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Famous people all over the world

Category Archive: Science

Ibn Khaldun – historian and sociologist

Ibn Khaldun – historian and sociologist

Ibn Khaldun – historian and sociologist


Abd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad ibn Khaldun was Arab philosopher, historian and social thinker. He was one of the most original thinkers of the Middle Ages. He was also a politician and diplomat. In his treatise, the Muqaddima, he pioneered a general sociological theory of history.
Ibn Khaldun was born on May 27, 1332 in Tunis. He studied the traditional religious sciences including law according to the Maliki school. He also was trained in the arts. In 1345, his parents died of the plague, and he found employment at the court of the Hafsids.
In 1357 he was imprisoned for 22 months as he was suspected of plotting against the ruler.
In 1362 he went to Granada, where he was well received by the vizier, Ibn al-Khatib.
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Thomas Edison – American inventor

Thomas Edison - American inventor

Thomas Edison – American inventor

One day a little boy came home from school and gave a letter from a teacher to his mother. While reading a letter the mother was crying. Then suddenly she began to read a letter aloud to her son: “Your son is a genius. This school is too small and there are no teachers who can teach your son something. Please teach him yourself.”
Many years after his mother’s death, he found the letter. He opened it and read: “Your son is stupid. We can no longer teach him together with the others. Therefore, we recommend you to teach him at home.”
The boy’s name was Thomas Edison and by that time he had already become one of the greatest inventors of the century.
Edison sobbed for hours. Then he wrote in his diary: “Thomas Alva Edison was a stupid child. Thanks to his heroic mother, he became one of the greatest geniuses of his age.”
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Steve Jobs – creative genius

Steve Jobs – creative genius

Steve Jobs – creative genius

Steve Jobs has become a legend in the world of computers and gadgets and changed the way we all use technology.
Steven Paul Jobs was born on February 24, 1955 in San Francisco, California, and was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs.
In 1961, the family moved to Mountain View, California. This area was becoming a center of electronics, and soon people started to call it “Silicon Valley”. (Silicon is used to make all sorts of electronic parts.)
As a high school student, he boldly asked William Hewlett, co-founder and president of the Hewlett-Packard computer firm, for some parts he needed to complete a class project. Hewlett was impressed enough to give Jobs the parts and offer him a summer internship at Hewlett-Packard.
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Gerald Durrell – the friend of all animals

Gerald Durrell - the friend of all animals

Gerald Durrell – the friend of all animals

Gerald Durrell spent all his life in the company of wild animals and insects. His full name is Gerald Malcolm Durrell. He was an English naturalist, writer, founder of the Jersey Zoo and the Wildlife Fund.
Gerald was born in India on January 7, 1925. His mother often joked that his first word was ‘zoo’. When he was three years old his family moved to England, then to the Greek island of Corfu – to get away from the terrible English weather. With his mother, his sister Margo, and his brothers, Leslie and Larry, Gerald spent five years on the island. That was the start of his long career as an animal expert.
They lived in an old villa. One day Gerald found a big female scorpion with lots of light brown babies clinging to her back. He put them into a matchbox, put it on the mantelpiece and… forgot about his new pets. Suddenly he heard a scream from the sitting room. The scorpion and her babies ran all over the table, hiding under dishes and napkins. Gerald had to catch them with a tea-spoon.
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David Copperfield – King of magic

David Copperfield - King of magic

David Copperfield – King of magic

He is probably the most successful magician in history. He started practicing magic when he was 10. At the age of 12, he became the youngest member of the Society of American Magicians. By the age of 16, he was already teaching a course in magic at New York University.
He became famous at the age of 19, when he played the leading role in the musical The Magic Man. That’s when David Kotkin chose his stage name – ‘David Copperfield’ – from the famous novel by Charles Dickens.
David has won 11 Guinness World Records and 21 Emmy Awards for his TV series. He has received a Living Legend Award from the Library of Congress and has been knighted by the French government.
He was named ‘King of magic’ by the Society of American Magicians.
Copperfield’s most popular illusions include walking through the Great Wall of China, levitating over the Grand Canyon and making the Statue of Liberty disappear.
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Albert Einstein – the greatest scientist of the 20th century

Albert Einstein – the greatest scientist of the 20th century

Albert Einstein – the greatest scientist of the 20th century

Albert Einstein is one of the greatest scientists who ever lived. He dressed in wrinkled clothes and an old coat. He often forgot things. Once he used a $1,500 check to mark a page in a book. Then he lost the book! Science was more important to him than the ordinary things in life.
Albert Einstein was born in 1879 in Ulm, Germany. Albert didn’t speak until he was three years old. His grades in school were bad. The only thing he liked to do was play the violin. While he was in school, Einstein became more and more interested in math and physics. He wanted to find the answers to questions about the universe.
Einstein wanted to be a teacher. At age 17, he started college in Switzerland and graduated it in 1900. It was difficult to find a job and friend helped him get a job in a government office.
In 1905, Einstein published his theory of relativity. At first, other scientists laughed but it changed the world. Scientists looked at the universe in a new way. Einstein wrote the Theory of Gravity and the General Theory of Relativity. Without his theories lasers, computers, space travel and many other things that are familiar today would never have developed.
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Leonardo da Vinci – Man of Great Wisdom

Leonardo da Vinci – Man of Great Wisdom

Leonardo da Vinci – Man of Great Wisdom

Outstanding Italian artist, scientist, engineer and anatomist, one of the prominent members of the arts and sciences of the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452 in the village near the town of Vinci. In addition to world renowned paintings and sculptures, Leonardo left behind manuscripts in many areas of knowledge. He studied mathematics, hydromechanics, geology and physical geography, meteorology, chemistry, astronomy, botany, anatomy and physiology of humans and animals. His work had a strong influence on artists throughout Europe, and his scientific ideas were centuries ahead of their time.
Leonardo lived with his father in Florence. Over the years, he bad four step mothers and eleven stepsisters and stepbrothers. At the age of 15, Leonardo went to work with a famous artist. By 20, he was a master painter. Leonardo was so talented that one day one of his teachers threw down his brushes and never painted again.
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