- Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison (February 11 1847 - October 18 1931) was an American inventor and businessman who developed many devices which greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph and a long lasting light bulb. Dubbed "The Wizard of Menlo Park" by a newspaper reporter, he was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of mass production to the process of invention, … - Steve Jobs
Steven Paul Jobs (born February 24 1955) is the co-founder and CEO of Apple and was the CEO of Pixar until its acquisition by Disney. He is currently the largest Disney shareholder and a member of Disney's Board of Directors. He is considered a leading figure in both the computer and entertainment industries. Jobs' history in business has contributed greatly to the mythos of the quirky, individualistic Silicon Valley entrepreneur, … - Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin (April 17 1790) was one of the most critical Founding Fathers of the United States. He was a leading author, political theorist, politician, printer, scientist, inventor, civic activist, environmentalist, and diplomat. As a scientist he was a major figure in the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. As a political writer and activist he, more than anyone, invented the idea of an American nation, … - George Washington
George Constant Louis Washington (May 1871 - March 29, 1946) was an American inventor and businessman of Anglo-Belgian origin. He is best remembered for his invention of an early instant coffee process and for the company he founded to mass-produce it, the "G. Washington Coffee Company". - Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian polymath: scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, musician, and writer. The illegitimate son of a notary, Messer Piero, and a peasant girl, Caterina, Leonardo had no surname in the modern sense, "da Vinci" simply meaning "of Vinci": his full birth name was "Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci", meaning "Leonardo, … - Tim Berners-Lee
Sir Tim Berners-Lee Founder of the World Wide Web - Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell (3 March 1847 - 2 August 1922) was a scientist, inventor, and innovator. Born and raised in Edinburgh, Scotland, he emigrated to Canada in 1870, and then to the United States in 1871, becoming a U.S. citizen in 1882. Bell was awarded the U.S. patent for the invention of the telephone in 1876; although other inventors had claimed the honor, the Bell patent remained in effect. - Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla (10 July 1856 - 7 January 1943) was an inventor, physicist, mechanical engineer and electrical engineer. Born in Smiljan, Croatia, he was an ethnic Serb subject of the Austrian Empire and later became an American citizen. Tesla is best known for his many revolutionary contributions to the discipline of electricity and magnetism in the late 19th and early 20th century. - Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the third President of the United States (1801–1809), the principal author of the Declaration of Independence (1776), and one of the most influential Founding Fathers for his promotion of the ideals of Republicanism in the United States. Major events during his presidency include the Louisiana Purchase (1803) and the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–1806). - Dean Kamen
Dean L. Kamen (born April 5, 1951) is an American entrepreneur and inventor. Born in Rockville Centre, New York, he attended Worcester Polytechnic Institute, but dropped out before graduating. His father is Jack Kamen, an illustrator of "Weird Science" and other EC Comics. - Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton <small><nowiki>[</nowiki> OS: 25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726<nowiki>]</nowiki></small> was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, and alchemist. His treatise "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica", published in 1687, described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, laying the groundwork for classical mechanics, … - Buckminster Fuller
Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller was an American visionary, designer, architect, poet, author, and inventor. Throughout his life, Fuller was concerned with the question "Does humanity have a chance to survive lastingly and successfully on planet Earth, and if so, how?" Considering himself an average individual without special monetary means or academic degree, he chose to devote his life to this question, … - Alfred Nobel
Alfred Bernhard Nobel was a Swedish chemist, engineer, innovator, armaments manufacturer and the inventor of dynamite. He owned Bofors, a major armaments manufacturer, which he had redirected from its previous role as an iron and steel mill. In his last will, he used his enormous fortune to institute the Nobel Prizes. The synthetic element Nobelium was named after him. - William Henry
William Henry was an American gunsmith from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and a delegate for Pennsylvania to the Continental Congress in 1784, 1785, and 1786. Prior to his service in the Continental Congress, Henry was a gunsmith and provided rifles to the British during the French and Indian War and later the Continental Army during the American Revolution. Over a thirty-year period, Henry's gun factory in Lancaster not only supplied arms to Pennsylvanian and, later, … - Arthur C. Clarke
Sir Arthur Charles Clarke (born 16 December 1917) is a British science-fiction author and inventor, most famous for his novel "2001: A Space Odyssey", and for collaborating with director Stanley Kubrick on the film of the same name. Clarke is the last surviving member of what was sometimes known as the "Big Three" of science fiction, which included Robert A. Heinlein and Isaac Asimov. - Louis Braille
This section contains free worksheets, flashcards, online activities and other educational resources to support teaching and learning about Louis Braille in Early Years, Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2. Louis Braille was born in town near Paris, France in 1809. As a toddler he used to watch his father make shoes. One day, while his father was not watching, he picked up a sharp pointed tool for making holes in leather called an awl. - Michael Faraday
Michael Faraday, FRS (September 22, 1791 – August 25, 1867) was an English chemist and physicist (or "natural philosopher", in the terminology of that time) who contributed significantly to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. Faraday studied the magnetic field around a conductor carrying a DC electric current, and established the basis for the magnetic field concept in physics. He discovered electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism and electrolysis. - James Watt
James Watt (19 January 1736 - 19 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and engineer whose improvements to the steam engine were fundamental to the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution. His influential teacher was Joseph Black - Guglielmo Marconi
Guglielmo Marconi [gue:lmo mar'ko:ni] (25 April 1874 - 20 July 1937) was an Italian inventor, best known for his development of a radiotelegraph system, which served as the foundation for the establishment of numerous affiliated companies worldwide. He shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Ferdinand Braun, "in recognition of their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy". - George Washington Carver
George Washington Carver saved the South from an economic crisis and possible famine by inventing more than three hundred uses for the peanut, over one hundred uses from the sweet potato, around 75 uses from the pecan and many more from Georgia clay. The new products from those soil-enriching plants allowed Carver to convince Southern farmers to rotate their crops instead of relying entirely on cotton--which was destroying soil and consequently plantations across the region. - Eli Whitney
Eli Whitney was an American inventor. - Les Paul
Les Paul (born Lester William Polsfuss on June 9 1915) is an American jazz guitarist and inventor. He is one of the most important figures in the development of modern electric musical instruments and recording techniques. He is a pioneer in the development of the solid-body electric guitar (the Gibson Les Paul, which he helped design, is one of the most famous and enduring models), multitrack recording, and various reverberation and echo effects. - Alan Turing
This short on-line biography of Alan Turing is based on the entry I wrote for the British Dictionary of National Biography in 1995. The eight parts correspond roughly to the eight sections of my full biography Alan Turing : the enigma. There are no hyperlinks in the text. For links and for more images, go to the corresponding page of the Alan Turing Internet Scrapbook. Part 8 - Alan Turing 's Crisis - Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine (Thetford, England, 29 January 1737 - 8 June 1809, New York City, USA) was a pamphleteer, revolutionary, radical, and intellectual. Born in Great Britain, he lived in America, having migrated to the American colonies just in time to take part in the American Revolution, mainly as the author of the powerful, widely read pamphlet, "Common Sense" (1776), advocating independence for the American Colonies from the Kingdom of Great Britain. - George Eastman
George Eastman founded the Eastman Kodak Company and invented roll film, helping to bring photography to the mainstream. The roll film was also the basis for the invention of the motion picture film in 1888 by world's first filmmaker, Louis Le Prince, and a decade later by his followers Léon Bouly, Thomas Edison, the Lumière Brothers and Georges Méliès. <sup></sup - Robert Fulton
Robert Fulton was a U.S. engineer and inventor who is widely credited with developing the first commercially successful steam-powered ship, making a practical success of the invention pioneered by others including Claude de Jouffroy in France, John Fitch in the United States and William Symington in Scotland. - Levi Strauss
Levi Strauss, born Löb Strauss was the German-born American creator of the first company to manufacture blue jeans. His namesake firm, Levi Strauss & Company, was founded in 1853 in San Francisco. - James Dyson
Sir James Dyson is a British industrial designer. He is best known as the inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner, which works on the principle of cyclonic separation. His net worth is said to be just over £1 billion (about $2 billion) - Samuel F. B. Morse
Samuel Finley Breese Morse (April 27, 1791 - April 2, 1872) was an American painter of portraits and historic scenes, and co-inventor (with Alfred Vail) of the Morse Code - George Westinghouse
George Westinghouse, Jr (6 October 1846-12 March 1914) was an American entrepreneur and engineer who invented the railroad air brake and was a pioneer of the electrical industry. He is now best known for the brand of electrical goods that bear his name. Westinghouse was one of Thomas Edison's main rivals in the early implementation of the American electricity system. - Thomas Watson
Thomas Augustus Watson (17 February 1854 - 13 December 1934) was an assistant to Alexander Graham Bell, notably in the invention of the telephone in 1876. He is best known because his name is reportedly the first word spoken over the telephone. "Watson! Come here, I need you!", were allegedly the first words Bell said using the new invention. Sources differ on whether the exact word used was "need" or "want". - John Logie Baird
John Logie Baird (August 13 1888 - June 14 1946) was a Scottish engineer and inventor of the world's first working television system. Although Baird's electromechanical system was eventually displaced by purely electronic systems (such as those of Vladimir Zworykin and Philo Farnsworth), his early successes demonstrating working television broadcasts and his colour and cinema television work earn him a prominent place in television's invention. - Johannes Gutenberg
Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg was a German goldsmith and printer, who is credited with inventing movable type printing in Europe (ca. 1450) and mechanical printing globally. His major work, the Gutenberg Bible, also known as the 42-line bible, has been acclaimed for its high aesthetic and technical quality. Among Gutenberg's specific contributions were the design of metal movable type, … - Carl Icahn
Carl Celian Icahn (born February 16, 1936) is an American billionaire financier, corporate raider, and private equity investor. - James Naismith
James A. Naismith, B.A., M.A., M.D., D.D, (November 6, 1861 - November 28, 1939) was the inventor of the sport of basketball and the first to introduce the use of a helmet in American football. He was also the first basketball coach to assemble a team of 5 players. He was born in Ramsay township, near Almonte, Ontario, Canada, the eldest son of Scottish immigrants who had arrived in the area in 1851 and worked in the mining industry. - Lee de Forest
Lee De Forest was an American inventor with over 300 patents to his credit. De Forest invented the Audion, a vacuum tube that takes relatively weak electrical signals and amplifies them. De Forest is one of the fathers of the "electronic age", as the Audion helped to usher in the widespread use of electronics. He was involved in several patent lawsuits and he spent a fortune from his inventions on the legal bills. He had four marriages and several failed companies, … - Gottlieb Daimler
Gottlieb Wilhelm Daimler was an engineer, industrial designer and industrialist, born in Schorndorf (Kingdom of Württemberg) what is now Germany. He was a pioneer of internal-combustion engines and automobile development. Daimler and his lifelong business partner Wilhelm Maybach were two inventors whose dream was to create small, high speed engines to be mounted in any kind of locomotion device. - John Muir
John Muir was one of the first modern preservationists. His letters, essays, and books telling of his adventures in nature, and wildlife, especially in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, were read by millions and are still popular today. His direct activism helped to save the Yosemite Valley and other wilderness areas. The Sierra Club, which he founded, is now one of the most important conservation organizations in the United States. - Samuel Colt
Samuel Colt (born Hartford, Connecticut July 19, 1814 - died Hartford, Connecticut January 10, 1862) was an American inventor and industrialist. He was the founder of the Colt's Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company (now known as "Colt's Manufacturing Company"), and is widely credited with popularizing the revolver gun. - Robert Moog
Dr. Robert Arthur Moog (May 23, 1934 - August 21, 2005) was a pioneer of electronic music, best known as the inventor of the Moog synthesizer.
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