Napoleon Bonaparte

In recent presidential elections most Americans age 18-21 weren't registered and didn't vote, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and reported in the September issue of NEA Today, the news magazine of the National Education Assn. In 1988's election, 44.9% registered but only 33.2% voted. In 1984, 47% were registered but only 36.7% made it to the polls, and in 1980, 44.7% registered but only 35.7% voted. "Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever." --Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)

A lock of Napoleon Bonaparte's hair will be auctioned March 16 along with books and manuscripts, the London auction house Phillips said Wednesday. The lock of hair, mounted in a case, was cut during Napoleon's imprisonment on the island of St. Helena and given to a British marine by Napoleon's surgeon. Napoleon died in exile on the island in 1821. The hair, sold together with other items belonging to British Maj. Robert Pearson Boys, is expected to fetch up to $2,440.

C. S. Forester died while writing this last, fragmentary adventure for his popular character, Horatio Hornblower. The story is set midway through the valiant seaman's career, when he was still just a promising young officer. After capturing important documents from a French warship, Hornblower formulates an ingenious plan that would take him into Napoleon's France, carrying false orders to Adm. Villeneuve--a ruse that would have led to the decisive battle at Trafalgar.

When William Shakespeare bequeathed his "second-best bed" to his wife nearly 400 years ago, a scribe dipped his quill pen in ink and scratched the bard's last wishes on parchment. Now the public can see the playwright's final will and testament on a computer screen with the click of a mouse. The document is among more than 1 million wills, spanning five centuries, that Britain's National Archives posted on the Internet this week at www.documentsonline.pro.gov.uk.

Who needs a theater reviewer when George Bernard Shaw comes onstage and delivers his own verdict on the proceedings? In "The Man of Destiny," an early Shavian comedy at the Knightsbridge Theatre in Pasadena, director Priscilla Finch has "allowed" the playwright (Jerry Neill) to become a de facto fifth character, reading aloud his ironic notes on the play and making the occasional ad-lib. "At least they're not doing 'My Fair Lady,' " he winks at the audience in one aside.

George Will's Feb. 28 commentary advocates that we should insist that all the presidential candidates declare that they will support the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act passed by the House and that they will favor a crash program for development and deployment of a ship-based theater missile defense system to defend Taiwan. This man is nuts. We should do quite the opposite. These warmongering acts are a gross provocation and interference in the internal affairs of China, and they should be denounced forcefully.

Jerry Hulse, editor of The Times Travel Section, has been awarded the Legion of Honor by President Mitterand of France. A French government official said Hulse was chosen for the prestigious award "for many years of dedicated service to (Times) readers, the travel industry, and France." The Legion of Honor, established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802, has been awarded to relatively few Americans and only a handful of journalists.

The Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley has acquired 25 boxes of scientific and personal papers that belonged to Pierre Simon Laplace, one of France's top scientists at the time of the French Revolution. The papers are the literary remains of a fire at the Laplace home in Normandy in 1925, and historians believe they should reveal much about the work of Laplace, an astronomer, mathematician and physicist who is credited with major achievements in celestial mechanics and probability theory.

Are you a Francophile? Take this quiz and find out. 1. Why do baguettes (French bread) become stale so quickly? 2. On average, how many times a day does a Frenchman visit the bakery? 3. In what year did a Parisian tailor jump off the Eiffel Tower with wings and a cape, believing he could fly? 4. What American state is roughly the same size as France? 5. What is France's largest auto maker? 6. What French author wrote "Planet of the Apes"? 7.