Famous

Mohandas Gandhi

2011-09-12T03:49:00.000-07:00

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi^[1] (2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the pre-eminent political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement. A pioneer of satyagraha, or resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience — a philosophy firmly founded upon ahimsa, or total nonviolence — Gandhi led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world.^[2] Gandhi is often referred to as Mahatma ([məɦaːt̪maː]; Sanskrit: महात्मा mahātmā or "Great Soul," an honorific first applied to him by Rabindranath Tagore).^[3] In India, he is also called Bapu (Gujarati: બાપુ, bāpu or "Father") and officially honoured as the Father of the Nation. His birthday, 2 October, is commemorated in India as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday, and worldwide as the International Day of Non-Violence.

Gandhi first employed non-violent civil disobedience as an expatriate lawyer in South Africa, in the resident Indian community's struggle for civil rights. After his return to India in 1915, he set about organising peasants, farmers, and urban labourers in protesting excessive land-tax and discrimination. Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, expanding women's rights, building religious and ethnic amity, ending untouchability, increasing economic self-reliance, but above all for achieving Swaraj — the independence of India from foreign domination. Gandhi famously led Indians in protesting the British-imposed salt tax with the 400 km (250 mi) Dandi Salt March in 1930, and later in calling for the British to Quit India in 1942. He was imprisoned for many years, on many occasions, in both South Africa and India.

Gandhi strove to practice non-violence and truth in all situations, and advocated that others do the same. He lived modestly in a self-sufficient residential community and wore the traditional Indian dhoti and shawl, woven with yarn he had hand spun on a charkha. He ate simple vegetarian food, and also undertook long fasts as means of both self-purification and social protest.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi^[4] was born on 2 October 1869 in Porbandar, a coastal town which was then part of the Bombay Presidency, British India. He was born in his ancestral home, now known as Kirti Mandir, Porbandar. His father, Karamchand Gandhi (1822–1885), who belonged to the Hindu Modh community, served as the diwan (a high official) of Porbander state, a small princely state in the Kathiawar Agency of British India.^[5] His grandfather was Uttamchand Gandhi, fondly called Utta Gandhi. His mother, Putlibai, who came from the Hindu Pranami Vaishnava community, was Karamchand's fourth wife, the first three wives having apparently died in childbirth.^[6] Growing up with a devout mother and the Jain traditions of the region, the young Mohandas absorbed early the influences that would play an important role in his adult life; these included compassion for sentient beings, vegetarianism, fasting for self-purification, and mutual tolerance among individuals of different creeds.^[7]

The Indian classics, especially the stories of Shravana and Maharaja Harishchandra, had a great impact on Gandhi in his childhood. In his autobiography, he admits that it left an indelible impression on his mind. He writes: "It haunted me and I must have acted Harishchandra to myself times without number." Gandhi's early self-identification with Truth and Love as supreme values is traceable to these epic characters.^[8]^[9]

In May 1883, the 13-year-old Mohandas was married to 14-year-old Kasturbai Makhanji (her first name was usually shortened to "Kasturba", and affectionately to "Ba") in an arranged child marriage, according to the custom of the region.^[10] Recalling the day of their marriage, he once said, "As we didn't know much about marriage, for us it meant only wearing new clothes, eating sweets and playing with relatives." However, as was also the custom of the region, the adolescent bride was to spend much time at her parents' house, and away from her husband.^[11] In 1885, when Gandhi was 15, the couple's first child was born, but survived only a few days, and Gandhi's father, Karamchand Gandhi, had died earlier that year.^[12] Mohandas and Kasturba had four more children, all sons: Harilal, born in 1888; Manilal, born in 1892; Ramdas, born in 1897; and Devdas, born in 1900. At his middle school in Porbandar and high school in Rajkot, Gandhi remained an average student. He passed the matriculation exam for Samaldas College at Bhavnagar, Gujarat, with some difficulty. While there, he was unhappy, in part because his family wanted him to become a barrister.

Gandhi and his wife Kasturba (1902)

On 4 September 1888, Gandhi travelled to London, England, to study law at University College London and to get trained as a barrister. His time in London, the Imperial capital, was influenced by a vow he had made to his mother in the presence of the Jain monk Becharji, upon leaving India, to observe the Hindu precepts of abstinence from meat, alcohol, and promiscuity.^[13] Although Gandhi experimented with adopting "English" customs — taking dancing lessons for example — he could not stomach the bland vegetarian food offered by his landlady, and he was always hungry until he found one of London's few vegetarian restaurants. Influenced by Salt's book, he joined the Vegetarian Society, was elected to its executive committee,^[13] and started a local Bayswater chapter.^[6] Some of the vegetarians he met were members of the Theosophical Society, which had been founded in 1875 to further universal brotherhood, and which was devoted to the study of Buddhist and Hindu literature. They encouraged Gandhi to join them in reading the Bhagavad Gita both in translation as well as in the original.^[13] Not having shown interest in religion before, he became interested in religious thought and began to read both Hindu and Christian scriptures.^[6]^[13]

Gandhi was called to the bar on 10 June 1891. Two days later, he left London for India,^[6] where he learned that his mother had died while he was in London and that his family had kept the news from him.^[13] His attempts at establishing a law practice in Bombay failed and, later, after applying and being turned down for a part-time job as a high school teacher, he ended up returning to Rajkot to make a modest living drafting petitions for litigants, a business he was forced to close when he ran foul of a British officer. In his autobiography, Gandhi refers to this incident as an unsuccessful attempt to lobby on behalf of his older brother.^[6]^[13] It was in this climate that, in April 1893, he accepted a year-long contract from Dada Abdulla & Co., an Indian firm, to a post in the Colony of Natal, South Africa, then part of the British Empire.^[6]

Civil rights movement in South Africa (1893–1914)

Main article: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in South Africa

Gandhi in South Africa (1895)

In South Africa, Gandhi faced the discrimination directed at Indians. He was thrown off a train at Pietermaritzburg after refusing to move from the first-class to a third-class coach while holding a valid first-class ticket.^[14] Travelling farther on by stagecoach, he was beaten by a driver for refusing to move to make room for a European passenger.^[15] He suffered other hardships on the journey as well, including being barred from several hotels. In another incident, the magistrate of a Durban court ordered Gandhi to remove his turban, which he refused to do.^[16] These events were a turning point in Gandhi's life: they shaped his social activism and awakened him to social injustice. After witnessing racism, prejudice and injustice against Indians in South Africa, Gandhi began to question his place in society and his people's standing in the British Empire.

M.K. Gandhi while serving in the Ambulance Corps during the Boer War (1899)

Gandhi extended his original period of stay in South Africa to assist Indians in opposing a bill to deny them the right to vote. Though unable to halt the bill's passage, his campaign was successful in drawing attention to the grievances of Indians in South Africa. He helped found the Natal Indian Congress in 1894,^[6]^[14] and through this organisation, he moulded the Indian community of South Africa into a unified political force. In January 1897, when Gandhi landed in Durban, a mob of white settlers attacked him and he escaped only through the efforts of the wife of the police superintendent. He, however, refused to press charges against any member of the mob, stating it was one of his principles not to seek redress for a personal wrong in a court of law.^[6]

In 1906, the Transvaal government promulgated a new Act compelling registration of the colony's Indian population. At a mass protest meeting held in Johannesburg on 11 September that year, Gandhi adopted his still evolving methodology of satyagraha (devotion to the truth), or non-violent protest, for the first time. He urged Indians to defy the new law and to suffer the punishments for doing so. The community adopted this plan, and during the ensuing seven-year struggle, thousands of Indians were jailed, flogged, or shot for striking, refusing to register, for burning their registration cards or engaging in other forms of non-violent resistance. The government successfully repressed the Indian protesters, but the public outcry over the harsh treatment of peaceful Indian protesters by the South African government forced South African General Jan Christiaan Smuts to negotiate a compromise with Gandhi. Gandhi's ideas took shape, and the concept of satyagraha matured during this struggle.

Accusations of racism

Some of Gandhi's South African articles are controversial. On 7 March 1908, Gandhi wrote in the Indian Opinion of his time in a South African prison: "Kaffirs are as a rule uncivilised—the convicts even more so. They are troublesome, very dirty and live almost like animals... The kaffirs' sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness. They're loafers... a species of humanity almost unknown among the Indians."^[17] Writing on the subject of immigration in 1903, Gandhi commented: "We believe as much in the purity of race as we think they do... We believe also that the white race in South Africa should be the predominating race."^[18] During his time in South Africa, Gandhi protested repeatedly about the social classification of blacks with Indians, whom he described as "undoubtedly infinitely superior to the Kaffirs".^[19] Remarks such as these have led many South Africans to accuse Gandhi of racism.^[20]

Two professors of history who specialise in South Africa, Surendra Bhana and Goolam Vahed, examined this controversy in their text, The Making of a Political Reformer: Gandhi in South Africa, 1893–1914. (New Delhi: Manohar, 2005). They focus in Chapter 1, "Gandhi, Africans and Indians in Colonial Natal" on the relationship between the African and Indian communities under "White rule" and policies which enforced segregation (and, they argue, led to inevitable conflict between these communities). Of this relationship, they state that, "the young Gandhi was influenced by segregationist notions prevalent in the 1890s."^[21] At the same time, they state, "Gandhi's experiences in jail seemed to make him more sensitive to their plight...the later Gandhi mellowed; he seemed much less categorical in his expression of prejudice against Africans, and much more open to seeing points of common cause. His negative views in the Johannesburg jail were reserved for hardened African prisoners rather than Africans generally."^[22] However, when plans to unveil a statue of Gandhi in Johannesburg were announced, a movement unsuccessfully tried to block it because of Gandhi's racist statements.^[20]

Role in Zulu War of 1906

Main article: Bambatha Rebellion

In 1906, after the British introduced a new poll-tax in South Africa, Zulus killed two British officers. In response, the British declared war against the Zulu kingdom. Gandhi actively encouraged the British to recruit Indians. He argued that Indians should support the war efforts in order to legitimise their claims to full citizenship. The British, however, refused to commission Indians as army officers. Nonetheless, they accepted Gandhi's offer to let a detachment of Indians volunteer as a stretcher-bearer corps to treat wounded British soldiers. This corps was commanded by Gandhi. On 21 July 1906, Gandhi wrote in Indian Opinion: "The corps had been formed at the instance of the Natal Government by way of experiment, in connection with the operations against the Natives consists of twenty three Indians".^[23] Gandhi urged the Indian population in South Africa to join the war through his columns in Indian Opinion: “If the Government only realised what reserve force is being wasted, they would make use of it and give Indians the opportunity of a thorough training for actual warfare.”^[24]

In Gandhi's opinion, the Draft Ordinance of 1906 brought the status of Indians below the level of Natives. He therefore urged Indians to resist the Ordinance along the lines of satyagraha by taking the example of "Kaffirs". In his words, "Even the half-castes and kaffirs, who are less advanced than we, have resisted the government. The pass law applies to them as well, but they do not take out passes."^[25]

In 1927, Gandhi wrote of the event: "The Boer War had not brought home to me the horrors of war with anything like the vividness that the [Zulu] 'rebellion' did. This was no war but a man-hunt, not only in my opinion, but also in that of many Englishmen with whom I had occasion to talk."^[26]

Struggle for Indian Independence (1915–45)

Role in World War I

In April 1918, during the latter part of World War I, the Viceroy invited Gandhi to a War Conference in Delhi^[27] Perhaps to show his support for the Empire and help his case for India's independence,^[28] Gandhi agreed to actively recruit Indians for the war effort.^[29] In contrast to the Zulu War of 1906 and the outbreak of World War I in 1914, when he recruited volunteers for the Ambulance Corps, this time Gandhi attempted to recruit combatants. In a June 1918 leaflet entitled "Appeal for Enlistment", Gandhi wrote "To bring about such a state of things we should have the ability to defend ourselves, that is, the ability to bear arms and to use them...If we want to learn the use of arms with the greatest possible despatch, it is our duty to enlist ourselves in the army."^[30] He did, however, stipulate in a letter to the Viceroy's private secretary that he "personally will not kill or injure anybody, friend or foe."^[31] Gandhi's war recruitment campaign brought into question his consistency on nonviolence as his friend Charlie Andrews confirms, "Personally I have never been able to reconcile this with his own conduct in other respects, and it is one of the points where I have found myself in painful disagreement."^[32] Gandhi's private secretary also acknowledges that "The question of the consistency between his creed of 'Ahimsa' (non-violence) and his recruiting campaign was raised not only then but has been discussed ever since."^[29]

Champaran and Kheda

Main article: Champaran and Kheda Satyagraha

Gandhi in 1918, at the time of the Kheda and Champaran satyagrahas

Gandhi's first major achievements came in 1918 with the Champaran agitation and Kheda Satyagraha, although in the latter it was indigo and other cash crops instead of the food crops necessary for their survival. Suppressed by the militias of the landlords (mostly British), they were given measly compensation, leaving them mired in extreme poverty. The villages were kept extremely dirty and unhygienic; and alcoholism was rampant. Now in the throes of a devastating famine, the British levied a tax which they insisted on increasing. The situation was desperate. In Kheda in Gujarat, the problem was the same. Gandhi established an ashram there, organising scores of his veteran supporters and fresh volunteers from the region. He organised a detailed study and survey of the villages, accounting for the atrocities and terrible episodes of suffering, including the general state of degenerate living. Building on the confidence of villagers, he began leading the clean-up of villages, building of schools and hospitals and encouraging the village leadership to undo and condemn many social evils such as untouchability and alcoholism.

His most important impact came when he was arrested by police on the charge of creating unrest and was ordered to leave the province. Hundreds of thousands of people protested and rallied outside the jail, police stations and courts demanding his release, which the court reluctantly granted. Gandhi led organised protests and strikes against the landlords. With the guidance of the British government, these landlords agreed to suspend revenue hikes until the famine ended and to grant the poor farmers of the region increased compensation and control over farming. It was during this agitation that Gandhi was addressed by the people as Bapu (Father) and Mahatma (Great Soul). In Kheda, Sardar Patel represented the farmers in negotiations with the British, who suspended revenue collection and released all the prisoners. As a result, Gandhi became well known in India.

Non-cooperation

Main article: Non-cooperation movement

Gandhi employed non-cooperation, non-violence and peaceful resistance as his "weapons" in the struggle against the British Raj. In Punjab, the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of civilians by British troops (also known as the Amritsar Massacre) caused deep trauma to the nation, leading to increased public anger and acts of violence. Gandhi criticised both the actions of the British Raj and the retaliatory violence of Indians. He authored the resolution offering condolences to British civilian victims and condemning the riots which, after initial opposition in the party, was accepted following Gandhi's emotional speech advocating his principle that all violence was evil and could not be justified.^[33] After the massacre and subsequent violence, Gandhi began to focus on winning complete self-government and control of all Indian government institutions, maturing soon into Swaraj or complete individual, spiritual, political independence.

Mahatma Gandhi's room at Sabarmati Ashram

Sabarmati Ashram, Gandhi's home in Gujarat

In December 1921, Gandhi was invested with executive authority on behalf of the Indian National Congress. Under his leadership, the Congress was reorganised with a new constitution, with the goal of Swaraj. Membership in the party was opened to anyone prepared to pay a token fee. A hierarchy of committees was set up to improve discipline, transforming the party from an elite organisation to one of mass national appeal. Gandhi expanded his non-violence platform to include the swadeshi policy — the boycott of foreign-made goods, especially British goods. Linked to this was his advocacy that khadi (homespun cloth) be worn by all Indians instead of British-made textiles. Gandhi exhorted Indian men and women, rich or poor, to spend time each day spinning khadi in support of the independence movement.^[34] Gandhi even invented a small, portable spinning wheel that could be folded into the size of a small typewriter.^[35] This was a strategy to inculcate discipline and dedication to weeding out the unwilling and ambitious and to include women in the movement at a time when many thought that such activities were not respectable activities for women. In addition to boycotting British products, Gandhi urged the people to boycott British educational institutions and law courts, to resign from government employment, and to forsake British titles and honours.

An example demonstrates popularity of Gandhi, importance of participation of people in the freedom movement and Gandhi's words on worth of sacrifice. While he was popularising Khadi in rural Orissa, an aged poor woman who was listening to a speech by Gandhi fought her way to where he was, touched his feet and put a one-paise copper coin in front of him. Gandhi accepted the coin and thanked her. He said to Jamnalal Bajaj about it as^[36]:

"This coin was perhaps all that the poor woman possessed. She gave me all she had. That was very generous of her. What a great sacrifice she made. That is why I value this copper coin more than a crore of rupees."

"Non-cooperation" enjoyed widespread appeal and success, increasing excitement and participation from all strata of Indian society. Yet, just as the movement reached its apex, it ended abruptly as a result of a violent clash in the town of Chauri Chaura, Uttar Pradesh, in February 1922. Fearing that the movement was about to take a turn towards violence, and convinced that this would be the undoing of all his work, Gandhi called off the campaign of mass civil disobedience.^[37] According to Andrew Roberts, this was the third time that Gandhi had called off a major campaign, "leaving in the lurch more than 15,000 supporters who were jailed for the cause".^[38] Gandhi was arrested on 10 March 1922, tried for sedition, and sentenced to six years' imprisonment. He began his sentence on 18 March 1922. He was released in February 1924 for an appendicitis operation, having served only 2 years.

Without Gandhi's unifying personality, the Indian National Congress began to splinter during his years in prison, splitting into two factions, one led by Chitta Ranjan Das and Motilal Nehru favouring party participation in the legislatures, and the other led by Chakravarti Rajagopalachari and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, opposing this move. Furthermore, cooperation among Hindus and Muslims, which had been strong at the height of the non-violence campaign, was breaking down. Gandhi attempted to bridge these differences through many means, including a three-week fast in the autumn of 1924, but with limited success.^[39] This may have been due to Gandhi's "uncanny ability to irritate and frustrate" India's Muslim leadership.^[38]

Salt Satyagraha (Salt March)

Main article: Salt Satyagraha

Gandhi at Dandi, 5 April 1930, at the end of the Salt March

Gandhi stayed out of active politics and, as such, the limelight for most of the 1920s. He focused instead on resolving the wedge between the Swaraj Party and the Indian National Congress, and expanding initiatives against untouchability, alcoholism, ignorance and poverty. He returned to the fore in 1928. In the preceding year, the British government had appointed a new constitutional reform commission under Sir John Simon, which did not include any Indian as its member. The result was a boycott of the commission by Indian political parties. Gandhi pushed through a resolution at the Calcutta Congress in December 1928 calling on the British government to grant India dominion status or face a new campaign of non-cooperation with complete independence for the country as its goal. Gandhi had not only moderated the views of younger men like Subhas Chandra Bose and Jawaharlal Nehru, who sought a demand for immediate independence, but also reduced his own call to a one year wait, instead of two.^[40] The British did not respond. On 31 December 1929, the flag of India was unfurled in Lahore. 26 January 1930 was celebrated as India's Independence Day by the Indian National Congress meeting in Lahore. This day was commemorated by almost every other Indian organisation. Gandhi then launched a new satyagraha against the tax on salt in March 1930. This was highlighted by the famous Salt March to Dandi from 12 March to 6 April, where he marched 388 kilometres (241 miles) from Ahmedabad to Dandi, Gujarat to make salt himself. Thousands of Indians joined him on this march to the sea. This campaign was one of his most successful at upsetting British hold on India; Britain responded by imprisoning over 60,000 people.

The government, represented by Lord Edward Irwin, decided to negotiate with Gandhi. The Gandhi–Irwin Pact was signed in March 1931. The British Government agreed to free all political prisoners, in return for the suspension of the civil disobedience movement. Also as a result of the pact, Gandhi was invited to attend the Round Table Conference in London as the sole representative of the Indian National Congress. The conference was a disappointment to Gandhi and the nationalists, because it focused on the Indian princes and Indian minorities rather than on a transfer of power. Furthermore, Lord Irwin's successor, Lord Willingdon, began a new campaign of controlling and subduing the nationalist movement. Gandhi was again arrested, and the government tried to negate his influence by completely isolating him from his followers. But this tactic failed.

Mahadev Desai (left) reading out a letter to Gandhi from the viceroy at Birla House, Bombay, 7 April 1939

In 1932, through the campaigning of the Dalit leader B. R. Ambedkar, the government granted untouchables separate electorates under the new constitution. In protest, Gandhi embarked on a six-day fast in September 1932. The resulting public outcry successfully forced the government to adopt an equitable arrangement through negotiations mediated by Palwankar Baloo. This was the start of a new campaign by Gandhi to improve the lives of the untouchables, whom he named Harijans, the children of God.

On 8 May 1933, Gandhi began a 21-day fast of self-purification to help the Harijan movement.^[41] This new campaign was not universally embraced within the Dalit community, as prominent leader B. R. Ambedkar condemned Gandhi's use of the term Harijans as saying that Dalits were socially immature, and that privileged caste Indians played a paternalistic role. Ambedkar and his allies also felt Gandhi was undermining Dalit political rights. Gandhi had also refused to support the untouchables in 1924–25 when they were campaigning for the right to pray in temples. Because of Gandhi's actions, Ambedkar described him as "devious and untrustworthy".^[38] Gandhi, although born into the Vaishya caste, insisted that he was able to speak on behalf of Dalits, despite the presence of Dalit activists such as Ambedkar.

In the summer of 1934, three unsuccessful attempts were made on Gandhi's life.

When the Congress Party chose to contest elections and accept power under the Federation scheme, Gandhi resigned from party membership. He did not disagree with the party's move, but felt that if he resigned, his popularity with Indians would cease to stifle the party's membership, which actually varied, including communists, socialists, trade unionists, students, religious conservatives, and those with pro-business convictions, and that these various voices would get a chance to make themselves heard. Gandhi also wanted to avoid being a target for Raj propaganda by leading a party that had temporarily accepted political accommodation with the Raj.^[42]

Gandhi returned to active politics again in 1936, with the Nehru presidency and the Lucknow session of the Congress. Although Gandhi wanted a total focus on the task of winning independence and not speculation about India's future, he did not restrain the Congress from adopting socialism as its goal. Gandhi had a clash with Subhas Bose, who had been elected president in 1938. Their main points of contention were Bose's lack of commitment to democracy^{[citation needed]} and lack of faith in non-violence. Bose won his second term despite Gandhi's criticism, but left the Congress when the All-India leaders resigned en masse in protest of his abandonment of the principles introduced by Gandhi.^[43]

World War II and Quit India

Main article: Quit India Movement

Jawaharlal Nehru sitting next to Gandhi at the AICC General Session, 1942

World War II broke out in 1939 when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Initially, Gandhi favoured offering "non-violent moral support" to the British effort, but other Congressional leaders were offended by the unilateral inclusion of India in the war, without consultation of the people's representatives. All Congressmen resigned from office.^[44] After long deliberations, Gandhi declared that India could not be party to a war ostensibly being fought for democratic freedom, while that freedom was denied to India itself. As the war progressed, Gandhi intensified his demand for independence, drafting a resolution calling for the British to Quit India. This was Gandhi's and the Congress Party's most definitive revolt aimed at securing the British exit from India.^[45]

Gandhi was criticised by some Congress party members and other Indian political groups, both pro-British and anti-British. Some felt that not supporting Britain more in its struggle against Nazi Germany was unethical. Others felt that Gandhi's refusal for India to participate in the war was insufficient and more direct opposition should be taken, while Britain fought against Nazism yet continued to contradict itself by refusing to grant India Independence. Quit India became the most forceful movement in the history of the struggle, with mass arrests and violence on an unprecedented scale.^[46] Thousands of freedom fighters were killed or injured by police gunfire, and hundreds of thousands were arrested. Gandhi and his supporters made it clear they would not support the war effort unless India were granted immediate independence. He even clarified that this time the movement would not be stopped if individual acts of violence were committed, saying that the "ordered anarchy" around him was "worse than real anarchy." He called on all Congressmen and Indians to maintain discipline via ahimsa, and Karo Ya Maro ("Do or Die") in the cause of ultimate freedom.

"I want world sympathy in this battle of right against might" – Dandi 5 April 1930

Gandhi and the entire Congress Working Committee were arrested in Bombay by the British on 9 August 1942. Gandhi was held for two years in the Aga Khan Palace in Pune. It was here that Gandhi suffered two terrible blows in his personal life. His 50-year old secretary Mahadev Desai died of a heart attack 6 days later and his wife Kasturba died after 18 months imprisonment on 22 February 1944; six weeks later Gandhi suffered a severe malaria attack. He was released before the end of the war on 6 May 1944 because of his failing health and necessary surgery; the Raj did not want him to die in prison and enrage the nation. He came out of detention to an altered political scene – the Muslim League for example, which a few years earlier had appeared marginal, "now occupied the centre of the political stage"^[47] and the topic of Jinnah's campaign for Pakistan was a major talking point. Gandhi met Jinnah in September 1944 in Bombay but Jinnah rejected, on the grounds that it fell short of a fully independent Pakistan, his proposal of the right of Muslim provinces to opt out of substantial parts of the forthcoming political union.

Although the Quit India movement had moderate success in its objective, the ruthless suppression of the movement^{[clarification needed]} brought order to India by the end of 1943. At the end of the war, the British gave clear indications that power would be transferred to Indian hands. At this point Gandhi called off the struggle, and around 100,000 political prisoners were released, including the Congress's leadership.

Partition of India

Mubarak

2011-09-12T03:41:00.000-07:00

Muhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak (Arabic: محمد حسني سيد مبارك‎, Egyptian Arabic pronunciation: [mæˈħæmmæd ˈħosni ˈsæjjed moˈbɑːɾˤɑk], Muḥammad Ḥusnī Sayyid Mubārak; born 4 May 1928)^[1] is a former Egyptian politician and military commander. He served as the fourth President of Egypt from 1981 to 2011.

Mubarak was appointed Vice President of Egypt in 1975, and assumed the presidency on 14 October 1981, following the assassination of President Anwar El Sadat. The length of his presidency made him Egypt's longest-serving ruler since Muhammad Ali Pasha.^[2] Before he entered politics, Mubarak was a career officer in the Egyptian Air Force, serving as its commander from 1972 to 1975 and rising to the rank of air chief marshal.

Mubarak was ousted after 18 days of demonstrations during the 2011 Egyptian revolution^[3] when, on 11 February, Vice President Omar Suleiman announced that Mubarak had resigned as president and transferred authority to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.^[4]^[5] On 13 April, a prosecutor^[which?] ordered Mubarak and both his sons to be detained for 15 days of questioning about allegations of corruption and abuse of power.^[6] He was then ordered to stand trial on charges of premeditated murder of peaceful protestors during the revolution.^[7] These trials officially began on the 3 August 2011.^[8] Egypt’s military prosecutors then also proclaimed that it is investigating Mubarak's role in the assassination of his predecessor Anwar Sadat.^[9]^[10

Mubarak was born on 4 May 1928,^[1] in Kafr-El-Meselha, Monufia Governorate, Egypt. He is married to Suzanne Mubarak, and has two sons: Alaa, and Gamal.

Upon completion of high school, he joined the Egyptian Military Academy, where he received a Bachelor's degree in Military Sciences in 1949.^{[citation needed]} On 2 February 1949, Mubarak left the Military Academy and joined the Air Force Academy, gaining his commission as a pilot officer on 13 March 1950^[11] and eventually receiving a Bachelor's Degree in Aviation Sciences.

As an Egyptian Air Force officer, Mubarak served in various formations and units, including two years when he served in a Spitfire fighter squadron.^[11] Some time in the 1950s, he returned to the Air Force Academy, this time as an instructor, remaining there until early 1959.^[11] From February 1959 to June 1961, Mubarak undertook further training in the Soviet Union, attending a Soviet pilot training school in Moscow and another at Kant Air Base, near Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan (then a Soviet republic), an airfield that is today home to the Russian 5th Air Army's 999th Air Base.

Mubarak undertook training on the Ilyushin Il-28 and Tupolev Tu-16 jet bomber, and then joined the Frunze Military Academy in 1964. On his return to Egypt, Mubarak served in wing and then base commander appointments, taking up command of the Cairo West Air Base in October 1966 before briefly commanding the Beni Suef Air Base.^[11] In November 1967, Mubarak became the Air Force Academy's commander when he was credited with doubling the number of pilots and navigators in the Air Force during the pre-October War years.^[12] Two years later he became Chief of Staff for the Egyptian Air Force.

Mubarak became Commander of the Air Force and Egyptian Deputy Minister of Defence in 1972. In the following year his military career reached its pinnacle when he was promoted to Air Chief Marshal in recognition of service during the October War of 1973.^[11]^[13] Mubarak has been credited in some publications for Egypt's initial strong performance in the 1973 war against Israel.^[14] The Egyptian analyst Mohamed Hassanein Heikal gave a different evaluation of the role of the Air Force in 1973 from that of Mubarak and his supporters. Heikal argued that the Air Force played a mostly psychological role in the war, providing an inspirational sight for the Egyptian ground troops that carried out the crossing of Suez Canal, rather than for any military necessity.^[15] The role of Mubarak was further disputed by Shahdan El-Shazli the daughter of the former Egyptian military Chief of Staff Saad el-Shazly. She alleged that Mubarak altered the representation of a number of events pertaining to the 1973 war to show a magnified role for himself. In an interview with the Egyptian independent newspaper Almasry Alyoum (26 Feb 2011), El-Shazli claimed that Mubarak altered documents to take credit for the initial success of the Egyptian forces in 1973 from her father. She alleged that even photographs pertaining to the discussions in the military command room were altered, so that the pictures of Saad El-Shazli were erased and replaced by Mubarak. She stated that she intends to take a legal action with this regard.^[16]

[edit] Vice President of Egypt

In April 1975, Mubarak was appointed by Sadat as Vice President of Egypt. In this position, he loyally served Sadat's policies. He took part in government consultations that dealt with the future disengagement of forces agreement with Israel.^[17]

As part of his support for Sadat's policies, he went in early September 1975 on a mission to Riyadh, and Damascus to convince the Saudi Arabian, and Syrian governments to accept the disengagement agreement signed with the Israeli government ("Sinai II"), but was refused a meeting by the Syrian President, Hafez Al-Assad.^[18]^[19]

In addition, Mubarak was sent by Sadat to numerous meetings with foreign leaders.^[20] Mubarak's political significance as Vice-President can be seen from the fact that at a conversation held on 23 June 1975 between Foreign Minister Fahmy and US Ambassador Hermann Eilts, Fahmy said to Eilts that "Mobarek [sic] is, for the time being at least, likely to be a regular participant in all sensitive meetings" and he advised the Ambassador not to antagonize Mubarak, as he was Sadat's personal choice.^[21]

[edit] President of Egypt

Following the assassination of President Sadat in October 1981 by a Jihad cell in the military led by Lieutenant Khalid Islambouli, Hosni Mubarak became the fourth President of Egypt, and the Chairman of the National Democratic Party (NDP). He was the longest serving President of Egypt, his term lasting 29 years.

[edit] E

ستيف جوبز - Steve Jobs

2011-08-24T22:47:00.000-07:00

Steven Paul "Steve" Jobs (born February 24, 1955) is an American business magnate and inventor. He is co-founder,^[11] chairman of the board, and former chief executive officer of Apple Inc.^[12]^[13] Jobs also previously served as chief executive of Pixar Animation Studios; he became a member of the board of directors of The Walt Disney Company in 2006, following the acquisition of Pixar by Disney. He was credited in the 1995 movie Toy Story as an executive producer.^[14]

In the late 1970s, Jobs, with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Mike Markkula,^[11] and others, designed, developed, and marketed one of the first commercially successful lines of personal computers, the Apple II series. In the early 1980s, Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of the mouse-driven graphical user interface which led to the creation of the Macintosh.^[15]^[16] After losing a power struggle with the board of directors in 1984,^[17]^[18] Jobs resigned from Apple and founded NeXT, a computer platform development company specializing in the higher education and business markets. Apple's subsequent 1996 buyout of NeXT brought Jobs back to the company he co-founded, and he served as its CEO from 1997 until 2011. In 1986, he acquired the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm Ltd which was spun off as Pixar Animation Studios.^[19] He remained CEO and majority shareholder at 50.1% until its acquisition by The Walt Disney company in 2006.^[3] Consequently Jobs became Disney's largest individual shareholder at 7% and a member of Disney's Board of Directors.^[20]^[21]^[22]^[23]

Jobs' history in business has contributed much to the symbolic image of the idiosyncratic, individualistic Silicon Valley entrepreneur, emphasizing the importance of design and understanding the crucial role aesthetics play in public appeal. His work driving forward the development of products that are both functional and elegant has earned him a devoted following.^[24]

On August 24, 2011, Jobs announced his resignation from his role as Apple's CEO to Apple's board of directors. In his letter of resignation, Jobs strongly recommended that Tim Cook be named as his successor. Per his request, Jobs was appointed chairman of Apple's board of directors.^[25]^[26]^[27]^[28^]

obs was born in San Francisco, California^[1] and was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs (née Hagopian)^[29] of Mountain View, California, who named him Steven Paul. Paul and Clara later adopted a daughter, whom they named Patti. Jobs' biological parents – Abdulfattah Jandali, a Syrian^[30] graduate student who later became a political science professor,^[31] and Joanne Simpson (née Schieble), an American graduate student^[30] who went on to become a speech language pathologist^[32] – later married, giving birth to and raising Jobs' biological sister, the novelist Mona Simpson.^[33]^[34]^[35]^[36]^[37]^[38]

Jobs attended Cupertino Junior High School and Homestead High School in Cupertino, California,^[24] and frequented after-school lectures at the Hewlett-Packard Company in Palo Alto, California. He was soon hired there and worked with Steve Wozniak as a summer employee.^[39] In 1972, Jobs graduated from high school and enrolled in Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Although he dropped out after only one semester,^[40] he continued auditing classes at Reed, such as one in calligraphy, while sleeping on the floor in friends' rooms, returning Coke bottles for food money, and getting weekly free meals at the local Hare Krishna temple.^[18] Jobs later stated, "If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts."^[18]

In the autumn of 1974, Jobs returned to California and began attending meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club with Wozniak. He took a job as a technician at Atari, a manufacturer of popular video games, with the primary intent of saving money for a spiritual retreat to India.

Jobs then traveled to India with a Reed College friend (and, later, the first Apple employee), Daniel Kottke, in search of spiritual enlightenment. He came back a Buddhist with his head shaved and wearing traditional Indian clothing.^[41]^[42] During this time, Jobs experimented with psychedelics, calling his LSD experiences "one of the two or three most important things [he had] done in [his] life".^[43] He has stated that people around him who did not share his countercultural roots could not fully relate to his thinking.^[43]

Jobs returned to his previous job at Atari and was given the task of creating a circuit board for the game Breakout. According to Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, Atari had offered $100 for each chip that was eliminated in the machine. Jobs had little interest or knowledge in circuit board design and made a deal with Wozniak to split the bonus evenly between them if Wozniak could minimize the number of chips. Much to the amazement of Atari, Wozniak reduced the number of chips by 50, a design so tight that it was impossible to reproduce on an assembly line. At the time, Jobs told Wozniak that Atari had only given them $700 (instead of the actual $5000) and that Wozniak's share was thus $350.^[44]^[45]^[46]^[47]^[48]^[49]

Martin Luther King

2011-06-04T09:02:00.005-07:00

Martin Luther King, Jr., was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, the middle child of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr. and Alberta Williams King.^[5] King Jr. had an older sister, Willie Christine King, and a younger brother, Alfred Daniel Williams King.^[6] King sang with his church choir at the 1939 Atlanta premiere of the movie Gone with the Wind.^[7]

King was originally skeptical of many of Christianity's claims.^[8] Most striking, perhaps, was his denial of the bodily resurrection of Jesus during Sunday school at the age of thirteen. From this point, he stated, "doubts began to spring forth unrelentingly."^[9]

Growing up in Atlanta, King attended Booker T. Washington High School. A precocious student, he skipped both the ninth and the twelfth grade and entered Morehouse College at age fifteen without formally graduating from high school.^[10] In 1948, he graduated from Morehouse with a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology, and enrolled in Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1951.^[11]^[12] King married Coretta Scott, on June 18, 1953, on the lawn of her parents' house in her hometown of Heiberger, Alabama.^[13] They had four children; Yolanda King, Martin Luther King III, Dexter Scott King, and Bernice King.^[14] King became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama when he was twenty-five years old in 1954.^[15] King then began doctoral studies in systematic theology at Boston University and received his Doctor of Philosophy on June 5, 1955, with a dissertation on "A Comparison of the Conceptions of God in the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman." A 1980s inquiry concluded portions of his dissertation had been plagiarized and he had acted improperly but that his dissertation still "makes an intelligent contribution to scholarship."^[16]

Influences

Thurman

Civil rights leader, theologian, and educator Howard Thurman was an early influence on King. A classmate of King's father at Morehouse College,^[17] Thurman mentored the young King and his friends.^[18] Thurman's missionary work had taken him abroad where he had met and conferred with Mahatma Gandhi.^[19] When he was a student at Boston University, King often visited Thurman, who was the dean of Marsh Chapel.^[20] Walter Fluker, who has studied Thurman's writings, has stated, "I don't believe you'd get a Martin Luther King, Jr. without a Howard Thurman".^[21]

Gandhi and Rustin

With assistance from the Quaker group the American Friends Service Committee and inspired by Gandhi's success with non-violent activism, King visited Gandhi's birthplace in India in 1959.^[22] The trip to India affected King in a profound way, deepening his understanding of non-violent resistance and his commitment to America's struggle for civil rights. In a radio address made during his final evening in India, King reflected, "Since being in India, I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity. In a real sense, Mahatma Gandhi embodied in his life certain universal principles that are inherent in the moral structure of the universe, and these principles are as inescapable as the law of gravitation."^[23] African American civil rights activist Bayard Rustin had studied Gandhi's teachings.^[24] Rustin counseled King to dedicate himself to the principles of non-violence,^[25] served as King's main advisor and mentor throughout his early activism,^[26] and was the main organizer of the 1963 March on Washington.^[27] Rustin's open homosexuality, support of democratic socialism, and his former ties to the Communist Party USA caused many white and African-American leaders to demand King distance himself from Rustin.^[28]

Sermons and speeches

Main article: Sermons and speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr.

All I'm saying is simply this, that all life is interrelated, that somehow we're caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.

— Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.^[29]

Throughout his career of service, King wrote and spoke frequently, drawing on his experience as a preacher. His "Letter from Birmingham Jail", written in 1963, is a "passionate" statement of his crusade for justice.^[30] On October 14, 1964, King became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, which was awarded to him for leading non-violent resistance to racial prejudice in the United States.^[31]

Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955

Main articles: Montgomery Bus Boycott, Jim Crow laws#Public arena, Claudette Colvin, and Rosa Parks

In March 1955, a fifteen-year-old school girl, Claudette Colvin, refused to give up her bus seat to a white man in compliance with the Jim Crow laws. King was on the committee from the Birmingham African-American community that looked into the case; because Colvin was pregnant and unmarried, E.D. Nixon and Clifford Durr decided to wait for a better case to pursue.^[32] On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat.^[33] The Montgomery Bus Boycott, urged and planned by Nixon and led by King, soon followed.^[34] The boycott lasted for 385 days,^[35] and the situation became so tense that King's house was bombed.^[36] King was arrested during this campaign, which ended with a United States District Court ruling in Browder v. Gayle that ended racial segregation on all Montgomery public buses.^[37]

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

In 1957, King, Ralph Abernathy, and other civil rights activists founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The group was created to harness the moral authority and organizing power of black churches to conduct non-violent protests in the service of civil rights reform. King led the SCLC until his death.^[38]

On September 20, 1958, while signing copies of his book Stride Toward Freedom in Blumstein's department store on 125th Street, in Harlem,^[39]^[40] King was stabbed in the chest with a letter opener by Izola Curry, a deranged black woman, and narrowly escaped death.^[41]

Gandhi's nonviolent techniques were useful to King's campaign to change the civil rights laws implemented in Alabama.^[42] King applied non-violent philosophy to the protests organized by the SCLC. In 1959, he wrote The Measure of A Man, from which the piece What is Man?, an attempt to sketch the optimal political, social, and economic structure of society, is derived.^[43] His SCLC secretary and personal assistant in this period was Dora McDonald.

The FBI, under written directive from Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, began telephone tapping King in the fall of 1963.^[44] Concerned that allegations (of Communists in the SCLC), if made public, would derail the Administration's civil rights initiatives, Kennedy warned King to discontinue the suspect associations, and later felt compelled to issue the written directive authorizing the FBI to wiretap King and other leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.^[45] J. Edgar Hoover feared Communists were trying to infiltrate the Civil Rights Movement, but when no such evidence emerged, the bureau used the incidental details caught on tape over the next five years in attempts to force King out of the preeminent leadership position.^[46]

King believed that organized, nonviolent protest against the system of southern segregation known as Jim Crow laws would lead to extensive media coverage of the struggle for black equality and voting rights. Journalistic accounts and televised footage of the daily deprivation and indignities suffered by southern blacks, and of segregationist violence and harassment of civil rights workers and marchers, produced a wave of sympathetic public opinion that convinced the majority of Americans that the Civil Rights Movement was the most important issue in American politics in the early 1960s.^[47]

King organized and led marches for blacks' right to vote, desegregation, labor rights and other basic civil rights.^[48] Most of these rights were successfully enacted into the law of the United States with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.^[49]

King and the SCLC put into practice many of the principles of the Christian Left and applied the tactics of nonviolent protest with great success by strategically choosing the method of protest and the places in which protests were carried out. There were often dramatic stand-offs with segregationist authorities. Sometimes these confrontations turned violent.^[50]

Albany movement

Main article: Albany movement

The Albany Movement was a desegregation coalition formed in Albany, Georgia in November, 1961. In December King and the SCLC became involved. The movement mobilized thousands of citizens for a broad-front nonviolent attack on every aspect of segregation within the city and attracted nationwide attention. When King first visited on December 15, 1961, he "had planned to stay a day or so and return home after giving counsel."^[51] But the following day he was swept up in a mass arrest of peaceful demonstrators, and he declined bail until the city made concessions. "Those agreements", said King, "were dishonored and violated by the city," as soon as he left town.^[51] King returned in July 1962, and was sentenced to forty-five days in jail or a $178 fine. He chose jail. Three days into his sentence, Chief Pritchett discreetly arranged for King's fine to be paid and ordered his release. "We had witnessed persons being kicked off lunch counter stools ... ejected from churches ... and thrown into jail ... But for the first time, we witnessed being kicked out of jail."^[51]

After nearly a year of intense activism with few tangible results, the movement began to deteriorate. King requested a halt to all demonstrations and a "Day of Penance" to promote non-violence and maintain the moral high ground. Divisions within the black community and the canny, low-key response by local government defeated efforts.^[52] However, it was credited as a key lesson in tactics for the national civil rights movement.^[53]

Charles Spencer Chaplin

2011-06-04T09:02:00.001-07:00

Charles Spencer Chaplin was born on 16 April 1889, supposedly in East Street, Walworth, London, England.^[9] (In 2011, a letter, written to him in the 1970s, came to light, suggesting that he had been born in a gypsy caravan at Black Patch Park in Smethwick, Staffordshire.^[10]) His parents were entertainers in the music hall tradition; his father, Charles Spencer Chaplin Sr, was a vocalist and an actor while his mother, Hannah Chaplin, was a singer and an actress who went by the stage name Lilly Harley.^[11] They separated before Charlie was three. He learned singing from his parents. The 1891 census shows that his mother lived with Charlie and his older half-brother Sydney on Barlow Street, Walworth.

As a child, Chaplin also lived with his mother in various addresses in and around Kennington Road in Lambeth, including 3 Pownall Terrace, Chester Street and 39 Methley Street. His paternal grandmother's mother was from the Smith family of Romanichals,^[12] a fact of which he was extremely proud,^[13] though he described it in his autobiography as "the skeleton in our family cupboard".^[14] Charles Chaplin Sr. was an alcoholic and had little contact with his son, though Chaplin and his half-brother briefly lived with him and his mistress, Louise, at 287 Kennington Road.^[15]^[16] The half-brothers lived there while their mentally ill mother lived at Cane Hill Asylum at Coulsdon. Chaplin's father's mistress sent the boy to Archbishop Temples Boys School. His father died of cirrhosis when Charlie was twelve in 1901.^[17] As of the 1901 Census, Chaplin resided at 94 Ferndale Road, Lambeth, as part of a troupe of young male dancers, The Eight Lancashire Lads,^[18] managed by William Jackson.^[19]

A larynx condition ended the singing career of Hannah Chaplin.^[20] After her re-admission to the Cane Hill Asylum, her son was left in the workhouse at Lambeth in south London, moving several weeks later to the Central London District School for paupers in Hanwell.

In 1903 Chaplin secured the role of Billy the pageboy in Sherlock Holmes, written by William Gillette and starring English actor H. A. Saintsbury. Saintsbury took Chaplin under his wing and taught him to marshal his talents. In 1905 Gillette came to England with Marie Doro to debut his new play, Clarice, but the play did not go well. When Gillette staged his one-act curtain-raiser, The Painful Predicament of Sherlock Holmes as a joke on the British press, Chaplin was brought in from the provinces to play Billy. When Sherlock Holmes was substituted for Clarice, Chaplin remained as Billy until the production ended on 2 December. During the run, Gillette coached Chaplin in his restrained acting style. It was during this engagement that the teenage Chaplin fell hopelessly in love with Doro, but his love went unrequited and Doro returned to America with Gillette when the production closed.^[21]

They met again in Hollywood eleven years later. She had forgotten his name but, when introduced to her, Chaplin told her of being silently in love with her and how she had broken his young heart. Over dinner, he laid it on thick about his unrequited love. Nothing came of it until two years later, when they were both in New York and she invited him to dinner and a drive. Instead, Chaplin noted, they simply “dined quietly in Marie’s apartment alone.” However, as Kenneth Lynn pointed out, “Chaplin would not have been Chaplin if he had simply dined quietly with Marie.”^[22]

Osama bin bin

2011-06-04T08:59:00.001-07:00

Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden ( /oʊˈsɑːmə bɪn moʊˈhɑːmɪd bɪn əˈwɑːd bɪn ˈlɑːdən/) was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia,^[11] a son of Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, a wealthy businessman with close ties to the Saudi royal family,^[12] and Mohammed bin Laden's tenth wife, Hamida al-Attas (then called Alia Ghanem).^[13] In a 1998 interview, bin Laden gave his birth date as March 10, 1957.^[14]

Mohammed bin Laden divorced Hamida soon after Osama bin Laden was born. Mohammed recommended Hamida to Mohammed al-Attas, an associate. Al-Attas married Hamida in the late 1950s or early 1960s. The couple had four children, and bin Laden lived in the new household with three half-brothers and one half-sister.^[13]

Bin Laden was raised as a devout Wahhabi Muslim.^[15] From 1968 to 1976, he attended the élite secular Al-Thager Model School.^[13]^[16] He studied economics and business administration^[17] at King Abdulaziz University. Some reports suggest he earned a degree in civil engineering in 1979,^[18] or a degree in public administration in 1981.^[19] One source described him as "hard working",^[20]; another said he left university during his third year without completing a college degree.^[21] At university, bin Laden's main interest was religion, where he was involved in both "interpreting the Quran and jihad" and charitable work.^[22] Other interests included writing poetry;^[23] reading, with the works of Field Marshal Montgomery and Charles de Gaulle said to be among his favorites; black stallions; and football, in which he enjoyed playing at centre forward and followed the fortunes of Arsenal F.C..^[24]

In 1974, at the age of 17, bin Laden married Najwa Ghanem at Latakia;^[25] they were divorced before September 11, 2001. Bin Laden's other known wives were: Khadijah Sharif (married 1983, divorced 1990s), Khairiah Sabar (married 1985), Siham Sabar (married 1987), and Amal al-Sadah (married 2000). Some sources also list a sixth wife, name unknown, whose marriage to bin Laden was annulled soon after the ceremony.^[26] Bin Laden fathered between 20 and 26 children with his wives.^[27]^[28] Many of bin Laden's children fled to Iran following the September 11 attacks and as of 2010 Iranian authorities reportedly continue to control their movement.^[29]

Bin Laden's father Mohammed died in 1967 in an airplane crash in Saudi Arabia when his American pilot misjudged a landing.^[30] Bin Laden's eldest half-brother, Salem bin Laden, the subsequent head of the bin Laden family, was killed in 1988 near San Antonio, Texas in the United States, when he accidentally flew a plane into power lines.

The FBI described bin Laden as an adult as tall and thin, between 6 ft. 4 in and 6 ft. 6 in. (193– 198 cm) in height and weighing about 165 pounds (75 kg). Interviewer Lawrence Wright, on the other hand, described him as quite slender, but not particularly tall.^[31] Bin Laden had an olive complexion and was left-handed, usually walking with a cane. He wore a plain white turban and he had stopped wearing the traditional Saudi male headdress.^[32] Bin Laden was described as soft-spoken and mild-mannered in demeanor

Saddam Hussein

2011-06-04T08:56:00.001-07:00

Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was born in the town of Al-Awja, 13 km (8 mi) from the Iraqi town of Tikrit, to a family of shepherds from the al-Begat tribal group, a sub-group of the Al-Bu Nasir (البو ناصر) tribe. His mother, Subha Tulfah al-Mussallat, named her newborn son Saddam, which in Arabic means "One who confronts"; he is always referred to by this personal name, which may be followed by the patronymic and other elements. He never knew his father, Hussein 'Abid al-Majid, who disappeared six months before Saddam was born. Shortly afterward, Saddam's 13-year-old brother died of cancer. The infant Saddam was sent to the family of his maternal uncle Khairallah Talfah until he was three.^[19]

His mother remarried, and Saddam gained three half-brothers through this marriage. His stepfather, Ibrahim al-Hassan, treated Saddam harshly after his return. At around 10 Saddam fled the family and returned to live in Baghdad with his uncle Kharaillah Tulfah. Tulfah, the father of Saddam's future wife, was a devout Sunni Muslim and a veteran from the 1941 Anglo-Iraqi War between Iraqi nationalists and the United Kingdom, which remained a major colonial power in the region.^[20] Later in his life relatives from his native Tikrit became some of his closest advisors and supporters. Under the guidance of his uncle he attended a nationalistic high school in Baghdad. After secondary school Saddam studied at an Iraqi law school for three years, dropping out in 1957 at the age of 20 to join the revolutionary pan-Arab Ba'ath Party, of which his uncle was a supporter. During this time, Saddam apparently supported himself as a secondary school teacher.^[21]

Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath Party student cell, Cairo, in the period 1959–1963

Revolutionary sentiment was characteristic of the era in Iraq and throughout the Middle East. In Iraq progressives and socialists assailed traditional political elites (colonial era bureaucrats and landowners, wealthy merchants and tribal chiefs, monarchists).^[22] Moreover, the pan-Arab nationalism of Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt profoundly influenced young Ba'athists like Saddam. The rise of Nasser foreshadowed a wave of revolutions throughout the Middle East in the 1950s and 1960s, with the collapse of the monarchies of Iraq, Egypt, and Libya. Nasser inspired nationalists throughout the Middle East by fighting the British and the French during the Suez Crisis of 1956, modernizing Egypt, and uniting the Arab world politically.^[23]

In 1958, a year after Saddam had joined the Ba'ath party, army officers led by General Abd al-Karim Qasim overthrew Faisal II of Iraq. The Ba'athists opposed the new government, and in 1959 Saddam was involved in the unsuccessful United States-backed plot to assassinate Qasim.

Albin Egger-Lienz

2011-06-04T08:55:00.001-07:00

Albin Egger-Lienz (29 January 1868 – 4 November 1926) was an Austrian painter

He was born in Dölsach-Stribach near Lienz, in what was the county of Tyrol. As an artist, he had a special preference for rustic genre and historical paintings; under the influence of Ferdinand Hodler, Egger-Lienz abstracted his formal language into monumental expressiveness.

He trained first under his father (a church painter), later he studied at the Academy in Munich where he was influenced by Franz Defregger and French painter Jean-François Millet. In 1899 he moved to Vienna. During 1911 and 1912 he was professor at the Weimar School of Fine Arts and he served as war painter during World War I. In 1918, he turned down a professorship at the Vienna Academy and settled in the province of Bolzano-Bozen. Egger-Lienz died on 4 November 1926 in St. Justina-Rentsch, Bolzano, Italy.

Johann Sebastian Bach

2011-05-27T02:00:00.000-07:00

Johann Sebastian Bach^[1] (21 March 1685, O.S.^{31 March 1685, N.S.} – 28 July 1750, N.S.) was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity.^[2] Although he did not introduce new forms, he enriched the prevailing German style with a robust contrapuntal technique, an unrivalled control of harmonic and motivic organisation, and the adaptation of rhythms, forms and textures from abroad, particularly from Italy and France.

Revered for their intellectual depth, technical command and artistic beauty, Bach's works include the Brandenburg Concertos, the Goldberg Variations, the Partitas, The Well-Tempered Clavier, the Mass in B minor, the St Matthew Passion, the St John Passion, the Magnificat, the Musical Offering, The Art of Fugue, the English and French Suites, the Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin, the Cello Suites, more than 200 surviving cantatas, and a similar number of organ works, including the famous Toccata and Fugue in D minor and Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, and the Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes and Organ Mass.

Bach's abilities as an organist were highly respected throughout Europe during his lifetime, although he was not widely recognised as a great composer until a revival of interest and performances of his music in the first half of the 19th century. He is now generally regarded as one of the main composers of the Baroque style, and as one of the greatest composers of all time.^[3]

Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, Saxe-Eisenach, on 21 March 1685, O.S.^{31 March 1685, N.S.}. He was the youngest child of Johann Ambrosius Bach, the director of the town musicians,^[4] and Maria Elisabeth Lämmerhirt. His father taught him to play violin and harpsichord.^[5] His uncles were all professional musicians, whose posts ranged from church organists and court chamber musicians to composers. One uncle, Johann Christoph Bach (1645–93), introduced him to the art of organ playing. Bach was proud of his family's musical achievements, and around 1735 he drafted a genealogy, "Origin of the musical Bach family".^[6]

Bach's mother died in 1694, and his father eight months later.^[7] The 10-year-old orphan moved in with his oldest brother, Johann Christoph Bach (1671–1721), the organist at the Michaeliskirche in Ohrdruf, Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg.^[8] There, he copied, studied and performed music, and received valuable teaching from his brother, who instructed him on the clavichord. J.C. Bach exposed him to the works of the great South German composers of the day, such as Johann Pachelbel (under whom Johann Christoph had studied)^[9] and Johann Jakob Froberger, to the music of North German composers;^[10] to Frenchmen, such as Jean-Baptiste Lully, Louis Marchand, Marin Marais, and to the Italian clavierist Girolamo Frescobaldi. The young Bach probably^{[clarification needed]} witnessed and assisted in the maintenance of the organ music. Bach's obituary^[11] indicates that he copied music out of Johann Christoph's scores, but his brother had apparently forbidden him to do so, possibly because scores were valuable and private commodities at the time.^[12]

At the age of 14, Bach, along with his older school friend George Erdmann, was awarded a choral scholarship to study at the prestigious St. Michael's School in Lüneburg in the Principality of Lüneburg.^[13] This involved a long journey with his friend, probably^{[clarification needed]} undertaken partly on foot and partly by coach. His two years there appear to have been critical in exposing him to a wider facet of European culture. In addition to singing in the a cappella choir, it is likely^{[clarification needed]} that he played the School's three-manual organ and its harpsichords. He probably^{[clarification needed]} learned French and Italian, and received a thorough grounding in theology, Latin, history, geography, and physics. He would have come into contact with sons of noblemen from northern Germany sent to the highly selective school to prepare for careers in diplomacy, government, and the military.

Although little supporting historical evidence exists at this time, it is almost certain that while in Lüneburg, young Bach would have visited the Johanniskirche (Church of St. John) and heard (and possibly played) the church's famous organ (built in 1549 by Jasper Johannsen and nicknamed the "Böhm organ" after its most prominent master, Georg Böhm). Given his innate musical talent, Bach would have had significant contact with prominent organists of the day in Lüneburg, most notably Böhm (the organist at Johanniskirche) as well as organists in nearby Hamburg, such as Johann Adam Reincken.^[14]

In January 1703, shortly after graduating from St. Michael's and after having failed an audition for the post of organist at Sangerhausen,^[15] Bach gained an appointment as a court musician in the chapel of Duke Johann Ernst in Weimar. His role there is unclear, but appears to have included menial, non-musical duties. During his seven-month tenure at Weimar, his reputation as a keyboard player spread. He was invited to inspect and give the inaugural recital on the new organ at St. Boniface's Church in Arnstadt.^[16] The Bach family had close connections with people in this ancient town located about 40 km to the southwest of Weimar.^[17] In August 1703, he accepted the post of organist at that church, with light duties, a relatively generous salary, and a fine new organ tuned in the modern tempered system that allowed a wide range of keys to be used. At this time, Bach was embarking on the composition of organ preludes; these works, in the North German tradition of virtuosic, improvisatory preludes, already showed tight motivic control (in which a single, short musical idea is explored throughout a movement). In these works the composer had yet to fully develop his powers of large-scale organisation and contrapuntal technique.

Strong family connections and a musically enthusiastic employer failed to prevent tension between the young organist and the authorities after several years in the post. Bach was apparently dissatisfied with the standard of singers in the choir; more seriously, there was his unauthorised absence from Arnstadt for several months in 1705–06, when he visited the great organist and composer Dieterich Buxtehude and his Abendmusiken at the Marienkirche in the northern city of Lübeck. The visit to Buxtehude involved a journey on foot of about 400 kilometres (250 mi) each way. The trip reinforced Buxtehude's style as a foundation for Bach's earlier works, and that he overstayed his planned visit by several months suggests that his time with the older master was of great value him. Bach wanted to become amanuensis (assistant and successor) to Buxtehude, but did not want to marry his daughter, which apparently was a condition for his appointment.^[18]

Anton Bruckner

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Anton Bruckner (4 September 1824 – 11 October 1896) was an Austrian composer known for his symphonies, masses, and motets. The former are considered emblematic of the final stage of Austro-German Romanticism because of their rich harmonic language, complex polyphony, and considerable length. Bruckner's compositions helped to define contemporary musical radicalism, owing to their dissonances, unprepared modulations, and roving harmonies.

Unlike other radicals, such as Richard Wagner or Hugo Wolf who fit the enfant terrible mould, Bruckner showed extreme humility before other musicians, Wagner in particular. This apparent dichotomy between Bruckner the man and Bruckner the composer hampers efforts to describe his life in a way that gives a straightforward context for his music.

His works, the symphonies in particular, had detractors, most notably the influential Austrian critic Eduard Hanslick, and other supporters of Johannes Brahms, who pointed to their large size, use of repetition,^[1] and Bruckner's propensity to revise many of his works, often with the assistance of colleagues, and his apparent indecision about which versions he preferred. On the other hand, Bruckner was greatly admired by subsequent composers, including his friend Gustav Mahler, who described him as "half simpleton, half God".^[2]

Biography

Early life

Anton Bruckner was born in Ansfelden on September 4, 1824. His father was a village schoolmaster, as was his grandfather. It was a meagerly paid but respected position in the rural environment.^[3]^[4] Music belonged to the school curriculum, and Bruckner's father was his first music teacher.^[3] Bruckner learned to play the organ already as a child. He entered school when he was six, and proved to be a hard-working student, and was promoted to upper class early. While studying, Bruckner also helped his father in teaching the other children. After Bruckner received his confirmation in 1833, Bruckner's father decided to send him to another school in Hörsching. The schoolmaster, Johann Baptist Weiß, was a music enthusiast and respected organist. Here, Bruckner completed his school education and learned to play the organ excellently. He also wrote his first composition, Vier Präludien in Es-Dur für Orgel for the organ. However, biographists do not regard the work as exceptional; in his youth, Bruckner was gifted, but not a genius. When his father became ill, Anton returned to Ansfelden to help him in his work.

Teacher's education

His father died in 1837, when Anton was 13 years old. The teacher's position and house were given to a successor, and Bruckner was sent to the Augustinian monastery in St. Florian to become a choirboy.^[3]^[5] In addition to choir practice, his education included violin and organ lections. Bruckner was in awe of the monastery's great organ, which was built during the late baroque era and improved in 1837, and he sometimes played it during church services. Later, the organ was to be called the "Bruckner Organ". Despite his musical giftedness, Bruckner's mother decided that her son's future profession remained teacher, and in 1840 Bruckner was sent to a teacher seminar in Linz. After completing the seminar with an excellent grade, he was sent as a teacher's assisntant to a school in Windhaag. The living standards and pay were horrible, and Bruckner was constantly humiliated by his superior, teacher Franz Fuchs. Despite the difficult situation, Bruckner never complained or rebelled; a belief of inferiority was to remain one of Bruckner's main personal characteristics during his whole life. Prelate Michael Arneth noticed Bruckner's intorelable situation in Windhaag and awarded him a teacher's assistant position in St. Florian, sending him to Krohnstorf an der Enns for two years.