What is Structured Settlement?

What is Structured Settlement?

By Brian Dylan

Because it is tailor-made for individual cases, the structure may also include some immediate payment to cover special damages. The payment is usually made through purchase of an annuity from a Life Insurance Company. Subcontractor A trade contractor such as a roofer who usually subcontracts with a general contractor. Subrogation Once a company has paid a loss for which someone other than the policyholder is responsible, it may have the right to recover this loss.

A financial package permitting a settlement to be paid in regular installments either for a fixed period or for the lifetime of the claimant. Because it is tailor-made for individual cases, the structure may also include some immediate payment to cover special damages. The payment is usually made through purchase of an annuity from a Life Insurance Company.

If we can't help you find a buyer of structured settlement that will fit your needs, you won't be able to find anyone who will buy your structured settlement. We specialize in selling structured settlements and in helping other people sell structured settlement. A structured settlement sale isn't an easy process, so we've put together resources to help you with the process.

If you've been awarded deferred cash structured settlement payments and need to sell them it can be tough. A structured settlement is often best for an insurance company, but not necessarily for you.

You may need cash now to pay for medical bills or for family finances, instead of incremental payments over the next several years. We can help buy structured settlement payments and help you sell structured settlement payments.

Let us help you sell structured settlement payments today!

POP PERSON - WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Biography

Born in Salzburg, Austria on Jan. 27, 1756; full name Johannes Chrysostomus

               Wolfgangus Gottlieb Mozart; he was baptized as Johannes 

               Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart.  Mozart is named after his 

               grandfather on his mother's side and after the Saint on his date of

               birth, Johannes Chrysostomus.

Parents: Leopold Mozart - composer and violinist, concertmaster at the               

               archiepiscopal court, and in 1763, vice-kapellmeister at Salzburg court;

               and Anna Maria Pertl, daughter of Wolfgang Nikolaus Pertl, an official                 

               from Sankt Gilgen

Sibling: Maria Anna (Nannerl) Mozart

Age 3: started to play the keyboard

Age 5: started composing minuets

1763-1766 toured Europe with his father and sister played for Louis XV at         

               Versailles and George III in London

1764 wrote his first three symphonies; also met Johann Christian Bach

By his teenage years, he mastered the piano, violin, and harpsichord

1768 completed first opera, La finta semplice (The Simple Pretense)

1769-1773 made three trips to Italy

               In Rome, there was a myth that Mozart attended the performance of     

               Allegri's Misere.  He wanted the score but when no one agreed he        

               wrote down the music from memory.

1770 Mitridate, re di Ponte (Mithridates, King of Pontus) performed in Milan      

               was Mozart's first major opera

1772 appointed concertmaster in the orchestra of Archbishop of Salzburg.           

               During this period, he wrote many sacred works.

1777 toured with his mother hoping to find a court position; traveled to                

               Mannheim where he met and fell in love with Aloysia Weber

1778, July Anna Maria Mozart died

1779 unable to find a court position, Mozart went back to Salzburg; appointed    

               as court organist to the Archbishop of Salzburg

1781 resigned from his position due to increasing tension and disagreements         

               between Mozart and the Archbishop.  Mozart stayed in Vienna instead                

               of returning to Salzburg.  Mozart's resignation and his move to Vienna   

               put a strain in his relationship with his father.

1782 married Constanze Weber in Vienna's St. Stephen's Cathedral.  After         

               Mozart's death, Constanze married Danish diplomat Georg Nikolaus    

               von Nissen.  In Vienna, Mozart supported his family by performing in   

               public and private, teaching , and composing.  His first opera written     

               after his residency in Vienna, Abduction from Seraglio became a           

               success.

1786 The Marriage of Figaro, the first of three operas Mozart collaborated with 

               librettist, Lorenza da Ponte, premiered at the         Burg Theater.

1787 became composer of Imperial and Royal Chamber with an annual salary of 

               800fl.  His father, Leopold, died on May 28, 1787.  Don Giovanni       

               premiered in Prague at the National Theater.

1790 Cosi fan tutte premiered at Burg Theater.  Mozart declined an     

               opportunity to compose in London.

1791 composed dance music for the Vienna Court; publishers began to pay         

               fees for the rights to publish his works; appointed assistant to the          

               Cathedral Kapellmeister at St. Stephens with no pay.  Mozart was       

               already feeling ill in Prague while finishing La clemenza di Tito.

Dec. 5, 1791, a few minutes before 1AM, Mozart died of rheumatic fever.

POP PERSON - ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln warned the South in his Inaugural Address: "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you.... You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it."

Lincoln thought secession illegal, and was willing to use force to defend Federal law and the Union. When Confederate batteries fired on Fort Sumter and forced its surrender, he called on the states for 75,000 volunteers. Four more slave states joined the Confederacy but four remained within the Union. The Civil War had begun.

The son of a Kentucky frontiersman, Lincoln had to struggle for a living and for learning. Five months before receiving his party's nomination for President, he sketched his life:

"I was born Feb. 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families--second families, perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks.... My father ... removed from Kentucky to ... Indiana, in my eighth year.... It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up.... Of course when I came of age I did not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher ... but that was all."

Lincoln made extraordinary efforts to attain knowledge while working on a farm, splitting rails for fences, and keeping store at New Salem, Illinois. He was a captain in the Black Hawk War, spent eight years in the Illinois legislature, and rode the circuit of courts for many years. His law partner said of him, "His ambition was a little engine that knew no rest."

He married Mary Todd, and they had four boys, only one of whom lived to maturity. In 1858 Lincoln ran against Stephen A. Douglas for Senator. He lost the election, but in debating with Douglas he gained a national reputation that won him the Republican nomination for President in 1860.

As President, he built the Republican Party into a strong national organization. Further, he rallied most of the northern Democrats to the Union cause. On January 1, 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation that declared forever free those slaves within the Confederacy.

Lincoln never let the world forget that the Civil War involved an even larger issue. This he stated most movingly in dedicating the military cemetery at Gettysburg: "that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain--that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Lincoln won re-election in 1864, as Union military triumphs heralded an end to the war. In his planning for peace, the President was flexible and generous, encouraging Southerners to lay down their arms and join speedily in reunion.

The spirit that guided him was clearly that of his Second Inaugural Address, now inscribed on one wall of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D. C.: "With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds.... "

On Good Friday, April 14, 1865, Lincoln was assassinated at Ford's Theatre in Washington by John Wilkes Booth, an actor, who somehow thought he was helping the South. The opposite was the result, for with Lincoln's death, the possibility of peace with magnanimity died.

POP PERSON - NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

Napoleon Bonaparte
Emperor of the French, 1769 - 1821

Napoleon Bonaparte was born on August 15, 1769 in Ajaccio on the Mediterranean island of Corsica, the son of Carlo and Letizia Bonaparte. Through his military exploits and his ruthless efficiency, Napoleon rose from obscurity to become Napoleon I, Empereur des Francais (Emperor of the French). He is both a historical figure and a legend—and it is sometimes difficult to separate the two. The events of his life fired the imaginations of great writers, film makers, and playwrights whose works have done much to create the Napoleonic legend.

]Napoleon decided on a military career when he was a child, winning a scholarship to a French military academy at age 14. His meteoric rise shocked not only France but all of Europe, and his military conquests threatened the stability of the world.

Napoleon was one of the greatest military commanders in history. He has also been portrayed as a power hungry conqueror. Napoleon denied those accusations. He argued that he was building a federation of free peoples in a Europe united under a liberal government. But if this was his goal, he intended to achieve it by taking power in his own hands. However, in the states he created, Napoleon granted constitutions, introduced law codes, abolished feudalism, created efficient governments and fostered education, science, literature and the arts.

Emperor Napoleon proved to be an excellent civil administrator. One of his greatest achievements was his supervision of the revision and collection of French law into codes. The new law codes—seven in number—incorporated some of the freedoms gained by the people of France during the French revolution, including religious toleration and the abolition of serfdom. The most famous of the codes, the Code Napoleon or Code Civil, still forms the basis of French civil law. Napoleon also centralized France's government by appointing prefects to administer regions called departments, into which France was divided.

While Napoleon believed in government "for" the people, he rejected government "by" the people. His France was a police state with a vast network of secret police and spies. The police shut down plays containing any hint of disagreement or criticism of the government. The press was controlled by the state. It was impossible to express an opinion without Napoleon's approval.

Napoleon's own opinion of his career is best stated in the following quotation:

“I closed the gulf of anarchy and brought order out of chaos. I rewarded merit regardless of birth or wealth, wherever I found it. I abolished feudalism and restored equality to all regardless of religion and before the law. I fought the decrepit monarchies of the Old Regime because the alternative was the destruction of all this. I purified the Revolution.”

POP PERSON - MARIE CURIE

Marie Curie

Marie Curie, née Maria Sklodowska, was born in Warsaw on November 7, 1867, the daughter of a secondary-school teacher. She received a general education in local schools and some scientific training from her father. She became involved in a students' revolutionary organization and found it prudent to leave Warsaw, then in the part of Poland dominated by Russia, for Cracow, which at that time was under Austrian rule. In 1891, she went to Paris to continue her studies at the Sorbonne where she obtained Licenciateships in Physics and the Mathematical Sciences. She met Pierre Curie, Professor in the School of Physics in 1894 and in the following year they were married. She succeeded her husband as Head of the Physics Laboratory at the Sorbonne, gained her Doctor of Science degree in 1903, and following the tragic death of Pierre Curie in 1906, she took his place as Professor of General Physics in the Faculty of Sciences, the first time a woman had held this position. She was also appointed Director of the Curie Laboratory in the Radium Institute of the University of Paris, founded in 1914.

Her early researches, together with her husband, were often performed under difficult conditions, laboratory arrangements were poor and both had to undertake much teaching to earn a livelihood. The discovery of radioactivity by Henri Becquerel in 1896 inspired the Curies in their brilliant researches and analyses which led to the isolation of polonium, named after the country of Marie's birth, and radium. Mme. Curie developed methods for the separation of radium from radioactive residues in sufficient quantities to allow for its characterization and the careful study of its properties, therapeutic properties in particular.

Mme. Curie throughout her life actively promoted the use of radium to alleviate suffering and during World War I, assisted by her daughter, Irene, she personally devoted herself to this remedial work. She retained her enthusiasm for science throughout her life and did much to establish a radioactivity laboratory in her native city - in 1929 President Hoover of the United States presented her with a gift of $ 50,000, donated by American friends of science, to purchase radium for use in the laboratory in Warsaw.

Mme. Curie, quiet, dignified and unassuming, was held in high esteem and admiration by scientists throughout the world. She was a member of the Conseil du Physique Solvay from 1911 until her death and since 1922 she had been a member of the Committee of Intellectual Co-operation of the League of Nations. Her work is recorded in numerous papers in scientific journals and she is the author of Recherches sur les Substances Radioactives (1904), L'Isotopie et les Éléments Isotopes and the classic Traité' de Radioactivité (1910).

The importance of Mme. Curie's work is reflected in the numerous awards bestowed on her. She received many honorary science, medicine and law degrees and honorary memberships of learned societies throughout the world. Together with her husband, she was awarded half of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1903, for their study into the spontaneous radiation discovered by Becquerel, who was awarded the other half of the Prize. In 1911 she received a second Nobel Prize, this time in Chemistry, in recognition of her work in radioactivity. She also received, jointly with her husband, the Davy Medal of the Royal Society in 1903 and, in 1921, President Harding of the United States, on behalf of the women of America, presented her with one gram of radium in recognition of her service to science.

For further details, cf. Biography of Pierre Curie. Mme. Curie died in Savoy, France, after a short illness, on July 4, 1934.

From Nobel Lectures, Physics 1901-1921, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1967

This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above

POP PERSON - LOUIS PASTEUR

Louis Pasteur

Louis Pasteur was born on 27 December 1822 in Dole in the Jura region of France. His father was a tanner. In 1847 he earned a doctorate from the École Normale in Paris. After several years research and teaching in Dijon and Strasbourg, in 1854 Pasteur was appointed professor of chemistry at the University of Lille. Part of the remit of the faculty of sciences was to find solutions to the practical problems of local industries, particularly the manufacture of alcoholic drinks. He was able to demonstrate that organisms such as bacteria were responsible for souring wine and beer (he later extended his studies to prove that milk was the same), and that the bacteria could be removed by boiling and then cooling the liquid. This process is now called pasteurisation.

Pasteur then undertook experiments to find where these bacteria came from, and was able to prove that they were introduced from the environment. This was disputed by scientists who believed they could spontaneously generate. In 1864, the French Academy of Sciences accepted Pasteur's results. By 1865, Pasteur was director of scientific studies at the École Normale, where he had studied. He was asked to help the silk industry in southern France, where there was an epidemic amongst the silkworms. With no experience of the subject, Pasteur identified parasitic infections as the cause and advocated that only disease-free eggs should be selected. The industry was saved.

Pasteur's various investigations convinced him of the rightness of the germ theory of disease, which holds that germs attack the body from outside. Many felt that such tiny organisms as germs could not possibly kill larger ones such as humans. Pasteur now extended this theory to explain the causes of many diseases - including anthrax, cholera, TB and smallpox - and their prevention by vaccination. He is best known for his work on the development of vaccines for rabies. In 1888, a special institute was founded in Paris for the treatment of diseases. It became known as the Institut Pasteur. Pasteur was its director until his death on 28 September 1895. He was a national hero and was given a state funeral.

POP PERSON - ISAAC NEWTON

Isaac Newton

Isaac Newton was born on 4 January 1643 in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire. His father was a prosperous farmer, who died three months before Newton was born. His mother re-married and Newton was left in the care of his grandparents. In 1661, he went to Cambridge University where he became interested in mathematics, optics, physics and astronomy. In October 1665, a plague epidemic forced the university to close and Newton returned to Woolsthorpe. The two years he spent there were an extremely fruitful time during which he began to think about gravity, and also devoted time to optics and mathematics, working out his ideas about 'fluxions' (calculus).

In 1667, Newton returned to Cambridge, where he became a fellow of Trinity College. Two years later he was appointed second Lucasian Professor of Mathematics. It was Newton's reflecting telescope, made in 1668, that finally brought him to the attention of the scientific community and in 1672 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society. From the mid-1660s, Newton conducted a series of experiments on the composition of light, discovering that white light is composed of the same system of colours that can be seen in a rainbow and establishing the modern study of optics (or the behaviour of light). In 1704 Newton published 'The Opticks' which dealt with light and colour. He also studied and published works on history, theology and alchemy.

However, in 1687, with the support of his friend the astronomer Edmond Halley, Newton published his single greatest work, the 'Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica' ('Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy'). This showed how a universal force, gravity, applied to all objects in all parts of the universe.

In 1689, Newton was elected MP for Cambridge University (1689 - 1690 and 1701 - 1702). In 1696 Newton was appointed warden of the Royal Mint, settling in London. He took his duties at the Mint very seriously and campaigned against corruption and inefficiency within the organisation. In 1703, he was elected president of the Royal Society, an office he held until his death. He was knighted in 1705.

Newton was a difficult man, prone to depression and often involved in bitter arguments with other scientists, but by the early 1700s he was the dominant figure in British and European science. He died on 31 March 1727 and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Galileo Galilei was an Italian physicist and astronomer. He was born in Pisa on February 15, 1564. Galileo's father, Vincenzo Galilei, was a well-known musician. Vincenzo decided that his son should become a doctor.

In 1581, Galileo was sent to the University of Pisa to study medicine. While a student at the university, Galileo discovered that he had a talent for mathematics. He was able to persuade his father to allow him to leave the university to become a tutor in mathematics. He later became a professor of mathematics.

In 1609, Galileo heard about the invention of the spyglass, a device which made distant objects appear closer. Galileo used his mathematics knowledge and technical skills to improve upon the spyglass and build a telescope. Later that same year, he became the first person to look at the Moon through a telescope and make his first astronomy discovery. He found that the Moon was not smooth, but mountainous and pitted - just like the Earth! He subsequently used his newly invented telescope to discover four of the moons circling Jupiter, to study Saturn, to observe the phases of Venus, and to study sunspots on the Sun.

Galileo's observations strengthened his belief in Copernicus' theory that Earth and all other planets revolve around the Sun. Most people in Galileo's time believed that the Earth was the center of the universe and that the Sun and planets revolved around it.

The Catholic Church, which was very powerful and influential in Galileo's day, strongly supported the theory of a geocentric, or Earth-centered, universe. After Galileo began publishing papers about his astronomy discoveries and his belief in a heliocentric, or Sun-centered, Universe, he was called to Rome to answer charges brought against him by the Inquisition (the legal body of the Catholic Church). Early in 1616, Galileo was accused of being a heretic, a person who opposed Church teachings. Heresy was a crime for which people were sometimes sentenced to death. Galileo was cleared of charges of heresy, but was told that he should no longer publicly state his belief that Earth moved around the Sun. Galileo continued his study of astronomy and became more and more convinced that all planets revolved around the Sun. In 1632, he published a book that stated, among other things, that the heliocentric theory of Copernicus was correct. Galileo was once again called before the Inquisition and this time was found guilty of heresy. Galileo was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1633. Because of his age and poor health, he was allowed to serve his imprisonment under house arrest. Galileo died on January 8, 1642.

POP PERSON - JOHN DEWEY

JOHN DEWEY (1859-1952)

John Dewey is U.S philosopher and educator. A pragmatist, he was against authoritarian methods, arguing for learning trought experience and necessity rather than by rote, and it was this principle that served as a cornerstone for modern progressive education. His pubblications incluced ‘Scholl and Society’ (1900), ‘Democracy and Education’ (1916), ‘Human Nature and Conduct’ (1922).

John Dewey, American Pragmatist

John Dewey (1859-1952) was an American psychologist, philosopher, educator, social critic and political activist. He was born in Burlington, Vermont, on 20 October 1859. Dewey graduated from the University of Vermont in 1879, and received his PhD from Johns Hopkins University in 1884. He started his career at the University of Michigan, teaching there from 1884 to 1888 and 1889-1894, with a one year term at the University of Minnesota in 1888. In 1894 he became the chairman of the department of philosophy, psychology, and pedagogy at the University of Chicago. In 1899, John Dewey was elected president of the American Psychological Association, and in 1905 he became president of the American Philosophical Association. Dewey taught at Columbia University from 1905 until he retired in 1929, and occasionally taught as professor emeritus until 1939. During his years at Columbia he traveled the world as a philosopher, social and political theorist, and educational consultant. Among his major journeys are his lectures in Japan and China from 1919 to 1921, his visit to Turkey in 1924 to recommend educational policy, and a tour of schools in the USSR in 1928. Of course, Dewey never ignored American social issues. He was outspoken on education, domestic and international politics, and numerous social movements. Among the many concerns that attracted Dewey's support were women's suffrage, progessive education, educator's rights, the Humanistic movement, and world peace. Dewey died in New York City on 1 June 1952.

POP PERSON - ALBERT EINSTEIN

ALBERT EINSTEIN

There have been only a few scientist whose work has changed man’s total view of the world.

Biography

Albert Einstein was born at Ulm, in Württemberg, Germany, on March 14, 1879. Six weeks later the family moved to Munich, where he later on began his schooling at the Luitpold Gymnasium. Later, they moved to Italy and Albert continued his education at Aarau, Switzerland and in 1896 he entered the SwissFederal Polytechnic School in Zurich to be trained as a teacher in physics and mathematics. In 1901, the year he gained his diploma, he acquired Swiss citizenship and, as he was unable to find a teaching post, he accepted a position as technical assistant in the Swiss Patent Office. In 1905 he obtained his doctor's degree.

During his stay at the Patent Office, and in his spare time, he produced much of his remarkable work and in 1908 he was appointed Privatdozent in Berne. In 1909 he became Professor Extraordinary at Zurich, in 1911 Professor of Theoretical Physics at Prague, returning to Zurich in the following year to fill a similar post. In 1914 he was appointed Director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Physical Institute and Professor in the University of Berlin. He became a German citizen in 1914 and remained in Berlin until 1933 when he renounced his citizenship for political reasons and emigrated to America to take the position of Professor of Theoretical Physics at Princeton. He became a United States citizen in 1940 and retired from his post in 1945.

After World War II, Einstein was a leading figure in the World Government Movement, he was offered the Presidency of the State of Israel, which he declined, and he collaborated with Dr. Chaim Weizmann in establishing the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Einstein always appeared to have a clear view of the problems of physics and the determination to solve them. He had a strategy of his own and was able to visualize the main stages on the way to his goal. He regarded his major achievements as mere stepping-stones for the next advance.

At the start of his scientific work, Einstein realized the inadequacies of Newtonian mechanics and his special theory of relativity stemmed from an attempt to reconcile the laws of mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field. He dealt with classical problems of statistical mechanics and problems in which they were merged with quantum theory: this led to an explanation of the Brownian movement of molecules. He investigated the thermal properties of light with a low radiation density and his observations laid the foundation of the photon theory of light.

In his early days in Berlin, Einstein postulated that the correct interpretation of the special theory of relativity must also furnish a theory of gravitation and in 1916 he published his paper on the general theory of relativity. During this time he also contributed to the problems of the theory of radiation and statistical mechanics.

In the 1920's, Einstein embarked on the construction of unified field theories, although he continued to work on the probabilistic interpretation of quantum theory, and he persevered with this work in America. He contributed to statistical mechanics by his development of the quantum theory of a monatomic gas and he has also accomplished valuable work in connection with atomic transition probabilities and relativistic cosmology.

After his retirement he continued to work towards the unification of the basic concepts of physics, taking the opposite approach, geometrisation, to the majority of physicists.

Einstein's researches are, of course, well chronicled and his more important works include Special Theory of Relativity (1905), Relativity (English translations, 1920 and 1950), General Theory of Relativity (1916), Investigations on Theory of Brownian Movement (1926), and The Evolution of Physics (1938). Among his non-scientific works, About Zionism (1930), Why War? (1933), My Philosophy (1934), and Out of My Later Years (1950) are perhaps the most important.

Albert Einstein received honorary doctorate degrees in science, medicine and philosophy from many European and American universities. During the 1920's he lectured in Europe, America and the Far East and he was awarded Fellowships or Memberships of all the leading scientific academies throughout the world. He gained numerous awards in recognition of his work, including the Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London in 1925, and the Franklin Medal of the Franklin Institute in 1935.

Einstein's gifts inevitably resulted in his dwelling much in intellectual solitude and, for relaxation, music played an important part in his life. He married Mileva Maric in 1903 and they had a daughter and two sons; their marriage was dissolved in 1919 and in the same year he married his cousin, Elsa Löwenthal, who died in 1936. He died on April 18, 1955 at Princeton, New Jersey.

From Nobel Lectures, Physics 1901-1921, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1967

This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lecturel. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.

---

* Albert Einstein was formally associated with the Institute for Advanced Study located in Princeton, New Jersey.

POP PERSON - WRIGHT ORVILLE

WRIGHT ORVILLE (1871-1948)

Wright Orville and his brother Wilbur (1867-1912) were American aircraft engineers. They built the first stable and controllabe heavier-than-air machine, which made its first flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in 1903.

POP PERSON - THOMAS ALVA EDISON

THOMAS ALVA EDISON

US invertor and physicist Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) was responsible for over 1,000 inventions. These include the first practical lightbulb and the first moving pictures player, called the kinetoscope. He made major improvements to early telephone systems. In 1877, he invented the sound-recording system called the phonograph.

"Be courageous! Whatever setbacks America has encountered, it has always emerged as a stronger and more prosperous nation...."
"Be brave as your fathers before you. Have faith and go forward" Thomas Alva Edison"

POP PERSON - ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL

ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL

Alexander Graham Bell (18447-1922) a scot who emigrated to America, where he invented the telephone (1876) and obtained a U.S. monopoly for Bell system of telephone communication.

A pioneer in the field of telecommunications, Alexander Graham Bell was born in 1847 in Edinburgh, Scotland. He moved to Ontario, and then to the United States, settling in Boston, before beginning his career as an inventor. Throughout his life, Bell had been interested in the education of deaf people. This interest lead him to invent the microphone and, in 1876, his "electrical speech machine," which we now call a telephone. News of his invention quickly spread throughout the country, even throughout Europe. By 1878, Bell had set up the first telephone exchange in New Haven, Connecticut. By 1884, long distance connections were made between Boston, Massachusetts and New York City.

Bell imagined great uses for his telephone, like this model from the 1920s, but would he ever have imagined telephone lines being used to transmit video images? Since his death in 1922, the telecommunication industry has undergone an amazing revolution. Today, non-hearing people are able to use a special display telephone to communicate. Fiber optics are improving the quality and speed of data transmission. Actually, your ability to access this information relies upon telecommunications technology. Bell's "electrical speech machine" paved the way for the Information Superhighway.

A. G. Bell

The History of Telephones

POP PERSON - BRAD WATSON

BRAD WATSON

Brad Watson, born in Meridian Mississippi, publised his first work, a collection of short stories called Last Day of the Dog-Men, which won a Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Author of The Heaven of Mercury talks with Robert Birnbaum Writer Brad Watson was born in Meridien, Mississippi and studied at Mississippi State University and received an MFA from the University of Alabama. He has been a journalist and English instructor and recently completed a five-year stint teaching creative writing at Harvard. His short fiction has been published in Story, Black Warrior Review, Greensboro Review and Dog Stories. His short story collection, Last Days of the Dog-Men, won a Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His first novel is The Heaven of Mercury. Brad Watson and family have recently moved to Pensacola, Florida, where he teaches at the University of West Florida.

POP PERSON - NICHOLAS SPARKS

NICHOLAS SPARKS

Nicholas Sparks is a modern master of fatefull love stories, and his phenomenal best seller-“The Notebook”, “Message In A Bottle”, and “A Walk To Remember”-have made him one of the most beloved story tellers. He was born in Ohama, Nebraska on New Year’s Eve, 80 minutes prior to 1966.
Nicholas Sparks is an international bestselling author. His novels usually hold touching storylines and sometimes, are inspired by his personal experiences. Many of them, like AWalk To Remember and The Notebook have been made into movies.

He was born December 31, 1965, in Omaha, Nebraska. His father is Patrick Michael Sparks who was born in 1942 and died in 1996. He was a professor. His mother is Jill Emma Marie (Thoene) Sparks who was also born in 1942 and died in 1989. She was a homemaker and then an optometrist's assistant. Sparks has one brother, Michael (Micah) Earl Sparks who was born in 1964 and is still living. He had one sister, Danielle (Dana) Sparks who was born in 1966 and died in 2000. When Sparks was a child he lived in several different places before the age of eight, such as Minnesota, Los Angeles, Grand Island Nebraska, and finally in Fair Oaks California.

He lived in Fair Oaks all through his high school years. Sparks graduated in 1984 as valedictorian at Bella Vista High School. He received a full scholarship for track to the University of Notre Dame. As a freshman in 1985, Sparks broke the record as part of a relay team and the record still stands today. During the relay he was injured and had spent the summer recovering and began writing extensively. He wrote his first novel, but unfortunately, it was never published. Sparks majored in Business Finance and he graduated with high honors in 1988.

Nicholas Sparks and his wife, Catherine (Cat), met during spring break in 1988. They eventually married in July of 1989. During this time he was living in Sacramento. He had written his second novel that same year and once again it was not published. Over the next three years, Sparks had worked numerous jobs such as; real estate appraisal, waiting tables, selling dental products by phone, and started his own manufacturing business.

In 1992, he began selling pharmaceuticals and moved to North Carolina from Sacramento. In 1994, at 28, over a period of six months, Sparks wrote his debut novel The Notebook. Rights to the novel were sold to Warner Books in October of 1995. In October of 1996, the novel was published. After that he wrote and published Message in the Bottle (1998), A walk to Remember (1999), THe Rescue (2000), A bend in the Road (2001), Nights in Rodanthe (2002), THe Guardian (2003), The Wedding (2003), Three Weeks with My Brother (2004), True Believer (2005), and At First Sight (2005). All of novels were domestic and international best sellers. They were all also translated into more than 35 languages. Message in the Bottle was made into a movie in 1999, A walk to Remember was made into a movie in 2002, and The Notebook was made into a movie in 2004. Each film was $56 million for the average domestic box office gross and another $100 million in DVD sales. This made the novels one of the most successful franchises in Hollywood. Sparks has sold the film rights for Nights in Rodanthe, True Believer, and At First Sight. He has also already written the screenplay for The Guardian but has yet to offer it for sale.

Sparks and his wife have been married for sixteen years and have five children. They currently reside in New Bern, North Carolina with their three sons, and twin daughters: Miles, Ryan, Landon, Lexie, and Savannah. He recently donated a track to New Bern High School. He contributes to local and national charities, he also conributes to the Creativity Writing Program (MFA) at the University of Notre Dame. He provides scholarships, internships, and a fellow annually.

After all the trauma he had gone through in life, Sparks maintains a close friendship and brotherhood with his brother, Micah Sparks. Three Weeks with My Brother is a novel based entirely on this.

POP PERSON - JOHN GRISHAM JR.

JOHN GRISHAM JR.

A graduate of Mississippi State University and Ole Miss Law School, he finished his law degree in 1981 and afterwards practised law for about 10 years, specializing in criminal defense and personal injury litigation. John Grisham recently gave up his law practice to write fulltime. He began writing in 1984, and three years later finished his first novel, A Time to Kill, published by Wynwood Press in June 1988. He is the best-selling author of A Time to Kill, The Firm, The Pelican Brief and The Client.

POP PERSON - COLE JOHNSON

COLE JOHNSON (1997, USA)

Cole Johnson was born in Louisiana in 1977. He started drawing comics after having developed an obsession with Mad magazine. Hw writes, draws and publishes Sugar Free Days, and currently resides in Austin, Texas.

POP PERSON - CROCKETT JOHNSON

CROCKETT JOHNSON (DAVID JOHNSON LEISK, 1906-1975, USA)

David Johnson Leisk, better knoen as Crocket Johnson, grew up and studied art in New York. After doing advertising work and freelance magazine art, he drew a weekly comic strip for Collier’s Agency in the early 1940s. It was untitled, but usually called ‘The Little Man with the Eyes’. In 1942 he created “Barnaby” for the experimental newspaper PM. This whimsical, fairly ale strip soon became one of the classics.

On October 20, 1906, in New York City, David Johnson Leisk was born to David and Mary Leisk. Although born on East 58th Street, the young David grew up in Elmhurst , Long Island, where he went to high school and enjoyed sailing his boat in Long Island Sound. He studied art at Cooper Union in 1924, and at New York University in 1925. After his studies, he worked "in an ice plant, and in Macy's advertising department, played professional football, art-edited several magazines and contributed to others ," as he told the authors of Illustrators of Children's Books, 1946-1956 (1958).

Leisk wrote under the name "Crockett Johnson" because, he said, "Crockett is my childhood nickname. My real name is David Johnson Leisk. Leisk was too hard to pronounce -- so -- I am now Crockett Johnson!" (Hopkins 124). According to the Third Book of Junior Authors (1972), he was "six feet tall, tan, husky, and blue-eyed" (153). Like Barnaby and Harold (his two most famous characters), Johnson was bald. Referring to his hairless head, he once remarked, "I draw people without hair because it's so much easier! Besides, to me, people with hair look funny" (Hopkins 121).

POP PERSON - EDWARD BOK

EDWARD BOK

Edward Bok was always interested in the manner in which personality was expressed in letters. For this reason he adoopted, as a boy, the method of collecting not mere autographs, but letters characteristic of their writers which should give interisting insight into the most famous men and women of the day. He secured what were really personality letters.

Edward William Bok (1863-1930), American editor and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, was born in Den Helder, Netherlands, on October 9, 1863. He came to the United States at the age of six. Educated in the Brooklyn Public Schools, he became an office boy with the Western Union Telegraph Company in 1876.

Continuing his education at a night school, he began working for Henry Holt and Company, publishers, in 1882. Two years later he became associated with Charles Scribner’s Sons, publishers, eventually becoming advertising manager. He was the editor of The Brooklyn Magazine from 1884 to 1887. In 1886, he founded The Bok Syndicate Press, which led to the offer of the editorship of The Ladies’ Home Journal in 1889.

Under his management, The Ladies’ Home Journal became one of the most successful and influential publications in America and the first magazine in the world to have 1 million subscribers. Bok was a champion of social causes, a pioneer in the field of public sex education, prenatal education and childcare, and an environmental activist in public health and the saving of Niagara Falls. After 30 years as editor he retired in 1919.

A year later he published The Americanization of Edward Bok, which won the Gold Medal of the Academy of Political and Social Science and the Joseph Pulitzer Prize for best autobiography.

In addition to his autobiography, Bok published the following:

• Successward (1895)
• The Young Man & The Church (1896)
• Her Brother’s Letters (1906)
• Why I Believe in Poverty (1915)
• Two Persons (1922)
• A Man from Maine (1923)
• Twice Thirty (1925)
• Dollars Only (1926)
• You: A Personal Message (1926)
• America Give Me a Chance (1926)
• Perhaps I Am (1928)

A noted philanthropist, Bok established the following awards and civic enterprises:

• In 1921, he created The Philadelphia Award of $10,000 a year to the citizen of Philadelphia or vicinity who, during the preceding year, performed or brought to its culmination an act or contributed a service calculated to advance the best interests of the community of Philadelphia.
• In 1921, he founded The Philadelphia Forum.
• In 1922, he founded the Citizens’ Award of $1,000 to be awarded each year, to each of the policemen, firemen and park guards of the city of Philadelphia who performed an outstanding act of service, or contributed to the efficiency of the service during the preceding calendar year.
• In 1923, he created The American Peace Award, providing $100,000 for the best practicable plan by which the United States might co-operate with other nations to achieve and preserve the peace of the world, one half to be paid upon the acceptance of the plan by a selected jury, and the balance upon its acceptance by the Senate. The plan submitted by Doctor Charles Herbert Levermore of the New York Peace Society won the award.
• In 1923, he created The Harvard Advertising Awards bestowed by the Harvard University School of Business Administration for raising the standard of advertisements in American and Canadian periodicals and for the intelligent conception and execution of plans for advertising.
• In 1925, Bok created The American Foundation, Incorporated, (later known as The Bok Tower Gardens Foundation, Inc.)
• In 1926, Bok founded, with others, The Philadelphia Commission, devoted to the beautification of the metropolitan area at Philadelphia. He also established the Woodrow Wilson Professorship of Literature of Princeton University by endowment, and in 1929 he established “The Woodrow Wilson Chair” at Williams College by endowment.
• On February 1, 1929, President Calvin Coolidge dedicated the Gardens in Lake Wales, Florida, that Bok had made as a gift for visitation by the American people in gratitude for the opportunity they had given him.
• Edward William Bok died in Lake Wales within sight of the Tower on January 9, 1930, and is now buried at the base of the tower.