Thor Heyerdahl

Thor Heyerdahl (October 6, 1914 – April 18, 2002) was a Norwegian adventurer and ethnographer with a background in zoology, botany and geography . He became notable for his Kon-Tiki expedition in 1947, in which he sailed 8,000 km (5,000 mi) across the Pacific Ocean in a hand-built raft from South America to the Tuamotu Islands. The expedition was designed to demonstrate that ancient people could have made long sea voyages, creating contacts between separate cultures. This was linked to a diffusionist model of cultural development. Heyerdahl subsequently made other voyages designed to demonstrate the possibility of contact between widely separated ancient people, notably the Ra II expedition of 1970, when he sailed from the west coast of Africa to Barbados in a papyrus reed boat.

Luciano Pavarotti

Luciano Pavarotti, (12 October 1935 – 6 September 2007) was an Italian operatic tenor who also crossed over into popular music, eventually becoming one of the most commercially successful tenors of all time. He made numerous recordings of complete operas and individual arias, gaining worldwide fame for the quality of his tone, and eventually established himself as one of the finest tenors of the 20th Century

 

San Francisco Opera, rehearsal for La Gioconda by Poncielli (Photo. Ira Nowinski)

Georges Brassens

Georges Brassens (22 October 1921 – 29 October 1981) was a French singer-songwriter and poet.
He wrote and sang, with his guitar, more than a hundred of his poems, as well as texts from many others such as Victor Hugo, Paul Verlaine or Louis Aragon. In 1967, he received the Grand Prix de Poésie of the Academie Francaise.
Between 1952 and 1976, he recorded fourteen albums that include several popular French songs such as Les copains d'abord, Chanson pour l'Auvergnat, La mauvaise réputation, and Mourir pour des idées. Most of his texts are black humour-tinged and often anarchist-minded.

Master and Margarita

The Master and Margarita (Ма́стер и Маргари́та) is a novel by Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov, written between 1928 and 1940 during Stalin´s regime. A censored version was published in Moscow magazine in 1966-1967. The manuscript was not published as a book until 1967, and then first in Paris/France. A samizdat version circulated that included parts cut out by official censors, and these were incorporated in a 1969 version published in Frankfurt. The novel has since been published in several languages and editions.
The story concerns a visit by the devil to the officially atheistic Soviet Union. Many critics consider it to be one of the best novels of the 20th century, as well as the foremost of Soviet satires.

^{P.S. My abolutely most favourite book :)}

 

 

 

В белом плаще с кровавым подбоем, шаркающей кавалерийской походкой, ранним утром

четырнадцатого числа весеннего месяца нисана в крытую колоннаду между двумя крыльями

дворца ирода великого вышел прокуратор Иудеи Понтий Пилат.

Более всего на свете прокуратор ненавидел запах розового масла, и все теперь

предвещало нехороший день, так как запах этот начал преследовать прокуратора с рассвета.

Прокуратору казалось, что розовый запах источают кипарисы и пальмы в саду, что к запаху

кожи и конвоя примешивается проклятая розовая струя. От флигелей в тылу дворца, где

расположилась пришедшая с прокуратором в Ершалаим первая когорта двенадцатого

молниеносного легиона, заносило дымком в колоннаду через верхнюю площадку сада, и к

горьковатому дыму, свидетельствовавшему о том, что кашевары в кентуриях начали готовить

обед, примешивался все тот же жирный розовый дух. О боги, боги, за что вы наказываете

меня?

 

 

Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso  (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, stage designer, poet and playwright who spent most of his adult life in France. Regarded as one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, he is known for co-founding the Cubist  movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, the co-invention of  collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore. Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), and Guernica (1937), a dramatic portrayal of the bombing of Guernica by the German and Italian airforces.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the civil rights movement from 1954 through 1968. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using the tactics of nonviolence and civil disobedience.

 

 

 

Jane Goodall

Dame Jane Morris Goodall (born Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall, 3 April 1934), formerly Baroness Jane van Lawick-Goodall, is a British primatologist, ethologist, anthropologist, and UN Messenger of Peace. Considered to be the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees, Goodall is best known for her over 55-year study of social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees since she first went to Gombe Steam National Park, Tanzania in 1960. She is the founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and the Roots and Shoots  programme, and she has worked extensively on conservation and animal welfare issues. She has served on the board of the Nonhuman Rights Project since its founding in 1996.