Historical Idols

["IRISH" RUFUS MURPHY]

I didn't know where to place this, but considering this thread is a educational thread of sorts, I figured why not here.

My question is: Who is your favorite historical idol and why?


Myself my idols were the following men when I was in school:

-Thomas Alva Edison
-Albert Einstein
-Benjamin Franklin
-Abraham Lincoln
-Charles Goodyear
-Leonardo Da Vinci

The first four were men who barely had any formal education, Franklin himself had only two years of schooling, while Edison and Einstein were considered mentally retarded. Lincoln's education came in his later life as he sought out knowledge in politics, though he was nothing more than a man from the wilderness.

It encouraged me in the sense that, since I was never too good in school, that I could someday achieve things, despite my peers objections and laughs, as Edison became the most proficient inventor in history, while Lincoln became the greatest president, Franklin became an inventor, politician and even drafted the Declaration of Independance and Einstein turned the world upside down with his theory of relativity.

Da Vinci was an inspiration because it showed me that there was really no limits to the human mind and its curiousity, as he theorised everything from the helicopter to the submarine, hundreds of years before it was ever put to practical use.

Charles Goodyear was my favorite though. Here was a man whose curiousity over-rode everything else in his life. He never stopped searching for the truth, selling virtually everything he had to continue on this dream of his, to perfect rubber, that would no longer melt in the heat and turn brittle in the cold. Using everything from Philadelphia Creme Cheese to lead and zinc, he worked in his laboratory [a shed] day and night.

It was by accident though that he created the vulcinization process, adding sulphur to rubber, making the already flexible and pliable substance into a more stable resource. Despite all his efforts, he never made a single cent for his life's work, and died from cancer, from the many years of using lead in his experiments. It wouldn't be until the invention of the automobile that 'Goodyear Tires' would be a success.

It showed me, through these men, that with enough imagination, patience and hard work, that virtually anything was possible. In turn, I taught myself to read, after a teacher said that I was too 'dumb' to ever read a book, and in a few short years was above and beyond college level in comprehension of literature.

And I haven't stopped reading and continuing in the pursuit of knowledge ever since.