43 thoughts on “Who Am I – D?”

  4. 3 – Dante Alighieri
    1 – Diocletian perhaps as in your earlier blog
    8 – Alexandre Dumas
    9 – Degas

  8. OldMovieGuy
    10. Roald Dahl (1916-1990) was a British novelist, short story writer and screenwriter, born in Wales of Norwegian parents, who rose to prominence in the 1940s with works for both children and adults, and became one of the world’s bestselling authors. His most popular books include The Twits, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, The Witches and The BFG.

    Source

  9. Claire
    2. Sir Francis Drake (1540-1596) was, essentially, the greatest of all the Elizabethan sailors: a man ready for any adventure, beloved and followed by his men, yet absolute master on his own deck. A man, moreover, of the highest practical intelligence in all walks of life and, of this, no better example can be given than the ‘leat’ which still bears his name and still carries the pure water of Dartmoor to the town of Plymouth. His letters are models of shrewd common sense and many picturesque touches in them are still remembered.
    Francis Drake was probably born in Devon around 1540. Hardly anything certain is known of him until he appears as engaged in the trade to the Guinea coast in 1565. Two years later, he leaped to fame as commander of a ship in the squadron of his kinsman, Hawkins, trading, in defiance of prohibitions, to Spanish America. Hawkins and Drake were treacherously set upon in the harbour of St. Juan de Lua and all their vessels, but two, were destroyed. On their return, they moved the English government to demand redress but, failing in this, decided to recoup themselves by ‘piratical’ expeditions against Spanish commerce.
    Source

  10. Brendano
    3. Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) was born into a Florentine family of noble ancestry. He was orphaned before reached manhood. Dante received a thorough education in both classical and Christian literature. At the age of 12 he was promised to his future wife, Gemma Donati. Dante had already fallen in love with another girl whom he called Beatrice. She was 9 years old. Dante married Gemma in 1285, but his ideal lady and inspiration for his poetry was Beatrice Portinari. She married Simone dei Bardi in 1287.Beatrice died in 1290, at the age of 24. After Beatrice’s death, Dante withdrew into intense study and began composing poems dedicated to her memory.
    Dante was exiled from Florence, His wife and children did not accompany him. Dante never returned to Florence, but found shelter in various Italian cities. During his exile, he started to write his Commedia, a long story-poem through the three worlds of the afterlife,. In about 1320 Dante made his final home in Ravenna, where he died on the night of September 13-14, 1321.

    Source

  11. Araminta
    4. René Descartes (1596-1650) was a French philosopher, mathematician, physicist, and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic. He has been dubbed the “Father of Modern Philosophy”, and much of subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which continue to be studied closely to this day. In particular, his Meditations on First Philosophy continues to be a standard text at most university philosophy departments. Descartes’ influence in mathematics is also apparent, the Cartesian coordinate system – allowing geometric shapes to be expressed in algebraic equations – was named after him. He is credited as the father of analytical geometry. Descartes was also one of the key figures in the Scientific Revolution.

    Source

  12. Isobel
    8. Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882) was an English naturalist. His five-year voyage on HMS Beagle established him as an eminent geologist whose observations and theories supported Charles Lyell’s uniformitarian ideas, and publication of his journal of the voyage made him famous as a popular author. His 1859 book On the Origin of Species established evolutionary descent with modification as the dominant scientific explanation of diversification in nature.

    Source

  15. Could 9 be George Du Maurier?
    I’m working on something else and thinking of people whose names begin with D! Or am I not allowed to guess anymore?
    I think i know 1 but can’t get his name in focus…
    Drat!

  21. Araminta
    5. Daniel Defoe (1660-1731), English novelist, pamphleteer, and journalist, is most famous as the author of Robinson Crusoe (1719), a story of a man shipwrecked alone on an island. Along with Samuel Richardson, Defoe is considered the founder of the English novel. Defoe was born as the son of James Foe, a butcher of Stroke Newington. He studied at Charles Morton’s Academy, London. Although his Nonconformist father intended him for the ministry, Defoe plunged into politics and trade, travelling extensively in Europe. In the early 1680s Defoe was a commission merchant in Cornhill but went bankrupt in 1691. In 1684 he married Mary Tuffley; they had two sons and five daughters.

    Source

  22. Isobel
    9. The Russian writer Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (1821-1881) was born in the Hospital for the poor in Moscow on October 30, 1821. He was to be the second of seven children. The last years of his life, Dostoevsky finally saw both artistic and economical success coming his way. In 1879 he began publishing The Brothers Karamazov in The Russian Messenger which received great reviews, and Anna started to sell books in the countryside. Dostoevsky also gained reputation as a speaker and gave lectures which the listeners enjoyed greatly. But his health was never good and deteriorated even further in 1880. He died in the evening of January 28 1881.

    Source

  24. Sheona I’ll give you this one!
    7. Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) is best known for historical adventure novels like The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, both written within the space of two years, 1844-45, and which belong to the foundation works of popular culture. He was among the first, along with Honoré de Balzac and Eugène Sue, who fully used the possibilities of the serial novel. Dumas is credited with revitalizing the historical novel in France, although his abilities as a writer were under dispute from the beginning. Dumas’ works are fast-paced adventure tales that blend history and fiction, but on the other hand, the are entangled, melodramatic, and not particularly faithful to historical facts.

    Source

  26. Araminta
    1. Donatello (Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi) (1386-1466), master of sculpture in both marble and bronze, was one of the greatest of all Italian Renaissance artists. Much is known about Donatello’s life and career, but little is about his character and personality, and what is known is not wholly reliable. He never married and he seems to have been a man of simple tastes. Patrons often found him hard to deal with in a day when artists’ working conditions were regulated by guild rules. Donatello seemingly demanded a measure of artistic freedom. Although he knew a number of Humanists well, he was not a cultured intellectual. His Humanist friends attest that he was a connoisseur of ancient art. The inscriptions and signatures on his works are among the earliest examples of the revival of classical Roman lettering. He had a more detailed and wide-ranging knowledge of ancient sculpture than any other artist of his day. His work was inspired by ancient visual examples, which he often daringly transformed.

    Source

  29. Tocino
    6. Louis Daguerre (1789-1851) was a doctor, a painter and a theatrical set designer, but he is best remembered as one of the inventors of photography. Both he and Nicéphore Niepce began their initial experiments separately, but in 1829, they teamed up. Niepce died in 1833, but Daguerre and his son kept tinkering with the new invention and by 1839 were able to produce the first photographs on a silvered copper plate for the Paris Academy of Science, calling his new invention “daguerreotypes.”

    Source

  36. Thank you Boadicea
    Nothing better than strong coffee and a bit of learning to wake me up. 😉

  37. Thanks Boadicea from me too. Interesting stuff. Just having a look through. Saw it briefly yesterday, went away to do something else and then second time round, it wouldn’t load properly for me – I just kept seeing the spinning WordPress logo.

  39. Thanks for a great quiz, Boadicea. I look forward to the next one. I’ve learned so much already. Never knew Descartes was so good-looking!

  41. Another good quiz Boa. By giving the time to be published, it allows the “Quiz Hawks” time to swoop in for the kill.

    🙂

Add your Comment