About Who2

Welcome to the archive of the biographical website Who2.

Who2 was created in 1997 by two fact-friendly pals, Paul Hehn and Fritz Holznagel. Our goal was simple: build a fast route to basic facts about famous people. (The death of Princess Diana was a crucial part of our origin story.)

The site went public in 1998, and since then the two of us — with help from some friends — researched and wrote over 4800 thumbnail biographies of classic authors, movie stars, famous frauds, kings and queens, mythical gods, and even cartoon dogs.

We also created what we called loops: collections of famous people who had something in common, like Celebs Missing Fingers and Disappearing Acts. We weren’t the first people to make lists online, but we do believe we were the first to link biographical dots this way, in the manner that later became so famous as “listicles.” We’re quite proud of our list of Black History Month biographies, which at one point got hundreds of thousands of page views each year, and is still much-used by students each February.

We also did many deep dives in our blog, with titles like How Did Dr. Seuss Die? and Comanche Was *Not* the Sole Survivor of Custer’s Last Stand and Marlene Dietrich and Champagne: She Didn’t Quite Say That and Mikaela Shiffrin’s Father: What Happened To Him? and Was John Wayne a Draft Dodger in World War II? Not Exactly but Yes, Pretty Much. There was movie criticism, like What in the World Happened to Lawrence Kasdan? There were personal essays, like Thanksgiving for Grandmothers and Jeopardy! Flashback: Single and Available.

We finally stopped updating Who2 in 2026, the happy victims of the growth of other great reference works online. At the time we started, it was hard to find reliable data on famous people online — even basic things like accurate birthdays. We believe we were the first biography site online to provide such things in a simple, snackable format, and to include all types of figures, real and fictional, human and animal.

Today there are many such sources, and our humble operation is no longer needed. We did our bit! We’re proud to say we provided a useful and reliable service when it was needed. While we no longer update Who2, we preserve it here for posterity in all its glory.

Who2 could never have reached the public without the help of some crack tech folks, designers, and fellow researchers. They were, in alphabetical order:

  • Joel Abrams (tech, 2015-2026)
  • Doug Beeferman (tech, 2000-01)
  • Hawkins Dale (tech, 1997-2000)
  • Tina Diodati (tech, 2000-03)
  • Mike Duffy (tech, 2001-15)
  • Adam DuVander (tech, 2004-15)
  • Bill Fiesterman (design/tech, 1999-2001)
  • Hans Holznagel (writing, 2005-07)
  • Samantha Mathis (design, 2001)
  • John Vollmer (design, 2006)

We also salute to the partners who licensed Who2 data and supported us for many years: InfoPlease, Answers.com, and Ask.com.

By the way: You can still count on the facts you find on Who2. We’ve always done our own research and double-checked all our data. We have never accepted money or done link swaps. The info you’ll find here, while no longer updated, is still accurate.

All the content on this site is original — researched, written and copyrighted by Who2 and its staff. It may not be reused or reprinted without the express consent of Who2, LLC.

Who We Are (and Were):

PAUL HEHN (Editor) holds undergraduate degrees in English and History from Willamette University in Salem, Oregon (1982), and a graduate degree in History from Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts (1985). He began writing for the internet in 1995, and was one of the original writers for Point Communications’ “Top 5%” web review service. For two years, Hehn wrote the weekly television column Tuned Out for Lycos. His reviews of websites have appeared in Yahoo! Internet Life magazine, and he contributed several entries to the third edition of Scribner’s A Dictionary of American History (2002).

Paul Hehn is also a comic artist whose caricatures are featured in many Who2 biographies. His work has appeared in Top Shelf and Plazm magazines and online at The Lycos 50. The cartoons can be found at PaulHehn.com and on Instagram under… yes, “paulhehn.”

RYAN ‘FRITZ’ HOLZNAGEL (Editor) is an Emmy-winning writer, Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions winner, and longtime fact freak. He won the Emmy in 1992 for scripting the CBS TV special A Claymation Easter Celebration. The next year he returned to his first love, reference. His work in CD-ROMs included writing 300 short biographies for the 1993 disc Great Literature and editing Mindscape’s 20th Century Video Almanac (1994). He also wrote clues for the popular quiz game Where in the U.S.A. is Carmen SanDiego? (1995).

In 1999, Fritz conceived and created the popular feature The Lycos 50 — a weekly ranking of the web’s most-searched terms. He also spent seven years (2004-09, 2019-21) on the writing team at Google. He is the author of Secrets of the Buzzer (2015), The Ultimate Droodles Compendium (2018), and the writing guide 8 Letters or Less (2025).

In a TV-age sidelight, Fritz was a four-time winner on the game show Jeopardy! in 1994. He returned for the show’s 1995 Tournament of Champions, where he defeated 14 other champs to claim the grand prize of $100,000. He also represented the U.S. in the 1996 Jeopardy! International Tournament, and participated in the show’s 2005 Ultimate Tournament of Champions and the 2014 Battle of the Decades.

MICHAEL DUFFY (Tech Guru) is a software technology expert based in Sebastopol, California, where he advises companies such as The Learning Company and Philips Corporation. From January through August of 1999, Mike was co-founder and Chief Technical Officer of Z-Cash, an Internet startup based in Sausalito, CA. Previously, Mike spent 10 years with Mindscape (formerly The Software Toolworks), rising to the position of executive vice-president and general manager of its game division. Mike joined the company in December, 1986 as one of the creators of the best-selling Chessmaster program. He also participated in the design and development of other Mindscape products, including Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing!, The San Diego Zoo Presents…The Animals!, Newsweek Interactive, and The 20th Century Video Almanac. He was directly involved with the sale of The Software Toolworks to Pearson plc for $462 million in April, 1994.

Mike graduated A.B. cum laude from Harvard College in 1978, concentrating in Engineering and Applied Science. Mike also founded Software By Design (1981-86), a programming and training company. Among his other important accomplishments, Mike attended high school with Kevin Costner and college with Bill Gates.

JOEL ABRAMS (Tech Guru) is a versatile multitasking wordpress content marketing social media guru, who loves stringing together buzzwords. In his day job, Joel is in charge of media outreach for The Conversation, a site dedicated to getting experts to write about what they know for the public. Previous stops in his career include CNN, Lycos, The Christian Science Monitor and The Boston Globe. Find him on Twitter at @BostonAbrams.

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