Walead Beshty is a Los Angeles-based artist and writer.

Beshty was an Associate Professor in the Graduate Art Department at Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, and has taught at numerous schools including University of California, Los Angeles; University of California, Irvine; the California Institute of the Arts; School of the Art Institute of Chicago; and the MFA Program at Bard College. Beshty has exhibited widely in numerous institutions and galleries around the world.

Jamil Mardam Bey, was a Syrian politician. He was born in Damascus to a prominent aristocratic Sunni Muslim family. He is descended from Ottoman's general, statesman and Grand Vizier Lala Mustafa Pasha. He studied at the school of Political Science in Paris and was a founder of Al-Fatat, the leading opposition party in Ottoman Syria.

The revenge of the forty-seven rōnin, also known as the Akō incident or Akō vendetta, is an 18th-century historical event in Japan in which a band of rōnin avenged the death of their master. The incident has since become legendary.

The story tells of a group of samurai who were left leaderless after their daimyō Asano Naganori was compelled to perform seppuku for assaulting a court official named Kira Yoshinaka, whose title was Kōzuke no suke. After waiting and planning for a year, the rōnin avenged their master's honor by killing Kira. They were then themselves obliged to commit seppuku for the crime of murder. This true story was popularized in Japanese culture as emblematic of the loyalty, sacrifice, persistence, and honor that people should display in their daily lives. The popularity of the tale grew during the Meiji era, during which Japan underwent rapid modernization, and the legend became entrenched within discourses of national heritage and identity.

Fictionalized accounts of the tale of the forty-seven rōnin are known as Chūshingura. The story was popularized in numerous plays, including in the genres of bunraku and kabuki.