Curated playlist
Knights Grand Cross with Collar of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic
- Mohammad Reza PahlaviMohammad Reza Pahlavi was born on the 26th of October 1919 in Tehran, the eldest son of a Brigadier-General who had not yet become king. He died in Egyptian exile on the 27th of July 1980-18 months after the revolution that ended his…
- Anwar SadatAnwar Sadat was assassinated on the 6th of October 1981, by soldiers under his own command, at a parade held to celebrate a war he himself had launched. He was watching the annual victory parade in Cairo when Lieutenant Khalid Al-Islambuli…
- François MitterrandFrançois Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand arrived in this world on the 26th of October 1916 in the small Charente town of Jarnac, and he died in Paris on the 8th of January 1996 having spent fourteen years as the most powerful man in…
- Charles de GaulleCharles de Gaulle was born on the 22nd of November 1890 in Lille, the third of five children in a devoutly Catholic, conservative, and monarchist household. He died on the 9th of November 1970, leaving his presidential memoirs unfinished.…
- Konrad AdenauerKonrad Adenauer was elected the first chancellor of West Germany on the 15th of September 1949 by what observers called a majority of one vote, his own. He was 73 years old. Most assumed he would be a caretaker. Instead he held the office…
- Boris YeltsinBoris Yeltsin climbed atop a tank outside the Russian parliament on a sweltering August day in 1991 and delivered a speech that would echo across the twentieth century. Below him, a crowd had gathered to defy a coup against Soviet leader…
- Mobutu Sese SekoMobutu Sese Seko was born Joseph-Désiré Mobutu on the 14th of October 1930 in Lisala, in the Belgian Congo. His father was a cook for a Belgian judge. His mother was a hotel maid who had fled a village chief's harem. These are origins…
- HirohitoHirohito reigned over Japan for 63 years, from 1926 until his death in 1989, the longest reign of any emperor in Japanese history. He sat on the Chrysanthemum Throne as the 124th emperor in the traditional order of succession. During those…
- Josip Broz TitoJosip Broz, known to the world as Tito, once wrote a letter that read: "Stalin. Stop sending assassins to murder me. We have already caught five, one with a bomb, another with a rifle." He added that if it did not stop, he would send one…
- Wojciech JaruzelskiWojciech Jaruzelski was born on the 6th of July 1923 in Kurów, into a family of Polish gentry, the seventh of eight children. Before he turned twenty, his father would be dead in a Soviet camp, his eyes would be permanently damaged from…
- Enrico De NicolaEnrico De Nicola was so reluctant to lead his country that a journalist had to beg him in print to make up his mind. When the newly elected Constituent Assembly of Italy gathered in June 1946 to choose a provisional head of state, De…