What is Biography?
A '''biography''' is the story of a [[human being|person's]] [[life]]. The word comes from the [[Greek language|Greek]] words ''bios'' (which means [[life]]) and ''graphein'' (which means [[write]]). When the biography is written by the person it is about, it is called an [[autobiography]]. A written biography is a part of [[literature]]. Biographies can also be made as [[movie]]s (often called [[Biopic film|biopics]]) or told as stories. The oldest written biographies that [[Historian|historians]] have were written to record [[ruler|rulers']] lives. Some were written in [[Assyria]], ancient [[Babylonia]], ancient [[Egypt]] and ancient [[Mesopotamia]]. Biographies were an early form of [[history]]. Another early form of biography was called ''hagiography,'' meaning writing about [[holy]] people.<ref>{{Cite book|url=http://archive.org/details/thelegendsofthesa00deleuoft|title=The legends of the saints : an introduction to hagiography|last=Delehaye|first=Hippolyte|publisher=Longmans, Green|others=Robarts - University of Toronto|year=1907|isbn=9780841436572|location=[[London]]|pages=2}}</ref> In ancient [[China]], a biography was one of the basic forms of a history book. In [[India]], biographies of [[The Buddha|Buddha]] and his [[reincarnation|reincarnated]] lives were written. In [[ancient Greece]], people wrote biographies of people that were not rulers too. [[Xenophon]] wrote a [https://www.aimlay.com/biography/ biography writing] of [[Socrates]] and gave this book the name ''Memorabilia'' (Memories). During the [[Roman Empire]], [[Plutarch]] wrote ''Parallel Lives'' about ancient Greek and Roman politicians, and [[Suetonius]] wrote biographies of the [[Roman Emperors|Roman emperors]]. The [[Gospel]]s were also biographies of [[Jesus Christ]]. In [[West Africa]], [[Griot|griots]] tell histories which often include biographies.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Webster|first=N'Kaela|date=2017-03-27|title=This Man Embodies A Thousand Years Of West African Oral History|url=https://www.audible.com/blog/arts-culture/this-man-e