一 . William Shakespeare
English playwright and poet William Shakespeare, who lived in the late 1500s and early 1600s, is regarded as the greatest dramatist in the history of English literature. His plays include historical works such as Richard II, comedies, including As You Like it, and tragedies, such as Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear. He had a profound understanding of human nature and human behavior, and he was able to communicate this knowledge
through the wide variety of characters he created in his plays. Though recognized in much of the world as the greatest of all dramatists, he surprisingly didn't attend the university after graduated from a grammar school due to taking the
responsibility of the eldest son in family and becoming an apprentice to learn the business in his father's shop. The
school's rigorous curriculum was based largely on the study of Latin and the major classical writers, which influenced Shakespeare's writing a lot. But it was the mundane life experience during his apprentice time provided those vivid images in Shakespeare's mind.
In late 1580s, Shakespeare went to London and worked in the theatre as a handy man, who sometimes prompted the stage lines to the actors or played an insignificant role in the play. His talent of drama writing first appeared when he tried to revise the old scripts because the theatre's immediate requirements of different scripts everyday. During the
summer of 1592 to the spring of 1594 because of plague, many theaters were closed, which led to Shakespeare's losing job. He seized the chance to read a large number of books and improved himself, which eventually made him stand out conspicuously after the plague.
二． Gandhi
Gandhi was a major political and spiritual leader of India during
the Indian independence movement. He was the pioneer of satyagraha resistance to tyranny through mass civil
disobedience, firmly founded upon ahimsa or total non-violence ---- which led India to independence and has inspired
movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. He is commonly known around the world as Mahatma Gandhi 'Great Soul' . He is officially honored in India as the Father of the Nation.
He first employed non-violent disobedience while an expatriate lawyer in South Africa. → faced discrimination directed at Indians; thrown off the train after refusing to move from the first class to a third class while holding a valid first class ticket.
It was through witnessing firsthand the racism, prejudice and injustice against Indians in South Africa that Gandhi started to question his people's status within the British Empire, and his own place in society.
Gandhi launched a new satyagraha against tax on salt in March 1930, highlighted by the famous Salt March to Dandi from 12 March to 6 April, marching 400 kilometers (248 miles) from Ahmedabad to Dandi, Gujarat to make salt himself. Thousand
of Indians joined him on this march to the sea. The government decided to negotiate with Gandhi and later agreed to set all political prisoners free, who were imprisoned in the salt movement.
三． Frederick Douglass 美国废奴运动领袖
Douglass, whose original name was Frederick Augustus Bailey was born in 1817 in Talbot County, Maryland. He was born a slave due to the law that children followed the status of their mothers. At the age of seven or eight, Frederick was sent to Baltimore to the home of Hugh and Sophia Auld. Sophia Auld began to teach Frederick to read from Bible until her husband forbade such instruction. Having used the books belonging to Sophia Auld's son to teach himself secretly, Frederick had already learned basic literacy skills. By standing the work The Columbian, which he bought as his first book, Frederick
became convinced of the injustice of slavery and the right of all people to be free. From the book he also learned public speaking techniques that would later make him one of the greatest orators of his age. When Frederick was 17, the Auld found him too independent and sent him to work for Edward Covey, a 'slave breaker' who specialized in shattering the spirit of rebellious slaves. Covey had Frederick beaten daily for the slightest violation of impossibly strick rules. After nearly 6 months Frederick resisted Covey, wrestling him to a dra in a fight, after which Covey never attempted to beat him again. Frederick described his conflict with Covey as 'the
turning point of my life as a slave'. Before the battle Frederick believed he was 'nothing', but after it, he emphatically wrote :'I was a man now.'
In September 1838 Frederick obtained papers supplied by a free black seaman and, dressed as a sailor just back from sea duty, took a train from Baltimore to NY.
He made his way to the way to the home of David Ruggles, one
of the leading black abolitionists in the nation, and began to work for the abolition of slavery. He wrote 3 autobiographies, which were widely read, and published a newspaper that
discussed the evils of slavery and discrimination. Later as the agent for the lager American Anti-Slavery Society, he traveled throughout much of the North, speaking at antislavery
meetings, giving public lectures and helping to recruit members for the societies.
At his death in 1895, Douglass had already established his reputation as the foremost African American spokesperson of the 19th century as well as one of the nation's most effective orators and activists. 四． Alfred Nobel
Alfred Nobel, Swedish chemist, inventor, and philanthropist, was born in Stockholm and received an education in Saint Petersburg, Russia and in United States, where he studied mechanical engineering. He returned to Saint Petersburg to work under his father, developing mines, torpedoes, and other explosives.
In a family-owned factory in Sweden, he sought to develop a safe way to handle nitroglycerin, after a factory explosion in 1864 killed his younger brother and four other people. In 1866 Nobel achieved his goal; by using an organic packing material to reduce the volatility of the nitroglycerin, he produced what he called dynamite. He later produced ballistae, one of the first smokeless powders. At the time of his death he controlled factories for the manufacture of explosives in many parts of the world.
Yet, Nobel was very humble and had no desire to hunt fame and wealth. He lived very simply, donating most money to the
scientific development. After his own experiments led him to the lucrative invention of dynamite, Alfred Nobel established a fund to reward other innovators \to the benefit of mankind.\most highly regarded awards an individual can receive and are given in the areas of chemistry, physics, physiology or medicine, literature, and peace, and economics was introduced in honor in 1968. The awards reflect the interdisciplinary interests of the man himself; in addition to performing valuable chemical
research, Nobel spoke several languages, traveled widely, and wrote poetry. 五．Van Gogh
Vincent Van Gogh, Dutch postimpressionist painter, a leader in the development of expressionism in painting, was famous for his creating expressive paintings characterized by intense color and turbulent brush strokes.
Actually, Vincent Van Gogh hadn't got systematic and thorough study in painting or arts. He left grammar school to become an apprentice at an art dealership in the Hague, then a French tutor, a theological student, and an evangelist among the
miners at Wasmes in Belgium. During the nearly two years he spent living among the miners and sharing their poverty, he lost his faith, but he found in art the possibility of a new career. Van Gogh was mostly self-taught as an artist, learning painting techniques by copying from prints.
In 1886 Van Gogh went to live with his brother, Théo, in Paris, where he became familiar with the new art movements
developing at the time. He came to know many of the younger artists, through whom he learned to admire the work of Japanese printmakers and effected the linear patterns and flat areas of color in Japanese prints on his style. Under the influence of the French painters, Van Gogh began to
experiment with current techniques. After he first saw the brighter color and less sentimental subject matter of
impressionist painting, he began to abandon the dark colors of his early works for a much brighter and lighter palette. Van Gogh's works failed to find an appreciative audience during his lifetime, remaining unknown and silent until the 20th century when people got a steadily rising interests in them.
六．Galileo
Italian physicist and astronomer Galileo maintained that the earth revolved around the sun, disputing the belief held by the Roman Catholic church that the earth was the center of the universe. He refused to obey orders from Rome to cease