Showing results for "The Creative Mind" in History

Growing up in the 1830s, Louis Pasteur saw the horrifying effects of diseases like rabies and tuberculosis. Filled with curiosity and imagination, Pasteur began a lifelong search for answers to his many questions about diseases. Although many scientists disagreed with his unusual ideas, his discoveries made him famous. Through his dedication and insight, Pasteur saved millions of lives and laid the groundwork for future medical advancements.

A musical prodigy, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart began playing the piano and composing when he was just three years old. Able to play multiple instruments, among them the piano and violin, Mozart spent much of his youth touring European courts with his family. From the time he was three until his death just thirty-two years later, he produced a huge volume of musical works. Among them the famed operas The Magic Flute, The Marriage of Figaro, and Don Giovanni.

When Jules Verne was born in 1828, his family had his future planned out for him. They expected him to become a lawyer, but he dreamed of writing. He started out writing more traditional poetry and plays, but then he began to create a new, unconventional kind of fiction. It combined adventure, the modern world of science and invention, and his personal view of the future. With fantastical characters, spaceships to the moon, and deep-sea submarines, his books told of things that would not actually occur for decades.

Born a Quaker, Susan B. Anthony grew up being taught that women were equal to men. During her lifetime, she was a teacher, a newspaperwoman, and an activist. She worked to further many causes such as the temperance, the abolitionist, and women's rights movements. Although she didn't live to see her dreams of women's suffrage come true, her tireless dedication to the cause was crucial to its success.

Abigail Adams lived through the Revolutionary War and became the First Lady of the second president of the United States. Though women of her time could not vote, govern, or own property, Abigail believed that women should not be ruled by laws they did not make. Although she did not see these rights come to women, she never gave up talking, writing, and perhaps most important, believing that women were equal to men. Her courage and strength enabled her to help her husband create a new country. She never fired a gun, but her pen was a weapon that helped win freedom for her country—and herself.

When George Eastman decided to make photography his hobby, "simple" was hardly the word to describe the pastime. He had to lug 50 pounds of camera equipment around with him, including the fragile glass plates that would become pictures. But resourceful George wasn't one to put up with such inconvenience for long. Click! is the story of how George Eastman developed a camera simple enough for anyone to use―the Kodak, predecessor of today's pocket instamatics―and forever revolutionized photography.

Although he is credited with changing history through his invention of printing, Johann Gutenberg remains mysterious. In Fine Print, author Joann Johansen Burch pieces together Gutenberg's amazing story.

In 1803, Meriwether Lewis was offered the chance of a lifetime. The president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, asked him to lead an expedition across North America, through the Louisiana Territory and Oregon Country to the Pacific Ocean. Lewis jumped at the opportunity and called on his friend William Clark to share in the command of the exploration. The two men organized a small unit of volunteers they called the Corps of Discovery. They had little idea of what dangers lay ahead in the mysterious lands.

America’s sixth president and son of America’s second president, John Quincy Adams lived an extraordinary life. Beginning as a young boy as secretary for his father during the peace talks that ended the Revolutionary War, Adams served his country as a diplomat, state senator, secretary of state, the president, and as a representative in congress. Through his many speeches, essays, books, and written reports, Adams helped shape America. Today, he is remembered as a great statesman, a scholar, and a poet, just as he hoped he would be.