John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on 3rd January 1892, on Bloemfontein, South Africa, and passed away on 2nd September 1972. He was raised in a very poor family, with very humble origins.

He is famous because of his work as a writer, poet, philologist. He wrote famous high fantasy works, such as The Hobbit, The Lord of The Rings Trilogy, The Silmarillion and Tom Bombadil and other tales.

During his life he served the British army during World War 1. He also served as the  Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College, Oxford, from 1925 to 1945 and Merton Professor of English Language and Literature at Merton College, Oxford from 1945 to 1959. Later he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II on 28 March 1972.

 He was at one time a close friend of C. S. Lewis, who wrote The Chronicles of Narnia —they were both members of the informal literary discussion group known as the Inklings.

He was very talented and committed to his job, in fact he was so committed that he invented a lot of whole new languages with different variations, such as Elven, Khuzdul, Black Speech, Taliska and a sign Language called Iglishmêk.

Concluding, J.R.R.Tolkien is the Father of modern fantasy literature.

By Leonardo, Jorge S., José Pedro

Leonardo di Ser Piero da Vinci, or Leonardo da Vinci, was born on April 15th of 1452 in the city of Vinci, Republic of Florence (Italy) and died at the age of sixty-seven on May 2nd of 1519 in Amboise, France.

He spent his first five years in the hamlet of Anchiano in the home of his mother. Leonardo never received a formal education as a child, but later on he went to the studio of the renowned Florentine painter, Verrochio to be taught. When he was twenty-two he was accused and acquitted of sodomy in Florence.

Da Vinci worked in diverse fields of the arts and sciences. He was a painter, sculptor, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer.

His most famous works of art are the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, the most reproduced religious painting of all time, he also created the Vitruvian Man, a cultural icon.

By Beatriz & Luísa

Johnny Depp was born on June, 9th 1963 in Kentucky although he was raised in Florida. He’s very handsome and he has been chosen by People magazine as the “Sexiest Man Alive”., but did you know he’s almost blind?

He dropped out of school at the age of 15 in the hopes of becoming a rock musician; instead he become an actor, after he met Nicolas Cage and made the “A Nightmare on Elm Street”, his first movie. He has colaborated with Tim Burton in several movies like “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, “Edward Scissorhands” and “Alice in Wonderland”. One of the movies that made him even more famous was “Pirates of the Caribbean” , in which his acting made him win some of his 36 awards.

Johnny  Depp had lots of relationships with quite a few women, such as Kate Moss, Winona Ryder and recently with Vanessa Paradis , mother of his 2 children.

Apart from being a great (very hot) actor he is also a guitar-player and a winemaker.

By Mónica, Carolina & Sofia

Maya Angelou was born on April 4th 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri. She was a very talented dancer, singer, actress and writer.

Maya experienced racism, but she also absorbed the faith and values of traditional African-American family, community and culture.

She studied dance and drama when she was only 14. At the age of 17 she gave birth her only son and had to work as a waitress and a cook in order to support her son.

Maya Angelou was a celebrated poet, memorist, novelist, dramatist, producer, actress, historian, filmmaker and she was also a civil rights activist. She was the first African-American female taxi driver.

Between the years 1954 and 1958, she went on a tour throughout Europe, danced on TV programmes and recorded her first album.

In 1960, Maya moved to Cairo where she was an editor of a weekly newspaper. The next year, she moved to Ghana where she taught at the University of Ghana’s School of Music and Drama, worked as feature editor for The African Review and wrote for The Ghanaian Times.

She published her first book, called “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”, in 1970.

She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Arts in 2000, the Lincoln Medal in 2008, and has received 3 Grammy Awards.

By Mariana V. & Tiago

Oprah Winfrey was born on 25 January 1954 in Mississippi (USA). She has 3 siblings, and she is married to Stendman Granham since 1986. Now she has 3 books. When she was 9 she was raped and she became pregnant at age 14, but her baby died.

Before she became famous she co-anchoring at the local evening news. In September 1986, Winfrey started presenting her own talk show called The Oprah Winfrey Show, where she interviewed very famous people ( for example Barack Obama) . However, before having her own talk show she presented another morning talk show called AM Chicago. In 1985, Winfrey co-starred in Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple as a distraught housewife, Sofia.

Oprah has her own charity organization called Oprah’s Angel Network and she has her own TV called Your OWN Show and it was created in February 2011 by her.

” Be thankful for what you have, you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.”

 

“Think like a queen. A queen is not afraid to fail. Failure is another steppingstone to greatness.”

Mariana F. & Ana Margarida