They Changed Their World and Ours 4 Quiz

Answer: Gamal Abdel Nasser

Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein (1918-1970) became the first native-born ruler of an independent Egypt since the days of the pharaohs and held the position of president over the Republic of Egypt and the United Arab Republic (Egypt and Syria) from 1956 to 1970, when he died in office. However, his influence extended much further. Although his dream of a complete Arab union was never realized, he was more popular among the people of other Arab nations than those nations' own leaders and rulers. This popularity is probably what worked against his dream, for other rulers were not willing to surrender their power to be united with Egypt. Of course, Nasser himself was hesitant to fulfill his dream as other nations' economies and social unrest were not problems he was willing to absorb.

His nationalization of the Suez Canal was considered a radical victory for the Arab world, and he continued to show his power and dominance by nationalizing several British corporations within Egypt's boundaries. He was considered a hero, blessed by Allah, because of his bold and successful stances against the empirical powers of Britain and France throughout the Middle East and Northern Africa. However, Nasser also disliked the communists and successfully resisted much of their influence on the Arab world as well. He aligned himself with India's Nehru and Yugoslavia's Tito to advocate nonalignment with the world's superpowers.

Perhaps, his most embarrassing failures were the Arab-Israeli Conflict and the Six Days War.

Answer: Allen DuMont

Allen B. DuMont (1901-1965)--scientist, engineer, and inventor--so improved the cathode ray tube for television receivers that he was able to create and then sell the first commercially practical television to the public in 1938, the Model 180. Then, in 1946, he established the first licensed television network--the DuMont Television Network (which was a linking of two television stations, WABD of New York City and W3XWT of Washington, D.C. Thus, he became the first millionaire in the television business.

His love of electronic transmission and communication began as a child. His father gave him a crystal radio receiver, which Allen DuMont assembled, disassembled, reassembled, took apart again, rebuilt again, and so on. Each time, he rebuilt the radio better, eventually building his own transmitter so that his father had to acquire permission from the landlord to place a thirty-foot antenna on their roof. In 1915, when DuMont was but fourteen years old, he became the youngest American to own a first class commercial radio operator's license.

Think about how families watching The Beatles on Ed Sullivan, air traffic controllers looking at radar screens, and people trying to withdraw money from their accounts via an ATM were all participating in activities made possible by DuMont. What an impact!

Answer: Jane Austen

Jane Austen (1775-1817) was born one of two daughters and six sons of the minister Rev. George Austen. She never married and lived in obscurity with her family until her death at the age of forty-one. While she did publish four novels in her lifetime, she published them anonymously. These four novels were "Sense and Sensibility" (1811), "Pride and Prejudice" (1813), "Mansfield Park" (1814), and "Emma" (1815). Two novels and one novella were published after her death: "Northanger Abbey" and "Persuasion" in 1818 and the novella "Lady Susan" in 1871. Austen also left behind two unfinished novels: "The Watsons" and "Sanditon". She also left behind a play, a few poems, hundreds of letters, and juvenilia (works written by her as a child).

In addition to her advocacy for female independence (albeit in a limited form due to her era's ideologies), she also ridiculed the British class system, her societiy's views of inheritance, the idleness of upper class women, and the format and motifs of Gothic fiction.

Answer: Henrik Ibsen

Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) was not only a dramatist but also a poet and theater director. His influence was so great that he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in literature three different times and is still considered by many to be the most significant playwright since William Shakespeare. His plays are the most frequently performed around the world after only Shakespeare's, and his masterpiece "A Doll's House" is the world's most frequently performed play. His work is generally categorized chronologically into three phases: the first being his poetic drama phase, his second being his social realism phase (which has led many to refer to him as "the father of realism"), and his third being his symbolism phase (which has placed him among the founders of the artistic movement known as "modernism").

Some of his plays include "Catiline" (1850), "Brand" (1866), "Peer Gynt" (1867), "Pillars of Society" (1877), "A Doll's House" (1879), "Ghosts" (1881), "An Enemy of the People" (1882), "Hedda Gabler" (1890), and "When We Dead Awaken" (1899). "A Doll's House" created great controversy due to its "realist" presentation of how married women's lives were denied fulfillment in a male-dominated society. Even more controversial was "Ghosts", which focused on a great number of issues, including adultery, revenge, sexually transmitted disease, incest, and euthanasia (as a mother confronts her decision of whether to fulfill her son's request that she help him commit suicide when his mind deteriorates due to the syphilis he contracted as an infant due to his father's constant philandering).

Obviously, Ibsen had several detractors because of his plays' subject matter and his choices for how to portray those topics. However, some critics did not value the artistry or literary value of his work either. One critic, punning on the focus of "Ghosts" on syphilis, described the play as "a loathsome sore". Another playwright and rival, August Strindberg, referred to Ibsen as a "Norewgian bluestocking". The term was used by men to refer to an intellectual and educated woman during a time when women were ridiculed for pursuing an education or for wanting to read or study. The fact that Ibsen was male makes the reference supposedly even more of an insult. Ibsen responded to Strindberg's comment by placing a picture of the man in his study and telling others who asked about it, "He shall hang there and watch as I write".

Answer: Hugo Grotius

Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) was a child prodigy; he wrote poetry in Latin at age nine, finished law school at age fifteen, and published his first book--"The Satyricon by Martianus Menneus Felix Capella"--when he was but sixteen years old. By twenty years of age, he had been appointed Holland's official historian.

However, at the age of thirty-six, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for his promoting toleration in the highly Calvinist society of The Netherlands. His stay in prison didn't last long.

His wife helped smuggle him to freedom by helping him hide inside of a box believed by the guards to be completely filled with books. Once free, Grotius fled to France, where Louis XIII offered him a pension (which he never truly paid) as well as the freedom to write and express ideas considered quite liberal for his time and place.

In France, he eventually wrote the book mentioned in the question--"On the Law of War and Peace"--and, thus, he is often considered the originator of international law.

His dream was of a world of peaceful coexisting states that refused to use violence to solve their problems but rather relied on an internationally accepted code of law. Grotius is also significant for influencing such Protestant movements as Methodism and Pentecostalism. His writings and ideas fueled the debate between Arminians and Calvinists, and his desire for a form of capitalism based on moral and Christian principles helped establish him as perhaps the first economic theologist.

Answer: Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner (1813-1883) is one of those artists who establishes a dilemma for many who find his work admirable but who find the artist himself unlikeable. Apparently, Wagner was a highly self-centered and arrogant person. He was also not always loyal to those who supported him. For example, the famous conductor and composer Hans von Bulow had helped popularize Wagner's early compositions, such as "Tristan und Isolde" and had befriended Wagner personally. However, Wagner fell for von Bulow's wife, Cosima, and got her pregnant while he himself was still marrried. Eventually, Wagner and Cosima were married themselves. Then, of course, there is his adamant anti-Semitism made obvious through his blaming Jews for the weakening of European culture. Famously, the Impressionist artist Renoir once came to sketch a rendition of Wagner; after his visit, he remembered primarily only Wagner's tirade against German Jews.

Of course, Wagner's music is still celebrated and praised for its reaching the pinnacle of Romanticism by combining the music of opera with drama, motion, and spectacle. Musicologist Donald Grout explains, "Wagner's music carries its audiences to a state of mystical and sensuous ecstasy". His romanticist tendencies had an impact on many other composers, such as Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler, and, through his experimentation with atonality, or the use of a central tone or key, in his music, he had a tremendous influence on many twentieth-century composers such as Debussy and Schoenberg. His methods of conducting had tremendous affect on the conducting of Hector Berlioz. His music has even had an affect on heavy metal bands, such as Manowar and Rammstein. Furthermore, Wagner's influence went beyond the world of music to philosophy, literature, and cinema.

However, just as many have found Wagner's music unpalatable. Gioachino Rossini, the composer of such famous pieces as "William Tell", remarked, "Wagner has wonderful moments, and dreadful quarters of an hour". French composer Charles-Valentin Alkan wrote, "Wagner is not a musician, he is a disease".

Answer: Averroes

Ibn Rushd or Averroes (1126-1198) had a profound effect on the theologians of Europe because of his commentaries on Aristotle, commentaries that provided a thoughtful analysis of the relationship between faith and reason. His writings and teachings were eventually particularly important to Thomas Aquinas, whose own philosophical work contributed to the marriage of reason and Christian doctrine so that Christianity continuted to thrive from the dawn of the Renaissance through the modern era. However, Aquinas did criticize Avorroes' followers of prioritizing reason far too much over faith.

During Averroes' own time, Islamic contemporaries responded vehemently against him, for they felt he was spreading ideas that undermined the belief that Allah created the world. Thus, his books were burned, and he was banished briefly from his home in Cordoba.

Nevertheless, this great Spanish Muslim philosopher managed to challenge successfully the anti-philsophical teachings of the Sunni leader al-Ghazzali, and he managed to spark a resurrection of interest in the Greek philsophers among the scholars of Christian Europe at a time when interest in such pursuits had waned. In his own way but certainly not by himself, Averroes helped pave the way for the birth of the Renaissance.

Answer: Victor Hugo

Victor Marie Hugo (1802-1885) is known outside of his native France as the great writer of novels, such as "Notre-Dame de Paris" (or "The Hunchback of Notre Dame") (1831) and "Les Miserables" (1862). However, the French tend to celebrate Hugo more for his poetry, much of which is found in various collections he published, such as "Les Feuilles d'automne" ("The Leaves of Autumn")(1831), "Les Contemplations" (1856), and "La Legende des siecles" ("The Legend of the Ages") published in three series (1859, 1877, and 1883). Hugo also wrote plays, such as "Cromwell" (1827) and "Hernani" (1830), and he created more than 4,000 drawings and sketches over the course of his lifetime. Furthermore, he was very much a political activist, who not only served legislatively in the National Assembly of the Second Republic but also wrote and spoke against the death penalty and social injustice and in favor of universal suffrage, freedom of the press, and free education for children. He pushed for an end to all poverty and the suffering created by it, and he pushed for a United States of Europe. When Napoleon III seized control of France and established an anti-parliamentary government, Hugo openly called him a traitor. He eventually had to leave France, as he was in danger of becoming a political prisoner, and he settled at first in Brussels, then Jersey, and finally Guernsey, where he remained in exile until 1870.

Some like to draw attention to Hugo's contradictions. At first, politically, he was a staunch supporter of the monarchy but eventually became an impassioned republican. Furthermore, while he was a very attentive husband and doting father, he also kept a couple of mistresses and had a large number of casual extramarital affairs. He also began life as a diehard Catholic, who eventually would describe himself as a "freethinker".

His final words as he lay on his deathbed are said to be, "Here is the battleground of day and night".

Answer: Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) forever altered the course of England's existence, for even after the monarchy was restored, no king or queen was able to declare absolute power again--nor would he or she dare to do so. Cromwell was apparently a very charismatic leader, and his intense devotion to religion led him to believe that all that he was doing was in accordance with God's will. He believed he was merely an instrument of God and the equivalent of Moses, who led his people to freedom from Egypt. Cromwell had no prior military training or experience, so the success he and his armies were responsible for must have been due to his instinctive leadership ability, his adherence to moral authority, and his empathy with the common men he sought to lead. He, furthermore, introduced close-order cavalry formations to English battles, and much of his success on the battlefield is attributed to this strategy as well.

After Charles I's execution, the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland was established under the rule of the Rump Parliament (Wales was assumed to be a part of England at this time). However, Cromwell was ever in command, and, when this parliament was replaced by the Barebone's Parliament, its members quickly established Cromwell as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth. He began to use his powers to "return" his Commonwealth to a Godly people, and he not only established several laws and policies meant to regulate people's morality but he also contributed to the deaths of several Irish, essentially because he so hated Catholics.

After his death, his son Richard Cromwell attempted to follow in his father's footsteps, but he soon found the majority of his father's followers were not so interested in following him. Eventually, his government was dissolved and later replaced with a return of the monarchy. Charles I's son Charles II was invited back from France to assume the throne of England. He accepted and in an act of vengeance, dug Cromwell's corpse up from his burial site in Westminster Abbey, had it hanged in chains, thrown into a pit, and then beheaded. As a final insult, Cromwell's head was impaled upon a pole at the top of Westminster Hall. Nevertheless, the damage to the English monarchy was done. When Charles II was invited to return as England's king, he returned under a new set of laws that prevented his possession of any semblance of absolute power.

John Milton, the great English poet who composed the epic "Paradise Lost", served as Oliver Cromwell's Latin Secretary.

Answer: Avicenna (Ibn Sina)

Avicenna, or Ibn Sina as he is more properly called, was one of the great intellects of the Middle Ages and one of the most important physicians, chemists, astronomers, philosophers, theologians, and poets of the Islamic Golden Age. Some have referred to him as "the father of early modern medicine".

His combination of Greek logic and metaphysics with divine revelation and the teachings of the Quran paved the way for the beginning of medieval philosophy and had a tremendous impact on the philosophers and theologians who would follow, such as Thomas Aquinas, Albertus Magnus, and Averroes. Avicenna'a goal was to prove the existence of God and the validity of God's having created the universe through scientific explanation, logic, and reason. One of his more interesting concepts was th "Proof of the Truthful", an argument for the existence of God based on the idea that there must be a "necessary existent", an entity that "cannot not exist".

Another interesting concept of his was that of the "Floating Man" or "Falling Man", whcih for him helped him conceive of the soul as an actual substance.

He pictured a human being created at the spur of a moment and suspended in mid-air. Furthermore, this individual would be cut off from completely all sensory experiences, including those that allowed awareness of his or her own body. Avicenna argued that such an individual would still have consciousness and would still be aware of his or her own consciousness. This self-consciousness was proof to him of an immaterial substance independent of the body--a substance he considered a soul.