born Jan. 12, 1964, Albuquerque, N.M., U.S. U.S. Internet entrepreneur. Educated at Princeton University, he worked in banking and investment at Bankers Trust and D.E. Shaw & Co. before founding Amazon.com, Inc., in 1995. The Internet company began as a bookseller and later expanded into recorded music, videos, electronic equipment, tools, and other areas, including on-line auctions. Amazon.com became famous for the extraordinary rise in its stock-market valuation despite continued annual losses a reflection of investor confidence in the future of on-line retailing that marked the late 1990s. The company posted its first quarterly profit in January 2002
born June 3, 1936, Wichita Falls, Texas, U.S. U.S. novelist. The son of a rancher, he is noted for novels set in the American West, often in Texas. The Last Picture Show (1966) examines the isolation of small-town life. Lonesome Dove (1985, Pulitzer Prize) is part of an epic frontier series that also includes Streets of Laredo (1993), Dead Man's Walk (1995), and Comanche Moon (1997). His other novels include Horseman, Pass By (1961), Terms of Endearment (1975), and Buffalo Girls (1990). Many of his novels were adapted for film or television