Who is someone that has changed the world

Ruth Amos is a British inventor. Her great idea was the StairSteady. This device locks onto the banisters which helps older people and those who are frail from the risk of falling when they climb stairs. It is such a simple idea but has prevented so many people from picking up serious or even life-threatening injuries when they are merely in their own home. Her fun children's inventions include a paper unicorn with sweets which drop from its behind, and a frightening-looking chair which extends through a car roof to give a very different view - not to be used in heavy traffic.

She also made a sneeze-operated flame thrower. I think she loves a bit of danger. Graham Alexander Bell's first actual phone call was accidental. Alexander and his assistant, Thomas Watson, were experimenting and Alexander had spilled some battery acid. He shouted to Thomas who was in the next room for help, but Thomas Watson heard him through the receiver. I bet you'd like to walk on the ceiling! Inventor Walter Hunt, who invented paperclips, also made a pair of shoes that allowed him to hang upside-down and make dirty marks on the one part of the room which never gets swept.

Finally, we shouldn't forget John Harington who didn't like dirt. During his banishment from Queen Elizabeth I's court, he whiled away time by inventing the flushing toilet. The actor Kit Harington, from Game of Thrones , is a descendant of his! Find out more about the Blue Peter Book Awards. Search the site Search term is required. Christmas won't be magical for every child. A special book gift can add sparkle. Home News and features Features November Inventors: 9 incredible people who changed the world we live in.

Zero Although zero has been around since the time of the Babylonians, it didn't infiltrate Western thinking until the 12th Century when Italian mathematician, Leonardo Fibonacci included it in his book "Liber Abaci. It has also given us everything from simple algebra to quantum physics and rocket science to binary code, the basic language of all modern computers.

Gravity The well-known story of the apple that fell on Sir Isaac Newton's head inspiring him to come up with the "Universal Law of Gravitation" is probably apocryphal. However it happened, here is no doubt that Newton's insight was brilliant: He supposed that if gravity could reach to the top of a tree to make an apple fall to the ground, perhaps it would reach into orbit and beyond to affect the orbit of the Moon.

We now know that gravity affects everything from the tides to convection, and Newton's equations are still used for things like making heating systems more efficient to sending satellites into orbit.

Share this on:. Story Highlights A tribute to 10 big and little world-changing things, from evolution to soap How they have changed history and influenced modern society How ingenious discoveries have made the world what it is Next Article in World ». Don't Miss The spirit of change in December Teachers take weightless ride to inspire students Hawking: Mankind should be OK if we survive next years. E-mail to a friend. Mixx Facebook Twitter Digg del. Sound Off: Your opinions and comments.

Post a comment iReport. Post a comment Name. However, his father continued teaching him at home, and everyday Emeagwali performed mental exercises such as solving math problems in one hour.

American entrepreneur Jeff Bezos is the founder and chief executive officer of Amazon. After graduation, he worked on Wall Street, and in became the youngest senior vice president at the investment firm D.

Four years later, he quit his lucrative job to open Amazon. Ted Turner is an American media mogul and philanthropist. As a businessman, he is known as founder of the Cable News Network more popularly known as CNN, the first hour cable news channel. Malala Yousafzai is a Pakistani activist for female education and the youngest-ever Nobel Prize laureate.

She was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman in , but survived. The shooting resulted in a massive outpouring of support for Yousafzai, which continued during her recovery.

She gave a speech at the United Nations on her 16th birthday, in Martin Luther King Jr. Inspired by advocates of nonviolence such as Mahatma Gandhi, King sought equality for African Americans, the economically disadvantaged and victims of injustice through peaceful protest. Phil Knight is an American business magnate. A native of Oregon, he is the co-founder and chairman of the global brand Nike, Inc, and previously served as the chief executive officer of Nike.

Mother Teresa was the founder of the Order of the Missionaries of Charity, a Roman Catholic congregation of women dedicated to helping the poor. Her order established a hospice; centers for the blind, aged, and disabled; and a leper colony. She was summoned to Rome in , and in received the Nobel Peace Prize for her humanitarian work.

He went on to be named life president of both the nation and his politic party, until the army and police in Ghana seized power in and he found asylum in Guinea.

Walt Disney was an American motion-picture and television producer and showman, famous as a pioneer of cartoon films and as the creator of Disneyland. He and his brother Roy co-founded Walt Disney Productions, which became one of the best-known motion-picture production companies in the world.

Disney was an innovative animator and created the cartoon character Mickey Mouse. Larry Ellison is the founder and CEO of Oracle Corporation, which earned him a spot as fifth wealthiest person in the world in Civil rights activist Rosa Parks refused to surrender her bus seat to a white passenger, spurring the Montgomery boycott and other efforts to end segregation.

Her refusal to surrender her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery, Alabama bus spurred a city-wide boycott. The city of Montgomery had no choice but to lift the law requiring segregation on public buses. Iranian-American economist Pierre Omidyar is best known as the founder and chairman of eBay, the online auction website. Omidyar graduated from Tufts University in with a degree in computer science and worked for both Macintosh and Apple before founding eBay. By the end of , the company boasted 2.

First elected to the presidency in , he won a second term in President Obama continues to enact policy changes in response to the issues of health care and economic crisis.

Martin Luther King Jr.? Nelson Mandela? There have been many great historical figures that have shaped the world down the ages, and it would be very difficult if not impossible to pick those whose impact on the happenings in the world was greatest. Yet, we gave it a try and compiled this post with some of the most inspirational people of all time.

Some of them are famous, some of them are rather unknown, but all of them have one thing in common — they changed the world. Lincoln was born on 12 February He lost his mother at an early age and his father left him.

Hence, Lincoln had to do a number of manual labor. He had a thirst for knowledge and this led him to become a self-learned lawyer.

He was a person who changed the world with his ideas and actions. He played a very important role in ensuring that the Union survived its greatest challenge during the American Civil War. South Africa enforced racial division for a very long time. Blacks were not given the right to vote. When Nelson Mandela was released from prison in , he started negotiations with the then-president Frederik William de Klerk. Apartheid ended when, in , multi-racial elections were held.

He had a strong determination that anger over the crimes of the past should never motivate future laws and actions. This was his biggest influence on New South Africa. Key to this was his establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission that investigated historic human rights violations and gave vent to grievances.

His most famous protest came in when Gandhi led thousands of Indians on a mile march to a coastal town to produce salt, on which the British had a monopoly. Proved that one man has the power to take on an empire, using both ethics and intelligence. He has firmly earned a place in the historic events that changed the world. Charles Darwin is remembered as the father of evolutionary thinking and one of the people who changed the world for the better. He experimented that living species were not the same throughout the millennium.