(People in World History (Read and enjoy

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[FONT=&quot]Holy Night[FONT=&quot] [/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Depictions of the birth of Christ were popular themes in northern European painting from the 15th to the 17th centuries. These images became central to Christmas celebrations of the time. This painting, Holy Night, was created by Dutch painter Gerard David in the late 15th century[/FONT]​

 

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[FONT=&quot]Martin Luther King, Jr [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]During the 1950s, Martin Luther King, Jr. studied the methods of nonviolent protest of the Indian nationalist leader Mohandas K. Gandhi and successfully implemented them in a civil rights movement in the United States. King expertly led the movement and forced discussion of inequality in the United States. His work inspired thousands of blacks and led to long-range changes in the lives of countless others. In 1963, five years before his death at the hands of an assassin, King addressed a gathering of more than 200,000 people at the Lincoln Memorial in the nation’s capital. There he delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech[/FONT]​

 

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[FONT=&quot]Vladimir Lenin [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Vladimir Lenin gained political stature through his writings and then as head of the radical socialist Bolshevik Party. He led the 1917 Bolshevik takeover of Russia's Provisional Government, which had governed the country since the fall of tsarist rule a few months earlier. After the revolution, Lenin became the leader of the new Soviet state. This audio selection contains a portion of a speech recorded by Lenin on a gramophone in 1919:
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[FONT=&quot] Today, the workers who have remained loyal to the cause of throwing off the yoke of capital call themselves Communists. All over the world the association of Communists is growing. In a number of countries Soviet power has already triumphed. Soon we shall see the victory of Communism throughout the world; we shall see the foundation of the World Federative Republic of Soviets[/FONT][/FONT]​

 

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[FONT=&quot]Leonardo da Vinci [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Leonardo da Vinci was known not only as a masterful painter but as an architect, sculptor, engineer, and scientist. His pursuit of knowledge was relentless and his discoveries left lasting changes in the fields of art and science. With his sophisticated skills and love for learning, Leonardo was the quintessential Renaissance man. He painted The Last Supper between 1495 and 1497[/FONT]​

 

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[FONT=&quot]President Lincoln [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Soon after Abraham Lincoln's election as president of the United States, seven Southern states seceded from the Union because they feared that Lincoln would abolish slavery. Four more states had followed by the time Lincoln delivered his first inaugural address on March 4, 1861. This recording of his 1861 inaugural address is recited by an actor[/FONT]​

 

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[FONT=&quot]Louis XIV [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]French king Louis XIV ruled from 1643 to 1715. Louis was convinced that the power of the monarchy came by divine right, and he exercised absolute control over France and the French people. Determined to make France into a strong, culturally advanced nation, he built up the French military and actively supported French artists and writers. Louis’s reign was the longest in the history of Europe, and became the model for other absolute monarchies in 18th-century Europe[/FONT]​

 

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[FONT=&quot]Martin Luther [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]German theologian and religious reformer Martin Luther precipitated the Protestant Reformation with his publication in 1517 of his Ninety-Five Theses, which detailed the indulgences and excesses of the Roman Catholic church. Luther felt that the essence of Christianity lay not in an elaborate organization headed by the pope, but in each person’s direct communication with God. Luther’s protest set off a flood of departures from the Roman Catholic church and set the stage for further Protestant movements, including Calvinism and Presbyterianism[/FONT]​

 

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[FONT=&quot]Ferdinand Magellan [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]This painting shows Ferdinand Magellan, the Portuguese navigator. Magellan was the first European explorer to cross the Pacific Ocean and the first to sail around the world. The painting is in the Palazzo Farnese in Caprarola, Italy[/FONT]​

 

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[FONT=&quot]Nelson Mandela [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Before becoming the first black president of South Africa in 1994, Nelson Mandela spent much of his life in prison for leading black opposition to the oppressive rule of the white minority government. During his many years in captivity, Mandela became a worldwide symbol of resistance to white domination in South Africa. Here, he speaks to supporters upon his release from prison on February 11, 1990[/FONT]​

 

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[FONT=&quot]Mao Zedong [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Mao Zedong led the Chinese Communist movement in the 1930s and 1940s, and became ruler of China in 1949. Mao strayed from the Soviet Marxist model, attempting to build a socialist society based on peasant farming rather than a centralized, bureaucratic, industrialized economy. In Mao’s speech to the 1956 party congress, he spoke of the need to constantly strive for progress: “Even though we have attained extraordinarily great achievements, there is no reason to be arrogant. Modesty makes you move forward, arrogance makes you go backwards. I should always remember this truth[/FONT]​

 

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[FONT=&quot]Karl Marx [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Karl Marx, along with Friedrich Engels, defined communism. Their most famous work was the Communist Manifesto (1848), in which they argued that the working class should rebel and build a Communist society[/FONT]​

 

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[FONT=&quot]Portrait of Michelangelo [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Italian artist Michelangelo's extraordinary accomplishments in painting, sculpture, and architecture made him one of the outstanding figures in Renaissance art. During his lifetime (1475-1564) he influenced many young artists, including the Florentine writer and painter Giorgio Vasari, who included this likeness of Michelangelo in one of his own works[/FONT]​

 

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[FONT=&quot]Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, an 18th-century Austrian classical composer and one of the most famous musicians of all time, came from a family of musicians that included his father and sister. Mozart wrote masses, oratorios, symphonies, concertos, sonatas, and more, but he is best known for his operas. These include Don Giovanni (1787), Così fan tutte (All Women Do So, 1790), and Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute, 1791[/FONT]​

 

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[FONT=&quot]Napoleon Bonaparte [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Napoleon Bonaparte was the greatest military genius of the 19th century. He conquered most of Western Europe and Egypt for France, while instituting reforms in these new territories aimed at guaranteeing civil liberties and improving the quality of life. He crowned himself emperor of France in 1804 and introduced reforms intended to unify the revolution-fractured nation. Many of Napoleon’s reforms are still in effect today[/FONT]​

 

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[FONT=&quot]Sir Isaac Newton [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Isaac Newton’s work represents one of the greatest contributions to science ever made by an individual. Most notably, Newton derived the law of universal gravitation, invented the branch of mathematics called calculus, and performed experiments investigating the nature of light and color[/FONT]​

 

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[FONT=&quot]Peter the Great [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Peter the Great brought Western culture to Russia, built roads and canals, modernized the army and navy, and secured seaports for trade. By doing so, Peter realized his goal of turning Russia into a great world power[/FONT]​

 

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[FONT=&quot]Plato [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Plato, one of the most famous philosophers of ancient Greece, was the first to use the term philosophy, which means “love of knowledge.” Born around 428 bc, Plato investigated a wide range of topics. Chief among his ideas was the theory of forms, which proposed that objects in the physical world merely resemble perfect forms in the ideal world, and that only these perfect forms can be the object of true knowledge. The goal of the philosopher, according to Plato, is to know the perfect forms and to instruct others in that knowledge[/FONT]​

 

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[FONT=&quot]Marco Polo [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Famous Italian traveler Marco Polo journeyed to the court of the Mongol ruler Kublai Khan in 1275, where he quickly became a favorite of the khan. He traveled throughout Asia on diplomatic missions for the khan, returning to his native Venice in 1295. His account of his explorations is considered one of the most famous travel guides in history[/FONT]​

 

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[FONT=&quot]Franklin Delano Roosevelt [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]As the only United States president elected to four terms, Franklin Delano Roosevelt guided the nation for 12 years, through the Great Depression and World War II. Roosevelt initiated a series of programs, termed the New Deal, to help bring the U.S. back to prosperity. Although he was crippled by polio at age 39, he continued his political career, which spanned 35 years. Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, less than three months after he began his fourth term[/FONT]​

 

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[FONT=&quot]William Shakespeare [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]English playwright and poet William Shakespeare, who lived in the late 1500s and early 1600s, is regarded as the greatest dramatist in the history of English literature. He had a profound understanding of human nature and human behavior, and he was able to communicate this knowledge through the wide variety of characters he created in his plays[/FONT]​

 

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[FONT=&quot]Joseph Stalin [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Joseph Stalin was supreme leader of the Soviet Union from 1929 until 1953[/FONT]​

 

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[FONT=&quot]Queen Victoria [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Queen Victoria reigned for 63 years, the longest reign in the history of England. Those years, from 1837 to 1901, became known as the Victorian Age and were marked by the rise of the middle class and a deeply conservative morality[/FONT]​

 

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[FONT=&quot]George Washington [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]On April 30, 1789, 57-year-old George Washington took the oath of office as the first president of the United States. After Washington took the oath on the portico at Federal Hall in New York City, thousands of citizens cheered and 13 cannons fired a salute. Inside, Washington delivered his inaugural address in the Senate Chambers. Excerpt recited by an actor[/FONT]​