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William Shakespeare
William Harvey
Christopher Wren
John Locke
Benjamin Franklin
Euler
James Watt
Mayer Rothschild
Johann Adam Weishaupt
Edward Jenner
Samuel Hahnemann

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) 

William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. His works consist of approximately 39 plays, 154 sonnets, and 2 long narrative poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. 

At the age of 18, he married and the couple had 3 children. When he was 25, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner of a theater company. At age 49 in 1613, he retired to Stratford, where he died 3 years later. 

Shakespeare's first plays were written in the conventional style of the day. He wrote them in a stylized language that does not always spring naturally from the needs of the characters or the drama. The poetry depends on extended, sometimes elaborate metaphors and conceits, and the language is often rhetorical—written for actors to declaim rather than speak. 

However, Shakespeare soon began to adapt the traditional styles to his own purposes. Shakespeare had begun to write a more natural poetry. He increasingly tuned his metaphors and images to the needs of the drama itself. 

Shakespeare combined poetic genius with a practical sense of the theater. He reshaped each plot to create several centers of interest and to show as many sides of a narrative to the audience as possible. This strength of design ensures that a Shakespeare play can survive translation, cutting and wide interpretation without loss to its core drama. As Shakespeare's mastery grew, he gave his characters clearer and more varied motivations and distinctive patterns of speech. He preserved aspects of his earlier style in the later plays. 

Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories, which are regarded as some of the best work ever produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth, considered some of the finest works in the English language. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances and collaborated with other playwrights. 

Shakespeare fled the town for London to escape prosecution for deer poaching in the estate of the local squire. He started his theatrical career minding the horses of theater patrons in London. 

Several of his plays were on the London stage by 1592. By then, he was sufficiently known in London to be attacked in print by reviewers and accused of “trying to reach above his rank in trying to match such university-educated writers as Christopher Marlowe and of being a second-rate tinkerer with the work of others, rather than a universal genius". 

After 1594, Shakespeare's plays were performed only by the Lord Chamberlain's Men, a company owned by a group of players, including Shakespeare, that soon became the leading playing company in London. After the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603, the company was awarded a royal patent by the new King James I, and changed its name to the King's Men. 

"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts..." 

In 1599, a partnership of members of the company built their own theater on the south bank of the River Thames, which they named the Globe. In 1608, the partnership also took over the Blackfriars indoor theater. Records of Shakespeare's property purchases and investments indicate that his association with the company made him a wealthy man, and in 1597, he bought the second-largest house in Stratford, New Place. 

His name had become a selling point and began to appear on the title pages. Shakespeare continued to act in his own and other plays after his success as a playwright. Throughout his career, Shakespeare divided his time between London and Stratford. 

The bubonic plague raged in London throughout 1609. The London public playhouses were repeatedly closed during extended outbreaks of the plague. There was a total of over 60 months closure between 1603 and 1610, which meant there was often no acting work. Shakespeare continued to visit London during the years 1611–1614. After 1610, Shakespeare wrote fewer plays, and none are attributed to him after 1613. His last three plays were collaborations with the play-write who succeeded him as the house play-write of the King's Men. 

Shakespeare died at the age of 52. He died within a month of signing his will, a document which he begins by describing himself as being in perfect health. One evening Shakespeare, had a merry meeting with his close friends and he drank too hard and died of a fever. 

Shakespeare bequeathed the bulk of his large estate to his elder daughter Susanna under stipulations that she pass it down intact. In 1670, 64 years after Shakespeare died his direct line to his descendants ended. Shakespeare was buried with the epitaph carved into the stone slab covering his grave includes a curse against moving his bones, 

Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear, / To dig the dust enclosed here. / Blessed be the man that spares these stones, / And cursed be he that moves my bones. 

Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. However, in 1623, 7 years after his death, 2 friends and fellow actors of Shakespeare, published a more definitive text, a posthumous collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but 2 of the plays. 

In the 20th and 21st centuries, his works have been repeatedly adapted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly popular and are constantly studied, performed, and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world. 

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William Harvey (1578-1657) 

William Harvey was an English physician who made seminal contributions in anatomy and physiology. He was the first known physician to describe completely and in detail the systemic circulation and properties of blood being pumped to the brain and body by the heart. 

William's father, was the mayor in 1600. He was an overall calm, diligent, and intelligent man. William was the eldest of 9 children, 7 sons and 2 daughters. 

Harvey graduated as a Bachelor of Arts in 1597. He then traveled through France and Germany to Italy, where he entered the University of Padua, in 1599. Harvey graduated as a Doctor of Medicine at the age of 24 from the University of Padua. 

After graduating from Padua, Harvey immediately returned to England where he obtained the degree of Doctor of Medicine from the University of Cambridge that same year. Following this, Harvey established himself in London, joining the Royal College of Physicians in 1604. A few weeks after his admission, Harvey married and was soon elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. 

Harvey lived in a small house as fringe benefit to the post of Physician. At this point, the physician's function consisted of a simple but thorough analysis of patients who were brought to the hospital once a week and the consequent writing of prescriptions. 

Harvey began his lectures in 1616. At this time, at the age of 37, he was described as "a man of lowest stature, round faced; his eyes small, round, very black and full of spirit; his hair as black as a raven and curling". Harvey continued to participate in the lectures while also taking care of his patients at the hospital. He soon attained an important and fairly lucrative practice, which climaxed with his appointment as 'Physician Extraordinary' to King James I in 1618. 

In 1628 he published his completed treatise on the circulation of the blood. As a result of negative comments by other physicians Harvey continued advancing his career. He was re-elected 'Censor' of the College of Physicians in 1629, having been elected for the first time in 1613 and the second time in 1625. Eventually, Harvey was also elected Treasurer of the College. 

Harvey was a prominent skeptic regarding allegations of witchcraft. He was one of the examiners of 4 women from accused of witchcraft in 1634, and as a consequence of his report, all of them were acquitted. 

At the age of 52, Harvey received commands by the king to accompany a Duke during his trip abroad. This voyage, the first after his return from Padua, lasted 3 years, taking Harvey through the countries of France and Spain during war and Plague. 

Having returned to England in 1632, Harvey accompanied King Charles I wherever he went as 'Physician in Ordinary'. In particular, Charles's hunting expeditions gave Harvey access to many deer carcasses; it was upon them that Harvey made many observations and consequent theories. Harvey returned to Italy in 1636 as a guest of the Jesuits and met Galileo in Florence en route. 

During the English Civil War a mob of citizen-soldiers against the King entered Harvey's lodgings, stole his goods, and scattered his papers. The papers consisted of records of a large number of dissections of diseased bodies, with this observations on the development on insects, and a series of notes on comparative anatomy. During this period, Harvey maintained his position, helped the wounded on several occasions and protected the King's children. 

68 years old and childless, Harvey had lost 3 brothers and his wife by this time. He thus decided to return to London, and lived with his brothers. He passed most of this time reading general literature. 

Harvey died of a stroke when he was 79 years old. 

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Christopher Wren (1632-1723) 

Sir Christopher Wren was an English anatomist, astronomer, geometer, and mathematician-physicist, as well as one of the most highly acclaimed English architects in history. He was accorded responsibility for rebuilding 52 churches in the City of London after the Great Fire in 1666, including what is regarded as his masterpiece, St Paul's Cathedral, completed in 1710. Educated in Latin and Aristotelian physics at the University of Oxford, Wren was a founder of the Royal Society and was its president from 1680–82. His scientific work was highly regarded by Isaac Newton and Pascal. 

Wren`s mother died when he was 2 years old leaving the family well off financially for, as the only heir, she had inherited her father's estate. Although a sickly child, he would survive into robust old age. He was first taught at home by a private tutor and his father. After his father's royal appointment as Dean of Windsor in 1635, his family spent part of each year there. He spent his first 8 years being educated by the local clergyman. 

Wren received a thorough grounding in Latin and also learned to draw. His drawing was put to academic use in providing many of the anatomical drawings for the anatomy textbook of the brain. During this time period, Wren manifested an interest in the design and construction of mechanical instruments. 

In 1650, when he was 18, Wren entered collage where he studied Latin and the works of Aristotle. Wren became closely associated with the group whose activities led to the formation of the Royal Society, comprising a number of distinguished mathematicians, creative workers and experimental philosophers. This connection probably influenced Wren's studies of science and mathematics at Oxford. He graduated B.A. in 1651, and 2 years later received M.A. 

Receiving his M.A. 3 years later, Wren began an active period of research and experiment in Oxford. 4 years later, Wren was appointed Professor of Astronomy. Wren took up this new work with enthusiasm. He continued to meet the men with whom he had frequent discussions in Oxford. They attended his London lectures and in 1660, initiated formal weekly meetings. It was from these meetings that the Royal Society, England's premier scientific body, was to develop. He played a major role in the early life of what would become the Royal Society. His great breadth of expertise in so many different subjects helped in the exchange of ideas between the various scientists. 

In 1669 when he was 37 years old, he was appointed Surveyor of Works to Charles II. The main sources for Wren's scientific achievements are the records of the Royal Society. His scientific works ranged from astronomy, optics, the problem of finding longitude at sea, cosmology, mechanics, microscopy, surveying, medicine and meteorology. He observed, measured, dissected, built models and employed, invented and improved a variety of instruments. 

It was at this time that Wren was drawn into redesigning a battered St Paul's Cathedral. Making a trip to Paris in 1665, Wren studied the architecture, which had reached a climax of creativity. Returning from Paris, he made his first design for St Paul's. A week later, however, the Great Fire destroyed two-thirds of the city. Wren submitted his plans for rebuilding the city to King Charles II, although they were never adopted. With his appointment as King's Surveyor of Works in 1669, he had a presence in the general process of rebuilding the city, but was not directly involved with the rebuilding of houses or companies' halls. Wren was personally responsible for the rebuilding of 51 churches. 

By 1669 Wren's career was well established and it may have been his appointment as Surveyor of the King's Works in early 1669 that persuaded him that he could finally afford to take a wife. In 1669 the 37-year-old Wren married his childhood neighbor. This brief marriage produced 2 children but his wife died of smallpox in 1675. The younger Christopher was trained by Wren to be an architect. It was this Christopher that supervised the topping out ceremony of St Paul's in 1710. In 1677, at the age of 45, 17 months after the death of his first wife, Wren remarried, this time to a daughter of a Baron. Like the first, this second marriage was also brief. Jane died of tuberculosis in 1680. Wren was never to marry again. 

Wren would often go to London to pay unofficial visits to St Paul's, to check on the progress of "my greatest work". On one of these trips to London, at the age of 90, he caught a chill which worsened over the next few days. A servant who tried to awaken Wren from his nap found that he had died. 

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John Locke (1632-1704) 

John Locke was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "Father of Liberalism". Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Sir Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social contract theory. His work greatly affected the development of the theory of knowledge and political philosophy. His writings influenced Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau as well as the American revolutionaries. His contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory are reflected in the United States Declaration of Independence. 

Locke's theory of mind is often cited as the origin of modern conceptions of identity and the self, figuring prominently in the work of later philosophers such as David Hume, Rousseau, and Immanuel Kant. Locke was the first to define the self through a continuity of consciousness. He postulated that, at birth, the mind was a blank slate. He maintained that we are born without innate ideas, and that knowledge is instead determined only by experience derived from sense perception. This is now known as empiricism. Challenging the work of others, Locke is said to have established the method of introspection, or observing the emotions and behaviors of one’s self. 

Locke's father was a country lawyer who had served as a captain of cavalry for the Parliamentarian forces during the early part of the English Civil War. Both parents were Puritans. Locke was born in a small thatched cottage by the church. Soon after Locke's birth, the family moved to the market town where Locke grew up. 

In 1647, when he was 15, Locke was sent to a prestigious school in London under the sponsorship of a member of Parliament who was his father's former commander. After completing studies there, he was admitted to a collage at the age of 20. Although a capable student, Locke was irritated by the undergraduate curriculum of the time. He found the works of modern philosophers, such as René Descartes, more interesting than the classical material taught at the university. Locke was introduced to medicine and the experimental philosophy being pursued at other universities and in the Royal Society, of which he eventually became a member. 

Locke was awarded a master's degree in 1658. He obtained a bachelor of medicine in 1675, having studied medicine extensively during his time at Oxford and worked with such noted scientists and thinkers. 

Locke had been looking for a career and in 1667 served as Lord Ashley's personal physician. Locke's medical knowledge was put to the test when Ashley`s liver infection became life-threatening. Locke coordinated the advice of several physicians and was probably instrumental in persuading him to undergo surgery, then life-threatening itself to remove the cyst. He survived and prospered, crediting Locke with saving his life. 

Locke became involved in politics when Ashley became Lord Chancellor in 1672. Locke went to Holland for 5 years where he chose his friends from among the same freethinking members of dissenting Protestant groups as Spinoza's small group of loyal confidants. He was deeply receptive to Spinoza's ideas, most particularly to the rationalist's well thought out argument for political and religious tolerance and the necessity of the separation of church and state. 

In the Netherlands, Locke had time to return to his writing. Locke did not return home until after the Glorious Revolution. Locke accompanied William of Orange's wife back to England in 1688. The bulk of Locke's publishing took place upon his return from exile. During this period he discussed matters with such figures as John Dryden and Isaac Newton. 

Events that happened during Locke's lifetime include the English Restoration, the Great Plague of London and the Great Fire of London. Constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy were in their infancy during Locke's time. 

His arguments concerning liberty and the social contract later influenced the written works of Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and other Founding Fathers of the United States. In fact, one passage is reproduced verbatim in the Declaration of Independence, the reference to a "long train of abuses". 

Locke's theory of association heavily influenced the subject matter of modern psychology. At the time, the empiricist philosopher's recognition of 2 types of ideas, simple and complex ideas. Their interaction through associationism inspired other philosophers, such as David Hume and George Berkeley, to revise and expand this theory and apply it to explain how humans gain knowledge in the physical world. 

Locke, in the aftermath of the European wars of religion, formulated a classic reasoning for religious tolerance. Three arguments are central:

1. Earthly judges, the state in particular, and human beings generally, cannot dependably evaluate the truth-claims of competing religious standpoints; 
2. Even if they could, enforcing a single "true religion" would not have the desired effect, because belief cannot be compelled by violence; 
3. Coercing religious uniformity would lead to more social disorder than allowing diversity. 

Freedom of conscience had had high priority on the theological, philosophical and political agenda, since Martin Luther refused to recant his beliefs before the Diet of the Holy Roman Empire at Worms in 1521, unless he would be proved false by the Bible. 

Locke uses the word property in both broad and narrow senses. In a broad sense, it covers a wide range of human interests and aspirations; more narrowly, it refers to material goods. He argues that property is a natural right and it is derived from labor. Locke argues that the individual ownership of goods and property is justified by the labor exerted to produce those goods or utilize property to produce goods beneficial to human society. Locke believed that nature on its own provides little of value to society, implying that the labor expended in the creation of goods gives them their value. 

This position can be seen as a labor theory of value. From this premise, Locke developed a labor theory of property, namely that ownership of property is created by the application of labor. In addition, he believed that property precedes government and government cannot "dispose of the estates of the subjects arbitrarily." Karl Marx later critiqued Locke's theory of property in his own social theory. 

Locke's political theory was founded on social contract theory. Locke believed that human nature is characterized by reason and tolerance and allowed people to be selfish. He claimed that in a natural state all people were equal and independent, and everyone had a natural right to defend his "life, health, liberty, or possessions". Locke assumed that people needed to establish a civil society to resolve conflicts in a civil way with help from government in a state of society. 

Locke advocated governmental separation of powers and believed that revolution is not only a right but an obligation in some circumstances. These ideas would come to have profound influence on the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. 

According to Locke, unused property is wasteful and an offense against nature, but, with the introduction of "durable" goods, men could exchange their excessive perishable goods for goods that would last longer and thus not offend the natural law. The introduction of money marks the culmination of this process, making possible the unlimited accumulation of property without causing waste through spoilage. He also included gold or silver as money because they may be hoarded up without injury to anyone, since they do not spoil or decay in the hands of the possessor. In his view, the introduction of money eliminates the limits of accumulation. 

Locke stresses that inequality has come about by implicit agreement on the use of money, not by the social contract establishing civil society or the law of land regulating property. He implied that government would function to moderate the conflict between the unlimited accumulation of property and a more nearly equal distribution of wealth. 

Locke's general theory of value and price is a supply and demand theory. He refers to supply as "quantity of production" and to demand as "quantity of money chasing it". The price of any commodity rises or falls by the proportion of the number of buyer and sellers. 

He explains the value of goods as based on their scarcity and ability to be exchanged and consumed. He explains demand for goods as based on their ability to yield a flow of income from the middle men who buy in quantity and resell to the consumers. 

Locke develops a theory of capitalization, such as land, which has value because by its constant production of commodities it brings in a certain yearly income. He considers the demand for money as almost the same as demand for goods or land. As a medium of exchange, he states that money is capable by exchange to procure the necessaries or conveniences of life, and for loan-able funds, it comes to be of the same nature with land by yielding a certain yearly income... or interest. 

Locke distinguishes 2 functions of money, to measure value and to lay claim to goods. He believes that silver and gold, as opposed to paper money, are the appropriate currency for international transactions. Silver and gold, he says, are treated to have equal value by all of humanity and can thus be treated as a pledge by anyone, while the value of paper money is only valid under the government which issues it. 

Locke argues that a country should seek a favorable balance of trade, lest it fall behind other countries and suffer a loss in its trade. Since the world money stock grows constantly, a country must constantly seek to enlarge its own stock. Locke develops his theory of foreign exchanges. In addition to commodity movements, there are also movements in country stock of money, and movements of capital that determine exchange rates. As for a country's money stock, if it is large relative to that of other countries, he says it will cause the country's exchange to rise above par, as an export balance would do. 

He also prepares estimates of the cash requirements for different economic groups like landholders, laborers and brokers. He argues the brokers, middlemen whose activities enlarge the monetary circuit and whose profits eat into the earnings of laborers and landholders, have a negative influence on both personal and the public economy to which they supposedly contribute. 

Locke defines the self as that conscious thinking thing which is sensible, or conscious of pleasure and pain, capable of happiness or misery, and so is concerned for itself, as far as that consciousness extends. Locke posits an "empty" mind, which is shaped by experience; sensations and reflections being the 2 sources of all our ideas. 

He argued that the associations of ideas that one makes when young are more important than those made later because they are the foundation of the self. They are, put differently, what first mark the empty mind. 

This theory came to be called "associationism", and it strongly influenced 18th-century thought, particularly educational theory, as nearly every educational writer warned parents not to allow their children to develop negative associations. It also led to the development of psychology and other new disciplines. 

Locke's political convictions greatly derived from his religious beliefs. He did not deny the reality of evil. Man was capable of waging unjust wars and committing crimes. Criminals had to be punished, even with the death penalty. Locke was convinced that the entire content of the Bible was in agreement with human reason and that the miracles described in it were proofs of the divine nature of the biblical message. 

Although Locke was an advocate of tolerance, he urged the authorities not to tolerate atheism, because he thought the denial of God's existence would undermine the social order and lead to chaos. In Locke's opinion the cosmological argument was valid and proved God's existence.

Locke derived the fundamental concepts of his political theory from biblical texts. For him, the 10 commandments put a person's life, his or her honorable reputation, dignity and property under God's protection. 

Freedom is a major theme in the Old Testament. God's actions in liberating the Israelites from Egyptian slavery were the precondition for the 10 commandments. 

Following Locke, the American Declaration of Independence founded human rights partially on the biblical belief in creation: "All men are created equal, they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Locke's doctrine that governments need the consent of the governed is also central to the Declaration of Independence. 

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Locke never married. He died childless when he was 72 years old.

Benjamin Franklin (1706 – 1790) 

Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He was a renowned polymath and a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, Freemason, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat. As a scientist, he was a major figure in the American Enlightenment and the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. 

As an inventor, he is known for the lightning rod, bifocals, and the Franklin stove, among other inventions. The Franklin stove is a metal-lined fireplace with a hollow baffle near the rear to transfer more heat from the fire to a room's air and relied on an "inverted siphon" to draw the fire's hot fumes around the baffle. It was intended to produce more heat and less smoke than an ordinary open fireplace. Baffles were used to lengthen the path that either a room's air or a fire's fumes had to flow through duct work, thereby allowing more heat to be transferred to the room's air or from the fire's fumes. The longer the path through which the air flowed, the more heat would be transferred from the fire to the air. Similarly, the longer the duct through which a fire's fumes had to flow before reaching the chimney, more heat would be transferred from the fumes to the room's air. 

As the first United States Ambassador to France, he exemplified the emerging American nation. Franklin was foundational in defining the American ethos as a marriage of the practical values of thrift, hard work, education, community spirit, self-governing institutions, and opposition to authoritarianism both political and religious, with the scientific and tolerant values of the Enlightenment. 

Franklin became a successful newspaper editor and printer in Philadelphia at the age of 23. He became wealthy publishing the “Poor Richard's Almanac”, which he authored under the pseudonym "Richard Saunders". He was associated with a newspaper that was known for its revolutionary sentiments and criticisms of the British policies. His efforts proved vital for the American Revolution that started in 1765. 

He was promoted to deputy postmaster-general for the British colonies in 1753, having been Philadelphia postmaster for many years, and this enabled him to set up the first national communications network. After the Revolution, he became the first US Postmaster General. 

He was active in community affairs and colonial and state politics, as well as national and international affairs. From 1785 to 1788, he served as governor of Pennsylvania. He initially owned and dealt in slaves but by the 1750s he argued against slavery from an economic perspective and became one of the most prominent abolitionists. 

Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He was one of 17 children born to Josiah Franklin. His father wanted him to attend school with the clergy, but only had enough money to send him to school for 2 years. His schooling ended when he was 10 years old. He worked for his father for a time, and at 12 he became an apprentice to his brother, a printer, who taught him the printing trade. 

Franklin saw the printing press as a device to instruct colonial Americans in moral virtue. He tried to influence American moral life through construction of a printing network based on a chain of partnerships. Franklin thereby invented the first newspaper chain. It was more than a business venture, for like many publishers since, he believed that the press had a public-service duty. 

When Franklin was 25 years old, he was initiated into the local Masonic Lodge and became a Freemason. 3 years later he became Grand Master. 

When Franklin was 40 years old, he started exploring the phenomenon of electricity. In 1748 he constructed a multiple plate capacitor that he called an "electrical battery" by placing eleven panes of glass sandwiched between lead plates, suspended with silk cords and connected by wires. This device stored electricity and produced a spark when the ends were shorted. 

A real electric battery was developed 50 years later and called a voltaic pile and it was able to continuously provide an electric current to a circuit. It was invented by Alessandro Volta and his device enabled a rapid series of discoveries including the electrical decomposition or electrolysis of water into oxygen and hydrogen and the discovery in 1808 of the chemical elements sodium, potassium, calcium, boron, barium, strontium, and magnesium. 

Volta's invention built on Luigi Galvani's 1780s discovery of how a circuit of 2 metals caused the frog's leg to respond. Volta demonstrated in 1794 that when 2 metals and brine-soaked cloth or cardboard are arranged in a circuit they produce an electric current. In 1800, Volta stacked several pairs of alternating copper and zinc discs which acted as electrodes separated by cloth or cardboard soaked in brine (salt water) which acted as the electrolyte. When the top and bottom contacts were connected by a wire, an electric current flowed through the voltaic pile and the connecting wire. 

For nearly 100 years, the voltaic pile was used to generate electricity for experiments. It was only in 1870 that the dynamo was developed by Micheal Faraday to generate electricity. The electric dynamo used rotating coils of wire and magnetic fields to convert mechanical rotation into a pulsing direct electric current through Faraday's law of induction. 

A dynamo machine consisted of a stationary structure, called the stator, which provided a constant magnetic field, and a set of rotating winding called the armature which turn within that field. Due to Faraday's law of induction the motion of the wire within the magnetic field created an electromotive force which pushed on the electrons in the metal, creating an electric current in the wire. 

When Franklin was 44 years old, he published a proposal for an experiment to prove that lightning is electricity by flying a kite in a lightning storm. Franklin's electrical experiments led to his invention of the lightning rod. He noted that conductors with a sharp rather than a smooth point could discharge silently. He surmised that this could help protect buildings from lightning by attaching upright rods of iron, made sharp as a needle connected to the ground to draw the positive electricity silently and safely out of a thunder cloud into the well of a sea of electrons in the metals of the rocks in the ground. 

The sharp point in a lightning rod is a bottle neck to the positive ions of the air that are looking for negative electrons from the earth and the lightning rod. As they accumulate at the point they make the lightning rod into a positive umbrella that protects the house under it from lightning just like an umbrella protects the person under it from falling rain. Once the breaking point is achieved where there are just too many positive ions at the point, the lightning rod acts like a fuse that concentrate the heat from the lightning running thru it rather than running thru the house. 

Franklin was, along with his contemporary Leonhard Euler, the only major scientist who supported Christiaan Huygens' wave theory of light, which was basically ignored by the rest of the scientific community. In the 18th century Newton's corpuscular theory was held to be true. Only after Young's well-known slit experiment that clearly showed interference in 1803 that most scientists were persuaded to believe Huygens' theory. 

Franklin strongly supported the right to freedom of speech: 

“In those wretched countries where a man cannot call his tongue his own, he can scarce call anything his own. Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech ...Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom, and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech, which is the right of every man ... “ 

In his later years, as Congress was forced to deal with the issue of slavery, Franklin wrote several essays that stressed the importance of the abolition of slavery and of the integration of blacks into American society. 

Franklin sought to cultivate his character by a plan of 13 virtues, which he developed at age 20 and continued to practice in some form for the rest of his life. 

1. Temperance. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation. 
2. Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation. 
3. Order. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time. 
4. Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve. 
5. Frugality. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing. 
6. Industry. Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions. 
7. Sincerity. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly. 
8. Justice. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty. 
9. Moderation. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve. 
10. Cleanliness. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation. 
11. Tranquility. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable. 
12. Chastity. Rarely use the gratification of sexual desire but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation. 
13. Humility. Imitate Jesus and Socrates. 

Franklin did not try to work on them all at once. Instead, he would work on one and only one each week leaving all others to their ordinary chance. While Franklin did not live completely by his virtues, and by his own admission he fell short of them many times, he believed the attempt made him a better man contributing greatly to his success and happiness. 

Benjamin Franklin died at age 84. 

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Euler (1707-1783) 

Leonhard Euler was a Swiss mathematician, physicist, astronomer, logician and engineer, who made important and influential discoveries in many branches of mathematics, such as infinitesimal calculus and graph theory, while also making pioneering contributions to several branches such as topology and analytic number theory. He also introduced much of the modern mathematical terminology and notation, particularly for mathematical analysis, such as the notion of a mathematical function. He is also known for his work in mechanics, fluid dynamics, optics, astronomy, and music theory. 

Euler was one of the most eminent mathematicians of the 18th century and is held to be one of the greatest in history. He is also widely considered to be the most prolific mathematician of all time. He spent most of his adult life in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and in Berlin, then the capital of Prussia. 

Leonhard Euler was born in Basel, Switzerland to a pastor of the Reformed Church, and a pastor's daughter. He had 2 younger sisters, and a younger brother. Soon after the birth of Leonhard, the Eulers moved from Basel to the town of Riehen, where Euler spent most of his childhood. His father was a friend of Johann Bernoulli, then regarded as Europe's foremost mathematician, and would eventually be the most important influence on young Leonhard. 

Euler's formal education started in Basel, where he was sent to live with his maternal grandmother. In 1720, aged 13, he enrolled at the University of Basel, and in 1723, he received a Master of Philosophy with a dissertation that compared the philosophies of Descartes and Newton. During that time, he was receiving Saturday afternoon lessons from Johann Bernoulli, who quickly discovered his new pupil's incredible talent for mathematics. At that time Euler's main studies included theology, Greek, and Hebrew at his father's urging in order to become a pastor, but Bernoulli convinced his father that Leonhard was destined to become a great mathematician. 

In 1726, Euler completed a dissertation on the propagation of sound. At that time, he was unsuccessfully attempting to obtain a position at the University of Basel. In 1727, he first entered the Paris Academy Prize Problem competition. The problem that year was to find the best way to place the masts on a ship. Euler took second place. Euler later won this annual prize 12 times. 

In 1726 Euler eagerly accepted a position in Saint Petersburg. He was promoted from his junior post in the medical department of the academy to a position in the mathematics department. Euler mastered Russian and settled into life in Saint Petersburg. He also took on an additional job as a medic in the Russian Navy. 

The Academy at Saint Petersburg, established by Peter the Great, was intended to improve education in Russia and to close the scientific gap with Western Europe. As a result, it was made especially attractive to foreign scholars like Euler. The academy possessed ample financial resources and a comprehensive library drawn from the private libraries of Peter himself and of the nobility. Very few students were enrolled in the academy in order to lessen the faculty's teaching burden, and the academy emphasized research and offered to its faculty both the time and the freedom to pursue scientific questions. 

The Academy's benefactress, Catherine I, who had continued the progressive policies of her late husband, died on the day of Euler's arrival. The nobility was suspicious of the academy's foreign scientists, and thus cut funding and caused other difficulties for Euler and his colleagues. Conditions improved slightly after the death of Peter II, and Euler swiftly rose through the ranks in the academy and was made a professor of physics in 1731. Two years later, Daniel Bernoulli, who was fed up with the censorship and hostility he faced at Saint Petersburg, left for Basel. Euler succeeded him as the head of the mathematics department. 

In 1734, when he was 27, he married. Of their 13 children, only 5 survived childhood. 

Concerned about the continuing turmoil in Russia, Euler left St. Petersburg in 1741 to take up a post at the Berlin Academy, which he had been offered by Frederick the Great of Prussia. He lived for 25 years in Berlin, where he wrote over 380 articles. In Berlin, he published the 2 works for which he would become most renowned- a text on functions published in 1748, and on differential calculus in 1755 when he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Euler had an ability to communicate scientific matters effectively to a lay audience, a rare ability for a dedicated research scientist. Despite Euler's immense contribution to the Academy's prestige, he eventually incurred the ire of Frederick and ended up having to leave Berlin. 

Euler's eyesight worsened throughout his mathematical career. In 1738, 3 years after nearly expiring from fever, he became almost blind in his right eye, but Euler rather blamed the painstaking work on cartography he performed for the St. Petersburg Academy for his condition. Euler later developed a cataract in his left eye. He was rendered almost totally blind. However, his condition appeared to have little effect on his productivity, as he compensated for it with his mental calculation skills and exceptional memory. Upon losing the sight in both eyes, Euler remarked, "Now I will have fewer distractions". 

With the aid of his scribes, Euler's productivity on many areas of study actually increased. He produced, on average, one mathematical paper every week in the year 1775. 

In 1760, with the Seven Years' War raging, Euler's farm was ransacked by advancing Russian troops. Euler was compensated for the damage and later Empress Elizabeth of Russia added a further payment that was considered an exorbitant amount. 

The Seven Years' War was a global conflict fought between 1756 and 1763. It involved every European great power of the time and spanned 5 continents, affecting Europe, the Americas, West Africa, India, and the Philippines. The conflict split Europe into 2 coalitions, led by the Kingdom of Great Britain, including Prussia, Portugal, Hanover, and other small German states on one side and the Kingdom of France, including the Austrian-led Holy Roman Empire, the Russian Empire, Spain, and Sweden on the other. 

Meanwhile, in India, some regional polities within the increasingly fragmented Mughal Empire, with the support of the French, tried to crush a British attempt to conquer Bengal. The war's extent has led some historians to describe it as "World War Zero", similar in scale to WWI and WWII. 

The political situation in Russia stabilized after Catherine the Great's accession to the throne, so in 1766 Euler accepted an invitation to return to the St. Petersburg Academy. His conditions were quite exorbitant, a high annual salary, a pension for his wife, and the promise of high-ranking appointments for his sons. All of these requests were granted. He spent the rest of his life in Russia. However, his second stay in the country was marred by tragedy. A fire in St. Petersburg in 1771 cost him his home, and almost his life. In 1773, he lost his wife Katharina after 40 years of marriage. 3 years after his wife's death, Euler married her half-sister and this marriage lasted until his death. 

Euler worked in almost all areas of mathematics, such as geometry, infinitesimal calculus, trigonometry, algebra, and number theory, as well as continuum physics, lunar theory and other areas of physics. Euler is the only mathematician to have two numbers named after him: the important Euler's number in calculus, e, approximately equal to 2.71828, and the Euler–Mascheroni constant γ (gamma) sometimes referred to as just "Euler's constant", approximately equal to 0.57721. It is not known whether γ is rational or irrational and non repeating. 

Euler introduced and popularized several notational conventions through his numerous and widely circulated textbooks. Most notably, he introduced the concept of a function and was the first to write f(x) to denote the function f applied to the argument x. He also introduced the modern notation for the trigonometric functions, the letter e for the base of the natural logarithm now also known as Euler's number, the Greek letter Σ for summations and the letter i to denote the imaginary unit. The use of the Greek letter π to denote the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter was also popularized by Euler. 

The development of infinitesimal calculus was at the forefront of 18th-century mathematical research, and the Bernoullis, family friends of Euler, were responsible for much of the early progress in the field. Thanks to their influence, studying calculus became the major focus of Euler's work. 

Euler introduced the use of the exponential function and logarithms in analytic proofs. He discovered ways to express various logarithmic functions using power series, and he successfully defined logarithms for negative and complex numbers, thus greatly expanding the scope of mathematical applications of logarithms. 

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He also defined the exponential function for complex numbers, and discovered its relation to the trigonometric functions. A special case of Euler's formula is known as Euler's identity, 

called "the most remarkable formula in mathematics" by Feynman, for its single uses of the notions of addition, multiplication, exponentiation, and equality, and the single uses of the important constants 0, 1, e, i and π. 

In addition, Euler elaborated the theory of higher transcendental functions by introducing the gamma function and introduced a new method for solving quadratic equations. He also found a way to calculate integrals with complex limits, foreshadowing the development of modern complex analysis. He also invented the calculus of variations. 

Euler also pioneered the use of analytic methods to solve number theory problems. In doing so, he united 2 disparate branches of mathematics and introduced a new field of study, analytic number theory. In breaking ground for this new field, Euler created the theory of hyper-geometric series, q-series, hyperbolic trigonometric functions and the analytic theory of continued fractions. For example, he proved the infinitude of primes using the divergence of the harmonic series, and he used analytic methods to gain some understanding of the way prime numbers are distributed. Euler's work in this area led to the development of the prime number theorem. The prime number theorem describes the distribution of the prime numbers among the positive integers. It formalizes the intuitive idea that primes become less common as they become larger by precisely quantifying the rate at which this occurs. 

In 1735, Euler presented a solution to the problem known as the Seven Bridges of Königsberg. The city of Königsberg, Prussia was set on a river, and included 2 large islands that were connected to each other and the mainland by 7 bridges. The problem is to decide whether it is possible to follow a path that crosses each bridge exactly once and returns to the starting point. Euler proved that it is not possible. 

Euler also discovered the formula 

V − E + F = 2 

relating the number of Vertices, Edges and Faces of a convex polyhedron. 

Some of Euler's greatest successes were in solving real-world problems analytically. 

One of Euler's more unusual interests was the application of mathematical ideas in music. In 1739 he wrote a paper hoping to eventually incorporate musical theory as part of mathematics. This part of his work, however, did not receive wide attention and was once described as too mathematical for musicians and too musical for mathematicians. 

Euler helped develop the Euler–Bernoulli beam equation, which became a cornerstone of engineering. Aside from successfully applying his analytic tools to problems in classical mechanics, Euler also applied these techniques to celestial problems. His work in astronomy was recognized by a number of Paris Academy Prizes over the course of his career. His accomplishments include determining with great accuracy the orbits of comets and other celestial bodies, understanding the nature of comets, and calculating the parallax of the sun. Parallax is the shift of a position against a backdrop when the position of the observer is change. His calculations also contributed to the development of accurate longitude tables. 

In addition, Euler made important contributions in optics. He disagreed with Newton's corpuscular theory of light which was then the prevailing theory. His 1740s papers on optics helped ensure that the wave theory of light proposed by Christian Huygens would become the dominant mode of thought, at least until the development of the quantum theory of light. 

A first point of Euler’s musical theory is the definition of "genres", i.e. of possible divisions of the octave using the prime numbers 3 and 5. Euler describes 18 such genres. Euler later envisaged the possibility of describing genres including the prime number 7. 

Euler was a devout Christian who believed the Bible to be inspired and argued for the divine inspiration of scripture. 

After a lunch with his family, Euler was discussing the newly discovered planet Uranus when he collapsed from a brain hemorrhage and died a few hours later. He was 76 years old. 

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James Watt (1736 – 1819) 

James Watt was a Scottish inventor, mechanical engineer, and chemist who improved on a 1712 steam engine with his Watt steam engine in 1781, which was fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both his native Great Britain and the rest of the world. 

While working as an instrument maker at the University of Glasgow, Watt became interested in the technology of steam engines. He realized that contemporary engine designs wasted a great deal of energy by repeatedly cooling and reheating the cylinder. Watt introduced a design enhancement, the separate condenser, which avoided this waste of energy and radically improved the power, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness of steam engines. Eventually he adapted his engine to produce rotary motion, greatly broadening its use beyond pumping water. 

Watt attempted to commercialize his invention, but experienced great financial difficulties until he entered a partnership with Matthew Boulton in 1775. The new firm of Boulton and Watt was eventually highly successful and Watt became a wealthy man. In his retirement, Watt continued to develop new inventions though none was as significant as his steam engine work. He developed the concept of horsepower, and the unit of power, the “Watt”, is named after him. 

James Watt was born in England at a seaport. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief civil officer. His mother came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were strong Scotish Presbyterians. 

Watt did not attend school regularly; initially he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock Grammar School. He exhibited great manual dexterity, engineering skills and an aptitude for mathematics. He suffered prolonged bouts of ill-health as a child. 

When he was 18, his mother died and his father's health began to fail. Watt traveled to London to study instrument-making for a year, then returned to Scotland, settling in the major commercial city of Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. He made and repaired brass reflecting quadrants, parallel rulers, scales, parts for telescopes, and barometers, among other things. Because he had not served at least 7 years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen which had jurisdiction over any artisans using hammers blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland. 

Watt was saved from this impasse by the arrival of astronomical instruments that required expert attention. Watt restored them to working order. Subsequently 3 professors offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was initiated in 1757 and he made many friends among the physicist and influential men such as Adam Smith. 

At first he worked on maintaining and repairing scientific instruments used in the university, helping with demonstrations, and expanding the production of quadrants, instrument that is used to measure angles. 

In 1759 he formed a partnership to manufacture and sell a line of products including musical instruments and toys. This partnership lasted for the next 6 years, and employed up to 16 workers and became very successful lasting hundreds of years. 

In 1764, Watt married his cousin with whom he had 5 children, 2 of whom lived to adulthood. His wife died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he was married again, to a daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, with whom he had 2 children. 

In 1759 Watt's friend called his attention to the use of steam as a source of motive power. The design of the engine, in use for almost 50 years for pumping water from mines, had hardly changed from its first implementation. Watt began to experiment with steam, though he had never seen an operating steam engine. He tried constructing a model; it failed to work satisfactorily, but he continued his experiments and began to read everything he could about the subject. He came to realize the importance of latent heat, the thermal energy released or absorbed during a constant-temperature process, in understanding the engine, which, unknown to Watt, his friend had previously discovered some years before. Understanding of the steam engine was in a very primitive state, for the science of thermodynamics would not be formalized for nearly another 100 years. 

In 1763, Watt was asked to repair an engine belonging to the university. Even after repair, the engine barely worked. After much experimentation, Watt demonstrated that about three-quarters of the thermal energy of the steam was being consumed in heating the engine cylinder on every cycle. This energy was wasted because later in the cycle cold water was injected into the cylinder to condense the steam to reduce its pressure. Thus by repeatedly heating and cooling the cylinder, the engine wasted most of its thermal energy rather than converting it into mechanical energy. 

Watt's critical insight 2 years later was to cause the steam to condense in a separate chamber apart from the piston, and to maintain the temperature of the cylinder at the same temperature as the injected steam by surrounding it with a "steam jacket." Thus very little energy was absorbed by the cylinder on each cycle, making more available to perform useful work. Watt had a working model later that same year. 

The principal difficulty was in machining the piston and cylinder. Iron workers of the day were more like blacksmiths than modern machinists, and were unable to produce the components with sufficient precision. Much capital was spent in pursuing a patent on Watt's invention. Strapped for resources, Watt was forced to take up employment, first as a surveyor, then as a civil engineer, for 8 years. 

The difficulty of the manufacture of a large cylinder with a tightly fitting piston was solved by using precision boring techniques for cannon making. A hugely successful partnership which lasted for the next 25 years was formed. 

In 1776, the first engines were installed and working in commercial enterprises. These first engines were used to power pumps and produced only reciprocating motion to move the pump rods at the bottom of the shaft. The design was commercially successful, and for the next 5 years Watt was very busy installing more engines, mostly for pumping water out of mines. Watt charged an annual payment, equal to one third of the value of the coal saved in comparison to the previous engine performing the same work. 

The field of application for the invention was greatly widened when Watt converted the reciprocating motion of the piston to produce rotational power for grinding, weaving and milling. Watt decided to use gears for the conversion from the linear motion of the piston to rotational motion. Over the next 6 years, he made a number of other improvements and modifications to the steam engine. A double acting engine, in which the steam acted alternately on the 2 sides of the piston was one. These improvements taken together produced an engine which was up to 5 times as efficient in its use of fuel as the engines being used. 

Because of the danger of exploding boilers, which were in a very primitive stage of development, and the ongoing issues with leaks, Watt restricted his use of high pressure steam. All of his engines used steam at near atmospheric pressure. 

Before 1780 there was no good method for making copies of letters or drawings. The only method sometimes used was a mechanical one using linked multiple pens. Watt at first experimented with improving this method, but soon gave up on this approach because it was so cumbersome. He instead decided to try to physically transfer some ink from the front of the original to the back of another sheet, moistened with a solvent, and pressed to the original. The second sheet had to be thin, so that the ink could be seen through it when the copy was held up to the light, thus reproducing the original exactly. 

Watt started to develop the process in 1779, and made many experiments to formulate the ink, select the thin paper, to devise a method for wetting the special thin paper, and to make a press suitable for applying the correct pressure to effect the transfer. All of these required much experimentation, but he soon had enough success to patent the process a year later. Watt formed another partnership. 

The perfection of the invention required much more development work before it could be routinely used by others, but this was carried out over the next few years. It became a commercial success and was widely used in offices even into the twentieth century. 

From an early age Watt was very interested in chemistry. In late 1786, while in Paris, he witnessed an experiment by Berthollet in which he reacted hydrochloric acid with manganese dioxide to produce chlorine. He had already found that an aqueous solution of chlorine could bleach textiles, and had published his findings, which aroused great interest among many potential rivals. When Watt returned to Britain, he began experiments along these lines with hopes of finding a commercially viable process. 

He discovered that a mixture of salt, manganese dioxide and sulfuric acid could produce chlorine, which Watt believed might be a cheaper method. He passed the chlorine into a weak solution of alkali, and obtained a turbid solution that appeared to have good bleaching properties. He soon communicated these results to James McGrigor, his father-in-law, who was a bleacher in Glasgow. 

With McGrigor and his wife Annie, he started to scale up the process, and in 1788, McGrigor was able to bleach 1500 yards of cloth to his satisfaction. About this time Berthollet discovered the salt and sulfuric acid process, and published it so it became public knowledge. Many others began to experiment with improving the process, which still had many shortcomings, not the least of which was the problem of transporting the liquid product. It was not until 1799, when a process for producing solid bleaching powder (calcium hypochlorite) became a commercial success. 

Watt was respected equally as a distinguished natural philosopher and a chemist, and his inventions demonstrate his profound knowledge of those sciences, and that peculiar characteristic of genius, the union of them for practical application. 

He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to use the steam engine. His health was often poor. He was subject to frequent nervous headaches and depression. 

Watt continued to invent other things before and during his semi-retirement. Within his home Watt made use of a room as a workshop, and it was here that he worked on many of his inventions. Among other things, he invented and constructed several machines for copying sculptures and medallions which worked very well, but which he never patented. One of the first sculptures he produced with the machine was a small head of his old professor friend Adam Smith. 

He maintained his interest in civil engineering and was a consultant on several significant projects. He proposed, for example, a method for constructing a flexible pipe to be used for pumping water under the Clyde at Glasgow. 

He died at the age of 83. 

James Watt's improvements to the steam engine converted it from a prime mover of marginal efficiency into the mechanical workhorse of the Industrial Revolution. The availability of efficient, reliable motive power made whole new classes of industry economically viable, and altered the economies of continents. In doing so it brought about immense social change, attracting millions of rural families to the towns and cities. 

Of Watt, the English novelist Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) wrote; "To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something, something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance, did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt was a part inventor of time." 

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Mayer Rothschild (1744-1812) 

Mayer Amschel Rothschild, referred to as a "founding father of international finance", was a German Jewish banker and the founder of the Rothschild banking dynasty. 

Rothschild was born in 1744 in the Jewish ghetto of Frankfurt am Main, one of 8 children of Amschel Moses Rothschild . 

Amschel's father had a business in goods-trading and currency exchange. He was a personal supplier of coins to the Prince of Hesse. The family home above the shop had a front wall only 3.4 m wide, where more than 30 people lived at that time. 

In 1757, with the help of relatives, Rothschild secured an apprenticeship at a banking firm in Hanover,. Rothschild acquired useful knowledge in foreign trade and currency exchange, before he returned to his brothers' business in Frankfurt in 1763. He became a dealer in rare coins and won the patronage of Crown Prince Wilhelm of Hesse who had also earlier patronized his father. 

Rothschild's coin business grew to include a number of princely patrons, and then expanded through the provision of banking services to Crown Prince Wilhelm, who became Wilhelm IX, in 1785. Business expanded rapidly following the French Revolution when Rothschild handled payments from Britain for the hire of Hessian mercenaries. 

By the early years of the 19th century, Rothschild had consolidated his position as principal international banker to Wilhelm IX and began to issue his own international loans, borrowing capital from the Duke. 

In 1798, third-born son Nathan was sent to England to further the family interests in textile importing opening the first foreign branch. Nathan became a naturalized citizen in 1804 and established a bank in the City of London. 

In 1806, Napoleon invaded Hesse in response to Wilhelm's support for Prussia. The Duke went into exile, but Rothschild was able to continue as his banker, investing funds in London. He also profited from importing goods in circumvention of Napoleon's continental blockade. 

In 1810, Mayer entered into a formal partnership agreement with his 3 eldest sons. The youngest son Jacob was sent to Paris in 1811, enhancing the family's ability to operate across Europe. This enabled them to profit from the opportunity of financing Wellington's armies in Portugal, requiring the sourcing of large quantities of gold on behalf of the British government. 

Rothschild died at age 68 at home. Eldest son Amschel Mayer took over the Frankfurt bank and Salomon moved to Vienna. Nathan turned the London branch into one of Europe's most powerful banking institutions. Carl set up a branch in Naples and Jacob became a giant of finance in Paris. 

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Johann Adam Weishaupt (1748 – 1830) 

Johann Adam Weishaupt was a German philosopher, professor, and founder of the Order of the Illuminati, a secret society. 

Adam Weishaupt was born in Bavaria. His father died when Adam was 5 years old. After his father's death he came under the tutelage of his godfather who, like his father, was a professor of law. He was a proponent of the philosophy of the Enlightenment, and he influenced the young Weishaupt with his rationalism. He began his formal education at age 7 at a Jesuit school. He later graduated in 1768 at age 20 with a doctorate of law. In 1772 he became a professor of law. The following year he married. 

After Pope Clement XIV’s suppression of the Society of Jesus in 1773, Weishaupt became a professor of canon law, a position that was held exclusively by the Jesuits until that time. 

“At a time, however, when there was no end of making game of and abusing secret societies, I planned to make use of this human foible for a real and worthy goal, for the benefit of people. I wished to do what the heads of the ecclesiastical and secular authorities ought to have done by virtue of their offices” 

In 1776 Adam Weishaupt founded the "Illuminati" in Bavaria. He adopted the name of "Brother Spartacus" within the order. The Order was not egalitarian or democratic internally, but sought to promote the doctrines of equality and freedom throughout society. One aim was to combat religion and foster rationalism in its place. 

The actual character of the society was an elaborate network of spies and counter-spies. Each isolated cell of initiates reported to a superior, whom they did not know. 

Weishaupt was initiated into the Masonic lodge at Munich in 1777. He used Freemasonry to recruit for his own quasi-masonic society, with the goal of "perfecting human nature" through re-education to achieve a communal state with nature, freed of government and organized religion. Presenting their own system as pure masonry, Weishaupt greatly expanded the secret organization. 

Kant's famous dictum that Enlightenment was the passage by man out of his 'self-imposed immaturity' through daring to 'make use of his own reason, without the guidance of another.' was not followed by Weishaupt's Order of Illuminati as he prescribed in great detail everything which the members had obediently to read and think. 

Weishaupt's radical rationalism and vocabulary were interpreted as seditious, and the Society was banned by the government of Bavaria, in 1784. Weishaupt lost his position at the University and fled Bavaria. He received the assistance of a Duke, moved in with him and wrote a series of works on illuminism. 

Adam Weishaupt died at the age of 82. 

After Weishaupt's Order of Illuminati was banned, its members dispersed without leaving any traces behind. 

Weishaupt’s plan was to educate Illuminati followers in the highest levels of humanity and morality. It was based on the supremacy of Reason, allied with the spirit of the Golden Rule of not doing to others what one would not wish done to oneself. This was stipulated so that if Illuminati alumni subsequently attained positions of significance and power such as in the fields of education and politics, they could exert a benevolent and uplifting influence upon society at large. 

His project was Utopian and naively optimistic. It is one of the deplorable and tragic ironies of history that a man who tried to inculcate virtue, philanthropy, social justice and morality has become one of the great hate-figures of 21st-century ‘conspiracy’ thinking. 

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Edward Jenner (1749 – 1823) 

Edward Jenner was born to become an English physician and scientist who was the pioneer of smallpox vaccine, the world's first vaccine. The terms "vaccine" and "vaccination" that he used were derived from the latin “Variolae vaccinae” that translated into “smallpox of the cow”. This was the term he used when he described the protective effect of cowpox against smallpox. 

Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by either of 2 virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease was also known by the Latin names “varius” meaning "spotted". The disease was originally known in English as the "pox" or "red plague". The term "smallpox" was first used in Britain in the 15th century to distinguish variola from the "great pox" also known as syphilis. Infection with smallpox is focused in small blood vessels of the skin and in the mouth and throat before disseminating. In the skin it results in a characteristic red bumpy maculopapular rash and, later, raised fluid-filled blisters. 

V. major produced a more serious disease and had an overall mortality rate of about 35%. V. minor caused a milder form of disease which killed about 1% of its victims. Long-term complications of V. major infection included characteristic scars, commonly on the face, which occur in 75% of survivors. Blindness resulting from corneal ulceration and scarring, and limb deformities due to arthritis were less common complications, seen in about 5% of cases. 

Smallpox was believed to have emerged in human populations about 10,000BC. The earliest physical evidence of it is probably the pustular rash on the mummified body of Pharaoh Ramses V of Egypt. The disease killed an estimated 400,000 Europeans annually during the closing years of the 18th century including 5 reigning monarchs, and was responsible for a third of all blindness. Of all those infected, 20-60%, and over 80% of infected children died from the disease. Smallpox was responsible for an estimated 300-500 million deaths during the 20th century. 

Jenner was called "the father of immunology", and his work was said to have saved more lives than the work of any other human. 

Born as the eighth of 9 children. his father was a minister of the church and he made certain that Jenner received a strong basic education. Attending school, he was inoculated for smallpox, which had a lifelong effect upon his general health. When he was 14 years old, he started a 7 year long apprenticeship to a surgeon where he gained most of the experience needed to become a surgeon. When he was 21 years old, he started an apprenticeship in surgery and anatomy. 3 years later he returned home and became a successful family doctor and surgeon. When he was 53 years old, he became a master Freemason. 

Cowpox, like smallpox, was an infectious disease that was transferable between animals like cows to human. The transferal of the disease was first observed in dairymaids who touched the udders of infected cows and consequently developed the signature pustules on their hands. Smallpox was similar to cowpox but much more severe and much more contagious and often deadly. 60% of the population caught smallpox and 20% of the population died of it. 

Inoculation was the method first used to immunize an individual against smallpox. Material was taken from a patient suffering with smallpox in the hope that a mild, but protective infection would result. The procedure was most commonly carried out by inserting/rubbing powdered smallpox scabs or fluid from pustules into superficial scratches made in the skin. The patient would develop pustules identical to those caused by naturally occurring smallpox, usually producing a less-severe disease than naturally-acquired smallpox. Eventually, after about 2-4 weeks, these symptoms would subside, indicating successful recovery and immunity. The method was first used in China and the Middle East before it was introduced into England and North America 25 years before he was born with some physicians opposing the procedure. People who were inoculated still risked getting smallpox and dying from it, but their chance of surviving it were much higher. 

When Jenner was 19, an English physician noted that milkmaids were generally immune to smallpox. He realized that prior infection with cowpox rendered a person immune to smallpox. He postulated that the pus in the blisters that milkmaids received from cowpox would protected them from smallpox. 

28 years later, when he was 47 years old, he tested his hypothesis by inoculating the 8 year old son of his gardener against cowpox. He scraped pus from cowpox blisters on the hands of a milkmaid who had caught cowpox from a cow. The boy developed a fever and some uneasiness, but no full-blown infection. Later, he inoculated the boy against smallpox and observed that the normal reaction expected which was signs of a mild case of smallpox infection was not observed in the boy. 

His unique contribution was not that he inoculated a few persons with cowpox, but that he then proved that they were immune to smallpox. Moreover, he demonstrated that the protective cowpox pus could be effectively inoculated from person to person, not just directly from cattle. He successfully tested his hypothesis on 23 additional subjects. He called his procedure that used cowpox to induce immunity to smallpox “vaccination”, as opposed to the inoculation that used smallpox to induce immunity to smallpox. He claimed that vaccinations were safer than inoculations. 

The success of his discovery soon spread around Europe and was used on mass with thousands getting vaccinated worldwide. The cowpox vaccines proved to be very successful at preventing people from dying of smallpox. Napoleon, who at the time was at war with Britain, had all his French troops vaccinated, and at his request, Napoleon released English prisoners of war and permitted their return home saying that he could not refuse anything to one of the greatest benefactors of mankind. 

By the time he was 53 years old, he just got too busy with his work on vaccinations to continue his private medical practice. His colleagues and the King petitioned Parliament, and he was given a grant for his work on vaccination. 5 years later, he was given a second grant after the Royal College of Physicians confirmed the widespread efficacy of vaccination. 

A group named in his honor, the Jennerian Society was started in London concerned with promoting vaccination to eradicate smallpox. It ceased operations 6 years later when, the National Vaccine Establishment was founded with government aid. He felt dishonored by the men selected to run it and resigned his directorship with that organization. 

When he was 55 years old, he became a member of the Medical and Chirurgical Society and presented several papers there. He was honored by being elected as honorary member of various distinguished societies all over the world and spent many years travelling all over the world to promote vaccination for smallpox. 

When he was 66 years old, he returned to London and observed a significant number of cases of smallpox after vaccination. He found that in these cases the severity of the illness was notably diminished by previous vaccination. 10 years later, he was appointed physician extraordinary to King George IV. He continued to investigate natural history, and 2 years later with only 1 year left in his life, he presented his "Observations on the Migration of Birds" to the Royal Society. 

He was found to have internal bleeding and his right side was paralyzed. He never fully recovered and eventually died of a stroke, his second, at aged 73. 

In 1979, 230 years after his death, the World Health Organization declared smallpox an eradicated disease. This was the result of coordinated public health efforts, but vaccination was an essential component. Although the disease was declared eradicated, some pus samples still remain in laboratories the US and in Russia. His vaccine laid the foundation for contemporary discoveries in immunology. 

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Samuel Hahnemann (1755 – 1843) 

Samuel Hahnemann was a German physician, best known for creating the system of alternative medicine called homeopathy. 

He was born near Dresden, Germany. His father was a painter and designer of porcelain. As a young man, he became proficient in a number of languages, including English, French, Italian, Greek and Latin. He eventually made a living as a translator and teacher of languages, gaining further proficiency in Arabic and Hebrew. He studied medicine for 2 years at Leipzig but found it lacking clinical facilities so he moved to Vienna, where he studied for 10 months. When he was 24 years old, after one term of further study, he graduated as an Medical Doctor qualifying with honors. 2 years later, he took a village doctor's position in the copper-mining area near his home town, married and they had 11 children. 

After abandoning medical practice, and while working as a translator of scientific and medical textbooks, he traveled around Saxony for many years, staying in many different towns and villages for varying lengths of time. He was dissatisfied with the state of medicine in his time, and particularly objected to practices such as bloodletting. He claimed that the medicine he had been taught to practice sometimes did the patient more harm than good. 

His sense of duty would not easily allow him to treat the unknown pathological state of his suffering brethren with these unknown medicines. The thought of becoming in this way a murderer or malefactor towards the life of his fellow human beings was most terrible to him, so terrible and disturbing that he wholly gave up his practice in the first years of his married life and occupied himself solely with chemistry and writing. 

When he was 29 years old, he gave up his practice and made his living chiefly as a writer and translator. He spent his spare time investigating the causes of medicine's alleged errors. While translating William Cullen's “A Treatise on the Materia Medica”, he encountered the claim that cinchona, the bark of a Peruvian tree, was effective in treating malaria because it was so caustic. He believed that other astringent substances were not effective against malaria and began to research cinchona's effect on the human body by self-application. Noting that the drug induced the malaria-like symptoms he developed, he concluded that it would do so in any healthy individual. 

This led him to postulate a healing principle: 

"That which can produce a set of symptoms in a healthy individual, can treat a sick individual who is manifesting a similar set of symptoms." 

This principle, “like cures like”, became the basis for an approach to medicine which he gave the name homeopathy. He first used the term homeopathy in his essay “Indications of the Homeopathic Employment of Medicines in Ordinary Practice”, published when he was 52 years old. 

He followed up the pioneering work of the Viennese physician Anton von Störck who claimed that substances may heal the same ills that they caused. He tested substances for the effects they produced on a healthy individual. His researches led him to agree with von Störck that the toxic effects of ingested substances were often broadly parallel to certain disease states, and his exploration of historical cases of poisoning in the medical literature further implied a more generalized medicinal "law of similars". He later devised methods of diluting the drugs he was testing in order to mitigate their toxic effects. He claimed that these dilutions, when prepared according to his technique of 'potentization' using dilution and vigorous shaking were still effective in alleviating the same symptoms in the sick. 

His more systematic experiments with dose reduction really commenced when he was 45 years old, when, on the basis of his “law of similars”, he began using Ipecacuanha for the treatment of coughs and Belladonna for scarlet fever. He first published an article about the homeopathic approach in a German-language medical journal 4 years before. He continued publishing his essays over the next 40 years that he lived. 

Samuel Hahnemann died in Paris when he was 88 years of age.
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John Astor, Jean-Baptiste Fourier, Beethoven, Du Pont, Joseph Fraunhofer, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Charles Lyell, Joseph Smith, Fryderyk Chopin, David Thoreau,

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