At age 41:
Joshua Norton, a pauper, declared himself Norton I, Emperor of the United States. He became San Francisco’s biggest tourist attraction and was probably the model for the character of “The King” in Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn.
Huey Long delivered the longest speech on record, a 15 1/2 hour marathon including cooking recipes and pointless anecdotes.
Alice Roosevelt Longworth, on giving birth at age 41, said “I’ll try anything once.”
Rudyard Kipling became the youngest Nobel Laureate in literature.
Christo completed his 24 1/2 mile “Running Fence” through the hills of northern California.
Antoine Laurent de Jussieu invented the modern classification of plants.
Charles Babbage proposed a large-scale digital calculator, the “analytical engine.”
I suppose I need to go declare myself Empress of America now.
Eve
November 28, 2003, 12:43am
22
At age 46:
Mary Leakey first spotted the fossilized molar teeth that won Louis Leakey fame for discovery of the missing link.
Benjamin Franklin conducted experiments with a kite and discovered that lightning is an electrical discharge.
A Scottish surgeon, James Baird, discovered hypnosis.
Golfer Jack Nicklaus became the oldest man ever to win the Masters.
Alfred Eisenstaedt made his most famous photo, of a sailor sweeping up a girl in a kiss during a V-J day celebration in Times Square.
Isabel Bevier became the first person to use a thermometer for meat cooking.
–Actually, I feel better, because I don’t want to do any of those things.
(I wonder if Ginger Rogers ever sang that Pig-Latin Bible?)
At age 40:
John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth.
Joan Ganz Cooney founded Children’s Television Workshop and became the mastermind behind “Sesame Street.”
Charles Thurber patented a typewriter.
Chemist Franz Karl Achard developed a process for extracting sugar from beets.
Physicist William Sturgeon created the first electromagnet.
Jean Eugene Atget, now considered one of the greatest photographers, took up photography.
Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run.
Harriet Beecher Stowe, a mother of six who occasionally wrote for magazines, published Uncle Tom’s Cabin, an antislavery novel of such force that it is generally recognized as one of the causes of the Civil War.
Earl Vickers unveiled his audio effects plug-in SFX Machine at the 1997 NAMM convention.
That Earl Vickers gets around.
I’m taking up photography.
Earl Vickers created the web site, I discovered with the wonders of google.
At age 21:
Italian violinist and composer Giuseppe Tartini had a dream in which he sold his soul to the Devil. The piece he wrote upon waking, the “Devil’s Sonata,” was the best he ever wrote, though far inferior to the one he heard in his dream.
American novelist Herman Melville jumped ship and spent a month as the captive of a cannibal tribe. This became the source of his novel Typee.
Jack London went to the Klondike with the first rush of gold-seekers, returning home a year later as poor as when he had left.
English chemist Humphry Davy discovered nitrous oxide (“laughing gas”), and suggested that it may have use as an anaesthetic.
Thomas Alva Edison created his first invention, an electric vote recorder. After it failed to sell, he decided to devote his energy to inventions for which there was a market.
John Dillinger robbed a grocery store, was caught and spent 9 years in prison. He later became “public enemy number one,” before being gunned down by the FBI.
Luther Burbank purchased 17 acres of land near Lunenburg, Massachusetts and began a plant-breeding career that would span 55 years.
Pablo Casals made significant modifications in cello playing technique and was acclaimed as a master.
Pittsburgh songwriter Stephen Foster wrote “Oh! Susanna!” which quickly gained great popularity.
Future robber baron Jay Gould began investing in the leather business and speculating in railroad stocks.
Robert Browning publishes his first poetry; it is poorly received.
Alfred Tennyson publishes his first poetry; it is poorly received.
College dropout Steven Jobs co-founded Apple Computer.
Actually, I don’t feel too bad right now.
At age 19:
Writer, painter and filmmaker Jean Cocteau published his first volume of poetry.
By age 19, W. B. Yeats “lived, breathed, ate, drank and slept poetry.”
French symbolist poet Arthur Rimbaud (“A Season in Hell”) abandoned his writing. He had proposed that poets become visionaries by pursuing a complete derangement of the senses. Later he became a gunrunner in Africa.
Gore Vidal, who never bothered with college, completed his first novel.
Abner Doubleday devised the rules for baseball.
Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky resigned his Imperial Guard commission for a life of “meaningful endeavor” – writing music.
Paleontologist Richard Leakey launched his first expedition in search of human fossils.
Tired of watching friends fall prey to drugs and crime, Matty Rich fought back by directing “Straight Out of Brooklyn.”
Henry David Thoreau delivered a Harvard commencement address. Expanding on Emerson’s 1836 essay on “Nature”, he proposed that man should work one day a week and leave six free for the “sublime revelations of nature.”
Horticulturist Luther Burbank read Charles Darwin’s book, The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication. Inspired by this, he went on to create hundreds of new varieties of fruits, vegetables, and flowers.
At age 30, Earl Vickers started the Dollar Project, in which dollar bills were rubber-stamped as being lost, with a reward offered for their safe return.
Just in case you were wondering about the Dollar Project.
Danalan
November 28, 2003, 4:51am
28
Apparently, Earl is now 45. Like me.
Happy Birthday, Shirley . If I remember correctly, we share the same birthday (Nov. 27, 1966).
At age 20:
Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard and cofounded Microsoft.
Canadian hockey player Scott Olsen founded Rollerblade, Inc.
English novelist Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, which was immediately successful.
Ragtime composer Scott Joplin became an itinerant pianist and travelled throughout the Midwest.
Despite a lack of experience, James Cagney fast-talked his way into a vaudeville dancing job.
Egyptian hermit Saint Anthony gave away his inheritance and joined a group of ascetics, eventually becoming the father of Christian Monasticism.
D. H. Lawrence began writing his first novel, The White Peacock.
Jane Austen wrote Pride and Prejudice, her second and most famous novel.
English author Elizabeth Barrett Browning published her first volume of poetry.
Polish-born Joseph Conrad, one of the great English language novelists, began learning English, his third language.
Charles Lindbergh learned to fly.
John Stuart Mill pulled himself out of depression and found that the ordinary events of life could again give him some moderate amounts of pleasure. He decided that happiness is attained not by making it the direct goal of life, but by fixing one’s mind on some other pursuit.
Leon Battista Alberti wrote a Latin comedy that was hailed as the “discovered” work of a Roman playwright.
The Greek philosopher Plato became a disciple of Socrates.
Alexander Graham Bell taught a stray Skye Terrier to talk; by training the dog to growl on cue and then manipulating his mouth and throat, Bell could make him produce the phonemes “ow, ah, ooh, ga, ma, ma,” to say “How are you, Grandmama?”
But can they master vB Code like me? I think not! (Well, maybe Bill Gates could.)
bindera
November 28, 2003, 5:52pm
32
At age 15:
Albert Einstein, with poor grades in geography, history and languages, dropped out of school.
Composer George Gershwin (“Rhapsody in Blue”) left school to pitch his songs in Tin Pan Alley.
Chess champion Bobby Fischer became an international grandmaster and dropped out of high school to devote himself to professional competition.
Swedish tennis star Bjorn Borg dropped out of school to concentrate on tennis.
Hm. I see a pattern here.
*Originally posted by Guinastasia *
Fayette, N.Y. farmhand Joseph Smith founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He claimed he translated the Book of Mormon from some golden tablets revealed to him by the angel Moroni .
**
Ok this makes me wonder why they aren’t called Morons…:dubious:
