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Biography

Betty Crocker

Betty Crocker is an imaginary person. Nonetheless, in a 1945 survey she was named the second-best-known woman in America, after Eleanor Roosevelt. She was “born” in 1921 during a Gold Medal flour promotion in which users completed a puzzle to win a pin cushion. Company executives decided to use the signature of “Betty Crocker” on […] Read more

Beyonce Knowles

A Houston native, Beyoncé Knowles is a founding member and chief songwriter of Destiny’s Child, one of the biggest selling female acts of all time. With many of the group’s hit songs co-written and co-produced by Beyoncé, Destiny’s Child has sold more than 33 million records worldwide. When Beyoncé won the 2001 ASCAP Pop Songwriter […] Read more

Bill

He was six feet two inches in height, at least that what he claimed. But he actually appeared to be a full inch taller. Dark hair, blue eyes and usually a somewhat stern face. Due to his normal countenance, some people thought he was probably a hard man. He seldom smiled, but when he did, […] Read more

Bill Cosby

With numerous awards to his credit, Bill Cosby is one of the top names in comedy. As an actor, comedian, writer, and producer, he helped break down racial barriers on television in the 1960s with “I Spy” and later with “The Cosby Show”. Cosby grew up in Philadelphia’s Germantown neighborhood as the oldest of four […] Read more

Bill Gates

Born in Seattle, Washington, on October 28, 1955, William Henry Gates III is the only son of the three children of Mary and William Henry Gates, Jr. A bright and active child, Bill began cutting classes to hang out at all hours at his private school’s computer center. When he was only 16, he and […] Read more

Bix Beiderbecke

Bix Beiderbecke – one of the great jazz musicians of the 1920’s. Mainly self-taught, he was influenced by recordings of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band and by the music of King Oliver and Louis Armstrong. A sensitive, lonely man driven by artistic ambition, his troubled life and beautiful tone on the cornet made him a […] Read more

Boris Yeltsin

For Yeltsin, it must seem a long time since the glory days of 1991, when the anti-Communist rebel easily won his country’s first democratic election. That August, he also became the brave hero who, as tanks encircled the parliament, stood atop one of them and exhorted thousands of civilians to resist the attempted military coup […] Read more

Bud Grant

After spending four years in the Canadian Football League as a player, Grant went on to start a coaching legacy as just a 29-year-old. He proceeded to lead the Winnipeg Blue Bombers to six Grey Cups over the next 10 years, winning four of them. Ten years later, Grant came home to take over as […] Read more

Carl Sandburg

“What Sandburg knew and said was what America knew from the beginning and said from the beginning and has not yet, no matter what is believed of her, forgotten how to say”, notes Archibald MacLeish in his introduction to the collected poems of Carl Sandburg. Carl Sanburg, the son of Swedish immigrant parents, was born […] Read more

Cary Grant

Cary Grant’s classy film persona and peerless timing are so ingrained in our collective psyche that we tend to confuse the man with the myth. So good was he at playing the icon known as Cary Grant that it was often said he always played the same part–himself. The truth is that he was an […] Read more