The files in this directory constitute a concise biographical dictionary. The files are a work in progress, with entries continually being added and expanded. Right now, over 15,000 famous people are included. Why an online biographical dictionary? It has two fundamental advantages over an ordinary paper equivalent. First, it's kept up-to-date. When someone rises to prominence, gains a new distinction, or dies, these files are usually updated within a few days. No paper dictionary can match that. Second, you can perform searches on these files (using grep or equivalent) to get information without knowing the target person's name. You can look up who was US Secreatary of State in World War I or who discovered beryllium; you can generate a list of nineteenth-century French novelists or a chronological table of prime ministers of India; and you can do it all with just a single command. With a paper dictionary, unless you have a name, you're stuck. The rest of this file is devoted to legal issues and an explanation of file format, including abbreviations used. I hope that these dictionary files will be useful to many people--please download them, use them, share them with friends and colleagues, spread the word that they exist. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to send me email (tentarelli@nnf.cornell.edu). I guess that's it. Read and enjoy! --Eric Legal issues and disclaimers. All these files are copylefted. If you have any use for them, please use them. You are also free to make copies of them for yourself and make copies to be distributed free of charge to other people, provided that you include a copy of this README file and share copies of these files for free with anyone who asks you for them. The information in these files is not guaranteed to be accurate. No guarantee whatsoever is made as to the accuracy or usefulness of these files, and you use them entirely at your own risk. You can't sue me. Errors and contributions. If you notice an error in these files, please send me a correction by email and mention the source of your information. After all, not only can I make mistakes when I compile the data, but I've also found that books have errors far more often than I'd ever suspected. Moreover, if your favorite famous person isn't in the dictionary, send me a full entry for the person, a brief explanation of what makes the person noteworthy, and the name of your information source; I'll add all deserving people to the dictionary as soon as I get a chance and can verify the entries. If you would be interested in setting up a Web site that would carry these files, with some sort of interface that would perform searches, please let me know. I think that this would be quite useful, but I lack the resources and know-how to do it myself. File Format. These files are plain, good old ASCII text. Each entry is delimited by newlines for the sake of commands like grep. Each entry begins with the person's name, the most significant name (in modern Western culture, this means the last name) coming first. Names which follow this name follow it normally; first and middle names come afterwards, separated from the last name by a comma. Sr., Jr., and ordinal numbers come at the very end. Names not usually used are enclosed in square brackets (except for middle names, since middle names in general are seldom used anyway). Following the name, separated from it by a single space and enclosed in parentheses, come other names by which the person is known. These include alternative spellings, nicknames, epithets, original names, maiden names, titles, and pseudonyms. Alternative spellings are preceded by the word "also," original names are preceded by the abbreviation "orig.," maiden names are preceded by the word "nee," pseudonyms of people listed under their real names are preceded by the abbreviation "pseud.," and real names of people listed under their pseudonyms are preceded by "pseud. of" or sometimes by "orig." Nicknames, epithets, and titles are not preceded by keywords; neither are full names of people (such as ancient Romans) who are listed under the extremely shortened name by which they are generally known. Simple titles, such as "Sir," "Dame," or "Count," follow the full name, preceded by a comma; only full titles that serve as identifiers in themselves, such as "Earl of Oxford," appear in parentheses. Real names usually referred to by initials have the commonly-used form listed in parentheses with no preceding word. Multiple alternative names appear within the same set of parentheses; names of different types (e.g., original name and nickname) are separated by semicolons, while names of the same type (e.g., two epithets) are separated by commas. The name field is always followed by a double space. This is the only place where a double space is used. The next item is nationality. Most nationalities are abbreviated; a list of abbreviations appears later in this README file. Occasionally, the nationality is actually preceded by some sort of modifier (such as "1st" or "only"). People thought of as living in country X but who were born in country Y are listed as "X (Y-born)." For a person associated equally with two countries, the hyphenated form "X-Y" is used (but very rarely). A person who is always thought of as being X, but who worked in country Y most of the time, is listed as "X (profession) in Y." The next item is the person's claim to fame. This is almost always a profession. Claims to fame are usually abbreviated; a list of abbreviations appears later in this README file. This general claim to fame is usually followed by a set of specific claims to fame, separated from the general claim to fame and from each other by semicolons. A very common specific claim to fame is an office and the range of years in which it was held. Relations to other famous people also qualify; usually, only the lesser-known person is listed as being related to the better-known person. (So William McAdoo's entry mentions that he is Woodrow Wilson's son-in-law, but Wilson's own entry makes no mention of William McAdoo.) If the two people are equally well known, the relation is listed under both. Specific professional achievements, such as scientific discoveries or created works, qualify as specific claims to fame; so do some awards. Words derived from the person's name often appear as specific claims to fame, as do other random pieces of trivia. Specific claims to fame for which a year or set of years is relevant have the year or set of years listed at the end. Created works, such as literary works, movies, musical compositions, and works of visual art, have their titles in double quotes. Titles appear as the commonly used forms, which may be shortened forms of the official titles (for example, most subtitles are dropped). Abbreviations, as listed at the end of this file, are not used in titles. Titles are usually followed by relevant years--for a book it's the year of publication, for a movie it's the year of release, for a television series it's the range of years when it ran with the relevant person featured, etc. Sometimes the specific claim to fame makes up the entire entry; this is rare except in the case of monarchs, for whom it is standard practice. Multiple general claims to fame are separated by an ampersand (two claims to fame) or a series of commas and an ampersand (three or more claims to fame). The claims to fame are followed by a single space and an underbar; this is the only place in an entry where an underbar is used. After the underbar comes the last field, the person's birth and death years. Years B.C. are followed by a lowercase b. Uncertain years are followed by a question mark; for uncertain dates B.C., the question mark follows the b. Unknown digits are represented by Xs, so someone known to have died sometime in the fifth century B.C. would have 4XXb as a death year. If neither the birth nor death year is known, a single number with Xs is given to show the century in which the person lived. Sometimes a date marked with Xs is a date which is known but which I haven't looked up yet. An unknown year in the first century is listed as 0XX rather than just XX; all years in the first century A.D. or B.C. are padded with zeros to be three digits long, such as 004b for 4 B.C. When grepping, keep in mind that the string XX also appears in roles other than signifying unknown digits (e.g., Pope John XXIII). A living person has an extra - instead of a death year. These rules for years also apply to years within the field for claims to fame. For example, an office held from 1983 to the present is listed as "1983--." We've covered all the fields in an entry, so now we list abbreviations, grouped by category. From an abbreviation, it's generally easy to tell what it stands for; the real prupose of these lists is so you can look up the abbreviation for a particular word. Almost all abrreviations end with periods; "US" is the main exception. Abbreviations for nationality: Aus. Austrian Austr. Australian Brit. British Can. Canadian Eng. English Fr. French Ger. German Gk. Greek Hung. Hungarian It. Italian Mex. Mexican Norw. Norwegian Pol. Polish Port. Portuguese Rom. Roman Rus. Russian Scot. Scottish Sp. Spanish Swed. Swedish Swi. Swiss US United States Abbreviations for claim to fame: adm. admiral admin. administrator aut. author, writer biochem. biochemist cand. candidate chem. chemist Dem. Democratic (US political party only) Dem.-Rep. Democratic-Republican (US political party only) dram. dramatist gen. general gov. governor gov-gen. governor-general math. mathematician nov. novelist philos. philosopher phys. physicist polit. political figure pres. president, presidential [pres. cand.] prime min. prime minister Rep. Republican (US political party only) sci. scientist secy. secretary (administrative title only) secy-gen. secretary-general theol. theologian vice-pres. vice-president, vice-presidential [vice-pres. cand.] Abbreviations for U.S. Cabinet positions: Atty. Gen. Attorney General C&L Commerce and Labor HEW Health, Education, and Welfare HHS Health and Human Services HUD Housing and Urban Development Secy. Secretary VA Veterans Affairs (other departments' names are not abbreviated) Abbreviations for Nobel Prizes: Chem. Chemistry Econ. Economics Lit. Literature Med. Medicine and Physiology NP Nobel Prize in Phys. Physics (Peace is not abbreviated) Miscellaneous abbreviations: Co. Company Corp. Corporation E. East Inc. Incorporated N. North Rep. Republic S. South UN United Nations Univ. University US United States of America W. West Other well-known acronyms occuring less often are not listed here; some examples are AFL-CIO, CEO, FBI, and NATO. Ordinal numbers are shortened to 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and so on, except when they appear as ordinal numbers after a person's name; in that case, they appear as the conventional Roman numerals (e.g., Henry VIII, John Paul II). That's it for format.