Well, I thought the special Christmas links requests worked well – might do that again too – so lets try something more ambitious.
Is there an individual from the early modern period (the usual, 1500-1800ish) you’d like to know more about? I will endeavour to write short biographies, depending on how many requests you send in and how soon I get bored of it, based on whatever secondary sources (online or traditional) I can easily get hold of; and, at the very least, I’ll try to provide some links.
And please don’t suggest people like Elizabeth I or Napoleon Bonaparte for whom there are squillions of biographies already out there. (Though we don’t have to be talking totally obscure; well-known people are fine.)
12 comments on “Biography requests taken”
Hi !
From RalphSpeak / Chart Room:
“[The "Block Chart of 1624] is the earliest extant European record of the features of Long Island Sound [northeast coast of U.S.] – including the estuary now known as the Thames River and New London Harbor.
“Although this chart did accompany the Dutch ship Onrust (‘Restless’) on her exploratory voyage of 1614 and is a work generally credited to her renowned captain, Adriaen Block; many details … had already been outlined by the unsung Dutch mapmaker Cornelis Doetsz during his own expeditions to this area in 1611-12.”
What can we find out about Cornelis Doetsz?
Also see Willem Rabbelier: Maps from New Netherland.
Thanks.
How about William VI. No one ever mentions him.
PS: I love history and I’m going to link you. So there!
Sorry. Buggered up my numerals. That’d be IV.
William the One-Vee, that is.
Bernardim Ribeiro, the Portuguese poet and author.
I’m kidding, his valid biography is about 200 words long, and even that partly conjectural.
How about … Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg (Protestant Archbishop of Cologne).
BTW, How many jillions are there in a squillion?
How many zeros in a Google?
my request would be Nasr-ud-Din, whom I know too little about.
Jan Zizka, the Czech Hussite general. Or Jogaila / Jagiello, the last European pagan king and first Lithuanian Catholic king.
Actually, both are about a century early.
Us individuals of Swedish descent don’t know whether to be appalled by or proud of Charles XII…or is he too well known?
Huygens and Cassini would be very topical right now.
Robert Hooke.
As a more general theme, how about the women of the Enlightenment? It was a sexist age, but I’ve read little bits of info on women of science who often worked behind the scenes, like Caroline Herschel and Maria Kirch and Margaret Cavendish.
I think that it’s about time someone wrote a book-length biography of George Downing (1624-1684).
I second Karl XII and suggest the addition of Oxenstierna (sp.)