Barack Obama

U.S. President Born: 4 August 1961 Birthplace: Honolulu, Hawaii Best known as: President of the United States, 2009-present Name at birth: Barack Hussein Obama II Barack Obama is the 44th president of the United States and the first African-American president in American history. Barack Obama has spoken often of his multicultural background: his father was from Kenya, his mother from Kansas, and they met at the University of Hawaii. After his parents divorced and his father returned to Africa, Obama stayed with his mother and was raised in Indonesia and Hawaii. He earned an undergraduate degree from Columbia University in 1983 and a law degree from Harvard in 1991. He then joined the Chicago law firm of Miner, Barnhill & Galland, which specialized in civil rights legislation. He also taught constitutional law for 12 years at the University of Chicago. Barack Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996, and then to the U.S. Senate in 2004, beating Republican candidate Alan Keyes. Barack Obama shot to national fame after delivering a stirring keynote speech in support of John Kerry at the 2004 Democratic national convention. Obama ran for president in 2008, defeating a Democratic primary field that included New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, the former First Lady. He named Delaware senator Joe Biden to be his running mate at the Democratic Convention that August, and they defeated Republican nominees John McCain and Sarah Palin in the November general election. They took office on 20 January 2009. Barack Obama published the personal memoir Dreams from My Father in 1995, and published a second book, The Audacity of Hope, in 2006. The title of the latter book was also the title of his 2004 keynote speech, and both books won Grammys for best spoken word album. Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." He ran successfully for re-election in 2012, defeating Republican candidate Mitt Romney on November 6, 2012.

Extra credit: Barack Obama married the former Michelle Robinson in 1992. They have two daughters: Malia (b. 1998) and Sasha (b. 2001)... Barack Obama's father, also named Barack Obama, was black; his mother, Ann Dunham, was white. Obama's grandmother, Madelyn Dunham (nicknamed "Toot"), died the day before Obama was elected in 2008... Obama attended Occidental College in Los Angeles before completing his undergraduate degree at Columbia... Obama's Senate website

described him as "the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review" and "the third African American since Reconstruction to be elected to the U.S. Senate." The previous AfricanAmerican senators elected by popular vote were Edward Brooke (1967-79, from Massachusetts) and Carol Moseley-Braun (1993-99, from Illinois). Two other African-Americans were chosen by state senates to become U.S. Senators: Hiram Revels (1870-71, from Mississippi) and Blanche Bruce (1875-81, also from Mississippi)... His 2008 Grammy for The Audacity of Hope beat books by two former presidents: Bill Clinton's Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World and Jimmy Carter's Sunday Mornings in Plains: Bringing Peace to a Changing World.

Hillary Diane Rodham was born on 26th October 1947 as daughter of Hugh and Dorothy Rodham in Chicago, Illinois. Hillary was not the only child of the family - she had two brothers: Hugh and Tony. They grew up in Park Ridge, Illinois. Her father had a material factory and her mother was not employed. She loved sports and the church, and was a member of the National Honor Society, and a student leader. Her parents encouraged her to study hard and to pursue any career that interested her. 1965 Hillary attended the Wellesley college, which she finished with honour diploma and so she had got the opportunity to go to the school of the jurisprudence (rechtswissenschaft) in Yale. Here she developed her strong interest in the protection (schutz) of the rights of children and the families. At school she got to know Bill Clinton, a fellow student (komilitone, Studienkollege) at this tim After finishing school in 1973 she worked as a lawyer of the "Children's Defense Fund" In 1975 she married Bill Clinton and left Washington toward Arkansas. Both taught law at the university of Arkansas in Fayetteville. In 1978, President Jimmy Carter appointed her to the board of the Legal Services Corporation (Vorstand die Gerichtsdienstkorporation), and Bill Clinton became governor of Arkansas. Two years later their daughter Chelsea was born. Also in Arkansas Hillary Clinton support for the rights of children and families. Hillary served as Arkansas's First Lady for 12 years, balancing family, law, and public service. Hillary Clinton was Chairwoman of the "Arkansas Education Standard Committee". As the nation's First Lady, Hillary continued to balance public service with private life. Her active role began in 1993 when the President asked her to chair (vorzusitzen) the Task Force on National Health Care Reform. She wrote a weekly newspaper column entitled "Talking It Over," which focused on her experiences as First Lady and her observations of women, children, and families she has met around the world. Her book "It Takes a Village and Other Lessons Children Teach Us", written in 1996 was a best seller, and she received (erhalten) a Grammy Award for her recording of it. Hillary won many admirers (Verehrer) for her staunch (treue) support for women around the world and her commitment (Einsatz) to children's issues (Angelegenheiten). On 6th February 2000 she announced her candidacy to senator in the State of New York. In November 2000 she had won the choice. The American "Lawyer's of magazines" called Hillary as one of the TOP 100 lawyers of the country.

Mohatma Gandhi 2 October 1869[1] 30 January 1948), commonly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was the preeminent leader of Indian nationalism in British-ruled India. Employing non-violent civil disobedience, Gandhi led India to independence and inspired movements for non-violence, civil rights and freedom across the world.[2][3] The son of a senior government official, Gandhi was born and raised in a Hindu Bania community in coastal Gujarat, and trained in law in London. Gandhi became famous by fighting for the civil rights of Muslim and Hindu Indians in South Africa, using new techniques of non-violent civil disobedience that he developed. Returning to India in 1915, he set about organising peasants to protest excessive land-taxes. A lifelong opponent of "communalism" (i.e. basing politics on religion) he reached out widely to all religious groups. He became a leader of Muslims protesting the declining status of the Caliphate. Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, expanding women's rights, building religious and ethnic amity, ending untouchability, increasing economic self-reliance, and above all for achieving Swarajthe independence of India from British domination. Gandhi led Indians in protesting the national salt tax with the 400 km (250 mi) Dandi Salt March in 1930, and later in demanding the British to immediately Quit India in 1942, during World War II. He was imprisoned for that and for numerous other political offenses over the years. Gandhi sought to practice non-violence and truth in all situations, and advocated that others do the same. He saw the villages as the core of the true India and promoted self-sufficiency; he did not support the industrialization programs of his disciple Jawaharlal Nehru. He lived modestly in a selfsufficient residential community and wore the traditional Indian dhoti and shawl, woven with yarn he had hand spun on a charkha. His chief political enemy in Britain was Winston Churchill,[4] who ridiculed him as a "half-naked fakir."[5] He was a dedicated vegetarian, and undertook long fasts as means of both self-purification and political mobilization. In his last year, unhappy at the partition of India, Gandhi worked to stop the carnage between Muslims and Hindus and Sikhs that raged in the border area between India and Pakistan. He was assassinated on 30 January 1948 by a Hindu nationalist who thought Gandhi was too sympathetic to India's Muslims. 30 January is observed as Martyrs' Day in India. The honorific Mahatma ("Great Soul") was applied to him by 1914.[6] In India he was also called Bapu ("Father"). He is known in India as the Father of the Nation;[7] his birthday, 2 October, is commemorated there as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday, and world-wide as the International Day of Non-Violence. Gandhi's philosophy was not theoretical but one of pragmatism, that is, practicing his principles in real time. Asked to give a message to the people, he would respond, "My life is my message."[8]

William Henry "Bill" Gates III (born October 28, 1955)[4] is an American business magnate and philanthropist. Gates is the former chief executive and current chairman of Microsoft, the worlds largest personal-computer software company, which he co-founded with Paul Allen. He is consistently ranked among the world's wealthiest people[5] and was the wealthiest overall from 1995 to 2009, excluding 2008, when he was ranked third;[6] in 2011 he was the wealthiest American and the second wealthiest person.[7][8] During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of CEO and chief software architect, and remains the largest individual shareholder, with 6.4 percent of the common stock.[9] He has also authored and co-authored several books. Gates is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution. Gates has been criticized for his business tactics, which have been considered anti-competitive, an opinion which has in some cases been upheld by the courts.[10][11] In the later stages of his career, Gates has pursued a number of philanthropic endeavors, donating large amounts of money to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, established in 2000.[12] Gates stepped down as chief executive officer of Microsoft in January 2000. He remained as chairman and created the position of chief software architect. In June 2006, Gates announced that he would be transitioning from full-time work at Microsoft to part-time work, and full-time work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He gradually transferred his duties to Ray Ozzie, chief software architect, and Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer. Gates's last full-time day at Microsoft was June 27, 2008. He remains at Microsoft as non-executive chairman.

Christopher Columbus (Italian: Cristoforo Colombo; Spanish: Cristbal Coln; Portuguese: Cristvo Colombo; before 31 October 1451 20 May 1506) was an explorer, navigator, and colonizer, born in the Republic of Genoa, in what is today northwestern Italy.[2][3][4][5] Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents. Those voyages, and his efforts to establish permanent settlements on the island of Hispaniola, initiated the Spanish colonization of the New World. In the context of emerging western imperialism and economic competition between European kingdoms seeking wealth through the establishment of trade routes and colonies, Columbus's speculative proposal, to reach the East Indies by sailing westward, eventually received the support of the Spanish crown, which saw in it a promise, however remote, of gaining the upper hand over rival powers in the contest for the lucrative spice trade with Asia. During his first voyage in 1492, instead of reaching Japan as he had intended, Columbus landed in the Bahamas archipelago, at a locale he named San Salvador. Over the course of three more voyages, Columbus visited the Greater and Lesser Antilles, as well as the Caribbean coast of Venezuela and Central America, claiming them for the Spanish Empire. Though Columbus was not the first European explorer to reach the Americas (having been preceded by the Norse expedition led by Leif Ericson in the 11th century[6]), Columbus's voyages led to the first lasting European contact with the Americas, inaugurating a period of European exploration, conquest, and colonization that lasted for several centuries. They had, therefore, an enormous impact in the historical development of the modern Western world. Columbus himself saw his accomplishments primarily in the light of the spreading of the Christian religion.[2] Never admitting that he had reached a continent previously unknown to Europeans, rather than the East Indies he had set out for, Columbus called the inhabitants of the lands he visited indios (Spanish for "Indians").[7][8][9] Columbus's strained relationship with the Spanish crown and its appointed colonial administrators in America led to his arrest and dismissal as governor of the settlements on the island of Hispaniola in 1500, and later to protracted litigation over the benefits which Columbus and his heirs claimed were owed to them by the crown.

Albert Einstein was born at Ulm, in Wrttemberg, Germany, on March 14, 1879. Six weeks later the family moved to Munich, where he later on began his schooling at the Luitpold Gymnasium. Later, they moved to Italy and Albert continued his education at Aarau, Switzerland and in 1896 he entered the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich to be trained as a teacher in physics and mathematics. In 1901, the year he gained his diploma, he acquired Swiss citizenship and, as he was unable to find a teaching post, he accepted a position as technical assistant in the Swiss Patent Office. In 1905 he obtained his doctor's degree. During his stay at the Patent Office, and in his spare time, he produced much of his remarkable work and in 1908 he was appointed Privatdozent in Berne. In 1909 he became Professor Extraordinary at Zurich, in 1911 Professor of Theoretical Physics at Prague, returning to Zurich in the following year to fill a similar post. In 1914 he was appointed Director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Physical Institute and Professor in the University of Berlin. He became a German citizen in 1914 and remained in Berlin until 1933 when he renounced his citizenship for political reasons and emigrated to America to take the position of Professor of Theoretical Physics at Princeton*. He became a United States citizen in 1940 and retired from his post in 1945. After World War II, Einstein was a leading figure in the World Government Movement, he was offered the Presidency of the State of Israel, which he declined, and he collaborated with Dr. Chaim Weizmann in establishing the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Einstein always appeared to have a clear view of the problems of physics and the determination to solve them. He had a strategy of his own and was able to visualize the main stages on the way to his goal. He regarded his major achievements as mere stepping-stones for the next advance. At the start of his scientific work, Einstein realized the inadequacies of Newtonian mechanics and his special theory of relativity stemmed from an attempt to reconcile the laws of mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field. He dealt with classical problems of statistical mechanics and problems in which they were merged with quantum theory: this led to an explanation of the Brownian movement of molecules. He investigated the thermal properties of light with a low radiation density and his observations laid the foundation of the photon theory of light. In his early days in Berlin, Einstein postulated that the correct interpretation of the special theory of relativity must also furnish a theory of gravitation and in 1916 he published his paper on the general theory of relativity. During this time he also contributed to the problems of the theory of radiation and statistical mechanics. In the 1920's, Einstein embarked on the construction of unified field theories, although he continued to work on the probabilistic interpretation of quantum theory, and he persevered with this work in America. He contributed to statistical mechanics by his development of the quantum theory of a monatomic gas and he has also accomplished valuable work in connection with atomic transition probabilities and relativistic cosmology.

After his retirement he continued to work towards the unification of the basic concepts of physics, taking the opposite approach, geometrisation, to the majority of physicists. Einstein's researches are, of course, well chronicled and his more important works include Special Theory of Relativity (1905), Relativity (English translations, 1920 and 1950), General Theory of Relativity (1916), Investigations on Theory of Brownian Movement (1926), and The Evolution of Physics (1938). Among his non-scientific works, About Zionism (1930), Why War? (1933), My Philosophy (1934), and Out of My Later Years (1950) are perhaps the most important. Albert Einstein received honorary doctorate degrees in science, medicine and philosophy from many European and American universities. During the 1920's he lectured in Europe, America and the Far East and he was awarded Fellowships or Memberships of all the leading scientific academies throughout the world. He gained numerous awards in recognition of his work, including the Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London in 1925, and the Franklin Medal of the Franklin Institute in 1935. Einstein's gifts inevitably resulted in his dwelling much in intellectual solitude and, for relaxation, music played an important part in his life. He married Mileva Maric in 1903 and they had a daughter and two sons; their marriage was dissolved in 1919 and in the same year he married his cousin, Elsa Lwenthal, who died in 1936. He died on April 18, 1955 at Princeton, New Jersey.