‘What’s News’ Reference Materials
People
Explanation
Abraham Lincoln
U.S. president, 1861-1865; assassinated by John Wilkes Booth in
1865; issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862
Leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party, better known
as the Nazi Party; commander of Axis powers during World War II;
orchestrated the Holocaust
ABC News cameraman killed while working in Iraq in 2007
Adolf Hitler
Alaa Uldeen Aziz
Anna Politkovskaya
Barack Obama
Bill Clinton
Russian investigative journalist and strong critic of the Kremlin and
Russia’s involvement in the war in Chechnya; assassinated in 2006
U.S. president since 2009; first African-American U.S. president;
Democrat
U.S. president, 1993-2001; participant in the 1993 Oslo Accords with
Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin; Democrat
Lead singer of the rock band U2; activist for humanitarian causes in
Africa
American professional soccer player; best known for her gamewinning penalty shootout kick in the 1999 World Cup Championship
game
Former Major League Baseball player; holds the record for the most
consecutive games played — 2,632
Radio and television commentator in the United States; narrator of
this video
Bono
Brandi Chastain
Cal Ripken
Charles Osgood
Christiaan Barnard
South African cardiac surgeon who performed the first successful
human-to-human heart transplant
Colin and Alma Powell U.S. statesman and his wife; Colin Powell was chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, 1989-1993, Secretary of State, 2001-2005, and a fourstar general in the U.S. Army; together they run America’s Promise,
an alliance of national organizations dedicated to educating youth
Dalai Lama
Buddhist leader of a branch of Tibetan Buddhism; the current Dalai
Lama is the 14th man to hold this position of leadership; the winner of
the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989
Dan Eldon
British-American photojournalist for Reuters, killed by an angry mob in
Somalia in 1993
Washington, D.C., area school groups are sponsored by WTOP 103.5 FM.
David Bloom
Wall Street Journal reporter kidnapped and killed by al-Qaeda
operatives in 2002 while working in Karachi, Pakistan
NBC News journalist until his sudden death in 2003 at age 39 from
deep vein thrombosis while traveling with the Third Infantry Division
during the war in Iraq
Dolly the Sheep
A female domestic sheep; the first mammal to be cloned
Edward VIII
King of the United Kingdom from January to December 1936;
abdicated to marry American socialite Wallis Simpson
German newspaper reporter killed in 1991 while covering fighting in
Yugoslavia
Corruption-exposing newspaper editor in the Philippines; killed in his
office by gunmen in 1966
American journalist who wrote as a roving reporter for the Scripps
Howard newspaper chain; worked as a war correspondent in World
War II; killed in action in 1945
U.S. president, 1933-1945, serving four terms; president during World
War II; Democrat
Daniel Pearl
Egon Scotland
Ermin Garcia
Ernie Pyle
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Frederick Douglass
Hamid Karzai
American social reformer; escaped from slavery and went on to
become a leader in the abolitionist movement
U.S. president, 1989-1993; president during the Persian Gulf War;
Republican
U.S. president, 2001-2009; president during the Iraq War and the War
in Afghanistan; Republican
First and current president of Afghanistan; took office in 2004
Harry S. Truman
U.S. president, 1945-1953; Democrat
Hosea Maina
Kenyan photographer for Reuters; killed by an angry mob in Somalia
in 1993
First African-American player in Major League Baseball; first
appeared with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947
Colombian journalist popular for radio and television political satire;
murdered by a gunman in 1999
Democrat and former senator; vice president since 2009 under
Barack Obama
George H.W. Bush
George W. Bush
Jackie Robinson
Jaime Garzon
Joe Biden
John F. Kennedy
U.S. president, 1961-1963; assassinated Nov. 22, 1963; Democrat
Washington, D.C., area school groups are sponsored by WTOP 103.5 FM.
John Lennon
Member of the Beatles rock band; musician and artist
Jonas Salk
American medical researcher who discovered the first safe and
effective polio vaccine
Joseph Stalin
First general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union’s
Central Committee; second leader of the Soviet Union
Parents of the first septuplets to survive infancy; the septuplets were
born in 1997 in Des Moines, Iowa.
Kenny and Bobbi
McCaughey
Lee Harvey Oswald
Little Rock Nine
Madonna
Malcolm X
Martin Luther King Jr.
Medgar Evers
Michael Phelps
Mother Teresa
Myles Tierney
Nancy Pelosi
Nancy Reagan
Neil Armstrong
American who, according to government investigations, assassinated
President John F. Kennedy; Oswald was shot and killed while being
transferred to county jail Nov. 24, 1963.
Group of nine students in Little Rock, Ark., who were blocked from
integrating Little Rock Central High School; they were allowed to
enter only after an intervention from President Dwight Eisenhower
Pop music singer and actress who rose to fame in the 1980s and
became known for her music and her provocative opinions and
sexually charged performances
African-American civil rights activist; Muslim minister (member of the
Nation of Islam) and public speaker; assassinated in 1965
Prominent leader of the African-American civil rights movement;
assassinated in 1968
African-American civil rights activist; assassinated in 1963
American Olympic swimmer; won a record eight gold medals at a
single Olympic Games in 2008.
Catholic nun who founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta,
India, in 1950; served the poor, sick and orphaned for 45 years while
guiding these missionaries; made a saint by Pope John Paul II after
her death and given the title Blessed Teresa of Calcutta.
Television producer for The Associated Press; killed in 1999 while
covering Sierra Leone’s civil war
First female speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, 20072011; Democrat
First lady of the United States, 1981-2016; wife of President Ronald
Reagan
A member of the Apollo 11 crew, he was the first man to set foot on
the moon. Died 2012.
Washington, D.C., area school groups are sponsored by WTOP 103.5 FM.
Nelson Mandela
1918-2013
Norman Schwarzkopf
Ogulsapar Muradova
Osama bin Laden
Pablo Picasso
Paul Newman and
Joanne
Woodward
Anti-apartheid activist in South Africa; arrested and convicted of
sabotage and other charges in 1963;sentenced to life in prison; after
27 years, he was released when the ban on his political party, the
African National Congress, was lifted; later served as South Africa’s
president from 1994-1999, the first black president in South Africa’s
history
1934-2012 United States Army general; served as commander of
the Coalition Forces in the Persian Gulf War of 1991 (Operation
Desert Storm)
Radio Free Europe reporter in Turkmenistan and critic of the
Turkmenistan president; arrested and killed in prison under
unexplained circumstances in 2006
Founder of the Islamic extremist organization al-Qaeda, which
claimed responsibility for the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on
the US. Killed in a raid In 2011.
Prolific Spanish artist whose work greatly influenced the development
of modern art in the 20th century; pioneered Cubism; died in 1973
Stage and film actors
Philip Graham
Publisher of The Washington Post, 1946-1963
Pope John Paul II
Head of the Roman Catholic Church from 1978 until his death in 2005
Princess Diana
A member of the British royal family as the first wife of Charles, Prince
of Wales; also an international celebrity known for her philanthropic
and charity work; died in a car accident in 1997 at age 36
Richard M. Nixon
U.S. president, 1969-1974; resigned in 1974 while facing
impeachment; president during the Vietnam War; Republican
Robert E. Lee
Commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia during the
American Civil War
U.S. attorney general, 1961-1964; New York Democratic senator,
1965-1968; assassinated while campaigning for the U.S. presidency
in 1968; Democrat
Robert F. Kennedy
Rodney King
African-American man at the center of a police brutality case in Los
Angeles in 1991; the 1992 acquittal of officers charged with his
beating sparked violent, deadly rioting throughout the city.
Washington, D.C., area school groups are sponsored by WTOP 103.5 FM.
Ronald Reagan
U.S. president, 1981-1989; Republican. Died in 2004
Saddam Hussein
President of Iraq, 1979-2003; deposed and captured by U.S. forces in
2003; brought to trial in Iraq, convicted and executed in 2006
Sandra Day O’Connor
First female Supreme Court justice; appointed by President Ronald
Reagan in 1981; served until her retirement in 2006
Terry Khoo
ABC News cameraman; killed in Vietnam in 1972 on the last day of
his assignment
An American inventor and scientist best known for the inventions of
the phonograph, motion picture camera and the light bulb
First African American to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court
Thomas Edison
Thurgood Marshall
Tiger Woods
Professional golfer; the youngest golfer to achieve the career Grand
Slam — winning all of golf’s major championships in the same
calendar year
Longest serving moderator of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” died
unexpectedly of a heart attack in 2008 at age 53
Prime minister of the United Kingdom, 1997-2007; in office in 2005
when the Irish Republican Army renounced violence and committed
to peace
Tim Russert
Tony Blair
Tony Snow
White House press secretary, 2006-2007; died from colon cancer in
2008
U.S. president , 1869-1877; military commander with the Union Army
during the American Civil War; Republican
Irish crime reporter murdered by drug lords in 1996
Ulysses S. Grant
Veronica Guerin
W.E.B. Dubois
Intellectual leader and civil rights activist; served as the head of the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP) and founded the NAACP’s journal, The Crisis
Walter Cronkite
American broadcast journalist; “CBS Evening News” anchor, 19621981
Film and television actors
Will and Jada Pinkett
Smith
William Hazlitt
A 19th century English writer and journalist
Washington, D.C., area school groups are sponsored by WTOP 103.5 FM.
Winston Churchill
Wright Brothers
Yasser Arafat
Yitzhak Rabin
British politician and statesman; served twice as prime minister of the
United Kingdom; known for his leadership during World War II
Orville and Wilbur Wright, two Americans credited with creating the
first successful airplane
Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, 1969-2004,
president of the Palestinian Authority, 1996-2004; controversial figure
who supported hijackings, kidnappings and hostage-takings in the
1970s and 1980s; later participated in peace talks with Israel at the
1993 Oslo Accords and the 2000 Camp David Summits; won the
Nobel Peace Prize in 1994
Former prime minister of Israel, 1974-1977 and 1992-1995;
participant in the 1993 Oslo Accords; won the Nobel Peace Prize in
1994; assassinated in 1995 during his second term
Washington, D.C., area school groups are sponsored by WTOP 103.5 FM.