The Biography Portal
A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or curriculum vitae (résumé), a biography presents a subject's life story, highlighting various aspects of their life, including intimate details of experience, and may include an analysis of the subject's personality.
Biographical works are usually non-fiction, but fiction can also be used to portray a person's life. One in-depth form of biographical coverage is called legacy writing. Works in diverse media, from literature to film, form the genre known as biography.
An authorized biography is written with the permission, cooperation, and at times, participation of a subject or a subject's heirs. An autobiography is written by the person themselves, sometimes with the assistance of a collaborator or ghostwriter. (Full article...)
Featured biography
Selected portrait
Mohammed Alim Khan (1880–1944) was the last emir of the Manghit dynasty, the last ruling dynasty of the Emirate of Bukhara in Central Asia. He reigned from 3 January 1911 to 30 August 1920, and was a direct descendant of Genghis Khan, the first Great Khan. (Read more...)
Photo credit: Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1911) Source: Library of Congress
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WikiProjects
List of WikiProjects and work groups that involve biography articles:
See also: Biographies of living persons • Manual of Style (biographies)
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"I bought some batteries, but they weren't included – so I had to buy them again."
From I Have a Pony, Warner Bros. Records CD (1985)
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Births
- 1834 - Edgar Degas, (pictured) French painter (d. 1917)
- 1860 - Lizzie Borden, American accused murderess (d. 1927)
- 1893 - Vladimir Mayakovsky, Georgian poet (d. 1930)
- 1898 - Herbert Marcuse, German-born philosopher (d. 1979)
- 1922 - George McGovern, U.S. Presidential candidate (d. 2012)
- 1924 - Stanley K. Hathaway, American politician (d. 2005)
- 1941 - Vikki Carr, American singer
- 1947 - Brian May, English guitarist (Queen)
- 1960 - Atom Egoyan, Canadian filmmaker
- 1965 - Stuart Scott, American sportscaster (d. 2015)
- 1984 - Adam Morrison, American basketball player
Deaths
- 1814 - Captain Matthew Flinders, English explorer of Australia (b. 1774)
- 1947 - Aung San, Burmese nationalist (assassinated) (b. 1915)
- 1965 - Syngman Rhee, first President of South Korea (b. 1875)
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