Biographies of people who made a difference and shaped our world. Short profiles for children on men and women who changed our world with path breaking ideas and actions. Personalities include statesmen, leaders, political thinkers, inventors, scientists, artists, writers, actors, sports persons and achievers.
63 items in this section. Displaying page 4 of 7
Pele
Born Edson Arantes Do Nascimento in Tres Coracoes, Brazil on October 3, 1940, Pele was perhaps the greatest of all soccer players. Nicknamed Dico by his family, he was called Pele by his soccer friends. A supremely gifted athlete, he started playing soccer as a teenager, and soon he was playing as well as seasoned veterans. He was discovered at the age of eleven by one of Brazil’s premier players Waldemar De Brito. Four years later De Brito brought Pele to Sao Paulo and inducted him in the Santos club....
Nikola Tesla – Unsung Prophet of Electrical Age
If you ask anyone or check up in the encyclopaedia, who invented the radio or X-rays, chances are you will never come across the name of Nikola Tesla there. Look up fluorescent bulb, neon lights, car ignition system, electron microscope, microwave oven and many others – you can search page after page but your search will turn up zilch on Tesla in any normal reference book. In fact very few have heard of Nikola Tesla, a brilliant scientist who lived at the turn of the century....
Indira Gandhi
Indira Gandhi, née Indira Priyadarshini Nehru (1917-1984), was born on November 19, 1917, in Allahabad, the only child of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India. A graduate of Visva-Bharati University, Bengal, she also studied at the University of Oxford, England. In 1938 she joined the National Congress party and became active in India’s independence movement. In 1942 she married Feroze Gandhi, a Parsi lawyer also active in the party. Shortly after, both were arrested by the British on charges of subversion and spent 13 months in prison....
Aung San Suu Kyi
Aung San Suu Kyi was born on June 19, 1945 as the daughter of national leader General Aung San (assassinated July 19, 1947) and Daw Khin Kyi. She was educated in Rangoon, Burma until she was 15 years old. In 1960 she accompanied her mother to Delhi, India on her appointment as Burmese ambassador to India and Nepal. Kyi studied politics at Delhi University. She earned a BA in philosophy, politics and economics from St. Hugh’s College, Oxford University....
Muhammad Ali
American boxer Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr, was born on January 17, 1942 in Louisville, Kentucky. Better known as Muhammad Ali, he was perhaps the most celebrated sports figure in the world during most of the 1960s and ’70s. His rise to prominence may be attributed to a combination of circumstances his role as a spokesman for and idol of blacks; his vivacious personality; his dramatic conversion to the Black Muslim religion; and most important, his staying power as an athlete....
Marilyn Monroe
Born Norma Jeane Baker on June 1, 1926 in Los Angeles, Marilyn Monroe became one of the most celebrated film personalities of her time. Though much has been made of Marilyn’s personal history, her life was the classic show-business tragedy. Stardom seemed a burden; being an international sex goddess, even more so. In 1946 she decided to change her name to Marilyn Monroe. Her career was launched with a role in All about Eve in 1950....
R.K. Narayan
Nearly 70 years ago, India’s greatest living writer in English, took out a brand new exercise book and wrote in it: “It was Monday morning.” With those four words, Rasipuram Krishnaswamy Narayan (just R.K. Narayan to most) took off on a journey to that oddly populated fictional continent called Malgudi, with the young boy Swami and his eclectic mix of friends. “The very first line I wrote was ‘It was Monday morning.’ And then I had an idea of a railway station, a very small railway station, a wayside station....
Dalai Lama
His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet was born in 1935, soon after the 13th Dalai Lama passed away. He was the fourth son of a poor peasant family in Takster village, Amdo province in eastern Tibet. The line of Dalai Lamas, spiritual and temporal rulers of Tibet since the 13th century, is a succession of incarnations. In accordance with tradition, search parties were sent to find the successor to the thirteenth Dalai Lama. Two years later, following the various signs and portents, a government party was led to Takster, where they found the infant Lhamo Thondup....
Vaikom Mohammed Basheer
We Indians are story-lovers. We were all, at one point or the other, children at our grandmother’s feet, listening wide-eyed to her tales of days long gone. And if we love to hear stories, there are many among us who love to tell them as well. Nowhere is this truer than in the world of Indian languages. India abounds in storytellers who write in their mother tongue. There are several reasons why such writers are special....
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rohihlahla Mandela, b. July 18, 1918, was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Trained as an attorney, he helped form the Youth League of the African National Congress (ANC) in 1944. In 1961 he abandoned peaceful protest and became head of the ANC’s new military wing. Sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964, Mandela came to symbolize black political aspirations and was named head of the ANC after his release on Feb....