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(born Feb. 1, 1884, Lebedyan, Tambov province, Russia—died March 10, 1937, Paris, France) Russian novelist, playwright, and satirist. Educated as a naval engineer, he combined a scientific career with writing. A chronic dissenter, he was a Bolshevik before the Russian Revolution of 1917 but disassociated himself from the party afterward. His ironic criticism of literary politics kept him out of official favour. His most ambitious work, the novel We (1924; not published in the Soviet Union until 1988), was the first anti-utopian novel and the literary ancestor of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four.

Afghan monarch (born Oct. 15, 1914, Kabul, Afg.—died July 23, 2007, Kabul) as Afghanistan’s last reigning king (1933–73), provided an era of stable government while maintaining a neutral position for his country in international politics. Zahir Shah ascended the throne at age 19, after the assassination of his father in November 1933, having previously served as a cabinet minister. For a number of years his relatives ran the government, but he asserted his power through the constitution of 1964, which established a constitutional monarchy and prohibited royal relatives from holding public office. Zahir Shah undertook a number of economic-development projects, including irrigation and highway construction, backed by foreign aid (largely from the U.S. and the Soviet Union), but his reforms seemed to have little effect outside the Kabul area. In the early 1970s the country suffered drought and famine. Pashto tribes along the Pakistan border continued to press for autonomy, and the political structure in the capital was unable to deal with the country’s economic problems. In a bloodless coup on July 17, 1973, Zahir Shah was deposed. The leader of the coup, Gen. Mohammad Daud Khan (the king’s brother-in-law), proclaimed Afghanistan a republic with himself as its president. Zahir Shah formally abdicated on Aug. 24, 1973, and went into exile in Italy. Following the U.S. overthrow of the Taliban, he returned to Afghanistan in 2002. Zahir Shah, who publicly opposed the restoration of the monarchy and declined to run for president, was later given the honorary title Father of the Nation.

Athlete and Olympic champion. Born June 26, 1914 in Port Arthur, Texas, the daughter of Ole Didrikson and Hannah Marie Olsen. Her father and mother were from Norway, where her mother had been an outstanding skier and skater. Her father was a ship’s carpenter and cabinetmaker. The family, who spelled their name Didriksen, moved to Beaumont, Texas, when Mildred was three.

Times were often difficult for the large Didrikson family, and as an adolescent Mildred worked at many part-time jobs, including sewing gunny sacks at a penny a sack. Her father, a firm believer in physical conditioning, built a weight-lifting apparatus out of a broomstick and some old flatirons. Mildred, called “Baby” in her early years, was always competitive, interested in sports, and eager to play boys’ games with her brothers. After hitting five home runs in one baseball game, “Baby” became “Babe” (Babe Ruth was then in his heyday), a nickname that remained with her for the rest of her life.

At the age of fifteen, Babe was the high-scoring forward on the girls’ basketball team at Beaumont Senior High School. She attracted the attention of Melvin J. McCombs, coach of one of the best girls’ basketball teams in the nation. In February 1930, McCombs secured a job for her with the Employers Casualty Company of Dallas, and she was soon a star player on its Golden Cyclones. She returned to Beaumont in June to graduate with her high school class. The Golden Cyclones won the national championship the next three years, and she was All-American forward for two of those years.

Didrikson soon turned her attention to track and field. At the National Women’s AAU Track Meet in 1931, she won first place in eight events and was second in a ninth. In 1932, with much more interest in the meet because of the approaching Olympics, she captured the championship, scoring thirty points; the Illinois Women’s Athletic Club, which entered a team of twenty-two women, placed second with twenty-two points. Babe then went to the Olympics. Women were allowed to enter only three events, but she broke four world’s records; she won the javelin throw, with 143 feet, 4 inches, and won the 80-meter hurdles, twice breaking the previous world record (her best time was 11.7 seconds). She made a world record high jump, but the jump was disallowed and she was awarded second place. The noted sports writer Paul Gallico remarked, “On every count, accomplishment, temperament, personality, and color, she belongs to the ranks of those story-book champions of our age of innocence.” Gallico also referred to her as “the most talented athlete, male or female, ever developed in our country.”

Didrikson began playing golf in 1931 or 1932. According to Gallico, in 1932, in her eleventh game of golf, she drove 260 yards from the first tee and played the second nine in 43. She herself stated that she entered her first golf tournament in the fall of 1934. Although she did not win, she captured the qualifying round with a 77. In April 1935, in the Texas State Women’s Championship, she carded a birdie on the par-5 thirty-first hole, to win the tournament two-up. In the summer of 1935 she was declared a professional because of an unauthorized endorsement. She accepted the decision and for several years traveled about the country giving golf exhibitions. She also appeared on the vaudeville circuit with a number of different acts. She was the only woman on the Babe Didrikson All-American basketball team and played a few games with the House of David baseball team. It was during these years that she pitched an inning for the St. Louis Cardinals in an exhibition game with the Philadelphia Athletics. She excelled at almost everything she tried: when only sixteen she won a prize for a dress that she had made, at the Texas State Fair; she could type eighty-six words a minute; she could throw a baseball from deep center field to home plate–once a throw of hers was measured at over 300 feet.

(born July 1857, Ibynah, Egypt—died Aug. 23, 1927, Cairo) Egyptian statesman. He initially cooperated with the British occupation of Egypt, but his attitude changed on his election to the Legislative Assembly in 1912. Britain declared martial law, established a protectorate, and dissolved the assembly during World War I (1914–18), after which he led a delegation (Arabic: wafd) that demanded recognition as the people’s representatives and called for abolition of the British protectorate. When these requests were turned down, widespread disorder broke out that was not quelled even when Zaghll, who had been deported to Malta, was brought back and was elected prime minister at the head of the Wafd party in 1924. He resigned after a year of violent unrest but later served as president of the Chamber of Deputies, where he was able to exercise some control over his more extreme followers.

Entrepreneurs, lawyers. In 1979, Tim and Nina Zagat (pronounced zuh-GAT) co-founded the Zagat Survey, an innovative and highly popular series of restaurant guides that now covers over 45 cities worldwide.

Prior to founding the Zagat Survey, both Tim and Nina had already embarked on highly successful legal careers. Both attended Yale Law School and after graduating, took positions at high-powered New York firms. It was in 1968, while posted at the Paris branch of their respective firms, that Tim and Nina began keeping a critical tally of Paris eateries for personal use. Upon returning to New York, the couple adapted the project to the local restaurant scene. By collecting reviews from friends and colleagues, they soon generated ratings for a core list of 75 restaurants. By 1979, what began as a hobby had evolved into a time consuming and costly project. The Zagats then decided to make their personal system public.

The philosophy behind the Zagat Survey is that instead of one lengthy critical review of a restaurant, the eating public is better served by a rating based on hundreds of responses. By tabulating the responses to detailed surveys, the Zagat Survey rates restaurants on a 30-point scale in the categories of food, décor, service and cost. It also provides price estimates and a pithy, paragraph-sized description.

Originally self-published, the Zagat Survey was an immediate success with food connoisseurs and laymen alike. The initial New York edition gave way to guides covering major cities in the U.S. and abroad. In 1987, the Zagats expanded their survey- based rating system to include spas, hotels and resorts, making their name synonymous with reliable critiques of the leisure industry.

Although the Zagats recently hired a CEO to take on many of the day-to-day issues of management, they remain intimately involved with the guides. Nina is personally responsible for new business development, and has taken advantage of recent technology to introduce Internet editions and downloadable guides for PDA’s.

Tim and Nina Zagat met while at Yale Law School and wed in 1965. They have two sons, Ted and John.

(born July 14, 1890, Smolensk, Russia—died Nov. 25, 1967, Paris, France) Russian-born French sculptor. Educated in England, he moved to Paris in 1909 and studied at the École des Beaux-Arts. Influenced by both Cubism and Classical Greek sculpture, he developed a unique figurative style featuring concave and convex forms, lines, and parallel planes. During World War II he taught at New York City’s Art Students League. His large bronze To a Destroyed City (1951–53), an homage to Rotterdam, is regarded as a masterpiece. In 1950 he received the grand prize for sculpture at the Venice Biennale, and in the 1960s he received commissions for statues in Jerusalem, Amsterdam, and elsewhere.

(born Jan. 24, 1619, Kyto, Japan—died Oct. 16, 1682, Kyto) Japanese exponent of the philosophy of the Chinese Neo-Confucianist Zhu Xi. Early in life he was a Buddhist monk, but he gradually rejected Buddhism in favour of Confucianism, which he began to teach to thousands of students. He reduced Neo-Confucianism to a simple moral code, which he then blended with native Shint religious doctrines. He equated Neo-Confucian principles and theories with Shint legends and divinity, creating a philosophical system that took on greater authority than its sources possessed alone. His thought was one of the sources of the extreme nationalism and emperor worship that developed later in Japan.

(born December 1, 1912, Seattle, Washington, U.S.—died February 6, 1986, Detroit, Michigan) American architect whose buildings, notable for their appeal to the senses, departed from the austerity often associated with post-World War II modern architecture.

Following his graduation from the University of Washington, Seattle, Yamasaki went in 1934 to New York City, where he held a number of design positions and in 1943–45 was an instructor in architectural design at Columbia University. In 1945 he moved to Detroit, becoming chief designer for the large architectural firm of Smith, Hinchman and Grylls; one of his projects was a modern addition for the Neoclassic-style Federal Reserve Bank building there. He resigned in 1949 to become a partner with George Hellmuth and Joseph Leinweber. Yamasaki designed the Lambert–St. Louis Municipal Airport terminal in Missouri, which was notable for its impressive use of concrete vaults and which strongly influenced subsequent American air-terminal design. In 1955, the year in which Hellmuth left the partnership, Yamasaki was commissioned to design the U.S. consulate in Kbe, Japan.

The McGregor Memorial Conference Community Center at Wayne State University in Detroit, completed in 1958, is a widely admired example of how he used interior and exterior design to convey feelings of serenity and delight. Another outstanding structure, the Reynolds Metals Company Building, also in Detroit, made use of skylights, plants, and pools. His design of the U.S. science pavilion for the Seattle World’s Fair of 1962 was impressive, but some critics found its use of tall Gothic arches lacking in architectural logic. Similar criticisms were aroused by his unconventional design for North Shore Congregation Israel (1964), a Jewish temple in Glencoe, Illinois. Yamasaki is perhaps best known for the World Trade Center, a complex of several buildings built on a 16-acre (6.5-hectare) site in New York City. The complex was notable for its 110-story twin towers (1970–72), which, until their destruction by terrorists in 2001, were among the world’s tallest structures. His autobiography, A Life in Architecture, was published in 1979.

(born April 4, 1884, Nagaoka, Japan—died April 18, 1943, Solomon Islands) Japanese naval officer. He fought in the Russo-Japanese War and thereafter rose to become commander in chief of Japan’s Combined Fleet in 1939. When it was decided to go to war with the U.S., Yamamoto asserted that the only chance for a Japanese victory lay in a surprise attack that would cripple U.S. naval forces in the Pacific and conceived of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. He then sought to destroy the remnants of the U.S. fleet, principally its aircraft carriers, but the Japanese lost the resulting Battle of Midway in June 1942. His campaign in the Solomon Islands was also unsuccessful. He was killed when the U.S. (which had broken the Japanese communications codes) discovered his whereabouts and shot down his plane over Bougainville Island.

(born Aug. 3, 1838, Hagi, Japan—died Feb 1, 1922, Tokyo) First prime minister under Japan’s parliamentary regime (1889–91, 1898–1900). As a samurai youth in Chsh province, Yamagata was among those who answered the foreign threat with the slogan “Sonn ji” (“Revere the emperor, expel the barbarians”). In 1864 Western gunboats bombarded the Chshu coast, convincing him of the need for modern armaments. After participating in the Meiji Restoration, he went abroad to research military institutions, returning to become commander of an imperial force of 10,000 troops. When he introduced conscription, bearing arms ceased to be the exclusive prerogative of a warrior class. His forces defeated Saig Takamori’s rebellion in 1877. In politics he was more conservative than his contemporary It Hirobumi, favouring a strong executive. As prime minister, his policies were expansionist; Japan sent the largest of all foreign forces to China to quell the Boxer Rebellion. He increased the autonomy of the military and tried to suppress an incipient social-labour movement. After retirement, he continued to wield power as a genro (elder statesman). Meiji Constitution; Meiji period.