Pervez Musharraf-The most Controversial Figure

Yet another negative influence in the present century is Pervez Musharraf who was a president cum dictator of the Pakistani state. He overtook the Pakistani territory from President Nawaz Sharif by executing a coup gathering a majority of the army under his influence. He was one of the most ruthless and ill mannered diplomats of recent times and strongly encouraged terrorist activities to be carried out on his nation’s soil. Under his regime, terrorist activities flourished in the Pakistani nation and the effect of his misdeeds proved to be fatal with certain parts of his country going beyond his control, which included the SWAT valley. The terrorists, whom he supported, later turned their backs on him and have started to show their ugly face by hitting out at the present day Pakistani government. The American think tank has suggested that it would be less than six months before the Muslim state of Pakistan breaks up into pieces and shambles. The reason cited by them is that the poor foreign policies of the previous government of Pakistan lead to an easy breeding of in house terrorists in Pakistan. These terrorists would be the main reason for the break up of Pakistan. Nevertheless, he has been one of the most controversial and influential figures in recent times.

Saddam Hussein's Lavish life

Influential can mean both negative and positive influences. Positive influences have been aimed at making the world a better place to live in, while negative influences have made the positive influences significant. If the world was full of positive influences, there wouldn’t be any significance to those influences. Only in the presence of negativity will there be any appreciation of positivity. One such negative influence is late Saddam Hussein, former president and dictator of the Middle eastern state of Iraq. His atrocities and cruelty towards the people of his own country made him a detested figure in his own country and was so unpopular even in his own home town. He amassed a great amount of wealth during his tenure as the 5th president of Iraq and his presidential residence consisted of golden doors and other symbols of royalty which clearly showed a mark of dictatorship at the cost of the poor man’s money. He lived a lavish life in Iraq with the money obtained from oil trade. It was only after the invasion of the United States of America that Saddam Hussein found a way to get mended. But he fought a determined war against his invaders and was finally caught and executed. Various cases were booked and he was executed for mass homicide which was carried out under his supervision.

Marie Curie in RadioActive Labs

Marie Curie- the name itself is enough to bring a lot of excitement in the minds of all those physics and chemistry enthusiasts. The very mention of the name would relate the name with noble prizes and the Davy medal apart from radioactivity and cancer treatment. Some of the greatest works in cancer treatment using radioactive elements were carried our jointly by Marie Curie and her husband Pierre Curie who worked along side Marie in the radioactive laboratories of the two. Ironically, Marie Curie died of cancer as a result of her constant exposure to radioactive elements with which she spent most of her life. Though a polish person by birth, she moved on to France where she did her studies and settled down. It was here that she met Pierre and married him. It was a family of sorts with her daughter and son- in- law too being recipients of noble prizes. She was the first woman to win the noble prize and the first person to win two noble prizes. She won a noble prize for physics and a noble prize for chemistry! She was a pioneer in cancer studies and also found two new elements- polonium and radium.

Benjamin Franklin and BiFocal Glasses

"If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.” This is a quote told by none other than Benjamin Franklin who is often referred to as the electric man. He is a polymath beyond comparison and had many firsts to his credit. First of all, he was one of the founders of the United States of America and had been famous for being a politician, diplomat, musician, scientist, inventor, statesman and printer. He had been responsible for a lot of inventions which in his time were never seen before. One of his most famous inventions was the bifocal glasses, without which much of the world’s population above 40 years of age would be in a fix (no pun intended). He invented the lightning rod which is similar to the modern day lightning arrestor. His famous experiment with a kite and a key to prove electricity in lightning is a legend among school children. His notes on the “Morals of Chess” is yet another notable work of this great statesman who did not leave any field untouched. In fact, he also served as an ambassador to France for a short period of time!

Barack Obama

I see your eyes going “gong” over this name popping up in between historical greats. I would love to term this person as one of the best persons in the history of mankind. America is one of the most powerful nations of the world and it is not easy to become the president of a nation with such great history and influence on the world’s economy and functioning. Though there have been other leaders who have held positions of power in the country, this person has a special significance attached to him. With a not so very influential life as a child, he was born to a mixed race of American and Kenyan parents. Later, his mother divorced his biological father and married an Indonesian and due to various reason Obama

had to move on to Indonesia before returning back to USA to study at the Columbia University and later at the Harvard law school. He is the first African- American to hold the presidential office and more than 300 years of racial prejudices has been broken into shambles with the election of Obama as the 44th president of the United States. Yes, we can! Was the most popular statement of 2008 and it was formed and implemented by Obama by becoming the first African- American President of the most powerful nation in the world.

William Harvey's Report on the Circulatory system

William Harvey was born in Folkestone, Kent, 1 April 1578. His father was a farmer and Harvey lead quite an influential life in England. He attended Oxford and his works on physiology, embryology, anatomy, medicine and entomology are still revered as one of the best in their respective fields. The work done on human anatomy and physiology, animal medicine and muscular system are some of the best till date and even today, his works are used as references in medical studies. He had performed more than 80 anatomical dissections of animals and insects and had extensively studied their structure inside out and had noted the, down in his lecture notes "De musculis" and "De motu locali animalium". The best of his work is on the circulatory system of man and its implications on human health. Without these wonderful works of Harvey, it is very difficult to imagine the plight of world medicine at present. Though present day technology provides numerous ways to extensively study the human body and its functions, William Harvey had done these studies nearly 500 years back without the aid of any technologies. He had constructed a detailed report on the circulatory system which is still unsurpassed after almost 500 years.

Che Guevara-A military theorist

Every one of us would have seen the picture of Che Guevara in his trademark military suit and cap. The most influential guerilla leaders of all times, Che Guevara fought for the welfare of the poor and down trodden. He was mainly concentrating on guerilla warfare in the south Americas before moving on to Congo and Bolivia. All his warfare techniques were well received by both the people and at times even by governments. The only time he faced great criticism was when he went forward to help Congo in setting up guerilla warfare against the ruling government. This maneuver was documented by Guevara himself as “The history of a failure”. The photograph of Guevara has been voted as the most famous photographs and the most identified of all times. He is also in the list of 100 most influential men in the Times Magazine’s millennium edition. Alongside Cuban president Fidel Castro, Che Guevara led many revolutions and helped catapult Fidel Castro to the fame which he enjoys at present. Guevara, after his death became a cult following and many of the world’s present day revolutionaries use his symbol to identify themselves as people who fight for a cause.

Hugo Chavez-A Hero against Corruption

One of the most influential and prosperous nations of South America- Venezuela is the home land of this famous personality- Hugo Chavez. One of the most controversial figures in the Venezuelan history, Chavez has the reputation of running a failed coup in the year 1992 against the then President Carlos Perez. This coup arose due to the growing dissatisfaction among the working classes of Venezuela who wanted a change. This uprising catapulted Chavez’s reputation among the nation’s poor and showed him as a hero who had the guts to stand up against corruption. He came into power in the year 1999 and there was a revamp of the Venezuelan constitution. He brought various reforms and changes to the constitution. Though the government under Chavez is well received by people of his country, there are rampant talks about a failed administration and increased corruption by the American government. Chavez has been a fierce critic of American foreign policy. He has been instrumental in building several energy and power infrastructure projects in South America. Oil industries have begun to flourish under his reign bringing in profits in the form of important revenues for the country. Though there might be hatred against this leader, his guts and courage to stand up against corruption is indeed commendable!

Enrico Fermi and Quantum Mechanics

Enrico Fermi was responsible for the development of the first nuclear reactor and he was a pioneer in the field of particle physics and quantum mechanics. He was inclined towards spreading an idea about the idea of quantum mechanics and particle physics to the academia and industries. He helped various nations in setting up nuclear reactors for generating low cost pollution free power. He is most famous for his work on induced radioactivity and has an element Fermium named after him, dedicated to his contributions to the field of physics. He was an unique blend of theoretical and practical physics and had an established accomplishment in both theory and practice. This was unique as not many of his time were well versed in both. He was awarded the noble prize for his works on induced radioactivity. If at all nuclear power generation is famous at present, it is due to the works which were done by Fermi in his early career. The Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is named after him. An Italian by birth, most of his research works were in the USA and he died at Chicago, USA. His early inventions included a gyroscope to measure the earth’s gravitational field.

Henry Ford-The pioneer of Welfare Capitalism

If you had ever wondered who is responsible for the cars running on the roads, it would be none other than Henry Ford who is one of the best known inventors of recent times. He has more than 160 patents awarded to him. He is responsible for the Model T cars running on almost all the roads of the world. The Model T cars have the steering on their left and it was Henry Ford who introduced this type of cars in the market. He also introduced the present range of cars where the engine and the entire transmission system were enclosed and a suspension system was done with elliptical springs. He was also responsible for automatic car assembly lines often referred to as “fordism”. Fordism resulted in drastic reduction in car prices and also improved quality s all the assembly work was done by automated processes. Ford did not believe in accounts and his company, even after becoming one of the largest in the world went on without having an auditor auditing its accounts. Ford was the pioneer of welfare capitalism and always strived hard for the welfare of the workers of his company. He is indeed a father of modern day transportation!

Archimedes-The Greatest Mathemetician of antiquity

Who could ever forget the mathematical and natural sciences genius Archimedes? Born almost 300 years before the birth of Christ, Archimedes was one such person who shaped the world of physics and mathematics for eternity. Though hard to believe, his principles are still being used in present day physics. It is not possible to forget how he got out of the bath tub and ran on the streets of Sicily to inform the king about the novel way he found out to find out the purity of gold. His numerous inventions included the pulley system which is still being used to draw water from wells and in construction sites! It is really hard to comprehend the fact that a simple invention made 2000 years back is still being sued without the slightest change to it! Such were his contributions to the natural sciences. The city of Syracuse used the services of Archimedes to design various war machines which were used in the defense of the country. Archimedes was not left in the lurch by the country after a long time. In the year 1983, the Italian government released a stamp in honor of this scientific great who is called as the father of integral calculus. No wonder he is still being called as one of the most influential person to have ever lived!

Srinivasa Ramanujan-Really a genius

Mathematicians have always held the imagination of scores of people for centuries. The world masses believe that the world runs around by works of these great and mysterious men who work and play around with numbers. Srinivasa Ramanujan was one of the mathematicians whom the world would not forget forever. His work on prime numbers is yet to be understood by the best of the best mathematicians of the present day. His apparently short life span of just over 30 years made him one of the youngest mathematicians who achieved so much in such a short span of life. He was born in a small town in South India and lived in abject poverty. Though he starved in poverty, he didn’t lose his interest towards mathematics and continued to write his research papers even during the toughest times of his life. He sent his papers to the several English mathematicians, only to be rejected by them as just another person who tried to impress them with illogical equations. It took an English mathematician Hardy to discover the numerical genius in Ramanujar. After going to England, Ramanujar suffered due to the weather and non- availability of vegetarian food. His health began to deteriorate with each passing day. He finally breathed his last at the young age of 32. Though he expired at such a young age, he did things which even an 80 year old person would have not done in his lifetime

Charles Babbage-The father of Computer

The present day world is sure to be crippled without a marvel of the universe- the computers. Computers are something which have become completely indispensable in the present day scenario. The effect of computers have reached far and beyond just mathematical calculations and database management solutions. Computers are used literally in almost every field of modern day technology and it is not fair to constrain the use of computers to one particular field. The fore runner to all present day computers was the analytical machine built by the mathematical genius Charles Babbage who admittedly did not have much of a formal training in mathematics! His first device, the difference engine made it possible to calculate the logarithmic table through machinery. He later went on to develop and make addition to the difference machine to bring out the analytical engine which was the first forerunner to present day computers. The machine was so advanced for its time that people thought that the world has reached the pinnacle in technology! Nevertheless, it is true that the world reached its pinnacle in technology at that year in which the great scientist Babbage introduced the first “computer” to the world’s masses for making the world a really better place to live in!