45 thoughts on “Who Am I – Z?”

  4. Papaguinea

    7. Zsa Zsa Gabor (1917) is a Hungarian-American actress and socialite and was awarded Miss Hungary in 1936. She emigrated to the United States in 1941. Born as Sári Gábor in Budapest (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire), the middle of the three daughters of Vilmos Gábor (1884–1962), a soldier, and Jolie Gábor (1896–1997), her elder sister Magda was a socialite and her younger sister Eva was an actress and businesswoman. The family was of at least partial Jewish descent. Gabor’s maternal grandparents died in the Holocaust, and biographers speculate that her paternal family were originally Jewish as well, but converted to Roman Catholicism in order to assimilate.

    Following studies at Madame Subilia’s, a Swiss boarding school, Zsa Zsa Gabor was discovered by the famous tenor Richard Tauber on a trip to Vienna in 1936 and was invited to sing the soubrette role in his new operetta Der singende Traum (“The Singing Dream”) at the Theatre an der Wien, her first stage appearance. Author Gerold Frank, who helped Gabor write her autobiography in 1960, describes his impressions of her while the book was being written: “Zsa Zsa is unique. She’s a woman from the court of Louis XV who has somehow managed to live in the 20th century. She says she wants to be all the Pompadours and Du Barrys of history rolled into one, but she also says, ‘I always goof. I pay all my own bills…. I want to choose the man. I do not permit men to choose me.’” Gabor has been married nine times. She was divorced seven times, and one marriage was annulled. Due to her high number of divorces, she once claimed that she was a good housekeeper because every time she divorced, she kept the house.

    8. Emil Zátopek (1922 –2000) was a Czech long-distance runner best known for winning three gold medals at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki. He won gold in the 5000 metres and 10,000 metres runs, but his final medal came when he decided at the last minute to compete in the first marathon of his life. He was nicknamed the “Czech Locomotive” for his multiple golds. Zátopek was the first athlete to break the 29-minute barrier in the 10 km run (in 1954). Three years earlier, in 1951, he had broken the hour for running 20 km. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest runners of the 20th century and was also known for his brutally tough training methods.

    Emil Zátopek was born in Kopřivnice, Czechoslovakia, the sixth child of a modest family. When Zátopek was 16, he began working in a Bata shoe factory in Zlín. Zátopek says that “One day, the factory sports coach, who was very strict, pointed at four boys, including me, and ordered us to run in a race. I protested that I was weak and not fit to run, but the coach sent me for a physical examination, and the doctor said that I was perfectly well. So I had to run, and when I got started, I felt I wanted to win. But I only came in second. That was the way it started.” Zátopek finished second out of the field of 100. After that point, he began to take a serious interest in running.

    A hero in his native country, Zátopek was an influential figure in the Communist Party. However, he supported the party’s democratic wing, and after the Prague Spring, he was removed from all important positions and forced to work in a uranium mine as punishment. On the 9th of March 1990, Zátopek was rehabilitated by Václav Havel. Zátopek died in Prague, after a long illness, in 2000 at the age of 78. He was awarded the Pierre de Coubertin medal posthumously in December 2000.

  7. Actually Boa, I was hoping there might be a few footballers here, Zico, Zidane, Zola but not your field no doubt! The first one is a Saint is he not? The last one is a saint for looking after her old man.

  8. Pseu

    10. Catherine Zeta-Jones (born 1969) is a Welsh actress. Zeta-Jones was born Catherine Zeta Jones in Swansea, Wales, to Patricia (née Fair), an Irish seamstress, and David James Jones, a Welsh sweet factory owner. Her name stems from those of her grandmothers – her maternal grandmother, Catherine Fair, and her paternal grandmother, Zeta Jones. She now hyphenates her name as “Catherine Zeta-Jones”, accepting the mistake by the American press early in her career. She began her career on stage at an early age. After starring in a number of United Kingdom and United States television films and small roles in films, she came to prominence with roles in Hollywood movies. She is married to Michael Douglas.

  9. OZ

    5. Émile François Zola (1840 –1902) was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism. He was a major figure in the political liberalization of France and in the exoneration of the falsely accused and convicted army officer Alfred Dreyfus, which is encapsulated in the renowned newspaper headline J’Accuse.

    Zola was born in Paris in 1840. His father, François Zola (originally Francesco Zolla), was an Italian engineer. With his French wife, Émilie Aurélie Aubert, the family moved to Aix-en-Provence, in the southeast, when Emile was three years old. Four years later, in 1847, his father died, leaving his mother on a meagre pension. In 1858, the Zolas moved to Paris, where Émile’s childhood friend the painter Paul Cézanne soon joined him. Zola started to write in the romantic style. His widowed mother had planned a law career for Émile, but he failed his Baccalauréat examination. Before his breakthrough as a writer, Zola worked as a clerk in a shipping firm, and then in the sales department for a publisher (Hachette). He also wrote literary and art reviews for newspapers. As a political journalist, Zola did not hide his dislike of Napoleon III, who had successfully run for the office of President under the constitution of the French Second Republic, only to misuse this position as a springboard for the coup d’état that made him emperor.

    Zola died of carbon monoxide poisoning caused by a stopped chimney. He was 62 years old. His enemies were blamed because of previous attempts on his life, but nothing could be proven. (Decades later, a Parisian roofer claimed on his deathbed to have closed the chimney for political reasons)

  11. OMG

    1. Zoroaster (628-551BC) was a religious reformer of ancient Persia (now Iran) and the founder of the pre-Islamic religion of Zoroastrianism. Thought to have lived about 300 years before Alexander the Great, Zoroaster (Zarathustra in Greek) had a religious vision when he was about 30 years old, and for the next decade travelled throughout Persia preaching and running afoul of the established religious authorities. It is said that he eventually settled in the land of King Vishtaspa, who embraced Zoroaster’s teachings and had his people adopt the new religion. Zoroastrianism is considered an early influence on Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and one of the first monotheistic religions. It emphasizes that good and evil are separate entities at war with each other, in the form of Ormuzd (the god of good, creation and truth) and Ahriman (the god of evil destruction and lies), both ultimately descended from the Wise Lord, Ahura Mazda. The holy book of Zoroastrianism is the Avesta, which includes the hymns of Zoroaster (The Gathas, from which most of his biographical information comes), liturgical texts and prayers.

  15. No. 2 Xerxes? No, that starts with ‘X’. Sophocles? Nope that’s an ‘S’

    B*gger!

    How about Zenophon, althoough I might have an issue with you about the classical spelling?

    OZ

  17. Araminta

    It is the Zeppelin chap! Not surprised you can’t remember his name – it’s a bit of a mouthful!

    4. Ferdinand Adolf Heinrich August Graf von Zeppelin (1838 –1917) was a German general and later aircraft manufacturer, the founder of the Zeppelin Airship company. He was born in Konstanz, Grand Duchy of Baden (now part of Baden-Württemberg, Germany). Ferdinand was the scion of a noble family dating back to the year 1400 in Mecklenburg – Pomeranian. Zepelin, the eponymous hometown of the family, is a small community outside the town of Bützow.

    Ferdinand spent his childhood with his sister and brother at their Girsberg manor near Constance, where he was educated by private resident teachers, and lived there until his death. He served as a volunteer in the Union Army during the American Civil War. During the Peninsular Campaign, he visited the balloon camp of Thaddeus S. C. Lowe. Lowe sent the curious von Zeppelin to another balloon camp where the German aeronaut John Steiner could be of more help to the young man. His first ascent in a balloon made at Saint Paul, Minnesota, during this visit is said to have been the incentive of his later experiments in aeronautics. In 1869 von Zeppelin returned to America to meet and learn from the experienced Prof. Lowe to gain all the knowledge he could in ballooning.

    Back in Germany, von Zeppelin saw active service in the Austrian war of 1866 and in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. From the 1880s onward, Zeppelin was preoccupied with the idea of guidable balloons. He had already outlined an overall construction system in 1874, and had written to the King of Württemberg stating that Germany was behind France and that only large airships were practical for military use. On 2 July 1900, Zeppelin made the first flight with the LZ 1 over Lake Constance near Friedrichshafen in southern Germany. The airship rose from the ground and remained in the air for 20 minutes, but was wrecked in landing. In 1906, he made two successful flights at a speed of 30 miles per hour (48 km/h), and in 1907 attained a speed of 36 miles per hour (58 km/h).[10] As flights became more and more successful, igniting a public euphoria which allowed the Count to pursue the development of his vehicle. In fact, the second version of his airship was entirely financed through donations and a lottery. The final financial breakthrough only came after the Zeppelin LZ4 crashed in 1908 at Echterdingen. The crash sparked public interest in the development of the airships. A subsequent collection campaign raised 6.5 million German marks and the money was used to create the ‘Luftschiffbau-Zeppelin GmbH’ and a Zeppelin foundation.

  19. I thought there may be a Zebadee – so I could do the ‘time for bed,’ said Zebadee routine.

  20. Araminta

    2. Zeno (334-262BC) was a Hellenistic philosopher from Citium, Cyprus. Zeno was the son of a merchant and a student of Crates of Thebes, the most famous Cynic living at that time in Greece. Zeno was, himself, a merchant until the age of 42, when he started the Stoic school of philosophy. Named for his teaching platform, the Painted Porch (“stoa” is Greek for “porch”), his teachings were the beginning of Stoicism. None of Zeno’s works have survived, but he is believed to have taught that tranquillity can best be reached via indifference to pleasure and pain. Zeno is also the first utopian anarchist in the west and thus an important precursor of the anarchism we know today. In The Crooked Timber of Humanity, Isaiah Berlin describes Zeno’s beliefs as follows Men are rational, they do not need control; rational beings have no need of a state, or of money, or of law-courts, or of any organised, institutional life. In the perfect society men and women shall wear identical clothes and feed in a common pasture.

  23. FEEG

    9. Frank Vincent Zappa (1940-1993) was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer, and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, electronic, orchestral, and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed album covers. Zappa produced almost all of the more than 60 albums he released with the band Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist. He was a strident critic of mainstream education and organized religion, and a forthright and passionate advocate for freedom of speech, self-education and the abolition of censorship.

  25. Sheona

    Couldn’t resist the picture!

    6. Mao Zedong (1893-1976) (pronunciation Mao Tse-tung) was a Chinese military and political leader, who led the Communist Party of China (CPC) to victory against the Kuomintang (KMT) in the Chinese Civil War, and was the leader of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from its establishment in 1949 until his death in 1976. Regarded as one of the most important figures in modern world history, Mao is still a controversial figure today, over thirty years after his death. He is held in high regard in China where he is often portrayed as a great revolutionary and strategist who eventually defeated Chiang Kai-shek in the Chinese Civil War, and transformed the country into a major power through his policies. However, many of Mao’s socio-political programs such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution are blamed by critics from both within and outside China for causing severe damage to the culture, society, economy and foreign relations of China, as well as enormous and unnecessary loss of lives, a peacetime death toll in the tens of millions. Although still officially venerated in China, his influence has been largely overshadowed by the political and economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping and other leaders since his death.

  27. Sheona

    3. Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531) was a leader of the Swiss Reformation. While Germany struggled under the political and religious consequences of Luther’s reform movement, the movement itself quickly spilled out of the German borders into neighbouring Switzerland. At the time, Switzerland was not so much a single country as a confederacy of thirteen city-states called cantons. When Luther’s ideas began to pour over the border, several of the cantons broke from the Catholic church and became Protestant while other cantons remained firmly Catholic. Of the cantons that adopted Luther’s new movement, the most important and powerful was the city-state of Zurich under the leadership of Ulrich Zwingli. Zwingli brought to Luther’s revolution an education steeped in northern Humanism, particularly that of Erasmus. He was monumentally popular in Zurich for his opposition to Swiss mercenary service in foreign wars and his attacks on indulgences; he was, in fact, as significant a player in the critique of indulgences as Luther himself. Zwingli rose through the ranks of the Catholic church until he was appointed “People’s Priest” in 1519, the most powerful ecclesiastical position in the city. However, by 1519 he had adopted Luther’s reform program and began to steadily shift the city over to the practices of the new Protest church. In 1523, the city officially adopted Zwingli’s central ecclesiastical reforms and became the first Protestant state outside Germany. From there the Protestant revolution would sweep across the map of Switzerland.

  28. But where’s Zubin Mehta, Boadicea? I was all ready for Zubin.

    Does anyone else think Zola looks as depressing as his novels?

  30. Sheona – Naaah! The novels are worse. And well done you for getting the two names ( particularly Ulrich Zwingli) that would have kept the rest of us up all night. I would have sworn that the image which turned out to be Mao was a Sheila.

    OZ

  31. Boadicea – Nice one and thanks for the fun. How you did ‘Z’ is beyond me, but what comes next?

    OZ

  32. Missed this but fascinating reading and pics, once again Boa! Zappa looks so sweet and that’s a terribly flattering sculpture of Mao.

  34. OZ, as I said “rose-tinted glasses”.

    janh1, it is, isn’t it? At first glance I thought it was made of Lego.

  35. Boa,

    It was a stroke of genius when you came up with the idea of the A -Z Quiz. What a success it has been! With 30/40+ answers for each letter of the alphabet it certainly got the old brain cells moving. Thank you very much from a very old brain cell. 🙂

    P.S. I’m surprised, that you were unable to find this rare photograph of one of the main Charioteers that was taken as a young cub. I know it will probably embarrass him but It would have fitted nicely into this last letter Z. 🙂

  37. I was hungry at the time, usually was and still am, and where did you get the photo I’ve been trying to hide all my life? 🙂

    OZ

  43. Darn. While you all were having fun doing this I was at the dentist having tooth work done. After having a tooth pulled last week I thought I was done for a little while. Nope, I have fillings to be done and re-done and another tooth needs to get pulled.

  45. Missed another one 😦

    Which is actually OK, gave others a chance 😉

    Boadicea :

    did anyone notice that I always put the pictures in order of date of birth?

    I’d noticed that they appeared to be past to present but I’d be lying if I said I thought that it was strictly by DOB!

    A great series Boa well done and thanks.

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