English flagItalian flagKorean flagChinese (Simplified) flagChinese (Traditional) flagPortuguese flagGerman flagFrench flag
Spanish flagJapanese flagArabic flagRussian flagGreek flagDutch flagBulgarian flagCzech flag
Croat flagDanish flagFinnish flagPolish flagRumanian flagSwedish flagNorwegian flagHebrew flag
Serbian flagSlovak flagTurkish flagHungarian flag    
By N2H

Latest Histories


Subscribe to RSS feed

History of Tony Blair

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for a decade, Tony Blair served an unprecedented three terms as Labour Member of Parliament for Sedgefield. He assumed responsibility during his term to change the focus of the Labour Party image and make it more electable. Blair became well-known when he risked his personal authority and reputation by supporting the United States government in the War on Terror. After he stepped down as Prime Minister, he became the official Envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East.

Born Anthony Blair on May 6, 1953, in Edinburgh, Scotland, Blair later attended Oxford University. After graduation he began a career as a barrister. Elected Labour Member of Parliament for Sedgefield in 1983, he soon became a part of a crowd of Labour Party Modernizers.

Tony Blair

Blair, along with politicians Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson, wanted to change the Labour Party image by focusing on making it more acceptable to the electorate. The trio wanted to downplay its relationship with trade unions, unilateral nuclear disarmament, public ownership and high taxation.

Tony Blair assumed the position as Labour Leader after then-leader John Smith’s death. Once elected to the position, he proved an imposing figure and capable leader of the Labour Party. He led the party to a landslide victory in the 1997 general election.

At age 43 Blair became the youngest premier in Parliament since 1812. He tried to project an invigorated and modern image of Britain. He implemented radical policies such as constitutional reforms that allowed limited forms of self-government to Wales and Scotland.

Realizing that the Labour Party needed to change its image and message to gain votes, Blair moved the focus away from the traditional emphasis on national industry and union privileges and supported policies to lower crime and taxes, improve trade, and grant more authority to regional and state government. He felt that government had an obligation to create an environment wherein families came first. As such, he placed an emphasis on family and community values and implemented policies where they could thrive.

Reforming public services proved more difficult to implement, and Blair noted that the country’s dependence on private enterprise initiatives didn’t deliver the results he anticipated. Health care, education and transport still seemed problematic in this regard.

Tony Blair

Although Blair was re-elected in 2001, his second term was more difficult. His image became tarnished somewhat by his strong support of United States foreign policy. During the war with Iraq (2003) he convinced Britain to participate, claiming that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction.

When Blair ran for a third consecutive term, he won re-election in 2005. One of the highlights of this period was the G8 summit at Gleneagles. He chaired the summit that focused on two issues of extreme import to him: climate change and conditions in Africa. After his long career as Prime Minister, Tony Blair resigned from office in 2007.

Related Histories:

History of Will Smith

Will Smith is one of the most prominent powerhouses in Hollywood. He has been named as one of the wealthiest and most influential actors in the world. To younger generations, Will Smith is an established movie star known for his charisma and charm and who averages one major film a year. But for those who have been following his career since the beginning, he is an unusually multi-talented artist whose success has been a true inspiration to many.

In West Philadelphia Born And Raised

Born in 1968, Will Smith grows up in Philadelphia in a middle-class neighborhood where he attended high school. Very early on he decided on a career in music and started performing as the rapper Fresh Prince (with his friend Jazzy Jeff) with a lot of success. By 1988 the duo was at the top of the charts with its album He’s the DJ I’m the Rapper, which earned triple platinum status along with a Grammy award.

Will Smith

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Years

In 1989 a TV show creator approached Will Smith to offer him the lead in an NBC sitcom called The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air. The show – about a fun-loving Philadelphia teenager whose mother sends him to live with relatives in a luxury house in Los Angeles – was a huge international hit that catapulted him to stardom. It ran for six seasons and launched Will Smith’s acting career. Toward the end of the series, Smith decided to end his musical partnership with Jazzy Jeff in order to focus on acting.

Bad Boys – Birth of an Action Hero

In the mid-1990s Smith became a household name and made his move to the big screen with a few movies that had moderate to good success at the box office. He got his first major starring role in the blockbuster Bad Boys, a Don Simpson/Jerry Bruckheimer production in which he teams up with comedian-actor Martin Lawrence. The movie generated good revenue in the U.S. and foreign markets despite mixed reviews and established Smith as a major film star.

In the years that followed Smith appeared in a number of movies, starring in major productions and making several millions for each of them. With Bad Boys and Men in Black, both of which spawned high-grossing sequels, Smith was recognized as a talented actor upon whom someone could build a successful franchise.

Will Smith

Hancock- The Movie Star Power

Will Smith went through the early part of the new millennium as one of the biggest and most successful movie stars. His role as Muhammad Ali in 2001 showed his talent and versatility as an actor. All but one of the movies he made after 2002 raked in over $100 million in the U.S. market. His name is usually at the top of the A-list whenever a major project reaches the pre-production phase. His casting as a washed-up superhero in Hancock (2008) is great example of the movie star he has become.

Personal Life

Smith has three children (all of whom have also appeared in films or TV shows) from two different marriages and is now living with his second wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, and their two children.

Related Histories:

History of Tecumseh

The Fight for Territory

England and France were determined to colonize the early United States during the Great Age of Exploration. The two countries fought each other as they vied for the right to claim territories. They felt that they had “God’s Own Right” to claim land, and the indigenous populations stood in the way of their thirst for real estate. Their quest for power led to the eventual subjugation of the Native Americans. Tecumseh earned a place in history as a great warrior, orator and leader of intertribal councils.

Tecumseh

For the most part, Native Americans could not work together to form an alliance. They were too fragmented to band together to form a large army to fight against the invaders. Many of them tried to revolt against the occupiers – some more successfully than others. They resented occupation by the people they considered invaders – namely the French, the English, and the early United States settlers. Native American leaders staged revolts, battles and alliances to fight for their land. Chief Tecumseh led a famous battle against the United States troops.

Chief Tecumseh

Chief Tecumseh (1768?-1813) was born in a Shawnee Indian village in present-day Ohio. From an early age he saw the devastation that white settlers brought to tribal lands. Tecumseh tried to form an alliance to form a war band of Native Americans in the Old Northwest, the South and the eastern Mississippi Valley. His plan failed when his brother was defeated at Tippecanoe in 1811.

The Tippecanoe defeat marked the end of the Native American military movement. Tecumseh fought against the United States in the War of 1812 when he allied himself with the British. The British appointed Tecumseh brigadier general.

Tecumseh rallied other tribes to his cause and fought with British Gen. Henry Procter in his invasion of Ohio in 1813. They laid siege to Fort Meigs, and Tecumseh and his fighters intercepted and destroyed a Kentucky brigade sent to help the fort.

The Defeat of Tecumseh

Gen. Procter and Tecumseh suffered a crushing defeat at the Battle of Lake Erie in September 1813. Pursued by American troops led by future president William Harrison, they retreated to Canada. The British and Indian forces fought and were defeated at the Battle of the Thames River in October 1813. Tecumseh was killed during the fight.

The defeat of the British-American force gave control of the western theater to the United States. Tecumseh’s death symbolized an end to Native American resistance east of the Mississippi River. The defeated, war-torn tribes were forced West.

Tecumseh

Tecumseh always had the strong resolution that Native American land belonged to the Native Americans and that land could only be given away or purchased between their tribes. The following quote from him summarizes this sentiment: “No tribe has the right to sell, even to each other, much less to strangers…. Sell a country! Why not sell the air, the great sea, as well as the earth? Didn’t the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his children?”

Related Histories:

History of Sir Edmund Hillary

Introduction

Mountaineer and explorer Sir Edmund Percival Hillary died in 2008, nearly five and a half decades after his historical climb to the top of Mt Everest that gave him and his climbing partner Tenzing Norgay worldwide acclaim. Originally a beekeeper and an amateur mountaineer from New Zealand, he continued to explore the Himalayas and Antarctica. Not only making accomplishments in the world of climbing, continued his humanitarian work for the Sherpas of Nepal for four decades.

Sir Edmund Hillary

Early Life

Born on July 20, 1919 grew up in Tuakau, New Zealand a small town located approximately 30 miles (50 kilometers) south of Auckland. At 16 years old he became interested in mountain climbing on a school trip to Mount Ruapehu. He attended the University of Auckland and studied mathematics and science. The year 1939 marked his first major climb when he reached the summit of Mount Olivier in the Southern Alps. By profession, he was a beekeeper, along with his brother Rex.  He would work throughout the summer as a beekeeper to explore the mountains in the winter. He climbed mountains in New Zealand, in the Alps.  In the Himalayas he climbed 11 different peaks of over 20,000 feet. By then, he was ready to climb Mount Everest.

Mount Everest

Between 1920 and 1952, seven major expeditions failed to reach the summit of Mount Everest, which was 29,028 feet above sea level, the highest spot on earth. Edmund Hillary joined an expedition to make the assault on Everest in 1953 led by Sir John Hunt. Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, a Nepalese climber, were the only members of the expedition to make the final assault. At 11:30am on May 29, 1953, Hillary and Norgay made history by reaching the summit.

After the success of reaching the summit of Mount Everest, Hillary and Hunt published, The Ascent of Everest, their account of the expedition (published in the U.S as The Conquest of Everest) Hillary’s autobiography Nothing Venture, Nothing Win was published in 1975 and in 1979, he published From the Ocean to the Sky, an account of his 1977 expedition on the Ganges river to its source in the Himalayas.

His Legacy

Hillary was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1953, member of the Order of New Zealand in 1987 and Knight of the Order of the Garter in 1995. In 1992 Hillary appeared on the New Zealand five dollar bank note and streets, schools and organizations around New Zealand and internationally are named in his honor.

His favorite charity was the Sir Edmund Hillary Outdoor Pursuits Centre of New Zealand of which he supported as a Patron for 35 years. The organization introduced young New Zealanders to the outdoors similar to his first experience at Mt Ruapehu.

Sir Edmund Hillary

In 1962 he started began working with the Sherpas in Nepal who had often helped him as a debt of gratitude. He raised money through his Himalayan Trust, and helped install bridges and pipes. Almost 30 schools, 2 hospitals, 12 medical clinics and 2 mountaineering clinics were built.  There were monasteries restored and a million seedlings planted in and around the towns of the rural poverty-stricken Solu-Khumbu region of Nepal. While in his 70s, Hillary would spend 5 months away from New Zealand per year to raise money by giving lectures and to visit these projects in Nepal.

Related Histories:

History of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Born on Jan. 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, Martin Luther King, Jr. was the son of Alberta Williams King and Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr. Initially, Martin Luther King, Sr. was named Michael King, and the famous civil rights activist was originally named Michael King, Jr. However, after a trip to Europe in 1934, his father legally had their names changed to Martin Luther King in honor of the German Protestant Reformation leader Martin Luther. He was an active choir member in his church and even sang at the 1939 premier of the movie Gone with the Wind in Atlanta. He married Coretta Scott on June 18, 1953, and the couple had four children. He then became a pastor at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama in 1934. He was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee.

MARTIN LUTHER KING

His Legacy

Martin Luther King was a clergyman, an activist and a prominent leader in the African-American civil rights movement. He is known as a human rights icon because of his efforts to secure civil rights in the United States of America. Martin Luther King, Jr. is also well-known as a Baptist minister. In 1955 he led the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a social and political protest campaign intended to oppose the city’s policy of racial segregation on its public transit system. He co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an American civil rights organization, in 1957 and acted as its first president. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s efforts later led him to the March on Washington in 1963. The March on Washington was also known as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and was a political rally at which Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his historic “I Have a Dream” speech promoting racial harmony. More than 200,000 buses, 21 trains, 10 chartered airliners and countless cars gathered in Washington on Aug. 28, 1963. The supporters of the movement marched from the Washington Monument up to the Lincoln Memorial where Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his speech.

MARTIN LUTHER KING

Recognition and Awards

Martin Luther King, Jr. received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 for his efforts to end racial segregation and racial discrimination through civil noncompliance and other peaceful means. In 1965 the American Jewish Committee awarded him with the American Liberties Medallion for his unparalleled advancement of the principles of liberty. In 1965 he was awarded the Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth) Award, named after a 1963 encyclical letter by Pope John XXIII. Before his assassination in 1968 he had planned to focus his efforts on ending poverty and opposing the Vietnam War, both from a religious point of view. The Planned Parenthood Federation of America awarded Martin Luther King, Jr. the Margaret Sanger Award for his courageous act against bigotry and his lifelong dedication to the advancement of social justice and human dignity. In 1968 the country of Jamaica awarded him the Marcus Garvey Prize for Human Rights. In 1977 he was posthumously honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was recognized as a national holiday in the U.S. in 1986 and is observed on the third Monday of January every year. He was given the Congressional Gold Medal in 2004.  Both the the Episcopal Church in the USA and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America recognize the activist as a martyr.

Related Histories:

History of Arnold Schwarzenegger

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s rise to prominence epitomizes a story of success for foreign nationals who have migrated to the United States. Formerly an actor and action star, he currently serves as the 38th governor of California. As a household name and icon, his style, personality and accomplishments have earned him a place in history.  His Austrian manner of speech, so recognizable to his audience, allows for many hilarious cartoon characters to use the famous “Ahnold” accent in their skits. As an ode to the Terminator movies, the media jokingly nicknamed him the “Governator.”

Beginnings

Born on July 30, 1946, in Graz, Austria, Schwarzenegger was the second son of a police officer. He attributed much of his success and character to the strict moral upbringing his parents provided. He grew up in a small village but very soon grew restless with his surroundings. Interested in physical fitness from an early age, he turned to bodybuilding as a way to a better life.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Bodybuilding Accomplishments

Schwarzenegger’s first encounter with success happened when he was a bodybuilder. His start in professional competition began when he won the Junior Mr. Europe contest in 1965. At 20 years old, he was the youngest person to win the competition. He came to America after his win.

Encouraged by the win, Schwarzenegger then worked toward the goal of molding himself into the greatest bodybuilder in the world. He won the Mr. Olympia title from the years 1971 to 1975. After that he retired from professional bodybuilding. He filmed a few promotions for muscle supplements and soon became interested in acting.

Acting Career

Schwarzenegger had a slow start in the motion picture industry because of his difficult-to-pronounce name and thick accent. His breakout role came with the 1982 film Conan the Barbarian. The role led to his casting in many over-the-top action films. His action films often alternated violence with lighter, funny situations, and they made him one of the most successful movie stars in the business. He starred in several movies, the most well known being as the cyborg in the first three Terminator films. Phenomenally successful, the films broke records as one the most profitable franchises in history.

Personal Life

Naturalized in 1983, Schwarzenegger holds dual Austrian and United States citizenship. He holds a B.A. in Business and International Economics from the University of Wisconsin.

Schwarzenegger married television journalist and niece of former president John F. Kennedy on April 26, 1986. They  have four children.


Political Career

Schwarzenegger ran for governor in the California recall against beleaguered governor Gray Davis in 2003. Davis, hammered by the electricity crisis and the budget crisis caused by the dot-com bubble burst, was being recalled. Schwarzenegger won the race and assumed office as elected Governor of California on October 7, 2003.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

As governor, Schwarzenegger implemented many progressive policies. Some notable accomplishments he made in office include implementation of aggressive environmental policies and investments in state infrastructure. He actively markets California commodities and technology.

Governor Schwarzenegger signed legislation making the state’s school nutrition standards the most progressive in the nation. California also started the first comprehensive after-school program in the nation during his term.

Some statistics that indicate his success include the fact that California’s Gross State Product grew 29% since the governor took office in 2003. He was elected in 2006 to serve a full term as governor, and won a second term in 2007. Governor Schwarzenegger plans to run for a Senate seat after he reaches his term limit as governor.

Related Histories:

History of Adam Sandler

Adam Sandler is not just an actor. He is also a comedian, film producer, screenwriter and musician. Adam Richard Sandler was born in Brooklyn, New York, on Sept. 9, 1966. He was raised by a nursery teacher and an electrical engineer. When he turned five his family moved to Manchester, New Hampshire. Adam was a natural clown, but he never thought of becoming a comedian until he turned 17 and performed at a comedy Club in Boston.

After high school Sandler left Boston and finished college at New York University, where he earned a degree in Fine Arts. Right after graduation he landed a job on an MTV game show called Remote Control. In this show he played characters called Stud Boy and Trivia Delinquent.

Adam Sandler

Acting Career

At an early age Sandler had performed in different comedy clubs and campuses. It was during those days that he honed and developed his talent. At some point in the 1980s he played the role of Smitty, Theo Huxtable’s friend on The Cosby Show, a popular television series about the Huxtable family, an upper-middle class African-American family.

In 1990 Saturday Night Live hired Sandler as a writer thanks to Dennis Miller, who discovered him and referred him to Lorne Michaels, the SNL producer. Not long after he started performing original entertaining songs on the show, making a name for himself.

Going Overboard was his very first starring role, which debuted in 1989. In 1995 he starred again in another film, Billy Madison. This movie did not win the hearts of Siskel and Ebert. On their show At The Movies, they said that he would do better if he was the antagonist and not the other way around. Even with the negative feedback Sandler still received offers to appear in a number of movies. Bulletproof and Happy Gilmore both were released in 1996. The Wedding Singer was released in 1998 in which he co-starred with Drew Barrymore. The Water Boy appeared the same year, followed by Big Daddy and Little Nicky in 2000.

Adam Sandler Zohan

Sandler’s very first critically acclaimed movie was Punch-Drunk Love with Winona Ryder and Emily Watson. This movie showcased his acting ability beyond comedy and earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination. After that serious role, he again made a comedy movie with Jack Nicholson called Anger Management. The film 50 First Dates, with Drew Barrymore once again was another hit.

Sandler’s Other Movies

Personal Life

Adam Sandler and actress Jacqueline Samantha Titone married on June 23, 2003. They have two daughters: Sadie Madison Sandler was born May 6, 2006, and Sunny Madeline Sandler was born Nov. 2, 2008.

The actor has a house in New York as well as in Los Angeles, where he and his family lives. A charitable citizen, he has donated $1 million to Boys and Girls Club in Manchester, New Hampshire, which is also his hometown.

Related Histories:

History of Serena Williams

Serena Williams is a female American tennis player, the sister of Venus Williams, and also a top ranked player who has been ranked number one in the world several times, and holds the record for holding all four grand slam titles consecutively. Serena Williams has represented the US at the Olympic Games, and is one of the world’s highest earning sport celebrities. Ms Williams is a long time philanthropist, having established a school in Kenya, and offering her support to breast cancer clinics. She is considered a positive role model in the world of sport.

Serena Williams playing tennis in pink dress

Serena Jameka Williams was born in Saginaw Michigan on the 26th September 1981, to Richard and Brandy Williams. She is the youngest of five girls and while still an infant moved with her family to Compton, a suburb of Los Angeles in California. The family never felt safe living in Compton and Serena’s father was determined his two youngest daughters would have the chance for a better life so started teaching them tennis at a very young age in the public tennis courts around Compton.

Serena started playing tennis at the age of four, her parents home schooled Serena and coached her in tennis, the family having bought numerous books and videos on coaching and playing tennis. At the age of four and a half Serena competed in her first competition, by all accounts winning 46 from 49 junior United States Tennis Association (USTA) tournaments and being ranked number one in the under ten age group nationally in 1990. In 1991 Serena’s parents withdrew her and Venus from competitive tennis to concentrate on their school studies and give the sisters a grounding outside of competitive tennis.

Around the same time Richard Williams asked Rick Macci, a well known tennis coach from Florida to travel to California to see his daughters playing. Macci had previously coached Mary Pierce and Jennifer Capriati, and immediately suggested the family move to Florida so Serena and Venus could attend his tennis academy. By this time Serena and Venus had earned enough in endorsements to allow the family to buy a home in Palm Beach Garden close to Macci’s academy.

From 1991 till 1995 Serena Williams undertook intensive training with Macci, developing her style of play and learning about game strategy. In 1995 the Williams family parted ways from Rick Macci with Richard Williams taking on responsibility for the continuing coaching of both Serena, and her sister Venus. In the same year Serena turned pro and played her first professional game at the age of 14 in the Bell Challenge, Quebec City.

Turning pro at 14, two years younger than the WTA allowed for professional players meant that Serena was only able to play in non-WTA events, yet despite lack of contact with other WTA players Serena became known once again for being a formidable player. In 1997, shortly after her 16th birthday, Serena joined the WTA pro tour. Her first major wins came at the Ameritech Cup in Chicago where Serena beat seventh ranked Mary Pierce in the second round, followed by fourth ranked Monica Seles in the quarterfinals, and finally falling to Lyndsey Davenport in the semis.

Serena Williams playing tennis in black dress1998 was a pivotal year for Serena Williams who started the year ranked 99th in women’s tennis yet finished the year in the top 20 after bruising encounters with the top female players that saw her win doubles and mixed doubles tournaments, winning Wimbledon and the US Open mixed doubles with her playing partner Max Mirnyi, and the women’s doubles at the Grand Slam with sister Venus.

Serena played her first professional match against Venus, losing to her during the second round of the Australian Open, a match both described as challenging since Venus had always looked out for her sister, whilst Serena had always looked up to Venus. Both sisters have regularly played each other in tournaments, and observers have commented they seem to play each other without their usual zeal and enthusiasm leading to accusations outside the sport and amongst some players that Richard Williams decides in advance which of the sisters will win the match.

Serena’s first professional win in the WTA was at the 1999 Paris Indoor tournament against Amélie Mauresmo, but later that year she went on to win the 1999 US Open, beating three of the top four ranked WTA players, Monica Seles, Lyndsay Davenport, and Martina Hingis, and also becoming the first African-American to win a major Grand Slam title since Althea Gibson, another African-American player who won Wimbledon and the US Championship in 1958, and a moment Serena has described as a career highlight despite winning several majors since.

In WTA rankings Serena finished 1999 ranked 4th, but dropped to 6th in 2000, and it wasn’t until the Australian Open in 2002 that Serena Williams finally won the coveted 1st ranking, beating her sister Venus at the Australian Open who had been the previous number one, and the first time in WTA history that a player had dethroned her own sister for the rank. By 2003 Serena lost her number one to Kim Clijsters after 57 weeks at number one, a tough year for the Williams sisters after a shooting in the Los Angeles suburb of Compton that killed their older sister Yetunde.

Between 2004 and 2007 Serena Williams suffered a recurring left knee injury that kept her from playing at top form and was the cause of many frustrating losses including a drop in rank out of the top ten. The Australian Open was her only major win in 2005, whilst 2006 saw Serena withdraw from many tournaments or only enter as a wildcard entrant. Despite problems with her knee Serena did manage to reach the semi-finals of the Cincinnati Masters and the JP Morgan Chase Open, but missing out on a chance in the US Open being beaten in the fourth round.

Returning to WTA events in 2007 after taking a short break for recuperation Serena stunned the tennis world with a spectacular win in the Australian Open against Maria Sharapova before going onto win the Sony Ericsson Open against Justine Henin. 2008 saw Serena continue to do well, winning the Hopman Cup, the Bangalore Open, the Family Circle Cup, and the US Open, and returning her to number one ranking in the WTA, a position she lost by the end of the year but holding onto the number two rank.

Serena Williams in a beautiful brown dress

2009 started positively for Serena, winning the Australia Open for the fourth time, but a thigh injury forced her to withdraw from defending her crown at the Family Circle Cup, and also saw her lose the Sony Ericsson final to Victoria Azarenka, also seeing a loss in the Andalucía Tennis Experience in the first round. Despite injury, Serena Williams has consistently demonstrated a desire to get back on court, earning her awards for Most Favourite Female Sports Star (2008), WTA Player of the year (2002, 2008), Avon Foundation Celebrity Role Model Award (2003), and the Family Circle Player Who Makes a Difference Award (2004).

Related Histories:

Histories of...