Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin (January 17, 1706 [O.S. January 6, 1705[1]] – April 17, 1790) was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author and printer, satirist, political theorist, politician, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman, soldier,[2] and diplomat. As a scientist, he was a major figure in the American Enlightenment and the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. He invented the lightning rod, bifocals, the Franklin stove, a carriage odometer, and the glass 'armonica'. He formed both the first public lending library in America and the first fire department in Pennsylvania. He was an early proponent of colonial unity, and as a political writer and activist, he supported the idea of an American nation.[3] As a diplomat during the American Revolution, he secured the French alliance that helped to make independence of the United States possible.

Franklin is credited as being foundational to the roots of American values and character, a marriage of the practical and democratic Puritan values of thrift, hard work, education, community spirit, self-governing institutions, and opposition to authoritarianism both political and religious, with the scientific and tolerant values of the Enlightenment. In the words of Henry Steele Commager, "In Franklin could be merged the virtues of Puritanism without its defects, the illumination of the Enlightenment without its heat."[4] To Walter Isaacson, this makes Franklin, "the most accomplished American of his age and the most influential in inventing the type of society America would become."[5]

Franklin became a newspaper editor, printer, and merchant in Philadelphia, becoming very wealthy writing and publishing Poor Richard's Almanack and The Pennsylvania Gazette. Franklin was interested in science and technology, and gained international renown for his famous experiments. He played a major role in establishing the University of Pennsylvania and was elected the first president of the American Philosophical Society. Franklin became a national hero in America when he spearheaded the effort to have Parliament repeal the unpopular Stamp Act. An accomplished diplomat, he was widely admired among the French as American minister to Paris and was a major figure in the development of positive Franco-American relations. From 1775 to 1776, Franklin was the Postmaster General under the Continental Congress and from 1785 to 1788, the President of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania. Toward the end of his life, he became one of the most prominent abolitionists.

His colorful life and legacy of scientific and political achievement, and status as one of America's most influential Founding Fathers, have seen Franklin honored on coinage and money; warships; the names of many towns, counties, educational institutions, namesakes, and companies; and more than two centuries after his death, countless cultural references.

Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was born at Ulm, in Württemberg, Germany, on March 14, 1879. Six weeks later the family moved to Munich, where he later on began his schooling at the Luitpold Gymnasium. Later, they moved to Italy and Albert continued his education at Aarau, Switzerland and in 1896 he entered the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich to be trained as a teacher in physics and mathematics. In 1901, the year he gained his diploma, he acquired Swiss citizenship and, as he was unable to find a teaching post, he accepted a position as technical assistant in the Swiss Patent Office. In 1905 he obtained his doctor's degree.

During his stay at the Patent Office, and in his spare time, he produced much of his remarkable work and in 1908 he was appointed Privatdozent in Berne. In 1909 he became Professor Extraordinary at Zurich, in 1911 Professor of Theoretical Physics at Prague, returning to Zurich in the following year to fill a similar post. In 1914 he was appointed Director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Physical Institute and Professor in the University of Berlin. He became a German citizen in 1914 and remained in Berlin until 1933 when he renounced his citizenship for political reasons and emigrated to America to take the position of Professor of Theoretical Physics at Princeton*. He became a United States citizen in 1940 and retired from his post in 1945.

After World War II, Einstein was a leading figure in the World Government Movement, he was offered the Presidency of the State of Israel, which he declined, and he collaborated with Dr. Chaim Weizmann in establishing the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Einstein always appeared to have a clear view of the problems of physics and the determination to solve them. He had a strategy of his own and was able to visualize the main stages on the way to his goal. He regarded his major achievements as mere stepping-stones for the next advance.

At the start of his scientific work, Einstein realized the inadequacies of Newtonian mechanics and his special theory of relativity stemmed from an attempt to reconcile the laws of mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field. He dealt with classical problems of statistical mechanics and problems in which they were merged with quantum theory: this led to an explanation of the Brownian movement of molecules. He investigated the thermal properties of light with a low radiation density and his observations laid the foundation of the photon theory of light.

In his early days in Berlin, Einstein postulated that the correct interpretation of the special theory of relativity must also furnish a theory of gravitation and in 1916 he published his paper on the general theory of relativity. During this time he also contributed to the problems of the theory of radiation and statistical mechanics.

In the 1920's, Einstein embarked on the construction of unified field theories, although he continued to work on the probabilistic interpretation of quantum theory, and he persevered with this work in America. He contributed to statistical mechanics by his development of the quantum theory of a monatomic gas and he has also accomplished valuable work in connection with atomic transition probabilities and relativistic cosmology.

After his retirement he continued to work towards the unification of the basic concepts of physics, taking the opposite approach, geometrisation, to the majority of physicists.

Einstein's researches are, of course, well chronicled and his more important works include Special Theory of Relativity (1905), Relativity (English translations, 1920 and 1950), General Theory of Relativity (1916), Investigations on Theory of Brownian Movement (1926), and The Evolution of Physics (1938). Among his non-scientific works, About Zionism (1930), Why War? (1933), My Philosophy (1934), and Out of My Later Years (1950) are perhaps the most important.

Albert Einstein received honorary doctorate degrees in science, medicine and philosophy from many European and American universities. During the 1920's he lectured in Europe, America and the Far East and he was awarded Fellowships or Memberships of all the leading scientific academies throughout the world. He gained numerous awards in recognition of his work, including the Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London in 1925, and the Franklin Medal of the Franklin Institute in 1935.

Einstein's gifts inevitably resulted in his dwelling much in intellectual solitude and, for relaxation, music played an important part in his life. He married Mileva Maric in 1903 and they had a daughter and two sons; their marriage was dissolved in 1919 and in the same year he married his cousin, Elsa Löwenthal, who died in 1936. He died on April 18, 1955 at Princeton, New Jersey.

From Nobel Lectures, Physics 1901-1921, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1967

This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.

* Albert Einstein was formally associated with the Institute for Advanced Study located in Princeton, New Jersey.


Copyright © The Nobel Foundation 1922

Soekarno

Sukarno was born in the city of Surabaya in eastern Java. At the time, Java and the rest of Indonesia were under Dutch colonial control. Although brought up in the traditional Javanese cultural world, Sukarno was educated in modern Dutch colonial schools. In 1921 he entered the Bandung Institute of Technology to study architecture, graduating in 1926. Sukarno had been increasingly involved in nationalist politics since his teens, when he had boarded in the house of H. O. S. Tjokroaminoto, a leading nationalist politician. It was in Bandung that he decided his future lay in politics, not architecture.

By 1926 Sukarno had been married twice, first to Sitti Utari, daughter of Tjokroaminoto, and then, after divorcing her, to Inggit Garnasih. He subsequently married at least four more times, having as many as four wives simultaneously. Though permitted under Islamic law, polygamy was not a common practice in Indonesia, and in the 1950s and 1960s attracted considerable criticism, particularly from women’s organizations.

EARLY CAREER

In 1927 Sukarno cofounded the Indonesian Nationalist Party (Partai Nasional Indonesia, or PNI) and became its first leader. The goal of the party was to achieve independence for Indonesia through popular struggle against the Dutch. A skilled public speaker, Sukarno quickly drew a mass following for the PNI. In 1929 the Dutch jailed him for being a threat to public order, and the PNI collapsed in his absence. Released in 1931, Sukarno resumed his political activity, but he was arrested again in 1933 and exiled, first to the island of Flores and then to Sumatra. By the time of his exile, he was Indonesia’s leading nationalist politician.

When Japan invaded and occupied Indonesia in 1942, during World War II, Sukarno returned to Jakarta and worked with the Japanese regime. He argued later that his collaboration with the Japanese enabled him to advance the cause of Indonesian independence and protect the Indonesian people from the worst excesses of the occupation.

In 1944 a committee was established to prepare for Indonesian independence, and Sukarno was a leading member of the committee. On July 1, 1945, Sukarno delivered an important speech to the committee urging the adoption of the Panca Sila (Five Principles) as the ideological basis of the new state. The five principles were nationalism, internationalism (or humanitarianism), democracy, social justice, and belief in God.
On August 17, 1945, immediately following Japan’s surrender to the Allies, Sukarno and fellow nationalist Muhammad Hatta declared Indonesia’s independence. The next day the provisional parliament adopted a constitution and elected Sukarno president. The constitution included the Panca Sila in its preamble and gave the president a great deal of authority. The Dutch refused to accept the independence proclamation. For the next five years Indonesia and The Netherlands negotiated and fought with one another. Finally, in December 1949 the Dutch acknowledged Indonesia’s independence, but the status of the western half of New Guinea (now the province of Papua) remained in dispute.

Although Sukarno was an important symbol of the national struggle against the Dutch, he soon lost political ground to domestic rivals. By 1949 he was little more than a figurehead, while real political power lay with the prime minister. This arrangement was made official in new constitutions adopted in 1949 and 1950, which established a parliamentary, rather than presidential, political system for Indonesia.

DOMESTIC POLICIES

In the early and mid-1950s Sukarno remained a figurehead president. However, beginning in 1957, as Indonesia’s political system began to disintegrate and military rebellions broke out in Sumatra and Sulawesi, he asserted a more powerful political role. In 1959 Sukarno decreed the reintroduction of Indonesia’s 1945 constitution, which gave the president wider authority. Arguing that Western-style parliamentary democracy was unsuited to Indonesian needs, he introduced in its place a system called “Guided Democracy,” that emphasized traditional Indonesian values, such as decision making by deliberation and consensus rather than majority vote. Sukarno promoted national unity through NASAKOM, an acronym for the three major ideological streams in Indonesian politics: nasionalisme (nationalism), agama (religion), and komunisme (communism).

In practice, such unity was never achieved. Under Sukarno Indonesian politics became more divided than ever before. Parties refusing to accept Guided Democracy were banned, and Sukarno’s political opponents were jailed. The system was accepted most enthusiastically by the Indonesian Communist Party (Partai Komunis Indonesia, or PKI), with which Sukarno was increasingly aligned by the early 1960s. The army also increased its power under Sukarno, and became the only meaningful rival of the Communists.

Sukarno had little interest in conventional economic management, and as a result the economy declined rapidly under Guided Democracy. This decline was due to the burdens of mounting overseas debt (much of it resulting from the purchase of Soviet-bloc armaments), an overstaffed government bureaucracy, and the grossly inefficient state-owned companies in the agriculture, mining, transportation, and banking sectors. By 1965 inflation in Indonesia was more than 650 percent a year, and the economy was on the verge of total collapse.Despite this, Sukarno retained enormous popularity among ordinary Indonesians, awakening in them a great sense of pride in being Indonesian. He received particular support from poor farmers and factory workers, a class he termed the Marhaen, named after a poor peasant farmer Sukarno met in West Java. Sukarno also supported the right of equal citizenship for Indonesia’s ethnic Chinese residents.

FOREIGN RELATIONS

The Dutch had retained possession of the western half of New Guinea (then known as Dutch New Guinea) following their acknowledgment of Indonesian independence in 1949. Although Indonesia continued to claim sovereignty over the territory, the Indonesian governments that held power in the early and mid-1950s did not press the issue very hard. Sukarno, however, saw The Netherlands’ possession of the territory as an unacceptable reminder of colonialism, and by the late 1950s he was mounting an increasingly strident campaign to have the territory returned to Indonesia. In the early 1960s Indonesia launched military raids on Dutch New Guinea, but it was chiefly American diplomatic pressure that finally persuaded the Dutch to hand the territory over to Indonesia in 1963, when it was renamed West Irian (later renamed Irian Jaya; now Papua).

American support for the Indonesian position on West Irian had been, in part, an attempt to prevent Indonesia from moving closer to the Communist bloc of nations. The United States was unsuccessful in this goal. In the later years of Guided Democracy, Sukarno’s foreign policy took on an increasingly anti-Western and pro-Communist orientation. He vigorously opposed the formation of Malaysia in 1963, arguing that the British-supported state would function as a base from which “neocolonial” forces could exert influence in the region. He criticized the United Nations for being under Western control, and withdrew Indonesia from the organization in January 1965. Later that year he announced the formation of an alliance between Indonesia and the Communist and pro-Communist governments of Cambodia, North Vietnam, China, and North Korea.

DOWNFALL

Political tensions within Indonesia boiled over on the night of September 30, 1965, when army troops and left-wing civilians staged a coup attempt, murdering six army generals and announcing the formation of a new revolutionary government. General Suharto, head of the army’s strategic command, rallied loyalist troops to suppress the coup. Although the identity and motives of the coup’s instigators remains controversial, the army alleged that the Communist PKI was responsible. Thus, in late 1965 army units and Muslim groups began to purge Communists (both real and suspected) from national life. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed or imprisoned in the crackdown.

Sukarno’s role in these events remains in dispute. He never publicly supported the coup attempt, but neither did he criticize it. This ambiguity, along with the elimination of the Communists, substantially weakened his political standing. By 1966 General Suharto had eased Sukarno out of effective power, and the following year Suharto became acting president. Sukarno was formally deposed in favor of Suharto in 1968. Wary of the implications of either putting him on trial for involvement in the attempted coup or allowing him complete freedom of action, Suharto kept Sukarno under house arrest in Jakarta until his death.

Despite government attempts to downplay his role in Indonesian politics, Sukarno’s image underwent a revival beginning in the 1980s among young people and others critical of the Suharto regime. Sukarno’s eldest daughter Megawati Sukarnoputri became a symbol of popular resistance in the pro-democracy movement that ultimately led to Suharto’s resignation in 1998. Megawati became vice president of Indonesia in 1999 and president in 2001.

Syed Hassan Nasrallah

Born in 1960 in East Beirut's Bourji Hammoud neighborhood, Nasrallah, the oldest of nine children, aspired to religious leadership from a young age. In 1975, when a civil war broke out in Lebanon, Nasrallah's family moved to its ancestral home in the southern Lebanese village of Bassouriyeh. While attending services in the nearby city of Tyre, Nasrallah caught the attention of one of the clerics, who encouraged him to pursue his theological education abroad. The following year, upon finishing secondary school, Nasrallah went to study in a seminary in Najaf, Iraq. It was there he first met Musawi.

In 1978, Iraq expelled hundreds of Lebanese religious students, and Nasrallah and Musawi were forced to return to Lebanon. There Musawi established a religious school where Nasrallah taught and studied. His passionate sermons won him a number of Shiite followers, many of whom joined Nasrallah in organizing an armed resistance to the Israeli invasion in 1982. These fighting groups soon evolved into Hezbollah, and Nasrallah distinguished himself as an adept guerilla commander. In 1987, during a lull in the violence, Nasrallah resumed his religious studies at a seminary in Qom, Iran, but when hostilities resumed in 1989, he returned to Lebanon. By that time, a rift was emerging among Hezbollah's leadership between those—led by Musawi—advocating broader Syrian influence in Lebanon and those—led by Nasrallah—who opposed Syrian involvement and pushed for a harder line against Israel and the United States. Nasrallah found himself in the minority. Later that year he was sent back to Iran to serve as Hezbollah's representative in Tehran in what experts say was likely an effort to sideline him.

In 1991, Musawi became secretary-general of Hezbollah and Nasrallah returned to Lebanon, apparently having softened his views on Syria. Nasrallah replaced Musawi as Hezbollah's leader after his mentor's assassination by Israeli forces. In December 2007, the London-based newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat caused a stir when it reported that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had ordered Nasrallah to hand over control of Hezbollah's military wing to deputy chief Sheikh Naim Qasim. But Hezbollah and Iran's foreign ministry have refuted this report.

Henry Kissinger

Henry Alfred Kissinger was the 56th Secretary of State of the United States from 1973 to 1977, continuing to hold the position of Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs which he first assumed in 1969 until 1975. After leaving government service, he founded Kissinger Associates, an international consulting firm, of which he is chairman.

Dr. Kissinger was born in Fuerth, Germany, on May 27, 1923, came to the United States in 1938, and was naturalised a United States citizen on June 19, 1943. He received the BA Degree Summa Cum Laude at Harvard College in 1950 and the MA and PhD Degrees at Harvard University in 1952 and 1954 respectively.

From 1954 until 1971 he was a member of the Faculty of Harvard University, both in the Department of Government and at the Center for International Affairs. He was Associate Director of the Center from 1957 to 1960. He served as Study Director, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, for the Council of Foreign Relations from 1955 to 1956; Director of the Special Studies Project for the Rockefeller Brothers Fund from 1956 to 1958; Director of the Harvard International Seminar from 1951 to 1971, and Director of the Harvard Defense Studies Program from 1958 to 1971. (He was on leave of absence from Harvard from January 1969 to January 1971).

Secretary Kissinger has written many books and articles on United States foreign policy, international affairs, and diplomatic history. Among the awards he has received are the Guggenheim Fellowship (1965-66), the Woodrow Wilson Prize for the best book in the fields of government, politics and international affairs (1958), the American Institute for Public Service Award (1973), the International Platform Association Theodore Roosevelt Award (1973), the Veterans of Foreign Wars Dwight D. Eisenhower Distinguished Service Medal (1973), the Hope Award for International Understanding (1973), the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1977) and the Medal of Liberty (1986).

He has served as a consultant to the Department of State (1965-68), United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (1961-68), Rand Corporation (1961-68), National Security Council (1961-62), Weapons Systems Evaluation Group of the joint Chiefs of Staff (1959-60), Operations Coordinating Board (1955), Director of the Psychological Strategy Board (1952), Operations Research Office (1951), and Chairman of the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America (1983-84).

From 1943 to 1946 Dr. Kissinger served in the U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps and from 1946 to 1949 was a captain in the Military Intelligence Reserve.

He married Ann Fleischer in 1949 and was divorced in 1964. There were two children, Elizabeth and David. In 1974 he married Nancy Maginnes.

Fidel Castro

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (born August 13, 1926) is a Cuban politician. One of the primary leaders of the Cuban Revolution, Castro served as the Prime Minister of Cuba from February 1959 to December 1976, and then as the President of the Council of State of Cuba until his resignation from the office in February 2008. He currently serves as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, a position he has held since its inception in 1965.

Castro was born into a wealthy family and acquired a law degree. While studying at the University of Havana, he began his political career and became a recognized figure in Cuban politics.[4] His political career continued with nationalist critiques of the president, Fulgencio Batista, and of the United States' political and corporate influence in Cuba. He gained an ardent, but limited, following and also drew the attention of the authorities.[5] He eventually led the failed 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks, after which he was captured, tried, incarcerated, and later released. He then traveled to Mexico[6][7] to organize and train for an invasion of Cuba to overthrow Batista's government, which began in December 1956.

Castro subsequently came to power as a result of the Cuban Revolution, which overthrew the U.S.-backed[8] dictatorship of Batista,[9] and shortly thereafter became Prime Minister of Cuba.[10] In 1965 he became First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, and led the transformation of Cuba into a one-party socialist republic. In 1976 he became President of the Council of State as well as of the Council of Ministers. He also held the supreme military rank of Comandante en Jefe ("Commander in Chief") of the Cuban armed forces.

Following intestinal surgery from an undisclosed digestive illness believed to have been diverticulitis,[11] Castro transferred his responsibilities to the First Vice-President, his younger brother Raúl Castro, on July 31, 2006. On February 19, 2008, five days before his mandate was to expire, he announced he would neither seek nor accept a new term as either president or commander-in-chief.[12][13] On February 24, 2008, the National Assembly elected Raúl Castro to succeed him as the President of Cuba.[1]

Kim Il Sung

Kim Il-sung (1912-1994), absolute ruler of North Korea for 46 years, was the first communist head of state to establish dynastic rule, enabling his son to succeed him.

He was born Kim Sung-ju on April 15, 1912, the son of a middle-class schoolmaster named Kim Hyung-jik in Pyongan-namdo, a northeastern province of Korea. For hundreds of years known as the Hermit Kingdom because of its sealed borders and attempted isolation from its powerful neighbors, Korea was annexed by expansionist Japan two years before Kim's birth. Japan's colonial domination become progressively harsher, and the state-sanctioned biographies of Kim's youth have him rebelling by scratching out with a penknife the Japanese titles of his required schoolbooks and by exhorting his schoolmates to speak Korean, not Japanese. About 1925 Kim fled with his parents to Manchuria to escape Japanese oppression.

Kim spent the next 14 years in Manchuria, attending middle school in Kirin, joining the Chinese Communist party in 1931, and reportedly fighting as a guerrilla against the Japanese in the Yalu River region that marks the border between Korea and Manchuria.

According to one official biography, Kim fought Japanese-Manchurian forces from 1932 to 1945 more than 100,000 times - never losing a single engagement. This means Kim fought an average of over 20 battles every single day in this period - always victoriously. Despite such tales of glory, Kim was forced to flee Manchuria for the Soviet Union around 1939, when Japanese Imperial forces trounced the Chinese guerrillas with whom he was fighting. There, Kim received his military and political training at the Soviet party school in Khabarovsk in the Soviet Far East. Kim accompanied the Soviet army of occupation to Pyongyang in October, 1945, dressed in the uniform of a Soviet army captain. It is said that he assumed the name of Kim Il-sung, that of a legendary Korean hero, at this time.

After World War II, most potential Korean leaders had gone to Seoul in the south, the traditional capital of Korea, hoping to end up governing the country. However, the Americans and the Soviets divided the country into North Korea and South Korea. Three distinct groupings of Communists emerged in North Korea: the Soviet-aligned group, including those Koreans who had returned from the Soviet Union; the Chinese-oriented, or the Yenan, faction, composed of those who had returned from China; and the domestic group, who had opposed the Japanese colonial rule within Korea. Kim had been picked by local Soviet commanders in Pyongyang to be North Korea's leader, in part because they knew few other Koreans. In exchange for his loyalty, the Soviets disarmed Kim's potential rivals and installed him as premier of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea when it was officially founded in 1948.

For 46 years, Kim established himself firmly in power. He positioned himself as one who would undo Korea's long past as victims of history. One of his first acts as Premier was to convince his Soviet military supporters that he could sweep across the 38th parallel, conquer South Korea in three weeks, and re-unify the country. By telegrams and in person, he convinced Stalin as well. Kim invaded South Korea in June, 1950, armed by the Soviets. Stalin ceased his military support of Kim after General Douglas MacArthur's November landing at Inchon and drive to the Chinese border. Kim then turned to Mao Tse-tung (also known as Mao Zedong), who entered the war with Chinese troops. The cease-fire seven months later found the opposing Korean forces near the war's starting point, the 38th parallel and Kim's re-unification dreams wrecked. The Korean War, which lasted until July 25, 1953, was, in part, a manifestation of Kim's ambition to unify the Korean peninsula through military means.

Despite his treatment by Stalin, Kim continued to admire the Soviet dictator's methods, his bearing, and his cult of personality, and Kim worked to develop his own status as a ruler. By the early 1960s, he had finally expelled the last of the Soviets from North Korea, had purged all his enemies, and had elevated his parents, uncles, grandparents and even a great-grandparent to revolutionary hero status. His rule became based on fear, ignorance, and isolation from the rest of the world. Capitalizing on the latter, Kim developed and propagated a doctrine of nationalist self-sufficiency, known as Jouche: the Korean people are masters of their own destiny, and since Kim Il-sung was absolute ruler, he was master of their destiny. And for some time, his vision of the future worked. From 1953 until the 1970s, Kim emphasized heavy industry and collective farming, and he was able to push people to work long hours. During this period, North Korea was a model of state-controlled development, economically better off than South Korea. As for fear, each of the state's 22 million people was classified according to their degree of loyalty to Kim. The "core class" (25%) lived in the big cities and received the best jobs, schools, and food. The "wavering class" (50%) had second-rate jobs and homes, and their loyalty was monitored by internal security forces. The "hostile class" were assigned to hard labor and most lived in remote villages. Dissent did not exist in North Korea, at least not out loud; according to Amnesty International, there were "tens of thousands" of dissidents and political enemies in concentration camps, and "untold numbers" had been executed. As for ignorance, those born after the Korean War know the world Kim wanted them to know: they saw no foreign newspapers or foreign broadcasts, and radios received only government stations.

As an economic program Jouche began to decline in the 1970s. Kim's military spending reached 25 percent of the entire national budget (in South Korea, it was four percent); harvests declined; North Korea's tractors and trucks were no longer attractive purchases in Moscow; and public works spending ballooned, most of it on monuments to Kim Il-sung. For his 60th birthday in 1972, Kim erected a huge bronze statue, among other things; for his 70th, it was an Arch of Triumph taller than the original in Paris, and the Tower of the Jouche Idea which was three feet taller than the Washington Monument and consisted of 25,500 white granite blocks, one for each day of Kim's first seventy years.

Anwar al-Sadat

Anwar El Sadat was born on 25 December 1918 in Mit Abu al-Kum, al-Minufiyah, Egypt to a poor family, one of 13 brothers and sisters. His father was Egyptian, and his mother was Sudanese.[1] He spent his early childhood under the care of his grandmother, who told him stories revolving around resistance to the British occupation and drawing on contemporary history.[2]

During Sadat’s childhood, he admired and was influenced greatly by four individuals. The first of his childhood heroes was Zahran, the alleged hero of Denshway, who resisted the British in a farmer protest. According to the story, a British soldier is killed. Zahran was the first Egyptian hanged in retribution for the soldier's death. Stories like the Ballad of Zahran introduced Sadat to Egyptian nationalism, a value he held throughout his life.[2]

The second individual was Kemal Ataturk who was leader of the modern Turkey. Sadat admired his ability to overthrow the foreign influence and his many social reforms. He also idolized Mahatma Gandhi and his belief of nonviolence when facing injustice. As Egypt was under the occupation of the United Kingdom, Sadat was fascinated by Hitler’s Nazi German army for their quick ability to become a strategic threat to Britain.[2]

He graduated from the Royal Military Academy in Cairo in 1938 and was appointed in the Signal Corps. He entered the army as a second lieutenant and was posted in Sudan (Egypt and Sudan were one country at the time). There, he met Gamal Abdel Nasser, and along with several other junior officers they formed the secret Free Officers Movement committed to freeing Egypt from British domination and royal corruption.

During the Second World War he was imprisoned by the British for his efforts to obtain help from the Axis Powers in expelling the occupying British forces. Along with his fellow Free Officers, Sadat participated in the military coup that launched the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 which overthrew the King Farouk I on July 23 of that year. Sadat was assigned to announce the news of the revolution to the Egyptian people over the radio networks.

Muhammad Anwar El Sadat, or Anwar El Sadat (Arabic: محمد أنور السادات‎, Muḥammad Anwar as-Sādāt) (25 December 1918 - 6 October 1981), was the third President of Egypt, serving from 15 October 1970 until his assassination by fundamentalists on 6 October 1981. He was a senior member of the Free Officers group that overthrew the Muhammad Ali Dynasty in the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, and a close confidant of Gamal Abdel Nasser, whom he succeeded as President in 1970.

In his eleven years as president he changed Egypt's direction, departing from some of the economic and political principles of Nasserism by re-instituting the multi-party system and launching the Infitah. His leadership in the October War of 1973 made him a hero in Egypt, and for a time throughout the Arab World.

His visit to Israel and the eventual Camp David Accords won him the Nobel Peace Prize, but was an act enormously unpopular amongst Egyptians and other Arabs, and resulted in Egypt being suspended from the Arab League. The peace treaty was the primary reason given by Khalid Islambouli, one of Sadat's assassins, for his opposition to Sadat.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (pronounced /ˈaɪzənhaʊər/ EYE-zən-how-ər; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was a five-star general in the United States Army and the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. During World War II, he served as Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe, with responsibility for planning and supervising the successful invasion of France and Germany in 1944–45, from the Western Front. In 1951, he became the first supreme commander of NATO.

A Republican, Eisenhower entered the 1952 presidential race to counter the isolationism of Sen. Robert A. Taft, and to crusade against "Communism, Korea and corruption" (that is, the policies of President Harry Truman in those areas). He won by a landslide, ending two decades of New Deal control of the White House. As President, Eisenhower threatened to use nuclear weapons, forcing China to agree to a cease-fire of the Korean War. He maintained pressure on the Soviet Union during the Cold War, gave priority to inexpensive nuclear weapons and reduced the other forces to save money. He had to play catch-up in the Space Race race after the Soviets launched the Sputnik satellite in 1957. On the domestic front, he helped remove Joseph McCarthy from power but otherwise left most political chores to his Vice President, Richard Nixon. Eisenhower refused to roll-back the New Deal, but instead enlarged the Social Security program and launched the Interstate Highway System. He was the first term-limited president in accordance with the 22nd Amendment. His two terms were peaceful, and generally prosperous except for a sharp economic recession in 1958–59. Historians typically rank Eisenhower among the top ten U.S. presidents.

Charles de Gaulle

Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (French pronunciation: [ʃaʁl də ɡol] ( listen), English: /ˈtʃɑrlz/ or /ˈʃɑrl dəˈɡɔːl/; 22 November 1890 – 9 November 1970) was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969.^[1]

A veteran of World War I, in the 1920s and 1930s de Gaulle came to the fore as a proponent of armoured warfare and advocate of military aviation, which he considered a means to break the stalemate of trench warfare. During World War II, he reached the temporary rank of Brigadier General, leading one of the few successful armoured counter-attacks during the 1940 Fall of France, and then briefly served in the French government as France was falling. He escaped to England and gave a famous radio address in June 1940, exhorting the French people to resist Nazi Germany^[2] and organised the Free French Forces with exiled French officers in Britain.^[3]

He gradually obtained control of all French colonies - most of which had at first been controlled by the pro-German Vichy regime - and by the time of the liberation of France in 1944 he was heading a government in exile, insisting that France be treated as an independent great power by the other Allies. De Gaulle became prime minister in the French Provisional Government, resigning in 1946 due to political conflicts.^[4] After the war he founded his own political party, the RPF. Although he retired from politics in the early 1950s after the RPF's failure to win power, he was voted back to power as prime minister by the French Assembly during the May 1958 crisis. De Gaulle led the writing of a new constitution founding the Fifth Republic,^[5] and was elected President of France, an office which now held much greater power than in the Third and Fourth Republics.^[6]

As President, Charles de Gaulle ended the political chaos that preceded his return to power. A new French currency was issued in January 1960 to control inflation and industrial growth was promoted. Although he initially supported French rule over Algeria, he controversially decided to grant independence to that country, ending an expensive and unpopular war but leaving France divided and having to face down opposition from the white settlers and French military who had originally supported his return to power.

De Gaulle oversaw the development of French atomic weapons and promoted a pan-European foreign policy, seeking independence from U.S. and British influence. He withdrew France from NATO military command - although remaining a member of the western alliance - and twice vetoed Britain's entry into the European Community. He travelled widely in Eastern Europe and other parts of the world and recognised Communist China. On a visit to Canada he gave encouragement to Quebec Separatism.

During his term, de Gaulle also faced controversy and political opposition from Communists and Socialists. Despite having been re-elected as President, this time by direct popular ballot, in 1965, in May 1968 he appeared likely to lose power amidst widespread protests by students and workers, but survived the crisis with an increased majority in the Assembly. However, de Gaulle resigned after losing a referendum in 1969. He is considered by many to be the most influential leader in modern French history.