Guillermo del Toro (1964)

Del Toro is an Academy Award-nominated Mexican filmmaker whose films often explore the darker elements of fantasy and reflect his fascination with “insects, clockwork, monsters, dark places, and unborn things.” His most acclaimed films to date, Pan’s Labyrinth and The Devil’s Backbone, both feature children living under authoritarian rule while facing frightening supernatural entities and have been compared with what film, considered to be the finest Spanish film of the 1970s? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Henri Louis Le Châtelier (1850)

Le Châtelier was a French chemist best known for devising Le Châtelier’s principle, which makes it possible to predict the effect that a change in conditions—such as temperature, pressure, or concentration of components—will have on a chemical reaction. The principle states that a system in equilibrium, when subjected to a perturbation, will respond in a way that tends to minimize its effect and restore equilibrium. In 1928, Le Châtelier published a book on what system of scientific management? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Niels Bohr (1885)

Bohr was a Danish physicist who was among the first to recognize the importance of an element’s atomic number. He was also the first to apply the quantum theory to atomic and molecular structure, and his concept of the atomic nucleus was a key step in understanding nuclear fission. He won a Nobel Prize for Physics in 1922 for his work on atomic theory. Though he contributed to atomic bomb research during World War II, he later devoted himself to arms control. What element is named in his honor? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Henri Christophe (1767)

A freed slave, Christophe was a Haitian revolutionary leader who was army chief under Jean-Jacques Dessalines. When Dessalines declared himself emperor, Christophe took part in a successful plot against his life and was elected president of the republic. In 1811, Christophe declared himself king of North Haiti—as Henri I—and created an autocracy patterned after the absolute monarchies of Europe. Engaging in a tyrannical reign, Christophe surrounded himself with lavish wealth. How did he die? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Denis Diderot (1713)

Enormously influential in shaping the rationalistic spirit of the 18th century, Diderot was a French encyclopedist, philosopher, novelist, dramatist, and art critic. After rejecting a career in law to pursue his own studies, he served as chief editor of the 35-volume Encyclopédie, one of the principal works of the Enlightenment, from 1745 to 1772. The controversial project was once the target of a seizure by government officials. Where were the manuscripts said to have been hidden? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Damon Runyon (1884)

Runyon was an American short story writer and journalist. He served in the Spanish-American War as a teenager and moved to New York in 1911, where he began to write humorous stories about the city’s hoodlums, racketeers, bookies, and other underworld characters. The stories are written in a picturesque, slangy journalistic idiom often referred to as “Runyonese” or “Runyonesque.” What famous musical is based on a collection of his stories about a racy section of Broadway? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Thomas Wolfe (1900)

After beginning his career writing plays, Wolfe turned to novels, many of which are thinly veiled autobiographies. His writing habits, influenced by excessive drinking, were haphazard and undisciplined. In his The Story of a Novel, Wolfe describes how editor Maxwell Perkins helped him turn the chaotic manuscripts for his first two books into publishable works. Which one of Wolfe’s literary contemporaries likened his writing to “an elephant trying to do the hoochie coochie”? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Charles Albert of Sardinia (1798)

The complex and controversial king of Sardinia-Piedmont from 1831 to 1849, Charles Albert helped inspire the growing drive for Italian independence. In 1848, the spread of revolutionary ideas forced him to grant a constitution. Seeking to lead the liberation of Italy, he went to war with Austria that same year, and again in 1849, but was twice defeated. After abdicating in favor of his son, he went into exile and soon died. Charles was called the “number one enemy” of what? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Annie Besant (1847)

Besant was an English social reformer who, in 1889, embraced theosophy, a religious philosophy with mystical concerns. She served as international president of the Theosophical Society from 1907 until her death. After moving to India in 1893, she became an independence leader and established the Indian Home Rule League. She was president of the Indian National Congress in 1917 but later split with Gandhi. Besant lost custody of her children and was nearly imprisoned for publishing what in 1877? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Truman Capote (1924)

Capote’s first novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms, launched a literary career that included the novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s and his innovative “nonfiction novel” In Cold Blood, a chilling account of the senseless, brutal murder of a Kansas family that is widely considered his finest work. Capote cultivated celebrity and was famous in later years for his jet-setting lifestyle as well as his writing. Capote was reportedly the inspiration for a character in what famous novel? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary