検索キーワード： 制作 "Charles River Editors" 科学・テクノロジー

In Charles River Editors' History for Kids series, your children can learn about history's most important people and events in an easy, entertaining, and educational way. The concise but comprehensive book will keep your kid's attention all the way to the end.

Today, Alexander Graham Bell is remembered almost solely for one of the few things he didn't have in his laboratory: the telephone. Long hailed as the inventor of the telephone, that accomplishment has nevertheless overshadowed a long and legendary scientific career that saw Bell contribute to a vast number of fields, ranging from geology to aeronautics. Bell also had the misfortune of being outshined by his contemporary Thomas Edison, who invented the incandescent light bulb and has gone down in history as America's greatest inventor.

In 2001, the critically acclaimed film A Beautiful Mind introduced millions to John Nash, Jr., one of America's most important 20th century mathematicians, nearly 50 years after he had won a Nobel Prize. Naturally, most viewers of the movie will remember a prodigy suffering from paranoid schizophrenia while overlooking how the man's innovative studies and works had a major influence on everything from economics to biology, cryptography, artificial intelligence, and political philosophy.

Today, nursing is one of the most ubiquitous professions in the world, and images of war immediately call to mind nursing the wounded, but it was not long ago that such ideas were relatively primitive. Indeed, schoolchildren are still taught about the revolutionary exploits of Florence Nightingale, the war nurse who is often credited as the founder of modern nursing.

Howard Hughes lived a life that was quintessentially American, and his personal history was so varied, improbable, and extraordinary that he practically resembled a living folk hero. Hughes was barely in his 20s during America's Roaring Twenties, but he had already begun to command the nation's headlines as a multitalented millionaire, and the varied pastimes that his talents and wealth afforded him made him nearly impossible to ignore.

Of course part of what made Galileo such a monumental figure was the fact that he was ahead of his time and that he mostly refused to conform to the accepted dogmas of contemporary society. As he once put it, "Philosophy is written in that great book which ever lies before our eyes - I mean the universe - but we cannot understand it if we do not first learn the language and grasp the symbols, in which it is written."

In the majority of cases, a pop or rock fan who is asked about a particular celebrity will answer in unambiguous terms.

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) is known around the world as the "Father of Psychoanalysis", and for good reason. If anything, Freud's first patient was himself. A sufferer of psychosomatic symptoms, Freud diagnosed himself as having a repressed antagonism against his father. From there, Freud began to build on his now famous concepts of the unconscious, infantile sexuality and repression.

Dr. Stephen William Hawking, British mathematician, theoretical physicist, and cosmologist, is the face of twenty-first century physics, and yet cannot speak directly to his audience. He is no longer able to move his limbs due to the incapacitating effects of ALS, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. The affliction is better known in the United States as "Lou Gehrig's Disease," named after the great American baseball player. Since 2009, in fact, Hawking can no longer operate his wheelchair.

Ferdinand Magellan was unquestionably one of the more remarkable figures of the Age of Exploration, and given his fateful expedition, he has the era's most unique legacy. Today he is remembered as the first man to circumnavigate the globe, despite the fact he died thousands of miles away from Spain in the Philippines. It is also commonly overlooked that among the famous and historic expeditions in the early 16th century, Magellan's was by far the most dangerous, unique, and adventurous.

The Cherokees might be the most famous tribe in the country. If so, the person most responsible for it is Sequoyah, whose invention of the Cherokee syllabary also played a prominent role in facilitating the assimilation between the Cherokee and Americans. Sequoyah began work on devising the writing and reading system around 1809, and it was instantly popular among Cherokees, to the extent that it was being used in written publications among the tribe by the 1820s. The syllabary has been in use ever since, both within the tribe and among outsiders.

The lives of Wilbur and Orville Wright are quintessential American stories. Growing up in America's heartland, the boys lived very ordinary lives with five other siblings and worked printing and repair jobs that involved tinkering with tools and bicycles.

Albert Einstein (1879-1955) needs no formal introduction. He is remembered around the world as one of history's most brilliant geniuses, and one of its most influential scientists. Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics, and he received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect".

Today Alexander Graham Bell is remembered almost solely for one of the few things he didn't have in his laboratory: the telephone. Long hailed as the inventor of the telephone, that accomplishment has nevertheless overshadowed a long and legendary scientific career that saw Bell contribute to a vast number of fields, ranging from geology to aeronautics.

In 1676, Sir Isaac Newton famously wrote in a letter to philosopher Robert Hooke, "If I have seen further it is by standing on ye shoulders of Giants." By the time he died, Newton had become science's greatest giant, and every scientist who has followed him has stood on his shoulders. Newton is widely considered the most influential scientist in history, best known for the discovery of gravity and the subsequent laws of motion that he theorized.

Nikola Tesla was one of history's greatest scientists, and though he is best known for his pioneering work with electricity, the fact that he is mostly remembered solely for that actually does a disservice to his legacy. Born a Serb in the Austrian Empire, Tesla came to the United States and worked in a laboratory for none other than the Wizard of Menlo Park, Thomas Edison.

Over 1500 years before Leonardo Da Vinci became the Renaissance Man, antiquity had its own in the form of Archimedes, one of the most famous Ancient Greeks. An engineer, mathematician, physicist, scientist and astronomer all rolled into one, Archimedes has been credited for making groundbreaking discoveries, some of which are undoubtedly fact and others that are almost certainly myth.

Just trying to define a man who had the qualities of a mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, inventor, and astrologer can prove difficult. But all of that can be ascribed to Johannes Kepler, one of the giants of his era who ushered in the Scientific Revolution and is often considered the first modern scientist.

Few Americans have a reputation and legacy anything like Henry Ford's, the man whose name is still associated with one of the world's most famous car companies. Ford is unquestionably one of his country's most famous industrialists, and his use of an assembly line to mass produce automobiles was not only innovative but also made it possible for Americans to own cars en masse.

The Renaissance spawned the use of the label "Renaissance man" to describe a person who is extremely talented in multiple fields, and no discussion of the Renaissance is complete without the original Renaissance man, Leonardo da Vinci. Indeed, if 100 people are asked to describe Leonardo in one word, they might give 100 answers.

Thomas Edison holds a unique legacy in the United States, but there's no denying that his inventions have benefited the world as a whole.