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Kids learn about the biography of Robert E. Lee, general for the Confederacy during the Civil War.

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Military Career: Robert Lee had a distinguished military career as a combat engineer in US Army. His career spanned over 32 years. During his service he saw action in Mexican-American War and served as the superintendant of US Military Academy.

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Forget the fairy tale. Learn the true history of Pocahontas, the Native woman who connected two cultures in the early days of U.S. history.

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Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (18 July 1918 - 5 December 2013) was a South African politician and activist. On April 27, 1994, he was made the first President of South Africa elected in a fully represented democratic election. Mandela was also the first black President of his country, South Africa.

Mandela was born in Mvezo, South Africa to a Thembu royal family.

His government focused on throwing out the legacy of apartheid by ending racism, poverty, inequality, and on improving racial understanding in South Africa. Politically a believer in socialism, he served as the President of the African National Congress (ANC) from 1991 to 1997 and adopted new Constitution of South African in 1996 that prohibits all discrimination, based on language, religion, handicap and sexual orientation, not only on racism. Internationally, Mandela was the Secretary General of the Non-Aligned Movement from 1998 to 1999.

Mandela received more than 250 honors, including the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize, the US Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Soviet Order of Lenin. He is often referred to by his Xhosa clan name, Madiba, or as Tata ("Father"). Mandela was described as a hero, and his actions gave thousands of people hope.

Mandela was sick for several years during his retirement. He was hospitalized in late summer of 2013 from a continuous lung infection. Mandela died on 5 December 2013 in Houghton Estate, Johannesburg from a respiratory tract infection. He was 95 years old.

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born on 18 July 1918 in Mvezo, Umtata (now Mthatha), Transkei, South Africa. He had thirteen siblings by the same father, and two mothers. His parents were Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa and Nosekeni Nonqaphi . His given name was Rolihlahla, a Xhosa name meaning pulling the branch of a tree or informally, troublemaker. He was a member of the Thembu royal family. On his first day of school, he was given the name Nelson by his teacher Miss Mdingane. Giving children in Africa English names was a custom among Africans during that period.

Mandela's father died when he was twelve. Mandela then lived with the local regent who sent him to school. He was the first member of his family to go to a school. He was expelled from Fort Hare University in 1941, because he led a group of students on political strike. After he was expelled, Nelson found a job as a night watchman.

Anti-apartheid activity

In 1944, Mandela helped start the African National Congress Youth League. He was soon a high-ranked leader of the group.

Presidency

Mandela won the general election in April 1994. His inauguration was in Pretoria on 10 May 1994. Many people around the world saw his inauguration on television. The event had 4000 guests, including world leaders from different backgrounds. Mandela was the first South African President elected in a completely democratic election.

As South Africa's first black President, Mandela became head of the Government of National Unity which was under controlled by the African National Congress (or ANC). The ANC had no knowledge in politics, but had representatives from the National Party and Inkatha. In keeping with earlier promises, de Klerk became first Deputy President, while Thabo Mbeki was chosen second.

Although Mbeki had not been his first choice for President, Mandela soon trusted Mbeki throughout his presidency. This allowed Mbeki to organize policy details. Mandela moved into the presidential office at Tuynhuys in Cape Town. He would settle into the nearby Westbrooke Manor. Westbrooke was renamed Genadendal. Preserving his Houghton home, he also had a house built in his home village of Qunu. He visited Qunu regularly, walking around the area, meeting with local people who lived there, and judging tribal problems.

He faced many illness at age 76. Although having energy, he felt left out and lonely. He often entertained celebrities, such as Michael Jackson, Whoopi Goldberg, and the Spice Girls. He became friends with a number of rich business people, like Harry Oppenheimer and British monarch Elizabeth II on her March 1995 state visit to South Africa. This resulted in strong judgment from ANC anti-capitalists. Despite his surroundings, Mandela lived simply, donating a third of his $552,000 wealth to the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund, which he had founded in 1995. In that same year, Mandela published his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom.

Although in favor of freedom of the press, Mandela was important of much of the country's media because it was owned and run by many middle-class whites. Mandela became known for his use of Batik shirts, known as Madiba shirts, even on normal events. Mandela had never planned on serving a second term in office. Mandela gave his farewell speech on 29 March 1999, after which he retired. Mandela's term ended on 14 June 1999. Thabo Mbeki succeeded Mandela as President of South Africa.

Nobel Prize

He won the Nobel Peace Prize for his leadership for his anti-apartheid activism in 1993. After receiving the prize he said:

"We stand here today as nothing more than a representative of the millions of our people who dared to rise up against a social operation whose very essence is war, violence, racism, oppression, repression and the impoverishment of an entire people."

Personal life

Mandela was married three times and has six children. He had seventeen grandchildren, and a growing number of great-grandchildren. Though physically non-emotional with his children, he could be stern and demanding.

Mandela married Evelyn Ntoko Mase in October 1944. They had two children. Mandela remained married to Evelyn until they divorced in 1957. Evelyn died in 2004. He then married Winnie Madikizela in 1958. They had two daughters. The couple filed for separation in 1992. They divorced in 1996.

Public retirement

In June 2004, Mandela announced that he was retiring from public life. Mandela said "Don't call me, I will call you". Although continuing to meet with close friends and family, the Nelson Mandela Foundation denied invitations for him to appear at public events and most interview requests.

2013 death rumor

Many South Africans thought that Mandela died overnight on 26 June after he was removed from his life support. The South African government said that Mandela is still alive despite the rumor that he died. It was later reported that the rumor was just a death hoax. CNN also reported that Mandela died, but later fixed the report soon afterwards. Photos were taken with Mandela and First Lady Michelle Obama as proof that Mandela was still alive.

Mandela died on 5 December 2013 at his home at Houghton Estate, Johannesburg from complications of a respiratory tract infection, aged 95. He was surrounded by his family when he died. His death was announced by President Jacob Zuma.

On 6 December, Zuma announced a national mourning for ten days. An event for an official memorial service was held at the FNB Stadium in Johannesburg on Tuesday 10 December. He declared Sunday 8 December a national day of prayer: "We call upon all our people to gather in halls, churches, mosques, temples, synagogues and in their homes to pray and hold prayer services and meditation reflecting on the life of Madiba and his contribution to our country and the world."

Mandela's body lay in state from 11 to 13 December at the Union Buildings in Pretoria. A state funeral was held on Sunday 15 December in Qunu. David Cameron, Barack Obama, Raul Castro, Bill Gates, and Oprah Winfrey were there.

On 28 June Mandela's family were arguing about where to bury Mandela. On 29 June the South African government announced that a memorial service for Mandela will be held 10 to 14 days after his death at Soccer City. On 1 July it was announced that if Mandela were to die he might become the first non- British person to be honored at Westminster Abbey. Queen Elizabeth II honored Mandela with a thanksgiving service at Westminster Abbey in early 2014. This made Mandela the first non-British person to be honored at Westminster Abbey. Mandela was buried in the village of Qunu in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Qunu is where he grew up.

In South Africa, Mandela is sometimes called by his Xhosa clan name of Madiba. Nelson Mandela was honored with the following:

In 1990, Mandela received the Bharat Ratna Award in India.

In 1992 received Pakistan's Nishan-e-Pakistan.

In 1992, he was awarded the Atatürk Peace Award by Turkey. He refused the award, because of human rights violations committed by Turkey at the time. He later accepted the award in 1999.

In 1993, Mandela won the Nobel Peace Prize with F. W. de Klerk for their work during the civil rights revolution in South Africa.

In 1993, Mandela received the key of the city of Chicago, Illinois from Mayor Richard M. Daley.

In 2007, Mandela was honored with a statue in Westminster Abbey, London, England.

In 2009, the United Nations made 18 July Mandela Day.

In 2012, the Praia International Airport in Cape Verde was renamed as the Nelson Mandela International Airport.

In 2013, a statue of Mandela was unveiled in the South African embassy outside of Washington, D.C..

The city of Johannesburg awarded him Freedom of the City.

Sandton Square in Johannesburg was renamed Nelson Mandela Square in March 2004.

The Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium was named in his honor.

The Nelson Mandela Bridge, in Johannesburg was also named in his honor.

Mandela was awarded the US Presidential Medal of Freedom by then-President of the United States George W. Bush.

Mandela was awarded the Order of Canada.

Mandela was the first living person made an honorary Canadian citizen.

Mandela was the last recipient of the Soviet Union's Lenin Peace Prize from the Soviet Union.

Mandela first recipient of the Al-Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights

Mandela was honored with the Order of the Aztec Eagle by the Mexican government.

A park in Leicester, England was named Nelson Mandela Park was named after Mandela.

A major highway and a busy park in the Kingston Metropolitan Region in Jamaica were named after Nelson Mandela, the "Mandela Highway" and "Mandela Park".

Elizabeth II awarded him the Bailiff Grand Cross of the Order of St John.

Mandela was also awarded the Order of Merit by Elizabeth II.

Mandela has been portrayed in movies and television. In the 1997 movie, Mandela and de Klerk, Sidney Poitier plays Mandela. Dennis Haysbert plays Mandela in Goodbye Bafana (2007). In the 2009 BBC television movie, Mrs Mandela, Nelson Mandela is played by David Harewood. In 2009, Morgan Freeman plays Mandela in Invictus (2009). Terrence Howard also plays Mandela in the 2011 movie Winnie Mandela. Mandela appeared as himself in the 1992 American movie Malcolm X. In Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom he was played by Idris Elba.

By the time of his death, Mandela had come to be widely considered "the father of the nation" within South Africa. He is also seen as "the national liberator, the savior, its Washington and Lincoln rolled into one". Throughout his life, Mandela had also faced criticism. Margaret Thatcher attracted international attention for describing the ANC as "a typical terrorist organization" in 1987. She later made favors to release Mandela from prison. Mandela has also been criticized for his friendship with political leaders such as Fidel Castro, Muammar Gaddafi, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and Suharto.

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Images for kids

In Spanish: Nelson Mandela para niños

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Pocahontas (born around 1595 - buried on 21 March 1617) was an American Indian. She maintained relations between the Indians of Virginia and the colonists who built a fort and settlement on the James River called Jamestown in 1607. Legend says she saved John Smith's life when her father, Powhatan, was about to kill him.

During a war with the Indians, she was captured and held for ransom. She was baptized Rebecca and improved her English language skills during captivity. In 1614 she married tobacco planter John Rolfe. They had a son Thomas. In 1616 the family went to London. Pocahontas became a celebrity. She died at Gravesend and was buried in England on 21 March 1617.

Birth and early years

The year of Pocahontas's birth is unknown, but Camilla Townsend, author of Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma, suggests that she was born about 1597. Her father was Powhatan, the chief of an alliance of tribes in Virginia. Her mother was a woman of no social importance. Pocahontas was named Amonute. By the age of ten, the child was nicknamed Pocahontas, which means "playful one". She had a name known only to her parents. It may have been Makoata.

Her girlhood was much like the girlhood of others in the alliance. She took care of siblings, she cooked, she tanned hides, she searched for berries and other edible foods, she tended the corn, beans, and squashes in the gardens of her people. In the evenings, she listened to songs and stories about the gods and her people's past. She wove cords from fibers while sitting at the fireside with girls.

Pocahontas was about ten years old when, in April 1607, colonist Captain John Smith arrived in Virginia. He and his men built a settlement called Jamestown. In December 1607, Smith was captured by an Indian party. He was taken to Powhatan's village. He enjoyed a feast and a talk with Powhatan. He did not meet Pocahontas.

Pocahontas made friends with Smith and the colonists. She often went to the settlement. When the colonists were starving, Pocahontas supplied them with food. As the settlement grew, the Indians felt their lands were threatened. Conflicts arose. In late 1609, Smith returned to England. The settlers told the Indians that Smith was dead. Pocahontas stopped visiting Jamestown. She later learned that he was alive in England.

The story of Pocahontas saving Smith's life by placing her head upon his own as her father was about to kill him is a fiction created by Smith in 1616.

As Jamestown expanded and settlements were built along the James, conflicts between the Indians and the English arose. In April 1613, Captain Samuel Argall learned Pocahontas was visiting a village on the Potomac River. He lured her aboard his ship and made her captive. Argall demanded the release of Powhatan's prisoners and the return of weapons and tools.

Powhatan took no action. Pocahontas's captivity lasted about a year. She improved her English skills during this time. She embraced Christianity and the way of life. When her father released his prisoners and returned some tools, Pocahontas rebuked him for valuing axes and firearms more than his daughter. She told her people that she would rather remain with the English.

Marriage to John Rolfe

Helen Rountree writes that Pocahontas married a warrior and commoner named Kocoum. It is unknown where the couple lived or if they had children. This marriage ended by custom when she was captured by the English in 1613.

Pocahontas met 28 year old colonist John Rolfe during her captivity in Henricus. Rolfe was a widower and a successful tobacco planter. He was a gentle and pious man. He wrote a letter to the governor asking permission to marry Pocahontas. He expressed both his love for her and his belief that he would be saving her soul. He assured the governor that he was "motivated not by the desire of affection (attraction), but for the good of this plantation, for the honor of our country, for the Glory of God, for my salvation."

In early April 1614, Pocahontas declared herself a Christian. She was baptized. Her name would be Rebecca. Pocahontas and Rolfe were married on 5 April 1614 at either the church in Jamestown or in Henricus. The couple lived at Rolfe's plantation on Hog Island. This plantation was located across the James River from Jamestown. They had one child, Thomas Rolfe. His birthdate and birthplace are not known. He could have been born in either America or England. The marriage created peace between the colonists and Powhatan's confederacy of tribes for years.

Trip to England

The English wanted to promote investment in the colony. Pocahontas was taken to England in 1616 with a few Indians. She served as a symbol of the tamed New World "savage", and the success of the settlement. John Smith did not meet Pocahontas in London, but he urged Queen Anne to treat her with the respect due a visitor. He suggested that if she were treated, she might spurn Christianity. In addition, England might lose the chance to gain a kingdom through her means. Pocahontas was then treated to events, balls and entertainments, and the company of well ladies.

The Bishop of London entertained her with pomp beyond what he offered to other ladies. Although Pocahontas was not a princess, she was presented as a princess to the public. Many English at this time recognized Powhatan to be the ruler of an empire, and they accorded to his daughter what they considered status. The cleric Samuel Purchas recalled meeting Pocahontas in London. He wrote that she impressed those she met by her bearing.

In March 1617, the Rolfes boarded a ship bound for Virginia. Pocahontas became ill. As the ship approached Gravesend, it was obvious she was dying. She was taken to an inn on shore and died on 21 March 1617. Her funeral was held the same day at St. George's Church, Gravesend. Rolfe then set sail for Virginia. His two year old son Thomas was ill. Rolfe thought the boy would not survive a voyage. He left the boy in the care of Sir Lewis Stukely, an official at Plymouth, England. Thomas was picked up by Rolfe's brother Henry. The boy never saw his father again. Pocahontas was buried under the chancel of St. George's Church. In 1727, the church burned. The bones of Pocahontas were reburied in a grave in the churchyard. In the 1920s, attempts to identify Pocahontas' bones were unsuccessful.

Images for kids

In Spanish: Pocahontas para niños

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Robert Edward Lee (January 19, 1807 - October 12, 1870) was the General-in-chief of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. He led the Army of Northern Virginia in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War. Lee is considered one of America's greatest generals.

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Whitman Mission National Historic Site Facts for Kids

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Marcus Whitman and his wife Narcissa Whitman established the Whitman Mission at Waiilatpu, near the Walla Walla River. The mission was in the Cayuse territory. The Cayuse were a warring tribe and were suspicious of the Whitmans. Relations between the Whitmans and the Cayuse improved greatly when Marcus Whitman attempted to learn the Cayuse language.

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Kids learn about Nelson Mandela's biography. A great civil rights leader from South Africa.

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There is a famous story about Pocahontas saving John Smith's life. According to the story, Smith was captured by Powhatan's warriors, and was about to be killed. Pocahontas intervened and rescued Smith. Some people believe that this event was a type of "adoption" ceremony performed by Indians.

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Kids learn about the biography of Pocahontas, Native American princess who helped save Captain John Smith and the settlers of Jamestown. She later married John Rolfe and moved to England.

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Narcissa Whitman | History of American Women

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Pioneer and Missionary in Oregon Country Narcissa Whitman (1808-1847) traveled some 3,000 miles from her home in upstate New York to Oregon Country. She was the first white woman to cross the Rocky Mountains in 1836 on her way to found the Whitman Mission among the Cayuse Indians near modern day Wal…

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Jim Thorpe Facts for Kids | KidzSearch.com

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James Francis Thorpe (May 28, 1888 - March 28, 1953) was an American athlete in track, football, and baseball. Thorpe was part Native American and was from Oklahoma. He played football, track, and six other sports at Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania.

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Stories of the Ages: Legendary Inspiration - Jim Thorpe | News OK

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A story examining if Jim Thorpe's legend still is relevant in today's modern age. A look at how Thorpe is still inspiring people from around the world a century after his triumphs in the 1912 Stockholm Olympics.

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Narcissa Prentiss Whitman (March 14, 1808 - November 29, 1847) was an American missionary in the Oregon Country of what would become the state of Washington. On their way to found the Protestant Whitman Mission in 1836 with her husband, Marcus, near modern-day Walla Walla, Washington, she and Eliza Hart Spalding (wife of Henry Spalding) became the first documented European-American women to cross the Rocky Mountains.

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Jim Thorpe was born in 1888 in Oklahoma, on Sac-and-Fox Indian land. His given name was Wa-Tho-Huk, which meant "bright path." His start as an athlete began in the schoolyards of his childhood. He often ran the twenty miles from school back to his home.

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Kids learn about the biography of Jim Thorpe. One of the world's greatest athletes, Olympic gold medal winner, professional football and baseball player, native american indian.

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Fun Facts about Jackie Robinson for Kids
Learn and discover fast, interesting new facts about the famous American Baseball player Jackie Robinson. Our facts sheets for kids are packed full of amazing, cool and quick information about this famous black athlete who was born in 1919 and changed the history of baseball forever. Find out interesting information about the life and achievements of this talented American sportsman including how many siblings he had, which baseball team he played for, where he was born and raised and how he died. Learn about some of his most important career highlights and the statistics of this fantastic American baseball player. Our facts sheets are the perfect aide to discovering information about this legendary American sports star.

Fact Sheet on Jackie Robinson
Facts about Jackie Robinson for kids

Fun Fact 1
Jackie Robinson's birth name was Jack Roosevelt Robinson. He was born January 31st, 1919 in Cairo, Georgia in the United States of America.

Fun Fact 2
Jackie Robinson was a famous American baseball player who played for the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1947 to 1956. He began his career with the Brooklyn Dodgers at first base.

Fun Fact 3
Jackie Robinson had some excellent career highlights and won many awards for his incredible performance as a baseball player.

Fun Fact 4
Here are some of Jackie Robinson's statistics: Batting average .311, Hits: 1,518, Home runs: 137, Runs batted in: 734, Stolen bases: 197

Fun Fact 5
Jackie Robinson was the first African American to play in MLB in history. MLB stands for Major League Baseball. Before this time, racial segregation had occurred. Jackie Robinson played a major part in the history of baseball by bringing various races together.

Fun Fact 6
Jackie Robinson had exceptional skill, he was an incredibly talented baseball player. He played in 6 World Series in over 10 seasons.

Fun Fact 7
Jackie Robinson received many awards during his career in baseball. Some of the awards he received include the National League Most Valuable Player in 1949, and the MLB Rookie of the Year Award in 1947.

Fun Fact 8
Jackie Robinson had four siblings called Edgar, Frank, Matthew and Wilda Mae. He was the youngest member of the family and his parents were called Jerry and Mallie.

Fun Fact 9
Jackie Robinson's middle name was Roosevelt. This derived from the former President of America who passed away a few weeks before he was born.

Fun Fact 10
Jackie Robinson was very young when his parents separated. His mother, Mallie, relocated the family to 121 Pepper Street in Pasadena where she did a number of jobs to keep the family going.

Fun Fact 11
Jackie Robinson was raised in an affluent area, however, his family didn't have a lot of money so this limited his opportunities. He joined a gang but luckily one of his friends managed to convince him to leave.

Fun Fact 12
Jackie Robinson's older brother Matthew was nicknamed Mack, he was also a successful sportsman. He achieved a silver Olympic medal at the Summer Olympics in 1936.

Fun Fact 13
Jackie Robinson attended John Muir High School, also known as Muir Tech, from 1935. His athletic talent was becoming clear and his older brothers encouraged him to pursue it. He enjoyed several types of sport including track, baseball, football, tennis and basketball.

Fun Fact 14
Jackie Robinson was awarded for his outstanding service to John Muir High School. He was one of the students named to the Muir High School's Order of the Mast and Dagger.

Fun Fact 15
Jackie Robinson passed away on October 24th, 1972 at his home in Connecticut. He was only 53 years of age but he had suffered from diabetes and heart disease which eventually led to a heart attack. He was buried at Cypress Hills Cemetery in New York next to his mother-in-law and his son.

Fact Sheet on Jackie Robinson
Facts about Jackie Robinson for kids

Fun Facts about Jackie Robinson - Watch the Video!

Facts about Jackie Robinson for kids - Fact File - Fact Sheet - Sports - List - Age - Awards - Black American Athlete - Records - Funny Facts - Kids - Interesting Facts on Jackie Robinson - Random - Weird - Crazy - Cool Facts - Amazing Facts - Fast - Children - School - Teachers - Homework - Fast - Strange - Odd - Real - Info - Jackie Robinson Information - Help - Picture - Pic - Image - Facts on Jackie Robinson

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fun facts about jackie robinson for kids

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Fun Facts about Jackie Robinson for kids ***

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Fun Facts about Jackie Robinson for Kids Learn and discover fast, interesting new facts about the famous American Baseball player Jackie Robinson. Our facts sheets for kids are packed full of amazing, cool and quick information about this famous black athlete who was born in 1919 and changed the history of baseball forever.

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Kids learn about the biography of Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to play Major League Baseball. He was a Hall of Fame player for the Brooklyn Dodgers who wore number 42.

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Jack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson (January 31, 1919 - October 24, 1972) was the first African-American Major League Baseball (MLB) player of modern times. Robinson broke the baseball color barrier, also called the color line, when he debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. He was the first black man to openly play in the major leagues since the 1880s. He had a big role in bringing racial segregation to an end in professional baseball. For sixty years until that point, African-Americans could only play in Negro leagues. Robinson's character and skills made people think about the usual basis of segregation. Robinson and his abilities added much to the civil rights movement.

Robinson had an overall good baseball career. Over ten seasons, he played in six World Series and helped in the Dodgers' 1955 World Championship. From 1949 to 1954, he was selected for all six All-Star Games. Robinson received the first MLB Rookie of the Year Award in 1947. He also won the National League Most Valuable Player Award in 1949. He was the first black player to win this award. Robinson was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962. In 1997, Major League Baseball retired his uniform number, 42, across all major league teams.

Robinson was born on January 31, 1919. His middle name was in honor of former President Theodore Roosevelt, who died twenty-five days before Robinson was born.

In 1935, Robinson graduated from Washington Junior High School. He then entered Muir Tech (now called John Muir High School). Seeing that Robinson was good at sports, his older brothers inspired Jackie to follow his interest in them. At Muir Tech, Robinson played several sports at the varsity level.

Robinson lettered in four sports: football, basketball, track, and baseball. Jackie played shortstop and catcher on the baseball team, quarterback on the football team, and guard on the basketball team. With the track and field team, he won awards in the broad jump. He was also part of the tennis team.

In 1936, Robinson won the junior boys singles championship in the yearly Pacific Coast Negro Tennis Tournament. He also won a place on the Pomona baseball tournament all-star team. In late January 1937, the Pasadena Star-News newspaper wrote that Robinson "for two years has been the outstanding athlete at Muir, starring in football, basketball, track, baseball, and tennis."

After attending Muir, Robinson went to Pasadena Junior College (PJC). There he continued his sports career by playing basketball, football, baseball, and track. While playing football at PJC, Robinson fractured his ankle. Issues from this would later delay his deployment status while in the military. Despite his injury, Jackie Robinson was one of the best athletes at Pasadena Junior College. He broke school broad jump records that had been held by his brother, Mack.

As at Muir Hugh School, most of Jackie's teammates at PJC were white. In 1938, he was elected to the All-Southland Junior College Team for baseball. He was also selected as the region's Most Valuable Player. That year, Robinson was one of ten students named to the school's Order of the Mast and Dagger ( Omicron Mu Delta). This was awarded to students performing "outstanding service to the school and whose scholastic and citizenship record is worthy of recognition." It showed that Jackie not only excelled in sports but that he also was intelligent and had excellent character.

After graduating from PJC in the spring of 1939, Robinson transferred to UCLA, where he met his future bride. There he became the school's first athlete to win varsity letters in four sports: baseball, basketball, football, and track. He was one of four African-Americans on the 1939 UCLA Bruins football team. This made UCLA college football's most integrated team.

Military career

In 1942, Robinson was drafted and assigned to a segregated Army cavalry unit in Fort Riley, Kansas. Having the necessary requirements, Robinson and several other black soldiers applied for entrance to an Officer Candidate School (OCS) then located at Fort Riley. The men were accepted into OCS. Upon finishing OCS, Robinson was commissioned as a second lieutenant in January of 1943. After receiving his commission, Robinson was moved to Fort Hood, Texas. There he joined the 761st "Black Panthers" Tank Battalion.

After he left the army, Robinson returned to his old football club, the Los Angeles Bulldogs, for a short time. Robinson then took an offer to be the athletic director at Sam Huston College in Austin. The job included coaching the school's basketball team for the 1944-45 season. Robinson was respected as a coach who made his players work hard. He received the respect of, among others, basketball player Marques Haynes, a future member of the Harlem Globetrotters.

On February 10, 1946, Jackie married his fiance, Rachel Isum, a nursing student he had met at UCLA. They went on to have three children: Jackie Jr., Sharon, and David. His family provided the emotional support he needed during the difficult times he faced as a black baseball player.

Baseball career

In early 1945, while Robinson was at Sam Huston College, the Kansas City Monarchs sent him a written offer to play professional baseball in the Negro leagues. Robinson accepted a contract for $400 ($6,021 in 2023) per month. This was a big deal for him at the time. In all, Robinson played 47 games for the Monarchs.

Rickey committed to officially signing Robinson before November 1, 1945. On October 23, it was announced that Robinson would be assigned to the Royals for the 1946 season. On the same day, with officials of the Royals (minor league) and Dodgers (major league) present, Robinson signed his contract with the Royals. In what was later referred to as "The Noble Experiment," Robinson was the first black baseball player in the International League since the 1880s.

Six days before the start of the 1947 season, the Dodgers brought Robinson up to the major leagues. On April 15, 1947, Robinson played his first major league game at Ebbets Field in front of a crowd of 26,623 spectators. More than 14,000 black fans attended the game. Robinson became the first player since the 1880s to openly break the major league baseball color line.

Post-baseball life

Robinson retired from baseball on January 5, 1957. Later that year, after he complained about a lot of physical problems, his doctors diagnosed Robinson with diabetes. Robinson started an insulin injection schedule. However, the quality of medicine at the time could not control the disease as well as the medicine we have today.

In 1962, Jackie was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame, becoming the first African-American inducted into the Cooperstown museum.

In 1965, Robinson served as an analyst for ABC's Major League Baseball Game of the Week telecasts. He was the first black person to do so. On June 4, 1972, the Dodgers retired his uniform number, 42. Retiring a number means that nobody on that team can use that number anymore. He was the first black person to serve as vice president of a major American company. Robinson always considered his business career as advancing the cause of African-Americans in business.

Problems with heart disease and diabetes made Robinson weak. He was almost blind by the end of his life. On October 24, 1972, at age 53, he died of a heart attack at home in Stamford, Connecticut.

2,500 people attended Robinson's funeral service on October 27, 1972, at New York City's Riverside Church. Many of his former teammates and other famous black baseball players served as pallbearers (people who carry the coffin when necessary. The Reverend Jesse Jackson gave the eulogy. Tens of thousands of people lined the procession route that followed to Robinson's gravesite site at Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. He is buried next to his son Jackie and mother-in-law Zellee Isum.

After Robinson's death, his widow founded the Jackie Robinson Foundation, which advances higher education by providing scholarships for those who work hard. She stepped down as chairman of the board of directors, but still remains an officer as of 2022. Robinson's daughter Sharon serves as vice-chair of the board. As of 2022, funds are still being raised to open the Jackie Robinson Museum, which will be located at One Hudson Square in New York City.

Robinson's major league debut brought an end to almost sixty years of segregation in professional baseball, known as the baseball color line. Robinson's breaking of the baseball color line and his professional success meant big changes and showed that the fight for equality was more than just a political matter. Martin Luther King, Jr. said that he was "a legend and a symbol in his own time." In 1999, Jackie Robinson was named to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.

Robinson said about himself, "I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me ... all I ask is that you respect me as a human being."

Awards and recognition

According to a poll conducted in 1947, Robinson was the second most popular man in the country, behind Bing Crosby. In 1999, he was named by magazine on its list of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century. Also in 1999, he ranked number 44 on the Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players.

Robinson has also been recognized outside of baseball. In December 1956, the NAACP recognized him with the Spingarn Medal, which it awards annually for the highest achievement by an African-American. President Ronald Reagan awarded Robinson the Presidential Medal of Freedom on March 26, 1984, after Robinson's death.

On March 2, 2005, President George W. Bush gave Robinson's widow the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian award given by Congress. Robinson was only the second baseball player to receive the award. On August 20, 2007, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, announced that Robinson was inducted into the California Hall of Fame, located at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts in Sacramento.

A number of buildings have been named in Robinson's honor. The New York Public School system has named a middle school after Robinson. In 1976, his home in Brooklyn, the Jackie Robinson House, was declared a National Historic Landmark. Robinson also has an asteroid named after him, 4319 Jackierobinson. In 1997, the United States Mint issued a Jackie Robinson commemorative silver dollar and a five-dollar gold coin.

Jackie Robinson quotes

"A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives."

"I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me... all I ask is that you respect me as a human being."

"Life is not a spectator sport. If you're going to spend your whole life in the grandstand just watching what goes on, in my opinion you're wasting your life."

"There's not an American in this country free until every one of us is free."

"The most luxurious possession, the richest treasure anybody has, is his personal dignity."

"Relationships may change throughout the gift of time, memories stay the same forever in my mind."

Interesting facts about Jackie Robinson

While Jackie was stationed in Fort Hood, he became friends with Joe Louis.

Robinson's brother Mack raced with Jesse Owens in the 1936 Olympics.

He was arrested twice: once in 1938 for arguing with a police officer about the arrest of a black friend and again in 1944 by military police for refusing to go the back of an army bus.

Larry Doby became the second black player in the Major League. Robinson and Doby spoke regularly.

Robinson was an excellent bunter: Robinson laid down 46 bunts in 1947 and all except four resulted in either a base hit or a sacrifice.

Jackie starred as himself in the 1950 Hollywood film "The Jackie Robinson Story."

Images for kids

Lobby card for The Jackie Robinson Story, 1950, with Minor Watson (left, playing Dodgers president Branch Rickey) and Robinson

Depiction of Robinson in lobby card for the 1950 film The Jackie Robinson Story

In Spanish: Jackie Robinson para niños

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When Was Jackie Robinson Born?

Jackie Robinson was born on January 31, 1919, in Cairo, Georgia, to a family of sharecroppers. He was the youngest of five children.

After his father abandoned the family in 1920, they moved to Pasadena, California, where his mother, Mallie, worked a series of odd jobs to support herself and her children. Though Pasadena was a fairly affluent suburb of Los Angeles at the time, the Robinsons were poor, and Jackie and his friends in the city's small Black community were often excluded from recreational activities.

That began to change when Jackie enrolled at John Muir High School in 1935. His older brother Mack, a silver medalist in track and field at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, inspired him to pursue his interest in athletics, and the younger Robinson ultimately earned varsity letters in baseball, basketball, football and track while at Muir.

After graduating high school, Jackie attended Pasadena Junior College for two years, where he continued to have success in all four sports. Following the death of another older brother, Frank, in a motorcycle accident, Jackie decided to honor his memory by enrolling at UCLA in 1939.

There, he became the first Bruin to earn varsity letters in four sports - the same four in which he starred in high school - and he won the NCAA long jump championship in 1940. Jackie also met his future wife, Rachel, while at UCLA.

Did you know? In 1997, 50 years after Robinson integrated baseball, his number, 42, was permanently retired by every team in Major League Baseball.

Jackie Robinson in the U.S. Army

Jackie ultimately left college in the spring of his senior year, just a few credits short of his graduation. He accepted a job as an athletic administrator, but his dreams remained focused on the field of play.

He spent two years playing semi-professional football for integrated teams in leagues in Hawaii and California before being drafted into the U.S. Army in the spring of 1942, during World War II, although he never saw combat.

He was accepted into Officer Candidate School and was assigned to segregated Army units, first in Kansas and then in Texas. During this time, however, he remained close to Rachel, with whom he became engaged in 1943.

In 1944, Jackie was nearly court-martialed after he boarded a bus at Fort Hood in Texas and refused the driver's order to sit in the back, as segregationist practices in the United States dictated at the time.

He was acquitted on all the charges and court-martialed, but it has been said that his experiences during the proceedings likely shaped his response to the racist taunts he received, a few years later, from fans and fellow players at the start of his professional baseball career.

Jackie was honorably discharged from the Army in November 1944, and he took a job coaching basketball at a college in Austin, Texas.

Jackie Robinson's Professional Sports Career

In early 1945, Jackie Robinson was signed by the Negro League team the Kansas City Monarchs, where he starred for one season, hitting .387.

At the time, Brooklyn Dodgers executive Branch Rickey was scouting the Negro Leagues, looking for players who not only had the talent but the demeanor to withstand the pressures associated with integrating Major League Baseball. Robinson was one of several players Rickey interviewed in August 1945 for assignment to the Dodgers' farm team in Montreal, the Royals.

It is said that during the interview, Rickey demanded that Robinson not respond when on the receiving end of racial abuse. Robinson reportedly said, "Are you looking for a Negro who is afraid to fight back?" To which Rickey replied that he was looking for a person "with guts enough not to fight back."

Once Robinson agreed to "turn the other cheek," a Biblical phrase used by the religious baseball executive, he was assigned to the Royals for the 1946 season, where he was embraced by Montreal fans and batted an impressive .349. His performance both on and off the field earned him a call-up to Brooklyn the following season.

Jackie Robinson and the Dodgers

His debut with the Dodgers in 1947 was greeted with a lot of attention-not all of it positive. Although Robinson quickly proved he belonged as a player, the color of his skin was an issue for opposing teams and fans.

Hearing racist taunts from fans and players prior to a game, Dodgers teammate Pee Wee Reese is said to have put his arm around Robinson on the field to indicate that he was accepted by those wearing a Brooklyn uniform. Still, Robinson endured racist obscenities, hate mail and death threats for much of his career.

It was his play in the field that ultimately silenced his critics. In 1947, his first year with the Dodgers, he earned the inaugural "Rookie of the Year" award. Despite having been signed by the Dodgers at the relatively old age of 28, Robinson would go on to hit .311 over a 10-year career. He became the first Black player to win the National League Most Valuable Player Award in 1949, when he led the league in hitting with a .342 average, most stolen bases (37) and achieving a career-high 124 RBI. Robinson was an All-Star every year from 1949-1954. He led Brooklyn to a World Series championship over the rival New York Yankees in 1955.

Robinson retired after that season, and thus didn't follow the Dodgers when the club moved to Los Angeles following the 1957 campaign.

Jackie Robinson Quotes

"I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me ... all I ask is that you respect me as a human being."

"A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives."

"Baseball is like a poker game. Nobody wants to quit when he's losing; nobody wants you to quit when you're ahead."

"Life is not a spectator sport. If you're going to spend your whole life in the grandstand just watching what goes on, in my opinion you're wasting your life."

"There's not an American in this country free until every one of us is free."

"As I write these words now I cannot stand and sing the National Anthem. I have learned that I remain a Black in a white world."

"Above anything else, I hate to lose."

Jackie Robinson: Legacy and Death

After retiring from the Dodgers, Robinson acted as a sportscaster, worked as a business executive at Chock full o'Nuts and was active in the NAACP and other civil rights groups.

Weakened by heart disease and diabetes, Robinson died in 1972 at the age of 53 from a heart attack suffered at his home in Stamford, Connecticut.

Thousands attended his funeral service, including former teammates and other professional athletes. His eulogy was delivered by the Reverend Jesse Jackson, who declared, "When Jackie took the field, something reminded us of our birthright to be free."

Jackie Robinson Foundation Scholarship

Following his death, his wife Rachel, by then an assistant professor in the Yale School of Nursing, established the Jackie Robinson Foundation. In addition to recognizing other trailblazers in sports, the foundation awards the Jackie Robinson Foundation Scholarship to minority students.

Robinson's jersey number 42 was retired by all big-league teams in 1997, meaning it could no longer be worn by any player. Those players already wearing the number were allowed to keep it.

The gesture was meant to honor Robinson's legacy and the historic impact he had on professional baseball, sports in general and, by extension, American society, and in recognition of the difficulties the athlete faced in breaking Major League Baseball's color barrier.

Jackie Robinson Movies: 'The Jackie Robinson Story' and '42'

In 1950, Robinson played himself in a movie on his life called " The Jackie Robinson Story." And in 2013, a movie about Robinson's life called " 42 " was released to critical acclaim, with his widow involved in the production.

Sources

Baseball Hall of Fame. "Jackie Robinson." BaseballHall.org.
Lamb, C. (2019). "How Jackie Robinson's wife, Rachel, helped him break baseball's color line." TheConversation.com.
Breslin, Jimmy. (2011). Branch Rickey: A Life. Penguin Random House.
Jackie Robinson: 7 memorable quotes. ABC7NY.com.
Jackie Robinson. Baseball Reference.

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Jackie Robinson, the first Black athlete to play Major League Baseball, joined the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947, a date now famous as Jackie Robinson Day.

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On this day in 1912, Jim Thorpe wins the pentathlon at the fifth modern Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden. At the time, Thorpe, a Native American who attended Pennsylvania's Carlisle Indian School, was only beginning to establish his reputation as the greatest all-around athlete in the world.

Born May 28, 1887, in Prague, Oklahoma, on a Sac-and-Fox Indian reservation, James Francis Thorpe was given the name Wa-Ho-Thuck by his mother, meaning "bright path." In 1908, Thorpe matriculated at the Carlisle Indian School, in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and joined the school's track team. Two years later, Thorpe tried out for the Carlisle football team, coached by the legendary Pop Warner. At one practice, Warner challenged the inexperienced Thorpe to run the ball against the entire Carlisle team. Thorpe dodged, weaved and out-ran all 30 of the Carlisle players to score a touchdown. Warner was incredulous, and asked Thorpe to do it again. Thorpe did, and then joined the team as a running back. He was named an All-American in 1911 and 1912.

In the spring of 1912, Thorpe returned his focus to track to train for that summer's Olympics. On July 7, competing against the best athletes in the world in the Olympic pentathlon, Thorpe placed first in the broad jump, 200-meter sprint, discuss throw and the 1,500 meters, and third in the javelin throw to win the gold easily. Later in the day Thorpe failed to medal in the high jump and long jump competitions, placing fourth and seventh, respectively. His second medal of the games would come in the decathlon, which he won nearly as easily as he had won the pentathlon, breaking the world record in the event. At the closing ceremonies, where the medals were presented, Thorpe was introduced to King Gustaf V of Sweden. According to legend, the king said, while shaking Thorpe's hand, "Sir, you are the greatest athlete in the world," to which Thorpe replied "Thanks, king."

Thorpe returned to a ticker-tape parade in New York City. In 1913, though, he was stripped of his Olympic medals because he had played minor league baseball professionally in 1909 and 1910. While he was not the only amateur athlete of his era to play for money to pay his bills, he naively did so using his real name and was easily caught. Also in 1913, Thorpe was recruited by New York Giants manager John McGraw to play baseball, which he did on and off with middling success at the plate in six of the next eight years. In 1920, Thorpe used his fame to help launch the American Professional Football Association (APFA), which eventually morphed into the NFL. Thorpe served as the APFA's first president and played for the league professionally from 1921 to 1926 and again in 1928. During his playing career, it was said that Thorpe could punt a ball with full force, and then sprint down the field and catch it himself.

In 1950, the Associated Press named Thorpe the greatest athlete of the first half of the 20th century. Before his death from a heart attack in 1953, Thorpe was known to entertain fans at NFL games by punting balls between the uprights in the end zone from the 50-yard line. The two gold medals stripped from Thorpe in 1913 were returned to him in 1982, 30 years after his death.

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On this day in 1912, Jim Thorpe wins the pentathlon at the fifth modern Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden. At the time, Thorpe, a Native American who attended Pennsylvania's Carlisle Indian School, was only beginning to establish his reputation as the greatest all-around athlete in the world.

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George Washington was the 1st president of the United States. Learn about his biography and life story.

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Fun Facts on George Washington for Kids
Discover fast, interesting fun facts on George Washington for kids with some amazing, cool and quick information. Ideal for children, homework, schools, teachers and kids of all ages! Enjoy our fast, fun facts for kids on George Washington in a useful fact file format with a fact sheet on George Washington. Fast fun facts for kids with a funny video on every page to make the learning process easy, funny and great fun! Fast fun facts for kids with free pictures and photos - ideal for fast homework help . Find out answers to questions like: How long was George Washington President of America? What happened during George Washington's Presidency? What was it that made George Washington's inauguration speech memorable?

Did You Know?
Did you know that the George Washington was a founder of the United States Constitution? But what is the United States Constitution? The US constitution can be described as a document that consists of a collection of rules, principles and laws that regulate the American government it was compiled in 1787 at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia

Picture of George Washington
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George Washington was born on February 22nd 1732

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He was born in Westmoreland County which is in the State of Virginia

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George Washington's father died when he was 11 years old. He had a very basic education and his mother could not afford to send him to college, he left school at the age of 15

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He grew to be 6ft 2'' which was exceptional at that time as people were generally much smaller, he still ranks as one of the tallest US presidents

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George Washington had very bad teeth! He wore false teeth made of ivory set in silver. Some suggest that the ivory may have been from either a walrus or a hippopotamus

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He was the 1st president of America. He was unanimously voted in, in 1789 and served as president for 8 years (until 1797)

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George Washington gave the shortest inauguration (swearing in) speech in American history; it was just 133 words long

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George Washington played a key role in the American Revolution during which the American colonists won their independence from British rule

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During his lifetime he played a key role in major events of American history including the forming of the Constitution of the USA and establishing the 1791 Bill of Rights

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George Washington was a tall man with very big feet! He was over 6 foot tall and his feet were a size 13

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George Washington's life was not without illness, during his lifetime he suffered from Malaria, Smallpox, Tuberculosis, Dysentery and Pneumonia. He also survived many bullets during war

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A sculpture of George Washington's head, measuring 60-foot high (18 m) is carved into the granite of Mount Rushmore, South Dakota

Fun Fact 13
He was the only founding father who freed his slaves. He had personal control of at least the 124, his wife had control of many more and she set them free a year after George Washington's death

Fun Fact 14
The capital city of Washington was named after him, although he never lived there

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George Washington died on Saturday December 14th 1799 at his Mount Vernon estate. He lived to the age of 67

Fact Sheet on George Washington
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Fun Facts on George Washington for Kids Discover fast, interesting fun facts on George Washington for kids with some amazing, cool and quick information. Ideal for children, homework, schools, teachers and kids of all ages! Enjoy our fast, fun facts for kids on George Washington in a useful fact file format with a fact sheet on George Washington.

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Short Biography of George Washington: Fast Overview of his LifeFacts and Info: George Washington was the first president of America. He helped to establish the federal government and aspired to create a free, democratic and united country. For additional info refer to
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Martha Washington

Short Biography of George Washington: His PresidencyFacts and Info: George Washington was Independent but had strong sympathies with the Federalist Political Party. He was 57 years old when he was inaugurated as the first American president. John Adams stood as the Vice president. He was the only president who was unanimously elected and ran unopposed for both his terms of office. For additional facts refer to his
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Short Biography of George Washington: Fast Overview of his LifeFacts and Info: George Washington was the first president of America. He helped to establish the federal government and aspired to create a free, democratic and united country. For additional info refer to 20 Facts about George Washington.

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Florence Nightingale was a famous nurse. She is best known for the work she did to care for the wounded soldiers during the Crimean War, but she also made a big contribution to changing the way in which hospitals were run. She was a celebrity in Victorian times and she has continued to be spoken and written about to this day.

We've put together some great Florence Nightingale facts for kids, teachers and parents - we hope you find this information both useful and interesting.

Key Florence Nightingale Facts - (Before the Crimean War)

Florence Nightingale was born in Florence (Italy) on 12th May 1820.

Her mother was called Fanny and her father was called William. Florence also had an older sister called Parthenope. They were a very wealthy family.

Florence grew up mingling with other rich children and spent much of her time visiting friends and attending parties.

On 7th February 1837, when she was 16 years, old Florence was convinced that she had heard the voice of God calling to her. She believed that God wanted her to carry out some special work.

When she was in her twenties Florence began to take an interest in how the sick people in the villages around her home (in Romsey, Hampshire) were taken care of. She started to believe that God wanted her to be a nurse.

Her parents were both shocked and angry when she told them that she wanted to learn more about nursing at a Salisbury hospital. At the time nearly all nurses came from poor families.

Florence and some of her friends visited Kaiserwerth (in what is now Germany). The town was home to a hospital famous for training nurses. One year later, in 1851, Florence Nightingale recieved three months training at the hospital in Kaiserwerth.

Florence returned home as a trained nurse. She put these skills to good use as from 1851 - 1853 she cared for her mother, father and sister who had all become ill.

In 1853, when she was 33, she took a job running a small private hospital in London's Harley Street.

Her father realised that Florence was really serious about helping the sick and injured and promised to pay her £500 a year. This was a massive sum of money in Victorian times.

In 1854 Florence helped to tend people suffering from cholera.

Florence Nightingale and the Crimean War

In 1854 the Crimean War started between the Turks (and the British and French) on one side and the Russians on the other.

William Russell, a journalist for The Times, reported that British troops were dying becasue there weren't enough doctors, nurses and medical supplies.

Sidney Herbert, a friend of Florence's and the member of the government in charge of the military, wrote to her and asked her to organise a group of nurses and head for the Crimea (in Turkey).

On 4th November 1854 Florence Nightingale and 38 other nurses arrived at Scutari, an area of the city of Constantiople. The main British hospital was located there and Florence was not impressed by the conditions. The hospital was dirty, the drains were blocked, rats and fleas were everywhere.

At first the doctors did not want the help of Florence Nightingale and her nurses, but they soon changed their minds when the number of wounded soldiers continued to grow.

Florence made lots of improvements to the hospital in Scutari. She had the drains cleaned, sorted out a supply of drinking water, filled the hospital stores with clean sheets and bandages, set up a nursing timetable and made sure that the soliders were well fed and cared for.

Florence became very popular. The soldiers used to call her the 'Lady with the Lamp' because she used to walk the hospital wards at night to check on her patients.

The Crimean War ended in 1856 and Florence returned to England. She was a national heroine and many Victorians bought ornaments of Florence Nightingale to display in their homes. Florence also received thousands of letters from the public thanking her for the work she had performed during the war.

Queen Victoria invited Florence to meet with her in Balmoral, Scotland. They discussed Florence's experiences and how military hospitals could be improved.

Life After the Lamp - Facts About the Second Half of Florence Nightingale's Life

In 1859 Florence Nightingale wrote a book about caring for the sick called Notes on Nursing.

Florence Nightingale was convinced that all nurses should be properly trained, and in 1860 she set up the Nightingale Training School (for nurses) at St Thomas's Hospital, London. The nurses who completed the training were known as Nightingale Nurses.

Florence carried on writing letters and reports about ways to improve health care. Her work became known in other countries and the Nightingale Nurses often went to work abroad, sharing Florence's methods and ideas.

From 1861 to 1865, Florence gave advice on how best to care for soldiers wounded in the American Civil War.

Florence Nightingale was awarded the Royal Red Cross (from Queen Victoria) and the Order of Merit in 1907 (from King Edward VII). This was the first time the Order of Merit had been awarded to a woman.

Florence Nightingale died in 1910, aged 90. She is buried in a Hampshire churchyard. Her simple tombstone bears only her initials and the years in which she was born and died.

Florence Nightingale wasn't the only women who made a name for herself by caring for the wounded troops of the Crimean War. Check out some facts about Mary Seacole, another Victorian lady who risked her life to tend the suffering soldiers, and read about some of the other famous Victorians.

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Facts About Florence Nightingale - Primary Facts

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Florence Nightingale was a famous nurse. She is best known for the work she did to care for the wounded soldiers during the Crimean War, but she also made a big contribution to changing the way in which hospitals were run. She was a celebrity in Victorian times and she has continued to be spoken ...

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Why is Florence Nightingale famous?

Florence Nightingale is a famous British nurse who lived from 1820-1910. She helped to make hospitals more sanitary places and wrote books about how to be a good nurse.

Much of what we know about clean, organised hospital conditions today is thanks to Florence's hard work and research. She began her nursing career during the Crimean War and campaigned for better hospital conditions for the wounded soldiers there.
She is considered the founder of modern nursing.
Top 10 facts

1. She was born in Florence, Italy, which is how she got her name!

2. At first her family didn't want her to become a nurse because they didn't think it was a very nice job to have but Florence was very determined and eventually got their consent.

3. Florence helped to treat wounded soldiers during the Crimean War, and made sure the hospital was clean. The soldiers were very grateful for Florence's kindness.

4. During the Crimean War, she was nicknamed 'The Lady with the Lamp' because she would work all night to make sure the soldiers had what they needed, like water and warm blankets.

5. In 1883 Florence met Queen Victoria, who awarded her the Royal Red Cross medal to thank her for all of her hard work as a military nurse.

6. In 1860, she set up the Nightingale Training School at St. Thomas' Hospital in London.

7. Florence was a talented mathematician who proved, using statistics, that keeping hospitals clean has a very beneficial effect on patients' recovery rates. She was the first woman to be elected to the Royal Statistical Society.

8. International Nurses Day is celebrated every year on 12 May, Florence Nightingale's birthday.

9. Thanks to Florence's work and achievements, people's view of nursing was transformed and it became a respectable profession for women.

10. The International Red Cross (which was founded thanks to her work) awards the Florence Nightingale Medal to nurses who have given exceptional care to people who are sick and wounded, in war or peace.

Became general superintendent of the Female Nursing Establishment of the Military Hospitals of the Army

Did you know?

Florence was named for the city where she was born - Florence, Italy

She had just one sibling - an older sister named Frances Parenthope

Florence Nightingale's very first patient was a dog! She nursed Cap the sheepdog back to health after his leg was badly bruised, much to the thanks and appreciation of his owner, Roger.

Before Florence left for Turkey, she had a baby pet owl called Athena who she'd carry in her pocket.

The soldiers Florence nursed at the hospital in Scutari had a pet tortoise named Jimmy.

Florence didn't like having her picture taken or painted, so there aren't many photos or paintings of her around today.

The nursing school Florence set up is now called the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery, and it is part of King's College London.

Florence is credited with inventing the pie chart!

Florence published books, reports and leaflets about hospital planning and organisation. Her most famous work was Notes on Nursing: What It Is and What It Is Not.

American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a poem about Florence called Santa Filomena.

Florence mentored Linda Richards, who is the first professionally trained nurse in the United States of America.

12 May, Florence's birthday, isn't only International Nurses Day; it is also International Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Awareness Day as some people think she may have had the disease herself.

Florence Nightingale gallery:

Florence Nightingale

Portrait of Florence as a young adult

Portrait of young Florence

Florence Nightingale around 1858

Picture of Florence later in life

Florence as an elderly woman (Credit: Wellcome Collection CC BY 4.0)

Florence's childhood home, Embley Park in Hampshire

Gallery

About

Florence grew up in Hampshire, and was educated by her father who taught her things most girls wouldn't have learned at that time such as Latin, maths, philosophy and history.

Florence went against her family's wishes when she announced her plans to become a nurse - they didn't think it was a proper job for someone as wealthy and well-educated as Florence. It took Florence seven years of asking for her father's permission to study nursing before he finally gave it to her. Florence studied nursing at the Institute of Protestant Deaconesses in Kaiserwerth, Germany.

Florence worked as a nurse in a hospital in Scutari, Turkey during the Crimean War, where she discovered that soldiers were dying because of lack of proper food and medicine, shortage of staff and dirty conditions. She got her famous nickname, 'The Lady with the Lamp', after a news article in The Times described her care and attention to the wounded soldiers in Scutari - she kept working even after everyone else had gone to sleep.

Florence told the British government how poor conditions were for soldiers in hospital, and they had famous engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel design a hospital that could be taken apart and shipped overseas.

Florence wrote more than 200 books, reports and pamphlets about how hospitals should be arranged and run, including Notes on Nursing: What it is and What it is Not, a book explaining basic nursing skills such as hygiene, nutrition and how to set up a sickroom; it was used to teach nurses at Florence's nursing school.

Florence suffered from illnesses that often kept her in bed for nearly half of her life, and she became permanently blind in 1901.

Florence was very good at maths, and was the first woman to become a member of the Royal Statistical Society. She was also the first woman to be given the Order of Merit.
The Florence Nightingale Medal was established by the International Red Cross in 1912 - two years after Florence's death - and seen as the highest honour a nurse or nursing aide can achieve.
Florence's work reached far beyond the shores of England. She helped to improve medical care in India by working to establish a public health service.

Famous friends

Sidney Herbert (1810-1861), a British politician who sent Florence to work in Scutari, helped her lead the effort to improve army health, and helped her set up the Nightingale Fund to train other nurses.

Linda Richards (1841-1930), the first professionally trained nurse in America, who was mentored by Florence when visiting London for a seven-month training course; she founded nursing training schools across America, and helped launch Japan's first training programme for nurses.

Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910), the first woman to qualify as a doctor in America, who encouraged Florence to keep trying to convince her family that she should study nursing.

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Why is Florence Nightingale famous? Florence Nightingale is a famous British nurse who lived from 1820-1910. She helped to make hospitals more sanitary places and wrote books about how to be a good nurse. Much of what we know about clean, organised hospital conditions today is thanks to Florence's hard work and research.

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Have you or your family ever been poorly and had to go to hospital? Did you notice all the hard work the nurses were doing to care for the patients and help them get better?

Today, nurses are recognised as important, super-skilled professionals. But that hasn't always been the case. Believe it or not, at the start of the 19th century, nurses usually had no training at all, and they weren't even paid for the 'menial' work they did! But one woman changed all that... meet the amazing Florence Nightingale.

Florence Nightingale facts

Who was Florence Nightingale?

Florence Nightingale was born in the city of Florence, , on 12 May 1820 whilst her parents were enjoying a long honeymoon. And yup, you guessed it - that's how she got her name! Her parents were called William and Fanny Nightingale, and she had one older sister, too - Frances Parthenope, AKA 'Pop'.

William Nightingale was a wealthy banker and was able to provide his family with a very privileged life. They had servants and two lovely houses - a winter home in Hampshire and a summer home in Derbyshire.

At the time that Florence was a youngster, most girls didn't go to school - in fact, many didn't receive any education at all! But William was keen for his daughters to learn, and gave them lessons in lots of different subjects, including science, history and maths.

What did Florence Nightingale do?

In Victorian Britain, wealthy women like Florence weren't expected to work - their job was to marry and look after the home. Daily life was spent seeing to servants, entertaining guests, reading, sewing and attending social events. But Florence saw something very different for her future. When she was 16 years old, she believed she heard a voice from God calling for her to carry out important work to help those suffering. She wanted to be a nurse.

When Florence broke the news to her parents, they weren't too happy! Nursing was not a respectful profession and, what's more, hospitals were filthy, horrible places where sick people died - certainly no place for wealthy girl like Florence! William tried hard to change his daughter's mind, but Florence was determined. In 1851, he gave in, and allowed Florence to study nursing at a Christian school for women in . There, she learned important skills in caring for patients and the importance of hospital cleanliness.

It wasn't long before Florence put her new skills to the test. By 1853 she was running a women's hospital in London, where she did a fantastic job improving the working conditions as well as patient care.

Did you know that we have a FREE downloadable Florence Nightingale primary resource? Great for teachers, homeschoolers and parents alike!

The Crimean War

In 1854, the Crimean War broke out - a war with Britain, and Turkey on one side, and on the the other. British troops went off to fight in the Crimea - an area in the south of Russia, now part of Ukraine. News soon reached home of soldiers dying from battle wounds, cold, hunger and sickness, with no real medical care or nurses to treat them. Help was needed fast, and the Minister for War - called Sidney Herbert - knew just the person... He asked Florence to lead a team of nurses to the Crimea!

When they arrived, the nurses found the Army hospital in Scutari (the area where wounded soldiers were sent) in a terrible state. It was overcrowded and filthy, with blocked drains, broken toilets and rats running everywhere. Imagine the smell! There weren't enough medical supplies or equipment, and wounded soldiers had to sleep on the dirty floor, without blankets to keep warm, clean water to drink or fresh food to eat. Not surprisingly, disease spread quickly and most of the soldiers died from infection.

Florence Nightingale to the rescue!

Florence knew that the soldiers could only get well again if the hospital conditions improved. With funds from back home, she bought better medical equipment and decent food, and paid for workmen to clear the drains. And together with her team, she cleaned the wards, set up a hospital kitchen and provided the wounded soldiers with quality care - bathing them, dressing their wounds and feeding them. As a result of all the improvements, far fewer soldiers were dying from disease.

Why was Florence Nightingale the Lady with the Lamp?

Florence Nightingale truly cared for her suffering patients. At night, when everyone was sleeping, she'dvisit the soldiers to make sure they were comfortable. She'd also write letters home for those who could not write themselves. Since Florence carried a lantern with her on her night visits, the soldiers would call her ' The Lady with the Lamp'.

Florence after the Crimean War

By the time Florence returned to England in 1856, she'd made quite a name for herself. After newspapers wrote about her work in the Crimea, people thought of her as a heroine. Queen Victoria wrote her a letter to say thank you for everything she had done. Cool, eh?

But Florence had no care for fame, and even though the war was over, there was still work to be done. She set about writing letters to important people telling them what was wrong with Army hospitals, and in September 1856 she met with Queen Victoria to discuss ways to improve military medical systems. Huge reform took place - the Army started to train doctors, hospitals became cleaner and soldiers were provided with better clothing, food and care. Go, Flo!

In 1860, the Nightingale Training School for Nurses opened at St Thomas's Hospital in London. Not only did the school provide excellent nurse training, it made nursing a respectable career for women who wanted to work outside the home.

How is Florence Nightingale remembered?

Florence suffered from illness for much of her later life, largely because of all her hard work helping sick people. In fact, during her final 40 years she spent many days confined to her bed. But she was greatly appreciated for everything she did for nursing, and for saving the lives of thousands of people. In 1907, Florence became the first woman to receive the Order of Merit, an award given by the queen for super-special work.

Sadly, Florence Nightingale died on 13 of August 1910, but she will forever be recognised as the founder of modern nursing.

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Florence Nightingale facts for kids | National Geographic Kids

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Have you or your family ever been poorly and had to go to hospital? Did you notice all the hard work the nurses were doing to care for the patients and help them get better? Today, nurses are recognised as important, super-skilled professionals. But that hasn't always been the case.

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Florence Nightingale was a truly inspirational nurse.

Why is Florence Nightingale Famous?

Florence Nightingale is famous for her nursing work during the Crimean War (1854 - 56). She changed the face of nursing from a mostly untrained profession to a highly skilled and well-respected medical profession with very important responsibilities.

When and where was Florence Nightingale born?

Florence Nightingale was born in Florence, Italy on 12 May 1820. Her father was a wealthy landowner. She was brought up in Derbyshire (where she spent her summers) and Hampshire ( where she spent her winters).

Florence was named after the place of her birth

Education

Rich English girls such as Florence were expected to do - almost nothing.
.At the time when Florence was born, many girls did not receive any type of education. Florence was very lucky because her father, William Nightingale, believed that all women should receive an education. He taught Florence and her sister a variety of subjects ranging from science and mathematics to history and philosophy.

Teenage years

As Florence grew up she developed an interest in helping others. She cared for sick pets and servants whenever she had the chance.

Florence Nightingale felt called by God to become a nurse.
At seventeen years of age, she believed she was called into service by God "to do something toward lifting the load of suffering from the helpless and miserable."

At first her parents refused to allow her to become a nurse because, at that time, it was not thought to be a suitable profession for a well educated woman. But Florence did not give up. Eventually in 1851 her father gave his permission and Florence went to Germany to train as a nurse.

In 1853 was running a hospital in London.

Work Timeline

1849 - traveled to Europe to study the European hospital system.
1850 - traveled to Alexandria, Egypt and began studying nursing at the Institute of Saint Vincent de Paul.
1851 - aged thirty-one, went to Germany to train to become a nurse.
1853 - became superintendent of the Hospital for Gentlewomen in London.
1854 - the Crimean War broke out.

Crimean War

In 1854 Florence Nightingale was asked to go to Turkey to manage the nursing of British soldiers wounded in the Crimean War (1854 - 56). She traveled to Scutari (the location where the wounded and ill soldiers of the Crimean War were taken) to help the wounded soldiers.

She found the hospital conditions to be in a very poor state. Many of the wounded were unwashed and were sleeping in overcrowded, dirty rooms without blankets or decent food. In these conditions diseases such as typhus, cholera and dysentery spread quickly. As a result, the death rate amongst wounded soldiers was very high. Most soldiers died from infections and disease. (Only one in six died from their war wounds; the other five in six died from infections and disease.)

Florence and her nurses changed these conditions. They set up a kitchen, fed the wounded from their own supplies, dug latrines for sanitation, and asked for help from the wives of the wounded. They were then able to properly care for the ill and wounded and the death rate among the soldiers dropped.

Why was Florence Nightingale called 'The lady of the lamp' ?

Florence was very dedicated to her job. She would often visit the soldiers at night when every one was asleep just to make sure they were ok. She was then referred to as "The Lady of the Lamp" because she hardly took time off to sleep. Florence became a true hero to the soldiers and everyone back home in England.
Further information
BBC Florence Nightingale - An online story book about her life

Florence Nightingale (1820 - 1910 )

Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale was the daughter of a well-to-do family in England. During the Crimean War, she was put in charge of nursing. She carried a lamp as she walked the halls of the battlefield hospital and became known as the "lady with the lamp".

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Florence Nightingale was a truly inspirational nurse. Why is Florence Nightingale Famous? Florence Nightingale is famous for her nursing work during the Crimean War (1854 - 56). She changed the face of nursing from a mostly untrained profession to a highly skilled and well-respected medical profession with very important responsibilities.

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Florence Nightingale, OM (12 May 1820 - 13 August 1910), was an English nurse. She helped create the modern techniques of nursing. She became a leader of the team of nurses who helped wounded soldiers during the Crimean War.

She was the first female to receive the Order of Merit, the highest honour awarded to a British person. As a nurse she was given the name 'The Lady with the Lamp' because at night, she checked on the wounded soldiers and always carried 'The Lamp' with her. Florence Nightingale was a wonderful woman who fought the odds of not living a life expected by her family. She helped make modern nursing possible. Nightingale was a prodigious and versatile writer, and lived to be 90 years old.

Her writings

In her lifetime she was concerned with spreading medical knowledge. Some of her books were written in simple English so that they could easily be understood by those with poor reading skills. She also was an early user of graphs and diagrams to display data.

Nightingale was helped to understand statistics by her country's leading expert on public statistics, William Farr. He was a founder of medical statistics, and epidemiology. Farr worked with her on all the statistics from the Crimean War, which she publicised in her writing. She proved that more men had died from disease than fighting, a very important piece of information. The disease in question was mostly cholera. Cholera is caused by a bacterium which is spread by people drinking water which is contaminated by sewage. Unfortunately, both she and Farr believed the disease was caused by foul air: this was called the miasma theory.

The miasma theory was refuted by John Snow, who discovered the real cause of an outbreak in London. The cause was foul water from a water pump in Broad Street, London. Snow's work was published in 1855, but it was 30 years before the germ theory was generally accepted. Farr publicly acknowledged he was wrong in 1866, but Nightingale never really gave up the miasma idea. London's cholera epidemics stopped once the authorities built sewage treatment plants, delivered cleaner water, and built a system of underground pipes which kept sewage from seeping into the water supply.

Florence Nightingale was born into an upper class British family in 1820 in Florence, Tuscany, Italy. She was named after the town where she was born. The family moved back to London when Florence was a young girl. She was a Unitarian. Although her parents expected her to become a wife and a mother, in 1845 she decided to become a nurse. While she was training she campaigned for better conditions for poor people in Britain.

In 1854 when the Crimean War began, Florence was working in Harley Street in London. After reading many reports about the poor treatment of sick and injured soldiers, she travelled to Crimea to see for herself and discovered the hospitals were crowded and dirty.

She knew Sidney Herbert, who was Secretary of War during the Crimean War and he helped her. At the hospital in Istanbul where the injured soldiers were sent, Florence realized that soldiers died more often from diseases like cholera than from their injuries in war. She used her knowledge of maths and statistics to show the British government that providing better conditions for sick and injured soldiers would help them win the war. She was, however, quite wrong about how cholera spread.

There is a syndrome named after her called "Florence Nightingale Syndrome". It occurs when a soldier falls in love with a nurse. While she was working in Crimea she became known as "The Lady with the Lamp" because she would walk around the hospital in the evening carrying a lamp and check on the soldiers.

When she returned to England she started a school in 1860 for nurses at St. Thomas' Hospital in London. She wrote her most important book Notes on Nursing. She was a keen Christian but also believed that pagan and eastern religions also contained genuine worth. She was a strong opponent of discrimination against all types of Christians as well as against non-Christians. Nightingale believed religion helped provide people with the fortitude for arduous good work.

In 1907, Florence Nightingale became the first woman to be awarded the Order of Merit by King Edward VII.

Nightingale died in 1910 in London. There are many statues of her in Britain, including one in Waterloo Place in London and a Florence Nightingale museum, also in London.

Images for kids

A print of the jewel awarded to Nightingale by Queen Victoria, for her services to the soldiers in the war

Florence Nightingale, an angel of mercy. Scutari hospital 1855.

The Lady with the Lamp. Popular lithograph reproduction of a painting of Nightingale by Henrietta Rae, 1891.

Illustration in Charles Dickens' Martin Chuzzlewit. Nurse Sarah Gamp (left) became a stereotype of untrained and incompetent nurses of the early Victorian era, before the reforms of Nightingale

Florence Nightingale Statue, London Road, Derby

A tinted lithograph by William Simpson illustrating conditions of the sick and injured in Balaklava

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Florence Nightingale, OM (12 May 1820 - 13 August 1910), was an English nurse. She helped create the modern techniques of nursing. She became a leader of the team of nurses who helped wounded soldiers during the Crimean War. She was the first female to receive the Order of Merit, the highest honour awarded to a British person.

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Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 - April 15, 1865) was an American politician. He was the 16th President of the United States. He was president from 1861 to 1865, during the American Civil War. Just five days after most of the Confederate forces had surrendered and the war was ending, John Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln because he believed Lincoln was a tyrant. Lincoln was the first president of the United States to be assassinated. He has been remembered as the "Great Emancipator" because he worked to end slavery in the United States.

Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, in Hodgenville, Kentucky, United States. His parents were Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks Lincoln. His family was poor. Abraham had one brother and one sister. His brother died in childhood. Lincoln grew up in a small log cabin, with just one room inside. Although slavery was legal in Kentucky at that time, Lincoln's father, who was a religious Baptist, refused to own any slaves.

When Lincoln was seven years old, his family moved to Indiana. Later they moved to Illinois. In his childhood, he helped his father on the farm.

On October 5, 1818, when Abraham was 9, his mother died, leaving Abraham's 11-year-old sister Sarah in charge of the household. His father later married again.

When he was 21, he worked on a flatboat that carried freight. When he was 22 years old, he left home and moved to New Salem, Illinois, where he worked in a general store and as a postmaster. Later, he said that he had gone to school for just one year, but that was enough to learn how to read, write, and do simple math. In 1842, he married Mary Todd. They had four children, but three of them died when they were very young.

Abraham Lincoln was sometimes called Abe Lincoln or "Honest Abe" after he ran miles to give a customer the right amount of change. The nickname "Honest Abe" came from a time when he started a business that failed. Instead of running away as many people would have, he stayed and worked to pay his debt.

In 1851, Abraham's father died at the age of 73.

Early political career

Lincoln started his political career in 1832 when he ran for the Illinois General Assembly (IGA), but he lost the election. He served as a captain in the Illinois militia during the Black Hawk War, a war with Native American tribes. When he moved to Springfield in 1837, he began to work as a lawyer. Soon, he became one of the most highly respected lawyers in Illinois. He rode the circuit of courts for many years. In 1841, he won a court case (Bailey v. Cromwell) in which he represented a black woman who claimed she had already been freed and could not be sold as a slave. In 1847, he lost a case (Matson v. Rutherford) representing a slave owner (Robert Matson) claiming the return of fugitive slaves.

In 1846, Lincoln joined the Whig Party and was elected to one term in the House of Representatives. After that, he ignored his political career and instead worked as a lawyer. In 1854, in reaction to the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Lincoln became involved in politics again. He joined the Republican Party, which had recently been formed in opposition to the expansion of slavery. In 1858, he wanted to become a senator and ran against Stephen A. Douglas. Although he lost the senate race, the debates drew national attention to him. The Republican Party nominated him for the Presidential election of 1860.

Presidency

Lincoln was chosen as a candidate for the elections in 1860 for different reasons. Among these reasons was that his views on slavery were less extreme than those of other people who wanted to be candidates. Lincoln was from what was then one of the Western states and had a bigger chance of winning the election there. Other older, more experienced candidates had enemies inside the party. Lincoln's family was poor, which added to the Republican position of free labor, which is the opposite of slave labor. Lincoln won the election in 1860 and was made the 16th President of the United States. He won with almost no votes from those living in the South. For the first time, a president had won the election because of the large support he got from the states in the North. During his presidency, Lincoln became well-known because of his large stovepipe hat. He used his tall hat to store papers and documents when he was traveling.

The Civil War

After Lincoln's election in 1860, seven states ( South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Texas, and Louisiana) formed the Confederate States of America. When the United States refused to surrender Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, the Confederate Army attacked the fort, beginning the American Civil War. Later, four more states ( Arkansas, Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina) joined the Confederacy to make a total of eleven Confederate states. While Lincoln was President, he had to rebuild the Union with military force and many bloody battles. He also had to stop the "border states," like Kentucky, Missouri, and Maryland, from leaving the Union and joining the Confederacy.

Emancipation Proclamation

With the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln ordered the freedom of all slaves in those states still in rebellion during the American Civil War. However, it did not immediately free all those slaves, since those areas were still controlled by the rebelling states of the Confederacy. Only a small number of slaves already behind Union lines were immediately freed. As the Union army advanced, nearly all four million slaves were effectively freed. Some former slaves joined the Union army after 1862. The Proclamation also did not free slaves in the slave states that had remained loyal to the Union (the federal government of the U.S.). Neither did it apply to areas where Union forces had already regained control, as in Tennessee.

The Proclamation made freeing the slaves a Union goal for the war and put an end to movements in European nations (especially in Great Britain and France) that would have recognized the Confederacy as a separate nation from the Union. Lincoln then sponsored a constitutional amendment to free all slaves. The Thirteenth Amendment, making slavery illegal everywhere in the United States, was passed late in 1865, eight months after Lincoln was assassinated.

Gettysburg Address

During the important Battle of Gettysburg, many soldiers from both sides died. Abraham Lincoln made a famous speech called the Gettysburg Address at the new cemetery for the fallen soldiers. It is one of the most famous speeches in American history.

Second Term and Assassination

Lincoln was re-elected president by a slim margin in 1864 and re-inaugurated on March 4, 1865. Soon afterward, it looked like the Union would win the Civil War. Lincoln proposed terms that would not be harsh on the states that had rebelled. He wanted them to be able to restore self-government. On April 9, 1865, the leading Confederate general, Robert E. Lee, surrendered his armies. On April 11, 1865, Lincoln gave a speech in which he promoted voting rights for black American citizens.

During the day on April 14, 1865, Lincoln signed the legislation that created the secret service, the U.S. President's security force. That evening, Lincoln attended a play with his wife, Mary Todd, at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C. He had invited Ulysses S. Grant to attend the play with them. As a general, Grant would have brought his own extra military security force, but he did not attend the play because his wife Julia Grant and Mary Todd Lincoln did not get along well.

During the third act of the play, John Wilkes Booth, a well-known actor and a Confederate spy from Maryland, entered the presidential box and shot Lincoln at point-blank range and shouted " Sic semper tyrannis" ("Thus always to tyrants"). An unconscious Lincoln was carried across the street to Petersen House. He was placed diagonally on the bed because his tall frame would not fit normally on the smaller bed. He remained in a coma for nine hours before dying the next morning. According to some accounts, at his last drawn breath, on the morning after being shot, he smiled broadly and then expired. Lincoln was the first American president to be assassinated.

Booth escaped but died from shots fired during his capture on April 26.

President Lincoln and his wife Mary Todd Lincoln had four sons.

Only Robert survived into adulthood. Of Robert's children, only Jessie Lincoln had any children (2 - Mary Lincoln Beckwith and Robert Lincoln Beckwith). Neither Robert Beckwith nor Mary Beckwith had any children, so Abraham Lincoln's bloodline ended when Robert Beckwith (Lincoln's great-grandson) died in 1985.

Lincoln has been consistently ranked both by scholars and the public as one of the greatest U.S. Presidents. He is often considered the greatest President for his leadership during the American Civil War and his eloquence in speeches such as the Gettysburg Address.

Abraham Lincoln quotes

"Whatever you are, be a good one."

"My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right."

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."

"Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be."

"Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves."

"Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally."

"Character is like a tree and reputation its shadow. The shadow is what we think it is and the tree is the real thing."

"You cannot help people permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves."

Interesting facts about Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was born into a poor family in Kentucky. He later moved to Indiana and then Illinois.

He earned the name "Honest Abe" because he did not run from failure but stayed to pay the debt he owed.

Abraham was a captain in the Illinois Militia that fought in a war against some Native American tribes.

Abraham moved to Springfield, Illinois, and became a well-respected lawyer.

When Lincoln tried to become a senator, he lost the election, but gained attention and was nominated for the Presidential election in 1860.

Abraham Lincoln was America's 16th president during the Civil War.

Lincoln ordered that all slaves be set free in the states that were still in rebellion. This was called the Emancipation Proclamation.

Abraham Lincoln was elected as President for a second time after his first term of four years was complete.

He sponsored adding the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which made slavery illegal everywhere in the United States. The Amendment passed after Lincoln's death.

One of the most famous speeches in United States History was given by Abraham Lincoln. It was after the Battle of Gettysburg and it was called the Gettysburg Address.

On April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to see a play with his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C.

He was shot in the head by John Wilkes Booth and died the next morning.

Abraham Lincoln was the first American President to be assassinated.

Questions kids ask about Abraham Lincoln

Why is Abraham Lincoln important?
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States. He Presided over the Civil War. His Emancipation Proclamation freed 20,000 slaves. He was one of the most important people involved in the passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution and other important legislation that pushed the United States towards being a great country.

Who ended slavery?
Slavery was ended in the United States under the Lincoln presidency on December 18, 1865, once the 13th Amendment had been ratified and was officially adopted into the Constitution.

Why was Lincoln murdered?
On April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth killed the President because Booth was in support of slavery and wanted the South the same as it was before. He was trying to revive the Confederate cause by eliminating the three most important officials in the United States government, the President, Vice President and the Secretary of State. The president was the only person killed in Booth's plot.

Why is Lincoln considered the greatest president?
Abraham Lincoln is often considered the greatest president for his leadership during the American Civil War and his speeches, such as the Gettysburg Address.

Where is Abraham Lincoln buried?
The Lincoln Tomb is the final resting place of Abraham Lincoln, his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, and three of their four sons, Edward, William, and Thomas. It is located in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois.

Can you visit Abraham Lincoln's grave?
Yes, you can walk around the monument and go inside.

Why was he buried in Springfield?
Even though he was born in Kentucky, Lincoln regarded Illinois as his home. He said "Springfield is my home, and there, more than elsewhere, are my life-long friends."

Images for kids

Abraham Lincoln, a portrait by Mathew Brady taken February 27, 1860, the day of Lincoln's Cooper Union speech

A political cartoon of Vice President Andrew Johnson (a former tailor) and Lincoln, 1865, entitled The 'Rail Splitter' At Work Repairing the Union. The caption reads (Johnson): "Take it quietly Uncle Abe and I will draw it closer than ever." (Lincoln): "A few more stitches Andy and the good old Union will be mended."

This funeral train, called the Lincoln Special, carried Lincoln's body on the three-week trip from Washington, D.C. to Springfield, Illinois. Along the way, it was met by hundreds of thousands of American mourners.

In Spanish: Abraham Lincoln para niños

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Abraham Lincoln's Childhood and Early Life

Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, to Nancy and Thomas Lincoln in a one-room log cabin in Hardin County, Kentucky. His family moved to southern Indiana in 1816. Lincoln's formal schooling was limited to three brief periods in local schools, as he had to work constantly to support his family.

In 1830, his family moved to Macon County in southern Illinois, and Lincoln got a job working on a river flatboat hauling freight down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. After settling in the town of New Salem, Illinois, where he worked as a shopkeeper and a postmaster, Lincoln became involved in local politics as a supporter of the Whig Party, winning election to the Illinois state legislature in 1834.

Like his Whig heroes Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, Lincoln opposed the spread of slavery to the territories, and had a grand vision of the expanding United States, with a focus on commerce and cities rather than agriculture.

Did you know? The war years were difficult for Abraham Lincoln and his family. After his young son Willie died of typhoid fever in 1862, the emotionally fragile Mary Lincoln, widely unpopular for her frivolity and spendthrift ways, held seances in the White House in the hopes of communicating with him, earning her even more derision.

Lincoln taught himself law, passing the bar examination in 1836. The following year, he moved to the newly named state capital of Springfield. For the next few years, he worked there as a lawyer and served clients ranging from individual residents of small towns to national railroad lines.

He met Mary Todd, a well-to-do Kentucky belle with many suitors (including Lincoln's future political rival, Stephen Douglas), and they married in 1842. The Lincolns went on to have four children together, though only one would live into adulthood: Robert Todd Lincoln (1843-1926), Edward Baker Lincoln (1846-1850), William Wallace Lincoln (1850-1862) and Thomas "Tad" Lincoln (1853-1871).

Abraham Lincoln Enters Politics

Lincoln won election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1846 and began serving his term the following year. As a congressman, Lincoln was unpopular with many Illinois voters for his strong stance against the Mexican-American War. Promising not to seek reelection, he returned to Springfield in 1849.

Events conspired to push him back into national politics, however: Douglas, a leading Democrat in Congress, had pushed through the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854), which declared that the voters of each territory, rather than the federal government, had the right to decide whether the territory should be slave or free.

On October 16, 1854, Lincoln went before a large crowd in Peoria to debate the merits of the Kansas-Nebraska Act with Douglas, denouncing slavery and its extension and calling the institution a violation of the most basic tenets of the Declaration of Independence.

With the Whig Party in ruins, Lincoln joined the new Republican Party-formed largely in opposition to slavery's extension into the territories-in 1856 and ran for the Senate again that year (he had campaigned unsuccessfully for the seat in 1855 as well). In June, Lincoln delivered his now-famous "house divided" speech, in which he quoted from the Gospels to illustrate his belief that "this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free."

Lincoln then squared off against Douglas in a series of famous debates; though he lost the Senate election, Lincoln's performance made his reputation nationally.

Abraham Lincoln's 1860 Presidential Campaign

Lincoln's profile rose even higher in early 1860 after he delivered another rousing speech at New York City's Cooper Union. That May, Republicans chose Lincoln as their candidate for president, passing over Senator William H. Seward of New York and other powerful contenders in favor of the rangy Illinois lawyer with only one undistinguished congressional term under his belt.

In the general election, Lincoln again faced Douglas, who represented the northern Democrats; southern Democrats had nominated John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky, while John Bell ran for the brand new Constitutional Union Party. With Breckenridge and Bell splitting the vote in the South, Lincoln won most of the North and carried the Electoral College to win the White House.

He built an exceptionally strong cabinet composed of many of his political rivals, including Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Edward Bates and Edwin M. Stanton.

Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War

After years of sectional tensions, the election of an antislavery northerner as the 16th president of the United States drove many southerners over the brink. By the time Lincoln was inaugurated as 16th U.S. president in March 1861, seven southern states had seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America.

Lincoln ordered a fleet of Union ships to supply the federal Fort Sumter in South Carolina in April. The Confederates fired on both the fort and the Union fleet, beginning the Civil War. Hopes for a quick Union victory were dashed by defeat in the Battle of Bull Run (Manassas), and Lincoln called for 500,000 more troops as both sides prepared for a long conflict.

While the Confederate leader Jefferson Davis was a West Point graduate, Mexican War hero and former secretary of war, Lincoln had only a brief and undistinguished period of service in the Black Hawk War (1832) to his credit. He surprised many when he proved to be a capable wartime leader, learning quickly about strategy and tactics in the early years of the Civil War, and about choosing the ablest commanders.

General George McClellan, though beloved by his troops, continually frustrated Lincoln with his reluctance to advance, and when McClellan failed to pursue Robert E. Lee's retreating Confederate Army in the aftermath of the Union victory at Antietam in September 1862, Lincoln removed him from command.

During the war, Lincoln drew criticism for suspending some civil liberties, including the right of habeas corpus, but he considered such measures necessary to win the war.

Emancipation Proclamation and Gettysburg Address

Shortly after the Battle of Antietam (Sharpsburg), Lincoln issued a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which took effect on January 1, 1863, and freed all of the enslaved people in the rebellious states not under federal control, but left those in the border states (loyal to the Union) in bondage.

Though Lincoln once maintained that his "paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery," he nonetheless came to regard emancipation as one of his greatest achievements and would argue for the passage of a constitutional amendment outlawing slavery (eventually passed as the 13th Amendment after his death in 1865).

Two important Union victories in July 1863-at Vicksburg, Mississippi, and at the Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania-finally turned the tide of the war. General George Meade missed the opportunity to deliver a final blow against Lee's army at Gettysburg, and Lincoln would turn by early 1864 to the victor at Vicksburg, Ulysses S. Grant, as supreme commander of the Union forces.

In November 1863, Lincoln delivered a brief speech (just 272 words) at the dedication ceremony for the new national cemetery at Gettysburg. Published widely, the Gettysburg Address eloquently expressed the war's purpose, harking back to the Founding Fathers, the Declaration of Independence and the pursuit of human equality. It became the most famous speech of Lincoln's presidency, and one of the most widely quoted speeches in history.

Abraham Lincoln Wins 1864 Presidential Election

In 1864, Lincoln faced a tough reelection battle against the Democratic nominee, the former Union General George McClellan, but Union victories in battle (especially General William T. Sherman's capture of Atlanta in September) swung many votes the president's way. In his second inaugural address, delivered on March 4, 1865, Lincoln addressed the need to reconstruct the South and rebuild the Union: "With malice toward none; with charity for all."

As Sherman marched triumphantly northward through the Carolinas after staging his March to the Sea from Atlanta, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, on April 9. Union victory was near, and Lincoln gave a speech on the White House lawn on April 11, urging his audience to welcome the southern states back into the fold. Tragically, Lincoln would not live to help carry out his vision of Reconstruction.

Abraham Lincoln's Assassination

On the night of April 14, 1865, the actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth slipped into the president's box at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., and shot him point-blank in the back of the head. Lincoln was carried to a boardinghouse across the street from the theater, but he never regained consciousness, and died in the early morning hours of April 15, 1865.

Lincoln's assassination made him a national martyr. On April 21, 1865, a train carrying his coffin left Washington, D.C. on its way to Springfield, Illinois, where he would be buried on May 4. Abraham Lincoln's funeral train traveled through 180 cities and seven states so mourners could pay homage to the fallen president.

Today, Lincoln's birthday-alongside the birthday of George Washington-is honored on President's Day, which falls on the third Monday of February.

Abraham Lincoln Quotes

"Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time."

"I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow."

"I am rather inclined to silence, and whether that be wise or not, it is at least more unusual nowadays to find a man who can hold his tongue than to find one who cannot."

"I am exceedingly anxious that this Union, the Constitution, and the liberties of the people shall be perpetuated in accordance with the original idea for which that struggle was made, and I shall be most happy indeed if I shall be a humble instrument in the hands of the Almighty, and of this, his almost chosen people, for perpetuating the object of that great struggle."

"This is essentially a People's contest. On the side of the Union, it is a struggle for maintaining in the world, that form, and substance of government, whose leading object is, to elevate the condition of men-to lift artificial weights from all shoulders-to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all-to afford all, an unfettered start, and a fair chance, in the race of life."

"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."

"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."

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Abraham Lincoln: Facts, Birthday & Assassination | HISTORY

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Abraham Lincoln, a self-taught lawyer, legislator and vocal opponent of slavery, was elected 16th president of the United States in November 1860, shortly before the outbreak of the Civil War. He led the nation through the bloody conflict and declared all enslaved people free under the Emancipation Proclamation.

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Florence Nightingale: Early Life

Florence Nightingale was born on May 12, 1820, in Florence, Italy to Frances Nightingale and William Shore Nightingale. She was the younger of two children. Nightingale's affluent British family belonged to elite social circles. Her mother, Frances, hailed from a family of merchants and took pride in socializing with people of prominent social standing. Despite her mother's interest in social climbing, Florence herself was reportedly awkward in social situations. She preferred to avoid being the center of attention whenever possible. Strong-willed, Florence often butted heads with her mother, whom she viewed as overly controlling. Still, like many daughters, she was eager to please her mother. "I think I am got something more good-natured and complying," Florence wrote in her own defense, concerning the mother-daughter relationship.

Florence's father was William Shore Nightingale, a wealthy landowner who had inherited two estates-one at Lea Hurst, Derbyshire, and the other in Hampshire, Embley Park-when Florence was five years old. Florence was raised on the family estate at Lea Hurst, where her father provided her with a classical education, including studies in German, French and Italian.

From a very young age, Florence Nightingale was active in philanthropy, ministering to the ill and poor people in the village neighboring her family's estate. By the time she was 16 years old, it was clear to her that nursing was her calling. She believed it to be her divine purpose.

When Nightingale approached her parents and told them about her ambitions to become a nurse, they were not pleased. In fact, her parents forbade her to pursue nursing. During the Victorian Era, a young lady of Nightingale's social stature was expected to marry a man of means-not take up a job that was viewed as lowly menial labor by the upper social classes.

When Nightingale was 17 years old, she refused a marriage proposal from a "suitable" gentleman, Richard Monckton Milnes. Nightingale explained her reason for turning him down, saying that while he stimulated her intellectually and romantically, her "moral...active nature...requires satisfaction, and that would not find it in this life." Determined to pursue her true calling despite her parents' objections, in 1844, Nightingale enrolled as a nursing student at the Lutheran Hospital of Pastor Fliedner in Kaiserwerth, Germany.

Florence Nightingale and Nursing

In the early 1850s, Nightingale returned to London, where she took a nursing job in a Middlesex hospital for ailing governesses. Her performance there so impressed her employer that Nightingale was promoted to the superintendent within just a year of being hired. The position proved challenging as Nightingale grappled with a cholera outbreak and unsanitary conditions conducive to the rapid spread of the disease. Nightingale made it her mission to improve hygiene practices, significantly lowering the death rate at the hospital in the process. The hard work took a toll on her health. She had just barely recovered when the biggest challenge of her nursing career presented itself.

Florence Nightingale and the Crimean War

In October of 1853, the Crimean War broke out. The British Empire was at war against the Russian Empire for control of the Ottoman Empire. Thousands of British soldiers were sent to the Black Sea, where supplies quickly dwindled. By 1854, no fewer than 18,000 soldiers had been admitted into military hospitals.

At the time, there were no female nurses stationed at hospitals in Crimea. The poor reputation of past female nurses had led the war office to avoid hiring more. But, after the Battle of Alma, England was in an uproar about the neglect of their ill and injured soldiers, who not only lacked sufficient medical attention due to hospitals being horribly understaffed but also languished in appallingly unsanitary and inhumane conditions.

In late 1854, Nightingale received a letter from Secretary of War Sidney Herbert, asking her to organize a corps of nurses to tend to the sick and fallen soldiers in the Crimea. Nightingale rose to her calling. She quickly assembled a team of 34 nurses from a variety of religious orders and sailed with them to the Crimea just a few days later.

Although they had been warned of the horrid conditions there, nothing could have prepared Nightingale and her nurses for what they saw when they arrived at Scutari, the British base hospital in Constantinople. The hospital sat on top of a large cesspool, which contaminated the water and the hospital building itself. Patients lay on in their own excrement on stretchers strewn throughout the hallways. Rodents and bugs scurried past them. The most basic supplies, such as bandages and soap, grew increasingly scarce as the number of ill and wounded steadily increased. Even water needed to be rationed. More soldiers were dying from infectious diseases like typhoid and cholera than from injuries incurred in battle.

The no-nonsense Nightingale quickly set to work. She procured hundreds of scrub brushes and asked the least infirm patients to scrub the inside of the hospital from floor to ceiling. Nightingale herself spent every waking minute caring for the soldiers. In the evenings she moved through the dark hallways carrying a lamp while making her rounds, ministering to patient after patient. The soldiers, who were both moved and comforted by her endless supply of compassion, took to calling her "the Lady with the Lamp." Others simply called her "the Angel of Crimea." Her work reduced the hospital's death rate by two-thirds.

In addition to vastly improving the sanitary conditions of the hospital, Nightingale created a number of patient services that contributed to improving the quality of their hospital stay. She instituted the creation of an "invalid's kitchen" where appealing food for patients with special dietary requirements was cooked. She established a laundry so that patients would have clean linens. She also instituted a classroom and a library for patients' intellectual stimulation and entertainment. Based on her observations in Crimea, Nightingale wrote Notes on Matters Affecting the Health, Efficiency and Hospital Administration of the British Army, an 830-page report analyzing her experience and proposing reforms for other military hospitals operating under poor conditions. The book would spark a total restructuring of the War Office's administrative department, including the establishment of a Royal Commission for the Health of the Army in 1857.

Nightingale remained at Scutari for a year and a half. She left in the summer of 1856, once the Crimean conflict was resolved, and returned to her childhood home at Lea Hurst. To her surprise, she was met with a hero's welcome, which the humble nurse did her best to avoid. The Queen rewarded Nightingale's work by presenting her with an engraved brooch that came to be known as the "Nightingale Jewel" and by granting her a prize of $250,000 from the British government.

Florence Nightingale, Statistician

With the support of Queen Victoria, Nightingale helped create a Royal Commission into the health of the army. It employed leading statisticians of the day, William Farr and John Sutherland, to analyze army mortality data, and what they found was horrifying: 16,000 of the 18,000 deaths were from preventable diseases-not battle. But it was Nightingale's ability to translate this data into a new visual format that really caused a sensation. Her polar area diagram, now known as a "Nightingale Rose Diagram," showed how the Sanitary Commission's work decreased the death rate and made the complicated data accessible to all, inspiring new standards for sanitation in the army and beyond. She became the first female member of the Royal Statistical Society and was named an honorary member of the American Statistical Association.

Florence Nightingale's Impact on Nursing

Nightingale decided to use the money to further her cause. In 1860, she funded the establishment of St. Thomas' Hospital, and within it, the Nightingale Training School for Nurses. Nightingale became a figure of public admiration. Poems, songs and plays were written and dedicated in the heroine's honor. Young women aspired to be like her. Eager to follow her example, even women from the wealthy upper classes started enrolling at the training school. Thanks to Nightingale, nursing was no longer frowned upon by the upper classes; it had, in fact, come to be viewed as an honorable vocation.

While at Scutari, Nightingale had contracted "Crimean fever" and would never fully recover. By the time she was 38 years old, she was homebound and bedridden and would be so for the remainder of her life. Fiercely determined and dedicated as ever to improving health care and alleviating patients' suffering, Nightingale continued her work from her bed.

Residing in Mayfair, she remained an authority and advocate of health care reform, interviewing politicians and welcoming distinguished visitors from her bed. In 1859, she published Notes on Hospitals, which focused on how to properly run civilian hospitals.

Throughout the U.S. Civil War, she was frequently consulted about how to best manage field hospitals. Nightingale also served as an authority on public sanitation issues in India for both the military and civilians, although she had never been to India herself.

In 1908, at the age of 88, she was conferred the merit of honor by King Edward. In May of 1910, she received a congratulatory message from King George on her 90th birthday.

Florence Nightingale: Death and Legacy

In August 1910, Florence Nightingale fell ill but seemed to recover and was reportedly in good spirits. A week later, on the evening of Friday, August 12, 1910, she developed an array of troubling symptoms. She died unexpectedly at 2 p.m. the following day, Saturday, August 13, 1910, at her home in London.

Characteristically, she had expressed the desire that her funeral be a quiet and modest affair, despite the public's desire to honor Nightingale-who tirelessly devoted her life to preventing disease and ensuring safe and compassionate treatment for the poor and the suffering. Respecting her last wishes, her relatives turned down a national funeral. The "Lady with the Lamp" was laid to rest in Hampshire, England.

The Florence Nightingale Museum, which sits at the site of the original Nightingale Training School for Nurses, houses more than 2,000 artifacts commemorating the life and career of the "Angel of the Crimea." To this day, Florence Nightingale is broadly acknowledged and revered as the pioneer of modern nursing.

Sources

Florence Nightingale: Saving Lives With Statistics. BBC.
Florence Nightingale. The National Archives, UK.

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Florence Nightingale - Biography, Facts & Nursing

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Florence Nightingale (1829-1910) was an English social reformer who is considered the founder of modern nursing.

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George Washington's Early Years

George Washington was born on February 22, 1732, at his family's plantation on Pope's Creek in Westmoreland County, in the British colony of Virginia, to Augustine Washington (1694-1743) and his second wife, Mary Ball Washington (1708-89). George, the eldest of Augustine and Mary Washington's six children, spent much of his childhood at Ferry Farm, a plantation near Fredericksburg, Virginia. After Washington's father died when he was 11, it's likely he helped his mother manage the plantation.

Did you know? At the time of his death in 1799, George Washington owned some 300 enslaved people. However, before his passing, he had become opposed to slavery, and in his will, he ordered that his enslaved workers be freed after his wife's death.

Few details about Washington's early education are known, although children of prosperous families like his typically were taught at home by private tutors or attended private schools. It's believed he finished his formal schooling at around age 15.

As a teenager, Washington, who had shown an aptitude for mathematics, became a successful surveyor. His surveying expeditions into the Virginia wilderness earned him enough money to begin acquiring land of his own.

In 1751, Washington made his only trip outside of America, when he traveled to Barbados with his older half-brother Lawrence Washington (1718-52), who was suffering from tuberculosis and hoped the warm climate would help him recuperate. Shortly after their arrival, George contracted smallpox. He survived, although the illness left him with permanent facial scars. In 1752, Lawrence, who had been educated in England and served as Washington's mentor, died. Washington eventually inherited Lawrence's estate, Mount Vernon, on the Potomac River near Alexandria, Virginia.

An Officer and Gentleman Farmer

In December 1752, Washington, who had no previous military experience, was made a commander of the Virginia militia. He saw action in the French and Indian War and was eventually put in charge of all of Virginia's militia forces. By 1759, Washington had resigned his commission, returned to Mount Vernon and was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses, where he served until 1774. In January 1759, he married Martha Dandridge Custis (1731-1802), a wealthy widow with two children. Washington became a devoted stepfather to her children; he and Martha Washington never had any offspring of their own.

In the ensuing years, Washington expanded Mount Vernon from 2,000 acres into an 8,000-acre property with five farms. He grew a variety of crops, including wheat and corn, bred mules and maintained fruit orchards and a successful fishery. He was deeply interested in farming and continually experimented with new crops and methods of land conservation.

George Washington During the American Revolution

Washington proved to be a better general than military strategist. His strength lay not in his genius on the battlefield but in his ability to keep the struggling colonial army together. His troops were poorly trained and lacked food, ammunition and other supplies (soldiers sometimes even went without shoes in winter). However, Washington was able to give them direction and motivation. His leadership during the winter of 1777-1778 at Valley Forge was a testament to his power to inspire his men to keep going.

By the late 1760s, Washington had experienced firsthand the effects of rising taxes imposed on American colonists by the British and came to believe that it was in the best interests of the colonists to declare independence from England. Washington served as a delegate to the First Continental Congress in 1774 in Philadelphia. By the time the Second Continental Congress convened a year later, the American Revolution had begun in earnest, and Washington was named commander in chief of the Continental Army.

Over the course of the grueling eight-year war, the colonial forces won few battles but consistently held their own against the British. In October 1781, with the aid of the French (who allied themselves with the colonists over their rivals the British), the Continental forces were able to capture British troops under General Charles Cornwallis (1738-1805) in the Battle of Yorktown. This action effectively ended the Revolutionary War and Washington was declared a national hero.

America's First President

In 1783, with the signing of the Treaty of Paris between Great Britain and the U.S., Washington, believing he had done his duty, gave up his command of the army and returned to Mount Vernon, intent on resuming his life as a gentleman farmer and family man. However, in 1787, he was asked to attend the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia and head the committee to draft the new constitution. His impressive leadership there convinced the delegates that he was by far the most qualified man to become the nation's first president.

At first, Washington balked. He wanted to, at last, return to a quiet life at home and leave governing the new nation to others. But public opinion was so strong that eventually he gave in. The first presidential election was held on January 7, 1789, and Washington won handily. John Adams (1735-1826), who received the second-largest number of votes, became the nation's first vice president. The 57-year-old Washington was inaugurated on April 30, 1789, in New York City. Because Washington, D.C., America's future capital city wasn't yet built, he lived in New York and Philadelphia. While in office, he signed a bill establishing a future, permanent U.S. capital along the Potomac River-the city later named Washington, D.C., in his honor.

George Washington's Accomplishments

The United States was a small nation when Washington took office, consisting of 11 states and approximately 4 million people, and there was no precedent for how the new president should conduct domestic or foreign business. Mindful that his actions would likely determine how future presidents were expected to govern, Washington worked hard to set an example of fairness, prudence and integrity. In foreign matters, he supported cordial relations with other countries but also favored a position of neutrality in foreign conflicts. Domestically, he nominated the first chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, John Jay (1745-1829), signed a bill establishing the first national bank, the Bank of the United States, and set up his own presidential cabinet.

His two most prominent cabinet appointees were Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) and Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804), two men who disagreed strongly on the role of the federal government. Hamilton favored a strong central government and was part of the Federalist Party, while Jefferson favored stronger states' rights as part of the Democratic-Republican Party, the forerunner to the Democratic Party. Washington believed that divergent views were critical for the health of the new government, but he was distressed at what he saw as an emerging partisanship.

George Washington's presidency was marked by a series of firsts. He signed the first United States copyright law, protecting the copyrights of authors. He also signed the first Thanksgiving proclamation, making November 26 a national day of Thanksgiving for the end of the war for American independence and the successful ratification of the Constitution.

During Washington's presidency, Congress passed the first federal revenue law, a tax on distilled spirits. In July 1794, farmers in Western Pennsylvania rebelled over the so-called "whiskey tax." Washington called in over 12,000 militiamen to Pennsylvania to dissolve the Whiskey Rebellion in one of the first major tests of the authority of the national government.

Under Washington's leadership, the states ratified the Bill of Rights, and five new states entered the union: North Carolina (1789), Rhode Island (1790), Vermont (1791), Kentucky (1792) and Tennessee (1796).

In his second term, Washington issued the proclamation of neutrality to avoid entering the 1793 war between Great Britain and France. But when French minister to the United States Edmond Charles Genet-known to history as "Citizen Genet"-toured the United States, he boldly flaunted the proclamation, attempting to set up American ports as French military bases and gain support for his cause in the Western United States. His meddling caused a stir between Federalists and Democratic-Republicans, widening the rift between parties and making consensus-building more difficult.

In 1795, Washington signed the "Treaty of Amity Commerce and Navigation, between His Britannic Majesty; and The United States of America," or Jay's Treaty, so-named for John Jay, who had negotiated it with the government of King George III. It helped the U.S. avoid war with Great Britain, but also rankled certain members of Congress back home and was fiercely opposed by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Internationally, it caused a stir among the French, who believed it violated previous treaties between the United States and France.

Washington's administration signed two other influential international treaties. Pinckney's Treaty of 1795, also known as the Treaty of San Lorenzo, established friendly relations between the United States and Spain, firming up borders between the U.S. and Spanish territories in North America and opening up the Mississippi to American traders. The Treaty of Tripoli, signed the following year, gave American ships access to Mediterranean shipping lanes in exchange for a yearly tribute to the Pasha of Tripoli.

George Washington's Retirement to Mount Vernon and Death

In 1796, after two terms as president and declining to serve a third term, Washington finally retired. In Washington's farewell address, he urged the new nation to maintain the highest standards domestically and to keep involvement with foreign powers to a minimum. The address is still read each February in the U.S. Senate to commemorate Washington's birthday.

Washington returned to Mount Vernon and devoted his attentions to making the plantation as productive as it had been before he became president. More than four decades of public service had aged him, but he was still a commanding figure. In December 1799, he caught a cold after inspecting his properties in the rain. The cold developed into a throat infection and Washington died on the night of December 14, 1799, at the age of 67. He was entombed at Mount Vernon, which in 1960 was designated a national historic landmark.

Washington left one of the most enduring legacies of any American in history. Known as the "Father of His Country," his face appears on the U.S. dollar bill and quarter, and dozens of U.S. schools, towns and counties, as well as the state of Washington and the nation's capital city, are named for him.

George Washington: An Interactive Timeline of His Life

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George Washington: Facts, Revolution & Presidency

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George Washington (1732-99) was commander in chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War (1775-83) and served two terms as the first U.S. president, from 1789 to 1797.

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Derek Jeter Facts for Kids | KidzSearch.com

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Jeter made his major league debut on May 29, 1995 with the New York Yankees against the Seattle Mariners when he was 20 years old. He has been playing with the New York Yankees for 18 years ever since he made it to the majors.

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Kids learn about Derek Jeter and his baseball career as shortstop for the New York Yankees.

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Derek Jeter (born June 26, 1974 in Pequannock Township, New Jersey) is a retired American Major League Baseball player. He played as the captain for the New York Yankees and is an eleven-time All-Star shortstop for the New York Yankees.

Jeter made his major league debut on May 29, 1995 with the New York Yankees against the Seattle Mariners when he was 20 years old. He had been playing with the New York Yankees for 20 years ever since he made it to the majors. He has won many awards such as the American League Rookie of the Year Award, a Silver Slugger Award, and three Gold Glove Awards. In the year 2000, Jeter became the only player to win both the All-Star Game MVP Award and the World Series MVP Award in the same year.

Derek Jeter was born in Pequannock Township, New Jersey, to an African-American father, Dr. Sanderson Charles Jeter; his mother Dorothy is of Irish and German descent. The family lived in North Arlington, New Jersey with his family, before moving to Kalamazoo, Michigan, when he was 4.

High school

Jeter was inspired to play baseball by Hall of Famer Dave Winfield. In high school Derek's Parents wanted him to go to a small Catholic high school but Jeter went to Kalamazoo Central High School.

Jeter was a star player at Kalamazoo Central High School. Jeter earned an All-State honorable mention while he was playing basketball also.

Jeter collected many awards at season's end, including the Kalamazoo Area B'nai B'rith Award for Scholar Athlete, the 1992 High School Player of the Year by the American Baseball Coaches Association, the 1992 Gatorade High School Player of the year award, and USA Today's High School Player of the Year.

In December 2007, Jeter was added to the Kalamazoo Central High School Athletic Hall of Fame.

Although Jeter received a baseball scholarship to attend the University of Michigan, he was drafted by the New York Yankees with the 6th overall pick in the 1992 amateur draft and he chose to try to make it to the majors. Jeter has said that he will eventually go back to college and earn a degree.

Major league career

Jeter has played a role for the Yankees since 1996. Jeter is one of three current veterans (the others are Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera) who came up through the Yankees organization, and has played his entire professional career with the Yankees. As the Yankees Shortstop, he is currently the longest-serving position player on the team. As of his current contract, Derek earns $22 million a year in salary, and is the second highest paid endorser in baseball having earned $7 million in endorsements in 2006. Also, he was ranked as the most marketable player in baseball according to an 2005 Sports Business Survey.

Regular Season

On May 29, 1995, Jeter made major league debut against the Seattle Mariners in the Kingdome. He made his first major league hit the following day off veteran pitcher Tim Belcher, and started 13 games before being sent back down to the minors.

He returned on Opening Day of the 1996 season as the starting shortstop (the first Yankee rookie since Tom Tresh in 1962 to do so) and hit his first major-league home run on that day. Coincidentally, his home run was called by another former Yankee shortstop, the late Hall of Famer Phil Rizzuto, with whom Jeter would get guidance from whenever the two met. Jeter played his way to a successful rookie season, hitting for a .314 batting average, 10 home runs, and 78 runs batted in and subsequently earning Rookie of the Year honors.

Career statistics

Images for kids

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Derek Jeter (born June 26, 1974 in Pequannock Township, New Jersey) is a retired American Major League Baseball player. He played as the captain for the New York Yankees and is an eleven-time All-Star shortstop for the New York Yankees.

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Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States. Learn about his biography, the Civil War, and his life story.

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BrainPOP - Animated Educational Site for Kids - Science, Social Studies, English, Math, Arts & Music, Health, and Technology

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Fun Facts on Abraham Lincoln for kids ***

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Visit this site for fast, fun Facts on Abraham Lincoln for kids. Discover fascinating information with Facts on Abraham Lincoln for kids. Facts on Abraham Lincoln for kids, children and schools - ideal for homework help!.

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Benjamin Franklin contributed much to the growth of the United States. He was very bright and had a very curious mind. Franklin's ideas and inventions typically came about because he saw something that needed to be improved and he took the initiative to do it.

Basic Facts About Ben Franklin

Born: January 17, 1706 in Boston, Massachusetts

Died: April 17, 1790 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Education: Honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, University of St. Andrews, University of Oxford, University of Edinburgh

Founding Father: One of five men who helped draft the Declaration of Independence

Author: Published "Poor Richard's Almanack" in 1732

Famous Firsts from Ben Franklin

Ben Franklin created many systems that changed the lives of Americans not only in his lifetime, but for Americans for centuries to come. His innovations literally changed the way many Americans live and work.

Public Hospitals: Franklin was one of the founders of the Pennsylvania Hospital in 1751, which was the first public hospital in the country. Before this, there was no public health system for the poor. The public hospital system that Americans know today is modeled after the Pennsylvania Hospital.

Public Library: In the early 18th century, books were mainly available to wealthy people, whom had their own private libraries. In 1751, Franklin developed the concept of a subscription library where members paid a fee and shared books amongst themselves. This system served as the model for the public library system.

Post Office: Franklin was once the country's Postmaster General. During that time, he instituted regular mail routes, a standard fee structure and an internal auditing system. Many of the systems are still in use by the postal service today.

Volunteer Fire Department: In 1752, Franklin organized the first volunteer fire department in Philadelphia. The success led to other volunteer fire departments in the city.

Fire Insurance: Franklin also was responsible for creating the first fire insurance company in 1752. Subscribers paid a fee for the assurance of having their property repaired or replaced if it was damaged in a fire.

10 Jobs Held by Ben Franklin

An interesting fact about Ben Franklin's life is that he had many different jobs. Here are ten jobs that he had in his career.

1. Printer

2. Writer

3. Politician

4. Inventor

5. Scientist

6. Volunteer firefighter

7. Librarian

8. Postmaster

9. Bookstore owner

10. Soldier in Philadelphia militia

Inventions

Ben Franklin invented many things that are still used today. Here are just a few of Franklin's inventions:

1. Bifocals

2. Lightning rod

3. Swimming fins

4. The Franklin stove, an iron fireplace that produced less smoke and used less wood.

5. Glass armonica, a musical instrument

More Fun Facts

He actually had two birthdays. Franklin's birth certificate says that he was born on January 6, 1706, but on September 2, 1752 the British colonies changed to a different calendar. Over time, calendars no longer line up with seasons and adjustments must be made to make sure that seasons happen in the right month. That is why we have leap year. Therefore, at midnight on September 2, 1752, it legally became September 14 and Franklin's new birthday became January 17.

His picture has been on every $100 bill minted since 1928.

Franklin thought the turkey should be the national bird, rather than the bald eagle. He wrote in a letter to his daughter, Sarah, in 1784 that the turkey is more respectable than eagles and a true native of the United States.

He taught himself five different languages: Latin, German, Spanish, Italian and French.

Franklin crossed the Atlantic Ocean eight times and spent 27 years of his life living in other countries.

It is amazing to see how much Ben Franklin accomplished. It is hard to think of anyone who did more with his life than Franklin and his impact is still felt today, over 300 years after he was born. He is truly one of the Founding Fathers of the United States.

References

Image: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/treasure/treasure_hunt_03.html

PBS: Benjamin Franklin. An Extraordinary Life. An Electric Mind. URL: http://www.pbs.org/benfranklin/

The Ben Franklin Tercentenary URL: http://www.benfranklin300.org/

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Interesting and Fun Facts About Ben Franklin for Kids

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Not only was Benjamin Franklin instrumental in the birth of the American nation, he was a great politician and inventor. Learn some interesting facts about Ben Franklin's life, including the many jobs he had and inventions he created that are still being used today.

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Educational Videos for Students (Cartoons on Bullying, Leadership & More)

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Benjamin Franklin Cartoon! Ben Franklin (Biography Cartoon Network)

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Kids learn about Benjamin Franklin's biography. Inventor, scientist, statesman, and Founding Father of the United States.

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Benjamin Franklin (January 17, 1706 - April 17, 1790), known as "the First American," was an American statesman whose efforts were critical to the success of the American Revolution and the unification of the 13 colonies into a new nation. Serving as the American minister to France along with John Adams, he secured decisive military and financial support during the Revolution, while asserting the values of democracy and republicanism. He assisted Thomas Jefferson in writing the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and helped legitimize the U.S. Constitution in 1787. His effective diplomacy, creative nationalism, promotion of civic virtue and devotion to republicanism earned him high rank as a Founding Father.

Franklin was also a world class scientist during The Enlightenment, famed for his discoveries in electricity and his invention of the lightning rod. He was also a noted printer and civic leader in Philadelphia.

Early life and family

Franklin was born in Boston. After two years of school he stayed home as an apprentice in his father's candle-making shop. Two years after starting to work at his father's shop, he went to work at his brother James' printing shop. While working there, Franklin secretly wrote articles for the newspaper and labelled them as being by "Mrs. Silence Dogood". He quarrelled with his brother and ran away to Philadelphia, then to London and then back to Philadelphia.

Franklin loved books and reading. Franklin, at the age of 21, established the colonies' first circulation library for all interested citizens. He became rich and famous as a printer, publisher and writer. Later, he sold his businesses and became busy with science and politics. Franklin's father, Josiah Franklin, was a tallow chandler, a soap-maker and a candle-maker. Josiah was born at Ecton, Northamptonshire, England on December 23, 1657, the son of Thomas Franklin, a blacksmith-farmer, and Jane White. His mother, Abiah Folger, was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts, on August 15, 1667, to Peter Folger, a miller and schoolteacher, and his wife, Mary Morrill, a former indentured servant.

Josiah Franklin had seventeen children with his two wives.

Ben Franklin's mother, Abiah Folger, was born into a Puritan family that was among the first Pilgrims to flee to Massachusetts for religious freedom, when King Charles I of England began persecuting Puritans. They sailed for Boston in 1635.

Newspaperman

In 1728, Franklin had set up a printing house in partnership with Hugh Meredith; the following year he became the publisher of a newspaper called The Pennsylvania Gazette.

Franklin saw the printing press as a device to instruct colonial Americans in moral virtue.

In 1731, Franklin was initiated into the local Masonic Lodge. He became Grand Master in 1734, indicating his rapid rise to prominence in Pennsylvania. That same year, he edited and published the first Masonic book in the Americas, a reprint of James Anderson's Constitutions of the Free-Masons. Franklin remained a Freemason for the rest of his life.

Success as an author

In 1733, Franklin began to publish the noted Poor Richard's Almanack (with content both original and borrowed) under the pseudonym Richard Saunders, on which much of his popular reputation is based.

In 1758, the year he ceased writing for the Almanack, he printed Father Abraham's Sermon, also known as The Way to Wealth. Franklin's autobiography, begun in 1771 but published after his death, has become one of the classics of the genre.

Daylight saving time (DST) is often erroneously attributed to a 1784 satire that Franklin published anonymously. Modern DST was first proposed by George Vernon Hudson in 1895.

Inventions and scientific inquiries

Franklin was a prodigious inventor. Among his many creations were the lightning rod, glass harmonica (a glass instrument, not to be confused with the metal harmonica), Franklin stove, bifocal glasses and the flexible urinary catheter. Franklin never patented his inventions; in his autobiography he wrote, "... as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously."

Electricity

Franklin started exploring the phenomenon of electricity in 1746.

Kite Experiment and Lightning Rod

In 1750, he published a proposal for an experiment to prove that lightning is electricity by flying a kite in a storm that appeared capable of becoming a lightning storm. On May 10, 1752, Thomas-François Dalibard of France conducted Franklin's experiment using a 40-foot-tall (12 m) iron rod instead of a kite, and he extracted electrical sparks from a cloud. On June 15 Franklin may possibly have conducted his well-known kite experiment in Philadelphia, successfully extracting sparks from a cloud.

Franklin's electrical experiments led to his invention of the lightning rod.

Wave theory of light

Franklin was, along with his contemporary Leonhard Euler, the only major scientist who supported Christiaan Huygens' wave theory of light, which was basically ignored by the rest of the scientific community. In the 18th century Newton's corpuscular theory was held to be true; only after Young's well-known slit experiment in 1803 were most scientists persuaded to believe Huygens' theory.

Meteorology

On October 21, 1743, according to popular myth, a storm moving from the southwest denied Franklin the opportunity of witnessing a lunar eclipse. Franklin was said to have noted that the prevailing winds were actually from the northeast, contrary to what he had expected. In correspondence with his brother, Franklin learned that the same storm had not reached Boston until after the eclipse, despite the fact that Boston is to the northeast of Philadelphia. He deduced that storms do not always travel in the direction of the prevailing wind, a concept that greatly influenced meteorology.

After the Icelandic volcanic eruption of Laki in 1783, and the subsequent harsh European winter of 1784, Franklin made observations connecting the causal nature of these two separate events. He wrote about them in a lecture series.

Traction kiting

Though Benjamin Franklin has been most noted kite-wise with his lightning experiments, he has also been noted by many for his using kites to pull humans and ships across waterways. The George Pocock in the book A TREATISE on The Aeropleustic Art, or Navigation in the Air, by means of Kites, or Buoyant Sails noted being inspired by Benjamin Franklin's traction of his body by kite power across a waterway. In his later years he suggested using the technique for pulling ships.

Concept of cooling

Franklin noted a principle of refrigeration by observing that on a very hot day, he stayed cooler in a wet shirt in a breeze than he did in a dry one. To understand this phenomenon more clearly Franklin conducted experiments. In his letter Cooling by Evaporation, Franklin noted that, "One may see the possibility of freezing a man to death on a warm summer's day."

Oceanography findings

An aging Franklin accumulated all his oceanographic findings in Maritime Observations, published by the Philosophical Society's transactions in 1786. It contained ideas for sea anchors, catamaran hulls, watertight compartments, shipboard lightning rods and a soup bowl designed to stay stable in stormy weather.

Decision-making

In a 1772 letter to Joseph Priestley, Franklin lays out the earliest known description of the Pro & Con list, a common decision-making technique, now sometimes called a decisional balance sheet

Oil on water

While traveling on a ship, Franklin had observed that the wake of a ship was diminished when the cooks scuttled their greasy water. He studied the effects on a large pond in Clapham Common, London. "I fetched out a cruet of oil and dropt a little of it on the water ... though not more than a teaspoon full, produced an instant calm over a space of several yards square." He later used the trick to "calm the waters" by carrying "a little oil in the hollow joint of my cane".

Musical endeavors

Franklin is known to have played the violin, the harp, and the guitar. He also composed music, notably a string quartet in early classical style. He developed a much-improved version of the glass harmonica, in which the glasses rotate on a shaft, with the player's fingers held steady, instead of the other way around; this version soon found its way to Europe.

Public life

Early steps in Politics

Franklin became involved in Philadelphia politics and rapidly progressed. In October 1748, he was selected as a councilman, in June 1749 he became a Justice of the Peace for Philadelphia, and in 1751 he was elected to the Pennsylvania Assembly. On August 10, 1753, Franklin was appointed deputy postmaster-general of British North America, ( see below). His most notable service in domestic politics was his reform of the postal system, with mail sent out every week.

In 1751, Franklin and Dr. Thomas Bond obtained a charter from the Pennsylvania legislature to establish a hospital. Pennsylvania Hospital was the first hospital in what was to become the United States of America.

Between 1750 and 1753, the "educational triumvirate" of Dr. Benjamin Franklin, created what people called, a "new-model" plan or style of American college. Franklin printed in 1752, and promoted an American textbook of moral philosophy to be taught in the new colleges to replace other courses.

In June 1753, they decided the new-model college would focus on the professions, with classes taught in English instead of Latin, have subject matter experts as professors instead of one tutor leading a class for four years, and there would be no religious test for admission. The College was to become influential in guiding the founding documents of the United States: in the Continental Congress, for example, over one third of the men who contributed to the Declaration of Independence were affiliated with the College.

In 1753, both Harvard and Yale awarded him honorary degrees.

In 1754, he headed the Pennsylvania delegation to the Albany Congress.

In 1756, Franklin organized the Pennsylvania Militia (see "Associated Regiment of Philadelphia" under heading of Pennsylvania's 103rd Artillery and 111th Infantry Regiment at Continental Army).

Declaration of Independence

By the time Franklin arrived in Philadelphia on May 5, 1775, after his second mission to Great Britain, the American Revolution had begun - with fighting between colonials and British at Lexington and Concord. The New England militia had trapped the main British army in Boston. The Pennsylvania Assembly unanimously chose Franklin as their delegate to the Second Continental Congress. In June 1776, he was appointed a member of the Committee of Five that drafted the Declaration of Independence. Although he was temporarily disabled by gout and unable to attend most meetings of the Committee, Franklin made several "small but important" changes to the draft sent to him by Thomas Jefferson.

At the signing, he is quoted as having replied to a comment by Hancock that they must all hang together: "Yes, we must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately."

Postmaster

Well known as a printer and publisher, Franklin was appointed postmaster of Philadelphia in 1737, holding the office until 1753, when he and publisher William Hunter were named deputy postmasters-general of British North America, the first to hold the office.

On July 26, 1775, the Second Continental Congress established the United States Post Office and named Benjamin Franklin as the first United States Postmaster General. Franklin had been a postmaster for decades and was a natural choice for the position. It established a postal system that became the United States Post Office, a system that continues to operate today.

Ambassador to France: 1776-1785

In December 1776, Franklin was dispatched to France as commissioner for the United States.

During his stay in France, Benjamin Franklin was active as a Freemason, serving as Venerable Master of the Lodge Les Neuf Sœurs from 1779 until 1781.

Franklin's advocacy for religious tolerance in France contributed to arguments made by French philosophers and politicians that resulted in Louis XVI's signing of the Edict of Versailles in November 1787. This edict effectively nullified the Edict of Fontainebleau, which had denied non-Catholics civil status and the right to openly practice their faith.

Franklin also served as American minister to Sweden, although he never visited that country.

President of Pennsylvania

Special balloting conducted October 18, 1785, unanimously elected Franklin the sixth president of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania, replacing John Dickinson.

Virtue, religion, and personal beliefs

Like the other advocates of republicanism, Franklin emphasized that the new republic could survive only if the people were virtuous. All his life he explored the role of civic and personal virtue, as expressed in Poor Richard's aphorisms. Franklin felt that organized religion was necessary to keep men good to their fellow men, but rarely attended religious services himself.

Thirteen Virtues

Franklin sought to cultivate his character by a plan of 13 virtues, which he developed at age 20 (in 1726) and continued to practice in some form for the rest of his life. His autobiography lists his 13 virtues as:

1. "Temperance. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation."

2. "Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation."

3. "Order. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time."

4. "Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve."

5. "Frugality. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing."

6. "Industry. Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions."

7. "Sincerity. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly."

8. "Justice. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty."

9. "Moderation. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve."

10. "Cleanliness. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation."

11. "Tranquility. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable."

12. "Chastity. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation."

13. "Humility. Imitate Jesus and Socrates."

When Franklin was young, African slavery was common and virtually unchallenged throughout the British colonies. During his lifetime slaves were numerous in Philadelphia.

In his later years, as Congress was forced to deal with the issue of slavery, Franklin wrote several essays that stressed the importance of the abolition of slavery and of the integration of blacks into American society.

Death and legacy

Benjamin Franklin died from pleuritic attack at his home in Philadelphia on April 17, 1790, at age 84. Approximately 20,000 people attended his funeral. He was interred in Christ Church Burial Ground in Philadelphia.

A signer of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, Franklin is considered one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. His pervasive influence in the early history of the nation has led to his being jocularly called "the only President of the United States who was never President of the United States."

Since 1928, it has adorned American $100 bills, which are sometimes referred to in slang as "Benjamins" or "Franklins." From 1948 to 1963, Franklin's portrait was on the half dollar. He has appeared on a $50 bill and on several varieties of the $100 bill from 1914 and 1918. Franklin appears on the $1,000 Series EE Savings bond. The city of Philadelphia contains around 5,000 likenesses of Benjamin Franklin, about half of which are located on the University of Pennsylvania campus. Philadelphia's Benjamin Franklin Parkway (a major thoroughfare) and Benjamin Franklin Bridge (the first major bridge to connect Philadelphia with New Jersey) are named in his honor.

In 1976, as part of a bicentennial celebration, Congress dedicated a 20-foot (6 m) marble statue in Philadelphia's Franklin Institute as the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial. Many of Franklin's personal possessions are also on display at the Institute, one of the few national memorials located on private property.

In London, his house at 36 Craven Street, which is the only surviving former residence of Benjamin Franklin, was first marked with a blue plaque and has since been opened to the public as the Benjamin Franklin House.

Franklin on U.S. postage

Benjamin Franklin is a prominent figure in American history comparable to Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln, and as such he has been honored on U.S. postage stamps many times. The image of Franklin, the first Postmaster General of the United States, occurs on the face of U.S. postage more than any other notable American save that of George Washington.

Franklin appeared on the first U.S. postage stamp (displayed above) issued in 1847. From 1908 through 1923 the U.S. Post Office issued a series of postage stamps commonly referred to as the Washington-Franklin Issues where, along with George Washington, Franklin was depicted many times over a 14-year period, the longest run of any one series in U.S. postal history. Along with the regular issue stamps Franklin however only appears on a few commemorative stamps. Some of the finest portrayals of Franklin on record can be found on the engravings inscribed on the face of U.S. postage.

Places and things named after Benjamin Franklin

As a founding father of the United States, Franklin's name has been attached to many things. Among these are:

The State of Franklin, a short-lived independent state formed during the American Revolutionary War

Counties in at least 16 U.S. states

Several major landmarks in and around Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Franklin's longtime home, including:

Franklin and Marshall College in nearby Lancaster

Franklin Field, a football field once home to the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League and the home field of the University of Pennsylvania Quakers since 1895

The Franklin Mercantile Chess Club in Philadelphia, the second oldest chess club in the U.S. (Franklin was a keen chess enthusiast and the first writer on chess in America)

The Benjamin Franklin Bridge across the Delaware River between Philadelphia and Camden, New Jersey

The Franklin Institute, a science museum in Philadelphia, which presents the Benjamin Franklin Medal

The Sons of Ben soccer supporters club for the Philadelphia Union

Ben Franklin Stores chain of variety stores, with a key-and-spark logo

Franklin Templeton Investments an investment firm whose New York Stock Exchange ticker abbreviation, BEN, is also in honor of Franklin

The Ben Franklin effect from the field of psychology

Benjamin Franklin Shibe, baseball executive and namesake of the longtime Philadelphia baseball stadium

Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce, the fictional character from the M*A*S*H novels, film, and television program

Benjamin Franklin Gates, Nicolas Cage's character from the National Treasure films.

Several US Navy ships have been named the USS Franklin or the USS Bonhomme Richard, the latter being a French translation of his penname "Poor Richard". Two aircraft carriers, USS Franklin (CV-13) and USS Bon Homme Richard (CV-31) were simultaneously in commission and in operation during World War II, and Franklin therefore had the distinction of having two simultaneously operational US Navy warships named in his honor. The French ship Franklin (1797) was also named in Franklin's honor.

Franklinia alatamaha, commonly called the Franklin tree. It was named after him by his friends and fellow Philadelphians, botanists James and William Bartram.

CMA CGM Benjamin Franklin, a Chinese-built French owned Explorer-class container ship

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Benjamin Franklin (January 17, 1706 - April 17, 1790), known as "the First American," was an American statesman whose efforts were critical to the success of the American Revolution and the unification of the 13 colonies into a new nation.

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Discover how this remarkable woman helped change the lives of millions of African Americans and the history of her country in our Rosa Parks facts...
All people should be treated equally, right? Regardless of where you come from, what religion you follow, where you work, what language you speak or whether you're a boy or a girl. Well, sadly, this isn't always the case, and many groups of people around the world still suffer as a result of prejudices and discrimination.

Thankfully, there are some amazing people who have done incredible things to fight for equality. One such person was a civil rights activist called Rosa Parks.

Rosa Parks facts

Who was Rosa Parks?

Full name: Rosa Louise McCauley Parks
Born: 4 February 1913
Hometown: Tuskegee, Alabama, USA
Occupation: Civil rights activist
Died: 24 October 2005
Best known for: The Montgomery Bus Boycott

Rosa was born in the town of Tuskegee in Alabama, a state in southern USA. Her mother was a teacher and her father a carpenter, and she had a little brother called Sylvester. After her parents separated when she was just a little girl, Rosa and Sylvester moved with their mother to Alabama's capital city, Montgomery.

Rosa loved to learn and studied hard at high school. But, sadly, she had to leave school at 16 to care for her dying grandmother and, shortly after, her very sick mother. When she was 19 years old, Rosa married a barber called Raymond Parks, who encouraged her to return to high school to earn her diploma (an education certificate). And that's just what she did, before beginning work as a seamstress in Montgomery.

Racial segregation

Life for African Americans like Rosa was hard. At the time, the Southern United States operated under the ' Jim Crow laws' - a set of laws introduced in the late 19th century that claimed to give African Americans " separate but equal " status and treatment. But, in truth, there was no 'equality' whatsoever.

Created by white authorities who thought black people's lives didn't matter as much as theirs, these laws enforced racial segregation and allowed for discrimination against African Americans - referred to at that time as "colored" people.

The Jim Crow laws were introduced in different ways from state to state, but there was one common goal - to make sure black citizens and white citizens led very separate lives.

Among other things, they had separate schools, churches, libraries, restaurants, toilets, drinking fountains and waiting rooms. In some areas, there were laws banning black people from sports events and even forbidding them to work in the same office as a white person.

African Americans had far fewer rights, too. Racist laws known as ' Black Codes ' restricted them to low-paying jobs and made it incredibly difficult for them to vote. These laws also meant black people could be arrested for small things.

What did Rosa Parks do?

In the face of such racism, Rosa decided to make a stand for what was right. Together with her husband Raymond, she joined the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP), working towards putting an end to discrimination and segregation.

But it was on the 1 December 1955 that Rosa truly sparked change. After a long day at work, Rosa boarded the bus home and took a seat. At that time in Montgomery, seats at the front of buses were reserved for white passengers, and the seats at the back for black passengers.

The bus quickly filled up and when a white man boarded, the driver told the African American passengers to give up their seats for him. Whilst the other black passengers obeyed, Rosa did not. The result? Rosa was arrested by the police and fined for breaking segregation laws! But Rosa refused to pay, and argued that it was the law that was wrong, not her behaviour.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott

On news of Rosa's arrest, the black citizens of Montgomery came together and agreed to boycott the city's buses in protest. This meant that from 5 December 1955 (the date of Rosa's trial), African Americans refused to travel on buses. The boycott was managed by an organisation called the Montgomery Improvement Association, for which Dr Martin Luther King Jr was elected as leader.

The protest proved super effective, with more black people participating than had been expected. And since African Americans made up around 70% of bus users, the city's transport services made far less money and began to struggle. But it wasn't an easy protest for the black citizens. Many of them didn't own cars, and so they had to carpool together or walk long distances to get where they needed to go. What's more, the boycott was received with anger by members of the white population, who responded with aggressive and dangerous acts of violence.

Nevertheless, the protesters stuck together and fought for their cause - and on 13 November 1956 their efforts were finally rewarded. After 381 days of boycotting the buses, the Supreme Court ruled that Alabama's racial segregation laws were 'unconstitutional' - meaning they weren't valid and should not be recognised. In light of such a wonderful victory, Rosa became known as "the mother of the civil rights movement".

Rosa Parks' legacy

Sadly, despite the victory, life wasn't easy for Rosa and her fellow activists after the boycott. Faced with continued violence and threats by angry white groups, Rosa and Raymond moved to Detroit (a city in the northern US state of Michigan), to live with Rosa's brother.

There she continued to promote civil rights and help those suffering from discrimination and injustice. She continued to support the NAACP and many civil rights events, and in 1987 she co-founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development to provide career training for young people in Detroit.

Rosa received numerous awards for her strength, courage and her incredible work for civil rights - including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1999.

When did Rosa Parks die?

Rosa died of natural causes on 24 October 2005 at the age of 92. But she continues to be recognised all over the world as a symbol of freedom and equality. Today, commemorative statues stand (or 'sit' we should say!) in her honour, to remind us of her remarkable achievements that should never be forgotten.

What do you think of our Rosa Parks facts? Leave a comment below and let us know!

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Rosa Parks facts for kids | National Geographic Kids

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Learn all about the African American civil rights activist who fought for equality and freedom in the USA in our Rosa Parks facts...

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Not ready to purchase a subscription? Click to download the free sample version Download sample

Rosa Parks was an activist in the African-American Civil Rights Movement, who became famous when on December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, she refused to obey bus driver James F. Blake's order that she give up her seat in the colored section to a white passenger, after the white section was filled.
See the fact file below for more facts and information on Rosa Parks or download the double bundle worksheet collection which includes over 30 worksheets to utilise within the classroom or home environment.
Quick Facts:

Name
Rosa Louise McCauley

Date of Birth
February 4, 1913

Date of Death
October 24, 2005

Place of Birth
Tuskegee, Alabama

Birth Family
James McCauley and Leona Edwards

Marriage/Spouse
Raymond Parks

Education
Montgomery Industrial School for Girls, al-African American Booker T. Washington High School and attended Alabama state College for a short time

Career
Seamstress, Civil Rights Activist, Writer

Reason for Fame
Most historians date the beginning of the civil rights movement in the United States to December 1, 1955. On that day, Rosa Parks, refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama. She was arrested and fined for violating a city ordinance, but her act of defiance began a movement that ended legal segregation in America, and made her an inspiration to freedom-loving people everywhere. Rosa Parks is called the Mother of the modern-day Civil Rights Movement

Additional Information
Rosa Parks received many awards and honors which included the Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal. She was awarded two dozen honorary doctorates from universities world wide.

Further Facts:

Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (1903-2005) was an African American civil rights activist and seamstress whom the U.S. Congress dubbed as the "Mother of the Modern-day Civil Rights Movement."

She was born on February 4, 1913, and grew up in the southern United States in Alabama. Her mother was a teacher and her father was a carpenter. She had a younger brother named Sylvester.

After finishing her elementary school at Pine Level, she attended the Montgomery Industrial School for Girls. She then attended the Alabama State Teacher's College to try and get her high school diploma. But her education was cut short because she had to take care of her sick mother.

Few years later, she met Raymond Parks and married in the year 1932. She then worked part-time jobs and went back to school, finally earning her high school diploma.

Growing up witnessing the racism in the south, Rosa and her husband Raymond wanted to do something about it. So they joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Rosa saw the opportunity to make a difference when the Freedom bus arrived in Montgomery. The train, according to the Supreme Court, was supposed to be unsegregated, so she led a group of African-American students to ride the train. Their group lined up in the same line as the white students. Some people in Montgomery didn't approve of this. Rosa wanted to show that all people should be given the same equal treatment.

On December 1, 1955, after a hard day's work, Rosa settled on her seat on the bus. All seats on the bus had filled up when a white man boarded. The bus driver asked Rosa and some other African-Americans to give up their seats but Rosa refused, and for that she was arrested.

Rosa was charged with breaking a segregation law and was told to pay a fine of $10. Refusing to pay, saying she was not guilty and that the law was illegal, Rosa took her case to the high court.

That night, a number of African-American leaders including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. decided to boycott the city buses and continued on for 381 days. Finally, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the segregation laws in Alabama were unconstitutional.

Rosa received many threats and feared for her life. Many civil rights leaders' houses were bombed, including MLK Jr.'s, so in 1957, Raymond and Rosa moved to Detroit, Michigan.

There, she continued to attend civil rights meetings and became a symbol to many African-Americans of the fight for equal rights. On October 24, 2005, at the age of 92, she quietly died in her apartment in Detroit.

Today, she remains a symbol of freedom and equality to many.

Rosa Parks Worksheets

This is a double bundle addition which includes over 30 ready-to-use Rosa Parks worksheets which are perfect for students to learn about Rosa Parks who was an activist in the African-American Civil Rights Movement.

Rosa Parks Facts

Rosa Parks Timeline

News Report

The Bus Effect

What If?

The Legacy

Rosa Parks Song I

Rosa Parks Song II

Googling Rosa Parks

The Inspiring Rosa Parks

Past and Present

Rosa Parks Facts

Rosa Parks Word Search

Rosa Parks Fact File

Passenger in the Bus

Montgomery Bus Boycott

Courageous Rosa

King and Parks

Dear Rosa...

Past and Present

What If?

Just Like Rosa...

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Use With Any Curriculum
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Rosa Parks Facts, Worksheets, Information & Biography For Kids

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Not ready to purchase a subscription? Click to download the free sample version Download sample Rosa Parks was an activist in the African-American Civil Rights Movement, who became famous when on December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, she refused to obey bus driver James F.

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Kids learn about the biography of Rosa Parks, civil rights activist who refused to give up her seat on the bus.

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Who Is Derek Jeter?

Derek Jeter was born on June 26, 1974, in Pequannock, New Jersey. He was drafted by the Yankees in 1992. During 1996, his first full season in the majors, his performance helped the Yankees win the World Series against the Braves. Since then, he's seen four more Yankees World Series wins in 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2009. Jeter is the all-time Yankees hit leader and was named team captain in 2003. When he officially retired in 2014, he ranked sixth in MLB history with 3,465 hits.

Early Life and Career

Derek Sanderson Jeter was born on June 26, 1974, in Pequannock, New Jersey. The elder of two children of Dorothy, an accountant, and Charles, a substance-abuse counselor, he moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan, at age 4 so his father could pursue a Ph.D. in psychology from Western Michigan University.

Lanky and athletic, Jeter was talented enough to play basketball at Kalamazoo Central High School, but he was determined to become a Major League Baseball player -- specifically, the starting shortstop for the New York Yankees. He batted over .500 in his final two years of high school baseball, striking out just once as a senior. Jeter won several national sports awards, including being named the American High School Coaches Association's 1992 "High School Player of the Year," the 1992 "Gatorade High School Athlete of the Year" and USA Today's "High School Player of the Year."

Career with the New York Yankees

Following his graduation, Jeter was selected by the Yankees with the sixth overall pick in the June 1992 draft. He also enrolled at the University of Michigan, but his time on campus was brief as he rapidly ascended the ranks of the Yankees' farm system. After batting .344 with 50 stolen bases in 1994, he was selected as "Minor League Player of the Year" by several publications, including The Sporting News and Baseball America.

In 1995, Derek Jeter realized his dream when Yankees shortstop Tony Fernandez was put on the disabled list. Jeter made his big league debut on May 29 of that year, playing against the Seattle Mariners. The following year, in his first full season as a Major League Baseball player, he batted .314 with 10 home runs. The skilled shortstop also performed well in the infield and helped the Yankees win the World Series against the Atlanta Braves. Jeter won the 1996 American League Rookie of the Year Award for his performance that season.

Jeter developed into one of baseball's top all-around players and the lynchpin of a perennially dominant Yankees team. He earned his first of 14 All-Star selections in 1998, a season that ended with the first of three straight world championships for the Bronx Bombers. He led the majors in hits and tallied career highs in home runs and RBIs in 1999, and in 2000 he became the first player to be named the All-Star Game and World Series MVP in the same season.

Known for his patented "inside-out" swing and acrobatic jump-throws, Jeter developed a reputation as a player who thrived in pressure-packed moments. In perhaps the most famous play of his career, he ran down an errant throw from the outfield and delivered "The Flip" to home plate to record an important out against the Oakland A's in the 2001 playoffs. A few weeks later, he blasted a 10th-inning home run to beat the Arizona Diamondbacks in Game 4 of the World Series. His winning style earned the respect and admiration of coaches, sports commentators, peers and fans, and he was named team captain in 2003.

Jeter suffered his first major injury that season when a collision left him with a separated shoulder, but he was as good as ever after returning. He won the first of five gold glove awards for fielding excellence in 2004, and in 2006 he finished second in the voting for the league MVP award.

In September 2009, Jeter passed Lou Gehrig with his 2,722nd hit -- the most in franchise history -- before earning his fifth world championship ring at the end of the season. In July 2011, he homered to become the 28th player in history to reach 3,000 career hits.

Limited to just 17 games in 2013 due to a lingering ankle injury, Jeter announced he would be retiring after the 2014 season, his 20th in the majors. Although his numbers were well below his usual lofty standards, "The Captain" proved he could still rise to the occasion for big moments. He started a rally for the American League with a leadoff double in the All-Star Game, and knocked home the game-winning run in his final at-bat at Yankee Stadium in September. In addition to his five world championships, Jeter finished with an impressive .310 lifetime batting average, and his 3,465 hits ranked sixth in big league history.

"The thing that means the most to me is being remembered as a Yankee," he said. "I have to thank the Steinbrenner family for giving me the opportunity to live my dream."

Life Off the Field

Off the field, Derek Jeter has garnered attention for his quiet confidence and good looks. He has been romantically linked to several high-profile women, including pop singer Mariah Carey and actress Minka Kelly. Along with appearing in numerous commercials, he signed a deal with Avon Products, Inc., in 2006 to create a fragrance for men called Driven.

Jeter has also used his celebrity and his prominent position as a sports star to help children. In 1996, he established the Turn 2 Foundation to encourage young people to be healthy and academically successful, to become leaders, and to stay away from drugs and alcohol. The foundation supports and creates programs to achieve these goals.

Just days after his retirement, Jeter announced plans to launch a website called "The Players' Tribune." He explained that the site would a platform for professional athletes to "connect directly with our fans, with no filter," through first-person articles, podcasts and video clips.

In October 2015, Jeter proposed to his girlfriend Hannah Davis. The couple tied the knot in July 2016. Their first child, daughter Bella Raine Jeter, was born on August 17, 2017.

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Fact Check

We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us!

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Derek Jeter was born on June 26, 1974, in Pequannock, New Jersey. He was drafted by the Yankees in 1992. During 1996, his first full season in the majors, his performance helped the Yankees win the World Series against the Braves. Since then, he's seen four more Yankees World Series wins in 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2009.

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Kids learn about the biography of Sally Ride, the first American woman astronaut in outer space. The Space Shuttle Challenger.

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Sally Ride was the first American woman to fly in the space. Her complete name was Sally Kristen Ride. She was born on May 26, 1951, in Encino, California. She initially wanted to become a professional tennis player. Sally enrolled at Stanford University in California and earned her bachelor's degrees in Physics and English.

Then she went on to earn a master and a Ph.D. in physics, specifically in astrophysics. She was hired as an astronaut by NASA in 1977. Two years later, she became qualified to be an astronaut on the Space Shuttle Challenger.
Quick Facts: -

Sally became the first American woman and also the youngest American in space on June 18, 1983.

She worked as the mission specialist and helped deploy satellites. Her job was also to work the robotic arm.

She went into space again in 1984 on the 13th Space Shuttle flight mission STS 41-G.

Sally Ride was asked twice to serve as NASA's Head Administrator by President Bill Clinton but she turned down.

She stopped working for NASA in 1987 and started teaching at the University of California.

She also became the director of the California Space Institute at the University of California.

Sally K Ride Impact Site is a spot on the Moon which is named after her.

She received the Jefferson Award for Public Service, the von Braun Award, and the Theodore Roosevelt Award, NASA Space Flight Medal.

Sally was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame and the Astronaut Hall of Fame.

Sally flew on the space shuttle Challenger twice. She was one of the seven crew members.

She also has two elementary schools in the United States named after Sally Ride.

Sally Died on July 23, 2012, because of pancreatic cancer.

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Sally Ride was the first American woman to fly in the space. Her complete name was Sally Kristen Ride. She was born on May 26, 1951, in Encino, California. She initially wanted to become a professional tennis player. Sally enrolled at Stanford University in California and earned her bachelor's degrees in Physics and English.

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Sally Ride was a U.S. astronaut. In 1983 she became the first U.S. woman to travel into outer space. Early Life and Education Sally Kristen Ride was born on May 26, 1951, in...

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Ducksters

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Kids learn about the biography of Oprah Winfrey including her childhood, early career as a news anchor, becoming famous as a talk show host, and her work as an actress.

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Oprah Gail Winfrey ( born Orpah Gail Winfrey; January 29, 1954) is an American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and media proprietor. She is best known for her talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, broadcast from Chicago, which ran in national syndication for 25 years, from 1986 to 2011. Dubbed the "Queen of All Media", she was the richest African-American of the 20th century. She was once the world's only black billionaire. By 2007, she was often ranked as the most influential woman in the world.

Orpah Gail Winfrey was born on January 29, 1954, in Kosciusko, Mississippi, to an unmarried teenage mother. Her mother, Vernita Lee (1935-2018), was a housemaid.

Winfrey's biological father is usually noted as Vernon Winfrey (c. 1933-2022), a coal miner turned barber turned city councilman who was in the Armed Forces when she was born. However, Mississippi farmer and World War II Veteran Noah Robinson Sr. (born c. 1925) has claimed to be her biological father.

After Winfrey's birth, her mother traveled north, and Winfrey spent her first six years living in rural poverty with her maternal grandmother, Hattie Mae (Presley) Lee (April 15, 1900 - February 27, 1963). Her grandmother was so poor that Winfrey often wore dresses made of potato sacks, for which other children made fun of her.

At age six, Winfrey moved to an inner-city neighborhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with her mother. At the age of eight, she was baptized in a Baptist church. In 1962, Winfrey was temporarily sent to live with her father Vernon in Nashville, Tennessee, as her mother had to work a lot and could not care of Oprah and her other kids well enough.

Winfrey attended Lincoln High School in Milwaukee. When she got successful in the Upward Bound program, she was transferred to the affluent suburban Nicolet High School. At this time, Winfrey was continually reminded of her poverty as she rode the bus to school with fellow African-Americans, some of whom were servants of her classmates' families.

She began to rebel and steal money from her mother in an effort to keep up with her free-spending peers. As a result, her mother once again sent her to live with Vernon in Nashville, although this time she did not take her back. Vernon was strict but encouraging, and made her education a priority. Winfrey became an honors student, was voted Most Popular Girl, and joined her high school speech team at East Nashville High School, placing second in the nation in dramatic interpretation.

She had won an oratory contest and got a full scholarship to Tennessee State University, a historically black institution. She studied communication. However, she did not deliver her final paper and receive her degree until 1987, by which time she was a successful television personality.

The first episode The Oprah Winfrey Show was broadcast nationwide on September 8, 1986 and displaced Donahue as the number-one daytime talk show in America.

In the early years of The Oprah Winfrey Show, the program was classified as a tabloid talk show. In the mid-1990s, Winfrey began to host shows on broader topics such as heart disease, geopolitics, spirituality, and meditation. She interviewed celebrities on social issues they were directly involved with, such as cancer, charity work, or personal struggles, and hosted televised giveaways.

The viewership for The Oprah Winfrey Show was highest during the 1991-92 season, when about 13.1 million U.S. viewers were watching each day. By 2003, ratings declined to 7.4 million daily viewers. Ratings briefly rebounded to approximately 9 million in 2005 and then declined again to around 7.3 million viewers in 2008, though it remained the highest rated talk show.

In 2008, Winfrey's show was airing in 140 countries internationally and seen by an estimated 46 million people in the US weekly. According to the Harris poll, Winfrey was America's favorite television personality in 1998, 2000, 2002-06, and 2009. Winfrey was especially popular among women, Democrats, political moderates, Baby Boomers, Generation X, Southern Americans, and East Coast Americans.

The series finale of The Oprah Winfrey Show aired on May 25, 2011.

Other ventures

In addition to her talk show, Winfrey also produced and co-starred in the drama miniseries The Women of Brewster Place (1989) and its short-lived spin-off, Brewster Place. As well as hosting and appearing on television shows, Winfrey co-founded the women's cable television network Oxygen which was the initial network for her Oprah After the Show program from 2002 to 2006 before moving to Oprah.com when Winfrey sold her stake in the network. She is also the president of Harpo Productions ( Oprah spelled backwards), a film and TV production company behind The Oprah Winfrey Show, Dr. Phil, Rachael Ray, The Dr. Oz Show and many others. She also moderated three ABC Afterschool Special s from 1992 to 1994.

On January 15, 2008, Winfrey and Discovery Communications announced plans to change Discovery Health Channel into a new channel called OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network. It was scheduled to launch in 2009 but was delayed, and actually launched on January 1, 2011.

In January 2017, CBS announced that Winfrey would join as a special contributor on the Sunday evening news magazine program starting in September 2017. Winfrey left 60 Minutes by the end of 2018.

In June 2018, Apple announced a multi-year content partnership with Winfrey, in which it was agreed that Winfrey would create new original programs exclusively for Apple's streaming service, Apple TV+. The first show under the deal, Oprah's Book Club, premiered on November 1, 2019. Oprah's Book Club is based on the segment of the same name from The Oprah Winfrey Show. The second show under the deal, Oprah Talks COVID-19, debuted on March 21, 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. A third show, The Oprah Conversation debuted on July 30, 2020, with Winfrey "[continuing] to explore impactful and relevant topics with fascinating thought leaders from all over the world".

"The Oprah Effect"

The power of Winfrey's opinions and endorsement to influence public opinion, especially consumer purchasing choices, has been dubbed "the Oprah Effect". The effect has been documented or alleged in domains as diverse as book sales, beef markets, and election voting. Late in 1996, Winfrey introduced the Oprah's Book Club segment to her television show. The segment focused on new books and classics and often brought obscure novels to popular attention. The book club became such a powerful force that whenever Winfrey introduced a new book as her book-club selection, it instantly became a best-seller; for example, when she selected the classic John Steinbeck novel East of Eden, it soared to the top of the book charts. Being recognized by Winfrey often means a million additional book sales for an author.

Personal life

At 13, Winfrey ran away from home. When she was 14, she became pregnant, but her son was born prematurely and died shortly after birth.

In the 1970s, Winfrey had a romantic relationship with John Tesh. In the mid-1980s, Winfrey briefly dated movie critic Roger Ebert.

Winfrey and her partner Stedman Graham have been together since 1986. They were engaged to be married in November 1992, but the ceremony never took place.

Close friends

Winfrey's best friend since their early twenties is Gayle King. King was formerly the host of The Gayle King Show and is currently an editor of O, the Oprah Magazine.

Winfrey has also had a long friendship with Maria Shriver, after they met in Baltimore. Winfrey considered Maya Angelou, author of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, her mentor and close friend; she called Angelou her "mother-sister-friend". Winfrey hosted a week-long Caribbean cruise for Angelou and 150 guests for Angelou's 70th birthday in 1998, and in 2008, threw her "an extravagant 80th birthday celebration" at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.

Personal wealth

Winfrey became a millionaire at the age of 32 when her talk show received national syndication. Winfrey negotiated ownership rights to the television program and started her own production company.

At the age of 41, Winfrey had a net worth of $340 million and replaced Bill Cosby as the only African American on the Forbes 400. By 2000, with a net worth of $800 million, Winfrey is believed to have been the richest African American of the 20th century. By 2008, her yearly income had increased to $275 million.

Forbes' list of The World's Billionaires has listed Winfrey as the world's only black billionaire from 2004 to 2006 and as the first black woman billionaire in the world that was achieved in 2003. As of 2014, Winfrey had a net worth in excess of 2.9 billion dollars and had overtaken former eBay CEO Meg Whitman as the richest self-made woman in America.

Religious views

Oprah was raised a Baptist. Oprah has stated that she is a Christian and her favorite Bible verse is Acts 17:28. Oprah attends The Potter's House Church, Dallas service, an Evangelical church.

Philanthropy

In 2004, Winfrey became the first black person to rank among the 50 most generous Americans and she remained among the top 50 until 2010. By 2012, she had given away about $400 million to educational causes.

As of 2012, Winfrey had also given over 400 scholarships to Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. Winfrey was the recipient of the first Bob Hope Humanitarian Award at the 2002 Emmy Awards for services to television and film. To celebrate two decades on national TV, and to thank her employees for their hard work, Winfrey took her staff and their families (1,065 people in total) on vacation to Hawaii in the summer of 2006.

In 2013, Winfrey donated $12 million to the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture. President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom later that same year.

In 1998, Winfrey created the Oprah's Angel Network, a charity that supported charitable projects and provided grants to nonprofit organizations around the world. Oprah's Angel Network raised more than $80 million ($1 million of which was donated by Jon Bon Jovi). Winfrey personally covered all administrative costs associated with the charity, so 100% of all funds raised went to charity programs. In May 2010, with Oprah's show ending, the charity stopped accepting donations and was shut down.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Oprah created the Oprah Angel Network Katrina registry which raised more than $11 million for relief efforts. Winfrey personally gave $10 million to the cause. Homes were built in Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama before the one-year anniversary of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Interesting facts about Oprah Winfrey

Her first name was spelled Orpah on her birth certificate after the biblical figure in the Book of Ruth, but people mispronounced it regularly and "Oprah" stuck.

Winfrey's grandmother, Hattie Mae, taught her to read before the age of three and took her to the local church, where she was nicknamed "The Preacher" for her ability to recite Bible verses.

Winfrey acknowledged her grandmother's influence, saying it was Hattie Mae who had encouraged her to speak in public and "gave me a positive sense of myself".

As a child, she played games interviewing her corncob doll and the crows on the fence of her family's property.

A genetic test in 2006 determined that her matrilineal line originated among the Kpelle ethnic group, in the area that today is Liberia. Her genetic makeup was determined to be 89% Sub-Saharan African, 8% Native American, and 3% East Asian.

Winfrey had three younger half-siblings: half-sister Patricia (died in February 2003 at age 43), another half-sister named Patricia (she was put up for adoption) and half-brother Jeffrey, who died of AIDS-related causes in 1989.

Winfrey's first job as a teenager was working at a local grocery store.

At the age of 17, Winfrey won the Miss Black Tennessee beauty pageant.

Winfrey started her career in media as a newscaster at a local black radio station, WVOL, in Nashville, Tennessee.

Winfrey co-starred in Steven Spielberg's The Color Purple (1985), as distraught housewife Sofia. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.

In 1989, she was accepted into the NAACP Image Award Hall of Fame.

In the 2008 presidential race, Winfrey endorsed Barack Obama.

The National Museum of African American History and Culture in 2018 opened a special exhibit on Winfrey's cultural influence through television.

Her 1993 interview with Michael Jackson became the fourth most-watched event in American television history as well as the most watched interview ever, with an audience of 36.5 million.

In 2021, she conducted an interview with Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and her husband Prince Harry, which was broadcast globally and received international media attention.

Winfrey has co-authored five books.

She publishes the magazine: O, The Oprah Magazine and from 2004 to 2008 also published a magazine called O At Home.

Winfrey's company created the Oprah.com website to provide resources and interactive content related to her shows, magazines, book club, and public charity. Oprah.com averages more than 70 million page views and more than six million users per month, and receives approximately 20,000 e-mails each week.

Oprah is often listed among the most influential and powerful people in the world.

The Wall Street Journal coined the term "Oprahfication", meaning public confession as a form of therapy.

Oprah Winfrey quotes

"Turn your wounds into wisdom."

"You can have it all. Just not all at once."

"Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough."

"The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams."

"Surround yourself only with people who are going to take you higher."

"You get in life what you have the courage to ask for."

"You don't become what you want, you become what you believe."

Images for kids

Winfrey speaking at Moore's inauguration, 2023

Winfrey filming in Denmark in 2009

Filmography

1985
The Color Purple
Sofia

Nominated - Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Nominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture
Nominated - Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress

There Are No Children Here
LaJoe Rivers

TV movie (ABC)

1998
Beloved
Sethe

Producer;
Nominated - NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture

1999
Our Friend, Martin Coretta Scott King
Voice role; Direct-to-video film

2013
The Butler
Gloria Gaines

African-American Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress;
Santa Barbara International Film Festival - Montecito Award;
Nominated - BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role;
Nominated - Black Reel Award for Best Supporting Actress;
Nominated - Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress;
Nominated - Denver Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actress;
Nominated - NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture;
Nominated - Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actress;
Nominated - Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture;
Nominated - Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role;
Nominated - Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture

2014
Selma Annie Lee Cooper
Producer;
Women Film Critics Circle Award for Best Female Action Star;
Nominated - Academy Award for Best Picture;
Nominated - Independent Spirit Award for Best Film;
Nominated - NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture

2017
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Deborah Lacks
TV movie; Executive producer;
Nominated - NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special;
Nominated - Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Television Movie

Crow: The Legend
The One Who Creates Everything by Thinking

Voice role

As producer only

1989 - The Oprah Winfrey Show (supervising producer - 8 episodes, 1989-2011)

1989 - The Women of Brewster Place (TV miniseries) (executive producer)

1992 - Nine (TV documentary) (executive producer)

1992 - Overexposed (TV movie) (executive producer)

1993 - ABC Afterschool Special (TV series) (producer - 1 episode "Shades of a Single Protein") (producer)

1993 - Michael Jackson Talks to... Oprah Live (TV special) (executive producer)

1997 - Before Women Had Wings (TV movie) (producer)

1998 - The Wedding (TV miniseries) (executive producer)

1998 - Beloved (producer)

1998 - David and Lisa (TV movie) (executive producer)

1999 - Tuesdays with Morrie (TV movie) (executive producer)

2001 - Amy & Isabelle (TV movie) (executive producer, producer)

2002 - Oprah After the Show (TV series) (executive producer)

2005 - Their Eyes Were Watching God (TV movie) (executive producer)

2006 - Legends Ball (TV documentary) (executive producer)

2007 - Oprah's Big Give (TV series) (executive producer)

2007 - The Oprah Winfrey Oscar Special (TV movie) (executive producer)

2007 - Building a Dream: The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy (TV documentary) (executive producer)

2007 - Oprah Winfrey Presents: Mitch Albom's For One More Day (TV movie) (executive producer)

2007 - The Great Debaters (producer)

2009 - The Dr. Oz Show (TV series) (executive producer)

2009 - Precious (executive producer)

2009 - Christmas at the White House: An Oprah Primetime Special (TV special) (executive producer)

2010 - The Oprah Winfrey Oscar Special (TV movie) (executive producer)

2011 - Your OWN Show (TV series) (executive producer)

2011 - Extraordinary Mom (TV documentary) (executive producer)

2011 - Serving Life (TV documentary) (executive producer)

2014 - The Hundred-Foot Journey (producer)

2014 - Selma (producer)

2016-present - Queen Sugar (co-creator and executive producer)

2016-2020 - Greenleaf (executive producer)

2017 - The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (TV movie) (executive producer)

2018 - Love Is (executive producer)

2019 - When They See Us (executive producer)

2019 - Oprah Winfrey Presents: After Neverland (executive producer)

2019 - David Makes Man (executive producer)

2020 - The Water Man (executive producer)

2023 - The Color Purple (producer)

In Spanish: Oprah Winfrey para niños

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Oprah Winfrey is best known for hosting her own internationally popular talk show from 1986 to 2011. She has a nickname 'Queen of Media'. Her real name is Orpah Gail Winfrey but people kept mispronouncing it and the name Oprah stuck. She was born on January 29, 1954 to an unwed teen in Kosciusko, Mississippi.

As a child she was able to recite bible verses as her grandmother often took her to the church. She won the Miss Black Tennessee beauty pageant when she was 17 years old.
Facts you didn't know: -

Winfrey has interviewed countless celebrities. Michael Jackson's interview became the fourth most watched interview of all time.

She had a son when she was only 14 years old but he died in his infancy.

Oprah Winfrey lent her voice for many cartoon characters.

She popularized the intimate, confessional form of talk show.

She is first black women billionaire and referred to as the most influential woman in the world.

President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013.

She has her own production company called Harpo. It is Oprah spelled backwards.

Winfrey has appeared in a number of movies and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in 'The Color Purple'.

North America has only one black billionaire, Oprah Winfrey.

She launched OWN, The Oprah Winfrey Network in 2011.

She is the first African-American star to be on the cover of Vogue.

In 2011, she received an honorary Oscar for her philanthropic efforts.

She taught the dynamics of leadership at Northwestern University in 1999 and 2000.

She is a dog lover and has five dogs.

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Oprah Winfrey is best known for hosting her own internationally popular talk show from 1986 to 2011. She has a nickname 'Queen of Media'. Her real name is Orpah Gail Winfrey but people kept mispronouncing it and the name Oprah stuck. She was born on January 29, 1954 to an unwed teen in Kosciusko, Mississippi.

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Fun Facts about Oprah Winfrey for Kids
Discover fast, interesting fun facts on Oprah Winfrey for kids with some amazing, cool and quick information about this fabulous American woman who is an inspiration to us all. Having faced many difficult experiences, especially during her childhood, she is able to share her strength and positively influence people around the world.

Find out when and how Oprah Winfrey first became involved in television and how she became the richest African American in the 20th Century and the most long-standing talk show host in the history of American television. Our facts encourage children to learn important information and details about some of the most famous and influential people.

Fact Sheet about Oprah Winfrey
Facts about Oprah Winfrey for kids

Fun Fact 1
Oprah Winfrey was born on January 29th, 1954 in Kosciusko, Mississippi in the United States of America. Her middle name is Gail.

Fun Fact 2
Oprah Winfrey is famously known as a talk show host. She is also an actress, producer and philanthropist. A philanthropist is a person who donates their time or money to charitable causes.

Fun Fact 3
The most famous and well-known talk show hosted by Oprah is called 'The Oprah Winfrey Show'. This is an American talk show which was aired from 1986 to 2011 and is currently the highest rated talk show in American history.

Fun Fact 4
Oprah Winfrey produced and hosted her own show for twenty-five seasons. She is one of the longest standing talk show hosts in the history of television.

Fun Fact 5
Oprah Winfrey has impacted the lives of many through her talk shows. She has helped to inspire positivity and spirituality which has influenced the lives of many.

Fun Fact 6
Oprah Winfrey is a highly successful African American woman, she is a billionaire and has been ranked the richest African American of the 20th century.

Fun Fact 7
Oprah Winfrey has been credited many awards for her outstanding achievements. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom which is an award bestowed by the United States President. The award is only given to individuals who are recognized for making 'an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.' The award was presented to her by Barack Obama.

Fun Fact 8
Oprah Winfrey had a difficult childhood. She came from a single parent family and was raised in poverty. Her life began in a rural part of America before later moving to Milwaukee, an inner-city neighborhood.

Fun Fact 9
Despite the hardships she faced as a child, Oprah Winfrey didn't allow this to deter her. She began a job in radio whilst she was still in high school. She also started co-anchoring the evening news when she was nineteen years old for her local area.

Fun Fact 10
Oprah Winfrey's was actually named Orpah at birth, however, because people commonly pronounced her name incorrectly, and in view of this, the name Oprah, as she is famously known as now, stayed with her!

Fun Fact 11
Oprah Winfrey was raised by her grandmother for the first six years of her life. Her grandmother taught her to read when she was very young.

Fun Fact 12
Oprah Winfrey ran away from home when she was thirteen to try to escape the difficulties she had to endure at home. From the age of six, she had lived with her mother on and off, and she had suffered abuse at the hands of some family members.

Fun Fact 13
Vernon Winfrey influenced Oprah's life, he was strict and believed that her education was a priority. He was encouraging when she came to live with him as a teenager.

Fun Fact 14
Oprah Winfrey became an honors student. She received a full scholarship to Tennessee State University where she studied communication.

Fun Fact 15
Oprah Winfrey has also appeared in various movies. She played Sofia in a movie called 'The Color Purple'. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.

Fact Sheet about Oprah Winfrey
Facts about Oprah Winfrey for kids

Fun Facts about Oprah Winfrey - Watch the Video!

Fun facts about Oprah Winfrey for kids - Fact File - Fact Sheet - Funny Facts - Kids - Famous Black African American - Movies - List - Films - Actor - News - Life - Age - Awards - Black Actress - Interesting Facts - Random - Weird - Crazy - Cool Facts - Amazing Facts - Fast - Children - School - Teachers - Homework - Fast - Strange - Odd - Real - Info - Information - Help - Guide - File - Sheet - Picture - Pic - Image - Photo - Free - Video - Facts about Oprah Winfrey

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Fun Facts about Oprah Winfrey for kids ***

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Fun Facts about Oprah Winfrey for Kids Discover fast, interesting fun facts on Oprah Winfrey for kids with some amazing, cool and quick information about this fabulous American woman who is an inspiration to us all. Having faced many difficult experiences, especially during her childhood, she is able to share her strength and positively influence people around the world.

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Kids learn about the biography of Amelia Earhart, aviator and first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

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Amelia Mary Earhart (born July 24, 1897; disappeared July 2, 1937) was an American aviation pioneer and author.

Earhart was the first female aviator (pilot) to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She set many other records, wrote best-selling books about her flying experiences, and played a large part in the formation of The Ninety-Nines, an organization for female pilots.

Born in Atchison, Kansas, Earhart developed a passion for adventure at a young age, steadily gaining flying experience from her twenties. In 1928, Earhart became the first female passenger to cross the Atlantic by airplane accompanying pilot Wilmer Stultz. This is part of what made her famous.

In 1932, piloting a Lockheed Vega 5B, Earhart made a nonstop solo transatlantic flight, becoming the first woman to achieve such a feat. She received the United States Distinguished Flying Cross for this accomplishment.

In 1935, Earhart became a visiting faculty member at Purdue University as an advisor to Purdue University School of aeronautical engineering and a career counselor to women students. She was also a member of the National Woman's Party and an early supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment.

During an attempt to make a circumnavigational flight of the globe in 1937 in a Purdue-funded Lockheed Model 10-E Electra, Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared over the central Pacific Ocean near Howland Island. She was declared dead on January 5, 1939.

Background

Amelia Earhart's parents encouraged her from a young age to participate in activities usually left to boys, such as football, baseball, and fishing in her hometown of Atchison, Kansas. Receiving their encouragement, watching numerous air shows in Los Angeles, and paying a pilot a dollar for a 10-minute airplane ride all contributed to her decision to become a pilot and join this mainly male field. After her first ride, she wrote, "By the time I had gotten two or three hundred feet off the ground, I knew I had to fly."

From 1921 to 1922, Earhart was taught to fly by Neta Snook, the first woman to graduate from the Curtis School of Aviation. In October 1922, Earhart received her pilot's license from the Federation Aeronatique Internationale. Soon after, on October 22, 1922, Earhart set a women's altitude record of 14,000 feet (4,200 meters) in a Kinner Canary, an open-cockpit, single-engine biplane.

Charles Lindbergh made his record-setting solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean in 1927. One of the people inspired by his feat was flying enthusiast Amy Guest, who hoped to be the first woman to cross the Atlantic. She purchased a plane but her family stopped the trip.

Earhart went in her place and became the first female to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Leaving Newfoundland, Canada, on June 4, 1928, Earhart joined Wilmer L. Stutz and Louis E. Gordon in their bright red Fokker F.VII named the Friendship on their 2,000-mile (3,219-kilometer) trip to Wales. Earhart had no part in piloting the plane during the 20-hour, 40-minute trip and was, in her words, "just baggage," making her even more eager to cross the Atlantic on her own.

In 1929, Earhart co-founded an organization whose goal was to advance women's participation and opportunities in aviation. Called the Ninety-Nines, the organization was composed of 99 charter members, representing 99 of the 117 licensed women pilots in the United States at the time.

Earhart continued setting records. On July 6, 1930, she set a woman's speed record of 181 miles per hour (291 kilometers per hour), in a Lockheed Vega, a single-engine monoplane. On April 8, 1931, she set an autogiro (similar to a helicopter) altitude record of 18,451 feet (5,623.8 meters).

First solo Atlantic flight

On May 20-21, 1932, Earhart accomplished her goal of flying solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She took off from Newfoundland, Canada, at 7:12 p.m. on May 20, in her Lockheed Vega. Her flight was filled with dangers, from rapidly changing weather, to a broken altimeter (so she could not tell how high she was flying), to gasoline leaking into the cockpit. At one point her plane dropped almost 3,000 feet (914 meters) and went into a spin (which she managed to pull out of) and flames were shooting out of the exhaust manifold.

She brought her plane down on the coast of Ireland after a harrowing trip that lasted 15 hours, 18 minutes. The flight was the second solo flight across the Atlantic and the longest nonstop flight by a woman-2,026 miles (3,261 kilometers)--as well as the first flight across the Atlantic by a woman.

President Herbert Hoover awarded her the National Geographic Society Medal on June 21, 1932, for her achievement, and the U.S. Congress awarded her the Distinguished Flying Cross, the first woman to receive such an honor. Earhart's accomplishment meant a great deal to the entire world, but especially to women, for it demonstrated that women could set their own course in aviation and other fields.

Other achievements

Her next major achievement was to set the women's nonstop transcontinental speed record. On August 24-25, 1932, she flew from Los Angeles, California, to Newark, New Jersey, in a record 19 hours, 5 minutes, flying a Lockheed Vega, also becoming the first woman to fly solo coast-to-coast. The next July, she flew the same flight; this time she did it in 17 hours, 7 minutes and set a new transcontinental speed record.

In January 1935, Earhart became the first woman to make a solo long-distance flight over the Pacific Ocean, flying from Honolulu, Hawaii, to San Francisco, California. This complicated flight in her second Lockheed Vega occurred in adverse weather conditions and demonstrated Earhart's courage as well as her stubbornness.

She followed that flight with two more first solo flights-one on April 19-20 from Los Angeles, California, to Mexico City, in 13 hours, 23 minutes and the second on May 8, 1935, from Mexico City to Newark, New Jersey, in 14 hours, 19 minutes.

Flight around the world

Earhart wanted to be the first of either gender to fly around the world at its widest, close to the equator. She got the most advanced long-range, non-military aircraft available-a Lockheed Model 10E Electra. The all-metal, two-engine plane had been reconfigured with extra fuel tanks replacing the passenger seats, allowing the plane to travel farther between refueling.

Her first attempt at the world flight began on March 17, 1937, in Oakland, California, but ended abruptly with a runway crash in Honolulu, Hawaii, after a tire blew and a shock absorber on the landing gear failed. Earhart decided to repair the damaged plane and try again.

Her next try began on May 20, 1937, this time heading from Oakland to Miami, Florida. However, the plane had mechanical problems along the way that resulted in further delays. Eventually, she and Fred Noonan, her navigator, reached Miami and made final adjustments to the plane's engines and instruments. Finally, Earhart and Noonan were ready to depart.

What turned out to be the final flight of Earhart's career, and, ultimately, her life, began on June 1, 1937. Earhart and Noonan left for their round-the-world flight from Miami, Florida, in her twin-engine, red-winged Electra. From Miami, they flew to San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Right before taking off on this leg of the flight, Earhart was quoted as saying, "I have a feeling there is just about one more good flight left in my system and I hope this trip is it. Anyway, when I have finished this job, I mean to give up long-distance 'stunt' flying."

Disappearance

As Earhart's journey continued, news of her flight made the front page of newspapers around the world. She sent reports of the land, cultures, and people she encountered. On June 30, 1937, Earhart and Noonan arrived in Lae, New Guinea. They had traveled 22,000 miles (35,406 kilometers) and had 7,000 miles (11,265 kilometers) left to go.

Their next destination, and the most dangerous stop of the trip, was Howland Island, a tiny island in the Pacific Ocean, 2,556 miles (4,113 kilometers) away. Before Earhart took off from Lae on July 1, there was confusion about which radio frequencies were to be used. This did not get solved before she took off.

As the scheduled time neared for Earhart to approach the island, several transmissions were received from her, demanding to know the weather. A new weather report describing heavy clouds and rain northwest of Howland had been issued, and Earhart had run into the storm. Earhart transmitted several more times but never reached her destination, disappearing somewhere off the coast of the island.

A large search party was quickly organized, but no remains of the crew and the plane were ever found.

There are many theories surrounding the controversial disappearance of Earhart's plane on July 2, 1937. Most researchers believe that Earhart and Noonan got lost, ran out of gas, and went down somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. However, two other theories have grown in the years since, one involving capture and execution as spies by the Japanese, and the other dying of exposure after landing on a deserted island.

Although only 39 when she disappeared, Earhart accomplished a great deal and is considered a true hero of the 20th century, especially for women. She demonstrated courage, integrity, and an independent spirit.

She used her fame to advance the cause of women and showed that a determined woman could achieve anything. Her efforts led a generation of women to seek new horizons and new roles for themselves.

Books by Earhart

Amelia Earhart was an accomplished writer who served as aviation editor for Cosmopolitan magazine from 1928 to 1930. She authored numerous magazine articles and essays, and published two books based on her experiences as a flyer during her lifetime:

20 Hrs., 40 Min. was her journal of her 1928 flight across the Atlantic as a passenger, making her the first woman to make such a journey.

The Fun of It was a diary/memoir of her flying experiences, as well as an essay on women in aviation.

A third book credited to Earhart, Last Flight, was published following her disappearance and featured journal entries she made in the weeks before her final departure from New Guinea.

Amelia Earhart quotes

"Adventure is worthwhile in itself."

"I have often said that the lure of flying is the lure of beauty."

"Never interrupt someone doing what you said couldn't be done."

"Mostly, my flying has been solo, but the preparation for it wasn't. Without my husband's help and encouragement, I could not have attempted what I have."

"Worry retards reaction and makes clear-cut decisions impossible."

Interesting facts about Amelia Earhart

Amelia called her sister Grace "Pidge" and her sister called her "Meely." They continued this through their adulthood.

Amelia once built a ramp off the top of a toolshed and said that she felt like she was flying.

Amelia dropped out of school to volunteer as a nurse for World War I soldiers.

She did not like coffee or tea but preferred hot chocolate.

Amelia was one of the first celebrities to create her own fashion line, a trend that is popular among celebrities today.

She encouraged other women to fly.

After Amelia disappeared, America spent $4 million looking for her.

There is another Amelia Earhart who became the youngest woman to fly around the world in a single-engine plane in 2014.

Questions kids ask about Amelia Earhart

How did Amelia Earhart die?
Since they never found her they couldn't say for certain, but two years after she went missing they said that her plane had probably crashed in the Pacific Ocean and she had drowned.

How old would Amelia Earhart be today?
Amelia would be 125 years old today.

Was Amelia Earhart's plane ever found?
No trace of her plane has ever been found. In 2019, the explorer who found the Titanic, Robert Ballard, went searching for the plane and he found no hint of it.

Where did Amelia Earhart disappear?
Amelia and her navigator disappeared somewhere over the Pacific Ocean.

What island did Amelia Earhart crash on?
Howland Island was the island in the central Pacific Ocean where they thought Amelia may have crashed. She was trying to locate the island when she disappeared.

Did Amelia Earhart have kids?
Amelia didn't have any children of her own but did have two step-children.

What were Amelia's last words?
Her last message was Amelia giving compass headings to the Coast Guard cutter Itasca that was near Howland Island that was helping her during her flight. "We are on the line 157 337. We will repeat this message. We will repeat this on 6210 kilocycles. Wait..."

Did Amelia Earhart survive the crash?
Amelia and her navigator, Fred Noonan may have survived a crash landing.

Images for kids

L-R: Neta Snook, Earhart's Kinner Airster and Amelia Earhart, c.  1921

Earhart walking with President Hoover in the grounds of the White House on January 2, 1932

Studio portrait of Amelia Earhart, c.  1932. Putnam specifically instructed Earhart to disguise a "gap-toothed" smile by keeping her mouth closed in formal photographs.

USCGC Itasca was at Howland Island to support the flight.

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Amelia Mary Earhart (born July 24, 1897; disappeared July 2, 1937) was an American aviation pioneer and author. Earhart was the first female aviator (pilot) to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She set many other records, wrote best-selling books about her flying experiences, and played a large part in the formation of The Ninety-Nines, an organization for female pilots.

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Not ready to purchase a subscription? Click to download the free sample version Download sample

Amelia Earhart was an American aviation pioneer and the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She received the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross for this record and set many other records as well as becoming a best-selling author. She disappeared flying over the central Pacific Ocean on July 2, 1937, and was never found.
See the fact file below for more information on Amelia Earhart or alternatively, you can download our 26-page Amelia Earhart worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.
Biography

Name
Amelia Mary Earhart

Date of Birth
July 24, 1897

Place of Birth
Atchison, Kansas

Birth Family
Edwin and Amy Earhart

Marriage/Spouse
George Palmer Putnam

Key Facts & Information

Early Life and Interests

On July 24, 1897, Amelia Earhart was born in Atchison, Kansas, to Amelia "Amy" Otis and Edwin Earhart. Young Amelia spent most of her childhood with her maternal grandparents.

Amelia and her family moved from one place to another because of her father's financial instability. As a result, Amelia had a hard time making friends but showed an interest in science and sports.

In 1915, Amelia's parents separated again. Together with her mother, she moved to Chicago where she attended Hyde Park High School.

Earhart volunteered as a nurse's aid for the Red Cross after witnessing wounded soldiers returning from World War I. She started to admire aviators and spent most of her free time watching the Royal Flying Corps practice.

By 1919, she enrolled at Columbia University to study medicine but later quit to join her reunited parents in California.

She and her father attended an "aerial meet" in Long Beach and that was where she became interested in flying. The next day, given a helmet and goggles, she boarded the open-cockpit biplane for a 10-minute flight over Los Angeles. She immediately began taking flying instructions from pioneer aviatrix Anita Snook.

On December 28, 1920, pilot Frank Hawks gave Amelia her first ride in an airplane. She then took her first flying lesson on January 3, 1921. Amelia's first plane was a bright yellow Kinner Airster that she nicknamed "The Canary".

Earhart cropped her hair short and slept in her leather jacket for days to look like women aviators.

Earhart's Aviation Career

On October 1922, she set a women's altitude record of 14,000 feet, which was later broken by Ruth Nichols.

She was the 16th woman to receive a pilot's license from The Federation Aeronautique.

After some financial and career detours, she became the first woman pilot to fly as a passenger across the Atlantic Ocean, in 1927.

In 1932, she became the first woman to pilot a plane across that ocean and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

In April 1935, she flew solo from Los Angeles to Mexico City, followed by her tour from Mexico to New York. From 1930 to 1935, Earhart set a record in distance aviation in a variety of aircraft.

On June 1, 1937, Amelia and her navigator, Fred Noonan, departed Miami, Florida, bound for California to travel around the world.

While living in Boston, Amelia wrote articles promoting flying in the local newspaper. From 1928 to 1937, she traveled far and across countries.

Earhart's Disappearance and Legacy

On July 2, she took off from Lae, New Guinea. Her last radio contact reported was on a course for Howland Island. It has been determined that the plane went down some 35 - 100 miles off the coast of Howland Island. An extensive search was conducted at a cost of over 4 million dollars.

Her attempt to be the first person to circumnavigate the world around the equator led to her disappearance.

Since her disappearance, Earhart's body has never been found, though some investigations claimed that they uncovered evidence of Earhart's bones and plane. What happened to her remains one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of the 20th century.

Among the speculations is the 'crash and sink' theory, which suggests that Earhart and Noonan's plane ran out of gas and crashed into the open sea near Howland Island.

The TIGHAR or The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery postulates that Earhart and Noonan landed to the southwest of Gardner Island, now Nikumaroro, in the Republic of Kiribati, which was not inhabited during those times. They believed that the two may have survived several weeks on the island as castaways.

Amelia Earhart was the first woman and people to fly solo both across the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans after her trip from Honolulu, Hawaii, to Oakland, California.

She became the first president and co-founder of the Ninety-Nines, an international organization for the advancement of female pilots.

For several decades, Amelia Earhart Day is celebrated every July 24th, the aviatrix's birthday.

Common Aviation Terms

Air Traffic Controller - This person works in the control tower and talks to pilots by radio. An Air Traffic Controller tells the pilots when and where they can land their planes at the airport.

Callsign: Phrase used in radio transmissions to identify an aircraft, before proceeding to actual instructions. A callsign for a commercial aircraft may be "Swissair 111" or "TWA 800". As for a private plane, it could be something like "Cessna 13 Whisky", "Baron 232 Zulu" or "November 17 Victor". Military callsigns, including transport of heads of state or government officials, are more diverse and depend on squadron, type of mission, etc.

Cockpit - Area located at the front of the plane where the pilot and co-pilot sit. All of the instruments and controls needed to fly the plane and talk to the control tower are also located in this area.

ETA: Estimated Time of Arrival

ETD: Estimated Time of Departure

Mayday: The international radiotelephony distress signal. When repeated three times, it indicates imminent and grave danger and that immediate assistance is requested. (It originally comes from the French words: m'aider, which means: 'to help me').

Did You Know?

Did you know that pilots use NATO phonetic alphabets? This is to reduce the possibility of miscommunication such as missing letters. If you hear "...avo", you know the pilot said "bravo," but not all people can understand words especially when communication is slightly difficult. Sometimes, it can be very hard to make out the difference between "n" and "m", or "b", "c", "d", "e", etc. so pilots need to spell them out.

Also, as the standard language for aeronautics is English, it can avoid confusion while pronouncing some letters for non-native English speakers: for example, in French, "j" is pronounced like "g" in English, and "i" like "e".
On the other hand, "Juliett", "Golf", "India" and "Echo" are pronounced the same pretty much everywhere.

Amelia Earhart Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle which includes everything you need to know about Amelia Earhart across 26 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use Amelia Earhart worksheets that are perfect for teaching students about Amelia Earhart who was an American aviation pioneer and the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She received the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross for this record and set many other records as well as becoming a best-selling author. She disappeared flying over the central Pacific Ocean on July 2, 1937, and was never found.

Complete List Of Included Worksheets

Amelia Earhart Facts

The Aviatrix

Aviatrix Acrostic

Piloting 1900's Planes

Parts of a Plane

Two Types of Airplanes

Aviation: True or False

Amelia's Flight Path

Speaking Like an Aviator

A Pilot's Alphabet

Evolution of Aircraft

Aircraft Design

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Amelia Earhart Facts, Information & Worksheets For Kids

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Not ready to purchase a subscription? Click to download the free sample version Download sample Amelia Earhart was an American aviation pioneer and the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She received the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross for this record and set many other records as well as becoming a best-selling author.

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Barack H. Obama is the 44th president of the United States. Kids learn about his biography and life story.

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Barack Hussein Obama II ( /b ə ˈ r ɑː k h uː ˈ s eɪ n oʊ ˈ b ɑː m ə / i ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician. He was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. He was the first African-American to hold the office. Before becoming president, he was a U.S. senator from Illinois and served from 2005 to 2008. He is a Democrat.

Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. He married Michelle Robinson in 1992. They have two daughters.

Obama was inaugurated in January 2009 as the first African American mixed-race president. As president, he slowly ended US participation in the Iraq War, having prepared the country to defend itself. The al-Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin Laden was killed while Obama was in office. Also, he contributed to the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (often called "Obamacare") which changed many health care laws. He also enacted many acts to create public works jobs to help the economy. He became the first president to openly express support for gay marriage, and proposed gun control as a result of the Sandy Hook school shooting.

Obama left office in January 2017 and was succeeded by Republican Donald Trump. He now lives in Washington, D.C. He is ranked very high in presidential opinion polls.

Obama was born on August 4, 1961 in Kapiʻolani Medical Center for Women and Children (called Kapiʻolani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital in 1961) in Honolulu, Hawaii. He is the first President to have been born in Hawaii. His father was a black exchange student from Kenya named Barack Obama Sr. He died in a motorcycle accident in Kenya in 1982. His mother was a white woman from Kansas named Ann Dunham, who was an anthropologist and died in 1995. He spent most of his childhood in Hawaii and Chicago, Illinois, although he lived in Jakarta, Indonesia with his mother and stepfather from age 6 to age 10. He later moved back to Hawaii to live with his grandparents.

He started college at Occidental College in Los Angeles, and graduated from Columbia University in New York City. After taking time off as a community organizer, Obama went to law school at Harvard University. After law school, Obama worked for a law firm in Hyde Park, Chicago.

Obama has been married to Michelle Obama since 1992. She has a law degree from Harvard Law School. She worked as a lawyer. They have two daughters, Malia Ann, who was born in 1998 and Natasha ("Sasha"), born in 2001. They were born at University of Chicago Medical Center in Chicago. They lived in Chicago, but moved into the White House on January 20, 2009.

Obama has a half sister who is a teacher in Hawaii. His father died from a car accident in Kenya. His mother died of ovarian cancer. His maternal grandmother died just before Obama won the election to become President.

Before becoming president

Obama worked for Alice Palmer, an Illinois state senator. In 1995 she chose not to run for re-election so that she could run for U.S. Congress, and Obama decided to run for her Illinois state senate seat. Palmer lost her election for U.S. Congress, so she tried to keep her seat in the state senate, but she did not have enough time to meet the rules of the election. Obama's team said that she could not be on the ballot, and the election rulemakers agreed. Obama won the election and became an Illinois state senator. He was state senator from 1997 to 2004.

While he was Illinois state senator, he wrote a law that required police to keep records on the race of people they stopped. The law that he wrote also forced police to videotape when they talked to people they suspect of murder. He taught law part-time at the University of Chicago Law School. Judge and political teacher Abner J. Mikva taught Obama politics and became his mentor. During his early political career, Obama would make appearances and debate on Chicago Tonight.

Obama ran for the U.S. Senate. While running for Senate, John Kerry asked him to speak at the Democratic National Convention. He spoke on television. He was a U.S. Senator from 2005 to 2008.

Obama won the presidential election of 2008.

Presidential campaigns

2008 presidential campaign

Obama's presidential campaign for the White House started in early June 2008 when he defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primaries. Hillary Clinton was favored to win but Obama won many smaller state caucuses (local party elections) by having a lot of volunteers. He decided not to accept government money for his campaign so that he could accept more private money under Campaign finance reform in the United States. He raised the most amount of money ever for a presidential campaign.

Obama's campaign theme was that he was a man of hope and change. He was also against the war in Iraq. He was in favor of giving money to American car companies. He was in favor of sending more troops to Afghanistan.

During the campaign, some people said that Obama's friends were Tony Rezko, a landlord, and former revolutionary Bill Ayers; Obama said that they were not his friends. Obama also had trouble when his minister at church, Jeremiah Wright, was videotaped criticizing America. During the campaign, Obama said that his opponent, Republican candidate John McCain, was just like George W. Bush, something that John McCain said was not true. He ran with Joe Biden as his candidate for Vice President.

He defeated McCain in the election on November 4 by a wide electoral majority of 365 to 173, meaning that he won the most votes in enough states to send 365 people to officially elect him. The popular vote (based on the total number of votes across the country) was closer, with Obama winning 53%, McCain 46%.

2012 presidential campaign

Obama announced he was running for president again in April 2011 when he posted a video on his website. Because he was already the president, there were very few other Democrats who tried to oppose him. He won the democratic nomination easily. Their opponents in the Republican party this time were Mitt Romney, who was running for president, and Paul Ryan, who was running for vice president.

In the election on November 6, Obama and Joe Biden defeated Romney and Ryan by a majority of 332 to 206 electoral votes. This meant that, even though it was still large, his majority was smaller than in 2008. In terms of the popular vote, Obama won 51.1% and Romney won 47.2%.

Presidency (2009-2017)

First term (2009-13)

Obama was first sworn in as president on January 20, 2009.

Great Recession

He continued the financial bailout that George W. Bush started, giving billions of dollars to car companies and banks so that they would not go bankrupt. He signed an act written by Barney Frank and Chris Dodd which would regulate Wall Street (the financial industry) to try to prevent another recession like this from happening again.

Nobel Peace Prize

Obama received the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on October 9, 2009. He noted that his efforts were humble, but he donated the prize money to several charities.

Tea Party movement

Though his popularity was very high (around 70% approval) when he entered office, his approval ratings fell to 45% percent during the year of 2010. He received much criticism from Republicans, conservatives, libertarians, and members of the Tea Party because they believe that the federal government is becoming too big and spending too much money and that his programs are not the best for the country.

Obama made a plan to slowly withdraw troops from Iraq, ending the War in Iraq by the end of 2011, while adding more troops to Afghanistan to help the United States win the War in Afghanistan. He also decided that the United States should help in the war against Libya. He has said several times that he wants to improve U.S. relations with the Muslim world. Obama reduced US participation in the Iraq War and continued the war on terror which resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011. Obama started a no-fly-zone policy on the Libyan civil war that ended in October 2011 with the killing of Muammar al-Gaddafi.

Economic policy

With rising economic deficits (the amount of money the government borrows each month) under his administration, he called for taxes to be increased on the rich. He criticized his Republican opponents for wanting to cut welfare benefits for the poor rather than raising taxes to help pay down the debt.

LGBT rights

He signed the Don't Ask Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010 in 2010, allowing openly gay men and openly lesbian women in the armed forces. On May 9, 2012, he became the first sitting US President to openly support legalizing same-sex marriage.

Gun control

Before his second term began, there has been debating of guns because of the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut that happened on December 14, 2012, as well as shootings in the past.

2012 re-election campaign

On April 4, 2011 Obama said that he would run for re-election for a second term in 2012 in a video titled "It Begins with Us" that he posted on his website and filed election papers with the Federal Election Commission. He was officially nominated as his party's nominee on September 6, 2012. Mitt Romney was officially nominated as his opponent by the Republican party on August 30, 2012. While the election results were very close, Obama easily won the electoral college votes he needed to win a second term. Obama and Romney spent more than $2 billion on advertising during the election campaign.

On December 21, 2012, Obama nominated John Kerry for United States Secretary of State during his second term. Kerry was sworn in on February 1, 2013.

Second term (2013-17)

Main article: Second inauguration of Barack Obama

Obama was inaugurated for a second term privately (only his family members could see) on January 20, 2013, at the White House. The next day, January 21, 2013, he was inaugurated again, this time in public, at the United States Capitol. This was because January 20, 2013, was on a Sunday.

The start of his second term in 2013 had a few setbacks. With the NSA, people were upset at the Obama administration that the government was possibly listening to their phone calls. His party (the Democrats) also lost the Congressional elections. Because of disagreements between Democrats and Republicans in Congress, neither side was getting anything done and Obama resulted in using his Executive Order (his power as president) to help reform things like the immigration system.

He visited South Africa in late June 2013. Prior to visiting South Africa, he visited Senegal. He visited Robben Island, where Mandela was imprisoned. He did not meet with Nelson Mandela.

2013 United States federal government shutdown

The United States government shutdown occurred on October 1, 2013. On October 17, 2013, Obama signed a bill that ended the United States government shut down.

Presidential Medals of Freedom

Obama awarded several people, including former U.S. President Bill Clinton and media mogul Oprah Winfrey for the Presidential Medal of Freedom on November 20, 2013. He has awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to many people, such as Stephen Hawking, Sandra Day O'Connor, Chita Rivera, Loretta Lynn and George H. W. Bush.

Death of Nelson Mandela

Minimum wage and college

He supported increasing the minimum wage, requiring women to be paid the same as men at the same job, and has called for the first 2 years of college to be fully government-funded for students who study full-time and get good grades.

Legalization of same-sex marriage

Obama supported LGBT members, and successfully convinced the courts in 2015 that same-sex marriage should be legal in the United States.

Climate change

Obama was also concerned about climate change, and promoted the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court

Post-presidency (2017-present)

As it is not possible for a person to be president for three terms, Obama could not run for president again. He was succeeded by Republican Donald Trump in early 2017. He left office with a 60% approval rating.

Even though he is not the president anymore, Obama still owns a house in Washington, D.C.

Obama and his wife, Michelle, spend time making speeches and attending events. They also run a charity called the Obama Foundation, and own Higher Ground Productions, a company which makes movies. The company was hired by Netflix to make documentaries. One of their documentaries, American Factory, won an Academy Award for being the best documentary of 2019.

He released his presidential memoir, A Promised Land, on November 17, 2020.

In May 2020, Obama criticized President Trump for his response to the coronavirus pandemic, saying that it is "an absolute chaotic disaster".

Obama wrote a presidential memoir, in a $65million deal with Penguin Random House. The book, A Promised Land, was released on November 17, 2020.

In February 2021, Obama and musician Bruce Springsteen started a podcast called Renegades: Born in the USA where the two talk about "their backgrounds, music and their 'enduring love of America.'" In late 2021, Regina Hicks had signed a deal with Netflix, in a venture with his and Michelle's Higher Ground to develop comedy projects. On March 4, 2022, Obama won an Audio Publishers Association (APA) Award in the best narration by the author category for the narration of his memoir A Promised Land.

On April 5, 2022, Obama visited the White House for the first time since leaving office, in an event celebrating the 12th annual anniversary of the signing of the Affordable Care Act.

In 2022, he narrated the Netflix documentary series Our Great National Parks, which later won him a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Narrator.

In June 2022, it was announced that the Obamas and their podcast production company, Higher Ground, signed a multi-year deal with Audible.

In September 2022, Obama visited the White House to unveil his and Michelle's official White House portraits.

In Spanish: Barack Obama para niños

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What is Barack Obama known for?

Barack Obama is best known for being the first African American president of the United States.

Barack Obama II was born in 1961 in Hawaii. His parents were Ann Durham from Kansas and Barack Obama Sr. from Kenya. They had met while they were both students at the University of Hawaii.

Obama Sr. left the family when Barack was two, eventually returning to Kenya. Ann later married a man named Lolo Soetoro, another student at the University of Hawaii who was from Indonesia.

For about four years, Barack lived in Indonesia with his mother and stepfather.

His mother was worried about Barack's education and sent him to live with his grandparents in Hawaii, where he attended a private school called the Punahou School.

After graduation, Barack went to Occidental College in Los Angeles for two years, then to Columbia University in New York City. He graduated with a degree in political science in 1983.

Early Career

Obama had several different jobs after completing college. He worked as a researcher for a year at a business consulting firm. Next, he became a community organizer in the South Side of Chicago.

As an organizer, Obama thought he could accomplish more with a law degree. He decided to study at Harvard University.

At Harvard, Obama was an exceptional student. He was the first African American to become the president of a prestigious journal called the Harvard Law Review.

His historic accomplishment got national attention, and Obama received a contract to write a book about race relations. The book was called Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.

He later directed Illinois Project Vote, which aimed to encourage more black voters to vote in the 1992 election.

After that, he became an attorney with a civil rights law firm and a lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School.

Family Life

After his first year at Harvard, Obama had a summer internship at a law firm called Sidley and Austin.

His supervisor was Michelle Robinson, a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School from Chicago's South Side.

Michelle and Barack eventually fell in love. They dated for four years and were married in 1992. The couple lived in Hyde Park in Chicago.

Their daughter Malia was born in 1998 and followed by a second daughter, Natasha (nicknamed Sasha) in 2001.

Political Career

In 1996, Obama's political career began when he ran for the Illinois State Senate and won. In the State Senate, Obama was a leader in helping children, the elderly, the poor, and labor unions.

He served in the Illinois State Senate until 2004, when he was elected to the United States Senate. That same year, Obama was selected to make a speech at the Democratic National Convention.

His speech was extremely popular and Obama received major national attention.

A phrase from his speech even became the title of his next book, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream. The book became a bestseller.

In 2007, Obama announced that he would run in the 2008 presidential election.

After he defeated Hilary Clinton to secure the Democratic nomination, Obama chose Joseph (Joe) Biden, a Senator from Delaware, as his running mate.

Obama and Biden ran against Republicans John McCain and Sarah Palin. Obama's charisma, interesting background, and inspiring speeches drew large crowds everywhere he campaigned.

After a historically large voter turnout, Obama was elected president. He became the first African American president in United States history.

Presidency

When Obama took office, he was facing some big challenges. The economy was struggling, and U.S. troops were still involved in conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

During his first two years as president, Obama worked on healthcare reform, improving the economy, and bringing most of the U.S. troops home from Iraq.

He signed the Affordable Care Act into law in 2010. Often called "Obamacare," the act was designed to make health insurance more affordable for American people.

Later, Obama focused on gun control, immigration reform, and climate change. Many of Obama's initiatives did not pass through the Republican-controlled House and Senate.

During Obama's presidency, the leader of the September 11 terrorist attacks, Osama bin Laden, was finally captured and killed.

Obama also significantly improved foreign relations and perceptions of the United States around the world.

Some of his accomplishments include opening diplomatic relations with Cuba and making a nuclear program agreement with Iran.

In 2009, Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between people."

After the Presidency

After serving two terms as president, Obama remained with his family in Washington, DC, where his youngest daughter finished high school in 2019.

For the most part, the family has kept a low profile. Both Barack and Michelle have taken on charitable causes, and both signed a book deal.

Michelle's memoir, Becoming, was published in 2018. Barack continues to work on his third book.

Obama is also working on opening the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, which will feature a museum, forum, library, plaza, and athletic center.

Fun Facts About Barack Obama

Barack Obama was the first president to be born outside of the continental United States.

Obama's name means "one who is blessed" in Swahili.

He can speak Indonesian and Spanish.

In 2006, Obama won a Grammy Award for narrating the audio version of his memoir, Dreams of My Father.

Obama is an avid sports fan who is especially interested in basketball.

His Secret Service handlers gave him the code name "Renegade."

Obama was named Time magazine's Person of the Year in both 2008 and 2012.
US Presidents

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Barack Obama Facts For Kids - US Presidents ([year])

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Barack Obama is best known for being the first African American president of the United States. Barack Obama II was born in 1961 in Hawaii. His parents were Ann Durham from Kansas and Barack Obama Sr. from Kenya. They had met while they were both students at the University of Hawaii.

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Quick Facts & Biography:

Name
Barack Hussein Obama II

Date of Birth
August 4, 1961

Place of Birth
Honolulu, Hawaii

Birth Family
Stanley Ann Dunham and Barack Obama, Sr.

Marriage/Spouse
Michelle Obama

Children
Malia Ann, Natasha

Education
Graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School

Career
Community organizer, lawyer, constitutional law professor, author, Illinois State Senator

Reason for Fame
First African American to be elected 44th President of the United States.

Additional Information
Barak Obama enjoys playing basketball, cooking,
spending time with family and friends, writing, and dancing.

Early Life:

Barack Hussein Obama II was born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii. He was the son of Barack Obama Sr., a lawyer from Kenya, Africa, and Ann Dunham of Kansas.

In 1966, young Barack lived in Jakarta, Indonesia, after the divorce of his parents. At the age of 10, he went back to Hawaii and was raised by his grandparents.

By 1979, Barack graduated with excellent grades from Punahou Academy. When he was 21 years old, his father Obama Sr. died from a fatal car crash in Nairobi.

Barack studied at the Occidental College in Los Angeles for two years and transferred to Columbia University in New York City. Upon graduation in 1983, Barack moved to Chicago, Illinois, and worked as a community organizer at the Developing Communities Project.

In 1988, Obama entered Harvard Law School and graduated magna cum laude in 1991. While at Harvard, he became the first African-American editor of the Harvard Law Review. It was also where he met his future wife, Michelle Robinson.

On October 3, 1992, Barack and Michelle got married. The couple had two daughters namely; Malia Ann and Sasha Obama.

They moved to Kenwood, Southside of Chicago.

After law school, Obama became a civil rights lawyer with the firm Miner, Barnhill & Galland in Chicago. From 1992 to 2004, he became a constitutional law part-time lecturer and professor at the University of Chicago Law School.

In 1995, Obama published the Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. Since then, the autobiography has been printed in 25 languages including Chinese, Hebrew and Swedish. By 2006, the audiobook version of Dreams was awarded by the Grammy's as the best spoken word album.

In 1996, Obama ran as a Democrat for a seat in the Illinois State Senate. As a state senator, Obama focused on the expansion of healthcare services and early childhood education. In addition, he pursued videotaping of interrogations in capital cases to ensure proper law enforcement.

In 2004, after his unsuccessful run for the U.S. House of Representatives, he won the vacated seat in the U.S. Senate.

As a U.S. Senator, Obama worked with Republican Senator Richard Lugar to destroy weapons of mass destruction in Eastern Europe, including Russia. Furthermore, he led the website tracking of all federal spending.

In October 2006, he published his book, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, which became a New York Times best-selling book.

On June 3, 2008, Obama became the official presidential nominee of the Democratic Party after beating U.S. Senator from New York and former First Lady Hillary Clinton.

Barack Obama's Presidency

On January 20, 2009, Barack Obama took his oath as the 44th President of the United States. He defeated Republican presidential nominee John McCain. Delaware Senator Joe Biden became his vice president.

In his first 100 days as the President, Obama persuaded Congress to expand healthcare insurance for children as well as equal pay
for women.

Obama improved America's foreign policy through open dialogues with China, Russia, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela. As to the war on terrorism, Obama sent additional troops to

Afghanistan and withdrew those in Iraq. In addition, he ordered an offensive against pirates in Somalia. Obama was awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts against terrorism.

In March 2010, Obama signed the Affordable Care Act, which expanded medical care for Americans. It became known as Obamacare.

He signed the Budget Control Act of 2011, creating a bipartisan committee to look for solutions on the country's fiscal difficulties. By March 2011, Obama supported NATO airstrikes against the Libyan dictator, Muammar al-Qaddafi (also al-Gaddafi). On May 11, 2011, the infamous terrorist Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan.

On November 6, 2012, Obama won the election for his second term in office, defeating Republican Mitt Romney. By January 20, 2013, he took his oath of office through Chief Justice John Roberts at the U.S. Capitol building.

In July 2013, President Obama joined former President George W. Bush in Africa to commemorate the 15th anniversary of Al-Qaeda attacks on U.S. targets.

As part of America's foreign policies, Obama met several world leaders, including German chancellor Angela Merkel, newly-elected Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Cuban President Raul Castro, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

In November 2015, he attended the Paris Climate Conference held in Paris, France. The United States committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Early in January 2016, President Obama released executive orders for stricter gun control policies.

Post-presidency

The Obama family moved to a home in Kalorama, Washington D.C.

In 2017, he met with the Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

As a response to president-elect Donald Trump's withdrawal of the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, Obama spoke to the gathering of mayors around the world to sign the Chicago Climate Charter.

Barack Obama Worksheets

This is one of our bumper bundles which includes 37 ready-to-use Barack Obama worksheets that are perfect for students to learn about Barack Obama who was the 44th and current President of the United States, and the first African American President. He was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, and is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School.

Barack Obama Facts

First African-American President

Famous African-Americans

Road to the White House

Cabinet Members

Obamacare

Obama Quotes

War Against Terrorism

Obama Administration

Cartoon Analysis

Inaugural Address

Barack Obama Facts

The First African-American President

The Family Tree

The Senator

Who's Who?

Modified TRUE or FALSE

Beyond Color

U.S Presidents

The President Acrostic

Yes, We Can!

Color Me!

Link/cite this page

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Barack Obama Facts, Biography, Information & Worksheets For Kids

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Barack Obama: America’s First Black President

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The 44th president of the United States, Barack Obama is the first Black American who has been elected to the Oval Office. He served from 2009 until 2017.

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Kids learn about the biography of entrepreneur Milton Hershey including early life, starting a candy business, making chocolate, and bulding a business and town.

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Milton Hershey Facts, Worksheets, Biography, Business & Legacy For Kids

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Not ready to purchase a subscription? Click to download the free sample version Download sample Milton Hershey, a well-dubbed "candy man," was an American manufacturer and businessman who spearheaded chocolate candies' development in the US. Milton Hershey established himself as an innovative confectioner, philanthropist, and businessman. His first two confectionery businesses didn't go well.

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Kids learn about the biography of entrepreneur Walt Disney including early life, work as an artist, beginning animation, movies and television, theme parks, and fun facts.

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Walter Elias Disney (December 5, 1901 - December 15, 1966) was an American business entrepreneur, animator, cartoonist, producer, screenwriter, entrepreneur, and voice actor. Disney was an important person in the American animation industry and throughout the world. He is regarded as an international icon, and philanthropist. He is well known for his influence and contributions to the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy Disney, he was the founder of Walt Disney Productions. The corporation is now known as The Walt Disney Company.

As an extraordinary animator and entrepreneur, Disney was well known as a film producer and a showman, as well as an innovator in animation and theme park design. He and his staff created some of the world's most well-known fictional characters including Mickey Mouse. He provided the original voice for Mickey Mouse. He received four honorary Academy Awards and won 22 Academy Awards from a total of 59 nominations, including a record four in one year. It gave him more awards and nominations than any other person in history. Disney also won seven Emmy Awards. He gave his name to the Disneyland, and Walt Disney World Resort theme parks in the United States, as well as international resorts like Tokyo Disney Resort, Disneyland Paris, and Hong Kong Disneyland.

He died on December 15, 1966 from lung cancer. A year later, construction of the Walt Disney World Resort began in Florida. His brother Roy Disney inaugurated the Magic Kingdom in 1971.

Walter Elias Disney was born on December 5, 1901 at 2156 North Tripp Avenue in Hermosa, Chicago, Illinois. His father Elias Disney had Irish-Canadian ancestry and his mother, Flora Call Disney had German and English ancestry. His great-grandfather, Arundel Elias Disney, had emigrated from Gowran, County Kilkenny, Ireland where he was born in 1801. Arundel Disney was a descendant of Robert d' Isigny, a Frenchman who had traveled to England with William the Conqueror in 1066. The d'Isigny name was anglicized as "Disney" and the family settled in a village now known as Norton Disney, south of the city of Lincoln, in the county of Lincolnshire.

About the time Disney was entering high school, his family moved to the big city of Chicago. Disney took classes at the Chicago Art Institute and drew for the school newspaper. When he was sixteen, Disney decided he wanted to help fight in World War I. Since he was still too young to join the army, he dropped out of school and joined the Red Cross. He spent the next year driving ambulances for the Red Cross in France.

Disney's best-known creation is the cartoon character, Mickey Mouse. Disney even provided the voice for Mickey Mouse for many years. Donald Duck is another famous creation. Minnie Mouse and Pluto are also his creations. Disney was once fired from a newspaper company in Kansas City, Missouri because of his lack of creativity.

Disney began as a cartoonist in the 1920s. He created Oswald the Lucky Rabbit but lost ownership of the character due to a contract problem. He then created Mickey Mouse. Disney started the Walt Disney Studios and created the first full-length animated movie when he created Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). The movie was a huge success. The money from the movie helped Disney create many more cartoons and movies such as (both 1940) (1941), and (1942). New animated and live-action films followed after World War II, including the critically successful Cinderella (1950), (1953), and Mary Poppins (1964), the latter of which received five Academy Awards. He earned 32 academy awards. Disney once refused an offer from Alfred Hitchcock to make a movie at Disney World after Hitchcock filmed Psycho. He also served as the host of The Wonderful World of Disney, a weekly variety show that had Disney cartoons and some live-action skits.

In the 1950s, Disney created Disneyland in Anaheim, California. Disneyland was the first modern theme park. Disney also bought the land for Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. Disney did not see Walt Disney World finished though because he died before it opened. Both Disneyland and Walt Disney World (and now other Disney theme parks) are famous for their design, level of detail, being very clean, and animatronics.

Personal life and character

Early in 1925, Disney hired an ink artist, Lillian Bounds. They married in July of that year, at her brother's house in her hometown of Lewiston, Idaho. The marriage was generally happy, according to Lillian, although according to Disney's biographer Neal Gabler she did not "accept Walt's decisions meekly or his status unquestionably, and she admitted that he was always telling people 'how henpecked he is'." Lillian had little interest in films or the Hollywood social scene and she was, in the words of the historian Steven Watts, "content with household management and providing support for her husband". Their marriage produced two daughters, Diane (born December 1933) and Sharon (adopted in December 1936, born six weeks previously). Within the family, neither Disney nor his wife hid the fact Sharon had been adopted, although they became annoyed if people outside the family raised the point. The Disneys were careful to keep their daughters out of the public eye as much as possible, particularly in the light of the Lindbergh kidnapping; Disney took steps to ensure his daughters were not photographed by the press.

In 1949, Disney and his family moved to a new home in the Holmby Hills district of Los Angeles. With the help of his friends Ward and Betty Kimball, who already had their own backyard railroad, Disney developed blueprints and immediately set to work on creating a miniature live steam railroad for his backyard. The name of the railroad, Carolwood Pacific Railroad, came from his home's location on Carolwood Drive. The miniature working steam locomotive was built by Disney Studios engineer Roger E. Broggie, and Disney named it Lilly Belle after his wife; after three years Disney ordered it into storage due to a series of accidents involving his guests.

Disney grew more politically conservative as he got older. A Democratic Party supporter until the 1940 presidential election, when he switched allegiance to the Republican Party, he became a generous donor to Thomas E. Dewey's 1944 bid for the presidency. In 1946, he was a founding member of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, an organization who stated they "believ[ed] in, and like, the American Way of Life ... we find ourselves in sharp revolt against a rising tide of Communism, Fascism and kindred beliefs, that seek by subversive means to undermine and change this way of life". In 1947, during the Second Red Scare, Disney testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), where he branded Herbert Sorrell, David Hilberman and William Pomerance, former animators and labor union organizers, as communist agitators; Disney stated that the 1941 strike led by them was part of an organized communist effort to gain influence in Hollywood. It was alleged by The New York Times in 1993 that Disney had been passing secret information to the FBI from 1940 until his death in 1966. In return for this information, J. Edgar Hoover allowed Disney to film in FBI headquarters in Washington. Disney was made a "full Special Agent in Charge Contact" in 1954.

Disney's public persona was very different from his actual personality. Playwright Robert E. Sherwood described him as "almost painfully shy ... diffident" and self-deprecating. According to his biographer Richard Schickel, Disney hid his shy and insecure personality behind his public identity. Kimball argues that Disney "played the role of a bashful tycoon who was embarrassed in public" and knew that he was doing so. Disney acknowledged the façade and told a friend that "I'm not Walt Disney. I do a lot of things Walt Disney would not do. Walt Disney does not smoke. I smoke. Walt Disney does not drink. I drink." Critic Otis Ferguson, in The New Republic, called the private Disney: "common and everyday, not inaccessible, not in a foreign language, not suppressed or sponsored or anything. Just Disney." Many of those with whom Disney worked commented that he gave his staff little encouragement due to his exceptionally high expectations. Norman recalls that when Disney said "That'll work", it was an indication of high praise. Instead of direct approval, Disney gave high-performing staff financial bonuses, or recommended certain individuals to others, expecting that his praise would be passed on.

Death and legacy

On December 15, 1966, Disney died of lung cancer in Burbank, California at the age of 65. His movies and theme parks are still enjoyed by millions of people. His company continues to produce very successful new theme parks and films.

His ashes were interred at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park cemetery in Glendale, California.

Awards and honors

Disney received 59 Academy Award nominations, including 22 awards: both totals are records. He was nominated for three Golden Globe Awards, but did not win, but he was presented with two Special Achievement Awards‍-‌for Bambi (1942) and The Living Desert (1953)‍-‌and the Cecil B. DeMille Award. He also received four Emmy Award nominations, winning once, for Best Producer for the Disneyland television series. Several of his films are included in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant": Steamboat Willie, The Three Little Pigs, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Fantasia, Pinocchio, Bambi, Dumbo and Mary Poppins. In 1998, the American Film Institute published a list of the 100 greatest American films, according to industry experts; the list included Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (at number 49), and Fantasia (at 58).

In February 1960, Disney was inducted to the Hollywood Walk of Fame with two stars, one for motion pictures and the other for his television work; Mickey Mouse was given his own star for motion pictures in 1978. Disney was also inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1986, the California Hall of Fame in December 2006, and was the inaugural recipient of a star on the Anaheim walk of stars in 2014.

The Walt Disney Family Museum records that he "along with members of his staff, received more than 950 honors and citations from throughout the world". He was made a Chevalier in the French Légion d'honneur in 1935, and in 1952 he was awarded the country's highest artistic decoration, the Officer d'Academie. Other national awards include Thailand's Order of the Crown (1960); Germany's Order of Merit (1956), Brazil's Order of the Southern Cross (1941), and Mexico's Order of the Aztec Eagle (1943). In the United States, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom on September 14, 1964, and on May 24, 1968, he was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. He received the Showman of the World Award from the National Association of Theatre Owners, and in 1955, the National Audubon Society awarded Disney its highest honor, the Audubon Medal, for promoting the "appreciation and understanding of nature" through his True-Life Adventures nature films. A minor planet discovered in 1980 by astronomer Lyudmila Karachkina, was named 4017 Disneya, and he was also awarded honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, the University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles.

Related pages

Images for kids

Theatrical poster for Trolley Troubles (1927)

In Spanish: Walt Disney para niños

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See the fact file below for more information on Walt Disney or alternatively, you can download our 22 page Walt Disney worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.
Early Life and Beginning of a Career in Drawing

Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was born on December 5, 1901, in Hermosa, Chicago, Illinois. He was one of five children of Irish-Canadian father, Elias Disney, and German-American mother, Flora Call Disney.

Young Walt spent most of his childhood in Marceline, Missouri. He began drawing and selling his works to neighbors. By 1911, his family moved to Kansas City.

Under the supervision of his uncle Martin, a train engineer, he took a summer job at the railroad.

In Chicago, Walt attended McKinley High School where he took photography and drawing classes. While in school, he was the cartoonist of the official paper. In addition, he also attended Chicago Art Institute at night.

At the age of 16, Walt joined the Red Cross as an ambulance driver and was sent to France for a year.

In 1919, he went back to the United States and became a newspaper artist in Kansas. He met cartoonist Ubbe Eert Iwerks while working at Pesmen-Rubin Art Studio.

Walt started making commercials using cut-out animation when he worked at Kansas Film Ad Company. After exploring hand-drawn celluloid animation, he decided to open his own business. Fred Harman, a colleague, became his first employee.

Together with Harman, Walt screened their cartoon called Laugh-O-Grams, at the local theater in Kansas. After the success of his cartoons, Walt hired more employees including Iwerks.

The studio house produced the first series of fairy tales called

Alice in Cartoonland. It was a seven-minute series of live action and animation about the adventures of a girl, named Alice.

In 1923, after unfortunate business negotiations and huge debt, Walt announced the studio's bankruptcy.

The Birth of Mickey Mouse and Disney's Success

In order to revive his career, Walt and his brother, Roy, moved to Hollywood, California, and started the Disney Brothers Studio. Luckily, Iwerks also relocated to California where he joined the team.

Margaret Winkler became the first distributor of the Alice cartoons. In addition, they also created Oswald the Lucky Rabbit character, which were sold for $1,500 per short. A few years after this success, Winkler's husband Charles Mintz and other employees of Disney conspired and stole the rights for Oswald.

After the losses, the Disney brothers, Iwerks, and their wives worked together and produced a new character, Mickey Mouse, featured in the silent shorts Plane Crazy and Gallopin' Gaucho. Music was incorporated into the animated short, Steamed Willie. Walt became the voice of Mickey Mouse, and it gained instant popularity.

By 1929, the short, Silly Symphonies, was created featuring new characters including Donald Duck, Goofy, Pluto, and Minnie Mouse. Moreover, Walt and his team also produced the first colored cartoon, Flowers and Trees, that won an Oscar.

In 1933, at the height of Great Depression in the U.S., Disney created The Three Little Pigs.

Disney's first full-length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, premiered in Los Angeles on December 21, 1937. Amidst the depression, it earned millions and won eight Oscars.

Following the 1939 opening of Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, he produced full-length animated films like Pinocchio (1940), Fantasia (1940), Dumbo (1941), and Bambi (1942).

In 1941, a number of Disney animators resigned and Walt was set back for some time. By 1950, he created the film Cinderella (1950), followed by Alice in Wonderland (1951), Peter Pan (1953), Lady and the Tramp (1955), Sleeping Beauty (1959), and101 Dalmatians (1961).

Walt Disney was also the first to use television as a source of entertainment. A variety show called The Mickey Mouse Club featuring the 'Mousekeeters' became popular to children.

On July 17, 1955, Disneyland theme park opened in Anaheim, California. The $17 million theme park was allowed families to enjoy rides and meet their favorite Disney characters.

The Sunday night show, Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Colors, became a medium to promote the theme park.

In 1964, Mary Poppins, a combination of live action and animation, became one of Walt's self-produced works.

Walt Disney's Death and Legacy

In 1966, during the ongoing plans for a new theme park, Disney was diagnosed with lung cancer. On December 15, 1966, he died at the age of 65. His body was cremated and interred at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California.

By 1971, after the death of Roy, Walt Disney World theme park was opened in Florida. Through the years, Disneyland expanded with parks in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Paris, and Shanghai.

During his lifetime, Walt won 22 Academy Awards and was nominated 59 times. In addition, he received four honorary Oscars.

In 2013, the film Saving Mr. Banks featured Tom Hanks as Walt Disney.

Walt Disney Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle which includes everything you need to know about the wonderful Walt Disney across 22 wonderful pages. These are ready-to-use Walt Disney worksheets that are perfect for teaching students about the life of the man who brought joy to so many children across the world. These worksheets are cross-curricular and can be used in Social Studies as well in English Language Arts.

Complete List Of Included Worksheets

Walt Disney Facts

Uncle Walt

Before Mickey

First Characters

All About Mickey

Walt's Journey

Sing Disney

Mapping Disneyland

Disney Characters

Your Voice Sounds Familiar

Disney Diary

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Link will appear as Walt Disney Facts & Worksheets: https://kidskonnect.com - KidsKonnect, March 8, 2018
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Walt Disney Facts, Worksheets, Biography, Life & Death For Kids

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Who Was Walt Disney?

Walter Elias "Walt" Disney co-founded Walt Disney Productions with his brother Roy, 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. He won 22 Academy Awards during his lifetime, and was the founder of theme parks Disneyland and Walt Disney World.

Walt Disney's Parents and Siblings

Disney's father was Elias Disney, an Irish-Canadian. His mother, Flora Call Disney, was German-American. Disney was one of five children, four boys and a girl.

Walt Disney's Childhood

Disney was born on December 5, 1901, in the Hermosa section of Chicago, Illinois. He lived most of his childhood in Marceline, Missouri, where he began drawing, painting and selling pictures to neighbors and family friends.

In 1911, his family moved to Kansas City, where Disney developed a love for trains. His uncle, Mike Martin, was a train engineer who worked the route between Fort Madison, Iowa and Marceline. Later, Disney would work a summer job with the railroad, selling snacks and newspapers to travelers.

Disney attended McKinley High School in Chicago, where he took drawing and photography classes and was a contributing cartoonist for the school paper. At night, he took courses at the Art Institute of Chicago.

When Disney was 16, he dropped out of school to join the Army but was rejected for being underage. Instead, he joined the Red Cross and was sent to France for a year to drive an ambulance. He moved back to the U.S. in 1919.

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Walt Disney's First Cartoons

In 1919, Disney moved to Kansas City to pursue a career as a newspaper artist. His brother Roy got him a job at the Pesmen-Rubin Art Studio, where he met cartoonist Ubbe Eert Iwwerks, better known as Ub Iwerks. From there, Disney worked at the Kansas City Film Ad Company, where he made commercials based on cutout animation.

Around this time, Disney began experimenting with a camera, doing hand-drawn cel animation. He decided to open his own animation business. From the ad company, he recruited Fred Harman as his first employee.

Disney and Harman made a deal with a local Kansas City theater to screen their cartoons, which they called Laugh-O-Grams. The cartoons were hugely popular, and Disney was able to acquire his own studio, upon which he bestowed the same name.

Laugh-O-Gram hired a number of employees, including Iwerks and Harman's brother Hugh. They did a series of seven-minute fairy tales that combined both live action and animation, which they called Alice in Cartoonland.

By 1923, however, the studio had become burdened with debt, and Disney was forced to declare bankruptcy.

Walt Disney Animation Studios

Disney and his brother Roy moved to Hollywood with cartoonist Ub Iwerks in 1923, and there the three began the Disney Brothers' Cartoon Studio. The company soon changed its name to Walt Disney Studios, at Roy's suggestion.

The Walt Disney Studios' first deal was with New York distributor Margaret Winkler, to distribute their Alice cartoons. They also invented a character called Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and contracted the shorts at $1,500 each. In the late 1920s, the studios broke from their distributors and created cartoons featuring Mickey Mouse and his friends.

In December 1939, a new campus for Walt Disney Animation Studios was opened in Burbank. In 1941 a setback for the company occurred when Disney animators went on strike. Many of them resigned. It would be years before the company fully recovered.

One of Disney Studio's most popular cartoons, Flowers and Trees (1932), was the first to be produced in color and to win an Oscar. In 1933, The Three Little Pigs and its title song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" became a theme for the country in the midst of the Great Depression.

Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse and Other Characters

Disney's first successful film starring Mickey Mouse was a sound-and-music-equipped animated short called Steamboat Willie. It opened at the Colony Theater in New York November 18, 1928. Sound had just made its way into film, and Disney was the voice of Mickey, a character he had developed and that was drawn by his chief animator, Ub Iwerks. The cartoon was an instant sensation.

The Disney brothers, their wives and Iwerks produced two earlier silent animated shorts starring Mickey Mouse, Plane Crazy and The Gallopin' Gaucho, out of necessity. The team had discovered that Disney's New York distributor, Margaret Winkler, and her husband, Charles Mintz, had stolen the rights to the character Oswald and all of Disney's animators except for Iwerks. The two earliest Mickey Mouse films failed to find distribution, as sound was already revolutionizing the movie industry.

In 1929, Disney created Silly Symphonies, featuring Mickey's newly created friends, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy and Pluto.

Photo: United Artists/Photofest

Walt Disney Movies

Disney produced more than 100 feature films. His first full-length animated film was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which premiered in Los Angeles on December 21, 1937. It produced an unimaginable $1.499 million, in spite of the Great Depression, and won eight Oscars. This led Walt Disney Studios to complete another string of full-length animated films over the next five years.

During the mid-1940s, Disney created "packaged features," groups of shorts strung together to run at feature length. By 1950, he was once again focusing on animated features.

Disney's last major success that he produced himself was the motion picture Mary Poppins, which came out in 1964 and mixed live action and animation.

A few other of Disney's most famous movies include:

Pinocchio (1940)

Fantasia (1940)

Dumbo (1941)

Bambi (1942)

Cinderella (1950)

Treasure Island (1950)

Alice in Wonderland (1951)

Peter Pan (1953)

Lady and the Tramp (1955)

Sleeping Beauty (1959)

101 Dalmatians (1961)

Disney's Television Series

Disney was also among the first people to use television as an entertainment medium. The Zorro and Davy Crockett series were extremely popular with children, as was The Mickey Mouse Club, a variety show featuring a cast of teenagers known as the Mouseketeers. Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color was a popular Sunday night show, which Disney used to begin promoting his new theme park.

Photo: Allan Grant/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Walt Disney Parks

Disneyland

Disney's $17 million Disneyland theme park opened on July 17, 1955, in Anaheim, California, on what was once an orange grove. Actor (and future U.S. president) Ronald Reagan presided over the activities. After a tumultuous opening day involving several mishaps (including the distribution of thousands of counterfeit invitations), the site became known as a place where children and their families could explore, enjoy rides and meet the Disney characters.

In a very short time, the park had increased its investment tenfold, and was entertaining tourists from around the world.

The original site had attendance ups and downs over the years. Disneyland has expanded its rides over time and branched out globally with Walt Disney World near Orlando, Florida, and parks in Tokyo, Paris, Hong Kong and Shanghai. Sister property California Adventure opened in Los Angeles in 2001.

Walt Disney World

Within a few years of Disneyland's 1955 opening, Disney began plans for a new theme park and to develop Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT) in Florida. It was still under construction when Disney died in 1966. After Disney's death, his brother Roy carried on the plans to finish the Florida theme park, which opened in 1971 under the name Walt Disney World.

Walt Disney's Wife, Children and Grandchildren

In 1925, Disney hired an ink-and-paint artist named Lillian Bounds. After a brief courtship, the couple married.

Disney and Lillian Bounds had two children. Diane Disney Miller, born in 1933, was the couple's only biological daughter. They adopted Sharon Disney Lund shortly after her birth in 1936.

Diane and her husband, Ronald Miller, had seven children: Christopher, Joanna, Tamara, Walter, Jennifer, Patrick, and Ronald Miller Jr.

Sharon and her first husband, Robert Brown, adopted a daughter, Victoria Disney. Sharon's second husband, Bill Lund, was a real estate developer who scouted the 27,000 acres in Orlando that became Disney World. Their twins, Brad and Michelle, were born in 1970.

Sharon's side of the family became embroiled in a controversy after her death in 1993, when her trust became available to her three children. The trust included a caveat that allowed her ex-husband Bill Lund and sister Diane to withhold funds if they could show that Sharon's children couldn't properly manage the money. This led to accusations of conspiracy and mental incompetence, insinuations of incest, and an ugly two-week-long battle of a trial in December 2013.
READ MORE: Is Walt Disney's Body Frozen?
When and How Walt Disney Died

Disney was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1966 and died on December 15, 1966, at the age of 65. Disney was cremated, and his ashes interred at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.

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Walter Elias "Walt" Disney co-founded Walt Disney Productions with his brother Roy, 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. He won 22 Academy Awards during his lifetime, and was the founder of theme parks Disneyland and Walt Disney World.

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An animated Biography of the inspiring Walt Disney

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Kids learn about the biography of Harriet Tubman, leader in the Underground Railroad who led many of the enslaved to freedom.

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History for kids - Free history network for kids

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Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman was born into northern slavery in Maryland in 1820 and her sense of independence led her to escape in 1849.

She devoted her life to helping to rescue other slaves, including her own family and non-family members.

She worked with the 'Underground Railroad' which included hidden routes and homes to let escaped slaves move from location to location, offering food, shelter, and clothes as they headed to freedom.

Tubman played a major role in the abolitionist movement to allow Black Americans their freedom.

Harriet Tubman Facts for Kids

Harriet was born into slavery in Maryland.

She escaped and became a conductor on the Underground Railroad.

She helped over 300 slaves escape to freedom.

During the Civil War, she worked as a nurse and spy.

Harriet was the first woman to lead an armed expedition.

She donated land to build a home for the elderly.

Harriet Tubman is remembered as a hero and icon.

Traumatic Childhood as a Slave

As part of a slave family, Harriet witnessed and experienced a lot of violence as well as the separation of her various family members as they were sold into slavery to other plantations.

The violence that she experienced caused her to have severe seizures and headaches for the rest of her life, based on a head injury she received when she refused to help a slave owner capture another slave.

What Was The Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad was not an actual railroad, but a secret network of people who helped slaves escape to freedom.

Harriet Tubman was a leader in this network, risking her life to help hundreds of slaves escape to the North.

Escaping and Leading the Underground Railroad

Tubman escaped slavery in 1849 and headed to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, using the Underground Railroad for her escape.

Once she was there, she set about a personal mission to help other members of her family to escape, which eventually became a mission for all other slaves.

She was given the title of 'Conductor' of the Underground Railroad and was so successful that many called her "General Tubman" as well as "Moses" for her leadership qualities.

Underground Railroad Route to Canada

By 1850, there was a passage of the "Fugitive Slaves Law" which allowed punishment for anyone who assisted in the escape of a slave and allowed slaves that escaped to the north to be captured and returned to their owners.

The change in dynamics meant a change in the ways that they had to help in freeing slaves.

Tubman changed the route of the Underground Railroad so that it was moved to Canada, where slavery was against the law.

Harriet Tubman's Allies: Douglass and Brown

During her time as an abolitionist, Harriet became friends with other members such as Frederick Douglass, who was also known to help in the Underground Railroad effort.

John Brown was another abolitionist that she came to know, although he promoted more violent methods for freedom than Tubman.

Harriet Tubman: Civil War Hero, Abolitionist, and Caretaker

Harriet helped in the Civil War effort as a cook and a nurse and helped by being an armed scout and spy for the Northern troops.

Tubman was the first woman to be the leader of an armed expedition and she led a group in the Combahee River Raid which freed over 700 South Carolina slaves.

Although Harriet became a famous voice for the abolitionist movement, she never did well financially. In 1859, Senator William H. Seward, also an abolitionist, sold Tubman some land in the country area of Auburn, New York.

The home became the haven for her family and friends as she cared for as many people as she could.

Generosity, National Recognition, and Commemoration

When author and admirer, Sarah H. Bradford, wrote Tubman's biography "Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman", the proceeds when to Harriet and her family.

Even with her poor economic condition, Tubman freely gave to those in need. In 1903 she donated a piece of her land to the African Methodist Episcopal Church and in 1908 The Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged was opened on the site.

In a survey taken near the end of the 20th Century, Tubman was listed as one of the most famous civilians in pre-Civil War American history.

The first two were Betsy Ross and Paul Revere. When Tubman passed away she was buried with full military honors at Auburn's Fort Hill Cemetery.

There are dozens of schools across the country that bear her name along with the Harriet Tubman Home in Auburn and the Harriet Tubman Museum in Cambridge.

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Harriet Tubman was born into northern slavery in Maryland in 1820 and her sense of independence led her to escape in 1849. She devoted her life to helping to rescue other slaves, including her own family and non-family members.

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Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Ross; c. 1820 or 1821 - March 10, 1913) was an African-American anti-slavery worker, and humanitarian. She was also a Union spy and the first black woman to lead an American mission during the American Civil War. She was born into slavery but she escaped. During her life, made 13 missions to rescue approximately 70 slaves, including family and friends. She used the Underground Railroad.

When Tubman was a child in Dorchester County, Maryland, she was whipped and beaten by many different masters. When she was very young, an angry overseer threw a heavy metal weight at another slave. The weight accidentally hit Tubman's head. That caused seizures, headaches, visions, and vivid dreams. She had those issues all her life. Tubman believed the visions and vivid dreams came from God.

In 1849, Tubman escaped to Philadelphia. Slaves were free there. She later returned to Maryland to rescue her family. She eventually guided dozens of other slaves to freedom. Slave owners offered large rewards for the return of their slaves. Tubman was never caught because nobody knew she was freeing the slaves.

When the American Civil War began, Tubman worked for the Union Army. She worked first as a cook and nurse. Later she was an armed (carrying weapons) scout and spy. She was the first woman to lead an armed group in the war. She guided the Combahee River Raid, which freed more than 700 slaves in South Carolina. After the war, she moved to her family home in Auburn, New York. There she cared for her aging parents. She became active in the women's suffrage movement in New York until she became ill. Near the end of her life, she lived in a home for elderly African Americans. Years earlier, she had helped create that home.

Early life and education

Tubman's mother Rit (whose father might have been a white man) was a cook. Her father Ben was a woodsman who did the timber work on a plantation. Ben and Rit married around 1808. According to court records, they had nine children together. Linah was born in 1808, Mariah Ritty in 1811, Soph in 1813, Robert in 1816, Minty (Harriet) in 1821, Ben in 1823, Rachel in 1825, Henry in 1830, and Moses in 1832.

Tubman's mother was owned by Mary Pattison Brodess and later her son, Edward. Rit was assigned to "the big house" as a cook and had very little time to be with her family. Harriet took care of a younger brother and a baby. This was typical in large families. When she was five or six years old, Brodess hired her out as a nursemaid to a woman named "Miss Susan." Tubman was ordered to watch the baby. Whenever the baby woke up and cried, Tubman was whipped. She later talked about a day when she was whipped five times before breakfast. She had the scars for the rest of her life. She found ways to resist such as running away for five days, wearing layers of clothing as protection against beatings, and fighting back.

As a child, Tubman also worked at the home of a planter named James Cook. She had to check muskrat traps in nearby marshes. She did that work even after she got measles. She became so ill that Cook sent her back to Brodess. After Harriet's mother nursed her back to health, Brodess hired her out again. Tubman spoke later of the intense homesickness she experienced as a child. She compared herself to "the boy on the Swanee River" (referring to Stephen Foster's song "Old Folks at Home"). When she was older and stronger, she did field and forest work, driving oxen, plowing, and hauling logs.

Head injury

One day when she was an adolescent, Tubman was sent to a dry-goods store for supplies. There she met a slave owned by another family. That slave had left the fields without permission. His overseer was angry and demanded that Tubman help restrain the young man. Tubman refused. As the slave ran away, the overseer threw a two-pound weight at him. The weight hit Tubman instead. Tubman said the weight "broke my skull." She later explained her belief that her hair - which "had never been combed and ... stood out like a bushel basket" - might have saved her life. Bleeding and unconscious, Tubman was returned to her owner's house and laid on the seat of a loom. She had no medical care for two days. She was sent back into the fields, "with blood and sweat rolling down my face until I couldn't see." She began having seizures and seemed to fall unconscious. She later said she was aware of her surroundings while appearing to be asleep. These episodes were frightening to her family. They couldn't wake her when she fell asleep suddenly and without warning. This condition remained with Tubman for the rest of her life. She may have suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy because of the injury.

Family and marriage

Around 1844, Tubman married a free black man named John Tubman. Little is known about him or their time together. Their marriage was complicated because she was a slave. Since children from the marriage would have the status of the mother, any children born to Harriet and John would become slaves. By this time, half the black population on the Eastern Shore of Maryland was free. Marriages between free people and enslaved people were common. Most African-American families had both free and enslaved members. It is possible that the couple might have planned to buy Tubman's freedom.

Escape from slavery

In 1849, Harriet became ill again. This reduced her value when Edward Brodess tried to sell her. Edward could not sell her and died shortly thereafter. Edward's wife, Eliza began working to sell the family's slaves. Tubman did not wait to be sold, but escaped with two of her brothers, Ben and Henry. Later, the two men had second thoughts about escaping and made Harriet return with them.

Soon afterward, Tubman escaped again, this time without her brothers. She later explained, "I had reasoned this out in my mind; there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other."

John Brown and Harpers Ferry

In April of 1958, Tubman was introduced to the abolitionist John Brown. Harriet did not agree that violence should be used against white people as John Brown did, but she did help him by sharing her knowledge of support networks and resources in the border states. Brown asked Tubman, who he called "General Tubman," to gather former slaves who might be willing to join his fighting force.

On May 8, 1958, Bown held a meeting where he shared his plan for a raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia) Tubman helped with the plans, but when it was time for the attack, Tubman could not be contacted.

The raid failed; Brown was convicted of treason, murder, and inciting (starting) a slave rebellion. He was hanged in December.

In early 1859, abolitionist Republican U.S. Senator William H. Seward sold Tubman a small piece of land on the outskirts of Auburn, New York, for $1,200 ($36,191 in 2023). Her land in Auburn became a haven for Tubman's family and friends. For years, she took in relatives and boarders, offering a safe place for black Americans seeking a better life in the North.

American Civil War

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Tubman saw a Union victory as a key step toward the abolition of slavery. Harriet hoped to offer her own expertise and skills to the Union cause, too, and soon she joined a group of abolitionists who helped fugitives.

Tubman served as a nurse in Port Royal, making medicines from local plants and helping soldiers suffering from dysentery. She helped men with smallpox and miraculously did not get the disease.

Scouting and the Combahee River Raid

When Lincoln finally issued the Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863, Tubman thought it was an important step toward the goal of freeing all black people from slavery. She began leading a band of scouts in land that was similar to where she grew up. She put her knowledge of how to travel secretly to good use and was able to give Colonel James Montgomery important information that helped in his capture of Jacksonville, Florida.

Later that year, Tubman helped Montgomery again. She became the first woman to lead an armed assault during the Civil War. Tubman guided three steamboats around Confederate mines in the waters that led to the shore. As Montgomery and his troops set fire to several plantations, the steamboats sounded their whistles, slaves throughout the area ran to the boats. Confederate troops were too late to stop the steamboats that were packed full of slaves, and the boats took off toward Beaufort, South Carolina.

More than 750 slaves were rescued in the Combahee River Raid. For two more years, Tubman worked for the Union, helping the newly freed slaves, scouting into Confederate territory, and nursing wounded soldiers in Virginia. She also made some trips back to Auburn to visit her family and care for her parents. After the Confederacy surrendered in April of 1865, Tubman served for several more months and headed home to Auburn.

Even though Harriet Tubman served the U.S. government for years, she did not receive a regular salary. Tubman spent her last years in Auburn, tending to her family and other people in need. She worked various jobs to support her elderly parents and took in boarders to help pay the bills. Her friends and supporters from her earlier abolition days help raise funds to support her.

Suffragist activism

In her later years, Tubman worked to advance the cause of women's suffrage. She worked with other women such as Susan B. Anthony and Emily Howland. Harriet traveled to cities to speak out in favor of women's voting rights. She described her actions during and after the Civil War and used the sacrifices of countless women throughout modern history as proof of women's equality with men.

AME Zion Church, illness, and death

At the turn of the 20th century, Tubman became involved with the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in Auburn. In 1903, she donated a piece she owned to the church, under the instruction that it be made into a home for "aged and indigent (poor) colored people." The home opened five years later. Tubman was upset that the church ordered residents to pay a $100 entrance fee. She wished that people would not have to pay anything to live there.

In the late 1890s, Harriet had brain surgery to help with the seizures and headaches that continued to plague her. The surgery helped her for a time. By 1911, Tubman began living in the rest home she began, the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged. She died of pneumonia in 1913 and was buried with semi-military honors at Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn.

Tubman has had many museums and historical sites named after her. She is the subject of works of art including songs, novels, sculptures, paintings, movies, and theatrical productions.

Harriet Tubman quotes

"I said to the Lord, 'I'm going to hold steady on to you, and I know you will see me through.'"

"I would make a home for them in the North, and the Lord helping me, I would bring them all here."

"If a person would send another into bondage, he would, it appears to me, be bad enough to send him into hell if he could."

"I ain't got no heart to go and see the sufferings of my people played on the stage."

"I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can't say; I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger."

"I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person now that I was free."

Interesting facts about Harriet Tubman

When Harriet was helping slaves to freedom, her code name was "Moses" and she was known as the "black ghost."

She used spirituals and songs as coded messages for her followers.

When she had brain surgery to help with her seizures and headaches, she did not receive anesthesia for the procedure. Instead, she bit down on a bullet as she had seen Civil War soldiers do.

Harriet Tubman has two National Park sites dedicated to her: the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park in Dorchester County, Maryland, and the Harriet Tubman National Historical Park in Auburn, New York.

Images for kids

Notice in the Cambridge Democrat newspaper offering a reward of US$100 ($3,260 in 2023) for the capture and return of "Minty" (Harriet Tubman) and her brothers Henry and Ben, after they escaped on September 17, 1849

Frederick Douglass, who worked for slavery's abolition alongside Tubman, praised her in print.

Tubman's great-niece, Eva Stewart Northrup, launching the SS Harriet Tubman in 1944.

In Spanish: Harriet Tubman para niños

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Harriet Tubman was an African-American abolitionist, humanitarian, and during the American Civil War, a Union spy. She was born into slavery and Tubman was able to escape, as well help seventy friends and family escape from slavery as well.
See the fact file below for more facts and information on Harriet Tubman or download the double bundle worksheet collection which includes over 30 worksheets to utilise within the classroom or home environment.
Quick Facts

Harriet Tubman was named Araminta Ross when she was born around 1820 in Bucktown, Maryland.

Araminta changed her name to Harriet to honor her mother, and when she married John Tubman her last name changed also.

When Harriet was twelve years old an overseer threw an iron weight at her and struck her in the head... she was standing up for another slave... for the rest of her life she suffered from blackouts and headaches.

At the age of 30 in 1849, Harriet ran away to the North and ended up in Philadelphia... she learned about a movement to abolish slavery and a group of people who were dedicated to helping slaves escape to the North... these people created the Underground Railroad.

The Underground Raillroad wasn't an actual railroad... It was a path that slaves traveled at night with the help of conductors, or people who guided them from safehouse to safehouse until they had reached the North... the station masters were the people who lived at the safehouse... these houses could be identified by the candles or lanterns that sat in the window.

Harriet made about 13 trips to the South and helped hundreds of slaves reach the safety of the North.

When the Civil War broke out, Harriet Tubman worked as a cook, nurse and spy for the Union Army.

Harriet Tubman was known as Moses after the Biblical Moses. He led his people out of Egypt and Harriet led her people out of the South and out of slavery.

She worked for the rights of African Americans until she died on March 10, 1913, at the age of 93.

Harriet Tubman has been honored many times since her death for her bravery and humanitarian efforts.

In-depth Biography:

Early Life

Harriet Tubman was born as Araminta "Minty" Ross in Dorchester County, Maryland. She was the daughter of Harriet Green and Ben Ross, both were born into slavery. The couple had nine children, Minty was the fifth child.

At the age of five, Minty was hired to take care of an infant. By eight, she served in a household where she experienced punishment from her mistress because she took a lump of sugar and tasted it.

Four years later, she worked in the plantation of a man named Barrett. Tubman preferred working outside instead of domestic works.

When Harriet was twelve years old, an overseer threw an iron weight at her and struck her in the head. She was standing up for another slave and for the rest of her life she suffered from blackouts and headaches.

Minty and her family were hired by John Steward to cut timber in Baltimore. Araminta changed her name to Harriet in honor of her mother, and when she married John Tubman in 1884, her last name also changed.

Harriet Tubman's Legacy and Death

At the age of 30 in 1849, Harriet ran away to the north and ended up in Philadelphia where she learned about a movement to abolish slavery with the group of people who were dedicated to helping slaves escape to the north. These people created the Underground Railroad.

The Underground Railroad was not an actual railroad. It was a path that slaves traveled at night with the help of conductors, or people who guided them from safehouse to safehouse until they had reached Canada. The station masters were the people who lived at the safehouse. These houses could be identified by the candles or lanterns that stood in the window.

During the Civil War, Tubman was recruited as a volunteer by General Benjamin Butler. She became the only African-American to be part of an all-white troop. Tubman worked as a cook, nurse and laundry washer without compensation.

From Virginia, she travelled to Port Royal, South Carolina, where she joined Dr. Henry K. Durand, Director of the Freedman's Hospital.

On January 1, 1863, right after the Emancipation Proclamation, she became the commander of the team in charge of espionage. Tubman led the creation of lifelines and escape routes for trapped slaves.

On June 2, 1863, the Combahee River Raid took place. It was led by Tubman who guided 150 black soldiers and they liberated more than 750 slaves.

Harriet Tubman was known as Moses after the Biblical Moses, who led his people out of Egypt, and Harriet led her people out of the south and out of slavery.

After the Civil War, Tubman returned to Auburn, New York. Her father died in 1871 while her mother passed nine years later.

On March 18, 1869, Tubman married Nelson Davis, a former soldier and brickmaker.

She worked for the rights of African Americans until she died on March 10, 1913, at the age of 93.

Harriet Tubman has been honored many times since her death for her bravery and humanitarian efforts.

Harriet Tubman Worksheets

This is a double bundle addition which includes over 30 ready-to-use Harriet Tubman worksheets that are perfect for students to learn about this famous lady who was born into slavery and was able to escape, as well help seventy friends and family escape from slavery as well.

Harriet Tubman Facts

Araminta's Biography

Slavery Bank

Famous Abolitionists

The Underground Railroad

Freedom Lamp

Tubman Timeline

Emancipation Proclamation

Words to Remember

Swing Low Sweet Chariot

Looking Back

Introduction

Harriet Tubman Facts

Which do not belong?

Word Search 01

Word Search 02

Freedom Wheel

Order of Events

Civil War Heroes

Triad of Hope

Word decode

Acrostic

Reflection

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Harriet Tubman Facts, Worksheets, Information & Biography For Kids

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Not ready to purchase a subscription? Click to download the free sample version Download sample Harriet Tubman was an African-American abolitionist, humanitarian, and during the American Civil War, a Union spy. She was born into slavery and Tubman was able to escape, as well help seventy friends and family escape from slavery as well.

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Kids learn about the biography of Harry Houdini including his early life, becoming a magician, his famous escapes and illusions, later life, mysterious death, and fun facts.

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Harry Houdini (, born Erich Weisz; March 24, 1874 - October 31, 1926) was a Hungarian-American escape artist, magic man, and stunt performer, noted for his escape acts. His pseudonym is a reference to his spiritual master, French magician Robert-Houdin (1805-1871).

He first attracted notice in vaudeville in the United States and then as "Harry ' Handcuff' Houdini" on a tour of Europe, where he challenged police forces to keep him locked up. Soon he extended his repertoire to include chains, ropes slung from skyscrapers, straitjackets under water, and having to escape from and hold his breath inside a sealed milk can with water in it.

In 1904, thousands watched as he tried to escape from special handcuffs commissioned by London's Daily Mirror, keeping them in suspense for an hour. Another stunt saw him buried alive and only just able to claw himself to the surface, emerging in a state of near-breakdown. While many suspected that these escapes were faked, Houdini presented himself as the scourge of fake spiritualists. As President of the Society of American Magicians, he was keen to uphold professional standards and expose fraudulent artists. He was also quick to sue anyone who imitated his escape stunts.

Houdini made several movies but quit acting when it failed to bring in money. He was also a keen aviator and aimed to become the first man to fly a powered aircraft in Australia.

Erich Weisz was born in Budapest, Kingdom of Hungary to a Jewish family. His parents were Rabbi Mayer Sámuel Weisz (1829-1892) and Cecília Steiner (1841-1913). Houdini was one of seven children: Herman M. (1863-1885), who was Houdini's half-brother by Rabbi Weisz's first marriage; Nathan J. (1870-1927); Gottfried William (1872-1925); Theodore (1876-1945); Leopold D. (1879-1962); and Carrie Gladys (1882-1959), who was left almost blind after a childhood accident.

Weisz arrived in the United States on July 3, 1878, on the SS Frisia with his mother (who was pregnant) and his four brothers. The family changed their name to the German spelling Weiss, and Erich became Erik. The family lived in Appleton, Wisconsin, where his father served as rabbi of the Zion Reform Jewish Congregation.

According to the 1880 census, the family lived on Appleton Street in an area that is now known as Houdini Plaza. On June 6, 1882, Rabbi Weiss became an American citizen. Losing his job at Zion in 1882, Rabbi Weiss and family moved to Milwaukee and fell into dire poverty. In 1887, Rabbi Weiss moved with Erich to New York City, where they lived in a boarding house on East 79th Street. He was joined by the rest of the family once Rabbi Weiss found permanent housing. As a child, Erich Weiss took several jobs, making his public début as a nine-year-old trapeze artist, calling himself "Ehrich, the Prince of the Air". He was also a champion cross country runner in his youth.

Magic career

When Weiss became a professional magician he began calling himself "Harry Houdini", after the French magician Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, after reading Robert-Houdin's autobiography in 1890. Weiss incorrectly believed that an i at the end of a name meant "like" in French. However, "i" at the end of the name means "belong to" in Hungarian. In later life, Houdini claimed that the first part of his new name, Harry, was an homage to American magician Harry Kellar, whom he also admired, though it was likely adapted from "Ehri", a nickname for "Ehrich", which is how he was known to his family.

When he was a teenager, Houdini was coached by the magician Joseph Rinn at the Pastime Athletic Club.

Houdini began his magic career in 1891, but had little success. He appeared in a tent act with strongman Emil Jarrow. He performed in dime museums and sideshows, and even doubled as "The Wild Man" at a circus. Houdini focused initially on traditional card tricks. At one point, he billed himself as the "King of Cards". Some - but not all - professional magicians would come to regard Houdini as a competent but not particularly skilled sleight-of-hand artist, lacking the grace and finesse required to achieve excellence in that craft. He soon began experimenting with escape acts.

In the early 1890s, Houdini was performing with his brother "Dash" (Theodore) as "The Brothers Houdini". The brothers performed at at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 before returning to New York City and working at Huber's Dime Museum for "near-starvation wages". In 1894, Houdini met a fellow performer, Wilhelmina Beatrice "Bess" Rahner. Bess was initially courted by Dash, but she and Houdini married, with Bess replacing Dash in the act, which became known as "The Houdinis". For the rest of Houdini's performing career, Bess worked as his stage assistant.

Houdini's big break came in 1899 when he met manager Martin Beck in St. Paul, Minnesota. Impressed by Houdini's handcuffs act, Beck advised him to concentrate on escape acts and booked him on the Orpheum vaudeville circuit. Within months, he was performing at the top vaudeville houses in the country. In 1900, Beck arranged for Houdini to tour Europe. After some days of unsuccessful interviews in London, Houdini's British agent Harry Day helped him to get an interview with C. Dundas Slater, then manager of the Alhambra Theatre. He was introduced to William Melville and gave a demonstration of escape from handcuffs at Scotland Yard. He succeeded in baffling the police so effectively that he was booked at the Alhambra for six months. His show was an immediate hit and his salary rose to $300 a week (equivalent to $9,772 in 2021).

Between 1900 and 1920 he appeared in theatres all over Great Britain performing escape acts, illusions, card tricks and outdoor stunts, becoming one of the world's highest paid entertainers. He also toured the Netherlands, Germany, France, and Russia and became widely known as "The Handcuff King". In each city, Houdini challenged local police to restrain him with shackles and lock him in their jails. In many of these challenge escapes, he was first stripped nude and searched. In Moscow, he escaped from a Siberian prison transport van, claiming that, had he been unable to free himself, he would have had to travel to Siberia, where the only key was kept.

In Cologne, he sued a police officer, Werner Graff, who alleged that he made his escapes via bribery. Houdini won the case when he opened the judge's safe (he later said the judge had forgotten to lock it). With his new-found wealth, Houdini purchased a dress said to have been made for Queen Victoria. He then arranged a grand reception where he presented his mother in the dress to all their relatives. Houdini said it was the happiest day of his life. In 1904, Houdini returned to the U.S. and purchased a house for $25,000 (equivalent to $753,981 in 2021), a brownstone at 278 W. 113th Street in Harlem, New York City.

While on tour in Europe in 1902, Houdini visited Blois with the aim of meeting the widow of Emile Houdin, the son of Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, for an interview and permission to visit his grave. He did not receive permission but still visited the grave. Houdini believed that he had been treated unfairly and later wrote a negative account of the incident in his magazine, claiming he was "treated most discourteously by Madame W. Emile Robert-Houdin". In 1906, he sent a letter to the French magazine L'Illusionniste stating: "You will certainly enjoy the article on Robert Houdin I am about to publish in my magazine. Yes, my dear friend, I think I can finally demolish your idol, who has so long been placed on a pedestal that he did not deserve."

In 1906, Houdini created his own publication, the Conjurers' Monthly Magazine. It was a competitor to The Sphinx, but was short-lived and only two volumes were released until August 1908. Magic historian Jim Steinmeyer has noted that "Houdini couldn't resist using the journal for his own crusades, attacking his rivals, praising his own appearances, and subtly rewriting history to favor his view of magic."

From 1907 and throughout the 1910s, Houdini performed with great success in the United States. He freed himself from jails, handcuffs, chains, ropes, and straitjackets, often while hanging from a rope in sight of street audiences. Because of imitators, Houdini put his "handcuff act" behind him on January 25, 1908, and began escaping from a locked, water-filled milk can. The possibility of failure and death thrilled his audiences. Houdini also expanded his repertoire with his escape challenge act, in which he invited the public to devise contraptions to hold him. These included nailed packing crates (sometimes lowered into water), riveted boilers, wet sheets, mail bags, and even the belly of a whale that had washed ashore in Boston. Brewers in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and other cities challenged Houdini to escape from a barrel after they filled it with beer.

Many of these challenges were arranged with local merchants in one of the first uses of mass tie-in marketing . Rather than promote the idea that he was assisted by spirits, as did the Davenport Brothers and others, Houdini's advertisements showed him making his escapes via dematerializing, although Houdini himself never claimed to have supernatural powers.

After much research, Houdini wrote a collection of articles on the history of magic, which were expanded into ''The Unmasking of Robert-Houdin'' published in 1908. In this book he attacked his former idol Robert-Houdin as a liar and a fraud for having claimed the invention of automata and effects such as aerial suspension, which had been in existence for many years. Many of the allegations in the book were dismissed by magicians and researchers who defended Robert-Houdin. Magician Jean Hugard would later write a full rebuttal to Houdini's book.

Houdini introduced the Chinese Water Torture Cell at the Circus Busch in Berlin, Germany, on September 21, 1912. He was suspended upside-down in a locked glass-and-steel cabinet full to overflowing with water, holding his breath for more than three minutes. He would go on performing this escape for the rest of his life.

During his career, Houdini explained some of his tricks in books written for the magic brotherhood. In Handcuff Secrets (1909), he revealed how many locks and handcuffs could be opened with properly applied force, others with shoestrings. Other times, he carried concealed lockpicks or keys. When tied down in ropes or straitjackets, he gained wiggle room by enlarging his shoulders and chest, moving his arms slightly away from his body.

His straitjacket escape was originally performed behind curtains, with him popping out free at the end. Houdini's brother (who was also an escape artist, billing himself as Theodore Hardeen) discovered that audiences were more impressed when the curtains were eliminated so they could watch him struggle to get out. On more than one occasion, they both performed straitjacket escapes while dangling upside-down from the roof of a building in the same city.

For most of his career, Houdini was a headline act in vaudeville. For many years, he was the highest-paid performer in American vaudeville. One of Houdini's most notable non-escape stage illusions was performed at the New York Hippodrome, when he vanished a full-grown elephant from the stage. He had purchased this trick from the magician Charles Morritt. In 1923, Houdini became president of Martinka & Co., America's oldest magic company. The business is still in operation today.

He also served as president of the Society of American Magicians ( a.k.a. S.A.M.) from 1917 until his death in 1926. Founded on May 10, 1902, in the back room of Martinka's magic shop in New York, the Society expanded under the leadership of Harry Houdini during his term as national president from 1917 to 1926. Houdini was magic's greatest visionary. He sought to create a large, unified national network of professional and amateur magicians. Wherever he traveled, he gave a lengthy formal address to the local magic club, made speeches, and usually threw a banquet for the members at his own expense. He said "The Magicians Clubs as a rule are small: they are weak ... but if we were amalgamated into one big body the society would be stronger, and it would mean making the small clubs powerful and worthwhile. Members would find a welcome wherever they happened to be and, conversely, the safeguard of a city-to-city hotline to track exposers and other undesirables".

For most of 1916, while on his vaudeville tour, Houdini had been recruiting - at his own expense - local magic clubs to join the S.A.M. in an effort to revitalize what he felt was a weak organization. Houdini persuaded groups in Buffalo, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Kansas City to join. As had happened in London, he persuaded magicians to join. The Buffalo club joined as the first branch, (later assembly) of the Society. Chicago Assembly No. 3 was, as the name implies, the third regional club to be established by the S.A.M., whose assemblies now number in the hundreds. In 1917, he signed Assembly Number Three's charter into existence, and that charter and this club continue to provide Chicago magicians with a connection to each other and to their past. Houdini dined with, addressed, and got pledges from similar clubs in Detroit, Rochester, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Cincinnati and elsewhere. This was the biggest movement ever in the history of magic. In places where no clubs existed, he rounded up individual magicians, introduced them to each other, and urged them into the fold.

By the end of 1916, magicians' clubs in San Francisco and other cities that Houdini had not visited were offering to become assemblies. He had created the richest and longest-surviving organization of magicians in the world. It now embraces almost 6,000 dues-paying members and almost 300 assemblies worldwide. In July 1926, Houdini was elected for the ninth successive time President of the Society of American Magicians. Every other president has only served for one year. He also was President of the Magicians' Club of London.

In the final years of his life (1925/26), Houdini launched his own full-evening show, which he billed as "Three Shows in One: Magic, Escapes, and Fraud Mediums Exposed".

Notable escapes

Daily Mirror challenge

In 1904, the London Daily Mirror newspaper challenged Houdini to escape from special handcuffs that it claimed had taken Nathaniel Hart, a locksmith from Birmingham, five years to make. Houdini accepted the challenge for March 17 during a matinée performance at London's Hippodrome theatre. It was reported that 4000 people and more than 100 journalists turned out for the much-hyped event. The escape attempt dragged on for over an hour, during which Houdini emerged from his "ghost house" (a small screen used to conceal the method of his escape) several times. At one point he asked if the cuffs could be removed so he could take off his coat. The Mirror representative, Frank Parker, refused, saying Houdini could gain an advantage if he saw how the cuffs were unlocked. Houdini promptly took out a penknife and, holding it in his teeth, used it to cut his coat from his body. Some 56 minutes later, Houdini's wife appeared on stage and gave him a kiss. Many thought that in her mouth was the key to unlock the special handcuffs. However, it has since been suggested that Bess did not in fact enter the stage at all, and that this theory is unlikely due to the size of the six-inch key. Houdini then went back behind the curtain. After an hour and ten minutes, Houdini emerged free. As he was paraded on the shoulders of the cheering crowd, he broke down and wept. At the time, Houdini said it had been one of the most difficult escapes of his career.

After Houdini's death, his friend Martin Beck was quoted in Will Goldston's book, Sensational Tales of Mystery Men, admitting that Houdini was tested that day and had appealed to his wife, Bess, for help. Goldston goes on to claim that Bess begged the key from the Mirror representative, then slipped it to Houdini in a glass of water. It was stated in the book The Secret Life of Houdini that the key required to open the specially designed Mirror handcuffs was six inches long, and could not have been smuggled to Houdini in a glass of water. Goldston offered no proof of his account, and many modern biographers have found evidence (notably in the custom design of the handcuffs) that the Mirror challenge may have been arranged by Houdini and that his long struggle to escape was pure showmanship. James Randi believes that the only way the handcuffs could have been opened was by using their key, and speculates that it would have been viewed "distasteful" to both the Mirror and to Houdini if Houdini had failed the escape.

This escape was discussed in depth on the Travel Channel's Mysteries at the Museum in an interview with Houdini expert, magician and escape artist Dorothy Dietrich of Scranton's Houdini Museum.

A full-sized construction of the same Mirror Handcuffs, as well as a replica of the Bramah style key for them, are on display to the public at The Houdini Museum in Scranton, Pennsylvania. This set of cuffs is believed to be one of only six in the world, some of which are not on display.

Milk Can Escape

In 1908, Houdini introduced his own original act, the Milk Can Escape. In this act, Houdini was handcuffed and sealed inside an oversized milk can filled with water and made his escape behind a curtain. As part of the effect, Houdini invited members of the audience to hold their breath along with him while he was inside the can. Advertised with dramatic posters, the escape proved to be a sensation. Houdini soon modified the escape to include the milk can being locked inside a wooden chest, being chained or padlocked. Houdini performed the milk can escape as a regular part of his act for only four years, but it has remained one of the acts most associated with him. Houdini's brother, Theodore Hardeen, continued to perform the milk can escape and its wooden chest variant into the 1940s.

The American Museum of Magic has the milk can and overboard box used by Houdini.

After other magicians proposed variations on the Milk Can Escape, Houdini claimed that the act was protected by copyright and in 1906, brought a case against John Clempert, one of the most persistent imitators. The matter was settled out of court and Clempert agreed to publish an apology.

Suspended straitjacket escape

One of Houdini's most popular publicity stunts was to have himself strapped into a regulation straitjacket and suspended by his ankles from a tall building or crane. Houdini would then make his escape in full view of the assembled crowd. In many cases, Houdini drew tens of thousands of onlookers who brought city traffic to a halt. Houdini would sometimes ensure press coverage by performing the escape from the office building of a local newspaper. In New York City, Houdini performed the suspended straitjacket escape from a crane being used to build the subway. After flinging his body in the air, he escaped from the straitjacket. Starting from when he was hoisted up in the air by the crane, to when the straitjacket was completely off, it took him two minutes and thirty-seven seconds. There is film footage in the Library of Congress of Houdini performing the escape. Films of his escapes are also shown at The Houdini Museum in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

After being battered against a building in high winds during one escape, Houdini performed the escape with a visible safety wire on his ankle so that he could be pulled away from the building if necessary. The idea for the upside-down escape was given to Houdini by a young boy named Randolph Osborne Douglas (March 31, 1895 - December 5, 1956), when the two met at a performance at Sheffield's Empire Theatre.

Overboard box escape

Another of Houdini's most famous publicity stunts was to escape from a nailed and roped packing crate after it had been lowered into water. He first performed the escape in New York's East River on July 7, 1912. Police forbade him from using one of the piers, so he hired a tugboat and invited press on board. Houdini was locked in handcuffs and leg-irons, then nailed into the crate which was roped and weighed down with two hundred pounds of lead. The crate was then lowered into the water. He escaped in 57 seconds. The crate was pulled to the surface and found still to be intact, with the manacles inside.

Houdini performed this escape many times, and even performed a version on stage, first at Hamerstein's Roof Garden where a 5,500-US-gallon (21,000 L) tank was specially built, and later at the New York Hippodrome.

Buried alive stunt

Houdini performed at least three variations on a buried alive stunt during his career. The first was near Santa Ana, California in 1915, and it almost cost him his life. Houdini was buried, without a casket, in a pit of earth six feet deep. He became exhausted and panicked while trying to dig his way to the surface and called for help. When his hand finally broke the surface, he fell unconscious and had to be pulled from the grave by his assistants. Houdini wrote in his diary that the escape was "very dangerous".

Houdini's second variation on buried alive was an endurance test designed to expose mystical Egyptian performer Rahman Bey, who had claimed to use supernatural powers to remain in a sealed casket for an hour. Houdini bettered Bey on August 5, 1926, by remaining in a sealed casket, or coffin, submerged in the swimming pool of New York's Hotel Shelton for one and a half hours. Houdini claimed he did not use any trickery or supernatural powers to accomplish this feat, just controlled breathing. He repeated the feat at the YMCA in Worcester, Massachusetts on September 28, 1926, this time remaining sealed for one hour and eleven minutes.

Houdini's final buried alive was an elaborate stage escape that featured in his full evening show. Houdini would escape after being strapped in a straitjacket, sealed in a casket, and then buried in a large tank filled with sand. While posters advertising the escape exist (playing off the Bey challenge by boasting "Egyptian Fakirs Outdone!"), it is unclear whether Houdini ever performed buried alive on stage. The stunt was to be the feature escape of his 1927 season, but Houdini died on October 31, 1926. The bronze casket Houdini created for buried alive was used to transport Houdini's body from Detroit to New York following his death on Halloween.

Film career

In 1906, Houdini started showing films of his outside escapes as part of his vaudeville act. In Boston, he presented a short film called Houdini Defeats Hackenschmidt. Georg Hackenschmidt was a famous wrestler of the day, but the nature of their contest is unknown as the film is lost. In 1909, Houdini made a film in Paris for Cinema Lux titled Merveilleux Exploits du Célèbre Houdini à Paris (Marvellous Exploits of the Famous Houdini in Paris). It featured a loose narrative designed to showcase several of Houdini's famous escapes, including his straitjacket and underwater handcuff escapes. That same year Houdini got an offer to star as Captain Nemo in a silent version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, but the project never made it into production.

It is often erroneously reported that Houdini served as special-effects consultant on the Wharton/International cliffhanger serial, The Mysteries of Myra, shot in Ithaca, New York, because Harry Grossman, director of The Master Mystery also filmed a serial in Ithaca at about the same time. The consultants on the serial were pioneering Hereward Carrington and Aleister Crowley.

In 1918, Houdini signed a contract with film producer B. A. Rolfe to star in a 15-part serial, The Master Mystery (released in November 1918). As was common at the time, the film serial was released simultaneously with a novel. Financial difficulties resulted in B. A. Rolfe Productions going out of business, but The Master Mystery led to Houdini being signed by Famous Players-Lasky Corporation/ Paramount Pictures, for whom he made two pictures, The Grim Game (1919) and Terror Island (1920).

The Grim Game was Houdini's first full-length movie and is reputed to be his best. Because of the flammable nature of nitrate film and their low rate of survival, film historians considered the film lost. One copy did exist hidden in the collection of a private collector only known to a tiny group of magicians that saw it. Dick Brookz and Dorothy Dietrich of The Houdini Museum in Scranton, Pennsylvania, had seen it twice on the invitation of the collector. After many years of trying, they finally got him to agree to sell the film to Turner Classic Movies who restored the complete 71-minute film. The film, not seen by the general public for 96 years was shown by TCM on March 29, 2015, as a highlight of their yearly 4-day festival in Hollywood.

While filming an aerial stunt for The Grim Game, two biplanes collided in mid-air with a stuntman doubling Houdini dangling by a rope from one of the planes. Publicity was geared heavily toward promoting this dramatic "caught on film" moment, claiming it was Houdini himself dangling from the plane. While filming these movies in Los Angeles, Houdini rented a home in Laurel Canyon. Following his two-picture stint in Hollywood, Houdini returned to New York and started his own film production company called the "Houdini Picture Corporation". He produced and starred in two films, The Man from Beyond (1921) and Haldane of the Secret Service (1923). He also founded his own film laboratory business called The Film Development Corporation (FDC), gambling on a new process for developing motion picture film. Houdini's brother, Theodore Hardeen, left his own career as a magician and escape artist to run the company. Magician Harry Kellar was a major investor. In 1919 Houdini moved to Los Angeles to film. He resided in 2435 Laurel Canyon Boulevard, a residence owned by Ralph M. Walker. The Houdini Estate, a tribute to Houdini, is located on 2400 Laurel Canyon Boulevard. Previously home to Walker himself. The Houdini Estate is subject to controversy, in that it is disputed whether Houdini ever actually made it his home. While there are claims it was Houdini's house, others counter that "he never set foot" on the property. It is rooted in Bess's parties or seances, etc. held across the street, she would do so at the Walker mansion. In fact, the guesthouse featured an elevator connecting to a tunnel that crossed under Laurel Canyon to the big house grounds (though capped, the tunnel still exists).

Neither Houdini's acting career nor FDC found success, and he gave up on the movie business in 1923, complaining that "the profits are too meager".

In April 2008, Kino International released a DVD box set of Houdini's surviving silent films, including The Master Mystery, Terror Island, The Man From Beyond, Haldane of the Secret Service, and five minutes from The Grim Game. The set also includes newsreel footage of Houdini's escapes from 1907 to 1923, and a section from Merveilleux Exploits du Célébre Houdini à Paris, although it is not identified as such.

In 1909, Houdini became fascinated with aviation. He purchased a French Voisin biplane for $5,000 (equivalent to $145,411 in 2021) from the Chilean aviators José Luis Sánchez-Besa [fr] and Emilio Eduardo Bello, and hired a full-time mechanic, Antonio Brassac. After crashing once, he made his first successful flight on November 26 in Hamburg, Germany.

The following year, Houdini toured Australia, and brought along his Voisin biplane with the intention to be the first person to fly in Australia.

Melbourne people will shortly have an opportunity of witnessing the ascent of a flying machine, for Houdini, whose Voision [sic] bi-plane has arrived, has determined to make a flight before his season closes at the [New] Opera House [in Melbourne, at the end of March]. The 60 to 80 horse-power motor used is of the E.N.V. pattern. The machine has been erected at Diggers' Rest. Table Talk, March 3, 1910.

Falsely reported as pioneer

March 18, 1910

On Friday, March 18, 1910, following more than a month of delays due to inclement weather conditions, Houdini completed one of the first powered aeroplane flights ever made in Australia. He made three flights in his French Voisin biplane, at the Old Plumpton Paddock, at Diggers Rest, Victoria, ranging from 1 minute to 3½ minutes - reaching an altitude of 100ft in one of his flights, and travelling more than two miles in another. Nine of the 30 spectators present on that day signed a certificate verifying Houdini's achievement.

Although it was widely reported at the time that Houdini's March 18 flights were the first aeroplane flights in Australia - and, even a century later, some major news outlets were still crediting him with this feat - his flight was the third powered flight ever made in Australia. The first was by Colin Defries (1884-1963) on December 9, 1909, and the second was by Frederick Cyril Custance (1890-1923) on March 17, 1910, the day before Houdini's flight.

March 20, 1910

Hampered by the windy conditions on the Saturday, and unable to fly safely, Houdini took to the air again early on Sunday morning, 20 March 20, 1910:

After a short preliminary flight, lasting 26 sec., Houdini took wing again, and, amid loud applause from the hundred or more spectators, who were on the ground, described three circles at altitudes, varying from 20ft to over 100ft, covering a distance of between three and four miles in 3min 45½sec. The Argus, 21 March 1910.

March 21, 1910

On Monday morning, 21 March 1910, some 30 spectators witnessed Houdini make an extended flight at Diggers Rest of 7min. 37secs., covering at least 6 miles, at altitudes ranging from 20ft. to 100ft. Australian aviator Basil Watson's father, mother, and younger sister, Venora, were among the spectators; and their names were included in the list of 16 spectator signatures on the certificate that verified Houdini's achievement.

Colin Defries

In March 1938, Wing Commander Harry Cobby wrote, in Aircraft, in March 1938 that "the first aeroplane flight in the Southern Hemisphere was made on December 9, 1909, by Mr Colin Defries, a Londoner, at Victoria Park Racecourse, Sydney, in a Wilbur Wright aeroplane". Colin Defries was a trained pilot, having learnt to fly in Cannes, France. By modern standards his flight time was minimal, but in 1909 he had accumulated enough to become an instructor.

Defries' first Australian flight was at the Victoria Park Racecourse, Sydney, in a Wilbur Wright aeroplane, on December 1909, On his first flight he took off, maintained straight and level flight, albeit briefly, and landed safely. His crash landing on his second flight, when he tried to retrieve his hat which was blown off, demonstrated what a momentary lack of attention could cause while flying a Wright Model A.

Fred Custance

On Thursday, March 17, 1910, one day before Houdini's flight, the second Australian flight took place, when Frederick Cyril Custance (1890-1923) flew for 5mins 25secs, at a height of between 12 and 15ft, for some three miles, in a Blériot XI monoplane, at Bolivar, South Australia.

Richard Pearse

The New Zealand farmer and inventor, Richard Pearse is believed by many in New Zealand to have undertaken his first flight as early as 1902 - which would give him not only the Southern Hemisphere, but the World record - although this belief is disputed.

Australia Post stamps (2010)

In 2010, Australia Post issued stamps commemorating Colin Defries, Houdini and John Robertson Duigan, crediting only Defries and Duigan with historical firsts. Duigan was an Australian pioneer aviator who built and flew the first Australian-made aircraft later in 1910. Although Australia Post acknowledged the part Houdini played, it did not attribute any record to him.

After Australia

After completing his Australia tour, Houdini put the Voisin into storage in England. He announced he would use it to fly from city to city during his next music hall tour and even promised to leap from it handcuffed, but he never flew again.

Debunking spiritualists

In the 1920s, Houdini turned his energies toward debunking psychics and mediums in order to show how they were taking advantage of the bereaved, a pursuit that was in line with the debunkings by stage magicians since the late nineteenth century.

Houdini's training in magic allowed him to expose frauds who had successfully fooled many scientists and academics. He was a member of a Scientific American committee that offered a cash prize to any medium who could successfully demonstrate supernatural abilities. None were able to do so, and the prize was never collected. The first to be tested was medium George Valiantine of Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. As his fame as a "medium-buster" grew, Houdini took to attending séances in disguise, accompanied by a reporter and a police officer. Possibly the most famous medium who he debunked was Mina Crandon, also known as "Margery".

Joaquín Argamasilla, known as the "Spaniard with X-ray Eyes", claimed to be able to read handwriting or numbers on dice through closed metal boxes. In 1924, he was exposed by Houdini as a fraud. Argamasilla peeked through his simple blindfold and lifted up the edge of the box so he could look inside it without others noticing. Houdini also investigated the Italian medium Nino Pecoraro, whom he considered to be fraudulent.

Houdini's exposure of phony mediums has inspired other magicians to follow suit, including The Amazing Randi, Dorothy Dietrich, Penn & Teller, and Dick Brookz.

Houdini chronicled his debunking exploits in his book, A Magician Among the Spirits, co-authored with C. M. Eddy, Jr., who was not credited. These activities compromised Houdini's friendship with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Doyle, a firm believer in spiritualism during his later years, refused to give credence to any of Houdini's exposés. Doyle came to believe that Houdini was a powerful spiritualist medium and had performed many of his stunts by means of paranormal abilities and was using those abilities to block the powers of the mediums that he was supposedly debunking. This disagreement led to the two men becoming public antagonists and Doyle came to view Houdini as a dangerous enemy.

Before Houdini died, he and his wife agreed that if Houdini found it possible to communicate after death, he would communicate the message "Rosabelle believe", a secret code which they agreed to use. Rosabelle was their favorite song. Bess held yearly séances on Halloween for ten years after Houdini's death. She did claim to have contact through Arthur Ford in 1929 when Ford conveyed the secret code, but Bess later said the incident had been faked. The code seems to have been such that it could be broken by Ford or his associates using existing clues. Evidence to this effect was discovered by Ford's biographer after he died in 1971. In 1936, after a last unsuccessful séance on the roof of the Knickerbocker Hotel, she put out the candle that she had kept burning beside a photograph of Houdini since his death. In 1943, Bess said that "ten years is long enough to wait for any man."

The tradition of holding a séance for Houdini continues, held by magicians throughout the world. The Official Houdini Séance was organized in the 1940s by Sidney Hollis Radner, a Houdini aficionado from Holyoke, Massachusetts. Yearly Houdini séances are also conducted in Chicago at the Excalibur nightclub by "necromancer" Neil Tobin on behalf of the Chicago Assembly of the Society of American Magicians; and at the Houdini Museum in Scranton by magician Dorothy Dietrich, who previously held them at New York's Magic Towne House with such magical notables as Houdini biographers Walter B. Gibson and Milbourne Christopher. Gibson was asked by Bess Houdini to carry on the original seance tradition. After doing them for many years at New York's Magic Towne House, before he died, Walter passed on the tradition of conducting of the Original Seances to Dorothy Dietrich.

In 1926, Harry Houdini hired H. P. Lovecraft and his friend C. M. Eddy, Jr., to write an entire book about debunking religious miracles, which was to be called The Cancer of Superstition. Houdini had earlier asked Lovecraft to write an article about astrology, for which he paid $75 (equivalent to $1,148 in 2021). The article does not survive. Lovecraft's detailed synopsis for Cancer does survive, as do three chapters of the treatise written by Eddy. Houdini's death derailed the plans, as his widow did not wish to pursue the project.

Appearance and voice recordings

Unlike the image of the classic magician, Houdini was short and stocky and typically appeared on stage in a long frock coat and tie. Most biographers give his height as 5 feet 5 inches (1.65 m), but descriptions vary. Houdini was also said to be slightly bow-legged, which aided in his ability to gain slack during his rope escapes. In the 1997 biography Houdini!!!: The Career of Ehrich Weiss, author Kenneth Silverman summarizes how reporters described Houdini's appearance during his early career:

They stressed his smallness - "somewhat undersized" - and angular, vivid features: "He is smooth-shaven with a keen, sharp-chinned, sharp-cheekboned face, bright blue eyes and thick, curly, black hair." Some sensed how much his complexly expressive smile was the outlet of his charismatic stage presence. It communicated to audiences at once warm amiability, pleasure in performing, and, more subtly, imperious self-assurance. Several reporters tried to capture the charming effect, describing him as "happy-looking", "pleasant-faced", "good natured at all times", "the young Hungarian magician with the pleasant smile and easy confidence".

Houdini made the only known recordings of his voice on Edison wax cylinders on October 29, 1914, in Flatbush, New York. On them, Houdini practices several different introductory speeches for his famous Chinese Water Torture Cell. He also invites his sister, Gladys, to recite a poem. Houdini then recites the same poem in German. The six wax cylinders were discovered in the collection of magician John Mulholland after his death in 1970. They are part of the David Copperfield collection.

Personal life

Houdini became an active Freemason and was a member of St. Cecile Lodge No. 568 in New York City.

In 1904, Houdini bought a New York City townhouse at 278 West 113th Street in Harlem. He paid US$25,000 (equivalent to $753,981 in 2021) for the five-level, 6,008-square-foot house, which was built in 1895, and lived in it with his wife Bess, and various other relatives until his death in 1926. In March 2018, it was purchased for $3.6 million. A plaque affixed to the building by the Historical Landmark Preservation Center reads, "The magician lived here from 1904 to 1926 collecting illusions, theatrical memorabilia, and books on psychic phenomena and magic."

In 1919, Houdini moved to Los Angeles to film. He resided in 2435 Laurel Canyon Boulevard, a house of his friend and business associate Ralph M. Walker, who owned both sides of the street, 2335 and 2400, the latter address having a pool where Houdini practiced his water escapes. 2400 Laurel Canyon Boulevard, previously numbered 2398, is presently known as The Houdini Estate, thus named in the honor of Houdini's time there, the same estate where Bess Houdini threw a party for 500 magicians years after his death. After decades of abandonment, the estate was acquired in 2006 by José Luis Nazar, a Chilean/American citizen who has restored it to its former splendor.

In 1918, he registered for selective service as Harry Handcuff Houdini.

Witnesses to an incident at Houdini's dressing room in the Princess Theatre in Montreal speculated that Houdini's death was caused by Jocelyn Gordon Whitehead (1895-1954), who repeatedly struck Houdini's abdomen.

The accounts of the witnesses, students named Jacques Price and Sam Smilovitz (sometimes called Jack Price and Sam Smiley), generally corroborated each other. Price said that Whitehead asked Houdini "if he believed in the miracles of the Bible" and "whether it was true that punches in the stomach did not hurt him". Houdini offered a casual reply that his stomach could endure a lot. Whitehead then delivered "some very hammer-like blows below the belt". Houdini was reclining on a couch at the time, having broken his ankle while performing several days earlier. Price said that Houdini winced at each blow and stopped Whitehead suddenly in the midst of a punch, gesturing that he had had enough, and adding that he had had no opportunity to prepare himself against the blows, as he did not expect Whitehead to strike him so suddenly and forcefully. Had his ankle not been broken, he would have risen from the couch into a better position to brace himself.

Throughout the evening, Houdini performed in great pain. He was unable to sleep and remained in constant pain for the next two days, but did not seek medical help. When he finally saw a doctor, he was found to have a fever of 102 °F (39 °C) and acute appendicitis, and was advised to have immediate surgery. He ignored the advice and decided to go on with the show. When Houdini arrived at the Garrick Theater in Detroit, Michigan, on October 24, 1926, for what would be his last performance, he had a fever of 104 °F (40 °C). Despite the diagnosis, Houdini took the stage. He was reported to have passed out during the show, but was revived and continued. Afterwards, he was hospitalized at Detroit's Grace Hospital.

It is unclear whether the dressing room incident caused Houdini's eventual death, as the relationship between blunt trauma and appendicitis is uncertain. One theory suggests that Houdini was unaware that he was suffering from appendicitis, and might have been aware had he not received blows to the abdomen.

After taking statements from Price and Smilovitz, Houdini's insurance company concluded that the death was due to the dressing-room incident and paid double indemnity.

Houdini grave site

Houdini's funeral was held on November 4, 1926, in New York, with more than 2,000 mourners in attendance. He was interred in the Machpelah Cemetery in Glendale, Queens, with the crest of the Society of American Magicians inscribed on his grave site. A statuary bust was added to the exedra in 1927, a rarity, because graven images are forbidden in Jewish cemeteries. In 1975, the bust was destroyed by vandals. Temporary busts were placed at the grave until 2011 when a group who came to be called The self-named Houdini Commandos, from the Houdini Museum in Scranton, Pennsylvania, placed a permanent bust with the permission of Houdini's family and of the cemetery.

The Society of American Magicians took responsibility for the upkeep of the site, as Houdini had willed a large sum of money to the organization he had grown from one club to 5,000-6,000 dues-paying membership worldwide. The payment of upkeep was abandoned by the society's dean George Schindler, who said "Houdini paid for perpetual care, but there's nobody at the cemetery to provide it", adding that the operator of the cemetery, David Jacobson, "sends us a bill for upkeep every year but we never pay it because he never provides any care." Members of the Society tidy the grave themselves.

Machpelah Cemetery operator Jacobson said that they "never paid the cemetery for any restoration of the Houdini family plot in my tenure since 1988", claiming that the money came from the cemetery's dwindling funds. The granite monuments of Houdini's sister, Gladys, and brother, Leopold were also destroyed by vandals. For many years, until recently, the Houdini grave site has been only cared for by Dorothy Dietrich and Dick Brookz of the Houdini Museum in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The Society of American Magicians, at its National Council Meeting in Boca Raton, Florida, in 2013, under the prompting of Dietrich and Brookz, voted to assume the financial responsibilities for the care and maintenance of the Houdini Gravesite.

In MUM Magazine, the Society's official magazine, President Dal Sanders announced "Harry Houdini is an icon as revered as Elvis Presley or Marilyn Monroe. He is not only a magical icon; his gravesite bears the seal of The Society of American Magicians. That seal is our brand and we should be proud to protect it. This gravesite is clearly our responsibility and I'm proud to report that the National Council unanimously voted to maintain Houdini's final resting place."

The Houdini Gravesite Restoration Committee under the Chairmanship of National President David Bowers, is working closely with National President Kenrick "Ice" McDonald to see this project to completion. Bowers said it is a foregone conclusion that the Society will approve the funding request, because "Houdini is responsible for the Society of American Magicians being what it is today. We owe a debt of gratitude to him." Like Bowers, McDonald said the motivation behind the repairs is to properly honor the grave of the "Babe Ruth of magicians". "This is hallowed ground," he said. "When you ask people about magicians, the first thing they say is Harry Houdini." While the actual plot will remain under the control of Machpelah Cemetery management, the Society of American Magicians, with the help of the Houdini Museum in Pennsylvania, will be in charge of the restoration.

Magicians Dorothy Dietrich and Dick Brookz have been caring for the escape artist's Queens grave over the years. "This is a monument where people go and visit on a daily basis," said Dietrich who is spearheading restoration efforts. "The nearly 80-year-old popular plot at the Machpelah Cemetery has fallen into disrepair over the years." "The Houdini Museum has teamed with The Society of American Magicians, one of the oldest fraternal magic organizations in the world, to give the beloved site a facelift." The organization has a specific Houdini gravesite committee made up of nine members headed up by President elect David Bowers who brought this project to the Society's attention.

Kenrick "Ice" McDonald, the current president of the Society of American Magicians said, "You have to know the history. Houdini served as President from 1917 until his death in 1926. Houdini's burial site needs an infusion of cash to restore it to its former glory." Magician Dietrich said the repairs could cost "tens of thousands of dollars", after consulting with glass experts and grave artisans. "It's a wonderful project, but it's taken a lifetime to get people interested," she said. "It's long overdue, and it's great that it's happening." Houdini was a living superhero," Dietrich said. "He wasn't just a magician and escape artist, he was a great humanitarian." To this day, the Society holds a broken wand ceremony at the grave every November.

Houdini's widow, Bess, died of a heart attack on February 11, 1943, aged 67, in Needles, California, while on a train en route from Los Angeles to New York City. She had expressed a wish to be buried next to her husband, but instead was interred 35 miles due north at the Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Westchester County, New York, as her Catholic family refused to allow her to be buried in a Jewish cemetery.

Proposed exhumation

On March 22, 2007, Houdini's grand-nephew (the grandson of his brother Theo), George Hardeen, announced that the courts would be asked to allow exhumation of Houdini's body, to investigate the possibility of Houdini being murdered by spiritualists, as suggested in the biography The Secret Life of Houdini. In a statement given to the Houdini Museum in Scranton, the family of Bess Houdini opposed the application and suggested it was a publicity ploy for the book. The Washington Post stated that the press conference was not arranged by the family of Houdini. Instead, the Post reported, it was orchestrated by authors Kalush and Sloman, who hired the public relations firm Dan Klores Communications to promote their book.

In 2008, it was revealed the parties involved had not filed legal papers to perform an exhumation.

Houdini's brother, Theodore Hardeen, who returned to performing after Houdini's death, inherited his brother's effects and props. Houdini's will stipulated that all the effects should be "burned and destroyed" upon Hardeen's death. Hardeen sold much of the collection to magician and Houdini enthusiast Sidney Hollis Radner during the 1940s, including the water torture cell. Radner allowed choice pieces of the collection to be displayed at The Houdini Magical Hall of Fame in Niagara Falls, Ontario. In 1995, a fire destroyed the museum. The water torture cell's metal frame remained, and it was restored by illusion builder John Gaughan. Many of the props contained in the museum such as the mirror handcuffs, Houdini's original packing crate, a milk can, and a straitjacket, survived the fire and were auctioned in 1999 and 2008.

Radner loaned the bulk of his collection for archiving to the Outagamie Museum in Appleton, Wisconsin, but reclaimed it in 2003 and auctioned it in Las Vegas, on October 30, 2004.

Houdini was a "formidable collector", and bequeathed many of his holdings and paper archives on magic and spiritualism to the Library of Congress, which became the basis for the Houdini collection in cyberspace. Houdini's book collecting has been explored in an essay in The Book Collector

In 1934, the bulk of Houdini's collection of American and British theatrical material, along with a significant portion of his business and personal papers, and some of his collections of other magicians were sold to pay off estate debts to theatre magnate Messmore Kendall. In 1958, Kendall donated his collection to the Hoblitzelle Theatre Library at the University of Texas at Austin. In the 1960s, the Hoblitzelle Library became part of the Harry Ransom Center. The extensive Houdini collection includes a 1584 first edition of Reginald Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft and David Garrick's travel diary to Paris from 1751. Some of the scrapbooks in the Houdini collection have been digitized. The collection was exclusively paper-based until April 2016, when the Ransom Center acquired one of Houdini's ball weights with chain and ankle cuff. In October 2016, in conjunction with the 90th anniversary of the death of Houdini, the Ransom Center embarked on a major re-cataloging of the Houdini collection to make it more visible and accessible to researchers. The collection reopened in 2018, with its finding aids posted online.

A large portion of Houdini's estate holdings and memorabilia was willed to his fellow magician and friend, John Mulholland (1898-1970). In 1991, illusionist and television performer David Copperfield purchased all of Mulholland's Houdini holdings from Mulholland's estate. These are now archived and preserved in Copperfield's warehouse at his headquarters in Las Vegas. It contains the world's largest collection of Houdini memorabilia, and preserves approximately 80,000 items of memorabilia of Houdini and other magicians, including Houdini's stage props and material, his rebuilt water torture cabinet and his metamorphosis trunk. It is not open to the public, but tours are available by invitation to magicians, scholars, researchers, journalists and serious collectors.

In a posthumous ceremony on October 31, 1975, Houdini was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7001 Hollywood Blvd.

The Houdini Museum in Scranton, Pennsylvania, bills itself as "the only building in the world entirely dedicated to Houdini". It is open to the public year-round by reservation. It includes Houdini films, a guided tour about Houdini's life and a stage magic show. Magicians Dorothy Dietrich and Dick Brookz opened the facility in 1991.

The Magic Castle in Los Angeles, California, a nightclub for magicians and magic enthusiasts, as well as the clubhouse for the Academy of Magical Arts, features Houdini séances performed by magician Misty Lee.

The House of Houdini is a museum and performance venue located at 11, Dísz square in the Buda Castle in Budapest, Hungary. It claims to house the largest collection of original Houdini artifacts in Europe.

The Houdini Museum of New York is located at Fantasma Magic, a retail magic manufacturer and seller located in Manhattan. The museum contains several hundred pieces of ephemera, most of which belonged to Harry Houdini.

Filmography

Merveilleux Exploits du Célébre Houdini à Paris - Cinema Lux (1909) - playing himself

The Master Mystery - Octagon Films (1918) - playing Quentin Locke

The Grim Game - Famous Players-Lasky/Paramount Pictures (1919) - playing Harvey Handford

Terror Island - Famous Players Lasky/Paramount (1920) - playing Harry Harper

The Man from Beyond - Houdini Picture Corporation (1922) - playing Howard Hillary

Haldane of the Secret Service - Houdini Picture Corporation/FBO (1923) - playing Heath Haldane

In Spanish: Harry Houdini para niños

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Harry Houdini was one of the greatest illusionists, magicians, and stunt performers in history. He was also known for his debunking of fraudulent Spiritualist mediums in the 1920s. For some time, Harry Houdini was called the "Handcuff King" due to the ease with which he escaped any restraints. It was the skill that would make him famous.
See the fact file below for more information on Harry Houdini or alternatively, you can download our 25-page Harry Houdini worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.
Key Facts & Information

Early Life and Career

Harry Houdini was born on March 24, 1874, in Budapest, Hungary.

His real name was Ehrich Weiss. In 1894, he started using the name "Harry Houdini" as a stage name. The name "Harry" came from his childhood nickname "Ehrie." While the name "Houdini" came from one of his favorite musicians, a Frenchman with the last name Houdin. He added the "i" to "Houdin" and he had the name Harry Houdini.

When he was four years old, his family moved to the United States. They lived in Wisconsin for a while and then moved to New York City.

Young Harry always had an interest in magic and performing. At the age of seventeen he began doing a magic show with his brother "Dash" called "The Brothers Houdini." Harry would spend hours working on magic tricks and practicing quick hand movements.

While Harry and his brother were working at Coney Island, Harry met a dancer named Wilhelmina Beatrice "Bess" Rahner . They fell in love and married a year later in 1894. Bess and Harry started their own magic act called "The Houdinis." For the rest of his career, Bess would act as Harry's assistant.

Magic Career

During his teenage days, Houdini was coached by the magician Joseph Rinn at the Pastime Athletic Club.

Houdini began his magic career in 1891, but had little success.

Houdini focused initially on traditional card tricks and billed himself as the "King of Cards".

In 1900, Houdini had his European tour. Harry Houdini challenged the English police at Scotland Yard to an escape. The police searched Harry thoroughly and handcuffed him inside a cell. They were sure they had him secure. However, Houdini escaped in a matter of a few minutes. They couldn't believe it! His show was an immediate hit and his salary rose to $300 a week.

Houdini was widely known as "The Handcuff King." He toured England, Scotland, the Netherlands, Germany, France, and Russia.

With his new-found wealth, Houdini purchased a dress said to have been made for Queen Victoria. Houdini arranged a grand reception where he presented his mother in the dress to all their relatives. Houdini said it was the happiest day of his life.

Houdini returned to the U.S. in 1904 and purchased a house for $25,000, a brownstone at 278 W. 113th Street in Harlem, New York City.

In 1906, Houdini created his own publication, named the Conjurers' Monthly Magazine which was a competitor of The Sphinx. The publication only released two volumes before August 1908.

Magic historian Jim Steinmeyer said that: "Houdini couldn't resist using the journal for his own crusades, attacking his rivals, praising his own appearances, and subtly rewriting history to favor his view of magic."

From 1907 and throughout the 1910s, Houdini performed with great success in the United States. He freed himself from jails, handcuffs, chains, ropes, and straitjackets, often while hanging from a rope in sight of street audiences.

Houdini also expanded his repertoire with his escape challenge act, in which he invited the public to devise contraptions to hold him.

He also wrote an article on the history of magic which was published in 1908: "The Unmasking of Robert-Houdin". In this book he attacked his former idol Robert-Houdin as a liar and a fraud for having claimed the invention of automata and effects such as aerial suspension, which had been in existence for many years before.

In his book "Handcuff Secrets" (1909), he revealed how many locks and handcuffs could be opened with properly applied force, others with shoestrings. When tied down in ropes or straitjackets, he gained wiggle room by enlarging his shoulders and chest, and moving his arms slightly away from his body.

Houdini also served as President of the Society of American Magicians (a.k.a. S.A.M.) from 1917 until his death in 1926.

In July 1926, he was elected for the ninth successive time as President of the Society of American Magicians.

Harry's Famous Illusions and Escapes

Harry traveled around Europe and then returned to the United States performing all sorts of dangerous escapes and amazing illusions. These escapes made him the most famous magician in the world.

The Chinese Water Torture Cell - Houdini always referred to it as "the Upside Down" or "USD". In this trick, Harry was lowered head first into a glass tank filled with water. His feet were chained with locks to a lid that was then locked to the tank. A curtain would cover the front while Houdini worked his escape. Just in case he failed, an assistant stood by with an axe. He first did this act at Circus Busch in Berlin on September 21, 1912.

Suspended straitjacket escape - Houdini took escaping from a straitjacket to a whole new level. He would be suspended in the air by his feet from a tall building while strapped into a straitjacket. He would then escape from the straitjacket with everyone watching. Some films of his escapes are also shown at The Houdini Museum in Scranton, PA.

Overboard box escape - This trick is dangerous. Houdini would be locked up with handcuffs and leg-irons and placed into a crate. The crate would be nailed shut and tied with ropes. It would also be weighed down with around 200 pounds of lead. The crate would then be tossed into the water. After Houdini escaped (sometimes in under a minute), the crate would be pulled to the surface. It would still be nailed together with the handcuffs inside.

Milk Can Escape - This was Houdini's original act. In this act, Houdini was handcuffed and sealed inside an oversized milk can filled with water and made his escape behind a curtain. Advertised with dramatic posters that proclaimed "Failure Means A Drowning Death", the escape proved to be a sensation. Houdini performed the milk can escape as a regular part of his act for only four years. The American Museum of Magic has the milk can and overboard box that Houdini used.

The Vanishing Elephant - One of Houdini's most notable non-escape stage illusions was performed at the New York Hippodrome, when he vanished a full-grown elephant from the stage. He had purchased this trick from the magician Charles Morritt. He then became the highest-paid performer in the American vaudeville.

Death of Houdini

In October of 1926, Houdini performed in great pain. He was unable to sleep and remained in constant pain for the next two days, though he did not seek medical help. When he finally saw a doctor, Harry was found to have a fever of 102 degrees and acute appendicitis. He was advised to go to the hospital for immediate surgery. But, Harry decided to complete his show as planned that night.

In the middle of the third act, Houdini asked his assistant to lower the curtain as he could not go on. Harry collapsed but still refused medical care until the next morning when Bess insisted and rushed him to the hospital.

Harry relented and had his appendix removed, however it had already ruptured and doctors did not have much hope for his survival.

Houdini died on Halloween 1926 at the age of 52, in Detroit, Michigan - October 31, 1926.

Houdini's funeral was held on November 4, 1926, in New York with more than 2,000 mourners in attendance and was buried in Queens, New York at the Machpelah Cemetery.

"Houdini séances" are still held every Halloween. Despite Houdini's skepticism about the spirit world, Houdini swore to his wife Bess that he would try to contact her from beyond the grave. There is even an "Official Houdini Séance" that takes place in a different city each year.

Harry Houdini Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle which includes everything you need to know about Harry Houdini across 25 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use Harry Houdini worksheets that are perfect for teaching students about Harry Houdini who was one of the greatest illusionists, magicians, and stunt performers in history. He was also known for his debunking of fraudulent Spiritualist mediums in the 1920s. For some time, Harry Houdini was called the "Handcuff King" due to the ease with which he escaped any restraints. It was the skill that would make him famous.

Complete List Of Included Worksheets

Harry Houdini Facts

Who was Harry Houdini?

Houdini a Thumbs Up or Down?

Strengths and Weaknesses

Time for Word Hunt!

Supernatural Magic

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"Houdini séances" on Halloween

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Harry Houdini Facts. Worksheets, Life, Career, Magic Tricks For Kids

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Not ready to purchase a subscription? Click to download the free sample version Download sample Harry Houdini was one of the greatest illusionists, magicians, and stunt performers in history. He was also known for his debunking of fraudulent Spiritualist mediums in the 1920s.

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Harry Houdini was a magician, noted for his sensational escape acts. The type of magic that he performed is known as "illusions". He is, arguably, one of the most famous magicians in history.

Harry Houdini was born on March 24, 1874 in Budapest, Hungary. His family moved to the United States when he was 4 years old.

When he was 17, he began performing as a magician -- mostly performing card tricks and coin tricks at small museums and fairs.

In his mid-twenties, Harry's career began to take off as he focused on his now-famous escape acts -- freeing himself from handcuffs, chains, ropes, mailbags, jails and even the belly of a dead whale that had washed up onto the beach (ewww!)

Try out some of your own magic tricks to celebrate Houdini's birthday or make a toilet paper roll craft of a magician.

Magic Tricks:

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Harry Houdini was a magician, noted for his sensational escape acts. The type of magic that he performed is known as "illusions". He is, arguably, one of the most famous magicians in history. Harry Houdini was born on March 24, 1874 in Budapest, Hungary.

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A hero is born

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1929. At the time in that part of the country, segregation-or the separation of races in places like schools, buses, and restaurants-was the law. He experienced racial predjudice from the time he was very young, which inspired him to dedicate his life to achieving equality and justice for Americans of all colors. King believed that peaceful refusal to obey unjust law was the best way to bring about social change.

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Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., never backed down in his stand against racism. Learn more about the life of this courageous hero who inspired millions of people to right a historical wrong.

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Kids learn about Martin Luther King, Jr.'s biography. A great civil rights leader.

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Martin Luther King, Jr. (born Michael King, Jr.; January 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968) was an American pastor, activist, humanitarian, and leader in the Civil Rights Movement. He was best known for improving civil rights by using nonviolent civil disobedience, based on his Christian beliefs. Because he was both a Ph.D. and a pastor, King is sometimes called the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. (abbreviation: the Rev. Dr. King), or just Dr King. He is also known by his initials MLK.

Led by Dr. King and others, many African Americans used nonviolent, peaceful strategies to fight for their civil rights. These strategies included sit-ins, boycotts, and protest marches. Often, they were attacked by white police officers or people who did not want African Americans to have more rights. However, no matter how badly they were attacked, Dr. King and his followers never fought back.

King fought for equal rights from the start of the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 until he was murdered by James Earl Ray in April 1968.

At age 6, King first went through discrimination (being treated worse than a white person because he was black). He was sent to an all-black school, and a white friend was sent to an all-white school.

Once, when he was 14, King won a contest with a speech about civil rights. When he was going back home on a bus, he was forced to give up his seat and stand for the bus ride so a white person could sit down. At the time, white people were seen as more important than black people. If a white person wanted a seat, that person could take the seat from any African American. King later said having to give up his seat made him "the angriest I've ever been in my life."

Civil rights work

Montgomery Bus Boycott

King first started his civil rights activism in 1955. At that time, he led a protest against the way black people were segregated on buses. They had to sit at the back of the bus, separate from white people. He told his supporters, and the people who were against equal rights, that people should only use peaceful ways to solve the problem.

King was arrested for starting a boycott. He was fined $500, plus $500 more in court costs. His house was fire- bombed. Others involved with MIA were also threatened. However, by December 1956, segregation had been ended on Montgomery's buses. People could sit anywhere they wanted on the buses.

March on Washington

In 1963, King helped plan the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. This was the largest protest for human rights in United States history. On August 28, 1963, about 250,000 people marched from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial. Then they listened to civil rights leaders speak. King was the last speaker. His speech, called " I Have a Dream," became one of history's most famous civil rights speeches. King talked about his dream that one day, white and black people would be equal.

That same year, the United States government passed the Civil Rights Act. This law made many kinds of discrimination against black people illegal. The March on Washington made it clear to the United States government that they needed to take action on civil rights, and it helped get the Civil Rights Act passed.

Nobel Prize

In 1964, King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. When presenting him with the award, the Chairman of the Nobel Committee said:

Today, now that mankind [has] the atom bomb, the time has come to lay our weapons and armaments aside and listen to the message Martin Luther King has given us[:] "The choice is either nonviolence or nonexistence"....[King] is the first person in the Western world to have shown us that a struggle can be waged without violence. He is the first to make the message of brotherly love a reality in the course of his struggle, and he has brought this message to all men, to all nations and races.

Voting rights

In 1963 and 1964, civil rights groups in Selma, Alabama had been trying to sign African-American people up to vote, but they had not been able to. At the time, 99% of the people signed up to vote in Selma were white. However, the government workers who signed up voters were all white. They refused to sign up African-Americans. In January 1965, these civil rights groups asked King and the SCLC to help them. Together, they started working on voting rights. However, the next month, an African-American man named Jimmie Lee Jackson was shot by a police officer during a peaceful march. Jackson died. pp. 121-123 Many African-American people were very angry.

The first march was on March 7, 1965. Police officers, and people they had chosen to help them, attacked the marchers with clubs and tear gas. They threatened to throw the marchers off the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Seventeen marchers had to go to the hospital, and 50 others were also injured. This day came to be called Bloody Sunday. Pictures and film of the marchers being beaten were shown around the world, in newspapers and on television. Seeing these things made more people support the civil rights activists. People came from all over the United States to march with the activists. One of them, James Reeb, was attacked by white people for supporting civil rights. He died on March 11, 1965.

On August 6, 1965, the United States passed the Voting Rights Act. This law made it illegal to stop somebody from voting because of their race.

After this, King continued to fight poverty and the Vietnam War.

Assassination

On April 4, 1968, King was in Memphis, Tennessee. He planned to lead a protest march to support garbage workers who were on strike. At 6:01 pm, King was shot while he was standing on the balcony of his motel room.

King was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital. His heart had stopped. Doctors there tried to make his heart start pumping again. However, they were unable to save King's life. He died at 7:05 p.m.

King's death led to riots in many cities.

"

[After I die,] I'd like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to give his life serving others.

"

After his death, King was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. King and his wife were also awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.

In 2003, the United States Congress passed a law allowing the beginning words of King's "I Have a Dream" speech to be carved into the Lincoln Memorial.

More than 900 streets in the United States have also been named after King. These streets exist in 40 different states; Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico. and many others

In 2011, a memorial statue of King was put up in West Potomac Park next to the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

There are also memorials for King around the world. These include:

Interesting facts about Martin Luther King Jr.

He was born in his Grandparents house in Atlanta, Georgia.

He was named "Michael King" when he was born. He decided to change his name as a teenager to Martin Luther King Jr. after his father.

He graduated from high school early and entered college at just 15 years of age in 1944.

He only earned $8,000 a year as a preacher, which is just under $ 60,000 today, so he wasn't wealthy when he died.

In 1964 he was the youngest person (35 years) to have received the Nobel Peace Prize.

He won the Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent resistance to racial prejudice in in the United States.

His favorite foods were fried chicken and pecan pie.

Martin Luther King Jr. would be 92 years old today.

Related pages

Images for kids

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Martin Luther King, Jr. (born Michael King, Jr.; January 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968) was an American pastor, activist, humanitarian, and leader in the Civil Rights Movement. He was best known for improving civil rights by using nonviolent civil disobedience, based on his Christian beliefs. Because he was both a Ph.D.

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Martin Luther King was an American pastor, activist, humanitarian, and leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement who is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights and his "I have a dream" speech.
For more information on this influential historical figure, see the fact file below or download the BUMPER 30 page DOUBLE study pack which includes over 20 worksheets which are suitable for the classroom or home environment.
Biography Fact File

Name
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Date of Birth
January 15, 1929

Date of Death
King was assassinated on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee.

Place of Birth
Atlanta, Georgia

Birth Family
Rev. Martin Luther Kings, Sr. and Alberta Williams King.

Marriage/Spouse
Coretta Scott

Children
4 children
Yolanda, Martin Luther III, Dexter and Bernice Albertine.

Education
King attended Booker T. Washington High School. He skipped ninth and twelfth grade,
and enter Morehouse College at age 15 without formally graduating from high school.
In 1948, her graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology and enrolled in
Crozer Theological Seminary. He grated with a Bachelor of divinity degree in 1951.

Reason for Fame
King was also an activist and prominent leader in the
African-American civil rights movement.

Additional Information
King won the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize and in 1965 King was awarded the
American Liberties Medallion by the American Jewish Committee.
He was awarded at least fifty honorary degrees from colleges and universities
in the U.S. and elsewhere. In 1971, King was posthumousluy awarded the
Grammay Award for Best Spoken World Album for his
"Why I Oppose the War in Vietnam". Six years later,
the Presidential Medal of Freedom was award to King by Jimmy Carer.
King and his wife were also awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 2004.

Early Life

Born as Michael King Jr. on January 15, 1929, Martin Luther King Jr. was the middle child of Michael King Sr. and Alberta Williams King. He grew up in a loving and nurturing environment but he could not be completely shielded from racism. His parents, especially his father, fought against racial prejudice and discouraged any sense of class superiority in his children. This left a mark on MLK Jr. as he grew up.

MLK Jr. attended Booker T. Washington High School and skipped the 9th and 11th grades. He entered Morehouse College in Atlanta at age 15 and in 1948 he earned a degree in sociology from this school. He then attended liberal Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania where he became the valedictorian of the class of 1951.

Civil Rights Leader

The night that Rosa Parks was arrested, the local civil rights leaders, with King as the lead, met and planned a citywide bus boycott. In his speech he said:

"We have no alternative but to protest. For many years we have shown an amazing patience. We have sometimes given our white brothers the feeling that we liked the way we were being treated. But we come here tonight to be saved from that patience that makes us patient with anything less than freedom and justice."

This fueled the civil rights struggle in Alabama however due to this bus boycott, which lasted 382 days, his home was attacked. The African-American community then took legal action against the city ordinance arguing that it was unconstitutional based on the Supreme Court's separate is never equal decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Eventually, the law mandating segregated public transportation was lifted.

In January 1957, Martin Luther King Jr, Ralph Abernathy and some other ministers and civil rights activists founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to organize the power of black churches. This led to mass meetings and discussions of race-related issues.

In 1959, inspired by Gandhi's success, MLK Jr. traveled to India and was further inspired to continue his commitment to America's civil rights issues. He encouraged people, even the young, to use nonviolent methods and by August 1960, the segregation at lunch counters in 27 southern cities was ended.

By 1960, he gained national notoriety and returned to Atlanta to become a co-pastor with his father at Ebenezer Baptist Church. His fight for civil rights resulted in him being imprisoned on multiple occasions, so much so that John F. Kennedy included his name in one of his speeches as he showed concern with regard to MLK Jr.

On August 28, 1963, the historic March for peaceful change drew more than 200,000 people's attention. It was at this gathering when his famous "I Have a Dream" speech was uttered.

Last Years

MLK Jr. continued his efforts throughout the 1960s and from late 1965 to 1967 he expanded his civil rights efforts to other larger American cities. However, he encountered even greater challenges. He linked other forms of oppression such as poverty and began to speak out against the Vietnam war. He broadened his base by forming a multiracial coalition to address the economic and unemployment problems of disadvantaged people.

Protests and jail simultaneously plagued his later years. In the spring of 1968, he had his last crusade. He gave his final and oddly prophetic speech, "I've Been to the Mountaintop," in which he told supporters at the Mason Temple in Memphis:

I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the promised land."

The next day, while standing on a balcony outside Lorraine Motel, MLK Jr. was struck by a sniper's bullet. The assassin was James Earl Ray who was later on sentenced to 99 years in prison.

His life and death had a seismic impact on race relations in the US. Years after his death, he is the most widely known African-American leader of his era.

Martin Luther King Jr Worksheets

This bundle includes two worksheet packs with over 30 pages of ready-to-use Martin Luther King Jr worksheets that are perfect for students to learn about Martin Luther King who was an American pastor, activist, humanitarian, and leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement who is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights and his "I have a dream" speech.

Worksheet Pack 1:
This download includes the following worksheets:

Martin Luther King Jr. Facts

MLK Jr. Facts

The MLK Jr. Timeline

I have a dream

I also have a dream

Remembering MLK Jr.

A World of Peace

What's in a Name?

A Quotation on Education

Newsprint

Editorial Cartooning

Worksheet Pack 2:
This download includes the following worksheets:

Introduction

Martin Luther King Jr. Facts

I have a Dream

Reflection

King's Public Life

Newsprint

Luther's Legacy

Words Scramble

True or False

Luther's Crossword

Inspired by Ghandi

Reflection

Editorial Cartoon

I Have a Dream

Luther Acrostic

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Mae Carol Jemison (born October 17, 1956) is an American engineer, physician, and former NASA astronaut. She became the first black woman to travel into space when she served as a mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour. Jemison joined NASA's astronaut corps in 1987 and was chosen to serve for the STS-47 mission, during which she orbited the Earth for nearly eight days from September 12-20, 1992.

Born in Alabama and raised in Chicago, Jemison graduated from Stanford University with degrees in chemical engineering as well as African and African-American studies. She then earned her medical degree from Cornell University. Jemison was a doctor for the Peace Corps in Liberia and Sierra Leone from 1983 until 1985 and worked as a general practitioner. Because she wanted to be an astronaut, she applied to NASA.

Jemison left NASA in 1993 and founded a technology research company, The Jemison Group, Inc., that encourages science, technology, and social change. She later formed a non-profit educational foundation, The Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence in 1994. Through the foundation she is the principal of the 100 Year Starship project funded by DARPA. Jemison also wrote several books for children and appeared on television several times, including in a 1993 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. She holds several honorary doctorates and has been inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame and the International Space Hall of Fame.

Early life and education

Mae Carol Jemison was born in Decatur, Alabama, on October 17, 1956, the youngest of three children of Charlie and Dorothy Jemison. Her father was a maintenance supervisor for a charity organization, and her mother worked most of her career as an elementary school teacher of English and math at the Ludwig van Beethoven Elementary School in Chicago, Illinois.

Jemison enjoyed studying nature and human physiology, using her observations to learn more about science. Although her mother encouraged her curiosity and both her parents were supportive of her interest in science, she did not always see the same support from her teachers. Seeing a lack of female astronauts during the Apollo missions frustrated Jemison. She later recalled, "everybody was thrilled about space, but I remember being really really irritated that there were no women astronauts."

Jemison began studying ballet at the age of 8 or 9 and entered high school at 12 years old, where she joined the cheerleading team and the Modern Dance Club. She learned several styles of dance, including African and Japanese, as well as ballet, jazz, and modern dance. At the age of 14, she auditioned for the leading role of Maria in West Side Story. She did not get the leading role but was selected as a background dancer.

After graduating from Chicago's Morgan Park High School in 1973, Jemison entered Stanford University at the age of 16. There were very few other African-American students in Jemison's classes and she continued to experience discrimination from her teachers. In an interview with The Des Moines Register in 2008, Jemison said that it was difficult to go to Stanford at 16 but that her youthful arrogance may have helped her.

At Stanford, Jemison served as head of the Black Students Union. She also choreographed a musical and dance production called Out of the Shadows. During her senior year in college, she struggled with the choice between going to medical school or becoming a professional dancer after graduation. She graduated from Stanford in 1977, receiving a B.S. degree in chemical engineering and B.A. degree in African and African-American studies. While Mae was at Stanford, she considered applying to NASA.

Medical Career

Jemison attended Cornell Medical School and during her training, she traveled to use her skills to help other people. She went to Cuba to help in a study funded by American Medical Student Association; she traveled to Thailand, where she worked at a Cambodian refugee camp; and she also worked for Flying Doctors stationed in East Africa. During her years at Cornell, Jemison continued to study dance by enrolling in classes at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. After graduating with an M.D. degree in 1981, she interned at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center in 1982, and worked as a general practitioner (a doctor who helps as many people as possible, not focusing on and becoming very good at one area of medicine) for Ross-Loos Medical Group.

Jemison joined the staff of the Peace Corps in 1983 and served as a medical officer until 1985 in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Jemison's job was to direct the Peace Corps' pharmacy, laboratory, and medical staff. She helped patients, wrote handbooks for self-care, and created rules for health and safety issues. She also worked with the Centers for Disease Control helping with research for vaccines.

NASA Career

After returning home from the Peace Corps, Jemison applied to NASA's astronaut training program in October 1985. Soon after she applied, NASA had a terrible accident on January 28, 1986. Challenger was launched in Florida and it blew up soon after taking off. The astronauts were all killed. There would be no more astronauts going into space until the scientists figured out what had happened. Jemison became one of the fifteen people who were chosen for a special type of instruction at NASA a year after this accident had happened. The training was physically demanding and included more studying of science.

On September 28, 1989, she was chosen to join the 50th mission on the Endeavour, called STS-47. Her job was Mission Specialist 4, and she was also designated Science Mission Specialist, a new astronaut role being tested by NASA to focus on scientific experiments.

Jemison's mission was flown from September 12-20, 1992, where she logged 190 hours, 30 minutes, 23 seconds in space, and orbited the earth 127 times. The crew was split into two shifts with Jemison assigned to the Blue Shift. Throughout the eight-day mission, she began communications on her shift with the salute, "Hailing frequencies open," a quote from Star Trek. Jemison took a poster from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater along with her on the flight. She also took a West African statuette and a photo of Bessie Coleman, the first African American with an international pilot license.

STS-47 was a joint mission between the United States and Japan that included 43 Japanese and U.S. experiments. Jemison took part in several of the experiments that were completed in space. She and Japanese astronaut Mamoru Mohri looked into possible treatments for motion sickness, anxiety, and stress-related disorders. Jemison experimented with producing saline solution and was a co-investigator in two bone cell research experiments. Another experiment she participated in was to fertilize the eggs of female frogs and then see how tadpoles developed in zero gravity.

Resignation from NASA

Jemison resigned from NASA in March 1993 to start her own company. NASA training manager and author Homer Hickam, who had trained Jemison for her flight, later said that he was sad that she had left NASA.

Post-NASA Career

Jemison served on the board of directors of the World Sickle Cell Foundation from 1990 to 1992. In 1993, she founded The Jemison Group Inc., a business that studies how advancements in technology affect people. Jemison also founded the Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence and named the foundation in honor of her mother. The foundation sponsors programs and events including:

The Earth We Share: a science camp for students aged 12 to 16

Shaping the World essay competition

Listening to the Future: a survey program to get information from students

Earth Online: an online chatroom that allows students to safely discuss ideas on space and science

Reality Leads Fantasy Gala

Jemison was a professor of environmental studies at Dartmouth College from 1995 to 2002 where she directed the Jemison Institute for Advancing Technology in Developing Countries. In 1999, she also became an Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University. Jemison continues to tell as many people as she can about science education and tries to get minority students interested in science. She is a member of several organizations, such as the American Medical Association, the American Chemical Society, the Association of Space Explorers, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

In 1999, Jemison founded BioSentient Corp. She received a license to sell the relaxation technique that she and Mamoru Mohri tested on themselves during the STS-47 mission.

In 2012, the Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence was awarded a $500,000 grant for further work. The new organization maintained the organizational name 100 Year Starship. Jemison is the current principal of the 100 Year Starship.

In 2018, she cooperated with Bayer Crop Science and National 4-H Council for the project named Science Matters, which was aimed at encouraging young children to understand and pursue agricultural sciences.

The Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence

In 1994, Jemison established The Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence. It is named after her mother Dorothy, who was a teacher in Chicago Public Schools for 25 years. This non-profit foundation develops and implements teaching methods and programs, with a focus on building critical thinking skills and science literacy, and encourages kids' responsibility in achieving excellence.

Mae Jemison quotes

"Never be limited by other people's limited imaginations."

"The best way to make dreams come true is to wake up."

"Science is very important to me, but I also like to stress that you have to be well-rounded."

"I want to make sure we use all our talent, not just 25 percent."

Interesting facts about Mae Jemison

Mae Jemison was 1 of 15 people selected to join NASA in the 1987 NASA Astronaut Group 12.

When she was a child, Jamison completed an entire science project on pus.

Mae holds 10 honorary doctorates at 10 different colleges.

When she left NASA, they were unhappy because they spent money training her and needed her to fill their woman of color position.

Jemison now leads the 100 Year Starship project, which strives to safely allow human space travel to another star within the next century.

Mae Jemison advocates for minority students to develop an interest in science.

Honors and awards

1988 Essence Science and Technology Award

1990 Gamma Sigma Sigma Woman of the Year

1991 McCall's 10 Outstanding Women for the 90s

1992 Johnson Publications Black Achievement Trailblazers Award

1992 Ebony Black Achievement Award

1993 National Women's Hall of Fame

1993 Ebony magazine 50 Most Influential women

1993 Kilby Science Award

1993 Montgomery Fellow, Dartmouth College

1993 People magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People in the World"

1993 Turner Trumpet Award

2002 listed among the 100 Greatest African Americans according to Molefi Kete Asante

2002 Texas Women's Hall of Fame inductee

2003 Intrepid Award by the National Organization for Girls

2004 International Space Hall of Fame

2005 The National Audubon Society, Rachel Carson Award

2017 Buzz Aldrin Space Pioneer Award

2019 Florida Southern College Honorary Chancellor

Institutions

1992 Mae C. Jemison Science and Space Museum, Wilbur Wright College, Chicago, Illinois

1992 Mae C. Jemison Academy, an alternative public school in Detroit, Michigan

2001 Mae Jemison School, an elementary public school in Hazel Crest, Illinois

2007 Bluford Drew Jemison STEM Academy, a public charter school in Baltimore, Maryland (closed in 2013)

2010 Bluford Drew Jemison STEM Academy West, a Middle/High School in Baltimore, Maryland

2013 Jemison High School, Huntsville, Alabama

Honorary doctorates

1991 Doctor of Letters, Winston-Salem College, North Carolina

1991 Doctor of Science, Lincoln College, Pennsylvania

2000 Doctor of Humanities, Princeton University

2005 Doctor of Science, Wilson College, North Carolina

2006 Doctor of Science, Dartmouth College

2007 Doctor of Engineering, Harvey Mudd College

2007 Doctor of Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

2008 Doctor of Humanities, DePaul University

2009 Doctor of Engineering, Polytechnic Institute of NYU

2019 Doctor of Humane Letters, Florida Southern College

Filmography

Star Trek: The Next Generation (1993) - Lieutenant Palmer, episode "Second Chances"

Susan B. Anthony Slept Here (1995) - herself

Star Trek: 30 Years and Beyond (1996) - herself

The New Explorers (1998) - episode "Endeavor"

How William Shatner Changed the World (2005) - herself

African American Lives (2006) - herself

No Gravity (2011) - herself

The Real (2016) - herself

Images for kids

In Spanish: Mae Jemison para niños

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Serena Jameka Williams is an American professional tennis player. She was ranked world No. 1 in singles on eight different occasions from 2002 to 2017 by the Women's Tennis Association. Her nickname is ReRe.
See the fact file below for more information on the Serena Williams or alternatively, you can download our 26-page Serena Williams worksheet pack to utilize within the classroom or home environment.
Key Facts & Information

Early Life and Education

Serena Williams was born in Saginaw, Michigan to Richard Williams and Oracene Price.

She moved to Compton, California with her family when she was still young.

Serena Williams was homeschooled by her father.

When Serena Williams was nine years old, they moved to West Palm Beach, Florida. There, she went to the tennis academy of Rick Macci.

Career Beginnings

Serena Williams started playing tennis when she was three years old.

One of Serena Williams' coaches in Compton, California was named Richard Williams, who had the same name as her father.

Her coach was the founder of The Venus and Serena Williams Tennis/Tutorial Academy.

When Serena Williams was ten years old, her father made her focus on school work and stopped her from joining national tennis tournaments.

She and her sister, Venus, experienced racist remarks during these tournaments, which was one reason why they stopped playing in them.

She was ranked number one among the players aged under 10 in Florida.

In 1995, Serena Williams stopped attending Rick Macci's academy and was coached by her father.

In 1995, after turning 14, Serena Williams was set to make her professional debut as a wild card entry in the Bank of the West Classic in Oakland, California. She was denied because she was too young.

Career Achievements

In 1997, Serena Williams won her first main-draw match in November at the Ameritech Cup Chicago.

Serena Williams became the lowest-ranked player in the Open Era to defeat two top 10 opponents in one tournament.

In 1999, Serena Williams won her first professional singles title in the Open Gaz de France in Paris.

In March 1999, at the Evert Cup in California, Serena Williams won her first Tier I title.

At the Miami Masters in 1999, Serena Williams had her 16-match winning period finished by her sister, Venus, in the first all-sister singles final in WTA history.

In the US Open final 1999, Serena Williams was able to beat No. 1, Hingis, and became the second African-American woman, after Althea Gibson in 1958, to bag a Grand Slam singles tournament.

In 2001, Serena Williams and her sister Venus completed a "Career Grand Slam."

Serena Williams went on to win her first clay-court title at the Italian Open 2001.

In the French Open at Roland Garros in 2001, Serena Williams won her first title. As a result of winning the trophy at Court Philippe Chatrier, she rose to No. 2.

At Wimbledon 2002, she won tennis's oldest championship for the first time in her life to win a Grand Slam singles title which made Serena Williams rank No. 1 for the first time, ousting her sister. She became the third African-American woman to hold that rank.

In the final of 2003 Australian Open, Serena Williams became the sixth woman in the Open Era to complete a career Grand Slam, and the fifth woman to win all Grand Slam singles titles all at the same time. This earned her the nickname "Serena Slam."

Serena Williams ended 2013 in No. 1 for the third time, which made her the oldest No. 1 player in WTA history and the 2013 ITF World Champion, which was the fourth time that she has been given the World Champion's crown.

Serena Williams received two prizes at the 2013 ESPY Awards, which were Best Female Athlete and Best Female Tennis Player. She topped off the year by receiving the Associated Press 2013 Female Athlete of the Year award.

In 2014, Serena Williams was appointed WTA Player of the Year and ITF World Champion for a third consecutive year (sixth overall).

Serena Williams started the 2015 season by representing the United States together with John Isner at the Hopman Cup in January.

In 2017, Serena Williams started the season by joining the WTA Auckland Open for the first time in her career. She won her first match played since the US Open.

On January 28, 2017, Williams won the Australian Open for an Open Era record seventh time. This was her 23rd Grand Slam singles title which made her exceed Steffi Graf's Open Era record of 22. It was the first time in the Open Era that two players aged 35 or older played against each other in the final of a Grand Slam tournament which made her return to the No. 1 ranking.

Personal Life

On December 29, 2016, Serena Williams got engaged to Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian and they married in New Orleans last November 16, 2017.

On April 19, 2017, Serena Williams announced her pregnancy and gave birth to their daughter, Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr., on September 1, 2017.

Serena Williams had a cesarean section delivery because of complications, particularly a blood clot in her lungs which is called a pulmonary embolism.

Press Features and Advocacies

In 2015, she became the first black female athlete to be on the cover of Vogue - which was for the April 2015 issue.

In 2016, Serena Williams supported the Black Lives Matter movement.

In 2008, Serena Williams helped finance the construction of the Serena Williams Secondary School in Matooni, Kenya.

The Serena Williams Foundation gives out university scholarships for indigent students in the United States.

In 2016, the Serena Williams Fund collaborated with Helping Hands Jamaica to construct the Salt Marsh Primary School for Jamaican youths in Trelawny Parish.

Serena Williams was awarded Celebrity Role Model Award from Avon Foundation in 2003 for her work with breast cancer awareness.

Serena Williams also won the "Young Heroes Award" in 2003 and 2004.

In response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake, Serena Williams, together with other ATP and WTA stars, formed a charity event and the proceeds went to the Haiti earthquake victims.

Serena Williams and her sister Venus are supporters and contributors of First Serve Miami, which is a foundation for youths who want to learn tennis but are socially and economically challenged.

Serena Williams has been an International Goodwill Ambassador with UNICEF since 2011.

In 2016, the Williams sisters worked together in the Williams Sisters Fund as philanthropists, working to establish the Yetunde Price Resource Center which helps and supports families affected by community violence.

In 2015, Serena Williams' collaborated with the Equal Justice Initiative, which is a non-profit organization that provides legal representation to those who might have been denied a fair trial.

In 2014, Serena Williams started hosting a yearly charity run named "The Serena Williams Ultimate Fun Run" that supports the Serena Williams Fund.

Serena Williams Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle that includes everything you need to know about Serena Williams across 26 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use Serena Williams worksheets that are perfect for teaching students about Serena Jameka Williams who is an American professional tennis player. She was ranked world No. 1 in singles on eight different occasions from 2002 to 2017 by the Women's Tennis Association. Her nickname is ReRe.

Complete List Of Included Worksheets

Serena Williams Facts

All About Serena

Serena the Star Player

Hit or Miss

Serena Word Hunt

Serena's Family

Athlete-Advocate

Serena Says

Award-winning Headliner

Serena's Sister

Beyond Tennis

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Two of the best women tennis players in the world are sisters, Venus Williams and Serena Williams. Both of the Williams sisters were ranked Number 1 in the world at some point in their tennis career.

Serena Williams serving

Author: Markmcgee
via Wikipedia

Venus Williams was born on June 17th 1980 in Lynwood, California. She is a year older than her sister. Venus is considered one of the best grass court tennis players of the 21st century. She won the major grass court championship, Wimbledon, five times since 2000. Venus has a great all around tennis game, but her greatest weapon is her powerful serve. At her peak, she had one of the most feared serves in women's tennis. Venus also makes great use of her height and long reach to get to balls that most players can't reach.

Serena Williams was born on September 26th, 1981 in Saginaw, Michigan. She is considered by many to be one of the greatest tennis players in history. She is a very well-rounded player winning multiple Grand Slam titles on all types of surfaces. Serena also possesses a powerful serve and plays the baseline with the best in tennis. Serena is one of the few tennis players to hold all 4 Grand Slam titles at the same time.

What championships has Venus won?

In singles tennis Venus Williams has over forty career titles including 5 Wimbledon Championships, 2 US Opens, an Olympic Gold Medal, and a WTA championship.

In doubles tennis Venus has twenty career titles including 6 at Wimbledon, 2 US Opens, 2 French Opens, 4 Australian Opens, and 3 Olympic Gold medals. Venus also won an Australian Open and a French open in mixed doubles.

What championships has Serena won?

Serena has won (as of 2021) 24 Grand Slam singles. This is the most of any player in the Open Era. In singles tennis Serena Williams has well over seventy career titles including 7 Wimbledon Championships, 3 French Opens, 6 US Opens, 7 Australian Opens, 5 WTA championships, and the 2012 Gold medal.

In doubles tennis Serena has 14 career Grand Slam titles including 6 at Wimbledon, 2 US Opens, 2 French Opens, 4 Australian Opens, and 3 Olympic Gold medals. Serema also won a Wimbledon and a US Open in mixed doubles.

Venus instructing students at a tennis clinic

Source: Voice of America

Have the sisters ever played each other?

Venus and Serena have played each other several times during their professional careers. As of this article they had played 31 times with Serena holding a 19-12 record against her sister. Several of their meetings have come in the championships of major Grand Slam tournaments.

Fun Facts about the Williams Sisters

Serena was 4 years old when she won her first tournament.

Both girls appeared in the Simpsons episode Tennis the Menace.

Serena was a voice on the Playhouse Disney show Higglytown Heroes.

Venus has a fashion degree from the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale.

Other Sports Legend's Biographies:

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Back toSports Back toTennis Back toBiographies Two of the best women tennis players in the world are sisters, Venus Williams and Serena Williams. Both of the Williams sisters were ranked Number 1 in the world at some point in their tennis career.

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Kids learn about the biography of Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai including her early life in Pakistan, work as an activist for the education of women, being shot by the Taliban, and interesting facts.