Stanislao Cannizzaro… Frederic Chopin… Jorge Eliécer Gaitán… Américo Vespucio… Biographies Multiposts
Biographies of famous and historical figures
Biographies of famous:
- Biography of Stanislao Cannizzaro
- Biography of Frederic Chopin
- Biography of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán
- Biography of Américo Vespucio
Biography of Stanislao Cannizzaro
(1826/07/13 - 10/05/1910)
Stanislao Cannizzaro Italian chemist
He was born on July 13, 1826 in Palermo, Italy.
Exiled in France until 1851 for political reasons, he returned to his country settling on the island of Sardinia.
He worked in a laboratory of Paris (1849-1851) and later was hired as a Professor of chemistry of the Institute of Alessandria in 1851 and at the universities of Genoa in 1855, Pisa in 1861 and Rome in 1871.
In Alessandria he discovered the reaction that bears his name: the Cannizzaro reaction shows that aldehydes concentrated alkali -treated resulting in a mixture of their alcohols and acids ; for example, a benzaldehyde gives benzyl alcohol and benzoic acid. In 1858, he showed how the unknown Atomic masses of elements in composite volatile can be obtained from the known molecular mass compounds. He also said that the Atomic masses of the elements in the compound can be determined if the specific heat is known although the vapor density is not known.
His work on the atomic theory was based on the law of Avogadro, which establishes that equal volumes of any two gases contain the same number of molecules when they support identical conditions of temperature and pressure.
Stanislao Cannizzaro died in Rome on May 10, 1910.
Biography of Frederic Chopin
(1810/03/01 - 1849/10/17)
Frederic Chopin Polish pianist and composer
He was born on 1 March 1810 in Zelazowa Wola, near Warsaw, bourgeois House which belonged to the count Skarbek. The father of the Polish musician, Nicolas Chopin, of French origin, was its administrator and married the Lady-in-waiting of the Condensa, Tekla Justyna Krzyzanowska. It was the second of the four children of the marriage.
Almost exactly contemporary of Mendelssohn, Schumann and Liszt. He started piano study at the age of four and eight already offered a concert in Warsaw. Later he studied harmony and counterpoint at the Conservatory in his city. His first published work dates from 1817.
He gave his first concerts the year 1829, in the city of Vienna. On November 1, 1830, just one month before the Polish insurrection, leave Warsaw, never again will return to their homeland. Starting from 1831 he lived in Paris, where he worked as a teacher, pianist and composer. Among his circle of friends are Liszt, Berlioz, Rossini, Bellini and Mendelssohn. Between 1834 and 1835 he travels around Rhineland, Czechoslovakia and Germany. It wants to without success, the hand of the young María Wodzinska. In 1836 it has its first meeting in Paris with Aurore Dudevant, six years older than the French writer and best known by her pseudonym, George Sand, relationship that will mark the last years of his life.
Almost all of his compositions are for piano. Although an expatriate, he was always loyal to Poland, a country torn by wars; his mazurkas reflect the rhythms and melodies of Polish folklore. Their music is characterized by sweet and original melodies, refined harmonies, delicate rhythms and poetic beauty. Chopin elevated the Mazurka (wrote 60) and the Polonaise (13) to the category of concert music. The sources of the composer were his own life and the tragic history of his country.
Significantly influenced other composers, such as pianist and composer Franz Liszt and the French composer Claude Debussy. His published works include 55 Mazurkas, 27 studies, 24 Preludes, 19 Nocturnes, 13 polonaises and 3 sonatas for piano. Other compositions include the youth concerts, in e minor and f minor opus 11 and opus 21, respectively, as well as a sonata for cello and piano and 17 songs.
In 1838 he became ill from tuberculosis and moved next to Sand to the island of Mallorca looking for a refreshing climate: it could not be, it played a rainy and cold winter. Mallorca the Sand left 'a winter in Mallorca', and Chopin his preludes. There, in the Carthusian monastery of Valldemossa, Sand attended him in his illness until the continuous disputes between the two led to rupture the year 18Since then his concert activity was confined to several recitals in France, Scotland and Great Britain. According to testimony of Sand and some of the letters of the same Chopin, among other documents of the time the composer acknowledged that he suffered from hallucinations. In the midst of a sonata in a private English living in 1848, seen forced to leave the room to recover from the vision of the creatures that came from his piano. The laudanum opium Chopin consuming-based is one of the possible explanations of his hallucinations.
Frédéric Chopin died in number 12 of the Place Vendome in Paris, on October 17, 1849, victim of tuberculosis. He was buried in the Paris cemetery of Père-Lachaise. Abiding by the desire of Chopin, his heart rests in Warsaw, at the Church of the Holy Cross. 165 years of the death of the pianist, medical experts announced that after the study of his heart, they confirmed that his death was caused by tuberculosis. According to information the heart is much wider than normal, suggesting another lung disease, as well as tuberculosis.
Biography of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán
(1903/01/23 - 1948/04/09)
Jorge Eliécer Gaitán Colombian politician and jurist
He was born on January 23, 1903 in the neighborhood "Las Cruces" from Bogota.
Humble, he studied in public schools and ended his career as law at the National University, he holds a PhD in Rome.
On his return to Colombia, as a member of the Liberal Party was Deputy and Senator, and he presided over the two legislative chambers. In 1936 was Mayor of Bogotá and between 1938 and 1946 Minister of education and work. Organizer of a popular opposition movement against the authoritarian political model policy his popularity led him to appear in 1946 presidential elections in which he was defeated. Despite this, it remained the undisputed leader of the opposition.
Approaching elections which gave safe by his election to the Presidency of the Republic, on April 9, 1948 Jorge Eliecer Gaitán was killed in the Centre of Bogotá. A gunman shot him at point-blank range on three occasions. His death sparked a violent popular revolution under the name of 'bogotazo'.
Biography of Américo Vespucio
(1451/03/09 - 1512/02/22)
Américo Vespucio Amerigo Vespucci
Navigator and discoverer Italian
He was born March 9, 1451 in the bosom of a wealthy family of Florence.
In the year 1478 he traveled to France to work with his uncle Guido Antonio Vespucci, Ambassador of Lorenzo the magnificent at the Court of Louis XI. In 1482, he returned to Florence killed his father remaining until 1491 at the service of the Medici. In 1492 he travelled to Spain to represent the business interests of the family in Seville and enters the service of Juanoto Berardi, florentino devoted to trade in gold and slaves, and supplier of ships on the voyages to the New world. When dies Berardi in 1496, is dedicated to the navigation.
From 1499 to 1502 he made several trips to America recounted in five letters addressed to various recipients. Embarked in Cadiz in 1499 in the fleet of Alonso de Ojeda and Juan de la Cosa. Following the route of the third voyage of Christopher Columbus, he toured the northern coast of South America and reached the Cape of the sail (Venezuela) returning in June from 1500 to Cadiz. In the year 1501 he traveled to Lisbon , from where it departed again to the new world under the Portuguese flag. After passing through Cape Verde, he came to Brazil at the end of the same year and along the coast towards South arrived in Patagonia, near the Strait that discovered shortly after Ferdinand Magellan.
He realized that the discovered lands were not an extension of the Asian peninsula, but a new continent. The trip relates in a letter addressed to Lorenzo di Pier Francesco de Medici, published in Paris in 1502 under the title Mundus Novus. He referred to also in the letter that he went in 1504 to Piero Soderini, printed with the title of Lettera di Amerigo Vespucci delle isole nuovamente ritrovate quatro suoi viaggi in. European cartographers, who knew his work, was baptized in his honor to the continent with his name: America.
It is believed that you between 1503 and 1504 made his third trip to the Indies, also in the service of Portugal. In 1504 he was received by the King Ferdinand the Catholic in Toro (Zamora) granted him Spanish citizenship. In 1508 he was appointed first pilot of the Casa de contratación.
Américo Vespucio died February 22, 1512 in Seville, Spain.