Portrait: Simone Veil, first President of the European Parliament and Holocaust survivor
25 December 2024 | Author/Destination: Editorial / Redaktion | Rubric: General, European Union, Portrait Reading Time: 7 minutes Simone Veil was a French magistrate, Holocaust survivor, and politician who served as Health Minister in several governments and was President of the European Parliament from 1979 to 1982, the first woman to hold that office. As health minister, she is best remembered for advancing women’s rights in France, in particular for the 1975 law that legalized abortion, today known as the Veil Act (French: Loi Veil). From 1998 to 2007, she was a member of the Constitutional Council, France’s highest legal authority. read more…Portrait: Ramesses II
27 November 2024 | Author/Destination: Editorial / Redaktion | Rubric: Portrait, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time: 5 minutes Ramesses II commonly known as Ramesses the Great, was an Egyptian pharaoh. He was the third ruler of the Nineteenth Dynasty. Along with Thutmose III of the Eighteenth Dynasty, he is often regarded as the greatest, most celebrated, and most powerful pharaoh of the New Kingdom, which itself was the most powerful period of ancient Egypt. He is also widely considered one of ancient Egypt’s most successful warrior pharaohs, conducting no fewer than 15 military campaigns, all resulting in victories, excluding the Battle of Kadesh, generally considered a stalemate. read more…Portrait: Vitruvius, a Roman architect and engineer
23 October 2024 | Author/Destination: European Union / Europäische Union | Rubric: Architecture, Portrait Reading Time: 12 minutes Vitruvius was a Roman architect and engineer during the 1st century BC, known for his multi-volume work titled De architectura. As the only treatise on architecture to survive from antiquity, it has been regarded since the Renaissance as the first book on architectural theory, as well as a major source on the canon of classical architecture. It is not clear to what extent his contemporaries regarded his book as original or important. read more…Portrait: Saint Valentine
25 September 2024 | Author/Destination: Editorial / Redaktion | Rubric: Portrait Reading Time: 6 minutes Saint Valentine (Italian: San Valentino; Latin: Valentinus) was a 3rd-century Roman saint, commemorated in Western Christianity on February 14 and in Eastern Orthodoxy on July 6. From the High Middle Ages, his feast day has been associated with a tradition of courtly love. He is also a patron saint of Terni, epilepsy and beekeepers. Saint Valentine was a clergyman – either a priest or a bishop – in the Roman Empire who ministered to persecuted Christians. He was martyred and his body buried on the Via Flaminia on February 14, which has been observed as the Feast of Saint Valentine (Saint Valentine’s Day) since at least the eighth century. read more…Portrait: Confucius, a Chinese philosopher
28 August 2024 | Author/Destination: Editorial / Redaktion | Rubric: Portrait, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time: 7 minutes
Confucius – Portrait by Qiu Ying (1494–1552) © chinatimes.com
Portrait: Robert Oppenheimer, an American theoretical physicist
24 July 2024 | Author/Destination: Editorial / Redaktion | Rubric: Portrait Reading Time: 6 minutes
in 1946 © Ed Westcott – U.S. Government photographer
Portrait: Richard the Lionheart, King of England
26 June 2024 | Author/Destination: Editorial / Redaktion | Rubric: Portrait Reading Time: 7 minutes
Richard Coeur de Lion, Carlo Marochetti’s 1856 statue outside the Palace of Westminster, London
© Jonathan Cardy/cc-by-sa-3.0
Portrait: Caspar David Friedrich, a German Romantic landscape painter
22 May 2024 | Author/Destination: Editorial / Redaktion | Rubric: Portrait Reading Time: 7 minutes
Caspar David Friedrich by Gerhard von Kügelgen