With the discovery of the New World, Spain and Portugal became great rivals. Before this rivalry led to war, Pope Alexander VI divided the world, in 1494, into two parts by drawing a line from the south of Greenland to the mouth of the Amazon. All lands to the west of this line belonged to Spain, all to the east …

Monkombu Sambasivan Swaminathan (born 7 August 1925) is an Indian agricultural scientist. He currently serves as a Member of Parliament from Rajya Sabha and is also member of the National Advisory Council. Swaminathan is known as the “Father of the Green Revolution in India”, for his leadership and success in introducing and further developing high-yielding varieties of wheat in India. …

One of the many who went on a vain search for El Dorado was a Spaniard, Hernando de Soto. He set off with a few mounted companions from Florida in 1539 on a journey that was to last for three years. De Soto and his party pushed their way through unexplored territory and in 1541 came to the banks of …

Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, also Sheikh Mohammed was born July 22, 1949, is the Prime Minister and Vice President of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Ruler of Dubai. Personal Life & Education He is the third of Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum’s four sons (members of Dubai’s ruling family Al Maktoum and descendants of the House of Al-Falasi, of which …

Mike Brown honestly doesn’t care whether Pluto is a planet or not. “It’s like asking whether Australia is a continent,” says the Caltech astronomer. “The word has no formal scientific definition.” Nevertheless, Brown brought that long-simmering issue to a head last summer by discovering an object he nicknamed Xena. It’s similar to Pluto-only bigger. If Pluto is a planet, as …

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi was born on September 29, 1934, in Fiume, Italy – now (Croatia) is a Hungarian psychology professor, who emigrated to the United States at the age of 22. He received his B.A. in 1960 and his Ph.D. in 1965, both from the University of Chicago. He is the father of MIT Media Lab associate professor Christopher Csikszentmihalyi and …

Meghnad Saha — In 1905, when the British Government divided Bengal into East and West, the people were outraged. No one more than a 12-year-old schoolboy, Meghnad Saha. He was too young to join the band of revolutionaries formed to fight for Bengal’s unity. So he had to find some other way of protest. His opportunity came when it was …

Dr. Meenakshi Gopinath is currently Principal, Lady Shri Ram College rated among the best institutions of higher learning in India. She has held this position since 1988 and has worked to mould it as a centre of excellence, which seeks to educate women to assume positions of leadership in society. The institution which today draws to its fold some of …

Mary Leakey was born Mary Douglas Nichol on February 6, 1913, in London, England to Erskine Edward Nichol and Cecilia Marion (Frere) Nichol. Since Erskine worked as a painter, specializing in water colour landscapes, the Nichol family would move from place to place, visiting numerous locations in the USA, Italy, and Egypt, where Erskine painted scenes to be sold in …

Marie Curie — Marie Sklodowska was born in Warsaw on 7 November 1867, the daughter of a teacher. In 1891, she went to Paris to study physics and mathematics at the Sorbonne where she met Pierre Curie, professor of the School of Physics. They were married in 1895. The Curies worked together investigating radioactivity, building on the work of the …