Beat Ganz
Beat Ganz( born 29 April 1946) is a Swiss modern pentathlete.
He competed at the 1972 Summer Olympics.
John Komnenos Vatatzes
John Komnenos Vatatzes,(" Iōannēs Komnēnos Vatatzēs"), or simply John Komnenos or John Vatatzes( the transliteration' Batatzes' is also employed) in the sources, was a major military and political figure in the Byzantine( Eastern Roman) Empire during the reigns of Manuel I Komnenos and Alexios II Komnenos.
He was born c. 1132, and died of natural causes during a rebellion he raised against Andronikos I Komnenos in 1182.
Nicholas Kanabos
Nicholaus Kanabos was elected Byzantine emperor during the Fourth Crusade on 25 or 27 January 1204 by an assembly of the Byzantine Senate, priests, and the mob of Constantinople in direct opposition to co-emperors Isaac II and Alexios IV.
Nicholaus was a young noble( probably a relative of Angelid emperors) who was chosen after three days of sorting through several unwilling candidates and refused to assume the lofty position.
Though popularly chosen, he never accepted imperial power, and took Sanctuary in the bowels of Hagia Sophia.
Alexios V Doukas, who had deposed Emperors Isaac II and Alexios IV, offered him a prominent position in his own administration, but Nicholaus adamantly rejected these terms.
On February 8, after rebuffing an imperial summons, Emperor Nicholaus Kanabus was dragged out of the church, in which he had sought refuge, and strangled on the ornate marble steps of Hagia Sophia.
The contemporary historian Niketas Choniates described Nicolaus Kanabus as a kind, gentle and intelligent man.
Alexios I of Trebizond
Alexios I Megas Komnenos or Alexius I Megas Comnenus( c. 1182 – 1 February 1222) was, with his brother David, the founder of the Empire of Trebizond, which he ruled from 1204 until his death in 1222.
The two brothers were the only male descendants of the Byzantine Emperor Andronikos I, who had been dethroned and killed in 1185, and thus claimed to represent the legitimate government of the Empire following the conquest of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204.
Although his rivals governing the Nicaean Empire succeeded in becoming the de facto successors, and rendered his dynastic claims to the imperial throne moot, Alexios' descendants continued to emphasize both their heritage and connection to the Komnenian dynasty by referring to themselves as Megas Komnenos or Grand Komnenos.
While his brother David conquered a number of Byzantine provinces in northwestern Anatolia, Alexios defended his capital Trebizond from an unsuccessful siege by the Seljuk Turks around the year 1205.
Further details of his reign are sparse.
Muslim chroniclers record how, in 1214, Alexios was captured by the Turks in the field while defending Sinope; despite sending an envoy to seek their surrender the city refused to capitulate to Sultan Kaykaus I, and Alexios was tortured in sight of the Sinopians.
The city submitted to Kaykaus and Alexios was freed after becoming Kaykaus' vassal.
Alexios died at the age of forty.
Alexios Gidos
Alexios Gidos was a senior Byzantine general of the late 12th century.
He is the first attested member of the Gidos family, which rose to some prominence in the Byzantine Empire at the end of the 12th and the beginning of the 13th centuries.
Alexios Gidos is first mentioned on the occasion of the Norman sack of Thessalonica in 1185, when he held the post of" Grand Domestic of the East", i.e. commander- in- chief of the Byzantine army's forces in Anatolia.
He apparently retained his high post after the downfall of Emperor Andronikos I Komnenos, and re-appears in 1194, when Andronikos' successor Isaac II Angelos sent him against the Bulgarians.
This time Gidos was" Grand Domestic of the West", but still commanding the eastern troops, while Basil Vatatzes commanded the western forces.
The two generals were heavily defeated at the Battle of Arcadiopolis: most of the Byzantine army, along with Vatatzes, fell, while Gidos managed to escape only with great difficulty.
Nothing further is known of him.
In 1898/ 99, the Greek scholar S. Papadimitriou theorized that the family name and therefore the ancestry of the family was originally Latin, he believed the family surname to be the hellenized form of the Italian name" Guido".
This in turn led to speculation that there may have been a direct connection with the Gidos family and Guy/ Guido, a son of the Norman conqueror of southern Italy, Robert Guiscard, who defected to the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos( ruled 1081 – 1118) centuries earlier, entered his service and possibly married into the imperial family.
On the other hand, in his" Die byzantinische Aussenpolitik zur Zeit der letzten Komnenenkaiser"( 1967), W. Hecht cast doubt on their Latin origin, and argued that at any rate, by the time Alexios Gidos appears, the family had been thoroughly Byzantinized and shed their Latin identity.
It is however impossible to prove any connection with the son of Robert Guiscard or a Latin origin, Byzantine sources do not treat the family as having a foreign origin.
Similarly, another view considers the etymology of the family surname to be of Greek origin, a derivation from the Greek word for" goat"(' Gida' γίδα f., γίδι)
David Ji
David Longfen Ji is an American businessman who co-founded Apex Digital, an electronics manufacturer.
In 2004, he was arrested in China following a dispute with Sichuan Changhong Electric, a supplier owned by the city of Mianyang and the province of Sichuan.
Changhong accused him of defrauding them through bad checks.
Ji was taken, according to an account by his lawyer, to the senior management and told, "I decide whether you live or die."
He has been held in China without charges.
Ji's case highlighted an "implicit racism" in dealings with American businessmen.
As a U.S. citizen he was not granted the same treatment by authorities as non-ethnically Chinese businessmen sharing the same nationality.
Constantine Komnenos Angelos
Constantine Komnenos Angelos( – after 1199) was a Byzantine aristocrat and military commander, and the older brother of the emperors Isaac II Angelos and Alexios III Angelos.
He was blinded by the usurper Andronikos I Komnenos, and raised to" sebastokrator" by his brother Isaac upon the latter's accession to the throne in 1185.
Andronikos Palaiologos (late 12th century)
Andronikos Palaiologos was a Byzantine aristocrat and general active in the late 12th century.
Very little is known about him.
He is first mentioned in 1185, as one of the generals sent under the overall command of Alexios Gidos to aid the city of Thessalonica, which was being besieged by the Normans.
He is then recorded for the last time in the acts of a synod held in 1191, where he is mentioned as holding the rank of" protosebastohypertatos" and as a relative by marriage of the reigning emperor, Isaac II Angelos.
The scholar Michael Glykas addressed a short homily to him.
Euphrosyne Kastamonitissa
Euphrosyne Kastamonitissa was a Byzantine noble woman of the Kastamonites family, a wife of Andronikos Doukas Angelos( a cousin of the ruling Komnenos dynasty) and mother of the two future Byzantine emperors from the Angelos family: Isaac II Angelos and Alexios III Angelos.
Constantine Choirosphaktes
Constantine Choirosphaktes was a Byzantine diplomat and official active during the reigns of Nikephoros III Botaneiates( r. 1078 – 1081) and Alexios I Komnenos( r. 1081–1118).

Question: Were Beat Ganz and Alexios Gidos of the same nationality?
Answer: no