A Greek mythological figure who rises from being an orphan to become King of Thebes, but in doing so inadvertently fulfills a prophecy in which he kills his father and sleeps with his mother, as recounted in Sophocles' tragedy Oedipus Rex.

Hero of Homer's Odyssey, which recounts the adventures of this Ithacan king during his decade-long return from the ten year Trojan War.

Odin (from Old Norse Óðinn, "The Furious One") is a significant deity in most if not all branches of Germanic mythology, especially in the Norse mythology branch of Germanic mythology. Among his many attributes, he is associated with wisdom, healing, poetry, frenzy, war, and death.

Elder sister of first Roman Emperor Augustus, fourth wife of Mark Antony, and great-great-grandmother of Emperor Nero, also known as "Octavia the Younger." Octavia was revered for her humanity, nobility, and depiction of traditional Roman femininity. Octavia helped to secure peace between her brother and husband as they ruled the Roman state. In 36 B.C.E., Mark Antony left for a military excursion in the East, and while gone, he resumed relations with his former wife, Cleopatra VII of Egypt, leaving Octavia to rule their children alone, heartbroken.

English translator, lawyer, military officer, and justice of the peace, whose 1579 translation of Plutarch's Parallel Lives became the main source for many of Shakespeare's Roman plays.

English bibliographer and antiquarian, best remembered for his Biographia Britannica (1747-1766).

British Prime Minister from 1770 to 1782 whose insufficient leadership contributed to the loss of the American colonies in the American Revolution.

Constantine Henry Phipps, the first marquess of Normanby, began his career as a reform-leaning Member of Parliament. In 1820 he left for Italy, where he wrote the stories that made up the three volumes of The English in Italy (1825). Subsequent works included a collection of essays and tales entitled The English in France (1828) and four novels, Matilda (1825), Yes and No (1828), Clorinda (1829), and The Contrast (1832). Normanby served in various administrative and diplomatic capacities at locations such as Jamaica, Ireland, and France.

Profoundly influential mathematician and natural scientist. His writings were voluminous, with his most important publications being Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687), which included his formulation of the law of universal gravitation, Opticks: or, A Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light (1704), and Arithmetica Universalis (1707).

Playwright, philosopher, memoirist, and fiction writer, Margaret Cavendish is probably best remembered for her CCXI Sociable Letters (1664). She first published Poems, and Fancies in 1653, subsequently revising and republishing it several times. In addition to the poems, it is notable for its preface, which overtly intervenes to negotiate the publishing of her own work, an unconventional step for a woman of her class and time.