About Nikolay Przhevalsky
Nikolay Mikhaylovich Przhevalsky (or Przewalski or Prjevalsky; 12 April [O.S. 31 March] 1839 – 1 November [O.S. 20 October] 1888) was a Russian geographer and a renowned explorer of Central and East Asia. Although he never reached his ultimate goal, the city of Lhasa in Tibet, he still travelled through regions then unknown to Westerners, such as northern Tibet (modern Tibet Autonomous Region), Amdo (now Qinghai) and Dzungaria (now northern Xinjiang). He contributed substantially to European knowledge of Central Asian geography. Przhevalsky described several species previously unknown to European science, such as Przewalski's horse, Przewalski's gazelle, and the wild Bactrian camel, all of which are now endangered. He was also a mentor of the explorer Pyotr Kozlov. == Biography == Przhevalsky was born in the Kimborovo family estate (in the Smolensky Uyezd of the Smolensk Governorate of the Russian Empire) which belonged to his grandfather from his mother's side, a Russian nobleman Aleksei Stepanovich Karetnikov, and his wife Ksenia Davydovna Karetnikova who came from local merchants, both natives of the Tula Governorate. Nikolay's mother, Elena Alekseevna Karetnikova, married poruchick Mikhail Kuzmitch Przhevalsky whose Zaporozhian Cossack ancestors in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth inherited the noble szlachta state from the Polish king Stephen Báthory, and his grandfather converted from Catholicism to Orthodoxy. According to the latest research by Liudmila K. Przhevalskaia, their earliest known ancestor Onisim (Anisim) Pereval (Perevalka, Perevalskii) belonged to the horse-owning middle class of Vitebsk. Przhevalsky studied in the military academy in St. Petersburg.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.