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Bill Gates
When
Bill Gates made his decision to drop out from
Harvard, he did not care too
much of
the result. Gates entered Harvard in 1973, and
dropped out two years later when he and
A
llen started the engine of Microsoft.
Many people did not understand why Gates gave up
such a go
od opportunity to study in the
world’s
No.1 University.
However, with size comes power,
Microso
ft dominates the PC market with
its operating systems, such as MS-DOS and Windows.
Now, Mic
rosoft becomes the biggest
software company in the world and Bill Gates
becomes the richest man
in the world.
Thomas Edison
We can learn
from the experience of the great inventor Thomas
Alva Edison
that sometimes a series of
apparent failures is really a precursor to
success. The voluminous perso
nal papers
of Edison reveal that his inventions typically did
not spring to life in a flash of
inspirati
on but evolved slowly from
previous works.
Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa, winner of the Nobel
Peace Prize, dedicated the majority of her
life to helping the poorest of the poor
in India, thus gaining her the name
e
devotion towards the poor won her respect
throughout the world and the Nobel Peace Prize in
19
79. She founded an order of nuns
called the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta,
India dedicated to
serving the poor.
Almost 50 years later, the Missionaries of Charity
have grown from 12 sisters in
India to
over 3,000 in 517 missions throughout 100
countries worldwide.
Diana Spencer
Lady Diana Spencer, Princess of Whales, is
remembered and respected by
people all
over the world more for her beauty, kindness,
humanity and charitable activities than
for
her technical skills.
Nelson Mandela Mandela, the South
African black political leader and former
president, was
awarded 1993 Nobel
Peace Prize for his efforts to antiracism and
antiapartheid. Nelson Mandela is
one of
the great moral and political leaders of our time:
an international hero whose lifelong
dedic
ation to the fight against racial
oppression in South Africa won him the Nobel Peace
Prize and the
presidency of his
country. Since his triumphant release in 1990 from
more than a quarter-century o
f
imprisonment, Mandela has been at the centre of
the most compelling and inspiring political
dra
ma in the world. As president of the
African National Congress and head of South
Africa's antiapar
theid movement, he was
instrumental in moving the nation toward
multiracial government and ma
jority
rule. He is revered everywhere as a vital force in
the fight for human rights and racial
equalit
y.
Beethoven
Beethoven, the German Composer, began to lose his
hearing in 1801 and was
entirely deaf
by 1819. However, this obstacle could not keep him
from becoming one of the most f
amous
and prolific composers in art history. His music,
including 9 symphonies, 5 piano
concertos
, several senates and so on,
formes a transition from classical to romantic
composition. George Bu
sh
On
January 16, 1991, President Bush ordered the
commencement of Operation Desert Storm, a
ma
ssive U.S.-led military offensive
against Iraq in the Persian Gulf.
In
late 1992, Bush ordered U.S. troops into Somalia,
a nation devastated by drought and civil war.
The peacekeeping mission would prove
the most disastrous since Lebanon, and President
Clinton
abruptly called it off in 1993.
Jimmy Carter
President Carter's policy of placing
human rights records at the forefront of America's
relationship
s with other nations
contributed to a cooling of Cold War relations in
the late 1970s.
In 1980, for the
first time in seven years, Fidel Castro authorized
emigration out of Cuba by the co
untry's
citizens. The United States welcomed the Cubans,
but later took steps to slow the tide
whe
n evidence suggested that Castro was
using the refugee flight to empty his prisons.
Neville Cham
berlain
In
1938, British Prime Minister Chamberlain signed
the Munich Pact with Adolf Hitler, an
agreem
ent that gave Czechoslovakia away
to Nazi conquest while bringing, as Chamberlain
promised,
eace in our time.
n
Europe by invading Poland. A solemn Chamberlain
had no choice but to declare war, and World
War II began in Europe. Winston
Churchill
In the early 1930s,
Conservative M.P. Winston Churchill issued
unheeded warnings of the threat o
f Nazi
aggression from his seat on a House of Commons
backbench.
With German tanks racing
across France, Churchill spoke to the British
people for the first time as
prime
minister, and pledged a struggle to the last
breath against Nazi conquest and oppression.
In the summer of 1940, the democracies
of continental Europe fell to Germany one by one,
leavin
g Great Britain alone in its
resistance to Adolf Hitler. The Nazi leader was
confident that victory a
gainst Britain
would come soon, but Churchill prophesied
otherwise, telling his countrymen that
t
he Battle of Britain would be
In 1994, President Clinton authorized a
military operation to overthrow Haiti's military
dictators a
nd restore its
democratically elected leader. On the eve of
invasion, bloodshed was prevented whe
n
former president Jimmy Carter brokered an
agreement with Haiti's leaders in which they
pledge
d to give up power. Dwight D.
Eisenhower
On June 5, 1944, the
supreme Allied commander ordered commencement of
the D-Day invasion, t
he largest
combined sea, air, and land military operation in
history. Eisenhower told the 3 million
men of the Allied Expeditionary Force,
In 1956, Israel, Britain, and France
invaded Egypt in protest of its nationalization of
the Suez Can
al. The U.S.S.R. and the
United States, both vying for greater influence in
the Middle East, forced
the three
nations to end their occupation of the strategic
canal. Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret
During the Battle of Britain, the
children of King George VI delivered a radio
address to British ch
ildren who had
been evacuated abroad. Princesses Elizabeth and
Margaret, like their parents, weat
hered
the dark days of World War II in Britain. Gerald
Ford
Nine days before the fall of
Saigon, President Ford spoke on the resignation of
South Vietnamese
President Thieu. Soon
after, the United States launched a massive
helicopter evacuation of tens of
thousands of anticommunist South
Vietnamese and the last few Americans remaining in
the countr
y. Mohandas Gandhi
In 1931, Gandhi, the political and
spiritual leader of the Indian independence
movement, was relea
sed from prison to
attend the London Round Table Conference on India
as the sole representative
of the
Indian National Congress. Gorbache
s
leader of the U.S.S.R., Mikhail Gorbachev was a
great force for peace, even at the cost of the
So
viet government's downfall after 74
years in power. Adolf Hitler
A few
days before his occupation of the Sudetenland, a
confident Hitler addressed a Nazi rally at
Berlin's Sportpalast stadium, and
reassured the crowd that if war came with Britain
and France the
German Wehrmacht would
be victorious. Pope John Paul II
In 1995, the pope addressed
the United Nations on the occasion of its 50th
anniversary. Reaffirmin
g his support of
the ideals and goals of the U.N., he praised the
Universal Declaration of Human R
ights
and called for the U.N. to become the moral center
of a family of nations. Nikita
Khrushche
v and Richard Nixon
In a defining moment of the Cold War,
Vice President Nixon and Soviet leader Khrushchev
engag
ed in an impromptu debate about
the merits and disadvantages of capitalism and
communism. The
exchange, which took
place in Moscow in front of a replica of a
suburban American kitchen, was
known as
the
On September 2, 1945, aboard the
USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, the most destructive
war in human
history officially came to
an end as representatives of the Japanese
government and military signe
d their
country's unconditional surrender.
After clashing with President Truman
over war policy, MacArthur was relieved of his
command of
U.N. forces in Korea and
returned to the U.S. for the first time since
before World War II. Given a
hero's
welcome, he addressed a joint meeting of Congress,
where he declared,
die, they just fade
away.
In 1973, after five years of
talks, the United States and North Vietnam reached
a peace agreement t
o end U.S.
involvement in Vietnam. Two years later, Saigon
fell to North Vietnamese forces and
V
ietnam was unified under Communist
rule. Ronald Reagan
In 1984, Reagan
called for an international ban on chemical
weapons. Six years later, President
Bu
sh and Soviet leader Gorbachev would
sign a historic agreement to cease production and
begin des
truction of both nations'
sizable reserves.
In 1987, during a
visit to Berlin, the president made a dramatic
plea to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorb
achev
to
Franklin D. Roosevelt
The day after Japan's attack on Pearl
Harbor, President Roosevelt addressed a joint
session of Con
gress, and proclaimed
December 7
ress granted his request for
an official declaration of war against Japan.
Two months before his death, Roosevelt
met Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin for the
last time
at Yalta in the U.S.S.R. The
st Germany and Japan, and compromised
on their visions of the postwar world order. Tito
In 1963, Tito, the independent-minded
communist leader of Yugoslavia since 1945, visited
the Uni
ted States during a tour of the
Americas. Harry Truman
Three days after the
bombing of Hiroshima, President Truman warned
Japan of further atomic atta
cks until
it surrendered. When no answer came, he authorized
the dropping of a second atomic bo
mb on
Nagasaki. Six days later, Japan surrendered.
In 1949, Truman signed the North
Atlantic Treaty with 10 European nations and
Canada--establish
ing the NATO military
alliance.
Confucius