World Socionics

Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II  (born Elizabeth Alexandra Mary of the royal house of Windsor) is the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and as Head of the Commonwealth, is Queen of a further 12 countries. At 91 years of age, she is currently the oldest monarch in the world and holds the record for Britain's oldest ever, as well as being the longest-reigning at over 65 years on the throne. She was born in Mayfair, London in 1926, during the reign of her grandfather, King George V  ( SEI ). As the eldest of two daughters to the second son of the King, it was never expected that she would one day be crowned Queen. Everything changed in 1936, due to the sudden and unprecedented abdication of her childless uncle, King Edward VIII ( IEI ) in order to marry his American divorcee lover, Wallis Simpson  ( EIE ). Duty fell on her father, Prince Albert, Duke of York to sit the throne and he was crowned  King George VI ( EII ), ...

Louis XIV , sometimes called "the Sun King" and "Louis the Great", reigned as King of France and Navarre from 1643 until his death in 1715 at the age of 76. He was the third French king of the House of Bourbon, ascending the throne when he was 4 upon the death of his father, King Louis XIII (IEI) . His reign was the zenith of France as the leading European power politically, militarily and culturally. Louis XIV re-invented the French monarchy as a manifestation and celebration of the absolute power of the king; he was regarded by his contemporaries, as he is still today, as the archetype of the absolute monarch. His personal tastes in art, architecture, etiquette and even landscaping had a huge impact among his contemporaries which is felt still today. Louis XIII, supported by his prime minister Cardinal Richelieu (LSI) , had already greatly increased the authority of the monarchy; however, the death of both men in quick succession led to a weaker government, du...

Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd was a South African psychologist, university professor, newspaper editor and politician who served as South Africa's 6th Prime Minister from 1958 until his murder in 1966. He is often called the "Architect of Apartheid" and was the politician chiefly responsible for the creation of the Republic of South Africa in 1961. It was during his government that Nelson Mandela (EIE) , along with others, was sentenced to prison for sabotage until his release in 1990. Verwoerd was born in the Netherlands in 1901; his parents emigrated to South Africa when he was about two years old. At first, he attended primary school in Cape Town, then in his teens accompanied his parents when they moved again, to Bulawayo (in what was then Rhodesia) and then back to South Africa, in the then province of the Orange Free State. He was an outstanding student and got the highest marks for English literature in the whole of Rhodesia, and the highest score in the Orange Fre...

Alfred the Great was the 27th King of Wessex from 871 to 899, the very first English monarch to have ever been given the epithet "the Great" and most well-known for commanding the successful defense of Wessex during Viking conquest, which eventually lead him to become the dominant monarch of England towards the end of his life. The history of his life and reign as monarch of Wessex is explained in detail through the written accounts of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, historical documentation of what his reign was like, those who personally knew him and the biography The Life of King Alfred, written by the Welsh monk Asser. The details of his early childhood are elaborated on in Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, in which young Alfred (suspected to be around age four) travelled with his family to Rome in 853, to be made "consul" by Pope Leo IV. This was early preparation for his eventual succession as King of Wessex, though the possibility of Alfred becoming the next in line was s...

Emperor Pedro II of Brazil, also called Dom Pedro II the "Magnanimous", was the second and last monarch of the Empire of Brazil, from his father’s abdication in 1831 to his deposition in a military coup in 1889. He was born in Rio in 1825, the son of Emperor Pedro I   (SEE) and Leopoldina of Austria. He was five years old when his father abdicated the Brazilian throne and returned to Portugal. Raised by tutors, he was a serious, studious and shy boy, very different from his impulsive, physically hyperactive father. As per the constitution, regents were elected by Parliament to rule while Pedro was a minor. However, it soon became clear that without the personal authority that Pedro I had wielded, Brazil’s internal tensions and rivalries re-emerged in the form of a series of regional rebellions, some with secessionist goals. So after 9 years of near-anarchy under the Regency, the consensus in Parliament was that their best chance of avoiding further chaos was to end t...

Angela Dorothea Merkel is a German physicist, research scientist and politician who has been serving as the Chancellor (i.e. equivalent to prime minister) of Germany since 1998. She is not only the first woman in that position, but also the youngest when sworn in, as well as the only one with a background in natural sciences. She was born in 1954 in Hamburg, in what was then West Germany. Soon afterwards her family moved to what was then East Germany so that her father, a Lutheran pastor, could take a position in Perleberg, to the north of Berlin. Therefore, she grew up under East Germany's Soviet-aligned communist regime. Always a very good student - among other things she learned to speak Russian fluently - she studied Physics in the University of Leipzig. Like every young East German who wanted to have a chance of being allowed to go to university, she joined the official youth organisation FDJ (Free German Youth) which led to some minor controversy later, although by all a...