Compact Biographies

In episode 7 of 5 Minute Biographies we take a look at the life of an actor called Tiny - Alan Ladd

“I couldn’t find the sports car of my dreams, so I built it myself” – Ferdinand Porsche

Ferdinand Porsche Biography

Roads all over the world would look very different if not for an engineer from Germany. Ferdinand Porsche was a visionary in his time, with an active hand in developing the Mercedes compressor car, the first designs of the Volkswagen, and of course, the luxury sports car that bears his name.

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Born on September 3rd, 1875 in Maffersdorf, Austria, Ferdinand showed an early interest in and natural talent with technology. So drawn was Porsche to technology and mechanics that he chose to become a mechanical apprentice instead of attending university as was expected of the young man.

Intrigued by electricity from a young age, in 1893 Porsche secured a job at Bela Egger & Co., an electrical company in Vienna.

Close to that same time, he enrolled as a part-time student at the Imperial Technical University in Reichenberg which was later renamed the Vienna University of Technology. There, he compounded the knowledge and experience that would aid him throughout his career.

More than pleased with Porsche’s abilities, his supervisors quickly promoted him to a management position within the company.

Despite his impressive work history thus far, Porsche wasn’t content to rest on his laurels. He was hungry for new accomplishments, and 1897 proved to be a banner year for the 22-year-old Porsche.

Ferdinand busied himself with creating an electric wheel-hub motor, the concept for which was developed by American inventor Wellington Adams more than a decade before and Porsche raced his wheel-hub motor in Vienna. He also started work in the newly minted Electric Car Department at Hofwagenfabrik Jacob Lohner & Co., a Vienna-based company started by the Austro-Hungarian joint Imperial and Royal Armies.

The Egger-Lohner electric vehicle C.2 Phaeton (P1)

In 1898, three decades before he would found his own automotive company, Ferdinand Porsche designed his first car, and it was electric. The car in question was the Egger-Lohner electric vehicle C.2 Phaeton, also known as the P1. This vehicle was seen for the first time in public in January 2014 after it had been unearthed in an Austrian garage where it had remained all but untouched since 1902.

At the start of the twentieth century, Porsche attracted worldwide attention and fame when his wheel-hub engine was used to power the Lohner-Porsche Hofwagenfabrik Jacob Lohner & Co.’S new non-transmission vehicle in Paris. Displayed at the most prestigious car exhibition of the time, L’Exposition Universelle de Paris, Porsche won the chance to develop another prototype, a four-wheel-drive vehicle with an electric motor built into each wheel.

Porsche was immensely pleased by the wide-acclaim he received for his engine. Later that year, he tried his engine on the Semmering racing circuit, near Vienna, in a race in which he was victorious.

After nearly a decade at Lohner, in 1906, Ferdinand Porsche took the position of technical manager at the Austro-Daimler company.

Among his professional accomplishments at Daimler, Porsche oversaw the construction of the Mercedes car compressor.

Porsche would stay at Austro-Daimler until 1923 when he moved to the Stuttgart-based Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft company, where he became both a technical manager and executive board member.

In addition to race cars, Porsche also designed a diesel-fueled truck and a popular automobile. Building from strength to strength, he opened his own engineering office in Stuttgart in 1930.

By 1931, Porsche had grown tired of Daimler and left to start his own firm, which he registered commercially as “Dr. Ing. H. C.

In episode six of the 5 Minute Biographies podcast, we take a look at the life of an engineer from Germany who, because he couldn't find the sports car of his dreams, built one - Ferdinand Porsche.

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In the fifth episode of the 5 Minute Biographies podcast, we take a look at the life of a man who held the World Heavyweight boxing title for over four years in the 1950's - Rocky Marciano.

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“Why waltz with a guy for ten rounds if you can knock him out in one?” – Rocky Marciano

Rocky Marciano Biography

The eye of the tiger burned brighter in the body of the 190lb heavyweight prizefighter from Brockton, Massachusetts than almost any other fighter in history. Born on September 1, 1923, Rocky Marciano was thought to be too short and too light to have a career in boxing. Defying expectations, he went on to hold the heavyweight boxing title for four years in the 1950s and remains the only professional fighter to ever retire undefeated.

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Born to Pierino and Pasqualena Marciano, Rocco Francis Marchegiano was a textbook second-generation Italian-American of the early 20th century. His father, who worked at a shoe factory, naturally wanted more for his son than the hard-scrabble life he had been born into. Rocky wanted the same thing and envisioned becoming a major league baseball catcher as his ticket to success and happiness unlike any his parents had ever known.

Though he had been introduced to fighting by his uncle, the idea of boxing never really occurred to Marciano until he was drafted in 1943 and needed a way to avoid KP duty and other unattractive tasks superior officers were all too happy to assign. Demonstrating a natural talent, when Marciano left the army in 1946, he began to pick up bouts on the amateur circuit as Rocky Mack.

In 1947 the dream of playing professional baseball finally came Marciano’s way. Invited for a tryout with the Chicago Cubs, Marciano believed that his ship had come in and the life he’d been meant for had finally come. Unfortunately, the Cubs didn’t want him. Marciano, who’d been scouted as a catcher, was passed over because he couldn’t make an accurate throw from home plate to second. Dejected, he went back to the ring.

By the spring of 1949, Marciano was getting some attention for his developing skills as a fighter after knocking out his first 16 opponents. The caliber of his opponents steadily improved over the course of 1949-1950, but Marciano seemed unstoppable, knocking out the majority of them.

Many analysts and trainers were unimpressed with Marciano, despite his already remarkable record. The general consensus was that he was too old (almost 25), too short, and too light to have any sort of real career in boxing.

But Marciano kept going and everywhere he went he made believers. Traveling in groups to Marciano’s fights in Rhode Island, his cheering section would eagerly watch Rocky chop away at his opponent until he was ready to fall. Then, all together, they would yell, “Timmmmberrr!”

On October 26, 1951, with 37 wins and 32 knockouts to his name, Marciano squared off against his most threatening opponent to date in former heavyweight champion Joe Louis. Louis was past his prime and Marciano knocked him out in the eighth round. Overcome with mixed feelings at beating his idol, Marciano cried in Louis’ dressing room after the fight.

Rocky Marciano and Joe Louis

Mixed feelings aside, the fight established Marciano as one of the preeminent fighters in his division and set him on the path to a title shot.

The long odds on Marciano really winning the title weren’t good. He lacked a real technique– fighting more like a barroom brawler– and his reach was a distinct handicap at only 68 inches (no heavyweight champion had ever had such a short reach).

What set Marciano aside was the hidden strength that would, decades later, inspire Sylvester Stallone to write of a very similar underdog who just happened to have the same secret weapon. That secret weapon was heart. Marciano refused to stay down and he refused to lose. He might be bruised, battered, beat-up, and bloody,

In the fourth episode of the 5 Minute Biographies podcast, we take a look at the troubled life of a poet and pulp fiction writer who lived and died in almost total literary obscurity - H. P. Lovecraft.

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In the third episode of the 5 Minute Biographies podcast, we take a look at the life of a man who was a dentist by trade, a gambler by night, and was present at what became known as the Gunfight at the OK Corral - Doc Holliday.

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In the second episode of the 5 Minute Biographies podcast, we take a look at the life of the 'father of modern anti-biotics - Alexander Fleming.

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In this first episode, we take a look at the life of one of the all-time jazz masters - Louis Armstrong

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In episode 4 of the 5 Minute Biographies podcast we delve into the dark world of H. P. Lovecraft, the quintessential master of horror fiction