David Prashker's Book Of Days: The Merely Mentioneds: N

Rabbi Nachman ben Simcha of Breslau (Wroclaw) (born April 4 1772, but in Medzhybizh in the Ukraine; he only moved to Breslov later on, and died in Uman, back in the Ukraine, on October 16 1810): great-grandson of the Ba’al Shem Tov, processing life through allegories on July 3; his religious followers’ website here; but for his major literary disciple, better go here [reverend writers]

Nancy: no known last name, and no need to publish it if it is known; her tragic suicide is honoured by Leonard Cohen on Nov 28 ; and click here to read her even deeper honouring by her nephew [musical maestros]

Caroline de Nanteuil: the addressee but not the recipient of letters on May 7

John Napier of Merchiston (born February 1 1550; died April 4 1617): inventing logarithms on March 29 [scientific achievements and E,M&C2]

Abdias do Nascimento: founded the Teatro Nacional do Negro in Rio de Janeiro in 1944; elected to the Brazilian Congress on a platform of promoting Afro-Brazilian rights in 1983; and no, he probably wasn't related to the footballer Pele, for whom see Oct 23; the name was that of the owner of the slave plantation [pre-Columban Americas and the world as stage]

Celso Roberto Pitta do Nascimento: became the first black mayor of Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest city, in 1996 [pre-Columban Americas]

Graham William Nash: lauded with holly on Jan 13; with Crosby and Stills on July 25 [musical maestros]

Jacques Necker and his likewise Swiss wife Suzanne Curchod: parents of Madame de Staël on April 22

Lucy Negro: the Dark Lady of the Sonnets on June 29 [the world as stage]

Nehemiah (Nechem-Yah ben Chachal-Yah): quoted on Jan 7, mentioned on March 5 and 12 ; fully historicised, translated and commentaried in “The Book of the Return from Exile” section of The BibleNet [reverend writers]

Jan Nepomuk Neruda (born July 9 1834; died August 22 1891): giving Ricardo Basoalto a pseudonym on Feb 8; bio here [The Poets]

Yonatan (“Yoni”) Netanyahu: born March 13 1946; shot dead on the steps of the plane, at Entebbe, on July 3 1976 - Bibi, his younger brother, left New York for Israel because of his brother’s heroic death, and swore to fulfill his life for him: why else do you think Hamas took so many hostages in 2023?

Agostinho Neto: first head of state when Angola gained independence from Portugal on November 11 1975; a Marxist, the 27 year long civil war with Jonas Savimbi's rebels can be found on the Africa page

Helmut Neustädter (Helmut Newton) (born October 31 1920; died January 23 2004): among the great photographers on Feb 20; his website here [illustrious illustrators]

Laura de Neves, or maybe Laura de Noves, Laura de Novalis, Laura de Noyes, and definitely Madame de Sade (born circa 1310; died April 6 1348): unknowingly playing both Siren and Muse to Petrarch on Jan 16, and again on April 6 [reverend writers]

P. H. (Percy Howard) Newby: winner of the first Booker Prize on Dec 21

Francisco Macias Nguema: the first head of state when Equatorial Guinea gained independence from Spain on October 12 1968 [Africa]

Benjamin Lauder (Ben) Nicholson : husband of Barbara Hepworth but not the son of Vita Sackville-West on March 28 and immediately below

Harold Nicholson: wannabe Lord Melbourne, but in the meanwhile the husband of Vita Sackville-West, on March 28; their son was Lionel Benedict (Ben) Nicolson, editor of "The Burlington" magazine and art historian, not to be confused with the other Ben Nicholson, husband of Barbara Hepworth and modernist painter, on the same page [illustrious illustrators]

Thomas Gibson Nickerson: born March 20 1805; sunk by a whale but survived to become "Billy Budd, Sailor" on Nov 20 1820; died February 7 1883; bio and other “Essex” related materials here and here and here [serious scribes]

Jack William Nicklaus: the “Golden Bear” on Dec 12

Barthold Georg Niebuhr (born August 27 1776; died January 2 1831): added to the Oxford history curriculum by Matthew Arnold on Dec 24; click here for the Arnold connection, here for the Niebuhr bio [historians]

Joseph Nicéphore Niépce: Tenzinged by Daguerre on Jan 2

David Nieto (born 1654 in Venice; died January 10 1728): amongst the first and most significant of Cromwell’s Jews, on Sept 30; bio and writings here [reverend writers]

Major General Iona Timofeevich Nikitchenko: chairing the Nuremberg trials on Oct 18, in partnership with Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Fedorovich Volchkov for the Russian side: why was he chosen? a Denmark-eye-view here, US eye view here, American Jewish eye view here, Anglo-Jewish eye view here – the British, French and American judges can be found here [responses to bullying]

Robert Anthony De Niro: thoroughly methodical on Jan 17 and Nov 17 [the world as stage]

Francis Kwame Nkrumah (born September 21 1909; died April 27 1972): with George Padmore on June 28; his bio here (and yes, I’ve chosen a propagandistically British website, not an African one, just so you can see how much it hurt); rather less propagandistic here; his own version here; on the Africa page under March 6 1957, the date on which Ghana became the first sub-Saharan nation to gain independence, from Britain in its case

Father Manuel de Nóbrega (born October 18 1517; died October 18 1570): no sooner had he arrived in Bahia from Lisbon than he was protesting the enslavement of Africans; bio here [Africa and pre-Columban Americas, and also Responses to Bullying]

Guibert de Nogent (born April 15 1055; died at the splendidly named Coucy-le-Château-Auffrique at some time in 1124 or 1125): his last-name taken from the abbey at which he was the Benedictine father from 1104 until his death: chronicler of the massacres of Jews that took place during the First Crusade, on July 14 [historians]

John Norris: one of the Mary Astell circle on Nov 12

Vítĕzslav Augustín Rudolf Novák: (born December 5 1870; died July 18 1949): impressionist composer who influenced Hans Krása on April 1; bio and works here [musical maestros]

Sam Nujoma: founded SWAPO (South West Africa People's Organization) with Herman Toivo ja Toivo in 1960, and became the first head of state when Namibia gained independence from South Africa on March 21 1990 [Africa]

Joshua (Yehoshua ben Nun): crossing the Nefud desert on Aug 15, and all over TheBibleNet, starting here

Vasco Núñez de Balboa (born 1475; died January 15 1519, somewhere in the Pacific Ocean): accompanied by at least thirty Africans on the Africa page; bio here, and on the pre-Columban Americas page]

Rudolf Khametovich Nureyev (born March 17 1938; died January 6 1993): dancing with Margot Fonteyn on May 18

Florence Nwanzuruahu Nkiru Nwapa (Flora Nwapa on her book cover): Nigerian novelist, her "Efuru" was the first novel in English by an African woman to be published internationally, two years before Bessie Head [Africa and serious scribes]

Julius Nyerere: the first head of state when Tanganyika gained independence from Britain on December 9 1961; and 1964: the Africa page has: Tanganyikan President Julius Nyerere negotiates an agreement with newly independent Zanzibar to merge the two nations. Nyerere becomes President of the new nation of Tanzania.

Michael Laurence Nyman: Glass crashes, Reich becomes imperialistic, what does Nyman do? On Feb 9 [musical maestros]