Albert Einstein 1879

1
Albert Einstein 1879 1955 He bumped Newton from
the pinnacle of physics and painted a fantastic
new picture of our universe. In the process,
Albert Einstein changed the political and
scientific balance of power in our century and
for the foreseeable future.
2
Henry Ford 1863 1947 His revolutionary assembly
line enabled him to sell his cars at a price the
average American family could afford, and to
double his workers' wages while cutting hours.
What had been a toy of the rich became a
necessity of life, spawning gas stations,
superhighways and traffic jams around the world.
3
Sigmund Freud 1856 1939 Freud's emphasis on the
power of the unconscious to influence behavior
broadened our view of human nature and sexuality
and gave rise to the age of self-examination.
4
Mohandas Gandhi 1869 1948, Gandhi's powerful
strategy, called satyagraha, involved nonviolent
noncooperation, boycotts of all things British,
civil disobedience, marches and fasts. His
methods use for Indian independence have been
adopted by protest movements throughout the
world.
5
Adolf Hitler 1889 1945 Along with his mastery
of propaganda, his ideology of racial purity and
his ruthless political skills, Hitler possessed a
diabolical personal magnetism. By the time Hitler
was defeated in 1945, as many as 77 million
people had died, leaving him responsible for more
death than any other man in the history of the
world.
6
Edwin Hubble 1889 1953 His 1924 discovery that
the Andromeda nebula is located beyond the known
boundaries of the Milky Way forced other
astronomers to revise their thinking The
existence of multiple galaxies meant the universe
was far larger than imagined.
7
Helen Keller 1880 1968 An illness when she was
19 months old left her deaf, blind and mute. With
the help of a teacher named Anne Sullivan -- "the
miracle worker" -- Helen Keller learned to
understand language, read, write, hear, and
speak. She remains proof that disability does not
mean inability.
8
Martin Luther King 1929 1968 Martin Luther King
Jr.'s crusade for equality started with a protest
of the bus system in Montgomery, Ala., in 1955,
and peaked in the nation's capital. King won the
Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, and in 1986 became
only the third American whose birthday is
observed as a national holiday. His call to "let
freedom ring" still resonates.
9
Vladimir Lenin 1870 1924 He led the October
1917 revolution that delivered Russia to the
Bolsheviks and started the worldwide spread of
the Soviet-style communism. A fighter against
czarist injustice he laid the foundation for
decades of totalitarianism.
10
Nelson Mandela 1918 2013 He roused South
Africa's black majority and sympathizers abroad
-- to rebel against the system of racial tyranny
known as apartheid. Nelson Mandela's courage and
resolve earned him a Nobel Peace Prize, the
presidency of his country and the admiration of
millions around the world.
11
Mao Zedong 1893 1976 His Long March lead the
Red Army, from resistance against the Japanese to
defeat of the Nationalists and the rise, in 1949,
of the People's Republic. A brilliant warrior,
Mao was a despotic dictator. Mao cast a giant
shadow on the world, and a darker one on his own
people.
12
Guglielmo Marconi 1874 1937, Guglielmo
Marconi's transmission of a signal the Morse
Code letter S -- across the Atlantic in 1901 was
a worldwide sensation. It opened the airwaves for
today's complex network of global communications.
13
Kwame Nkrumah 1909 1972 His radical push for
Ghanaian self-governance in the 1950s triggered
decolonization throughout the African continent,
which led to the end of European domination.
14
Orville (1871 1948) and Wilbur (1867 1912)
Wright In 1903, Orville and Wilbur succeeded in
flying the first powered airplane. Flight time
12 seconds. Mankind's view of the world -- and of
its own power -- had changed forever.