George Clooney — George Timothy Clooney (born May 6, 1961) is an American actor, film director, producer, and screenwriter. For his work as an actor, he has received three Golden Globe Awards and an Academy Award. Clooney is also noted for his political activism, and has served as one of the United Nations Messengers of Peace since January 31, 2008. …

Galileo Galilei was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the scientific revolution. His achievements include the first systematic studies of uniformly accelerated motion, improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations, and support for Copernicanism. Galileo’s empirical work was a significant break from the abstract Aristotelian approach of his time. The motion of …

The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter’s Mill, in Coloma, California. News of the discovery brought some 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States and abroad. Of the 300,000, approximately half arrived by sea and half came overland. The gold-seekers, called “Forty-niners” (as …

Freddie Mercury was born on the Tanzanian island of Zanzibar, on the 5th of September 1946. His parents, Bomi and Jer Bulsara, sent him off to a private school in India, from 1955 til 1963. In 1964 Freddie and his family flew to England. Freddie was very delighted to come to England. In 1966 he started his education at the …

Francis Fukuyama — Renowned for declaring ‘the End of History’ after the fall of the Soviet Union, Yoshihiro Francis Fukuyama is professor of international political economy at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University and author most recently of America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy. Fukuyama is best known as the author of …

Feroz Khan was born in Bangalore, India. His father was Sadiq Ali Khan Tanoli, who was a Pathan originally from Ghazni province of Afghanistan and his mother (Fatima) came from Iran. He has three brothers Sanjay Khan, Sameer Khan and Akbar Khan. After his schooling from Bangalore, he arrived in Mumbai where he made his debut as second lead in …

Erik Weihenmayer (born September 23, 1968) is the first blind person to reach the summit of Mount Everest, on May 25, 2001. He also completed the Seven Summits in September 2002. His story was covered in a Time article in June 2001 titled Blind to Failure. He is the author of Touch the Top of the World: A Blind Man’s …

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was born on 29 October 1938, in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, amongst the descendants of original colonists of Liberia. These descendants are known in Liberia as Americo-Liberians. Sirleaf’s father Jahmale Carney Johnson became the first Liberian from an indigenous ethnic group to sit in the country’s national legislature. Sirleaf studied economics and accounts from 1948 to …

Francois Quesnay was a French economist of the Physiocratic school. The physiocrats were a group of economists who believed that the wealth of nations was derived solely from the value of land agriculture or land development. Their use of the term laissez faire meant that the only legitimate form of government revenue derived from the value of land. Their theories …

Dr. Karni Singh — Maharaja of the erstwhile princely state of Bikaner, Karni Singh was a legendary shooter in the Indian shooting circuit. A shooter par excellence, Singh was world renowned for his outclassed talent and brilliant performance. However, he did not restrict himself to shooting and had varied interests as well. This is well reflected from the fact that …