Zhu De

Zhu De, formerly Chu Teh (1886-1976) devised the tactic of mobile guerrilla warfare and organized the Long March to Shaanxi 1934-1946. Short Biography: The son of a wealthy Sichuan...

Ferdinand von Zeppelin

Ferdinand Adolf Heinrich August Graf von Zeppelin (1838-1917) on retiring from the army in 1891, he devoted himself to the study of aeronautics, and his first airship was built and...

Pieter Zeeman

Pieter Zeeman (1865-1943) discovered in 1896 that when light from certain elements, such as sodium or lithium (when heated), is passed through a spectroscope in the presence of a strong...

Emiliano Zapata

Emiliano Zapata (1879-1919) led a revolt against dictator Porfrrio Diaz (1830-1915) from 1911 under the slogan "Land and Liberty", to repossess for the indigenous Mexicans the land...

Mohammed Zahir Shah

Mohammed Zahir Shah (1914-2007) educated in Kabul and Paris, served in the government 1932-1933 before being crowned king. He was overthrown in 1973 by a republican coup and went into...

Babur

Zahir ud-din Mohammed (1483-1530) was the great-grandson of the Mongol conqueror Tamerlane and, at the age of 12, succeeded his father, Omar Sheikh Mirza, as ruler of Ferghana (Turkestan)...

Brigham Young

Brigham Young (1801-1877) joined the Mormon Church in 1832, and three years later was appointed an apostle. Short Biography: After a successful recruiting mission in Liverpool...

Prince Frederick

The Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany (1763-1827) was the second son of George III. The nursery rhyme about the "grand old duke of York" who marched his troops up the hill...

Xerxes the Great

Xerxes, (c. 519-465 BC) in 480, at the head of an army of some 400,000 men and supported by a fleet of 800 ships, he crossed the Hellespont (now the Dardanelles) strait over a bridge...

St. Francis Xavier

Saint Francis Xavier (1506-1552) went as a Catholic missionary to the Portuguese colonies in the Indies, arriving at Goa in 1542. Short Biography: He was in Japan 1549-1551,...

John Wycliffe

John Wycliffe (c. 1320-1384) allying himself with the party of John of Gaunt, which was opposed to ecclesiastical influence at court, he attacked abuses in the church, maintaining that...

James Wyatt

James Wyatt (1747-1813) was an English architect, contemporary of the Adam brothers, who designed in the Neo-Gothic style. His overenthusiastic "restorations" of medieval cathedrals...

Peter Wright

Peter Wright (1917-1995) book Spycatcher in 1987, written after his retirement, caused an international stir when the British government tried unsuccessfully to block its publication...

Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright (1869-1959) was an American architect who rejected Neo-Classicist styles for "organic architecture", in which buildings reflected their natural surroundings. Among...

Christopher Wren

Christopher Wren (1632-1723) was the designer of St. Paul's Cathedral, London, built 1675-1710; many London churches including St. Bride's, Fleet Street, and St. Mary-le-Bow, Cheapside;...

Barbara Wootton

Barbara Frances Wootton, Baroness Wootton of Abinger (1897-1988) taught at London University, and worked in the fields of politics, media, sodal welfare, and penal reform. Her books...

Frank Winfield Woolworth

Frank Winfield Woolworth (1852-1919) opened his first successful "five and ten cent" store in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1879, and, together with his brother C. S. Woolworth (1856-1947)...

Isaac Wolfson

Isaac Wolfson (1897-1991) established the Wolfson Foundation in 1955 to promote health, education, and youth activities, founded Wolfson College, Cambridge, in 1965, and (with the Ford...

James Wolfe

James Wolfe (1727-1759) in 1758 he served in Canada, and played a conspicuous part in the siege of the French stronghold of Louisburg. He was promoted to major general in 1759 and...

Thomas James Wise

Thomas James Wise (1859-1937) collected tile Ashley Library of first editions, chiefly English poets and dramatists 1890-1930, acquired by the British Museum at his death, and made...

Orde Wingate

Orde Charles Wingate (1903-1944) in 1936 he established a reputation for unorthodox tactics in Palestine. In World War II he served in the Middle East, and later led the Chindits...

Edward Wilson

Edward Osborne Wilson (born in 1929) books have stimulated interest in biogeography, the study of the distribution of species, and the evolution of behaviour, or sociobiology. His works...

Norman Willis

Norman David Willis (born in 1933) is a trade-union official since leaving school, he succeeded Len Murray as the general secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in 1984. He...

William the Marshal

William the Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke, (c. 1146-1219) after supporting the dying Henry II against Richard (later Richard, he went on a crusade to Palestine, was pardoned by Richard...