CLASS: MAMMAL ORDER: CARNIVORA FAMILY: FELIDAE GENUS AND SPECIES: Panthera pardus RANGE: Historical: Asia Minor, Caspian Sea Asia, Iraq, Iran, Indian subcontinent, South East Asia, China north to Siberia, all of Africa except Sahara. Current:...

Published just before his assassination in 1965, "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" brought national attention to a man whose goals for fellow American blacks differed strongly from those of his contemporary, Martin Luther King, Jr. While King...

The 1976 race between President Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, one-time governor of Georgia, was best summed up by T.V. personality Johnny Carson who said the election, "boils down to fear of the unknown versus fear of the known." It was Carter, the...

It would seem to be hard for a painter to create anything but a peaceful picture when he takes as his subject a clear, starry night or a quiet, sunny wheat field, but in the hands of Vincent Van Gogh, paintings of those subjects assume an intensity that...

The date and place of Euclid's birth and the date and circumstances of his death are unknown, and only roughly estimated in proximity to contemporary figures mentioned in references. Euclid was a 4th-3rd century BC Greek mathematician whose work...

One day while walking on the streets, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche saw a man whipping a horse because it wouldn't move. The beast was clearly unable to move, and Nietzsche threw himself between the horse and its tormentor -- and fainted. When he...

Do you think you could make an accurate prediction about what amazing things will happen in the next 100 years? It wouldn't be easy, but Jules Verne, the father of science fiction, did a good job of it in his own era. Before Verne, there had been...

When James Watt went to work fixing a steam engine in 1764, he probably had no idea how much that repair job would influence the Industrial Revolution. The University of Glasgow had asked him to repair a model Newcomen steam engine, but as he was...

What makes life meaningful? For American novelist and short-story writer Ernest Hemingway, it was courage. The characters in his works might not win, but they would live and die bravely. Hemingway is well known for his novels of war, big game...

Charles Dickens is one of the most famous 19th century English writers. His novels have lively and memorable characters who help depict Victorian England and Europe. Dickens was a master storyteller who could make his readers laugh and cry along...

Benjamin Banneker, the first black American astronomer, lived through the American Revolution and helped plan Washington, D.C. Working on his own from an astronomy textbook that had been lent him, Banneker became skilled at astronomical and tidal...

Neil Armstrong will forever be remembered as the first man on the Moon, but for sheer hair-raising adventure, it probably pales compared to his earlier experiences. Armstrong, who was born in the little town of Wapakoneta, Ohio, in 1930, became a...