Wikipedia:Portal:Portal/Selected biography
Selected biography 1
Wikipedia:Portal:Portal/Selected biography/1
Michel Portal (born 25 November 1935 in Bayonne, France) is a French composer, saxophonist, and clarinetist.
Portal studied clarinet at the Conservatoire de Paris. He also studied conducting with Pierre Dervaux.
During August 1969, Portal played on several of the recordings in Stockhausen's cycle of intuitive works, Aus den sieben Tagen.
Portal might be noted most for film music and has won the César Award for Best Music Written for a Film three times. His first win was for the music to The Return of Martin Guerre.
Selected biography 2
Wikipedia:Portal:Portal/Selected biography/2
Charles Frederick Algernon Portal, 1st Viscount Portal of Hungerford KG GCB OM DSO & Bar MC (21 May 1893 - 22 April 1971) was a senior Royal Air Force officer and an advocate of strategic bombing. He was the British Chief of the Air Staff during most of the Second World War.
Born in Hungerford, Portal was educated at Winchester College and Christ Church, Oxford, but left undergraduate life prematurely to enlist as a private soldier in 1914. Joining the British Army as a dispatch rider in the motorcycle section of the Royal Engineers on the Western Front, he was given command of all riders in the 1st Corps Headquarters Signals Company in December 1914.
In 1915 Portal transferred to the Royal Flying Corps, serving first as an observer and eventually a flying officer. He reached the rank of lieutenant colonel and earned the Military Cross. After the war, he took over No. 7 Squadron RAF and concentrated on improving bombing accuracy. By 1939 Portal was Director of Organization in the Air Ministry.
At the outbreak of World War II, Portal was made Acting Air Marshal and later commander-in-chief of RAF Bomber Command. Winston Churchill was impressed with Portal's strategy of area bombing (which resulted in the Luftwaffe bombing London instead of British airfields) and knighted Portal in July 1940. He was appointed Air Chief Marshal in October 1940, and Marshal of the Royal Air Force in June 1944.
After the war, Portal retired from the RAF and was created Baron Portal of Hungerford (later Viscount Portal). After a 5-year period at the Ministry of Supply, he was elected Chairman of British Aluminium and fought a hostile takeover bid by Sir Ivan Stedeford, Chairman & CEO of Tube Investments. Losing to Stedeford, he was elected chairman of the British Aircraft Corporation in 1960, and died in 1971, aged 77.
Selected biography 3
Wikipedia:Portal:Portal/Selected biography/3
Baron Antoine Portal (January 5, 1742-July 23, 1832) was a French anatomist, doctor, medical historian and founding president of the Académie Nationale de Médecine. Born in Gaillac, he was the eldest among 12 siblings. He studied medicine in Albi, Toulouse and Montpellier and started his career as a teacher of anatomy.
In 1766, Portal moved to Paris to take up a similar post, and was appointed to the prestigious position of professor of anatomy to the Jardin du Roi. Louis XVIII named him the first Doctor to the King, a post he also served in under Charles X. His close relationship with King Louis led in 1820 to the creation of what became the Académie Nationale de Médecine, of which he was lifelong president.
In 1803 Portal published "Cours d'anatomie médicale", a 5-volume work on medical history. He was probably the first to describe amyloid in liver in 1789 when he noted a lard-like substance in an elderly woman's liver, and the first to describe bleeding due to esophageal varices. He also published article on clinical features of epilepsy.
Portal died in 1832 at the age of 90 and was buried in Saint Pierre de Montmartre.
Selected biography 4
Wikipedia:Portal:Portal/Selected biography/4
Wyndham Raymond Portal, 1st Viscount Portal PC GCMG DSO MVO (9 April 1885 – 6 May 1949) was a British politician. The eldest son of Sir William Wyndam Portal, 2nd Baronet, and [Florence Elizabeth Mary Glyn CBE, daughter of Hon. St Leger Glyn, 2nd son of George Glyn, 1st Baron Wolverton, he was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford. In 1909 he married Lady Louise Rosemary Kathleen Virginia Cairns, MBE, only child of Arthur Cairns, 2nd Earl Cairns.
Portal was commissioned into the Hampshire Yeomanry in 1903, was promoted Lieutenant in 1905, and transferred to the 9th Lancers later the same year. He transferred to the 1st Life Guards as a Second Lieutenant in 1908 and was promoted Lieutenant again later the same year, but left the Army in 1911. He rejoined the Hampshire Yeomanry in 1914 and served in World War I. He was promoted Captain in 1914 while serving as adjutant of the Royal 1st Devon Yeomanry.
Transferring back to the Life Guards (Special Reserve) in 1915, he was promoted Lieutenant-Colonel in 1916 when he took command of the Household Battalion. In 1917 he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order and appointed a Member of the Royal Victorian Order (MVO). He relinquished command of the battalion in 1918 and reverted to the rank of Captain, but was soon promoted Major and attached to the Machine Gun Corps as a battalion commander, again with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He resigned his commission in 1919. He was succeeded to the Baronetcy only by his uncle, Sir Spencer John Portal.
Selected biography 5
Wikipedia:Portal:Portal/Selected biography/5 Gerald Herbert Portal (1858–1894) was a British diplomat, the Consul General for British East Africa and British Special Commissioner to Uganda. Educated at Eton, he joined the diplomatic service as an attaché in 1879, and was posted to the Egyptian Agency the same year. In 1886 he became Acting Agent and Consul General, and the following year he was sent to Ethiopia. In 1889 he was appointed to Zanzibar as the Consul General for British East Africa.
In 1892 Portal was appointed British Special Commissioner to Uganda to report to the British Government on setting up a British Protectorate to replace the East Africa Company, which was becoming increasingly ineffective amidst conflicts between rival factions, including the Kabaka (King) of Buganda, French Catholic, and British Protestant missionaries.
Portal established a settlement between the French and British Missionaries in Uganda, and on May 29, 1893 he signed a treaty with Kabaka Mwanga of Buganda. On April 1, 1893, he hauled down the flag of the British East Africa Company and hoisted the Union Jack. He returned to Britain and recommended the declaration of Uganda as a protectorate.
Portal was made Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1886, and Knights Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1893. He died from typhoid fever in London on January 25, 1894, three months before his advice was acted upon. The town of Fort Portal in western Uganda, where Portal had his base, is named after him.