Inspirational People Pages Archives - Page 3 of 5

Jane Goodall

Posted on April 28, 2020May 4, 2020 by adrian@webdesigncity.co.uk

NAME: Jane Goodall

BORN: 3rd April 1934

JOB: Anthropologist, Ethologist, Primatologist

KEY FACTS: Jane Goodall grew up in London, England and always loved animals. She particularly liked chimpanzees and dreamt of going to Africa to see them in the wild. When she was 23yrs old, Jane made it to Africa and began a job studying chimpanzees in Tanzania. She has since devoted her life to studying these animals and is considered a world expert on chimpanzees.

ACHIEVEMENTS: Jane has won awards including the J Paul Getty Wildlife Conservation Prize and was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire at Buckingham Palace in 2004. She also has a plaque on the Tree of Life at Walt Disney World’s Animal Kingdom theme park.

Bill Gates

Posted on April 28, 2020April 28, 2020 by adrian@webdesigncity.co.uk

NAME: Bill Gates

BORN: 28th October 1955

JOB: Computer programmer, Entrepreneur

KEY FACTS: Bill Gates grew up in Seattle, Washington, USA. He took an interest in programming as a teenager, spending lots of time on the computer in his school. He went on to take graduate level computer science courses at Harvard. Gates took a ‘leave of absence’ from Harvard to start his own computer company (Microsoft) with his business partner. His involved him designing software and writing code. Microsoft launched its first retail version of Microsoft Windows in 1985 and went on to manage the company until 2006. It went on to become incredibly successful, earning Gates billions.

ACHIEVEMENTS: Gates is the founder of Microsoft and is one of the world’s highest-earning billionaires. He gives approximately half of his wealth to charities and good causes.

Galileo Galilei

Posted on April 27, 2020April 28, 2020 by adrian@webdesigncity.co.uk

NAME: Galileo Galilei (Italian)

BORN/DIED: 15th Feb 1564 – 8th Jan 1642

JOB: Astronomer, Physicist, Engineer, Philosopher, Mathematician

KEY FACTS: Galileo Galilei was born in Pisa, Italy. His father was a famous musician and he himself became an accomplished lute player. Galileo almost joined the priesthood but his father persuaded him to study medicine at university. Whilst at university he developed an interest in mathematics and chose to study this instead of medicine.

Galileo was influenced by the idea of a heliocentric solar system (sun-centric) developed by Nicolas Copernicus. He agreed with this view and built himself a telescope in order to view the planets. Soon his version of a telescope was used throughout Europe. His heliocentric views were controversial at the time as many people believed in a geocentric model in which the planets circled the Earth.

ACHIEVEMENTS: His achievements have led him to be called ‘the father of modern physics’, ‘the father of science’ and ‘the father of observational astronomy’. He made many groundbreaking observations including the phases of Venus, the discovery of Saturn’s rings, and the discover of some of Jupiters largest satellites.

Benjamin Franklin

Posted on April 27, 2020May 4, 2020 by adrian@webdesigncity.co.uk

NAME: Benjamin Franklin

BORN/DIED: 17th Jan 1706 – 17th April 1790

JOB: Political thinker and founding father of the USA, scientist and inventor.

KEY FACTS: Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston Massachusetts in the USA. He stopped going to school when he was 10 and gained most of his education from reading books. Throughout his career he excelled in many areas. He is best known as one of the founding fathers of the USA. He was also a scientist and inventor. He was interested in lots of areas including meteorology, wave theory of light and electricity. He designed an experiment to prove that lightening was electricity by flying a kite in a storm. He went on to invent the lightening rod amongst other things.

ACHIEVEMENTS: He earned the title of the ‘First American’ for his work as a founding father of America. He invented the lightening rod, glass harmonica (a glass musical instrument), Franklin stove (a metal fireplace designed to produce more heat and less smoke) and bifocal glasses (with near and long distance lenses).

Alexander Fleming

Posted on April 27, 2020May 4, 2020 by adrian@webdesigncity.co.uk

NAME: Alexander Fleming

BORN/DIED: 6th August 1881 – 11th March 1955

JOB: Biologist Botanist Pharmacologist

KEY FACTS: Alexander was born in Scotland, later moving to London to train to be a doctor. During World War 1 he worked near the battlefields as a doctor, treating wounded soldiers. He became particularly interested in research after witnessing many soldiers die from infected battle wounds. He hoped to find a cure and this research led to his discovery of penicillin. This discovery was accidental; Fleming had a reputation for being very messy and as a result, a mould releasing penicillin had grown in his laboratory. He noticed that bacteria didn’t grow near this mould and hence discovered the healing properties of penicillin.

ACHIEVEMENTS: He is best known for discovering penicillin and was awarded a Nobel Prize for this discovery.

Caterina Fake

Posted on April 27, 2020April 28, 2020 by adrian@webdesigncity.co.uk

NAME: Caterina Fake

BORN: 13 June 1969

JOB: Technology entrepreneur and businesswoman

KEY FACTS: Born in America, Fake began her career as a designer at a top development agency, working on websites for companies such as McDonalds and Nike. In 2002 she co-founded Flickr, one of the world’s most popular photosharing websites. She has since co-founded other popular websites.

ACHIEVEMENTS: In 2006, she was named by Time Magazine as one of the world’s 100 most influential people.

Picture by Robert Scoble from Half Moon Bay, USA (Cropped from Catarina Fake, co-founder of Flickr) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Amelia Earhart

Posted on April 27, 2020May 4, 2020 by adrian@webdesigncity.co.uk

NAME: Amelia Earhart

BORN/DIED: 24th July 1897 – 2nd July 1937 (the date she disappeared)

JOB: Pilot and aviation pioneer

KEY FACTS: Amelia was born in Kansas, USA and always had a strong sense of adventure. She was seen as a bit of a ‘tom-boy’ and once hurt herself whilst travelling down a home-made ramp, inspired by a rollercoaster she had seen. She also developed an interest in aeroplanes. She became determined to fly and worked hard to afford the flying lessons. She eventually succeeded, becoming the 16th woman to be issued with a pilots licence. She went on to be the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. in 1937, whilst attempting to fly around the world, Earhart’s plane disappeared and was never found.

ACHIEVEMENTS: She was the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She broke many records for this, becoming a celebrity figure. She also received the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross for this accomplishment.

Richard Dawkins

Posted on April 27, 2020May 4, 2020 by adrian@webdesigncity.co.uk

NAME: Richard Dawkins

BORN/DIED: 26th March 1941

Job: Evolutionary biologist, Author

KEY FACTS: Dawkins is English but lived in Kenya until he was 8 because of his fathers job. He was a Christian until his teenage years when he became interested in the theory of evolution. Dawkins studied zoology and went on to become a professor. He is best known for his books on evolution. He is an atheist (does not believe in a God).

ACHIEVEMENTS: Dawkins has won many awards for his books and often appears on TV and the radio to discuss his ideas.

Photo by David Shankbone – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11639311

Leonardo Da Vinci

Posted on April 27, 2020May 4, 2020 by adrian@webdesigncity.co.uk

NAME: Leonardo Da Vinci (Italian)

BORN/DIED: 15th April 1452 – 2nd May 1519

Job: Artist, Botanist, Inventor, Scientist

KEY FACTS: Leonardo was born in Florence, Italy. Little is known about his early life. When he was 14 he became apprenticed to a famous artist and went on to become a famous artist himself. However, he was interested in lots of other areas including architecture, mathematics, engineering, geology, astronomy and paleontology. He kept journals full of his sketches which included scientific sketches and drawings of ideas he had for inventions.
Leonardo was fascinated by fossils. He was ahead of his time in recognising that they contained the remains of prehistoric animals. He recorded these observations in his journals.

ACHIEVEMENTS: He is regarded as one of the most famous artists in history with paintings including ‘The Last Supper’ and the ‘Mona Lisa’. He is also remembered for his designs for inventions such as a flying machine.

Charles Darwin

Posted on April 27, 2020May 4, 2020 by adrian@webdesigncity.co.uk

NAME: Charles Darwin (English)

BORN/DIED:7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934

Job: Biologist, Geologist, Naturalist

KEY FACTS: Charles Darwin was born in England. He was the fifth of sixth children and his father was a wealthy doctor. Although his father wanted him to study medicine, Darwin decided to follow his interest in animals and the natural world. He is most famous for his work on natural selection. This is the idea that all species have evolved over time from common ancestors. He researched this idea when travelling around the world on the HMS Beagle to places like Australia and the Galapagos Islands. On his travels he also made lots of observations about what geology can tell us about the past, noting them down in his journal.

ACHIEVEMENTS: Darwin wrote many famous and influential books including ‘The Origin of the Species’ and ‘The Descent of Man’. He furthered scientific thinking on evolution.

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