The most famous person in history you've never heard of

[Cypress]

Basically, Zhang Qian is on a par with Columbus, having been responsible for connecting Eurasia into a vast, globalized trading and cultural network, from the western Mediterranean and Roman Empire, to the Han Chinese and the Far East.

Silk Roads—The Envoy Zhang Qian

Zhang Qian, this courageous Chinese explorer, diplomant, and envoy who left China at the head of an expedition of only 100 men, led the way to developing the Silk Roads and, through remarkable perseverance, changed the course of world history.

Zhang Qian was sent by the first Han emperor, Wudi, to follow the migrating Yuezhi in the hope of convincing them to return to China and join the Han in an alliance against their common enemy, the Xiongnu. Almost immediately, Zhang Qian and his party were captured by Xiongnu forces. Most of the men were killed, and Zhang Qian and his closest retinue were transported far to the north of the Gobi Desert, to the headquarters of the shanyu. The shanyu detained Zhang Qian for more than 10 years, giving him a wife with whom the explorer had children. But Zhang Qian eventually found an opportunity to escape with his handful of followers

In the course of the ten year expedition (138 BCE to 129 BCE), Zhang Qian breached both the formidable geographical barriers of western China and the military barrier established by the Xiongnu. He crossed thousands of miles of deserts, steppes, and mountain ranges, visiting places no Chinese individual had ever seen or heard of before.

When Zhang Qian finally returned to the Han court and presented his report to Emperor Wudi, the Chinese became aware for the first time in their history of the world beyond their western borders. As a result of this expedition, the Silk Roads began to flourish, enticing China out of millennia of cultural and geographic isolation and into active engagement with the rest of Eurasia, including the GrecoRoman world. Zhang Qian’s report to the emperor was largely responsible for enticing China out of millennia of relative isolation and into active engagement with the rest of Central Asia, including, ultimately, the Romans.


Source credit Professor Craig G. Benjamin Ph.D., Grand Valley State University

[archives]

Basically, Zhang Qian is on a par with Columbus, having been responsible for connecting Eurasia into a vast, globalized trading and cultural network, from the western Mediterranean and Roman Empire, to the Han Chinese and the Far East.

Walter Hunt, key inventor nobody ever heard of, imagine the royalties he could have gotten on the safety pin

"Walter Hunt (July 29, 1796 – June 8, 1859) was an American mechanic. He was born in Martinsburg, New York.[1] Through the course of his work he became renowned for being a prolific inventor, notably of the lockstitch sewing machine (1833), safety pin (1849),[2] a forerunner of the Winchester repeating rifle, a successful flax spinner, knife sharpener, streetcar bell, hard-coal-burning stove, artificial stone, street sweeping machinery, and the ice plough."

"Walter Hunt did not realize the significance of many of these when he invented them; today, many are widely used products. He thought little of the safety pin, selling the patent for $400[4] to the company W R Grace and Company, to pay a man to whom he owed $15. He is said to have failed to patent his sewing machine at all because he feared it would create unemployment among seamstresses. This led to an 1854 court case when the machine was re-invented by Elias Howe"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Hunt_(inventor)

[Cypress]

Walter Hunt, key inventor nobody ever heard of, imagine the royalties he could have gotten on the safety pin

"Walter Hunt (July 29, 1796 – June 8, 1859) was an American mechanic. He was born in Martinsburg, New York.[1] Through the course of his work he became renowned for being a prolific inventor, notably of the lockstitch sewing machine (1833), safety pin (1849),[2] a forerunner of the Winchester repeating rifle, a successful flax spinner, knife sharpener, streetcar bell, hard-coal-burning stove, artificial stone, street sweeping machinery, and the ice plough."

"Walter Hunt did not realize the significance of many of these when he invented them; today, many are widely used products. He thought little of the safety pin, selling the patent for $400[4] to the company W R Grace and Company, to pay a man to whom he owed $15. He is said to have failed to patent his sewing machine at all because he feared it would create unemployment among seamstresses. This led to an 1854 court case when the machine was re-invented by Elias Howe"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Hunt_(inventor)

A good one.

Alfred Wallace is a scientist with an enormous legacy who I don't think I had heard of until recently.

A contemporary of Charles Darwin, he came up with the theory of evolution by natural selection independently of Darwin. And it may have been Wallace's influence which actually prompted Darwin to publish his theory, which Darwin had been sitting on for 20 years. I also think Wallace had insights and field observations that went well beyond what Darwin had compiled.

[Mott the Hoople]

Rosalind Franklin:

Almost everyone has heard of Crick and Watson as the two scientist that were awarded the Nobel Prize for first elucidating the structure of DNA.

What most people don't know is that the Nobel committee does not award the prize posthumously. Crick and Watson has a colleague in their research. Her name was Rosalind Franklin and she considered one of the best in the world at using x-ray diffraction to determine the structures of complex molecules. She was a little too good perhaps as she developed cancer, probably due to over exposure to radiation. Dr. Franklin died of cancer after he work was published but before the Nobel Prize was awarded for the work the she, Crick and Watson did. So because she was not awarded the Nobel Prize due to her untimely death, she has remained relatively unknown to the general public though she is considered one of the great scientific giants of her era by the scientific community.

[Mott the Hoople]

A good one.

Alfred Wallace is a scientist with an enormous legacy who I don't think I had heard of until recently.

A contemporary of Charles Darwin, he came up with the theory of evolution by natural selection independently of Darwin. And it may have been Wallace's influence which actually prompted Darwin to publish his theory, which Darwin had been sitting on for 20 years. I also think Wallace had insights and field observations that went well beyond what Darwin had compiled.

Let's be clear about Wallace. Wallace did come to the same conclusion independently of Darwin but Darwin came to that conclusion first, published it first and his publication became one of the greatest scientific treatise of all times. Though Wallace certainly had different insights on the evolutionary process his work was not even remotely close to being as comprehensive as "On the Origins of Species" was and Wallace himself admitted as much in his own time.

[Cypress]

Rosalind Franklin:

Almost everyone has heard of Crick and Watson as the two scientist that were awarded the Nobel Prize for first elucidating the structure of DNA.

What most people don't know is that the Nobel committee does not award the prize posthumously. Crick and Watson has a colleague in their research. Her name was Rosalind Franklin and she considered one of the best in the world at using x-ray diffraction to determine the structures of complex molecules. She was a little too good perhaps as she developed cancer, probably due to over exposure to radiation. Dr. Franklin died of cancer after he work was published but before the Nobel Prize was awarded for the work the she, Crick and Watson did. So because she was not awarded the Nobel Prize due to her untimely death, she has remained relatively unknown to the general public though she is considered one of the great scientific giants of her era by the scientific community.

Good one.

I am only vaguely aware of her, and have the impression she was totally ripped off in receiving no credit or recognition.

[Cypress]

Let's be clear about Wallace. Wallace did come to the same conclusion independently of Darwin but Darwin came to that conclusion first, published it first and his publication became one of the greatest scientific treatise of all times. Though Wallace certainly had different insights on the evolutionary process his work was not even remotely close to being as comprehensive as "On the Origins of Species" was and Wallace himself admitted as much in his own time.

Not being a biologist, I will defer to you on this.

I recently took a class on evolution which is where I think I first even heard of Wallace. The implication made by the Prof is that, by great coincidence, Wallace prompted Darwin to get off his @ss and publish Origin of Species.

During his travels in Southeast Asia, Wallace exchanged several letters with Darwin and sent him some specimens. But in June of 1858, Darwin received a package from Wallace that contained a 20- page draft of a manuscript in which Wallace described a theory of “the tendency of varieties to depart indefinitely from the original type.”

Wallace’s theory was essentially the same as that which Darwin had been patiently developing over the last few decades: evolution by natural selection.

Alfred Russel Wallace had no idea that Darwin had been working independently on the exact same idea: evolution by natural selection. The fact that Wallace mailed his manuscript to Darwin, of all people, goes down as one of the most incredible coincidences in the history of science.

Wallace’s manuscript prompted Darwin to act. And in 1859, Darwin finally published a complete explanation of the theory of evolution by natural selection in his On the Origin of Species.



source credit: Professor Scott Solomon, Rice University

[Cypress]

The world's first novel was written by a Japanese woman most of us dunces in the west have never heard of.


Lady Murasaki

The noble lady known as Murasaki Shikibu was a member of one of the most powerful of these samurai clans, the Fujiwara. Her famous work The Tale of Genji, written in 1001, is considered by many to be the world’s first novel. The work traces the adventures of her fictional character Genji, the handsome, talented illegitimate son of the emperor.

The prose alone would have ensured the work’s popularity, but it was also lavishly illustrated. From the time Lady Murasaki wrote the book, noblewomen as well as professional artists painted illustrations to go with the tales. When a high-ranking woman, such as an empress, wanted to hear the tale, someone would read the story aloud while she looked at the pictures.

In the 12th century, a famous scroll illustrating The Tale of Genji was carefully painted. This scroll was originally 450 feet long with more than 100 paintings. This huge illustrated manuscript shows how immediately popular Murasaki’s work was.

Source credit: Professor Joyce E. Salisbury, University of Wisconsin–Green Bay

[domer76]

Henrietta Lacks.

Lacks died in 1951, aged 31, after being diagnosed with cervical cancer. The cells taken from her have been used in experiments all over the world and even in space. HeLa cells have helped make hundred of millions of profits for companies all over the world and been used for medical breakthrough after breakthrough. They have been used to develop the polio vaccine and in vitro fertilisation and even cloning. Two Nobel Prizes have been awarded using her cells.

Her cells were unique in that they reproduced at a very high rate and could be kept alive long enough to allow more in-depth examination.Until then, cells cultured for laboratory studies survived for only a few days at most, which wasn't long enough to perform a variety of different tests on the same sample. Lacks's cells were the first to be observed that could be divided multiple times without dying, which is why they became known as "immortal”. They are know to this day as the HeLa strain.

[Mott the Hoople]

Good one.

I am only vaguely aware of her, and have the impression she was totally ripped off in receiving no credit or recognition.

I think she was due to prevaiing attitudes at the time. She not only deserved the Nobel for her work on DNA, had she lived she probably would have won one for her seminal work on virology, which would have made her the only two time female winner of the Nobel Prize.

[Mott the Hoople]

Not being a biologist, I will defer to you on this.

I recently took a class on evolution which is where I think I first even heard of Wallace. The implication made by the Prof is that, by great coincidence, Wallace prompted Darwin to get off his @ss and publish Origin of Species.

That is true though, considering the backlash, it's understandable why Darwin was hesitant to publish. Also, though Wallace had postulated evolutionary theory independently he had no where near the massive amount of data to support the theory as Charles Darwin had.

[Sailor]

I think she was due to prevaiing attitudes at the time. She not only deserved the Nobel for her work on DNA, had she lived she probably would have won one for her seminal work on virology, which would have made her the only two time female winner of the Nobel Prize.

You always have interesting things to post.

[Mason Michaels]

Miep Gies,Bravest woman,I ever came across.

[Cypress]

Miep Gies,Bravest woman,I ever came across.

I drew a total blank on this one, and took it as an opportunity to learn.
Nice work, Mrs. Gies!

Hermine "Miep" Gies, was one of the Dutch citizens who hid Anne Frank, her family and four other Dutch Jews from the Nazis in an annex above Otto Frank's business premises during World War II.

Wikipedia

[Mason Michaels]

I drew a total blank on this one, and took it as an opportunity to learn.
Nice work, Mrs. Gies!

You should read her book,Anne Frank Remembered