Helen Adams Keller (June 27, 1880 – June 1, 1968) was an American author, political activist, and

lecturer. She was the first deaf-blind person to earn a bachelor of arts degree. The story of Keller
and her teacher, Anne Sullivan, was made famous by Keller's autobiography, The Story of My Life,
and its adaptations for film and stage, The Miracle Worker. Her birthplace in West Tuscumbia,
Alabama, is now a museum[1] and sponsors an annual "Helen Keller Day". Her June 27 birthday is
commemorated as Helen Keller Day in Pennsylvania and, in the centenary year of her birth, was
recognized by a presidential proclamation from Jimmy Carter.
A prolific author, Keller was well-traveled and outspoken in her convictions. A member of
the Socialist Party of America and the Industrial Workers of the World, she campaigned for women's
suffrage, labor rights, socialism, antimilitarism, and other similar causes. She was inducted into
the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame in 1971 and was one of twelve inaugural inductees to the
Alabama Writers Hall of Fame on June 8, 2015.[2]
elen Adams Keller was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama.[3] Her family lived on a
homestead, Ivy Green,[1] that Helen's grandfather had built decades earlier.[4] She had four siblings;
two full siblings, Mildred Campbell (Keller) Tyson and Phillip Brooks Keller, and two older half-
brothers from her father's prior marriage, James McDonald Keller and William Simpson Keller.[5][6]
Her father, Arthur Henley Keller (1836–1896),[7] spent many years as an editor of the
Tuscumbia North Alabamian and had served as a captain in the Confederate Army.[3][4] Her mother,
Catherine Everett (Adams) Keller (1856–1921), known as "Kate",[8] was the daughter of Charles W.
Adams, a Confederate general.[9] Her paternal lineage was traced to Casper Keller, a native
of Switzerland.[10][11] One of Helen's Swiss ancestors was the first teacher for the deaf in Zurich. Keller
reflected on this coincidence in her first autobiography, stating "that there is no king who has not had
a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.
Stevland Hardaway Morris (born May 13, 1950), better known by his stage name Stevie Wonder,
is an American singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, and multi-instrumentalist.
A child prodigy, Wonder is considered to be one of the most critically and commercially successful
musical performers of the late 20th century.[1] Wonder signed with Motown's Tamla label at the age
of 11,[1] and he continued performing and recording for Motown into the 2010s. He has been blind
since shortly after his birth.[2] Among Wonder's works are singles such as "Signed, Sealed, Delivered
I'm Yours", "Superstition", "Sir Duke", "You Are the Sunshine of My Life", and "I Just Called to Say I
Love You"; and albums such as Talking Book, Innervisions, and Songs in the Key of Life.[1] He has
recorded more than 30 U.S. top ten hits and received 25 Grammy Awards, one of the most-awarded
male solo artists, and has sold over 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the top 60
best-selling music artists.[3]
Wonder is also noted for his work as an activist for political causes, including his 1980 campaign to
make Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a holiday in the United States.[4] In 2009, Wonder was named
a United Nations Messenger of Peace.[5] In 2013, Billboard magazine released a list of the Billboard
Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists to celebrate the US singles chart's 55th anniversary, with Wonder at
number six.
Marie Skłodowska Curie (/ˈkjʊəri/;[3] French: [kyʁi]; Polish: [kʲiˈri]; born Maria Salomea Skłodowska;
[a]
 7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934) was a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who
conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the
first person and only woman to win twice, the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two different
sciences, and was part of the Curie family legacy of five Nobel Prizes. She was also the first woman
to become a professor at the University of Paris, and in 1995 became the first woman to be
entombed on her own merits in the Panthéon in Paris.
She was born in Warsaw, in what was then the Kingdom of Poland, part of the Russian Empire. She
studied at Warsaw's clandestine Flying University and began her practical scientific training in
Warsaw. In 1891, aged 24, she followed her older sister Bronisława to study in Paris, where she
earned her higher degrees and conducted her subsequent scientific work. She shared the
1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with her husband Pierre Curieand with physicist Henri Becquerel. She
won the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Her achievements included the development of the theory of radioactivity (a term that she coined[4][5]),
techniques for isolating radioactive isotopes, and the discovery of two
elements, polonium and radium. Under her direction, the world's first studies into the treatment
of neoplasms were conducted using radioactive isotopes. She founded the Curie Institutes in
Paris and in Warsaw, which remain major centres of medical research today. During World War I,
she developed mobile radiography units to provide X-ray services to field hospitals.
While a French citizen, Marie Skłodowska Curie, who used both surnames,[6][7] never lost her sense
of Polish identity. She taught her daughters the Polish language and took them on visits to Poland.
[8]
 She named the first chemical element that she discovered in 1898 polonium, after her native
country.[b]
Marie Curie died in 1934, aged 66, at a sanatorium in Sancellemoz (Haute-Savoie), France,
of aplastic anemia from exposure to radiation in the course of her scientific research and in the
course of her radiological work at field hospitals during World War I.[10]
Benjamin Franklin FRS FRSE (January 17, 1706 [O.S. January 6, 1705][1] – April 17, 1790) was an
American polymath and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Franklin was a leading
author, printer, political theorist, politician, freemason, postmaster, scientist, inventor, humorist, civic
activist, statesman, 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. As an
inventor, he is known for the lightning rod, bifocals, and the Franklin stove, among other inventions.
[2]
 He founded many civic organizations, including the Library Company, Philadelphia's first fire
department[3] and the University of Pennsylvania.[4]
Franklin earned the title of "The First American" for his early and indefatigable campaigning
for colonial unity, initially as an author and spokesman in London for several colonies. As the
first United States Ambassador to France, he exemplified the emerging American nation.[5] Franklin
was foundational in defining the American ethos as a marriage of the practical 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
historian Henry Steele Commager, "In a Franklin could be merged the virtues of Puritanism without
its defects, the illumination of the Enlightenment without its heat."[6] 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."[7]
Franklin became a successful newspaper editor and printer in Philadelphia, the leading city in the
colonies, publishing the Pennsylvania Gazette at the age of 23.[8] He became wealthy publishing this
and Poor Richard's Almanack, which he authored under the pseudonym "Richard Saunders". After
1767, he was associated with the Pennsylvania Chronicle, a newspaper that was known for its
revolutionary sentiments and criticisms of British policies.
He pioneered and was first president of Academy and College of Philadelphia which opened in 1751
and later became the University of Pennsylvania. He organized and was the first secretary of
the American Philosophical Society and was elected president in 1769. Franklin became a national
hero in America as an agent for several colonies when he spearheaded an effort in London to have.