History Today Online

Joseph Goebbels (Rheydt, Germany, 1897-Berlin, 1945) German politician.The son of a wealthy Catholic family, he received a careful education and was soon noted for his brilliant intelligence.A physical defect in the legs exempted him from joining the ranks in the First World War.In 1921 he graduated in Germanic philology from the University of Heidelberg and tried to live as a writer and journalist, but had little success. Joseph Goebbels At the same time, his views were drifting towards approaches increasingly closer to National Socialism, until he ended up joining the Nazi party in 1923.After a rapid rise to the top of power, in 1926 he was appointed Gauleiter (zone leader) of Berlin, a position in which he began to demonstrate his skill as a provocative orator and skilled propagandist in a series of local campaigns. In 1930 he became the head of the Propaganda Division; Goebbels translated his regional strategy to a national level and established the principles of manipul...

Joseph Billings (Turnham Green, c. , 1758-?) British navigator.Between 1776 and 1779 he collaborated with Cook in his astronomical observations.After touring the Siberian coast, NE of Kamchatka, he made a new coastal exploration trip through the Bering Sea in 1787-1791.

José Mesa (Alhucemas, 1831-Saint-Macaire, 1904) Spanish socialist.First a printer and then a journalist, he was one of the first Spanish members of the AIT, who left when the predominance of the Bakuninists took place.With Pablo Iglesias, he founded the New Madrid Federation.Exiled, he related to Marx, Engels, Lafargue and Guesde.He published for the first time in Spain the Communist Manifesto (1872) and translated Misery of philosophy, by Marx (1891).

Josep Pla (Palafrugell, Spain, 1897-Llofriu, id., 1981) Spanish writer in Catalan and Castilian languages.In 1918 he moved to Barcelona to study medicine, which he abandoned shortly after, to finally graduate in law.During those years he frequented the gatherings of the Barcelona Athenaeum, where he met Josep Maria de Sagarra and Eugeni D'Ors, among others.He regularly collaborated in various publications (Las Noticias and La veu de Catalunya) and worked as a press correspondent in several European countries.After the Spanish civil war, he collaborated in the magazine Destino and wrote some works in Spanish. Josep Pla Josep Pla's work, very extensive, includes travel chronicles, biographical and historical studies, novels and stories, although his temperament was little given to literary fiction.Enemy of rhetoric and false ornamentation, his style is characterized by its balance and an apparent simplicity, at the service of an acute capacity for observation, so that his ...

Josefina Bonaparte (Marie-Josèphe Rose Tascher de la Pagerie, called Josefina de Beauharnais or Josefina Bonaparte; Trois-Îlets, Martinique, 1763-Malmaison, France, 1814) Empress of France (1804-1809).Wife in second nuptials of Napoleon, Josefina Bonaparte lived linked in the first instance to the aristocracy to, after the revolutionary period, access the highest dignity of the French state as empress consort. Josefina Bonaparte (detail of a portrait of François Gérard, 1801) Marie-Josèphe Rose Tascher de la Pagerie was born in Trois-Îlets, on the island of Martinique, on June 23, 1763.Daughter of a navy lieutenant, she married Viscount Alexandre de Beauharnais in 1779, then moving her residence to Paris.However, the union between them was not a happy one, and after the birth of their two children, the marriage broke up because of Josefina's "provincial ways" in her eyes.During the French Revolution the Viscount de Beauharnais was guillotined (1794), and Josephine ...

Joseph Sima (Jaromèr, Eastern Bohemia, 1891-Paris, 1971) Czech painter, nationalized French.In Prague, he trained in Fauvist and Cubist research.He arrived in Paris in 1921, directing his work towards the search for the metaphysical and poetic expression of the imaginary ( Double landscape [electric storm] , 1928) and taking part, with Gilbert-Lécomte and Daumal, of the group Great game .Inactive between 1939-1949, since the fifties he resumed his mysticist search for luminous fabrics of rare and elemental shapes ( Earth paved with light , 1970).

José María de Heredia (La Fortuna, 1842-Bourdonné, 1905) Cuban poet who was known as "the Frenchified Heredia" for his training within that culture and for his biography, which led him to reside most of his life in Paris. José María de Heredia Descendant of one of the conquerors who were with Hernán Cortés in America and son of a mother French, José María de Heredia studied in France (from 1851 to 1858, at the Saint-Vincent de Senlis school) and Cuba (from 1859 to 1861, at the Faculty of Letters in Havana).He became known in the latter country thanks to his first verses, composed in the style of Leconte de Lisle, of whom he was to become a disciple and faithful friend. When he settled permanently in Paris in 1861, José María de Heredia devoted himself, with little interest, to legal studies, and followed the École des Chartes courses with greater enthusiasm.At the same time, he published in Parnassian magazines the poetic essays later collected in Los trophies (189...

Joselito [José Gómez Ortega] (Gelves, Spain, 1895-Talavera de la Reina, id., 1920) Spanish bullfighter.Member of the Gómez family, of which illustrious bullfighters were part.At the age of twelve he was integrated in a children's gang, and later he captained, together with Limeño, the famous gang of Sevillian children, which reaped numerous successes.He killed his first bull in Seville in 1911, and there he took the alternative a year later, from the hands of his brother Rafael.He soon revealed himself as a brilliant and intuitive bullfighter, as well as a great banderillero with a special talent for the naturals in the round.In addition to an innate and responsible technique, he offered his audience a wide variety of cape casts and always killed quickly and directly.He met Belmonte on numerous occasions, and they soon became a celebrated rival couple.In 1920, the bull Bailaor gave him a deadly goring in the Talavera de la Reina bullring.

Jovan Ristic (Kragujevac, 1831-Belgrade, 1899) Serbian politician.Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs (1867), managed the evacuation of the Turkish garrisons.After the assassination of Prince Miguel, he headed the Regency Council (1868-1872) and wrote the Constitution of 1869.Again head of the Government (1873-1880 and 1887-1889), he obtained the recognition of the independence of Serbia (1878).During Alexander's minority he was regent (1889).

José María Van der Ploeg (Barcelona, ​​1958) Spanish sailor.Practicing this sport since 1976, he was at the Seoul Games as José Luis Doreste's coach, who won the gold medal.In 1991 he finished second in the European championship in the finn class.His greatest sporting success occurred at the Barcelona Olympic Games (1992), in which he won the gold medal in this same modality.In 1998 he retired from competitions.