* 1974 – Christina Davis, Australian ballet dancer and contestant on the first season of Big Brother Australia

* 1984 – Matt McDonald, American roofing foreman and contestant on the 9th season of Big Brother

Big Brother is a fictional character in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

The people are constantly reminded of this by the phrase " Big Brother is watching you ", which is the core " truth " of the propaganda system in this state.

Since the publication of Nineteen Eighty-Four, the term " Big Brother " has entered the lexicon as a synonym for abuse of government power, particularly in respect to civil liberties, often specifically related to mass surveillance.

Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener | Lord Kitchener, a possible inspiration for Big Brother

In the essay section of his novel 1985, Anthony Burgess states that Orwell got the idea for Big Brother from advertising billboards for educational correspondence courses from a company called Bennett's, current during World War II.

Additional speculation from Douglas Kellner of UCLA argued that Big Brother represents Joseph Stalin and that the novel portrayed life under totalitarianism.

In the novel it is not clear whether Big Brother is ( or was ) a real person or a fiction invented by the Party to personify itself.

In Party propaganda Big Brother is presented as a real person: one of the founders of the Party, along with Goldstein.

At one point in 1984 Winston Smith, the protagonist of Orwell's novel, tries " to remember in what year he had first heard mention of Big Brother.

In the Party histories, of course, Big Brother figured as the leader and guardian of the Revolution since its very earliest days.

His exploits had been gradually pushed backwards in time until already they extended into the fabulous world of the forties and the thirties, when the capitalists in their strange cylindrical hats still rode through the streets of London ..." In the year 1984 Big Brother appears on posters and the telescreen as a man of about 45.

When Winston Smith is later arrested, O ' Brien, his interrogator, again describes Big Brother as a figure who will never die.

When Smith asks if Big Brother exists, O ' Brien describes him as " the embodiment of the Party " and that he will exist as long as the Party exists.

When Winston follows up his question by asking " Does Big Brother exist the same way I do?

A spontaneous ritual of devotion to Big Brother (" BB ") is illustrated at the end of the " Two Minutes Hate ":

Though Oceania's Ministry of Truth, Ministry of Plenty, and Ministry of Peace each have names with meanings deliberately opposite to their real purpose, the Ministry of Love is perhaps the most straightforward: " rehabilitated thought criminals " leave the Ministry as loyal subjects who have been brainwashed into genuinely loving Big Brother.

Since the publication of Nineteen Eighty-Four the phrase " Big Brother " has come into common use to describe any prying or overly-controlling authority figure, and attempts by government to increase surveillance.

Russian comedian Yakov Smirnoff makes frequent reference to both Big Brother and other Orwellian traits in his Russian Reversal jokes.

The magazine Book ranked Big Brother No. 59 on its 100 Best Characters in Fiction Since 1900 list.

The worldwide reality television show Big Brother is based on the novel's concept of people being under constant surveillance.

In 2000, after the U. S. version of the CBS program " Big Brother " premiered, the Estate of George Orwell sued CBS and its production company " Orwell Productions, Inc ." in federal court in Chicago for copyright and trademark infringement.

The iconic image of Big Brother ( played by David Graham ) played a key role in Apple's 1984 television commercial introducing the Macintosh.

The December 2002 issue of Gear magazine featured a story about technologies and trends that could violate personal privacy moving society closer to a " Big Brother " state and utilised a recreation of the movie poster from the film version of 1984 created by Dallmeierart. com.

It was a fair fight, the boy provoked it -- Big Charlie told me so.

That was the day that he had practically mopped up the main street of Big Sands with Aaron McBride, field boss for the Highlands Oil & Gas Company.

It should have been nearly as easy for her to remember that as it was for Big Hans to remember going after the axe while he was still spattered with Pa's yellow sick insides.

Big Hans began pouring whisky in the kid's mouth but his mouth filled without any getting down his throat and in a second it was dripping from his chin.

For example, it was a battalion of the 7th Cavalry under Colonel George Armstrong Custer that had been wiped out at the Battle of The Little Big Horn.

When the Korean war began, on June 25, 1950, the anniversary of the day Custer had gone down fighting at the Little Big Horn and the day the regiment had assaulted the beachhead of Leyte during World War 2,, the 7th Cavalry was not in the best fighting condition.

The first time was in 1955 when a full-dress Big Four summit meeting produced the `` spirit of Geneva ''.

On the third occasion -- another Big Four summit session at Paris a year ago -- there was no problem of an illusory `` spirit ''.

To help him on this religious aspect of primitive jazz he had `` Big '' Miller, as a preacher-singer and Hannah Dean, Gospel-singer, while Oscar Brown Jr., an extremely talented young man, did a slave auctioneer's call, a field-hands' work song, and a beautifully sung Negro lullaby, `` Brown Baby '', which was one of the truly moving moments of the festival.

The Big Four, helped by Archie's brother Cambell, was a stop-gap collection of Sketch magazine stories, for money when her husband left.

It was there that Young retrieved, at the request of mission control, the largest rock returned by an Apollo mission, a breccia nicknamed Big Muley after mission geology principal investigator Bill Muehlberger.

The album was a multi-platinum success and produced the pop hit " Lucky One " ( No. 18 pop and No. 2 AC ; No. 1 on Radio & Records ) as well as the title track ( a duet with country music star and future husband Vince Gill ) ( No. 37 pop ) and a cover of Joni Mitchell's frequently covered " Big Yellow Taxi " ( No. 67 pop ) ( in which she changed the line " And they charged the people a dollar and a half just to see em " to " And then they charged the people 25 bucks just to see em ").

It was part of the ' Big Push ' ( later known as the Battle of the Somme ) that was intended to force the German Army into a retreat from the Western Front, a line they had held since late 1914.

Torrio took over the crime empire of James " Big Jim " Colosimo after he was murdered.

The Lord's Day Act, which since 1906 had prohibited business transactions from taking place on Sundays, was struck down as unconstitutional in the 1985 case R. v. Big M Drug Mart Ltd. Calgary police officers witnessed several transactions at the Big M Drug Mart, all of which occurred on a Sunday.

Big M was charged with a violation of the Lord's Day Act.

Known as " Big Mac ", the encyclopedia became the standard baseball reference until 1988, when Total Baseball was released by Warner Books using more sophisticated technology.

According to the Big Bang theory, the Universe was once in an extremely hot and dense state which expanded rapidly.

While the scientific community was once divided between supporters of the Big Bang and those of alternative cosmological models, most scientists became convinced that some version of the Big Bang scenario best fit observations after the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation in 1964, and especially when its spectrum ( i. e., the amount of radiation measured at each wavelength ) was found to match that of thermal radiation from a black body.