James Hudson Taylor 戴德生 (May 21, 1832 – June 3, 1905), was a British Protestant Christian missionary to China, and founder of the China Inland Mission (CIM) (now OMF International) who served there for 51 years, bringing over 800 missionaries to the country and personally baptizing an estimated 50,000 converts. He was known for his commitment to cultural sensitivity, wearing native Chinese clothing even though this was rare among missionaries of that time. The CIM was non-denominational in practice and accepted members from all Protestant groups, including individuals from the working class and single women as well as multinational recruits. Taylor has been referred to as one of the most significant Europeans to visit China in the 19th Century. The agency that he founded was responsible for the widest Christian evangelistic campaign since the first century when Paul the Apostle brought Christian teaching to Europe.^[1] Ruth Tucker summarizes his accomplishments in her book "From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya":“No other missionary in the nineteen centuries since the Apostle Paul has had a wider vision and has carried out a more systematized plan of evangelizing a broad geographical area than Hudson Taylor (p. 173).”


David Livingstone was born on March 19, 1813 in the village of Blantyre, South Lanarkshire, Scotland, into a family believed to be descended from the highland Livingstones, a clan that had been previously known as the Clan MacLea. He first studied Greek, medicine, and theology at the University of Glasgow and while working in London, he emulated the example of another Scot, Robert Moffat, and joined the London Missionary Society, becoming a minister.

Livingstone originally planned to join the small Protestant missionary force in China through his medical knowledge (healing arts). The Opium Wars, which were raging at this stage with no signs of peace on the horizon, forced Livingstone to consider other options. Moffat seemed to have found an "inviting field" in Africa and Livingstone turned his thoughts there.^{[citation needed]}

From 1840 he worked in Bechuanaland (now Botswana), but was unable to make inroads into South Africa because of Boer opposition.

He married Mary Moffat, daughter of Robert Moffat, in 1845,^[1] and she travelled with him for a brief time at his insistence, despite her pregnancy and the protests of the Moffats. She later returned to England with their children.

Saint Francis Xavier (Basque: San Frantzisko Xabierkoa; Spanish: San Francisco Javier; Portuguese: São Francisco Xavier; Chinese: 聖方濟各沙勿略) (April 7, 1506 - December 2, 1552) was a pioneering Roman Catholic Christian missionary and co-founder of the Society of Jesus (Jesuit Order). The Roman Catholic Church considers him to have converted more people to Christianity than anyone else since St. Paul.

Sir John Eliot (April 11, 1592 - November 27, 1632), English statesman, son of Richard Eliot (1546 - June 22, 1609) and Bridget Carswell (c. 1542 - March 1617), was born at Cuddenbeak, a farm on his father's Port Eliot estate at St Germans in Cornwall. He was baptised on April 20 at St Germans Church, immediately next to Port Eliot. The Eliot family were an old Devon family that had settled in Cornwall.

John Eliot was educated at Blundell's School, Tiverton, and matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford, on December 4, 1607, and, leaving the university after three years, he studied law at one of the Inns of Court. He also spent some months travelling in France, Spain and Italy, in company, for part of the time, with young George Villiers, afterwards 1st Duke of Buckingham. Eliot was only twenty-two when he began his parliamentary career as Member of Parliament for St Germans in the "Addled Parliament" of 1614. In May 1618 he was knighted, and next year through the patronage of Buckingham he obtained the appointment of Vice-Admiral of Devon, with large powers for the defence and control of the commerce of the county. It was not long before the characteristic energy with which he performed the duties in his office involved him in difficulties. After many attempts, in 1623, he succeeded by a clever but dangerous manoeuvre in entrapping the famous pirate John Nutt, who had for years infested the southern coast, inflicting immense damage upon English commerce. However, the pirate, having a powerful protector at court in Sir George Calvert, the secretary of state, was pardoned; while the Vice-Admiral, upon charges which could not be substantiated, was flung into the Marshalsea prison, and detained there nearly four months.

Info from: www.wikipedia.com

Sir Isaac Newton, (4 January 1643 – 31 March 1727) [ OS: 25 December 1642 – 20 March 1727]^[1]English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, alchemist, and natural philosopher, regarded by many as the greatest figure in the history of science.^[2] His treatise Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, laying the groundwork for classical mechanics. By deriving Kepler's laws of planetary motion from this system, he was the first to show that the motion of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws. The unifying and predictive power of his laws was integral to the scientific revolution, the advancement of heliocentrism, and the broader acceptance of the notion that rational investigation can reveal the inner workings of nature. was an

In mechanics, Newton also markedly enunciated the principles of conservation of momentumangular momentum. In optics, he invented the reflecting telescope and discovered that the spectrum of colors observed when white light passes through a prism is inherent in the white light and not added by the prism (as Roger Bacon had claimed in the thirteenth century). Newton notably argued that light is composed of particles. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling, studied the speed of sound, and proposed a theory of the origin of stars. In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of calculus. He also demonstrated the generalized binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (baptized Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart) (January 27, 1756 – December 5, 1791) was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. His output of more than six hundred compositions includes works widely acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music. Mozart is among the most enduringly popular of European composers and many of his works are part of the standard concert repertoire. He is generally considered to be one of the greatest composers of classical music.




Isaac Watts (July 17, 1674 – November 25, 1748) is recognised as the "Father of English Hymnody", as he was the first prolific and popular English hymnwriter, credited with some 750 hymns. Many of his hymns remain in active use today and have been translated into many languages.

Born in Southampton, Watts was brought up in the home of a committed Nonconformist — his father had been incarcerated twice for his controversial views. At his local school he learned Latin, Greek and Hebrew and displayed a propensity for rhyme at home, driving his parents to the point of distraction on many occasions with his verse. Once, he had to explain how he came to have his eyes open during prayers.

Napoléon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte) (15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821) was a general during the French Revolution, the ruler of France as First ConsulPremier Consul) of the French Republic from 11 November1799 to 18 May 1804, Emperor of the French (Empereur des Français) under the name Napoléon I (Napoléon 1^er) from 18 May 1804 to 6 April 1814, and was briefly restored as Emperor from 20 March to 22 June 1815. He was also King of Italy, Mediator of the Swiss Confederation and Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine. (

Over the course of little more than a decade, the armies of France under his command fought almost every European power and acquired control of most of continental Europe by conquest or alliance. The disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812 marked a turning point. Following the Russian campaign and the defeat at Leipzig in October 1813, the Allies invaded France, forcing Napoleon to abdicate in April 1814. He was exiled to the island of Elba. He staged a comeback known as the Hundred Days (les Cent Jours), but was defeated at Waterloo on 18 June 1815. He spent the remaining six years of his life on the island of St. HelenaAtlantic Ocean under British supervision. in the

Louis XIV (Louis-Dieudonné) (September 5, 1638 – September 1, 1715) ruled as King of France and of Navarre from May 14, 1643 until his death just prior to his seventy-seventh birthday. He acceded to the throne a few months before his fifth birthday, but did not assume actual personal control of the government until the death of his First Minister ("premier ministre"), Jules Cardinal Mazarin, in 1661. Louis XIV, known as The Sun King (in French Le Roi Soleil) or as Louis the Great (in French Louis le Grand, or simply Le Grand Monarque, "the Great Monarch"), ruled France for seventy-two years—the longest reign of any French or other major European monarch. Louis XIV increased the power and influence of France in Europe, fighting three major wars—the Franco-Dutch War, the War of the League of Augsburg, and the War of the Spanish Succession—and two minor conflicts—the War of Devolution, and the War of the Reunions.

Louis XVI (23 August 1754 – 21 January 1793) was King of France and Navarre from 1774 until 1791, and then King of the French from 1791 to 1792. Suspended and arrested during the Insurrection of the 10th of August 1792, he was tried by the National Convention, found guilty of treason, and executed on 21 January 1793. His execution signaled the end of the absolutist monarchy in France and would eventually bring about the rise of Napoleon I.

Although he was beloved at first, his indecisiveness and conservatism led the people to reject him and hate in him the perceived tyranny of the former kings of France. During the French Revolution, he was given the family name Capet (a reference to Hugh Capet, the founder of the dynasty), and was called Louis Capet in an attempt to discredit his status as king. He was also informally nicknamed Louis le Dernier (Louis the Last), a derisive use of the traditional nicknaming of French kings.