Category: Personalities

Alexander Fleming was a Scottish biologist and botanist. He is famous for his remarkable discoveries of lysozyme (which is an enzyme) and antibiotic (Penicillin G). In recognition of his services in the field of medicine, he was awarded Nobel Prize in Physiology along with Ernst Boris Chain and Howard Florey. He did a lot of work in bacteriology and immunology.

Early Life

• He was born on 6 August, 1881 in the southwest county of Scotland, Ayrshire.
• His parents were farmers.
• The nickname of Alexander was ‘Alex’. He was only seven when his father passed away.
• He gained a scholarship for two years to Kilmarnock Academy. After this, he went to Royal Polytechnic Institution in London.
• Tom was his elder brother and he persuaded him to join the medical career. As per his brother’s advice, Fleming went to Paddington and took admission in St Mary’s Hospital Medical School. He achieved distinction in his MBBS degree.
• In his medical school, he became assistant bacteriologist to a British bacteriologist known as Almroth Wright.
• He earned a Gold Medal in B.Sc. in bacteriology in 1908. Thereafter, he started giving lectures in the same school for another 6 years.
• During World War I, he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps at the rank of captain.

Achievements

• In WWI, Fleming saw many soldiers in the battlefield dying of sepsis. It’s a fatal medical condition in which the immune system of a body starts destroying its own organs resulting in death. He found out that antiseptics were destroying the immune system of a body instead of killing the bacteria that attacked the body. As a result, more and more soldiers were being killed due to antiseptics rather than infectious wounds.
• Fleming concluded from his findings that antiseptics did great damage in case of deep wounds. It is because deep wounds tend to give protection to the anaerobic bacteria and isolate the bacteria from the reach of antiseptics. This way, antiseptics kill bacteria that are on the surface as well as other useful substances that are protecting the body.
• Despite his findings, the doctors at the time kept on using antiseptics on the wounded soldiers and did not pay attention to Fleming’s advice.
• It was Fleming who discovered lysozyme for the first time. It is basically an enzyme which is found in the human secretions of saliva, tears and mucus. While testing a mucus of a patient suffering from severe cold, he deduced that nasal mucus tend to block the growth of bacteria. Thus, he discovered it.

I certainly didn’t plan to revolutionize all medicine by discovering the world’s first antibiotic, or bacteria killer, but I suppose that was exactly what I did – Fleming

• The laboratory in which Fleming used to do research was often very dirty.
• In 1927, Fleming was doing research on gram-positive bacteria called staphylococci.
• The discovery of Penicillin was accidental. In August 1928, Fleming had left his laboratory and joined his family for vacations. He had stacked cultures of staphylococci in his lab’s corner before going out. But on his return, he found something weird which he called “That’s funny”. He noticed the fungus had contaminated one of the cultures of staphylococci. The colonies of staphylococci present close to the fungus were eradicated while colonies that were located far off, had remained safe and normal. He then allowed a pure culture of staphylococci to grow mould (grey substance that is grown on food lying in open air for a long time) and found that mould tend to produce a substance which kills the gram-positive bacteria.
• Fleming found this mould to have come from genus Penicillium. Later on, he used to name it as ‘mould juice’.
• On 7 March, 1929, Fleming called this substance which the mould releases as penicillin.
• The laboratory of St. Mary’s Hospital in which Fleming discovered penicillin is now turned into a museum in London. It is named after him.
• Fleming investigated that penicillin could destroy Gram-positive bacteria which cause diseases like scarlet fever, meningitis and pneumonia. However, it was not effective against Gram-negative bacteria which cause typhoid fever.
• Through his findings, Fleming concluded that it was not easy to separate antibiotic agent from the mould. Eventually, he came to a conclusion that this substance could be produced in great quantity and its action against infections is also very slow. By then, he was certain that penicillin may not remain inside the body for a long time to destroy the invading bacteria because tests had proved unsuccessful. After sometime, he decided to discontinue doing research on penicillin. After Fleming had left, Florey and Chain took up the challenge to produce penicillin in mass quantities.
• The discovery of penicillin by Fleming laid the foundation of modern antibiotics. It saved millions of lives all over the world.

Honors

• Today, the Royal Polytechnic Institution has turned into University of Westminster. One of the halls of student residence in this university is named after Fleming.
• In Madrid, a sculptor of Fleming is situated outside the bullring of Las Ventas.
• One of the asteroids located within the Asteroid Belt is named after Alexander Fleming.
• In 1944, Fleming was knighted. A year before, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS).
• He was one of the Time magazine’s 100 Most Important People of the 20^th Century in 1999.
• On March 11, 1955, Fleming suffered a fatal heart attack in London and passed away. His grave is in St Paul’s Cathedral.

When Alexander the Great died in 323 BC, Ptolemy I Soter established a dynasty in 305 BC named Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt. He became Pharaoh of Egypt and set up this kingdom which is also known as Hellenistic Kingdom. The period that followed after Alexander’s death and continued until the death of Cleopatra is known as Hellenistic Period. After the rule of 275 years, Hellenistic Kingdom eventually came to an end on 30 BC when Romans invaded Egypt. The last ruler of this dynasty was Cleopatra VII. The rulers of this kingdom were the Greeks. They did not speak Egyptian language rather they preferred Greek language. The word ‘Cleopatra’ comes from the Greek term called ‘Kleopatra’ meaning ‘glory of the father’. She was the last Egyptian pharaoh. She was a Greek but she learnt Egyptian language.

Real Name: Cleopatra VII Philopator

Date of Birth: 69 BC

Place of Birth: Alexandria, Egypt

Age: 39

Number of Children: 4

Date of Death: August 12, 30 BC

Early Years

• The name of her father was Ptolemy VII. But he was popularly known by the name ‘Auletes’.
• The name of her mother was Cleopatra V Tryphaena.
• She became deputy of Ptolemy VII (father) at the age of 19 years.
• When her father passed away in March 51 BC, Cleopatra became a queen of Egypt along with her brother Ptolemy XIII, who was only 10 years of age. Cleopatra too was only 18 years old at the time. This was their father’s wish.
• Cleopatra got married to her brother Ptolemy XIII who was younger than her. This was the tradition at the time.
• Cleopatra and Ptolemy XIII got separated in August 51 BC.

Later Years

• It was a tradition of Ptolemaic dynasty that a female monarch cannot appear alone on official papers or coins but her male co-ruler must also be seen. The reason for this belief was because females were considered inferior to males. However, Cleopatra broke this tradition and removed Ptolemy’s name.
• Cleopatra was involved in a severe clash with 2,000 Romans under General Aulus Gabinius, widely known as Gabiniani.
• In 48 BC, her brother Ptolemy XIII became a king and Cleopatra’s reign came to an end. She ran off with her half-sister named Arsinoë IV.
• Cleopatra fell in love with Julius Caesar in around 47 BC. At the time, Caesar was 52 years old while Cleopatra was a 21-year-old young girl.
• Cleopatra turned herself into a mistress of Julius Caesar. A son of Caesar and Cleopatra was born in 47 BC. They gave him the name Ptolemy Caesar. He is also known by pet name ‘Caesarion’.
• In the Battle of Nile, Caesar won the battle and Ptolemy XIII was lost. Ptolemy XIII died in the River Nile while Cleopatra again became queen along with another brother Ptolemy XIV.
• In 46 BC, Cleopatra went to Rome along with her co-ruler and Caesarion.
• Julius Caesar was murdered on March 15, 44 BC. At the time, Cleopatra was still in Rome. The sister of Ptolemy XIV killed him and Cleopatra picked up Caesarion as her co-ruler.
• Cleopatra again fell in love with a Roman general named Mark Antony in around 40 BC.
• The twins were born to Cleopatra and Antony on December 25, 40 BC. The names of these two children were Cleopatra Selene II and Alexander Helios. Both of them got married afterwards.
• Cleopatra gave birth to yet another child of Antony named Ptolemy Philadelphus.
• In 34 BC, Cleopatra and her son Caesarion became co-rulers of Cyprus and Egypt.

Death

• According to one of the oldest Roman sources, Cleopatra committed suicide by allowing cobra to attack at her.
• According to a research by a German historian named Christoph Schaefer, Cleopatra was killed because she drunk poison.
• Antony was furious at Cleopatra because she let her down. His troops left him alone and went to Octavian. Meanwhile, Cleopatra got scared of Antony’s fury and sent a message to him that she was dead. On hearing this, Antony committed suicide by stabbing himself.
• When Octavian took control of Alexandria, the Egyptians made Caesarion the new Pharaoh of Egypt. However he was murdered soon after.

Leonardo da Vinci was an extremely versatile personality of Italian Renaissance period. He was an expert in many disciplines. He was a builder, an artist, geologist, anatomist, an author, innovator, sculptor and many more. He is by far one of the finest artists the world has ever seen. In his name, the word ‘da vinci’ is not his surname rather it only means ‘of vinci’. So let’s now discover more in detail.

Full Name: Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci

Date of Birth: April 15, 1452

Place of Birth: Vinci, Italy

Age: 67

Date of Death: May 2, 1519

Place of Death: Amboise, France

Family

1. The name of his father was Piero Fruosino di Antonio da Vinci.
2. The name of his mother was Caterina.
3. The initial 5 years of his life were spent in his mother’s home in the Italian city of Vinci.
4. Leonardo’s father got married to a very young little girl named Albiera. She was only 16 years old at the time. Though she passed away in her early days but she was really fond of Leonardo.
5. Leonardo’s father got married to yet another young girl named Francesca Lanfredini. She was 20 years old at the time.

Early Years

1. He used to study subjects like mathematics and geometry in Latin language.
2. The name of Leonardo’s teacher in the field of painting was a famous Italian artist of his time known as Andrea del Verrocchio. He is popularly known by his pet name Verrocchio and owned a great workshop in Florence.
3. In 1466 when Leonardo went to Verrocchio as a trainee, he was just 14 years old.
4. By the time Leonardo was 20 years old, he became an expert in Guild of Saint Luke.
5. The valley of Arno in the Italian region of Tuscany is believed to be the very first painting of Leonardo. He made it in August 5, 1473.
6. He walked out from the workshop of Verrocchio in 1478.

Leonardo donated all his paintings, equipments and books to his pupil named Melzi through his will.

Final Years

1. During a period of 17 years from 1482 to 1499, he did jobs in Milan.
2. He painted two most popular paintings named Virgin of the Rocks.
3. Leonard was signed up for making the world’s biggest equestrian sculpture in 1482 but it could not be completed. He made this statue of clay and known as Leonardo’s horse. It is also called Gran Cavallo. When French troops attacked Milan 1499, they spoiled this statue.
4. He worked in the city of Cesena in 1502 as an army engineer.
5. The name of Leonardo’s most dear friend in his final years was Francis I of France.
6. Leonardo spent the last 3 years of his life in the French city of Amboise. The name of his house in France was Château du Clos Lucé.

More Leonardo Da Vinci Facts For Kids

1. Leonardo donated about 50 percent of his vineyards to his another pupil named Salai. He donated the rest of the vineyards to a person called Battista di Vilussis, who was his servant.
2. Leonardo was 23 years older than Michelangelo and 31 years older than Raphael.
3. One of the dear friends and colleagues of Leonardo was a popular Italian mathematician named Luca Pacioli.
4. During 1490s, the most popular artistic work of Leonardo was The Last Supper.
5. The world’s most fantastic painting of Leonardo was the portrait of Mona Lisa during the 16th century.

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Bell was one of the finest engineers and scientists of the late 19th century. Though we all know him by the invention of practical telephone, but the fact is that he invented many more devices in the fields of aeronautics and optical telecommunication. He was a diversely talented individual who showed his skills from childhood years. He collected specimens of plants; he was a pianist and was also fond of art and music. He used to copy other person’s voices very well and often kept his family visitors amused by his mimicry. He was also one of the pioneers of National Geographic Society. Now let’s explore more about him in detail.

Date of Birth: March 3, 1847

Place of Birth: Edinburgh, Scotland

Age: 75

Date of Death: August 2, 1922

Place of Death: Benin Bhreagh, Nova Scotia

Reason for popularity: Inventor of practical telephone

Family

1. The name of his father was Alexander Melville Bell. He was a professor.
2. The name of his grandfather was Alexander Bell. Bell’s father, grandfather and uncle all of them were teachers. They used to lecture in the subject of elocution. Elocution is the formal practice of human sound particularly for deaf and mute people.
3. The name of his mother was Eliza Grace.
4. Bell got 2 brothers namely Melville James Bell and Edward Charles Bell. However, they were passed away in their early 20s due to tuberculosis. James Bell was only 25 years of age while Charles Bell was 19 years old at the time of their deaths.

Early Years

1. The name of his dearest friend during the early days of his life was Ben Herdman. He lived close to his home and his family owned a flour mill.
2. He loved playing piano but never learnt it formally. However in no time, he became an expert pianist on his own.
3. He joined Royal High School in Scotland but he left this school as he turned 15.
4. At Scotland’s Weston House Academy, Bell got a position in elocution. He was only 16 years old at the time.

Bell’s mother was deaf and so was his wife. While he was only 12 years old, his mother started losing her hearing.

Marriage

1. The name of his wife was Mabel Gardiner Hubbard. Mabel’s father was a well-known US attorney in Boston namely Gardiner Greene Hubbard. Not only this, he was also the first President of both the Bell Telephone Company as well as National Geographic Society.
2. Bell got married to Mabel on July 11, 1877 in Cambridge (Massachusetts).
3. Bell and Mabel had 4 kids; two sons and two daughters. The two sons were expired in their early years.

Later Years

1. The very first house that his father purchased in North America was in Ontario, Canada. The name of this house is Melville House.
2. Among many other deaf pupils of Bell, two very important ones were Mabel Hubbard and Georgie Sanders. Mabel was a nice-looking girl who was 10 years younger than Bell.
3. Bell received the patent on his telephone design on March 7, 1876.
4. On the same day when Bell applied for a patent in US patent office, another US engineer named Elisha Gray had also applied for its patent for his telephone model by using water transmitter. Both of them applied for patent on February 14, 1876 but Bell got the patent and the controversy between them about patent’s ownership still continues even today.
5. The telephone model designed by Bell was very much similar to Gray’s telephone design. However, Bell eventually got it practically worked on March 10, 1876.
6. The names of Bell’s business partners were Thomas Sanders and Gardiner Hubbard.
7. A company was established in Boston on July 9, 1877 and named Bell Telephone Company.
8. In 1881, Bell created a metal detector.
9. He died in 1922 in his home in Nova Scotia. The primary cause of his death was diabetes.

More Facts

1. His birth name was Alexander Bell which was continued until he reached 10. He requested his father to have him a middle name just like his two brothers which was accepted by his father. Finally, when Bell turned 11 years, he was given the name ‘Graham’ as his middle name.
2. The nickname of Bell was Aleck.
3. Bell also created a wireless telephone which he called photophone because voices were communicated using a ray of light. In this invention, Bell was accompanied by a collaborator and a US engineer named Charles Sumner Tainter.

Stock ticker is among one of his very first creations that is associated with telegraphy. Thomas Edison was an American businessman but he created quite a number of useful devices like movie camera and a practically working light bulb. He also made a power station in New York to supply electricity to business centers and homes. He invented a carbon button microphone in 1877. During 1887, the number of US power stations established by Thomas Edison was 121. He became a businessman and later established 14 companies. In 1877, Edison invented a gramophone and became popular in no time. This device is also known as phonograph. He founded a research laboratory in Menlo Park, Middlesex County which was the first of its kind. He financed this project through selling his Quadruplex telegraph to Western Union in 1874. He sold it for 10,000 US dollars which amounts to $208,400 of today. He is the founder of General Electric which is one of the world’s biggest public companies. Now let’s find out more in Thomas Edison facts for kids!

A Quick Guide to Thomas Edison Facts for Kids

Full Name: Thomas Alva Edison

Nicknames: Al; Tom; The Wizard

Date of Birth: February 11, 1847

Place of Birth: Milan, Ohio

Date of Death: October 18, 1931

Age: 84

Inventions: Movie camera, Phonograph and Electric light bulb

Thomas Edison Childhood facts

• He was a poor child and had to take up work as a ‘train-boy’ while he was only 12 years of age. He used to sell different newspapers, vegetables and fruits for persons along for the ride. Besides, he made them smile by his delightful humor.
• He took great interest in telegraphy while he was a child.
• By the age of ten, Edison had studied the books of Montesquieu and Gibbon. After reading the book, he can actually recall the correct page from where anything unusual is mentioned in a paragraph. What’s more, often he knows the position of that paragraph too.
• When his business flourished and earning reached about ten dollars per day, he started sending one dollar to his mother. However, the rest was largely used up in purchasing equipments for his experiments.
• As a result of his increasing interest in literature, people began calling him by pet name ‘Victor Hugo Edison’.
• During his business on Grand Trunk Railroad, the passengers started calling him by the name of ‘Al’.

How many things did Thomas Edison invent | Thomas Edison inventions list

Thomas Edison invented 15 things that had a lasting impact on the world. Some of his inventions are:

• Movie camera
• Phonograph
• Electric light bulb
• Fluoroscope
• Kinetograph (motion picture camera)
• Mining
• Battery
• Rubber

Thomas Edison Family

• His paternal ancestors were from Netherlands. They migrated to U.S.A in about 1737.
• The name of his great-grandfather was John Edison. In New York, he was a banker of outstanding reputation.
• The name of his father was Samuel Ogden Edison. Samuel Edison was about six-feet high and a strong guy with a beard on his face. During revolution, he ran off and after a flight of about 182 miles, reached U.S.A. He covered this entire trip without sleeping and also had nothing to eat.
• The name of Edison’s mother was Nancy Matthews Elliott. Nancy was a nice-looking young girl. She was a school teacher in Canada (Nova Scotia).
• He had 6 siblings. He was the eldest of all.

Thomas Edison Children

• The name of his wife was Mary Stilwell.
• Edison got married to Mary Stilwell on December 25, 1871.
• Stilwell was only 16 years old at the time of marriage. She was working at his store before marriage.
• Stilwell and Edison had 3 kids.
• His wife (Mary Stilwell) passed away on August 9, 1884 perhaps due to brain tumor. She was only 29 years old at the time.
• Edison got married the second time on February 24, 1886. He was 39 years old at the time.
• The name of his second wife was Mina Miller. She was 20 years old on her marriage. Her father was a philanthropist, businessperson as well as inventor of ‘combine harvester’ named Lewis Miller.
• Edison and Miller had 3 kids too.
• One of his sons named Thomas Edison became Governor of New Jersey.
• Theodore Edison had 80 patents in his own name.
• Mina died on August 24, 1947.

Edison was not the inventor of the electric light bulb. There were a number of creators before him who came across incandescent lamps. However, it was Thomas Edison who for the very first time used an electric light bulb to be used for business purposes.

Interesting Facts about Thomas Edison

• He was an incredibly curious kid. Every so often he sat down on the eggs of his neighbor’s goose and stayed there for a very long time hoping to hatch them through his body’s heat.
• During his childhood years he loved doing experiments with everything he came across. Thus one time he had cut a portion of his finger when he was trying to slice something with axe.
• On one occasion he burned a barn and only just got away from the flames. But this time, he was dealt with severely and got a number of lashes in a town square.
• Edison loved swimming too. In an attempt to save one of his pals from getting drowned, he very nearly managed to save his own life.
• While doing a job as a telegraph operator, his mind was so much focused on his machine that he couldn’t hear at all the voices of other people or machines in the hall.
• In the laboratory, Edison (along with his staff) used to work during the whole night and went to sleep in the morning until noontime.

10 facts about Thomas Edison

1. When Edison was born, his face looked a lot like his mother. But by nature, he was quite a funny guy which he took over certainly from his father in that his mother was a sober woman.
2. The name of his teacher during school days was Reverend Engle. Edison never concentrated on his studies properly which is why she used to call him a confused child.
3. He went to school for only 3 months. After this, Edison’s mother became his teacher at home.
4. He used to study two textbooks a lot during his homeschooling. One of these books was School of Natural Philosophy written by Richard Green Parker. The other book was Cooper Union. His inspiration for the later inventions was largely come from these two books.
5. While he was still a child, he had some serious problems with his hearing. He was unable to hear which was probably because of an attack of scarlet fever. However, Edison told that once a train conductor hit him on his ears and later threw him off the train in Michigan.
6. He used to put up candies, vegetables and newspapers for sale while riding on a train heading to Detroit from Port Huron.
7. In Michigan, he saved the life of a boy named Jimmie MacKenzie. He was about to hit by a fast moving train when Edison came and rescued him. Jimmie was only 3 years old at the time. The boy’s father was so pleased by Edison that he signed him up as telegraph operator. The name of Jimmie’s father was J.U. MacKenzie and he was a station master.
8. While he was 19 years old, he got a job in Western Union. But he was always fond of studying different books and doing experiments. Once while experimenting with a lead-acid battery, the sulfuric acid fell on to the floor and reached the desk of his manager. As a result, Edison was thrown out of the job on the next day.
9. He never thought about his personal appearance. He used to get into low-cost attire, hardly ever arrange his hair with a comb and what’s more, did not bother polishing his shoes at all.
10. The voice that came out from a device known as ‘phonograph’ for the first time was of Edison speaking publicly a popular nursery school rhyme named “Mary had a little lamb…” At the time, it was the first attempt by any person to play back the same voice recorded on a device. In 1877, the first weekly U.S. newspaper to announce the success of phonograph was ‘Scientific American’.

Thomas Edison facts about the light bulb

• The first experiment of Edison on incandescent light bulb was conducted on October 22, 1879 in Menlo Park.
• He displayed his light bulb to the public for the very first time on December 31, 1879.
• The first practical use of Edison’s light bulb was in a steamship of 1880 named ‘SS Columbia’.
• The first building for the public to use Edison’s electric light bulbs was Mahen Theatre. It was established in 1882 and located in Czech Republic’s city called Brno.
• In USA, there are 1,093 patents in the name of Thomas Edison.
• He collected 2,332 patents from all over the world.

Cool Thomas Edison Facts for Kids

In his schooldays, Edison narrates that his father always thought of him as a silly child. However, his mother was very kind to him and no other person was ever more confident about his talent than his mother. On one occasion, while one of the school teachers told inspector about Edison that he was a ‘confused child’ and that he shouldn’t be allowed to study any further, Edison heard that. This last blow burst Edison into tears and on his return told the same thing to his mom. On hearing this, his mother got infuriated and heatedly gets back to school with his child. She stood up for Edison very strongly and said to the teacher with great fury that Edison was far more intelligent than him and more stuff like that. Only at that moment did Edison realize that his mother was indeed the strongest supporter of his abilities.

When Edison was once traveling on a train with his usual apparatus, a shocking incident occurred. As train tilted due to high speed, the phosphorus spilled over to the floor and set the train on fire. Edison and conductor somehow managed to put it out. However, as the station turned up, the cruel conductor threw away Edison along with his apparatus (telegraph tools, printing press, chemicals and the like). This way he destroyed all the instruments of a young experimenter. Not only this, the conductor hit him so strongly on one of his ears that before long Edison lost his hearing too. The name of the conductor was Alexander Stevenson.

His trip to Port Huron was regularly interrupted when train spent a long time at Mount Clemens. Mackenzie, a station-master at Mount Clemens, became friend of Edison. Jimmy, a two-and-a-half-year-old son of Mackenzie, on one occasion was playing with sand on railway track. The kid was not aware about the train which was coming right towards him. When the train reached within spitting distance of the kid, Edison stepped on it right away and saved the boy. It made a lasting impact on Mackenzie for obvious reasons but since he was extremely poor, he sought to pay off Edison’s act of kindness by teaching him about the use of telegraph key and also told him something about electricity. Edison said yes to his suggestion with a smile.

He had a great desire to take off in the air like birds. One time Edison tried to convince a girl to drink a liquid (that he prepared) because according to Edison, it would take her to the air. At first, the girl turned down his offer but soon after tasted a little and became ill. However, Edison was so confident about his liquid that he thought girl didn’t fly due to her own fault.

When did Thomas Edison die

Edison passed away in October, 1931 because of diabetes.

Born in Albania, Mother Teresa lead major portion of her life in India but her services for the poor are spread all over the world. She received many prizes and awards as recognition for her charity institutions and services for humanity. She was also given much deserved Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. Now let’s discover more about this wonderful personality in Mother Teresa facts for kids.

Mother Teresa Facts For Kids

Birth Name: Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu

Common Name: Mother Teresa

Date of Birth: August 26, 1910

Place of Birth: Skopje, Macedonia

Age: 87

Date of Death: September 5, 1997

Place of Death: Calcutta, India

Family

1. The name of her father was Nikollë Bojaxhiu. He was a businessman.
2. The name of her mother was Dranafile Bojaxhiu.
3. Her parents got married in the beginning of 1900s.
4. She had two siblings namely Aga and Lazar.
5. She was the youngest of the three kids.
6. In 1919, her father passed away. She was only 8 at the time.
7. She was brought up as a Roman Catholic by her mother.

Early Years

1. While she was just 12 years old, she made up her mind to lead a religious life.
2. When she was just 18 years old, she went to the Sisters of Loreto and started her life as a missionary. This was the last time when she saw her mother.
3. In 1929, she went to India and started learning Bengali language in a town known as Darjeeling.
4. On 24th May 1931, Agnes (Mother Teresa) for the very first time as a holy woman made her religious vows.
5. In 1944 after serving as a teacher for about 20 years in the Calcutta’s Loreto convent school, she eventually became headmistress of that school.
6. In 1948, she started her teaching as a missionary by having on white ‘sari’ with blue lines on the sides of it.
7. In Calcutta in 1952, Mother Teresa built the very first Home for the Dying.
8. She built a home for those persons who had a disease called Leprosy. This hospice or home was known as Shanti Nagar, which means ‘City of Peace’.
9. In 1955, she built another school for orphans and children who were lost. This home was known as Nirmala Shishu Bhavan.
10. In 1965, she built the house in Venezuela. It was the very first house that she had made outside India and with the help of 5 sisters.

Final Years and Death

1. During Siege of Beirut in 1982, she saved 37 kids that were locked in a hospital when Israeli forces attacked Lebanon.
2. When she went to Rome to meet Pope John Paul II in 1983, Mother Teresa had faced a first severe heart attack.
3. In 1989, she had a second heart attack. After this attack, she was given a device that artificially controls the heart beat. This medical device is known as Artificial Cardiac Pacemaker.
4. In 1991 when she came back to her birthplace in Albania for the very first time, she built a home called Missionaries of Charity Brothers.
5. When she was in Mexico in 1991, she was attacked by pneumonia that made things worse for her heart.
6. During 1991, she was the person in command of Missionaries of Charity. She wanted to leave her job as the head of the institution but sisters of the order made her to stay.
7. Once she tumbled in April 1996 and as a result of it, her collar bone (also known as clavicle) was fractured.
8. In August 1996, she had an attack of malaria. She went through a surgery of her heart.
9. She finally left her job as the head of Missionaries of Charity on March 13, 1997.
10. When she died in September 1997 in Calcutta, the Missionaries of Charity with 4,000 sisters was working in 123 countries and running 610 missions all over the world.

More Mother Teresa Facts For Kids

1. Her birth name is in Albanian language which means ‘little flower’.
2. She was baptized on August 27. Though she was born on August 26 but she always thought her true birthday was on 27th instead of 26th.
3. She wanted to name herself by the name of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, ‘The Little Flower of Jesus’. However, before she could pick up this name, one of the nuns had already adopted it. Agnes therefore selected a Spanish name for herself calling ‘Teresa’.
4. She knew 5 languages very well. These are Albanian, Hindi, Bengali, Serbo-Croatian and English.
5. In USA, the first Missionaries of Charity was built in New York in South Bronx.
6. Until 1996, the missionary work of Mother Teresa had reached to such a great length that at the time there were 517 missions of her that were spread out in over 100 different countries.

Now that, did you really find these Mother Teresa facts for kids helpful? Is it what you’re looking for? Please comment and help us improving this article. Thanks for reading it!

Michael Morpurgo is a British writer, playwright and poet. His greatest contribution however lies in writing novels for children. The very first job for which Morpurgo signed up was a teacher in a primary school but very soon he realized that his real talent lies in writing stories for kids. So now let’s explore more about Michael Morpurgo.

A Quick Guide To Michael Morpurgo Facts For Kids

Original Name: Michael Andrew Bridge

Current Name: Michael Morpurgo

Date of Birth: October 5, 1943

Place of Birth: St Albans, Hertfordshire

Country: United Kingdom

Number of Children: 3

Reason for Popularity: One of the best writers of children books

Basic Michael Morpurgo Facts For Kids

Family and Marriage

1. The name of his father is Tony Van Bridge. He was an actor.
2. The name of his mother is Kippe Cammaerts. She was an actress.
3. Morpurgo has got one brother. His name is Peter and he is older than Morpurgo.
4. The name of his wife is Clare Morpurgo. The name of her father is Sir Allen Lane who founded Penguin Books.
5. Morpurgo has got 3 kids. The names of these three are Rosalind, Sebastian and Horatio.

Charity

1. Morpurgo and his wife (Clare) built a charitable trust in 1976 and named as ‘Farms for City Children’. It gives children a new experience for exploring countryside and consists of a 7-day program on a farm.
2. After the establishment of this charity, more than 85,000 kids have participated.
3. The charity owns 3 farms. These farms are in Wales, Devon and Gloucestershire.
4. Achievements
5. He wrote more than 120 books.
6. Due to their extraordinary contribution for children, Morpurgo and Clare were awarded with the ‘Members of the Order of the British Empire’ (MBE).
7. On June 17, 2006, in view of his contribution in literature, Morpurgo was also given Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE).

More Michael Morpurgo Facts For Kids

1. When Morpurgo was 19 years old, he came to know of his real father. Before that time, he did not know of him. Tony Van Bridge was his natural father.
2. The source of Morpurgo’s inspiration for writing stories was Ted Hughes. He was particularly impressed by his book ‘Poetry in the Making’.
3. He has been awarded with a position of Children Laureate. He was the third British to have such a reward starting from 2003 till 2005.

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He was an extraordinary artist of his time. He was born in the capital of Austria called Vienna. He is by far one of the most famous artists of Austria during the 20th century. Later on, he also developed interest in architecture and designing various postage stamps and coins.

Maybe he is not among the artists that can come to your mind instantly when you need to write an essay on an art major. Yet, professional essay writer service writers know that this person was one of the most prominent representatives of modern art and deserves special attention due to his outstanding style.

Now let’s explore more in Hundertwasser facts for kids.

Hundertwasser Facts For Kids

Full Name: Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser

Birth Name: Friedrich Stowasser

Common Name: Friedensreich Hundertwasser

Date of Birth: December 15, 1928

Place of Birth: Vienna, Austria

Occupation: Artist

Age: 71

Date of Death: February 19, 2000

Place of Death: New Zealand

Names

1. The meaning of his first name ‘Friedensreich’ is “Peace-rich”.
2. He changed his surname and took on another one called Hundertwasser.
3. There were two more names that he wanted to pick to be his surname. One of these was a Dunkelbunt which means ‘Darkly multi-colored’. The other one was Regentag which means ‘Rainy Day’.

Family and Marriage

1. The name of his mother was Elsa. She was a Jewish woman.
2. The name of his wife was Herta Leitner.
3. Hundertwasser and Leitner got married in 1958. However, the marriage continued for just 2 years after which they got separated.
4. The name of his second wife was Yuko Ikewada. She too was an artist from Japan and they both got married in 1962. But again this marriage also continued for only 4 years after which they got separated.
5. Hundertwasser had only one daughter. Her name was Heidi Trimmel. She was born in 1982.

Early Years

1. During World War II when German forces were killing and torturing Jews in Austria, Hundertwasser’s family pretended themselves to be Christians instead of Jews. The trick worked primarily because his father was a Catholic. In this way, they saved their lives.
2. In the year 1935, he was named as Catholic.
3. In order to appear as Christian, Hundertwasser even joined a paramilitary group of Nazi forces called Hitler Youth.
4. When the war was finished, he went to an art school in Vienna named Academy of Fine Arts. He studied there for 3 months.

Later Years

1. A French artist named René Brô became his friend for his entire life. They first came across each other in Florence.
2. In the year 1952 – 1953, Hundertwasser made his first impression as an artist in the public by displaying his paintings at an exhibition in his hometown.
3. During 1950s, Hundertwasser made flags, coins and placards. The most popular flag he designed was Koru Flag in 1983.
4. He also designed various stamps for the post office of Austria.
5. In the year 1964, Hundertwasser purchased a mill in Waldviertel called Hahnsäge.

Learn more: Hundertwasser Facts