Lee Kuan Yew

Lee Kuan Yew (born in 1923) was a Singapore politician, prime minister from 1959. Short Biography: Lee founded the anticommunist Socialist People's Action Party in 1954 and entered...

Leonid Brezhnev

Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (1906-1982) was a Soviet leader. Short Biography: A protegd of Stalin and Khrushchev, he came into power as general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party...

Lech Walesa

Lech Walesa (born in 1947) is a Polish trade-union leader, founder of Solidarity in 1980, an organization, independent of the Communist Party, which forced substantial political and...

Laurent Fabius

Laurent Fabius (born in 1946) is a French socialist politician, prime minister 1984-1986. He introduced a liberal, free-market economic programme. Short Biography: Fabius became...

Leon Trotsky

Adopted name of Lev Davidovitch Bronstein (1879-1940) joined the Bolshevik party and took a leading part ip the seizure of power and raising the Red Army which fought the Civil War...

Louis Riel

Louis Riel (1844-1885) was a French-Canadian rebel, a champion of the Metis (an Indian-French people). Short Biography: He established a provisional government in Winnipeg in...

Lenin

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (1870-1924) was a Soviet communist politician and theoretician. Active in the 1905 Revolution, Lenin had to leave Russia when it failed, settling in Switzerland...

Lucius Licinius Lucullus

Lucullus Lucius Licinius (110-56 BC) was a Roman general and consul. Short Biography: As commander against Mithridates of Pontus (74-66) he proved to be one of Rome's ablest...

Lord Randolph Churchill

Randolph Henry Spencer Churchill (1849-1895) was the chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House of Commons in 1886, father of Winston Churchill. Short Biography: Born...

Lin Biao

Lin Biao (1907-1971) joined the Communists in 1927, became a commander of Mao Zedong's Red Army, and led the Northeast People's Liberation Army in the civil war after 1945. Short...

Lucius Cornelius Sulla

Lucius Cornelius Sulla (138-78 BC) was forcibly suppressing the democrats in 88 BC, he departed for a successful campaign against Mithridates VI of Pontus. Short Biography: The...

Leon Blum

Leon Blum (1872-1950) was a French politician. Short Biography: He was converted to socialism by the Dreyfus affair in 1899, and in 1936 became the first socialist prime minister...

Lee Teng-hui

Lee Teng-hui (born in 1923) was a Taiwanese right-wing politician, vice president (1984-1988), president and Kuomintang party leader from 1988. Lee, the country's first island-born...

Liam Cosgrave

Liam Cosgrave (born in 1920) is an Irish Fine Gael politician who served as prime minister of the Republic of Ireland 1973-1977. Short Biography: As party leader 1965-1977, he...

Lachlan Macquarie

Lachlan Macquarie (1761-1834) was a Scottish administrator in Australia. Short Biography: He succeeded Bligh as governor of New South Wales in 1808, raised the demoralized settlement...

Louis Botha

Louis Botha (1862-1919) was a South African soldier and politician, a commander in the Second South African War. Short Biography: In 1907 Botha became premier of the Transvaal...

Lal Bahadur Shastri

Lal Bahadur Shastri (1904-1966) campaigned for national integration, and secured a declaration of peace with Pakistan at the Tashkent peace conference in 1966. Before independence...

Louis Joseph Papineau

Louis Joseph Papineau (1786-1871) led a mission to England to protest against the planned union of Lower Canada (Quebec) and Upper Canada (Ontario), and demanded economic reform and...

Lazare Carnot

Lazare Camot (1753-1823) was a French general and politician. Short Biography: A member of the National Convention in the French Revolution, he organized the armies of the republic....

Lev Kamenev

Lev Borisovich Kamenev (1883-1936) was a Russian leader of the Bolshevik movement after 1917 who, with Stalin and Zinoviev, formed a ruling triumvirate in the USSR after Lenin's death...

Lester B. Pearson

Lester Bowles Pearson (1897-1972) as foreign minister (1948-1957), he effectively represented Canada at the United Nations. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957. Short Biography...

Li Peng

Li Peng (born in 1928) was a Chinese communist politician, member of the Politburo from 1985, and head of government from 1987. Short Biography: He is the adopted son of the...

Liu Shaoqi

Liu Shaoqi formerly Liu Shao-chi (1898-1969) was a Chinese communist politician, in effective control of government (1960-1965). Short Biography: A labour organizer, he was a...