Remarkable Man - Chief Joseph Dreaver

Chief Joseph Dreaver of the Mitawasis First Nation bravely served during the First and Second World Wars. Painting : Dreaver by Mike Holden.

Sent by Jes from Toronto, Canada.

Chief Joseph Dreaver was a Veteran of the First and Second World Wars. He made impressive contributions as a soldier, a Veteran and a leader in the Indigenous community.

Joseph was born on 2 June 1891 in what is now known as Mistawasis Nêhiyawak, a Cree First Nation in central Saskatchewan.

He was the grandson of Chief Mistawasis, an important leader of the Plains Cree. Chief Mistawasis signed Treaty 6 with the British Crown in 1876. Joseph’s father, George Dreaver, was also chief of his First Nation for decades.

Joseph attended the Regina Indian Industrial School in his youth, hundreds of kilometres away from his home in Mistawasis. After the First World War broke out, he volunteered to join the Canadian Expeditionary Force at Prince Albert, Saskatchewan in March 1916. Joseph’s enlistment papers tell us he was a farmer and at 24 years old stood 5 foot 9 ½ inches (177 cm) tall. He was married to Evelyn (Cardinal) Dreaver and had two young sons at that time (read more).

Remarkable Man - Harold Sakata

Harold Sakata as Oddjob in Goldfinger (1964).

Sent by Fabienne from Brussels, Belgium.

Toshiyuki Sakata (坂田 敏行, Sakata Toshiyuki; July 1, 1920 – July 29, 1982), known as Harold Sakata, was an American Olympic weightlifter, professional wrestler, and film actor. He won a silver medal at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London in weightlifting, and later became a popular professional wrestler under the ring name Tosh Togo, wrestling primarily for various National Wrestling Alliance territories as a tag team with Great Togo.

Sakata also wrestled in Japan for the Japanese Wrestling Association between 1955 and 1957, and was an early mentor and sometimes-tag-partner to Rikidōzan. On the basis of his wrestling work, he was cast in the James Bond film Goldfinger (1964) as the villain Oddjob, a role he would be closely associated with for the rest of his life (read more).

Remarkable Man - Bill Pickett

Bill Pickett (1870 - 1932)

American cowboy and rodeo performer.

Sent by Jason from Austin in Texas, USA.

Willie M. Pickett (December 5, 1870 – April 2, 1932) was an African American cowboy, rodeo performer, and actor. In 1972, he was the first African American man inducted into the National Rodeo Hall of Fame. In 1989, Pickett was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame.

Pickett was born in the Jenks Branch community of Williamson County, Texas, in 1870. (Jenks Branch, also known as the Miller Community, is in western Williamson County, five miles southeast of Liberty Hill, and near the Travis County line. He was the second of 13 children born to Thomas Jefferson Pickett, a former enslaved man, and Mary "Janie" Gilbert. Pickett had four brothers and eight sisters. The family's ancestry was African-American and Cherokee. By 1888, the family had moved to Taylor, Texas.

In 1890, Pickett married Maggie Turner, the formerly enslaved daughter of a white southern plantation owner. The couple had nine children (read more).

Remarkable Man - Robert Koch (1843-1910)

Robert Koch, the German physician and the pioneering microbiologist.

Sent by Uwe from Münster in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.

Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch (/kɒx/ KOKH; German: [ˈʁoːbɛʁt kɔx]; 11 December 1843 – 27 May 1910) was a German physician and microbiologist. He won the 1905 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for his investigations and discoveries in relation to tuberculosis".

As the discoverer of the specific causative agents of deadly infectious diseases including tuberculosis, cholera and anthrax, he is regarded as one of the main founders of modern bacteriology. As such he is popularly nicknamed the father of microbiology (with Louis Pasteur), and as the father of medical bacteriology. His discovery of the anthrax bacterium (Bacillus anthracis) in 1876 is considered as the birth of modern bacteriology. Koch used his discoveries to establish that germs "could cause a specific disease" and directly provided proofs for the germ theory of diseases, therefore creating the scientific basis of public health, saving millions of lives. For his life's work Koch is seen as one of the founders of modern medicine.

While working as a private physician, Koch developed many innovative techniques in microbiology. He was the first to use the oil immersion lens, condenser, and microphotography in microscopy. His invention of the bacterial culture method using agar and glass plates (later developed as the Petri dish by his assistant Julius Richard Petri) made him the first to grow bacteria in the laboratory. In appreciation of his work, he was appointed to government advisor at the Imperial Health Office in 1880, promoted to a senior executive position (Geheimer Regierungsrat) in 1882, Director of Hygienic Institute and Chair (Professor of hygiene) of the Faculty of Medicine at Berlin University in 1885, and the Royal Prussian Institute for Infectious Diseases (later renamed Robert Koch Institute after his death) in 1891 (read more).

Remarkable Man - Hunter S. Thompson

Hunter S. Thompson
American journalist and author.

Sent by Margaret from Jefferson in Iowa, USA.

Hunter Stockton Thompson (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005) was an American journalist and author, regarded as a pioneer of New Journalism along with Gay Talese, Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, Joan Didion, and Tom Wolfe. He rose to prominence with the book Hell's Angels (1967), for which he lived a year among the Hells Angels motorcycle club to write a first-hand account of their lives and experiences. In 1970, he wrote an unconventional article titled "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" for Scanlan's Monthly, which further raised his profile as a countercultural figure. It also set him on the path to establish the subgenre of New Journalism that he called "Gonzo", a style in which the writer becomes central to, and participant in the narrative.

Thompson is best known for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1972), a book first serialized in Rolling Stone in which he grapples with the implications of what he considered the failure of the 1960s counterculture. It was adapted for film twice, loosely in 1980 in Where the Buffalo Roam and explicitly in 1998 in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (read more).

Remarkable Men - Bangladesh - Kazi Nazrul Islam

Kazi Nazrul Islam, renowned Bengali poet, writer, musician, and revolutionary who is considered the national poet of Bangladesh.

Sent by Shahadat from Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Kazi Nazrul Islam (24 May 1899 – 29 August 1976) was a. Bangladeshi Bengali poet, short story writer, journalist, lyricist and musician. He is the national poet of Bangladesh. Nazrul produced a large body of poetry, music, messages, novels, and stories with themes, that included equality, justice, anti-imperialism, humanity, rebellion against oppression and religious devotion. Nazrul Islam's activism for political and social justice as well as writing a poem titled as "Bidrohī", meaning "the rebel" in Bengali, earned him the title of "Bidrohī Kôbi" (Rebel Poet). His compositions form the avant-garde music genre of Nazrul Gīti (Music of Nazrul).

Born in the British Raj period into a Bengali Muslim Kazi family from Churulia in Asansol,then in Burdwan district in Bengal Presidency (now in West Bengal, India), Nazrul Islam received religious education and as a young man worked as a muezzin at a local mosque. He learned about poetry, drama, and literature while working with the rural theatrical group Leṭor Dôl, Leṭo being a folk song genre of West Bengal usually performed by the people from Muslim community of the region. He joined the British Indian Army in 1917 and was posted in Karachi. Nazrul Islam established himself as a journalist in Calcutta after the war ended. He criticised the British Raj and called for revolution through his famous poetic works, such as "Bidrohī" ('The Rebel') and "Bhangar Gan" ('The Song of Destruction'), as well as in his publication Dhūmketu ('The Comet'). His nationalist activism in Indian independence movement led to his frequent imprisonment by the colonial British authorities. While in prison, Nazrul Islam wrote the "Rajbôndīr Jôbanbôndī" ('Deposition of a Political Prisoner'). His writings greatly inspired Bengalis of East Pakistan during the Bangladesh Liberation War (read more).

Remarkable Men - Freddie Mercury

Freddie Mercury (1946 - 1991).

Sent by Yvonne from Hannover, Germany.

Freddie Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara; 5 September 1946 – 24 November 1991) was a British singer and songwriter who achieved global fame as the lead vocalist and pianist of the rock band Queen. Regarded as one of the greatest singers in the history of rock music, he was known for his flamboyant stage persona and four-octave vocal range. Mercury defied the conventions of a rock frontman with his theatrical style, influencing the artistic direction of Queen.

Born in 1946 in Zanzibar to Parsi-Indian parents, Mercury attended British boarding schools in India from the age of eight and returned to Zanzibar after secondary school. In 1964, his family fled the Zanzibar Revolution, moving to Middlesex, England. Having previously studied and written music, he formed Queen in 1970 with guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor. Mercury wrote numerous hits for Queen, including "Killer Queen", "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Somebody to Love", "We Are the Champions", "Don't Stop Me Now" and "Crazy Little Thing Called Love". His charismatic stage performances often saw him interact with the audience, as displayed at the 1985 Live Aid concert. He also led a solo career and was a producer and guest musician for other artists.

Mercury was diagnosed with AIDS in 1987. He continued to record with Queen, and was posthumously featured on their final album, Made in Heaven (1995). In 1991, the day after publicly announcing his diagnosis, he died from complications of the disease at the age of 45. In 1992, a concert in tribute to him was held at Wembley Stadium, in benefit of AIDS awareness.

As a member of Queen, Mercury was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001, the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2003, and the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2004. In 1990, he and the other Queen members received the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music. One year after his death, Mercury received the same award individually. In 2005, Queen were awarded an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Song Collection from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors. In 2002, Mercury was voted number 58 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons (read more).

Stamp of Freddie Mercury

Remarkable Men - Georg Friedrich Creuzer

Georg Friedrich Creuzer (1771 - 1858).

German philologist and archaeologist.

Sent by Week-Family from Dreieich in Germany.

Georg Friedrich Creuzer (German: [ˈɡeːɔʁk ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈkʁɔʏtsɐ]; 10 March 1771 – 6 February 1858) was a German philologist and archaeologist.

He was born at Marburg, the son of a bookbinder. After studying at Marburg and at the University of Jena, he went to Leipzig as a private tutor; but in 1802 he was appointed professor at Marburg, and two years later professor of philology and ancient history at Heidelberg. He held the latter position for nearly forty-five years, with the exception of a short time spent at the University of Leiden, where his health was affected by the Dutch climate.

Creuzer was one of the principal founders of the Philological Seminary established at Heidelberg in 1807. The Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Paris, appointed him one of its members, and from the Grand Duke of Baden he received the dignity of privy councillor. In 1844 Creuzer received a medal for his 40th anniversary of employment at the University of Heidelberg. This medal was made by the engraver Ludwig Kachel (read more).

Diego Rivera - The Detroit Industry Murals

Diego Rivera - THE DETROIT INDUSTRY MURALS
Diego Rivera and dog on scaffolding in front of the north wall automative panel, 1932
Photograph by W.J. Stettler
@ Detroit Institute of Arts

Sent by Marc from Detroit, USA.

Diego Rivera (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈdjeɣo riˈβeɾa]; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957) was a Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the mural movement in Mexican and international art.
Between 1922 and 1953, Rivera painted murals in, among other places, Mexico City, Chapingo, and Cuernavaca, Mexico; and San Francisco, Detroit, and New York City. In 1931, a retrospective exhibition of his works was held at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan. That was before he completed his 27-mural series known as Detroit Industry Murals.

Rivera had four wives and numerous children, including at least one illegitimate daughter. His first child and only son died at the age of two. His third wife was fellow Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, with whom he had a volatile relationship that continued until her death. His previous two marriages, ending in divorce, were respectively to a fellow artist and a novelist, and his final marriage was to his agent.

Due to his importance in the country's art history, the government of Mexico declared Rivera's works as monumentos históricos. As of 2018, Rivera holds the record for highest price at auction for a work by a Latin American artist. The 1931 painting The Rivals, part of the record-setting collection of Peggy Rockefeller and David Rockefeller, sold for US$9.76 million (read more).