Michael Faraday

Michael Faraday is one of the great scientists in the history of man's work in electricity. He was born in a small village near London on September 11, 1791, in a poor family. His family lived from hand to mouth. At the age of thirteen Michael went to work in a bookbinder's shop, because he didn't have much schooling. Some of the scientific works and articles which passed through his hands aroused his interest in science and he started to read.

Some time later Michael became a pupil of great scientist of that time, Sir Humphry Davy. The boy accompanied Davy in his trips to Europe. The educational value of such trips Was great. Among great men of science Faraday met Ampere, who had already made a name for himself in the history of electricity. Today almost all the electricity we use is. generated by great machines with magnets in them, but in those days no one knew how to do it. That's why the English scientist danced with delight on his table when he got what he wanted by moving the magnet near wire. This was a great moment in the history of man's electrical experiments. But Faraday didn't stop at this.

Faraday's scientific interests were varied. He made new kind of glass and a new kind of steel. Faraday made about two thousand difficult experiments and made countless discoveries in chemistry and physics. He made a wonderful machine which was the father of all the great machines that make electricity today. They light and heat our houses and they make our radio-sets work. Michael Faraday was the creator of the electric motor, who ushered us in the electrical age which had changed the face of the earth.

ELIZABETH I (1558-1603 AD) - A Queen with the Heart of a King

The first Queen Elizabeth, whose name has become a synonym for the era which she dominated (1558-1603), was born in 1533 to Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Elizabeth's deft political skills and strong personal character were directly responsible for putting England (at the time of her accession in 1558 a weak, divided backwater far outside the mainstream of European power and cultural development) on the road to becoming a true world economic and political power and restoring the country's lost sense of national pride. Although she entertained many marriage proposals and flirted incessantly (her closest brush with marriage came with Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester), she never married or had children.

Elizabeth inherited a tattered realm: dissension between Catholics and Protestants tore at the very foundation of society; the royal treasury had been bled dry by Mary and her advisors, Mary's loss of Calais left England with no continental possessions for the first time since the arrival of the Normans in 1066 and many (mainly Catholics) doubted Elizabeth's claim to the throne. Continental affairs added to her problems - France had a strong foothold in Scotland, and Spain, the strongest European nation at the time, posed a threat to the security of the realm. Elizabeth proved most calm and calculating (even though she had a horrendous temper), employing capable and distinguished men to carrying out royal prerogative.

The situation came to head in 1588 after Elizabeth rejected a marriage proposal from Philip II of Spain. The indignant Spanish King, incensed by English piracy and forays in New World exploration, sent his much-feared Armada to raid England, inadvertently providing Elizabeth with an opportunity to put on public display those qualities of heart that one might not expect to find in those days, in a small, frail woman. She traveled to Tilbury, Essex, to address her troops as they awaited the coming battle with the feared Spanish naval forces. She told them,

"... therefore I am come amongst you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live and die amongst you all; to lay down for my God, and for my kingdom, and my people, my honour and my blood, even in the dust. I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm..."

As they say, the rest is history. The English won the naval battle handily and emerged as the world's strongest naval power. Few English monarchs enjoyed such political power as Elizabeth I, while still maintaining the devotion of the whole of English society.

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