennsylvania, Alice Paul moved to England where she eventually became deeply involved with women suffragists and their work. Paul encountered Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst, the militant founders of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in Britain. Through working with these women Paul determined […]

Caroline Maria Severance (1820 - 1914)

Caroline Maria Severance was born in Canandaigua, New York, the daughter of a banker, Orson Seymour, and his wife Caroline M. Clarke. After a conservative upbringing, she married Theodoric C. Severance, who was called T.C., an abolitionist banker from Cleveland, Ohio. She became the mother of five children, one of whom died in infancy. She […]

Lucy Stone (1818 - 1893)

Lucy Stone (August 13, 1818 – October 19, 1893) was a prominent American orator, abolitionist, and suffragist, and a vocal advocate and organizer promoting rights for women. In 1847, Stone became the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree. She spoke out for women’s rights and against slavery at a time when women […]

Victoria Woodhull (1838 - 1927)

Victoria Woodhull, later Victoria Woodhull Martin (September 23, 1838 – June 9, 1927) was an American leader of the woman’s suffrage movement. In 1872, Woodhull was the first female to run for President of the United States. An activist for women’s rights and labor reforms, Woodhull was also an advocate of free love, by which she […]

Carl Reichenbach (1788 - 1869)

Carl Reichenbach was educated at the University of Tübingen, where he obtained the degree of doctor of philosophy. At the age of 16 he conceived the idea of establishing a new German state in one of the South Sea Islands, and for five years he devoted himself to this project. Afterwards, directing his attention to the […]

Peter Cooper (1791 - 1883)

Having been convinced that the proposed Baltimore and Ohio Railroad would drive up prices for land in Maryland, Peter Cooper used his profits to buy 3,000 acres (12 km2) of land there in 1828 and began to develop them, draining swampland and flattening hills, during which he discovered iron ore on his property. Seeing the […]

Valentin Bondarenko (1937 - 1961)

Valentin Bondarenko was born in Kharkiv, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union. His father was sent to the Eastern Front in the first days of World War II. The youngster and his mother went through several years of hardship during the war. From an early age, Bondarenko was fascinated by aviation heroes and dreamed of becoming a military […]

Robert Lawrence (1935 - 1967)

Robert Lawrence was born in Chicago, Illinois. He attended Haines Elementary School and, at the age of 16, he graduated in the top 10 percent from Englewood High School in Chicago, in 1952. At the age of 20, he graduated from Bradley University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry. At Bradley, he distinguished […]

Vladislav Volkov (1935 - 1971)

Vladislav Volkov graduated from the Moscow Aviation Institute, 1959. As an aviation engineer at Korolyov Design Bureau, he was involved in the development of the Vostok and Voskhod spacecraft prior to his selection as a cosmonaut. He flew aboard Soyuz 7 in 1969. Volkov, on his second space mission in 1971, was assigned to Soyuz 11. […]

Viktor Ivanovich Patsayev (1933 - 1971)

Viktor Ivanovich Patsayev (Russian: Ви́ктор Ива́нович Паца́ев; 19 June 1933 – 30 June 1971) was a Soviet cosmonaut who flew on the Soyuz 11 mission and had the unfortunate distinction of being part of the second crew to die during a space flight. On board the space station Salyut 1 he operated the Orion 1 […]

Vladimir Komarov (1927 - 1967)

Shortly after beginning his training Vladimir Komarov was hospitalised for a minor operation in May 1960, which left him medically unfit for physical training for approximately 6 months. At the time, the selection criteria placed a heavy emphasis on the physical condition of cosmonauts and any imperfection led to instant disqualification. Since Komarov already held […]

Sydney Schanberg (1934 - 2016)

Sydney Schanberg was born in Clinton, Massachusetts, the son of Freda (Feinberg) and Louis Schanberg, a grocery store owner. He studied at Clinton High School in 1951 before receiving a B.A. in Government at Harvard University in 1955. After initially starting Harvard Law, he requested to be moved up the draft list and undertook basic […]

Gladys Hooper (1903 - 2016)

Gladys Hooper was born on 18 January 1903 in West Dulwich, South London. In 1916, she witnessed the German airship Schütte-Lanz SL 11 being shot down by Leefe Robinson, who was later awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions. Hooper also met Thomas Edison, co-inventor of the lightbulb, when he visited her school. Hooper went […]

Vaughn Harper (1945 - 2016)

Vaughn Harper played on the Orangemen squad as a starter from 1966 to 1968, as a sophomore he started in all but three games for Syracuse in the NCAA East Region tourney. Despite playing in only three varsity campaigns he is 10th on the Orangemen’s all-time rebounding chart. As a senior, Vaughn led the Orangemen […]

Johnny Barnes (1924 - 2016)

Johnny Barnes, born to parents from St. Kitts, was an electrician by trade and worked on the Bermuda Railroad as an electrician until the railroad closed in 1948. He then became a bus driver. Barnes was fond of waving to people while driving the bus, and would occasionally sit and wave to people on his […]

Noel Neill (1920 - 2016)

Noel Neill was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the daughter of journalist David Holland Neill and stage dancer Lavere Gorsboth. When she was 4 years old, her parents enrolled her at “a school for aspiring performers.” During her teen years, Neill “danced, sang and even played the banjo at county fairs throughout the midwest.” When she […]

Frances Mary Buss (1827 - 1894)

Frances Mary Buss (16 August 1827 – 24 December 1894) was a headmistress and an English pioneer of women’s education. The daughter of Robert William Buss, a painter and etcher, and his wife, Frances Fleetwood, Buss was one of six of their ten children to survive into adulthood. Her grandparents, whom she was visiting in Aldersgate, […]

Yosa Buson (1970 - 1784)

Poet,  Painter. Along with Basho Matsuo and Issa Kobayashi, Yosa Buson is considered among the greatest poets of the Edo Period. He was born in the village of Kema in Settsu Province (now Kema-chô, Miyakojima Ward in the city Osaka). His real last name was “Taniguchi.” Around the age of 20, Buson moved to Edo […]

Horace Bushnell (1802 - 1876)

While in California in 1856, for the restoration of his health, Horace Bushnell took an active interest in the organization, at Oakland, of the College of California (chartered in 1855 and merged with the University of California in 1869), the presidency of which he declined. As a preacher, Dr Bushnell was very effective. Though not […]

Nancy Rachel Bush (1970 - 1970)

Writer and wife of composer Dr. Alan Bush. Wrote several books including a biography of Alan Bush, “Music, Politics and Life.” As well as being Alan Bush’s wife, she was also his artistic partner and wrote the lyrics of some of his songs and the libretti for three of his full length operas “Wat Tyler,” […]

Robert “Democritus Junior” Burton (1577 - 1640)

Author of the wonderfully learned, humorous and eccentric masterpiece ‘The Anatomy of Melancholy’, written under the pseudonym of Democritus Junior, which is repeated on the memorial above his tomb. According to his contemporary, the gossip Anthony a Wood, he had predicted the time of his death with the aid of astrology, and hanged himself so […]

Gaston Burssens (1896 - 1965)

Gaston Burssens (18 February 1896 – 29 January 1965) was a Belgian Expressionist poet. He studied in Flanders at the University of Ghent, at which, during World War I, the Germans introduced classes given in Dutch language. Like that of Paul van Ostaijen, during the 1920s his work evolved from humanitarian expressionism towards a more organic […]

(1970 - 1970)

Author. Also known as his pen name William Lee.  He was born to Laura Lee and Mortimer Burroughs. William was named after his famous grandfather, an inventor who was a pioneer in adding-machine technology. William attended prep schools and later studied English literature at Harvard University, where he graduated in 1936. He travelled to Europe […]

Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875 - 1950)

Author, Master of Adventure.  Tarzan began with one novel followed by twenty nine others which then transcended into some forty movies including a Disney animated cartoon classic, television programs, a Sunday comic strip, hundreds of comic books and the marketing of Tarzan merchandise… toys, wearing apparel and gasoline.  The list is endless.  Edgar Rice Burroughs […]

Robert Burns (1759 - 1796)

Poet. Born the eldest of seven children at Alloway, near Ayr, the son of William Burnes, a small farmer and gardener for the Provost of Ayr. Burns was educated briefly at John Murdoch’s school in Alloway but received most of his schooling at home. His first love, Nelly Kirkpatrick inspired him to try his hand […]

Olive Ann Burns (1924 - 1990)

Olive Ann Burns (July 17, 1924 – July 4, 1990) was an American writer from Georgia best known for her single completed novel, Cold Sassy Tree, published in 1984. Olive Ann Burns was born in Banks County, Georgia. Her father was a farmer but was forced to sell his farm in 1931 during the Great Depression. […]

John Horne Burns (1916 - 1953)

John Horne Burns was born in 1916 in Andover, Massachusetts. He was the eldest of seven children in an upper-middle-class Irish Catholic family. He was educated by the Sisters of Notre Dame at St. Augustine’s School and then Phillips Academy, where he pursued music. He attended Harvard, where he became fluent in French, German, and […]

Fanny Burney (1752 - 1840)

Novelist and diarist. Fanny Burney later (Madame D’Arblay) was born in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, to Esther Sleepe Burney and music historian of some distinction,  Dr. Charles Burney. In 1760, the family moved to Poland street in London where a brilliant social circle would frequent,  which included David Garrick, Samuel Johnson, James Boswell and Edmund Burke. […]

William Riley Burnett, II (1899 - 1982)

Author, screen writer.  William Riley (WR) Burnett wrote 36 novels and wrote or co-wrote 60 screenplays, dozens of magazine stories, short stories, plays and songs. Some of his more recognizable titles include “Little Caesar,” “Nobody Lives Forever,” and “The Dark Command.”  He collaborated with John Huston when working on the adaptation of his work, “High […]

Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett (1849 - 1924)

Author. Born Francis Eliza Hodgson at Cheetham Hill, Manchester, England. Her father died in 1853, leaving a widow and five children. Mrs. Hodgeson tried to continue running her husband’s wholesale firm but ultimately failed in part due to the effects of the American Civil War. With the promise of support from a maternal uncle, the […]