Marilyn Pauline "Kim" Novak is an American retired film and television actress and painter. Novak began her career in 1954 after signing a contract with Columbia Pictures, and quickly became one of Hollywood's top box office stars, appearing in Picnic, The Man with the Golden Arm and Pal Joey. She is widely known for her performances as Madeleine Elster and Judy Barton in Alfred Hitch****'s thriller Vertigo with James Stewart. The film had mixed reviews from critics upon release but is now recognized as one of the greatest films ever made. Other notable films include Bell, Book and Candle, Strangers When We Meet and Of Human Bondage.
Santa, yes, correct. It is Edmund Barton, Australia's first Prime Minister.
I guess that you have a new person for us.
As a comment, it seems Americanisation of everything means that even to a point that past USA people are more recognisable to us than some of our past important Australians.
A bio for our first PM:
Sir Edmund "Toby" Barton, GCMG, KC (18 January 1849 7 January 1920) was an Australian politician and judge who was the first prime minister of Australia, from 1901 to 1903, holding office as the leader of the Protectionist Party. He resigned to become a founding member of the High Court of Australia, on which he served until his death.
Barton was an early supporter of the federation of the Australian colonies, the goal of which he summarised as "a nation for a continent, and a continent for a nation". After the retirement of Henry Parkes he came to be seen as the leader of the federation movement in New South Wales. He was a delegate to the constitutional conventions, playing a key role in the drafting of a national constitution, and was one of the lead campaigners for federation in the subsequent referendums. In late 1900, despite the initial "Hopetoun Blunder", Barton was commissioned to form a caretaker government as Australia's first prime minister. His term began on 1 January 1901, the date on which federation occurred.
At the first federal election in March 1901, Barton and the Protectionists won the most seats, but were well short of a majority. He was able to remain as prime minister by forming an alliance with the fledgling Australian Labor Party (ALP), which held the balance of power. The Barton government established a number of new national institutions, including the Australian Defence Force and the Commonwealth Public Service. It introduced nation-wide women's suffrage, and laid the foundations of the White Australia policy with the Immigration Restriction Act 1901.
Barton left politics in 1903 to become one of the three founding members of the High Court, which his government had created. He was succeeded as prime minister by Alfred Deakin. On the court, Barton was able to shape the judicial interpretation of the constitution he had helped write.
Thanks Sheba, your right, most of us do seem to have a better grasp of American history than of our own, perhaps an indictment of our education system.
Our next challenge is neither Australian nor American.
Small in stature, powerful voice, pretty easy on the eye as well.
Biography and career
Early years
Mireille Mathieu was born on 22 July 1946 in Avignon, France, as the eldest daughter of a family of fourteen children; the youngest brother was born after she moved to Paris. Her father Roger and his family were native to Avignon, while her mother Marcelle-Sophie (née Poirier) was from Dunkirk. She arrived in Avignon in 1944 as a refugee from World War II after her grandmother had died, and her mother went missing. Roger, with his father Arcade, ran the family stonemason shop just outside the Saint-Véran cemetery main gate. The Mathieu family have been stonemasons for four generations. Today the shop is named Pompes Funèbres Mathieu-Mardoyan, owned and managed by her sister Réjane's family.[5][6][7]
The Mathieu family lived in poverty, with a huge improvement in their living conditions in 1954, when subsidized housing was built in the Malpeigné quarter near the cemetery. Then again in 1961 they moved to a large tenement in the Croix des Oiseaux quarter southeast of the city.[8]
Roger had once dreamed of becoming a singer, but his father Arcade disapproved, inspiring him to have one of his children learn to sing with him in church. Mathieu included her father's operatic voice on her 1968 Christmas album, where it was mixed in with the Minuit Chrétiens song. Mathieu's first paid performance before an audience, at age four, was rewarded with a lollipop when she sang on Christmas Eve 1950 during Midnight Mass. A defining moment was seeing Édith Piaf sing on television.[5]
"Nicholas II or Nikolai II Alexandrovich Romanov[d] (18 May [O.S. 6 May] 1868 17 July 1918), known in the Russian Orthodox Church as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer,[e] was the last Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Poland and Grand Duke of Finland, ruling from 1 November 1894 until his abdication on 15 March 1917. During his reign, Nicholas gave support to the economic and political reforms promoted by his prime ministers, Sergei Witte and Pyotr Stolypin. He advocated modernization based on foreign loans and close ties with France, but resisted giving the new parliament (the Duma) major roles.[1][2] Ultimately, progress was undermined by Nicholas's commitment to autocratic rule,[2][3] strong aristocratic opposition and defeats sustained by the Russian military in the Russo-Japanese War and World War I.[4][5][6] By March 1917, public support for Nicholas had collapsed and he was forced to abdicate the throne, thereby ending the Romanov dynasty's 304-year rule of Russia (16131917)."