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Being

Marion Anne Perrine "Marine" Le Pen (French: [maʁin lə pɛn]; born 5 August 1968) is a French lawyer and politician who served as the president of the far-right National Rally (RN; known as the National Front or FN from 1972 to 2018) party from 2011 to 2021. She ran for the French presidency in the 2012, 2017, and 2022 presidential elections. Le Pen has been the member of the French National Assembly for the 11th constituency of Pas-de-Calais since 2017 and also has been parliamentary party leader of the National Rally in the Assembly since June 2022. Born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Le Pen is the youngest daughter of former party leader Jean-Marie Le Pen and the aunt of former FN MP Marion Maréchal. Le Pen joined the FN in 1986. She was elected as a regional councillor of Nord-Pas-de-Calais (1998–2004; 2010–2015), Île-de-France (2004–2010) and Hauts-de-France (2015–2021), a Member of European Parliament (2004–2017), as well as a municipal councillor of Hénin-Beaumont (2008–2011). She won the leadership of the FN in 2011, with 67.6% of the vote, defeating Bruno Gollnisch and succeeding her father, who had been president of the party since he founded it in 1972. In 2012, she placed third in the presidential election with 17.9% of the vote, behind François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy. She launched a second bid for the presidency at the 2017 election. She finished second in the first round of the election with 21.3% of the vote and faced Emmanuel Macron of centrist party En Marche! in the second round of voting. On 7 May 2017, she conceded after receiving approximately 33.9% of the vote in the second round. In 2020, she announced her third candidacy for the presidency in the 2022 election. She came second in the first round of the election with 23.2% of the votes, thus qualifying her for the second round against Macron, losing in the second round after receiving 41.5% of the votes. Le Pen has led a movement of "de-demonisation of the National Front" to soften its image, including limited expulsion of members accused of racism, antisemitism or Pétainism. She expelled her father from the party in August 2015, after he made fresh controversial statements. While liberalizing some political positions of the party by revoking its opposition to same-sex partnerships, its opposition to unconditional abortions, and its support for the death penalty, Le Pen still advocates many of the same historical policies of her party, with particular focus on strong anti-immigration, nationalist and protectionist measures. She is supportive of economic nationalism, favoring an interventionist role of government, and is opposed to globalization and multiculturalism. Le Pen supports limiting immigration and banning ritual slaughter. She has made supportive comments of Vladimir Putin and Russia in the past, advocating closer cooperation before the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine; she strongly condemned the war in Ukraine, but stated Russia could become "an ally of France again" if it ends. She has supported Israel during the Gaza war. Time named Le Pen one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2011 and 2015. In 2016, Politico named her the second-most influential MEP in the European Parliament, after President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz. In January 2024, after months of rising polling numbers, and for the first time ever, Le Pen became the most popular politician in France according to a Verian-Epoka for Le Figaro Magazine. In 2025, Le Pen and 20 National Front members were convicted of embezzlement for misappropriating over €4 million European Parliament funds to fund National Front staff. Le Pen was sentenced to four years in prison and a five-year ban from running for political office, effectively disqualifying her from the upcoming 2027 French presidential election. Following the appeal trial in 2026, her guilt was upheld, but the sentences were suspended or reduced, allowing her to run in 2027.

Being

Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (née Roberts; 13 October 1925 – 8 April 2013) was a British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century and the first woman to hold the office. As prime minister, she implemented policies that came to be known as Thatcherism. A Soviet journalist dubbed her the "Iron Lady", a nickname that became associated with her uncompromising politics and leadership style. Thatcher studied chemistry at Somerville College, Oxford, and worked briefly as a research chemist before becoming a barrister. She was elected Member of Parliament for Finchley in 1959. Edward Heath appointed her Secretary of State for Education and Science in his 1970–1974 government. In 1975 she defeated Heath in the Conservative Party leadership election to become Leader of the Opposition and the first woman to lead a major British political party. On becoming prime minister after winning the 1979 general election, Thatcher introduced a series of economic policies intended to reverse high inflation and Britain's struggles in the wake of the Winter of Discontent and an oncoming recession. Her political philosophy and economic policies emphasised greater individual liberty, the privatisation of state-owned companies, and reducing the power and influence of trade unions. Her popularity in her first years in office waned amid the recession and rising unemployment. Victory in the 1982 Falklands War and the recovering economy brought a resurgence of support, resulting in the Conservative Party being returned to government in a landslide victory in 1983. She survived an assassination attempt by the Provisional IRA in the 1984 Brighton hotel bombing and achieved a political victory against the National Union of Mineworkers in the 1984–85 miners' strike. In 1986 Thatcher oversaw the deregulation of UK financial markets, leading to an economic boom, in what came to be known as the Big Bang. Thatcher was re-elected for a third term with another landslide in 1987, but her subsequent support for the Community Charge (also known as the "poll tax") was widely unpopular, and her increasingly Eurosceptic views on the European Community were not shared by others in her cabinet. She resigned as prime minister and party leader in 1990, after a challenge was launched to her leadership, and was succeeded by John Major, her Chancellor of the Exchequer. After retiring from the House of Commons in 1992, Thatcher was given a life peerage, which entitled her to sit in the House of Lords. In 2013, she died of a stroke at the Ritz Hotel, London, at the age of 87. A polarising figure in British politics, she is nonetheless viewed favourably in historical rankings and public opinion of British prime ministers. Her tenure constituted a realignment towards neoliberal policies in Britain; the complex legacy attributed to this shift continues to be debated into the 21st century.

Being

James Earl Carter Jr. (October 1, 1924 – December 29, 2024) was an American politician and humanitarian who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party, Carter served as the 76th governor of Georgia from 1971 to 1975 and in the Georgia State Senate from 1963 to 1967. He lived longer than any other president in U.S. history, reaching age 100. Born in Plains, Georgia, Carter graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1946 and joined the submarine service before returning to his family's peanut farm. He was active in the civil rights movement, then served as a state senator and the 76th governor, one of the first of the "New South governors" committed to desegregation. After announcing his candidacy in 1976, Carter secured the Democratic nomination as a dark horse little known outside his home state before narrowly defeating Republican incumbent Gerald Ford in the general election. As president, Carter pardoned all Vietnam draft evaders and negotiated major foreign policy agreements, including the Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties, and the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, and he established diplomatic relations with China. He created a national energy policy that included conservation, price control, and new technology. He signed bills that created the Departments of Energy and Education. The later years of his presidency were marked by several foreign policy crises, including the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (leading to the end of détente and the 1980 Olympics boycott) and the fallout of the Iranian Revolution (including the Iran hostage crisis and 1979 oil crisis). Carter sought reelection in 1980, defeating a primary challenge by Senator Ted Kennedy, but lost the election to Republican nominee Ronald Reagan in a landslide. Polls of historians and political scientists have ranked Carter's presidency below average. His post-presidency—the longest in U.S. history—is viewed more favorably. After Carter's presidential term ended, he established the Carter Center to promote human rights, earning him the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize. He traveled extensively to conduct peace negotiations, monitor elections, and end neglected tropical diseases, becoming a major supporter of the attempted eradication of dracunculiasis. Carter was a key figure in the nonprofit housing organization Habitat for Humanity. He also wrote political memoirs and other books, commentary on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and poetry.

Object

Don Quixote is a novel by Miguel de Cervantes, written in Early Modern Spanish and published in two parts in 1605 and 1615. It is considered a founding work of Western literature and the first modern novel. It is also one of the most-translated books in the world and one of the best-selling books in history. The plot revolves around the adventures of a member of the lowest nobility, a hidalgo from La Mancha named Alonso Quijano, who reads so many chivalric romances that he decides to become a knight-errant (caballero andante) to revive chivalry and serve his nation, under the name Don Quixote de la Mancha. He recruits as his squire a simple farm labourer, Sancho Panza, who brings an earthy wit to Don Quixote's lofty rhetoric. In the first part of the book, Don Quixote does not see the world for what it is and prefers to imagine that he is living out a knightly story meant for the annals of all time. As Salvador de Madariaga pointed out in his Guía del lector del Quijote (1972 [1926]), referring to "the Sanchification of Don Quixote and the Quixotization of Sancho", "Sancho's spirit ascends from reality to illusion, Don Quixote's declines from illusion to reality". The book had a major influence on the literary community, as evidenced by direct references in Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeers (1844), and Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac (1897) as well as the word quixotic. Mark Twain referred to the book as having "swept the world's admiration for the mediaeval chivalry-silliness out of existence". It has been described by some as the greatest work ever written.