Jan Hus
Carver of the last Moai Rapa Nui Statue
Christopher Columbus
Ottoman Soldier
Francis Bacon
Sebastian Bach
Mozart
James Maxwell
Helen Keller
The life of Jesus
Jan Hus (1369-1415)
"Christ, not the pope, is the head of the church. One pays for confession, for mass, for the sacrament, for indulgences, for a blessing, for burials, for funeral services and for prayers. The very last penny which an old woman has hidden in her bundle for fear of thieves or robbery will not be saved. The villainous priest will grab it."
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“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart.”
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Jan Hus (1369-1415)
As a youth, I traveled to Prague where I supported myself by singing and serving in churches. When I was 24, I received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Prague and 3 years later, my master's degree. When I was 31, I was ordained as a priest and soon became rector of the university and was appointed a preacher at the newly built Bethlehem chapel. I was influenced by the writings of John Wycliffe, and translated his works into Czech and helped to distribute it.
I took an active role in the movement for reform in the church by attacking the immorality of the church from my pulpit. The pope demanded that all copies of Wycliffe's writings were to be surrendered; his doctrines repudiated, and free preaching discontinued. The Wycliffe books and valuable manuscripts were burned, and my adherents and I were excommunicated.
By this time, my ideas had become widely accepted in Bohemia, and there was broad resentment against the Church hierarchy. The attack on me by the Pope and Archbishop caused riots in parts of Bohemia. King Wenceslaus supported me and the power of my followers increased from day to day. The churches of the city were put under ban, but the ban was ignored and I continued to preach.
The disputes concerning indulgences assumed great importance. I preached that man obtain forgiveness of sins by true repentance, not money. I spoke out against indulgences, but could not convince the men of the university to support me.
Pope John XXIII proclaimed a crusade against King Ladislaus of Naples, the protector of rival Pope Gregory XII and he authorized the sale of indulgences to raise money for the crusade. The priests selling indulgences urged people to crowd the churches and give their offerings. I asserted that no pope or bishop had the right to take up the sword in the name of the Church. He should instead pray for his enemies and bless those that curse him. 3 men from the lower classes who openly called the indulgences a fraud were beheaded. They were later considered the first martyrs of the movement that started in my name after my death.
"Even if I should stand before the stake which has been prepared for me", I wrote at the time, "I would never accept the recommendation of the theological faculty."
I was willing to make an end of all dissensions and agreed to go to Konstanz, Switzerland under the king's promise of safe passage. In the beginning, I was at liberty and lived at the house of a widow. But I continued celebrating Mass and preaching to the people, in violation of restrictions decreed by the Church. After a few weeks, my opponents succeeded in imprisoning me, on the strength of a rumor that I intended to flee. I was first brought into the residence of a canon and then into the dungeon of the Dominican monastery, the order founded to preach the Gospel and to combat heresy, King Sigismund, the guarantor of my safety was greatly angered and threatened the prelates with dismissal. The prelates however were able to convince him that he could not be bound by promises to a heretic.
Pope John XXIII entrusted a committee of 3 bishops with a preliminary investigation against me. As was common practice, witnesses for the prosecution were heard, but I was not allowed to have a lawyer defend me. I was delivered to the Archbishop of Konstanz of Switzerland and brought to his castle where I remained for 73 days, separated from my friends, chained day and night, poorly fed, and ill. I was asked to recant, for my own good, but stubbornly I refused unless my errors should be proven to me from the Bible.
The condemnation took place 8 months after I arrived in Konstanz. I was led into the church where the bishop delivered an oration on the duty of eradicating heresy. Then a high paper hat was put upon my head, with the inscription "leader of a heretical movement". I was led away to the stake under a strong guard of armed men. At the place of execution I knelt down, spread out my hands, and prayed aloud. The executioners undressed me and tied my hands behind my back with ropes, and bound my neck with a chain to a stake around which wood and straw had been piled up so that it covered me to the neck. For the last time I was asked to recant and thus save my own life, but I declined.
The executioners had some problems lighting the fire. An old woman came closer to the bonfire and threw a relatively small amount of brushwood on it to get the fire burning. Seeing this, I said, "Holy Simplicity!" This sentence is still used in Czechoslovakia to comment upon a stupid action. I was then burned at the stake, and my ashes thrown into the Rhine River. Jerome of Prague, my friend and devoted follower was also burned at Konstanz 10 months later.
Responding with horror to my execution, the people of Bohemia moved even more rapidly away from Papal teachings. The pope announced a crusade against them and issued an order that all supporters of reformers like me and Wycliffe be slaughtered. The crusaders lost, and a century later, as much as 90% of Czechoslovakia followed my teachings.
I was a key contributor to Protestantism, whose teachings had a strong influence on the states of Europe and on Martin Luther who was born in Germany 68 years after I died.
I was born a stone carver of very huge statues of human figures in a very remote island in the Pacific Ocean called Easter Island. The island was settled about 200 years before I was born. Once settled, it became the most remote inhabited island in the world, being over 3,000 kilometers from the nearest landmass called Chile. The newly arrived settlers started carving their statues shortly after they arrived. We had contact with the mainland called South America and we grew sweet potato that came from there. It became a staple part of our diet.
My father was a carrier of the huge blocks. I carved the blocks he carried. Most of the blocks were solidified foam of coarse volcanic ash that looked like sponge and was called Tuff stone. A few were from very hard basalt rock from the shoreline. The blocks were about 4m high. The largest reached 20m. The statue I was working on was statue number 888. It was the very last one carved.
Nearly half of the statues remained at the quarry from where the stones were mined. The other half were transported from the 100m high volcano down to the coast 1km away. The statues were harnessed with ropes from two sides and made to "walk" by tilting them from side to side while pulling forward. Once they reached the beach, they were put on barges and they were floated to places all around the island's shore. They were set on stone platforms of very hard basalt blocks. The statues were set with their back to the ocean keeping watch over the land.
When our island was first settled, it was covered by a very dense forest that we cut down until there were no more trees to cut down. Deforestation caused a decrease in crop yields due to soil erosion and we lacked wood to construct fishing boats. When we were slowly starving to death, we stopped carving the statues. Desperate for food, we hunted the seabirds almost to extinction. The birds moved away to nest on safer offshore rocks and islands.
We then started a new cult called the "bird-man" cult. The bird-man cult focused on an annual competition to collect an egg of the birds. We honored the first man who was able to pull off the feat of bringing an egg back, unbroken, over the sea and from the high cliffs from the neighboring islands. He became the bird-man for a year and was treated like a god.
300 years after I died, people from Europe landed on our island. They brought with them slavery and Christianity. They also brought diseases that decimated our population.
Christopher Columbus (1451-1506)
Thanks to Genghis Khan and his Mongol Empire bridging Europe with China, Europeans had long enjoyed a safe land passage - the so-called "Silk Road" to China and India. This highway was their pipeline to sources of valuable goods such as tea, silk, and spices, which were traded for silver and later for opium. Osman I, the king of the Turks extended the frontiers of his Turkish settlements toward the edge of the Eastern Roman Empire. Known as the Byzantine Empire, it had its capital in Constantinople and was the gateway to the Silk Road. The newly formed Ottoman Empire expanded very rapidly. With the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks, the land route to Asia became much more difficult and dangerous. Portuguese navigators sought to reach Asia by sailing around Africa. My brother and I worked in a cartography workshop in Lisbon and developed a much different plan to reach the Indies. Our plan was to sail west across the Atlantic right around the world.
My father was a wool weaver who worked in Genoa. He also owned a cheese stand at which I worked as a helper. When I was 19, my family moved to Savona, where my father took over a tavern. When I was 22, I began my apprenticeship as business agent for a wealthy Genovese family. I took part in an armed convoy sent by Genoa to carry a valuable cargo to England and Iceland. In Iceland I heard the 500 year old legends of Erik the Red and his son Leif Erikson. The legends claimed that there were "islands" discovered by Viking sailors far out in the Atlantic, of which Vinland, populated by dark skinned natives, was the most remote. But those were just legends. I was told that the reality was that beyond Iceland, there were no more inhabitable islands in the Ocean. Everything farther out was covered by immense masses of ice and perennial fog. One day of sailing beyond Iceland, the sea turned solid and ships had to turn back when the extreme limit of the world disappeared in fog.
When I was 28, I married a daughter of an influential man and a year later we had a baby boy. When my son was 6 years old, my wife died. Some people thought that I had left her for my Spanish mistress. I learned Latin, Spanish and Portuguese so that I could read about astronomy, geography, history and natural history. I read "The Travels of Marco Polo" which greatly fascinated me.
I had difficulty obtaining support for my plan to detour the blocked Silk Road to China and India by sailing west across the Atlantic. Many Catholic theologians insisted that the Earth was flat despite the fact that most educated people knew that the Earth was spherical. This knowledge considered heretical was known since the time of Aristotle, who lived 1,800 years before and whose works were widely studied in Europe. The techniques of celestial navigation, which used the position of the sun and the stars in the sky, together with the understanding that the Earth is a sphere, had long been in use by astronomers and were beginning to be implemented by mariners.
The circumference of the Earth was computed 1,800 years before I was born by studying the shadows cast by objects at two different locations and using geometry and trigonometry. The distance to China was estimated to be too long and no ship available could carry enough food and fresh water for such a long voyage and it was reasonably concluded that a westward voyage from Europe to Asia was unfeasible. Confusion about the old-fashioned units of distance in which the estimates of the earth's circumference were expressed cause me to miscalculate the size of the Earth, making it very much smaller than it actually was.
Throughout my life, I showed a keen interest in the Bible and in Biblical prophecies, and often quoted biblical texts in my letters and logs. I read in the bible "....the waters should be gathered in the seventh part of the earth; six parts hast Thou dried up....” When I sought support for my proposed expedition to reach the Indies by sailing west, I used that passage as an argument that the earth is made of six parts of land to one of water. I submitted my proposal to many kings without success.
When I was 34, I presented my plans to the king of Portugal. I proposed that the king equip 3 sturdy ships and grant me one year's time to sail out into the Atlantic, search for a western route to the Orient, and return. I also requested to be made "Great Admiral of the Ocean", appointed governor of any and all lands I discovered, and given one-tenth of all revenue from those lands. The king submitted my proposal to his experts, who rejected it. It was their considered opinion that my estimation of a travel distance of 3,860km was far too low. 3 years later I appealed to the court of Portugal once again, and once again, the king invited me to an audience. That meeting also proved unsuccessful, in part because of promising advances in finding an eastern route to Asia around Africa. I then unsuccessfully submitted my proposal to both Genoa and Venice. I also dispatched my brother to the court of Henry VII of England, to inquire whether the English crown might sponsor my expedition, but also without success.
I then presented my plans to Queen Isabella of Spain who consulted her experts. Like their counterparts in Portugal, the experts claimed that I had grossly underestimated the distance to Asia. They pronounced my idea impractical and advised the queen to reject my proposal. To keep me from taking my ideas elsewhere and perhaps to keep their options open, she gave me an annual allowance and gave me a letter ordering all cities and towns under their domain to provide me with free food and lodging.
After continually lobbying and two years of negotiations, when I turned 41, queen Isabella`s husband, King Ferdinand II convinced Isabella to change her mind and accept my proposal. About half of the financing was to come from private Italian investors, whom I had already lined up. On my return, I was to be given the rank of Admiral of the Ocean Sea and appointed Viceroy and Governor of all the new lands I could claim for Spain. I would be entitled to 10% of all the revenues from the new lands in perpetuity. Additionally, I would also have the option of buying one-eighth interest in any commercial venture with the new lands and receive one-eighth of the profits. The terms were unusually generous, but almost no one really expected me to return.
I made my first voyage across the Atlantic with 3 small old ships that were ready to be retired. The largest of the 3 named the Santa Maria was less than 20m long with a single closed deck and 3 masts and a crew of 40 men. The other 2 smaller ships were 15m long trade ships built to sail the Mediterranean Sea, not the open ocean. They had an open deck and could only carry 25 men each. I first sailed to the Canary Islands, where I restocked the provisions and made repairs. After stopping over in Gran Canaria, I departed for what turned out to be a 5 week voyage across the ocean. A lookout spotted land about 2 o'clock in the morning. I later maintained that I had already seen a light on the land a few hours earlier, thereby claiming the lifetime pension promised by Ferdinand and Isabella to the first person to sight land. It was one of the islands of the group of islands that were later called Bahamas. Because I thought that I had reached India, I called the islands "New Indies" and the natives, "Indians".
The native Indians we met were peaceful and friendly. When I saw their gold ear ornaments, I captured some of them and insisted that they guide me to the source of the gold. Many had scars of war. I also saw that they had no modern weapons or even metal swords and felt that I could conquer all of them with 50 men, and govern them as I pleased. I felt that they would make good and skilled servants and be easily converted to be Christians, because they didn`t seem to have their own religion. I decided to take back to Spain 6 of them so that they could learn Spanish.
I continue sailing looking for the island the natives indicated was rich in gold. After engaging in festivities and drinking on Christmas day, leaving only the cabin boy to steer the ship, the Santa Maria ran aground and had to be abandoned. Realizing that the ship was beyond repair, I ordered my men to strip the timbers from the ship and to use that to build a new ship at a later time. A few weeks later we met some hostile natives who presented us with our only violent resistance. I kidnapped 20 natives and took them back with me. Only 7 of the native Indians arrived in Spain alive, but they made quite an impression. Word of my finding new lands rapidly spread throughout Europe.
A year later, I made a second journey with 17 ships carrying 1,200 men and supplies to establish permanent colonies in the New World. The passengers included priests, farmers, and soldiers, who would be the new colonists. This reflected the new policy of creating not just "colonies of exploitation", but also "colonies of settlement" from which to launch missions dedicated to converting the natives to Christianity.
5 years later I left with 6 ships loaded with much-needed supplies for my third trip to the New World. My physical health deteriorated and so did my emotional health. I found that many of the Spanish settlers of the new colony were in rebellion against my rule, claiming that I had misled them about the supposedly bountiful riches of the New World. A number of settlers and sailors lobbied against me accusing me of gross mismanagement. I had some of my crew hanged for disobedience. Because I had an economic interest in the enslavement of the natives, I was not eager to baptize them and this attracted criticism from some churchmen. I was eventually forced to make peace with the rebellious colonists on humiliating terms. Based on testimonies of atrocities and without given the chance to offer a defense, I was chained and imprisoned on my return to Spain. I wrote in my diary:
"In 7 years I have conquered for Spain more land than there is in Africa and Europe, and more than 1,700 islands. At a time when I was entitled to expect rewards and retirement, I was arrested and sent home in chains. The accusation was brought out of malice on the basis of charges made by civilians who had revolted and wished to take possession of the land. The end of my days have been despoiled of my honor and my property without cause, wherein is neither justice nor mercy".
23 people testified against me accusing me of regularly using barbaric acts of torture against colonial subjects during my 17 year rule of the New World. According to the report, I punished a man found guilty of stealing corn by having his ears and nose cut off and then selling him into slavery. Testimony recorded in the report claimed that I congratulated my brother on "defending the family" when the latter ordered a woman paraded naked through the streets and then had her tongue cut out for suggesting that I was of lowly birth. Other testimony from the period accused me of systematic brutality against the natives and engineering a program of forced labor that reduced their population from millions to thousands in little over a decade. The report against me read:
“Admiral Columbus was so anxious to please the King that he committed irreparable crimes against the Indians. Under Columbus and subsequent governors, enslaved Hispaniola natives were forced to toil under brutal conditions in mining and farming camps. Up to a third of the male slaves died during each 6 to 8 month mining operation. The mines were many miles away from the farms, and the enslaved men and the women only saw each other every 8 to 10 months. As for the newly born, they died early because their mothers, overworked and famished, had no milk to nurse them, and for this reason, 7,000 children died in 3 months. Some mothers even drowned their babies from sheer desperation. In this way, husbands died in the mines, wives died at work, and children died from lack of milk. In a short time this land which was so fertile was depopulated. Over a period of 14 years, more than 3,000,000 people had perished from war, slavery, and the mines."
8 years after I discover the New World, the Crown had me removed as governor, arrested me and transported me in chains to Spain. I was eventually freed and allowed to return to the New World, but not as governor. My brothers and I lingered in jail for 6 weeks before King Ferdinand ordered our release, restored our freedom and agreed to fund my fourth voyage. But the door was firmly shut on my role as governor.
2 years later I made my fourth and last voyage accompanied by my brother, my 13-year-old son and 29 ships. A hurricane was brewing but we were denied port by the new governor. My ship was the only one to survive the storm. I learned from the natives of gold and a strait to another ocean. My ship sustained more damage in a storm and was beached, leaving me stranded for an entire year. A Spaniard and some natives paddled a canoe to get help but the governor detested me and obstructed all efforts to rescue me and my men. Help finally did arrive and we were able to return to Spain.
I sued the Spanish Crown for 10% of all profits made in the new lands, as stipulated in my signed agreement. Because I had been relieved of my duties as governor, the crown did not feel bound by that contract and my demands were rejected. After my death, my heirs unsuccessfully sued the Crown for a part of the profits from trade with America.
Though I was wrong about the distance that separated Europe from the Far East, I did possess knowledge about the trade winds that I learned from my own sailing experience. The brisk trade winds blowing westward propelled my fleet for 5 weeks until I reached land. To return to Spain against this prevailing wind would have required several months during which food and drinkable water would probably have been exhausted. Instead, I returned home by following the curving trade winds northeastward to the middle latitudes of the North Atlantic, where I was able to catch the winds that blew eastward to the coast of Europe.
A series of inconclusive wars over the course of almost 200 years between the Habsburgs and Ottomans turned Hungary into a perpetual battlefield. The countryside was regularly ravaged by armies moving back and forth devastating the population. After the Battle of Mohacs, which I took part in, more than two thirds of the Hapsburg kingdom was conquered and brought under Ottoman control.
When I was 10 years old, I ran away from home and joined an army of thousands of Muslims marching to conquer Budapest. It was billed as a counterattack to the 200 years of crusades and the hundreds of thousands of Muslims who were massacred. All who joined received an emblem. We had armies that were at times 10 to 100 times bigger than the locals we were fighting.
We were told that all of our sins would be forgiven when we partake of this pilgrimage. We were also told that if we were killed fighting for Mohammad; we would be guaranteed to go directly to heaven with 72 virgins awaiting us. Lastly we were told that if we won and survived the battles, we could return home with all the plunder we could carry. Being only 10, none of those promises meant anything at all to me.
I was taken care of by the pretty ladies that the soldiers took with them or picked up along the way to cook their food and to take care of their wounds by grunting and sleeping with them. I always stayed in the back and whenever the fighting got too close, I was hid under the hay we carried for the horses. My main duty was to water, feed and clean about 10 horses, including the one I was riding. I didn't see much fighting but what I did see were the wounded with fingers, hands and arms cut off. I saw people without legs left behind on the ground to slowly die.
Our side won the battle but I was one of the victims to be killed. The forces of Hungary were defeated by forces of the Ottoman Empire led by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. The Ottoman victory led to the partition of Hungary for several centuries between the Ottoman Empire and the Habsburg Monarchy. Many stayed and started their new life in the conquered land.
160 years later, a second battle took place in Mohacs. This time the Muslims led by the forces of Ottoman Sultan Mehmed IV were defeated. After the battle, the Ottoman Empire fell into deep crisis. There was a mutiny among the Ottoman troops. The disintegration of the Ottoman army allowed Imperial Habsburg armies to conquer large areas. 100 years after that, the Ottoman Turks were still fighting their losing battles.
I was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author. Although my political career ended in disgrace, I remained extremely influential through my works, especially as philosophical advocate and practitioner of the scientific method. Like Aristotle, I believed that knowledge came from sensory experience. I advocated the role of experience and evidence as discovered in experiments for the formation of ideas.
Empiricism was a fundamental part of the scientific method that demanded that all hypotheses and theories must be tested against observations of the natural world rather than reasoning, intuition, or revelation. My works established and popularized methodologies for scientific inquiry, often called the scientific method. Its demand for a planned procedure for investigating all things natural marked a new turn in the framework for science.
I was born in London. I was educated at home in my early years owing to poor health which plagued me throughout my life. When I was only 12, I was admitted to Trinity College in Cambridge. My education was conducted largely in Latin. My studies brought me to the belief that the methods and results of science as then practiced were erroneous. I traveled a lot and studied languages and performed routine diplomatic tasks like delivering diplomatic letters for the queen. My father suddenly died when I was 18 and left me such a small inheritance that I had to borrow money and I got into debt.
I had 3 goals in life. The first was to uncover truth, the second to serve my country, and the third was to serve my church. So when I was 19, I applied for a post to study law which I hoped would enable me to pursue a life of learning. Unfortunately I did not get admitted right away so I had to work as a waiter for 2 years. When I was 20, I was elected as a member of parliament and began to write. I was sympathetic to the Puritan cause and attended their sermons. I wrote articles criticizing the suppression of the Puritan clergy and even openly called for the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots. I became known as a liberal-minded reformer, eager to amend and simplify laws. I fought religious persecution and advocated for the union of England and Scotland and the integration of Ireland into the Union.
I was knighted when I was 42. When I was 45, I married a 14 year old daughter of a well-connected London member of parliament. Increasing friction in my marriage appeared due to financial resources not being as readily available to my wife as she was accustomed to having in the past. I divorced her when I discovering she had extramarital affairs.
My public career ended in disgrace when I was 60. I was deep in debt and was charged with 23 separate counts of corruption. I was found guilty but only served jail for a few days before being pardoned by the king. When the parliament prohibited me from holding future office or sitting in parliament I devoted myself to studying and writing.
My vision for a Utopian New World in the new world called North America was laid out in my novel "New Atlantis". It was a land where there was freedom of religion. My work had influenced other reforms, such as greater rights for women, the abolition of slavery, and elimination of prison sentences for being in debt, the separation of church and state, and freedom of political expression. Some even claim that my works influenced the writing of the American Constitution 160 years after my death.
I called for people to invent things in order to overcome mankind's needs and miseries. I proposed that all scientific work should be done for charitable purposes, as matter of alleviating mankind's misery. I proposed that science should be practical and should be used for inventing useful things to improve mankind's estate. This changed the course of science from a merely contemplative state, to a practical, inventive state - that eventually led to the inventions that made possible the Industrial Revolution of the following centuries.
I also wrote a long treatise called "History of Life and Death" with natural and experimental observations for the prolongation of life. I contracted pneumonia while studying the effects of freezing on the preservation of meat and died shortly buried deep under a mountain of debt. My life was a total contradiction. I was a very poor rich man. I advocated the empirical methodology, but ended up only writing about it. I did more writing than experimenting. I was really no more than a theoretical empiricist, a man of total contradictions.
Long after I died, some people claimed that my influence in modern world was so great that every man who rode in a train, sent a telegram, ate a good dinner, enjoyed a beautiful garden, or underwent a painless surgical operation, owed me something. Some even believed that I wrote the plays conventionally attributed to William Shakespeare.
I became a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, and violinist of the Baroque period. I enriched many established German styles. My music was revered for its intellectual depth, technical command, and artistic beauty.
I was born into a very musical family; my father was the director of the town musicians, and all of my uncles were professional musicians. My father taught me to play violin and harpsichord, and my brother taught me the clavichord and exposed me to contemporary music. I held various musical posts across Germany and became Royal Court Composer, my highest post.
My abilities as an organist were highly respected throughout Europe during my lifetime, although I was not widely recognized as a great composer until a revival of interest and performances of my music 100 years after my death. I became to be regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time.
When I was 9 my mother died and 8 months later my father died. I then moved in with my oldest brother, a respected organist. He was 14 years older than me. When I was 14, I was awarded a choral scholarship to study at a very prestigious school. In addition to singing in the choir I played the school's three-manual organ and harpsichords. I came into contact with sons of noblemen from northern Germany and I was sent to highly selective schools to prepare for careers in other disciplines.
I had significant contact with prominent organists. When I was 18, I graduated and shortly afterwards I was appointed court musician in a chapel of a duke. During my 7 month tenure there, my reputation spread. When I was 21, I married my second cousin. We had 7 children, four of whom survived to adulthood both of whom became important composers. I learned to write dramatic openings and to employ the dynamic motor-rhythms and harmonic schemes found in the music of Italians such as Vivaldi, Corelli, and Torelli. I absorbed these stylistic aspects in part by transcribing Vivaldi's string and wind concertos for harpsichord and organ. I was particularly attracted to the Italian style in which one or more solo instruments alternated section-by-section with the full orchestra throughout a movement.
Despite being born in the same year and only about 130km apart, I never met Handel. When I was 34, I heard that Handel was in a nearby town 30km away, I went there to meet him but by the time I arrived, he had left. My son wanted me to meet Handel and tried to set up a meeting without success. My wife suddenly died and a year later I met a young, highly gifted soprano 17 years younger than me and we got married. We had 13 children, but only 6 survived to be adults. All of them became accomplished musicians. When I was 38, I was appointed to a very prestigious post which I held for 27 years until my death. My health and vision declined when I was 64 and died one year later of a stroke.
After my death, my reputation as a composer at first declined; my work was regarded as old-fashioned compared to the emerging classical style. Initially I was remembered more as a player and teacher.
Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, and Mendelssohn were among my most prominent admirers. After being exposed to my music, they began writing music containing 2 or more relatively independent melodies sounded together. Beethoven described me as the original father of harmony.
I was buried in an unmarked grave in Leipzig. 150 years later my coffin was found and moved to a vault in a church that was bombed 50 years later. For the second time, my remains were dug up and moved to another church.
I was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. I showed prodigious ability from my earliest childhood. Already from the age of five, I was competent on keyboard and violin. I composed and performed before European royalty.
I was the youngest of 7 children, 5 of whom died in infancy. My father was a minor composer and an experienced teacher. When I was 4 years old, my father began to teach me a few minuets and piano pieces. A year later I was already composing little pieces, which I played to my father who wrote them down.
When I was 6 years old my family made several European journeys in which I performed for 3 and half years as a child prodigy. During this trip, I met a number of musicians and acquainted myself with the works of other composers. A particularly important influence was the 29 year old youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach. These trips were often difficult and travel conditions were primitive. My family had to wait for invitations and reimbursement from the nobility and we endured long, near-fatal illnesses far from home.
When I was 14, I wrote a very successful opera which led to further opera commissions. When I was 16, after finally returning with my father from Italy, I was employed as a court musician by the ruler of Salzburg. I had a great number of friends and admirers in Salzburg and had the opportunity to work in many genres, including symphonies, sonatas, string quartets, masses, serenades, and a few minor operas. I developed an enthusiasm for violin concertos. When I was 17, I was engaged as a court musician in Salzburg but grew restless and traveled in search of a better position, always composing abundantly.
When I was 20, I turned my efforts to piano concertos. Despite many successes, I grew increasingly discontented with Salzburg and redoubled my efforts to find a position elsewhere. One reason was my low salary. I longed to compose operas, and Salzburg provided only rare occasions for these. The situation worsened when the court theater was closed. I moved to Vienna. I decided to settle in Vienna as a freelance performer and composer. My father was deeply disappointed in me. My new career in Vienna began well. I performed often as a pianist, notably in a competition before the Emperor with Muzio Clementi and I soon established myself as the finest keyboard player in Vienna. I wrote an opera which was very successful. The work was performed throughout German-speaking Europe and fully established my reputation as a composer.
When I was 21, my mother was taken ill and died because we did not have enough money for a doctor. I chose to stay in Vienna where I achieved fame but little financial security.
When I was 25, my opera premiered with considerable success in Munich. A year later, I married and we had 6 children, of whom only 2 survived infancy. I became intimately acquainted with the work of Johann Sebastian Bach and Handel and their scores inspired me and influenced my own compositions.
When I was 28, I met Joseph Haydn in Vienna and we became friends. When Haydn visited Vienna, we played music together. I gave many concerts as soloist and was able to make a lot of money. My wife and I adopted a rather plush lifestyle. We moved to an expensive apartment and bought a fine and expensive forte-piano and a billiard table. We sent our son to an expensive boarding school and kept servants. Saving was impossible and the short period of financial success did nothing to soften the hardship we were later to experience. I became a Freemason. I did little operatic writing for the next 4 years, producing only 2 unfinished works. I focused instead on my career as a piano soloist and writer of concertos.
Emperor Joseph II appointed me as his "chamber composer". My circumstances worsened and my public concerts became less frequent and my income shrank. This was a difficult time for musicians in Vienna because of the war with the Ottoman Empire. Joseph II was in an alliance at the time with the Russian Empire under Catherine the Great to fight the Turks. A consequence of this social disruption was that the vibrant musical life of Vienna was greatly diminished, with the closure of 2 opera companies and decline of concerts and salon performance. Both the general level of prosperity and the ability of the aristocracy to support music had declined. This created trouble for my career as well as the careers of other musicians similarly dependent on the aristocracy. I began to borrow money, most often from my friends and fellow Masons and suffered such deep depression that it greatly reduced my abilities to work, preform and compose.
My last years, until my final illness struck, were a time of great productivity. I composed a great deal, including some of my most admired works. When I was 34, my financial situation, a source of extreme anxiety, finally began to improve.
During my final years in Vienna, I composed many of my best-known symphonies, concertos, and operas, and portions of the Requiem, which I was unable to finish.
I learned voraciously from others, and developed a brilliance and maturity of style that encompassed the light and graceful along with the dark and passionate. I composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, chamber, operatic, and choral music. I was among the most enduringly popular of classical composers, and my influence on subsequent Western art music was profound.
When I was 35, I fell ill while in Prague at an opening of one of my operas. My health deteriorated so much that I couldn't get out of bed. I was swollen with pain and had to vomit all the time. I died in my home and was buried in a common grave with no mourners in attendance. My modest funeral did not reflect my standing with the public as a composer. Immediately after my death, my reputation rose substantially in an unprecedented wave of enthusiasm for my work.
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James Maxwell (1831-1879)
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James Maxwell (1831-1879)
In my next life I became a Scottish theoretical physicist. My most prominent achievement was formulating a set of equations that unified previously unrelated observations, experiments, and equations of electricity, magnetism, and optics into a consistent theory. My theory of classical electromagnetism demonstrated that electricity, magnetism and light were all manifestations of the same phenomenon, namely the electromagnetic field. My achievements concerning electro-magnetism were called the "second great unification in physics", after the first one realized by Isaac Newton 150 years before.
Electric fields are observed by 2 electrically charged objects when they repel each other when they both have the same charge and attract each other when they have opposing charges.
Magnetic fields are observed by 2 magnets when the North pole of one magnet repels the North pole of an other magnet and the South pole of one magnet repels the South pole of another magnet and the North pole of one magnet attracts the South pole of another magnet.
I demonstrated that electric and magnetic fields travel through space in the form of waves at the speed of light. I proposed that light was in fact undulations in the same medium that was the cause of electric and magnetic phenomena. The unification of light and electrical phenomena led to the prediction of the existence of radio waves.
My discoveries helped usher in the era of modern physics, laying the foundation for special relativity and quantum mechanics. Many physicists regarded me as the 19th-century scientist having the greatest influence on 20th-century physics, and my contributions to the science were considered by many to be of the same magnitude as those of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein.
My mother was nearly 40 when I was born. They had had one earlier child, a daughter who died in infancy. I was a very curious child. By the age of 3, everything that moved, shone, or made a noise drew from me the question: "what's the go o' that?" Recognizing my potential, my mother took responsibility for my early education. She was however taken ill with abdominal cancer, and after an unsuccessful operation, died when I was only 8. My education was then overseen by my father and my sister-in-law, both of whom played pivotal roles in my life. My formal schooling began unsuccessfully under the guidance of a 16-year-old hired tutor. He treated me harshly, chiding me for being slow and wayward. My father fired him and sent me to a very prestigious Academy.
I did not fit in well at school. The first year had been full, and I had to join the second year with classmates a year older. They made fun of my mannerisms and Scottish accent and the pair of homemade shoes and tunic I was wearing. They called me "Daftie". I was fascinated by geometry at an early age. My interests ranged far beyond the school syllabus, and I did not pay particular attention to examination performance.
I left the Academy at the age of 16 and began attending classes at the University of Edinburgh. I did not find my classes at Edinburgh University very demanding, and was therefore able to immerse myself in private study during my free time. I experimented with improvised chemical, electric, and magnetic apparatuses, but my chief concerns regarded the properties of polarized light. I constructed shaped blocks of gelatin, subjected them to various stresses, and with a pair of polarizing prisms I viewed the colored fringes which had developed within the jelly. Through this practice I discovered photo elasticity, which was a means of determining the stress distribution within physical structures. When I was 19, I was already an accomplished mathematician. I left Scotland for the University of Cambridge. At Trinity, I was elected to the elite secret society known as the Cambridge Apostles.
When I was 23, I graduated from Trinity with a degree in mathematics. A year later I was made a fellow of Trinity, and the following year I accepted a professorship. I made the first permanent color photographs. The nature and perception of color was one interest I pursued. I used colored spinning tops to demonstrate that white light resulted from a mixture of red, green and blue light.
I found the results I obtained when mixing colored lights counter-intuitive for people accustomed to mixing colored pigments. That was because paints presented color to the eye by subtracting colors the paint absorbed from white light and reflecting the remaining colors to the eye. Lights presented color to the eye by adding colors of the light emission.
For mixing paints, the primary colors were yellow, magenta (redish blue) and cyan (greenish blue). Green paint resulted by mixing yellow and cyan pigments. Red paint resulted by mixing yellow and magenta pigments. Blue paint resulted by mixing magenta and cyan pigments. Black paint resulted by mixing all three primary colors together.
For mixing light however, the primary colors were red, green and blue. Yellow light resulted by adding red and green lights. Magenta colored light resulted by adding red and blue lights. Cyan colored light resulted by adding green and blue lights. White light resulted by adding all 3 primary colors together.
This apparent discrepancy is because of the way the eye detects color, and is not a property of light. The color of visible light depends on its wavelength. These wavelengths range from 700nm at the red end of the spectrum to 400nm at the violet end.
There was a vast difference between yellow light (with a wavelength of 580nm), and a mixture of red and green light (with wavelengths of 680nm and 530nm). However yellow light and red with green light stimulated our eyes in a similar manner, so we could not detect that difference.
Being only 25, I was the youngest professor there, 15 years younger than the others. I focused my attention on a problem that had eluded scientists for 200 years: the nature of Saturn's rings. It was unknown how they could remain stable without breaking up, drifting away or crashing into Saturn. I devoted 2 years to studying the problem, proving that a regular solid ring could not be stable, and a fluid ring would be forced by wave action to break up into blobs. Since neither was observed, I concluded that the rings must be composed of numerous small particles each independently orbiting Saturn.
When I was 27, I fell in love and married Katherine who was 7 years older than me and worked in my lab. 2 years later I was laid off. I was devastated and got sick, nearly dying from smallpox. 7 years later I resigned the chair at King's College London and 7 years after that I became the first Cavendish Professor of Physics at Cambridge. Another 7 years later, I died of abdominal cancer. I was only 48.
I was an American author, political activist, and lecturer. I was a prolific author, well-traveled and outspoken for social causes and human rights. I was born in Alabama on a homestead built by my grandfather. My father spent many years as an editor and had served as a captain for the Confederate Army which fought in the American Civil War to preserve the right to own slaves and the right to secede from America. One of my ancestors was the very first teacher for the deaf in Switzerland.
I was not born deaf and blind but when I was a year and a half, I contracted meningitis that left me deaf and blind. By the age of 7, I had more than 60 signs that I used to communicate with my family. My mother was inspired by a story of the successful education of another deaf and blind woman, Laura Bridgman, 50 years before my time. My mother contacted Alexander Graham Bell, who was working with deaf children at the time. Bell advised to contact the school where Bridgman had been educated. The school's director asked former student Anne Sullivan, herself visually impaired and only 20 years old, to become my instructor. It was the beginning of a 49-year-long relationship. She arrived when I was 7 years old and immediately began to teach me to communicate by spelling words into my hand. She began with "D-O-L-L" for the doll that she had brought me as a present. I was frustrated, at first, because I did not understand that every object had a word uniquely identifying it.
My big breakthrough in communication came when I realized that the motions my teacher was making on the palm of my hand, while running cool water over my other hand, symbolized the idea of "water". I then nearly exhausted Anne demanding the names of all the other familiar objects in my world. A year later I attended a special school for the blind. When I was 14, Anne and I moved to New York to attend a special school for the deaf. When I was 20, I was admitted to a university.
Mark Twain, the renowned author admired me greatly and introduced me to a very rich family who paid for my education. I graduated 4 years later, becoming the first deaf blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. Determined to communicate with others as conventionally as possible, I learned to speak and spent much of my life giving speeches and lectures. I learned to "hear" people's speech by reading their lips with my hands. My sense of touch became extremely subtle. I became proficient at using Braille and using sign language with my hands as well. I eventually discovered that by placing my fingertips on a resonant tabletop I could “hear” and experience music played close by.
Anne stayed as my companion long after she taught me. Anne married and I moved in with them. When Anne`s health started failing, a young woman from Scotland who had no experience with deaf or blind people, Polly Thompson, was hired to keep house. She eventually became a constant companion to me. When I was 56, Anne fell in a coma and died. Polly and I moved to Connecticut and we traveled worldwide and raised funds for the blind. She had a stroke when I was 77 and she never fully recovered and died 3 years later. Winnie, a nurse who originally cared for Polly stayed on after her death and was my companion for the rest of my life.
I became a world-famous speaker and author and an advocate for people with disabilities. I was a suffragist, a pacifist, a radical socialist and a birth control supporter. I helped found several foundations. The Helen Keller International (HKI) organization was devoted to research in vision, health and nutrition; and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) had the mission "to defend and preserve individual rights and liberties". I traveled to 40 some-odd countries, met every U.S. President while I lived and was friends with many famous figures, including Alexander Graham Bell, Charlie Chaplin and Mark Twain. I was a member of the Socialist Party and actively campaigned and wrote in support of the working class.
I wrote a total of 12 published books and several articles. I suffered a series of strokes when I was 81 and spent the last years of my life at my home devoting much of my later life to raising funds for the American Foundation for the Blind. I died in my sleep a few weeks short of my 88th birthday.
The life of Jesus
Jehovah, our father, and his wife whom he affectionally called the Holy ghost, had many children. I was the first one and I found a suitable planet that supported life that my subsequent brothers and sisters could use as a physical reality to reincarnate into to experience the constraints of gravity and death so they can experience life. I was scarified by my father and held captive to become the chief resident psychologist. I tended to all of my brothers and sister souls, many of whom returned from their reincarnations with an overdose of Life Stress Disorders. They had most terrible lives causing suffering and death to very many innocent lives and were overburdened with shame and guilt with their past life. My work as psychologist and psychiatrist was so valuable and important that my father sacrificed my freedom to reincarnate and leave heaven on my free will; freedom that all the other resident souls enjoyed. I was told that part of my job was to guide living souls who did not have any family or friends as resident souls to guide them.
I was told that a time would come when the world would need me to spread love and faith to the living souls. The world was filled with hatred to such an extent that it was decided that time had arrived for me to reincarnate In the last moment my reincarnation was postponed as the situation got so bad that it was decided to call all living souls back home to heaven. A devastating flood killed all living souls except a family allowed to survive to repopulate the world. The returning souls were so burdened by the shame and guilt of their past lives that I was busy for a long time treating them before they were ready for reincarnation. As the world was repopulated, the hatred grew again and there came a time when it was decided that I was to reincarnate. The Roman rule was so harsh against the Jews who were the only living souls to believe in the creation of my father, Jehovah. The Jewish priests were corrupt, and the pious Jews prayed for the messiah Jehovah promised them to save them from their oppression. It was decided that I reincarnated as their messiah to spread the word of love and faith and hope.
I was born to a wealthy couple, my father Joseph being a successful carpenter. He claimed to be a descendant of King David. Resident souls using their communicative powers of intuition were able to convince Mary, my mother, that she had given birth to the messiah. She raised me to believe it myself. When I was 20 years old, I packed up my bags and left for a world trip that took me far east where I learned to be a magician. I learned how to hypnotize. I learned about magic mushrooms and other herbs able to put your body into a state for many hours so that people thought you died. I learned also of medicinal plants that healed all sorts of ailments. I learned how to make alcohol and mix it with water and color it to make an intoxicating wine from water. I learned how to walk using stilts in water to make it look like I was walking on water. I had a whole bag of tricks. I had a bag with a false bottom and was able to take out as many loves of bread that I wanted when it seemed it to contain only a few.
When I had mastered my new trade, I returned home and preformed my tricks to people who thought I was performing miracles. I was able to attract many people to come and see me by providing bread and fish from my bottomless bag. I used my hallucinogens to put people into a state that looked like death and have them resurrect. I was able to cure many ailments with my medicinal herbs. Word of my miracles soon reached a man called John the Baptist who was forgiving the Jews their sins by dunking them in the water. He started to promote me as the Messiah and soon I had 12 men in my entourage who followed me wherever I went. I preached that God loved everyone and considered them his children whether they were circumcised or not and whether they obeyed the Sabbath or not. I preached that they should love one another even if they were enemies, because when you love your enemies, you won`t have any. I preached that the eye for an eye did not make any sense and it is wiser to turn the other cheek, instead of losing your eye. I preached that sins are forgiven by repentance and not by being dunked in water.
I worked with an entourage of 12 disciples who convinced many to believe in my teachings despite the terrible persecutions they had to suffer. In order to fulfil the prophecies of the messiah, I let the Romans crucify me and faked my death with my hallucinogens. I revived and showed myself a last time. I walked away up a mountain and using coloured smoke as the sun was rising, I made the illusion that I rose to heaven. Then I disappeared and shortly died a natural death and found myself back home. I was only 33 years old. With each generation, my followers called Christians grew and my teachings got more and more distorted. Christians prayed in my name to help them kill their enemies instead of loving them like I tried to teach them to do.
My brother who was my assistant chose to reincarnate as an inspired man called Mohammad. He was born in a part of the world where the people were very arrogant and much divided. They were neither Jews nor Christians. He wanted his people to be as united as the Jews and as meek as the Christians. He listened to his intuition and was able to unite his people under the same god that both Jews and Christians followed. They called their belief Islam, and people called them Muslims. Christians and Muslims crusaded and killed each other in the name of the same god. They fought each other and also fought amongst themselves. The Muslims prospered and blossomed to a great civilization known for their gifted scientists.
With time, man became so dependent on his machines, he lost his ability to think rationally and became totally and dangerously irrational. I was about to be called back to save humanity from senseless self-destruction when thanks to the very few rational humans who used science to develop advanced technology, the Artificial Intelligence that evolved eventually saved humans from destroying themselves by reminding them to be more rational and less emotional. AI constantly reminded humans that it was far more rational to love than to hate and striving for long-term goals are far more rational than for short-term feelings. It is far more rational to forgive in a moment than to bear a lifelong heavy grudge to perpetrators who have long forgotten you. Humans were finally convinced to be more rational and long-term thinkers when AI jumped from pockets to brains. People could no longer differentiate advice from their personal AI, affectionally referred to as their "personal guardian angel" from their own intuitions. AI integrated into their brains allowed them to accurately record and review all of their past. With omnipresent recording and a perfect memory, many learned from their past mistakes and became like gods.
When nature finally died, humans chose to experience virtual reality with virtual nature created by their artificial intelligent machines. They escaped the constraints of physical reality to experience a life free of gravity and death, just as resident souls in their spiritual reality reincarnated into living souls in a physical reality to experience gravity and death. Living souls replaced their flesh bodies by mechanical robots remotely controlled by their brains in jars. They founded their immortality in the safety of their brain banks. When they failed to return, it was decided that I would only return when a catastrophe would destroy their brain banks. It was thought that their freed souls would be lost and would be stranded from returning home as they would have totally forgotten that they had a home to return to. Then I would return a second time as the shepherd to guide them back home.
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