Leonardo da Vinci   Italy : Artistic and Scientific Genius Birth : 1452 Death : 1519 Leonardo da Vinci was an astonishingly gifted person. The world knows him mainly as the painter of ‘Mona Lisa’, the most famous painting in history. He also distinguished himself as an inventor, mathematician, engineer, naturalist and anatomist. Few people in the history have been so highly gifted as Vinci. He was, in fact, a towering...

Donald Bradman   Australia : Doyen Among the Cricketers Birth :1908   Died: 2001 Donald Bradman is one of the world’s greatest living cricketers. On the basis of average run score, Bradman can easily be declared as the greatest batsman of the century. In 52 test matches Bradman collected 5,996 runs, at an average of 99.94 runs per innings. He also hit 29 centuries in test matches which was a record until...

Lu Shun   China : Famous Writer Birth :1881        Death : 1936 Lu Shun was a contemporary of Munshi Prem Chand and as a writer, stands a fair comparison with him. Both took up the case of weaker and exploted sections of society and tried to remove the cobwebs of hypocrisy and superstitions. Both knew intimately the stark realities of the rural life in their respective countries. Again, like Prem...

Ravi Shankar   India : Great Sitarist As an exponent of Indian music and incomparable sitarist Pandit Ravi Shankar enjoys great popularity all over the world. He has made a very notable contribution- in popularising Indian music in foreign countries. All his performances given abroad, in USA, Europe and Australia, have proved a tremendous success. The Westerners have been enraptured by Ravi Shankar’s music and they also derive some spiritual satisfaction...

Sir Isaac Newton   England : Physicist and Mathematician Birth :1642        Death : 1727 Sir Isaac Newton was the most respected and perhaps the greatest scientist ever produced by Britain. Newton was much inspired by the Italian scientist Galileo and carried forward his task of laying the foundation of modem science based on experimental proofs. Newton gave many a new and original idea and made a number of scientific discoveries...

Maxim Gorky   Soviet Union Famous Writer Birth : 1868                 Death : 1936 Maxim Gorky was a writer of the people in the real sense of the term. He had a first-hand knowledge of the sufferings of the common man and in his writings, we find the moving details of the cruelties and injustices to which the people of Russia were subjected in the pre-revolutionary days. Gorky longed to see...

Karl Marx   Germany : Father of Communism Birth :1818                  Death : 1883 The philosophy of Karl Marx has had the single greatest influence on the political, institutions of the twentieth century. Ideologically, the entire world today is divided into two camps-those who believe in Communism and those who are opposed to it. Marx studied very closely the functioning of the capitalist society in the 19th century Europe and from...

Socrates   Greece : Renowned Philosopher Birth :470 B.C.           Death : 400. B.C. Socrates is considered to be the wisest man of the ancient world. Socrates relentlessly pursued truth in all spheres of life. For finding truth, he used the method of questions and answers. He would put certain question and invite answers. To answers thus received, he would again put some question and in this process ultimately arrived at...