FAMOUS PEOPLE

The inventors, explorers, scientists, athletes and rebels whose lives became history.

50 facts

ZAP’S PICK

Winston Churchill won the Nobel Prize - for writing, not for being prime minister.

Winston Churchill won the Nobel Prize - for writing, not for being prime minister.

Britain's wartime leader was also a painter, bricklayer, and a writer good enough to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

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49 facts

Wayne Gretzky holds 61 NHL records - including ones nobody is expected to ever beat.

DID YOU KNOW? Wayne Gretzky holds 61 NHL records - including ones nobody is expected to ever beat. He scored or assisted on so many goals that even taking away every single goal he ever scored, he would still be the league's all-time points leader. 2 min read

Simone Biles has 5 gymnastics moves named after her - because nobody else could do them.

DID YOU KNOW? Simone Biles has 5 gymnastics moves named after her - because nobody else could do them. She is so good that the sport had to invent new skills just to keep up with what she could do. 2 min read

Michael Jordan was cut from his high-school varsity basketball team.

DID YOU KNOW? Michael Jordan was cut from his high-school varsity basketball team. He used that rejection as fuel and went on to win 6 NBA championships and become a global icon. 2 min read

Pelé scored over 1,000 goals and won 3 World Cups.

DID YOU KNOW? Pelé scored over 1,000 goals and won 3 World Cups. A Brazilian kid who practiced with a sock stuffed with rags became the greatest soccer player of the 20th century. 2 min read

Jesse Owens won 4 gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

DID YOU KNOW? Jesse Owens won 4 gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. A Black American sprinter swept his races in front of Adolf Hitler - and quietly proved Nazi ideas about race totally wrong. 2 min read

Muhammad Ali won the world heavyweight boxing title 3 separate times.

DID YOU KNOW? Muhammad Ali won the world heavyweight boxing title 3 separate times. He was fast, funny, and outspoken - and is widely considered the greatest boxer who ever lived. 2 min read

Serena Williams won 23 Grand Slam singles titles - more than anyone in the Open Era.

DID YOU KNOW? Serena Williams won 23 Grand Slam singles titles - more than anyone in the Open Era. She started swinging a tennis racket on cracked public courts in Compton and ended up the most decorated tennis player of her generation. 2 min read

Michael Phelps has won more Olympic medals than any other athlete in history.

DID YOU KNOW? Michael Phelps has won more Olympic medals than any other athlete in history. 28 medals - including 23 golds - picked up across four Olympic Games in a swimming career like no other. 2 min read

Usain Bolt is the fastest human ever timed - running 100m in 9.58 seconds.

DID YOU KNOW? Usain Bolt is the fastest human ever timed - running 100m in 9.58 seconds. He ran around 27 miles per hour, won 8 Olympic gold medals, and ate around 1,000 chicken nuggets in Beijing. 2 min read

Mansa Musa may have been the richest person who ever lived.

DID YOU KNOW? Mansa Musa may have been the richest person who ever lived. The 14th-century king of Mali traveled to Mecca with so much gold that he accidentally crashed Egypt's economy. 2 min read

Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech to 250,000 people.

DID YOU KNOW? Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech to 250,000 people. At 34, he stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and delivered one of the most famous speeches in history. 2 min read

Queen Elizabeth I ruled England for 44 years and never married.

DID YOU KNOW? Queen Elizabeth I ruled England for 44 years and never married. She turned England into a sea power, beat the Spanish Armada, and saw Shakespeare's plays as they opened. 2 min read

Abraham Lincoln was the tallest U.S. president - and one of the most stubborn.

DID YOU KNOW? Abraham Lincoln was the tallest U.S. president - and one of the most stubborn. A self-taught lawyer from a log cabin stood 6 feet 4 inches, ended slavery in the United States, and was killed at a play. 2 min read

Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison - and came out to become South Africa's president.

DID YOU KNOW? Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison - and came out to become South Africa's president. He went in as a young lawyer in 1962 and walked out in 1990 still smiling, ready to lead his country into a new era. 2 min read

Mahatma Gandhi walked 240 miles to protest a British salt tax.

DID YOU KNOW? Mahatma Gandhi walked 240 miles to protest a British salt tax. His peaceful "Salt March" in 1930 helped break Britain's grip on India - without firing a single shot. 2 min read

Joan of Arc led a French army into battle when she was just 17.

DID YOU KNOW? Joan of Arc led a French army into battle when she was just 17. A farmer's daughter said visions told her to save France - and somehow she did. 2 min read

Julius Caesar gave his name to a calendar, a month, and a salad.

DID YOU KNOW? Julius Caesar gave his name to a calendar, a month, and a salad. A Roman general turned dictator, he reshaped the calendar, conquered Gaul, and was famously stabbed by his own senators. 2 min read

Cleopatra spoke at least 9 languages and ruled Egypt for 21 years.

DID YOU KNOW? Cleopatra spoke at least 9 languages and ruled Egypt for 21 years. She was the last pharaoh, lived closer in time to the Moon landing than to the building of the Great Pyramid, and could read hieroglyphs. 2 min read

Katsushika Hokusai painted The Great Wave when he was 70 years old.

DID YOU KNOW? Katsushika Hokusai painted The Great Wave when he was 70 years old. The Japanese artist made his most famous image late in life - and said he was only just starting to learn how to draw. 2 min read

A cartoonist was once fired from a newspaper for "not being creative enough."

DID YOU KNOW? A cartoonist was once fired from a newspaper for "not being creative enough." A few years later he was drawing a smiling cartoon mouse - and on his way to building the world's biggest entertainment company. 2 min read

William Shakespeare invented around 1,700 English words we still use today.

DID YOU KNOW? William Shakespeare invented around 1,700 English words we still use today. From "eyeball" to "lonely" to "fashionable," the world's most famous playwright basically helped build modern English. 2 min read

Mozart was composing music at age 5 and performing for royalty by age 6.

DID YOU KNOW? Mozart was composing music at age 5 and performing for royalty by age 6. His father took him on tours across Europe as a kid - and by his 30s he had written over 600 pieces of music. 2 min read

Beethoven composed his Ninth Symphony after he had gone completely deaf.

DID YOU KNOW? Beethoven composed his Ninth Symphony after he had gone completely deaf. He could no longer hear the orchestra play his own music - but he wrote one of the most famous melodies in history anyway. 2 min read

Frida Kahlo painted 55 self-portraits - more than any famous artist before her.

DID YOU KNOW? Frida Kahlo painted 55 self-portraits - more than any famous artist before her. After a bus accident left her bedridden, her parents put a mirror above her bed so she could paint herself. 2 min read

Pablo Picasso created more than 50,000 artworks in his lifetime.

DID YOU KNOW? Pablo Picasso created more than 50,000 artworks in his lifetime. He started painting before he could read and kept going for 80 years - inventing whole new ways of seeing along the way. 2 min read

Vincent van Gogh sold only one painting while he was alive.

DID YOU KNOW? Vincent van Gogh sold only one painting while he was alive. Today his works sell for hundreds of millions of dollars - but during his life almost no one wanted them. 2 min read

Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling standing up — not lying on his back.

DID YOU KNOW? Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling standing up - not lying on his back. The lying-on-his-back story is a movie myth. He really stood on scaffolding for four years, neck cranked back, paint dripping in his eyes. 2 min read

Captain James Cook mapped more of the Pacific Ocean than anyone in history.

DID YOU KNOW? Captain James Cook mapped more of the Pacific Ocean than anyone in history. He charted the coasts of New Zealand and eastern Australia, and his crew was the first to cross the Antarctic Circle. 2 min read

Ibn Battuta traveled 75,000 miles around the medieval world.

DID YOU KNOW? Ibn Battuta traveled 75,000 miles around the medieval world. This 14th-century Moroccan judge wandered for almost 30 years and covered more ground than any traveler before him. 2 min read

Sacagawea guided Lewis and Clark across North America with a baby on her back.

DID YOU KNOW? Sacagawea guided Lewis and Clark across North America with a baby on her back. A teenage Shoshone mother helped lead one of America's most famous expeditions - while carrying her two-month-old son the whole way. 2 min read

Neil Armstrong was the first human to walk on the Moon.

DID YOU KNOW? Neil Armstrong was the first human to walk on the Moon. On 20 July 1969 he stepped off a ladder into gray dust 240,000 miles from home - and half a billion people watched. 2 min read

Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space at age 27.

DID YOU KNOW? Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space at age 27. He orbited Earth once in 108 minutes, ejected from his capsule, and parachuted into a Russian field next to a startled farmer. 2 min read

Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole 34 days before anyone else.

DID YOU KNOW? Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole 34 days before anyone else. He and four teammates skied to the bottom of the world in 1911, beat a rival team, and skied home without losing a single man. 2 min read

Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were the first to stand on top of Mount Everest.

DID YOU KNOW? Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were the first to stand on top of Mount Everest. On 29 May 1953, a New Zealand beekeeper and a Sherpa mountaineer climbed the world's highest mountain together. 2 min read

Amelia Earhart was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

DID YOU KNOW? Amelia Earhart was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. In 1932 she flew a small red plane from Canada to Ireland - alone, at night, through a thunderstorm. 2 min read

Ferdinand Magellan's crew was the first to sail all the way around the world.

DID YOU KNOW? Ferdinand Magellan's crew was the first to sail all the way around the world. He set off with five ships and 270 men. Three years later, one ship and 18 men finished the trip - without him. 2 min read

Marco Polo spent 24 years traveling from Venice to China and back.

DID YOU KNOW? Marco Polo spent 24 years traveling from Venice to China and back. He left home as a teenager, served the Mongol emperor, and came back with stories nobody believed. 2 min read

Alan Turing helped crack Nazi codes and probably shortened World War II by 2 years.

DID YOU KNOW? Alan Turing helped crack Nazi codes and probably shortened World War II by 2 years. A young math genius built a machine that read Germany's "unbreakable" Enigma messages - and basically invented computer science along the way. 2 min read

Katherine Johnson's hand calculations sent the first Americans into orbit.

DID YOU KNOW? Katherine Johnson's hand calculations sent the first Americans into orbit. NASA had computers - but astronaut John Glenn refused to fly until she checked the math herself. 2 min read

Jane Goodall discovered that chimpanzees make and use tools.

DID YOU KNOW? Jane Goodall discovered that chimpanzees make and use tools. At 26 she walked into a Tanzanian forest with notebooks and binoculars and proved humans aren't the only toolmakers. 2 min read

Leonardo da Vinci filled over 7,000 pages of notebooks - and wrote backwards.

DID YOU KNOW? Leonardo da Vinci filled over 7,000 pages of notebooks - and wrote backwards. He sketched helicopters, tanks, and human anatomy 400 years before any of them were really possible. 2 min read

Nikola Tesla's AC electricity is what powers nearly every home in the world.

DID YOU KNOW? Nikola Tesla's AC electricity is what powers nearly every home in the world. He could picture entire machines in his head, slept four hours a night, and loved pigeons more than people. 2 min read

Ada Lovelace wrote the world's first computer program in 1843.

DID YOU KNOW? Ada Lovelace wrote the world's first computer program in 1843. Working with a machine that didn't even exist yet, she figured out how computers could one day do almost anything. 2 min read

Stephen Hawking studied black holes for 55 years using only his mind.

DID YOU KNOW? Stephen Hawking studied black holes for 55 years using only his mind. A motor-neuron disease froze his body when he was 21 - but his ideas about black holes and time reshaped physics. 2 min read

Charles Darwin spent almost 5 years sailing the world on HMS Beagle.

DID YOU KNOW? Charles Darwin spent almost 5 years sailing the world on HMS Beagle. He was supposed to keep the captain company. He came home with notebooks that would change biology forever. 2 min read

Galileo pointed a telescope at Jupiter and found four moons orbiting it.

DID YOU KNOW? Galileo pointed a telescope at Jupiter and found four moons orbiting it. In January 1610 he became the first human to see worlds circling another planet - and proved Earth wasn't the center of everything. 2 min read

Isaac Newton invented calculus during a plague lockdown when he was 23.

DID YOU KNOW? Isaac Newton invented calculus during a plague lockdown when he was 23. Sent home from university because of the Great Plague, he spent two years quietly rewriting math, physics, and the way we see light. 2 min read

Marie Curie is the only person to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences.

DID YOU KNOW? Marie Curie is the only person to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences. She won the Nobel in Physics in 1903 and the Nobel in Chemistry in 1911 - a record that still stands. 2 min read

Albert Einstein was offered the presidency of Israel and said no.

DID YOU KNOW? Albert Einstein was offered the presidency of Israel and said no. In 1952 the world's most famous scientist was asked to lead a country - and politely turned it down. 2 min read

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