george washington

Born: 22 February 1732
Birthplace: Westmoreland County, Virginia
Died: 14 December 1799
Best Known As: The first President of the United States
George Washington is called "the father of his country" for his crucial role in fighting for, creating and leading the United States of America in its earliest days. Washington was a surveyor, farmer and soldier who rose to command the Colonial forces in the Revolutionary War. He held the ragtag Continental Army together -- most famously during a frigid encampment at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania during the winter of 1777-78 -- and eventually led them to victory over the British. His success in the war made him a tremendously popular figure in America even after he retired to his farm at Mount Vernon in 1783. He was the natural choice to serve as the country's first president in 1789 after the new United States Constitution was ratified. He served two terms, refused a third, and returned to his Virginia farm. In 1798 he was again commissioned as Commander in Chief of the Army, a title he held until his death 18 months later. He was succeeded as president by John Adams.
Washington married the widow Martha Dandridge Custis in 1759; they had no children together, but Washington adopted Martha's children John and Martha... Washington was land-rich but often cash-poor, and had to borrow money in order to get to his first inauguration... Washington had false teeth but, contrary to popular rumor, they were not made of wood. According to the Mount Vernon official site, Washington's dentures "were probably more uncomfortable than wood. They were made of cow's teeth, human teeth, and elephant ivory set in a lead base with springs that allowed him to open and close his mouth"... The story of Washington chopping down a cherry tree is also not true; it was invented by an early biographer of Washington, Parson Mason Weems.

abraham lincon

16. ABRAHAM LINCOLN 1861-1865
Lincoln warned the South in his Inaugural Address: "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you.... You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it."
Lincoln thought secession illegal, and was willing to use force to defend Federal law and the Union. When Confederate batteries fired on Fort Sumter and forced its surrender, he called on the states for 75,000 volunteers. Four more slave states joined the Confederacy but four remained within the Union. The Civil War had begun.
The son of a Kentucky frontiersman, Lincoln had to struggle for a living and for learning. Five months before receiving his party's nomination for President, he sketched his life:
"I was born Feb. 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families--second families, perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks.... My father ... removed from Kentucky to ... Indiana, in my eighth year.... It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up.... Of course when I came of age I did not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher ... but that was all."
Lincoln made extraordinary efforts to attain knowledge while working on a farm, splitting rails for fences, and keeping store at New Salem, Illinois. He was a captain in the Black Hawk War, spent eight years in the Illinois legislature, and rode the circuit of courts for many years. His law partner said of him, "His ambition was a little engine that knew no rest."
He married Mary Todd, and they had four boys, only one of whom lived to maturity. In 1858 Lincoln ran against Stephen A. Douglas for Senator. He lost the election, but in debating with Douglas he gained a national reputation that won him the Republican nomination for President in 1860.
As President, he built the Republican Party into a strong national organization. Further, he rallied most of the northern Democrats to the Union cause. On January 1, 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation that declared forever free those slaves within the Confederacy.
Lincoln never let the world forget that the Civil War involved an even larger issue. This he stated most movingly in dedicating the military cemetery at Gettysburg: "that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain--that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
Lincoln won re-election in 1864, as Union military triumphs heralded an end to the war. In his planning for peace, the President was flexible and generous, encouraging Southerners to lay down their arms and join speedily in reunion.
The spirit that guided him was clearly that of his Second Inaugural Address, now inscribed on one wall of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D. C.: "With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds.... "
On Good Friday, April 14, 1865, Lincoln was assassinated at Ford's Theatre in Washington by John Wilkes Booth, an actor, who somehow thought he was helping the South. The opposite was the result, for with Lincoln's death, the possibility of peace with magnanimity died.

nelson mandela

Born: 18 July 1918
Birthplace: Umtata, Transkei
Best Known As: The first black president of South Africa
Name at birth: Rolihlahla Mandela
Nelson Mandela spent 27 years as a political prisoner in South Africa before becoming the country's first black president. Mandela was a leading member of the African National Congress (ANC), which opposed South Africa's white minority government and its policy of racial separation, known as apartheid. The government outlawed the ANC in 1960. Mandela was captured and jailed in 1962, and in 1964 he was convicted of treason and sentenced to life in prison. Instead of disappearing from view, Mandela became a prison-bound martyr and worldwide symbol of resistance to racism. South African President F.W. de Klerk finally lifted the ban on the ANC and released Mandela in 1990. Mandela used his stature to help dismantle apartheid and form a new multi-racial democracy, and he and de Klerk shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. Mandela was elected the country's president in 1994. He served until 1999, when he was succeeded by his deputy Thabo Mbeki. Mandela's autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, was published in 1994.
He is also called 'Madiba,' a nickname taken from his clan... Mandela says in Long Walk to Freedomthat he was given the English name "Nelson" by his teacher on his first day at school... Mandela has been married three times: to the former Evelyn Mase from 1944 to 1957, to Winnie Madikizela from 1958 to 1996, and to Graca Machel since 1998... Mandela's wife Winnie became a powerful figure in her own right while Mandela was imprisoned; however, her entanglement in a series of scandals led to the couple's estrangement in 1992, her dismissal from his cabinet in 1995, and their official divorce in 1996.

mahathir bin mohamad

b. Alor Setar, Kedah, 20 Dec. 1925) Malaysian; Prime Minister 1981 – The son of a Malay headmaster of an English-medium school in Kedah, Mahathir was educated at Sultan Hamid College, Alor Setar, and the University of Malaya in Singapore where he qualified in medicine. He worked as a medical officer in Kedah and Perlis 1953 – 7 and as a general practitioner 1957 – 64 when he was elected Member of the House of Representatives for Kota Setar Selatan.An "ultra" in the leading party, the United Malays National Organization, Mahathir was forced into the political wilderness after the 1969 race riots when he accused Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman of "giving the Chinese what they demand". He resumed medical practice and wrote The Malay Dilemma (1970) in which he diagnosed the causes for the economically inferior position of Malays in genetic and cultural terms and prescribed positive discrimination to ensure their position as the "definitive race". Although the government embarked on a similar course with its New Economic Policy, this book was banned because it touched "sensitive issues".In the 1970s Mahathir was readmitted to UMNO and, after brief membership of the Senate, was elected to the House of Representatives as Member for Kubang Pasu in 1974. He served in the government of Tun Abdul Razak (1970 – 6) as Minister of Education (1974 – 7) and under Tun Hussein Onn as Deputy Prime Minister (1976 – 81) and Minister of Trade and Industry (1977 – 81). In 1981 he succeeded Hussein Onn as Prime Minister and president of UMNO.As Prime Minister (an office he has combined with those of Minister of Defence 1981 – 6 and Minister of Home Affairs since 1986), Mahathir brought a new vigour to government and economic management. The first Malaysian Prime Minister not to have come from the Malay aristocracy nor to have been educated in Britain, he tilted at the special relationship with Britain and the constitutional privileges of Malaysia's king and sultans, while his "Look East" policy was inspired by Japan's economic success. Commanding an effective party machine, controlling the media, and benefiting from the country's remarkable economic growth, Mahathir has survived leadership contests, splits in UMNO, and challenges from the Islamic Party (PAS). The Barisan National (a coalition dominated by Mahathir's UMNO) has sustained an overwhelming majority in the federal parliament as a result of successive electoral victories.

sheikh zahid bin nahyan

As forty days of public mourning begin, it is time to commemorate a lifetime of achievement, where one man transformed an entire nation earning the love and loyalty of his people and the deep respect of foreign governments. Sheikh Zayed was born in 1918 and named after his grandfather, Sheikh Zayed bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, who ruled Abu Dhabi from 1855 to 1909. He grew up in the oasis city of Al Ain, and for the first fifty years of his life lived in what was essentially a quiet, desert country of farmers, fishers and camel traders. All this changed rapidly with the discovery of oil in Abu Dhabi in 1958. Sheikh Zayed became ruler of Abu Dhabi in 1966. In January 1968, the British decision to withdraw from the Trucial States provided perhaps the greatest challenge of Sheikh Zayed's life. Using skilful negotiation, he brought together seven separate emirates, formally founding the United Arab Emirates on 2 December 1972. This is universally acknowledged as Sheikh Zayed's most significant achievement. In the 1970s the great oil boom years brought huge prosperity to the UAE and Sheikh Zayed invested the money in the infrastructure of the nation with a further construction boom following on from the first boom in the late 1960s. Sheikh Zayed got off to a characteristically generous start. He literally handed out the oil revenues to his people. Word soon passed around and there was a long queue outside his palace. Nobody went away empty handed, and this was a sign of things to come. Sheikh Zayed also began to rapidly transform the country: assembling a government from the ground up, creating departments for water and electricity, finance, municipal planning, police, defense, communications, internal affairs, external affairs, health, education and the judiciary. Sheikh Zayed built housing facilities, schools, and hospitals for his people. He constructed an airport, a sea port, roads, and a bridge to link Abu Dhabi to the mainland. He transformed Abu Dhabi into a green emirate with irrigation and the planting of hundreds of thousands of trees. It was an exceptional achievement for a man who had no formal education and had lived the nomadic life of a Bedouin for much of his life. But Sheikh Zayed was an excellent judge of men and always open to expatriate advice and assistance in developing Abu Dhabi. Today, this advanced and elegant city is a fitting monument to Sheikh Zayed's legacy. Even the downturn in the oil price in the 1980s and 1990s affected the UAE far less than in many countries because of the policy of economic diversification from early times. The development of Dubai, in particular, as the commercial hub of the UAE and increasingly the lower Gulf region played an important part in this process. At the turn of the Millennium visitors from all over the world marvelled at the UAE as the Switzerland of the Middle East - an affluent and safe country with a unique multicultural society. This is the true legacy of Sheikh Zayed for future generations.

mohmmad bin rashid al maktoum

Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum (Arabic محمد بن راشد آل مكتوم; Muḥammad bin Rāshid al Maktūm), also Sheikh Mohammed, (born July 22, 1949), is the Prime Minister and Vice President of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the Ruler of Dubai.
he is the third of Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum's four sons (members of Dubai's ruling family Al Maktoum and descendants of the House of Al-Falasi, of which he is the tribal leader[1]). From the age of four, Sheikh Mohammed was privately tutored in Arabic andIslamic Studies. In 1955, he began his formal education at Al Ahmedia School. At the age of 10, he moved to Al Shaab School, and two years later, he went to Dubai Secondary School. In August 1966, he and his cousin, Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa Al-Maktoum, attended the Bell Educational Trust's English Language School in the United Kingdom.
His senior wife is Sheikha Hind bint Maktoum bin Juma Al Maktoum whom he married in 1979. His junior wife is HRH Princess Haya bint Al Hussein, daughter of King Hussein of Jordan and half-sister of current King Abdullah II of Jordan, whom he married on April 10,2004, and has one child, a daughter, AlJalila, born December 2, 2007.[2][3][4] Sheikh Mohammed has 19 children: eight sons and eleven daughters.
Al Maktoum, his sons, and his daughters are known to be avid in the art of traditional Arabic poems, arts, taking part in projects to aid developing countries such as Jordan,Egypt, Palestine and Yemen. They are also sport enthusiasts, especially in horse andcamel racing. For example, in the 15th Asian Games in 2006, son Rashid took the individual gold in Endurance, sons Rashid, Ahmed, Majid, and Hamdan took the team gold in Endurance;[5] niece Latifa took a bronze in Show Jumping;[6] and daughter Maitha led the UAE team in taekwondo .[7]

[edit]Thoroughbred horse racing
Sheikh Mohammed is a major figure internationally in Thoroughbred horse racing and breeding. In late 1981, he purchased Gainsborough Stud at Woolton Hill, near Newbury, Berkshire, England. He owns Ballysheehan Stud in County Tipperary, Ireland. He also ownsGainsborough Farms Inc. & Shadwell Farms in Versailles, Kentucky. His racing operations includes the ownership of Darley Stables and he is the leading partner in his family's Godolphin Stables. Sheikh Mohammed hosts the Dubai World Cup, the world's richest series of horse races.

jiang zemin

iang Zemin was born in August 1926, in Yangzhou City, Jiangsu Province.He participated in the student movement led by the underground Party organizations in 1943, joined the Communist Party of China in April 1946, and graduated from the Electrical Engineering Department of Jiaotong University in Shanghai in 1947.After the liberation of Shanghai, he served as associate engineer, section chief and power workshop director, as well as Factory Party Secretary and first deputy director of the Shanghai Yimin No. 1 Food Products Factory; first deputy director of the Shanghai Soap Factory; and section chief of electrical machinery of the Shanghai No. 2 Designing Sub-bureau of the First Ministry of the Machine-building Industry.In 1955 he went to the then Soviet Union and worked as a trainee in the Stalin Automobile Plant in Moscow. After his return home in 1956, he served as deputy chief of the Power Division, deputy chief power engineer, and director of a branch factory of the No.1 Auto Works in Changchun.After 1962 he served as deputy director of the Shanghai Electrical Equipment Research Institute, director and Acting Party Secretary of the Wuhan Thermo-Technical Machinery Research Institute, then Deputy Director of the Foreign Affairs Bureau, all affiliated with the First Ministry of the Machine-building Industry.After 1980 he served as Vice Chairman and Secretary-general of the State Commission on the Administration of Imports and Exports and the State Commission on the Administration of Foreign Investment, as well as a member of their leading Party groups. After 1982 he served as First Vice Minister, then Minister, and Deputy Secretary, then Secretary, of the Ministry of Electronics Industry and its leading Party group, respectively.Serving as Shanghai’s Mayor from 1985, he also was Deputy Secretary and then Secretary of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee.President Jiang was elected a member of the CPC Central Committee at its 12th National Congress in September 1982 and a member of the Political Bureau at the First Plenary Session of the 13th CPC Central Committee in November 1987. He was elected a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and its General Secretary in June 1989, at the Fourth Plenary Session of the 13th Central Committee.In November 1989 he was elected Chairman of the Military Commission of the CPC Central Committee at its Fifth Plenary Session. In March 1990 he was elected Chairman of the Central Military Commission of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) at the Third Session of the Seventh National People's Congress.At the First Plenary Session of the 14th CPC Central Committee held in October 1992, he was elected member and Standing Committee Member of the Political Bureau, as well as General Secretary and Chairman of the Military Commission of the CPC Central Committee.At the First Session of the Eighth National People's Congress held in March 1993, he was elected President of the PRC and Chairman of the Central Military Commission. In September 1997, at the First Plenary Session of the 15th CPC Central Committee, he was elected member and Standing Committee Member of the Political Bureau, as well as General Secretary and Chairman of the Military Commission of CPC's Central Committee.At the First Session of the Ninth National People's Congress held in March 1998, he wasagain elected President of the PRC and Chairman of the Central Military Commission.