John Howard

John Howard was born July 26, 1939, in Sydney, Australia. He became leader of the Liberal Party in 1985. He was defeated in his 1989 bid to retain his leadership. In 1995 he regained the leadership. Having promised major tax reform during his 1998 reelection campaign, he oversaw the implementation of a new taxation system in 2000. In 2006 he introduced controversial labor-relations reforms.

Profile

John Howard (born July 26, 1939, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia) Australian politician who was prime minister of Australia (1996–2007) and leader of the Liberal Party (1985–89, 1995–2007).

Howard earned a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Sydney in 1961 and the following year became a solicitor of the New South Wales Supreme Court. His interests soon turned to politics, and in 1974 he was elected to Parliament as a member of the Liberal Party. Under Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, he served as minister for business and consumer affairs (1975–77) and as federal treasurer (1977–83). Howard became deputy leader of the Liberal Party in 1982 and advanced to its leadership in 1985, heading an opposition coalition of the Liberals with the National Party. But the coalition failed to unseat the Australian Labor Party from power in elections held in 1987, and Howard was defeated in his bid to retain his leadership of the Liberals in 1989. In January 1995 he regained the leadership, and he subsequently led a Liberal-National coalition to a decisive victory over Labor in elections held in March 1996.

During his first term in office, Howard faced a number of challenges, including the creation of a new political party, the One Nation Party, which tested his authority, and national debates on immigration quotas and race relations. He was reelected in 1998 by a narrow margin. In 1999 Howard's government sent troops to East Timor as part of a United Nations peacekeeping mission to end fighting between pro-Indonesian forces and island nationalists. In November 1999 a referendum was held to determine whether Australia would cut its historic ties to the United Kingdom and become a republic with a president appointed by a two-thirds majority of Parliament. The referendum failed to carry, and Howard, who had opposed it, was vindicated.

Having promised major tax reform during his 1998 reelection campaign, Howard oversaw the implementation of a new taxation system in 2000. The centrepiece of the system was a goods-and-services tax, which was unpopular with the public. In the early 21st century, illegal immigration also became a key issue in Australia as an increasing number of foreigners sought asylum in the country. Howard's strict immigration policy, which included a ban on boat refugees, proved popular with Australians and played an important role in his reelection in 2001. In 2003 Howard contributed Australian troops to the U.S.- and British-led war in Iraq ( Iraq War). Amid growing opposition to the war and the discovery that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction (WMD), an investigation was launched to determine if Howard's government had deliberately misled the public about Iraq's WMD. A report was released in 2004 that criticized the prewar intelligence but cleared the government of any wrongdoing. Later that year Howard won a fourth successive term as prime minister.

In 2006 Howard introduced several controversial labour-relations reforms, including the abolition of unfair dismissal laws in workplaces with up to 100 employees. That year Howard also suffered one of the biggest defeats of his prime ministership when he was forced to withdraw proposed laws that would have extended the offshore processing of asylum seekers. In October 2007 he called for a general election to take place the following month. His bid for a fifth term as prime minister was unsuccessful, however, as the Liberal Party was defeated by Kevin Rudd and the Labor Party. In addition, Howard became only the second sitting Australian prime minister to lose his seat in Parliament. Shortly after the election, Howard was succeeded as Liberal Party leader by Brendan Nelson.

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Martina Hingis

Born in Slovakia in 1980, Martina Hingis started playing tennis at a young age. At fifteen she was the youngest Grand Slam champion of all time, and she was the top women's tennis player in the world in the late 1990s. However, ankle injuries and a cocaine scandal cut her career short, and she retired from the sport in 2007.

Profile

Tennis player. Martina Hingis was born on September 30, 1980, in Kosice, Slovakia. She was brought up in Switzerland and, playing for that country, in 1997 became the youngest singles Grand Slam tournament winner of the 20th century after her victory in the Australian Open, and the youngest-ever world number 1 when she replaced the injured Steffi Graf.

Winner of the 1996 and 1998 Wimbledon doubles title, she won the singles title in 1997 at the age of 16, and that same year won the U.S. and Australian titles, retaining the latter in 1998 and 1999. Her doubles titles include the Australian Open (1997, 1998, 1999), the US Open (1998), and the French Open (1998, 2000).

Injury forced her retirement in 2003, but she returned to competitive tennis at the start of 2006 and won the Australian Open mixed doubles title (with Mahesh Bhupathi) and the Italian Open. She received the Laureus World Sports award for comeback of the year in 2006.

In 2007, Hingis announced her retirement from tennis as well admitted that she tested positive for cocaine. In 2008, she was banned from tennis for two years, but has stated she would not come out of retirement.

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Dustin Hoffman

Dustin Hoffman (born 1937) began acting at the Pasadena Playhouse, where he met fellow actor Gene Hackman. After a string of bit parts in television shows and films, he got his break with 1967's The Graduate. After ten more films and three nominations, Hoffman won the Oscar for Kramer vs. Kramer (1979). Other notable movies include Tootsie (1982), Rain Man (1988), and Meet the Fockers (2004).

Early Life

Dustin Lee Hoffman was born in Los Angeles, California, on August 8, 1937, to Lillian and Harry Hoffman. Though the family is Jewish, Hoffman and his brother were not raised in a religiously observant family. When asked about the family's observance of the holidays, Hoffman once said, "About the time I realized we were Jews, maybe when I was about 10, I went to the delicatessen and ordered bagels and draped them around the tree."

Hoffman's acting career began when at age 19 he dropped out of college to pursue the stage at the Pasadena Playhouse. There, Hoffman befriended another young actor, Gene Hackman. Eventually, the two would move to New York City together, looking for work in television and in off-Broadway plays. An unconventional-looking actor for the time period, Hoffman had difficulty getting roles in an industry primarily looking for pretty faces. To make ends meet, he took got odd jobs and the occasional bit role to pay the bills. He later recounted, "I lived below the official American poverty line until I was 31."

Acting Career

Slowly but surely, Hoffman began building a critical reputation through smaller roles. Soon word of mouth reached Hollywood and in 1966 Mike Nichols invited the young actor to do a screen test for his upcoming movie The Graduate. Beating out Hollywood heavyweights like Robert Redford and Charles Grodin, Hoffman was stunned when he received news that he had gotten the lead role in the film. The enormously popular movie changed the landscape of American cinema in the 1960s and would in turn make Hoffman an unlikely star.

Before returning to the big screen, the newly minted Academy Award nominee acted in a few Broadway productions, one of which garnered him a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance. In 1969, Hoffman struck gold again with the gritty Midnight Cowboy, in which he played the part of Ratso Rizzo, a homeless man in New York City. This performance won him a second Oscar nomination.

On a roll in the 1970s, Hoffman acted in more than 10 movies and, after three nominations, finally won an Oscar for his performance in Kramer vs. Kramer (1979). The movie, which costarred Meryl Streep, went on to win numerous Academy Awards. When asked about working with the talented actress, Hoffman said, "She's an ox when it comes to acting. She eats words for breakfast. Working with her is like playing tennis with Chris Evert—she keeps trying to hit the perfect ball."

In 1982, playing yet another antihero, Hoffman starred in Tootsie as Michael Dorsey, a down and out actor who must dress up as a woman to get a part on a daytime soap opera. This performance would earn him his fifth Oscar nomination.

After a brief but successful return to the stage in Death of a Salesman and The Merchant of Venice, Hoffman starred in his huge Hollywood smash, Rain Man, in 1988 alongside Tom Cruise. Hoffman's portrayal of an autistic genius remains one of his most iconic performances.

The 1990s brought appearances a series of big-budget movies that proved largely disappointing at the box office. Hoffman's next critically acclaimed role wouldn't come around until 1997 with the political satire, Wag the Dog. In this role, the Academy Award winner masterfully played an unscrupulous Hollywood executive out to fool the country into believing they were at war. In 2004, Hoffman again exhibited his comedic prowess when he starred with Lily Tomlin in an offbeat movie about a detective team that solves existential crises, I Heart Huckabees. Further cementing his new direction, he later starred in the Meet the Fockers trilogy and the children's fantasy Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium.

Hoffman continues to star in blockbuster films like Stranger than Fiction (2006), but also seeks out new and different projects, such as lending his voice to animated children's movies (Kung Fu Panda) and narrating documentaries.

With his characteristic dry humor, Hoffman once mused, "One thing about being successful is that I stopped being afraid of dying. Once you're a star you're dead already. You're embalmed."

Personal Life

Apart from collecting critical acclaim for his professional work, Hoffman also found time to marry Anne Byrne in May of 1969. Their adopted daughter Karina was born in 1966 and a second daughter Jenna would be born in 1970. After more than 10 years of marriage, Hoffman and his first wife Anne divorced in 1980. Soon after, he married attorney Lisa Gottsegen. They would go on to have three children, Jacob Edward, Maxwell Geoffrey, and Alexandra Lydia.

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Edmund Hillary

In 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary was the first climber to reach the summit of Mount Everest. He started mountaineering as a young boy, climbing his first major summit in 1939. In 1958, he reached the South Pole overland, and later he traveled to the North Pole. Beyond expeditions, much of his life was devoted to helping the Sherpas of Nepal through the Himalayan Trust, which he founded.

Profile

Edmund Hillary (born July 20, 1919, Auckland, N.Z.—died Jan. 11, 2008, Auckland) New Zealand mountain climber and Antarctic explorer who, with the Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay, was the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest (29,035 feet [8,850 metres]; Researcher's Note: Height of Mount Everest), the highest mountain in the world.

Hillary's father was a beekeeper, an occupation he also pursued. He began climbing in New Zealand's Southern Alps while in high school. After military service in World War II, he resumed climbing and became determined to scale Everest. In 1951 he joined a New Zealand party to the central Himalayas and later that year participated in a British reconnaissance expedition of the southern flank of Everest. He was subsequently invited to join the team of mountaineers planning to climb the peak.

The well-organized expedition was launched in the spring of 1953, and a high camp from which to mount attempts at the summit was established by mid-May. After a pair of climbers failed to reach the top on May 27, Hillary and Tenzing set out for it early on May 29; by late morning they were standing on the summit. The two shook hands, then Tenzing embraced his partner. Hillary took photographs, and both searched for signs that George Mallory, a British climber lost on Everest in 1924, had been on the summit. Hillary left behind a crucifix, and Tenzing, a Buddhist, made a food offering. After spending about 15 minutes on the peak, they began their descent. They were met back at camp by their colleague W.G. Lowe, to whom Hillary reputedly said, “Well, George, we knocked the bastard off.” Hillary described his exploits in High Adventure (1955). He made other expeditions to the Everest region during the early 1960s but never again tried to climb to the top.

Between 1955 and 1958 Hillary commanded the New Zealand group participating in the British Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition led by Vivian (later Sir Vivian) Fuchs. He reached the South Pole by tractor on Jan. 4, 1958, and recorded this feat in The Crossing of Antarctica (1958; with Fuchs) and No Latitude for Error (1961). On his expedition of Antarctica in 1967, he was among those who scaled Mount Herschel (10,941 feet [3,335 metres]) for the first time. In 1977 he led the first jet boat expedition up the Ganges River and continued by climbing to its source in the Himalayas. His autobiography, Nothing Venture, Nothing Win, was published in 1975.

Hillary never anticipated the acclaim that would follow the historic ascent. He was knighted in 1953, shortly after the expedition returned to London. From 1985 to 1988 he served as New Zealand's high commissioner to India, Nepal, and Bangladesh. Over the years numerous other honours were bestowed on him, including the Order of the Garter in 1995. Throughout it, however, he maintained a high level of humility, and his main interest came to be the welfare of the Himalayan peoples of Nepal, especially the Sherpas. Through the Himalayan Trust, which he founded in 1960, he built schools, hospitals, and airfields for them. This dedication to the Sherpas lasted into his later years and was recognized in 2003, when, as part of the observance of the 50th anniversary of his and Tenzing's climb, he was made an honorary citizen of Nepal.

From : www.biography.com