The English writer and social critic Charles John Huffam Dickens FRSA was born on 7 February 1812 in London and died on 9 June 1870 in London. Many consider him the greatest novelist of the Victorian era for creating some of the world’s most famous fictional characters. In the early 20th century, critics and scholars…
The spiritual teacher Gautama Buddha, born in the Indian subcontinent as Prince Siddhartha, was the founder of Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, Gautama’s life, his discourses, and his monastic rules were summed up after his death and memorized by his disciples. About 400 years ago, various collections of his teachings were first committed to writing….
Marguerite Annie Johnson, better known as Maya Angelou, was an American poet, memoirist, and actress whose several volumes of autobiography focused on racial, economic, and sexual oppression. Angelou was born in St. Louis but spent the majority of her childhood in rural Stamps, Arkansas, where she was raised by her paternal grandmother. She was raped…
Benjamin Franklin was a statesman, author, publisher, scientist, inventor and diplomat who occupied a prominent place in early American history. Benjamin Franklin, born into a Boston family of modest means, received little formal education. In Philadelphia, he established a successful printing business and became extremely wealthy. Among other things, Franklin helped start a lending library,…
Albert Einstein German-born physicist (born March 14, 1879, Ulm, Württemberg, Germany – Died April 18, 1955, Princeton, New Jersey, US) who developed general and special theories of relativity and won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921 for explaining the photoelectric effect. A notable physicist of the 20th century, Einstein is generally regarded as one…
Ancient Greek philosopher and scientist Aristotelus (born 384 BCE in Stagira, Chalcidice, Greece – died 322, Chalcis, Euboea), one of the greatest intellectual figures of Western history. Christian Scholasticism and medieval Islamic philosophy owe a great deal to him since his philosophies and scientific systems were the framework and vehicle for both. Western thought remained…