20th Century

Abramovich, Roman

Abramovich was born in Saratov in southern Russia. His mother died when he was 18 months old, and his father was killed in a construction accident when he was four. He was first taken to li... [more]

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Acre, Mark

Acre was an outstanding baseball and basketball player in high school in Corning, California. He then played basketball for the College of the Siskiyous and baseball and basketball for New ... [more]

Adie, Kate

Adie is especially famous for her reports from war zones (Turkey, Lebanon, the Gulf War, China, the former Yugoslavia, etc.). Her mother became pregnant while her husband was away at war an... [more]

Adler-Collins, Je Kan

Adler-Collins was the child of a military family who was taken into care at the age of three when his mother shot his father during a domestic dispute. He was abused in care for years, but ... [more]

African Children's Choir

This choir of children aged five to 12 years was founded in 1984 by Raymond R. Barnett, himself an Irish-Canadian orphan and ordained minister, who first went to Uganda in 1982. It was begu... [more]

Agbabi, Patience

Agbabi was born in London to Nigerian parents but fostered from birth by a white family, while maintaining frequent contact with her birth family. She was brought up in Sussex and North Wal... [more]

Agnelli, Umberto

Agnelli was the youngest of seven children of the third generation of the greatItalian Fiat automobile manufacturing dynasty.  The children's father died in 1935 ina plane crash and their mo... [more]

Ahbez, Eden

Ahbez is known as the First Hippy. His life story is unclear but one version has him born in 1908 (another after World War I) to a large and poverty-stricken family in Brooklyn. He and his ... [more]

Akabusi, Kriss

Akabusi was born an Igbo prince in Nigeria, but taken to England as a child, where he went into care when his mother returned to Nigeria. He spent time in a children's home and also had mul... [more]

Albee, Edward Franklin

Albee has won three Pulitzer Prizes. His 13 plays (including The Zoo Story, The Sandbox, Tiny Alice, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and Three Tall Women) are among the most famous in 20th... [more]