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Biographies of the Great the Good...and Evil
Biographies of the Great the Good...and Evil
Biographies of the Great the Good...and Evil
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Biographies of the Great the Good...and Evil

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Saul Silas Fathi was born to a prominent Jewish family in Baghdad. Iraq. At age 10, he and his younger brother were smuggled out of Baghdad through Iran and eventually reached the newly formed state of Israel. He began writing a diary at age 11 and had several stories published in Israeli youth magazines.


Saul enrolled at the I

LanguageEnglish
Release dateMar 10, 2023
ISBN9798888872741
Biographies of the Great the Good...and Evil
Author

Saul Silas Fathi

Saul Silas Fathi was born to a prominent Jewish family in Baghdad. Iraq. At age 10, he and his younger brother were smuggled out of Baghdad through Iran and eventually reached the newly formed state of Israel. He began writing a diary at age 11 and had several stories published in Israeli youth magazines.Saul enrolled at the Israel Airforce Academy of Aeronautics, a4-year program, where he earned his high-school diploma and became certified in electrical engineering. In 1958, he worked his way to Brazil where he nearly starved. Through perseverance and luck, he started his own electrical business and earned a patent for climate controlled windows used in the building of Brasilia, Brazil.In 1960, he came to the US. on a student exchange visa, studying sculpture at the Brooklyn Museum of Art and American history and public speaking at the New School of Social Studies After 8 months. Saul volunteered to serve in the LLS. Army for three years, having been promised a college education and US citizenship at the conclusion of his duties. After Basic Training in Fort Benning, Georgia, he was sent to helicopter school at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and there enrolled at the University of Virginia. Within a few months, Saul was shipped to South Korea where he served as Chief Electrical Technician with the 1st Cavalry Division, 15th Aviation Company. the famed helicopter division in the Vietnam War.Back in the US., Saul battled the immigration department while studying at the University of Virginia, finally earning a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering. This launched an impressive career as a high-level executive with several Fortune 500 companies. Later, he founded and managed three high-tech companies.Saul retired in 2003 and began writing his memoirs, Full Circle. Escape from Baghdad and the Return, Today, he lives in long Idand. New York with his wife Rachelle. He is also a certified linguist, fluent In English. Hebrew, Arabic, and Portuguese.

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    Biographies of the Great the Good...and Evil - Saul Silas Fathi

    Copyright © 2023 by Saul Silas Fathi.

    All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

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    Contents

    About: Saul Silas Fathi

    Abraham Lincoln

    Abraham the Patriarch

    Albert Einstein

    Albert Schweitzer

    Alexander Hamilton

    Alexander the Great

    Archimedes

    Aristotle

    Attila the Hun

    Augustine of Hippo

    Benito Mussolini

    Benjamin Franklin

    Bhagavad-Gita

    Charlemagne

    Charles Babbage

    Charles Darwin

    Christopher Columbus

    Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero)

    Code of Hammurabi

    Confucius

    Constantine the Great

    Cyrus the Great

    Edward Teller

    Emperor Wu Zetian (Female)

    Euclid

    Ferdinand Magellan

    Galen of Pergamon

    Galileo Galilei

    Gautama Buddha

    Genghis Khan

    Giordano Bruno

    Hannibal

    Herod the Great

    Hitler’s Rise to Power

    Isaac Newton

    J. Robert Oppenheimer

    Jesus of Nazareth

    Joan of Arc

    Johannes Gutenberg

    Joseph Stalin

    Julius Caesar

    Karl Marx

    Krishna

    Lao Tzu

    Louis Pasteur

    Mahatma Gandhi

    Maimonides

    Mao Zedong

    Marie Curie

    Martin Luther

    Moses & the Torah

    Muhammad, Prophet of Islam

    Napoleon Bonaparte

    Nicola Tesla

    Nicolaus Copernicus

    Nostradamus

    Osama bin Laden

    Paul the Apostle

    Plato

    Ramanujan, Srinivasan

    Saladin and the Crusades

    Sigmund Freud

    Socrates

    Stephen Hawking

    Thomas Aquinas

    Thomas Edison

    Thomas Jefferson

    Timur (Tamerlane)

    Vishnu Sahasranama

    Vlad the Impaler

    Vladimir Lenin

    Werner Heisenberg

    Winston Churchill

    About: Saul Silas Fathi

    Author / Lecturer

    Saul Silas Fathi was born to a prominent Jewish family in Baghdad, Iraq. At age 10 he and his younger brother were smuggled out of Baghdad through Iran and eventually reached the newly-found State of Israel. He began writing his diary at age 11.

    Saul enrolled in the Israel Air force Academy of Aeronautics, a 4-year program, where he earned his High-School diploma and became certified in Electrical Engineering. In 1958 he worked his way to Brazil where he nearly starved. Through perseverance and luck, he started his own electrical business and earneda patent for climate-controlled windows, used in the building of the new capital, Brasilia,

    In 1960 he came to the United States on a student visa, studying sculpture at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and American history and public speech at the New School of Social Studies in New York. After 8 months, Saul volunteered to serve 3 years in the U.S. Army having been promised college education and U.S. citizenship.

    After basic training in Fort Benning, Georgia, he was sent to helicopter school at Fort Bragg, North Carolina and enrolled at the University Of Virginia. Within a few months he was shipped to South Korea where he served as Chief Electrical Technician with the 1st Cavalry Division, 15th Aviation Company, and the famed Helicopter Division in the Vietnam War.

    Back in the U.S. Saul battled the Immigration department for his citizenship, while studying at the University of Virginia and finally earning his Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering. This launched an impressive career as a high-level executive with several Fortune-500 companies. Later, he founded and managed three high-tech companies.

    Saul retired in 2003 and began writing his memoirs Full Circle: Escape from Baghdad and the return. Today he lives in Long Island, New York with his wife Rachelle. He has 3 American born daughters and 3 grand-children. He is a certified linguist, fluent in English, Hebrew, Arabic and Portuguese. He is the author of 5 books.

    ABRAHAM LINCOLN

    Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American statesman and lawyer who served as the 16th President of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the United States through the American Civil War—its bloodiest war and perhaps its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis. In doing so, he preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, and modernized the economy.

    Born in Hodgenville, Kentucky, Lincoln grew up on the western frontier in Kentucky and Indiana. Largely self-educated, he became a lawyer in Illinois, a Whig Party leader, and was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives, in which he served for eight years. Elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1846, Lincoln promoted rapid modernization of the economy and opposed the Mexican–American War. Reentering politics in 1854, he became a leader in building the new Republican Party, which had a statewide majority in Illinois.

    As part of the 1858 campaign for US Senator from Illinois, Lincoln took part in a series of highly publicized debates with his opponent and rival, Democrat Stephen A. Douglas; Lincoln spoke out against the expansion of slavery, but lost the race to Douglas. In 1860, Lincoln secured the Republican Party presidential nomination as a moderate from a swing state. He was elected president in 1860.

    Though there were attempts to bridge the differences between North and South, ultimately Lincoln’s victory prompted seven southern slave states to secede from the United States and form the Confederate States of America before he moved into the White House. U.S. Troops refused to leave Fort Sumter, a fort located in Charleston, South Carolina, after the secession of the Southern States. The resulting Confederate attack on Fort Sumter inspired the North to rally behind the Union.

    His Gettysburg Address became an iconic endorsement of nationalism, republicanism, equal rights, liberty, and democracy. He suspended habeas corpus and he averted potential British intervention by defusing the Trent Affair. Lincoln closely supervised the war effort, especially the selection of generals, including his most successful general, Ulysses S. Grant. He made major decisions on Union war strategy, including a naval blockade that shut down the South’s trade. As the war progressed, his complex moves toward ending slavery included the Emancipation Proclamationof 1863; Lincoln used the U.S. Army to protect escaped slaves, encouraged the border states to outlaw slavery, and pushed through Congress the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which permanently outlawed slavery.

    Lincoln reached out to the War Democrats and managed his own re-election campaign in the 1864 presidential election. Anticipating the war’s conclusion, Lincoln pushed a moderate view of Reconstruction, seeking to reunite the nation speedily through a policy of generous reconciliation in the face of lingering and bitter divisiveness. On April 14, 1865, five days after the surrender of Confederate general Robert E. Lee, Lincoln was shot by Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth and died the next day. Lincoln has been consistently ranked both by scholars and the public as among the greatest U.S. presidents.

    Early life and ancestry

    Abraham Lincoln was born February 12, 1809, the second child of Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln, in a one-room log cabin on the Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville, Kentucky. Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks were married on June 12, 1806, in Washington County, and moved to Elizabethtown, Kentucky, following their marriage. In 1816, the family moved north across the Ohio River to Indiana, a free, non-slaveholding territory, where they settled in an unbroken forest in Hurricane Township, Perry County. Thomas and Nancy Lincoln were also members of a Separate Baptists church, which had restrictive moral standards and opposed alcohol, dancing, and slavery.

    On October 5, 1818, Nancy Lincoln died of milk sickness, leaving eleven-year-old Sarah in charge of a household that included her father, nine-year-old Abraham, and Dennis Hanks, Nancy’s nineteen-year-old orphaned cousin. Abraham became very close to his stepmother, whom he referred to as Mother. Those who knew Lincoln as a teenager later recalled him being very distraught over his sister Sarah’s death on January 20, 1828, while giving birth to a stillborn son.

    Lincoln was largely self-educated. His formal schooling from several itinerant teachers was intermittent, the aggregate of which may have amounted to less than a year; however, he was an avid reader and retained a lifelong interest in learning.

    Marriage and children

    Lincoln’s first romantic interest was Ann Rutledge, whom he met when he first moved to New Salem. By 1835, they were in a relationship but not formally engaged. She died at the age of 22 on August 25, 1835, most likely of typhoid fever. In 1840, Lincoln became engaged to Mary Todd, who was from a wealthy slave-holding family in Lexington, Kentucky. They later met again at a party and married on November 4, 1842.

    He was an affectionate, though often absent, husband and father of four children. Robert Todd Lincoln was born in 1843 and Edward Baker Lincoln (Eddie) in 1846. Edward died on February 1, 1850, in Springfield, probably of tuberculosis. Willie Lincoln was born on December 21, 1850, and died of a fever on February 20, 1862. The Lincolns’ fourth son, Thomas Tad Lincoln, was born on April 4, 1853, and died of heart failure at the age of 18 on July 16, 1871. Robert was the only child to live to adulthood and have children.

    The deaths of their sons had profound effects on both parents. Later in life, Mary struggled with the stresses of losing her husband and sons, and Robert Lincoln committed her temporarily to a mental health asylum in 1875. Abraham Lincoln suffered from melancholy, a condition which now is referred to as clinical depression.

    Early career and militia service

    In 1832, at age 23, Lincoln served as a captain in the Illinois Militia during the Black Hawk War. Following his return, Lincoln continued his campaign for the August 6 election for the Illinois General Assembly. Lincoln finished eighth out of 13 candidates (the top four were elected).

    Lincoln served as New Salem’s postmaster and later as county surveyor, all the while reading voraciously. He then decided to become a lawyer and began teaching himself law by reading Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England and other law books. His second campaign in 1834 was successful. He won election to the state legislature…

    Admitted to the Illinois bar in 1836, he moved to Springfield, Illinois, and began to practice law under John T. Stuart, Mary Todd’s cousin. He partnered with Stephen T. Logan from 1841 until 1844. In the 1835–36 legislative session, he voted to expand suffrage to white males, whether landowners or not. He was known for his free soil stance of opposing both slavery and abolitionism.

    U.S. House of Representatives, 1847–49

    From the early 1830s, Lincoln was a steadfast Whig and professed to friends in 1861 to be an old line Whig, a disciple of Henry Clay. The party, including Lincoln, favored economic modernization in banking, protective tariffs to fund internal improvements including railroads, and espoused urbanization as well. Lincoln ran for the Whig nomination for Illinois’s 7th district of the U.S. House of Representatives in 1843, but was defeated by John J. Hardin. Lincoln was indeed elected to the House of Representatives in 1846, where he served one two-year term.

    He was the only Whig in the Illinois delegation. Lincoln, in collaboration with abolitionist Congressman Joshua R. Giddings, wrote a bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia with compensation for the owners, enforcement to capture fugitive slaves, and a popular vote on the matter. He abandoned the bill when it failed to garner sufficient Whig supporters. On foreign and military policy, Lincoln spoke out against the Mexican–American War, which he attributed to President Polk’s desire for military glory—that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood.

    Lincoln emphasized his opposition to Polk by drafting and introducing his Spot Resolutions. The war had begun with a Mexican slaughter of American soldiers in territory disputed by Mexico and the U.S. Polk insisted that Mexican soldiers had "invaded our territory and shed the blood of our fellow-citizens on our own soil".

    Congress never enacted the resolution or even debated it, the national papers ignored it, and it resulted in a loss of political support for Lincoln in his district. Realizing Clay was unlikely to win the presidency, Lincoln, who had pledged in 1846 to serve only one term in the House, supported General Zachary Taylor for the Whig nomination in the 1848 presidential election. Taylor won.

    Prairie lawyer

    Lincoln returned to practicing law in Springfield. In 1849, he received a patent for a flotation device for the movement of boats in shallow water. The idea was never commercialized, but Lincoln is the only president to hold a patent. Lincoln appeared before the Illinois Supreme Court in 175 cases, in 51 as sole counsel, of which 31 were decided in his favor.

    Republican politics 1854–60 / Emergence as Republican leader

    As the 1850s progressed, the debate over slavery in the Nebraska Territory and Kansas Territory became particularly acrimonious. Despite this Northern opposition, Douglas’s Kansas– Nebraska Act narrowly passed Congress in May 1854. On October 16, 1854, in his Peoria Speech, Lincoln declared his opposition to slavery, which he repeated en route to the presidency. Lincoln also still hoped to rejuvenate the ailing Whig Party, though he bemoaned his party’s growing closeness with the nativist Know Nothing movement.

    In the 1854 elections, Lincoln was elected to the Illinois legislature but declined to take his seat. Lincoln instead sought election to the United States Senate. As the 1856 elections approached, Lincoln abandoned the defunct Whig Party in favor of the Republicans. He attended the May 1856 Bloomington Convention, which formally established the Illinois Republican Party. At the June 1856 Republican National Convention, Lincoln received significant support on the vice presidential ballot, though the party nominated a ticket of John C. Frémont and William Dayton. In the 1856 elections, Buchanan defeated both his challengers.

    In March 1857, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford. The opinion by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney held that blacks were not citizens and derived no rights from the Constitution. The decision sparked further outrage in the North. Lincoln denounced the decision. Lincoln argued, The authors of the Declaration of Independence never intended ‘to say all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral developments, or social capacity’, but they ‘did consider all men created equal—equal in certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’.

    Lincoln–Douglas debates and Cooper Union speech

    Douglas was up for re-election in 1858. Lincoln won the party’s Senate nomination with little opposition. Accepting the nomination, Lincoln delivered his House Divided Speech, drawing on Mark 3:25, A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.

    The Senate campaign featured the seven Lincoln–Douglas debates of 1858, the most famous political debates in American history. Lincoln warned that The Slave Power was threatening the values of republicanism, and accused Douglas of distorting the values of the Founding Fathers that all men are created equal, while Douglas emphasized his Freeport Doctrine, that local settlers were free to choose whether to allow slavery or not, and accused Lincoln of having joined the abolitionists. Douglas said that Lincoln was defying the authority of the U.S. Supreme Court and the Dred Scott decision.

    In the aftermath of the 1858 election, newspapers frequently mentioned Lincoln as a potential Republican presidential candidate in 1860. On February 27, 1860, New York party leaders invited Lincoln to give a speech at Cooper Union to a group of powerful Republicans. Lincoln insisted the moral foundation of the Republicans required opposition to slavery, and rejected any groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong.

    1860 Presidential nomination and campaign

    On May 9–10, 1860, the Illinois Republican State Convention was held in Decatur. Lincoln received his first endorsement to run for the presidency. Lincoln’s supporters adopted the label of The Rail Candidate. On May 18, at the Republican National Convention in Chicago, Lincoln became the Republican candidate on the third ballot.

    Throughout the 1850s, Lincoln doubted the prospects of civil war, and his supporters rejected claims that his election would incite secession. Lincoln appeared as a sophisticated, thoughtful, articulate, presidential candidate.

    Presidency of Abraham Lincoln / 1860 election and secession

    On November 6, 1860, Lincoln was elected the 16th president of the United States, beating Douglas, Breckinridge, and Bell. He was the first president from the Republican Party. Although Lincoln won only a plurality of the popular vote, his victory in the Electoral College was decisive: Lincoln had 180 and his opponents added together had only 123.

    As Lincoln’s election became evident, secessionists made clear their intent to leave the Union before he took office the next March. On December 20, 1860, South Carolina took the lead by adopting an ordinance of secession; by February 1, 1861, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas followed. Six of these states then adopted a constitution and declared themselves to be a sovereign nation, the Confederate States of America.

    President Buchanan and President-elect Lincoln refused to recognize the Confederacy, declaring secession illegal. The Confederacy selected Jefferson Davis as its provisional President on February 9, 1861. Lincoln, however, did tacitly support the proposed Corwin Amendment to the Constitution, which passed Congress before Lincoln came into office and was then awaiting ratification by the states. That proposed amendment would have protected slavery in states where it already existed and would have guaranteed that Congress would not interfere with slavery without Southern consent.

    En route to his inauguration by train, Lincoln addressed crowds and legislatures across the North. The president-elect then evaded possible assassins in Baltimore. On February 23, 1861, he arrived in disguise in Washington, D.C., Lincoln directed his inaugural address to the South, proclaiming once again that he had no intention to abolish slavery in the Southern states.

    The President ended his address with an appeal to the people of the South: We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies … The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature. Meanwhile, Lincoln and the Republican leadership agreed that the dismantling of the Union could not be tolerated.

    American Civil War and Battle of Fort Sumter

    The commander of Fort Sumter, South Carolina, Major Robert Anderson, sent a request for provisions to Washington, and the execution of Lincoln’s order to meet that request was seen by the secessionists as an act of war. On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces fired on Union troops at Fort Sumter, forcing them to surrender, beginning the war.

    On April 15, Lincoln called on all the states to send detachments totaling 75,000 troops to recapture forts, protect Washington, and preserve the Union. This call forced the states to choose sides. North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas also voted for secession over the next two months. The Confederate attack on Fort Sumter rallied Americans north of the Mason-Dixon Line to the defense of the American nation.

    Union military strategy

    After the Battle of Fort Sumter, Lincoln realized the importance of taking immediate executive control of the war and forming an overall Union military strategy to put down the rebellion. The Copperheads criticized Lincoln for refusing to compromise on the slavery issue.

    On August 6, 1861, Lincoln signed the Confiscation Act that authorized judiciary proceedings to confiscate and free slaves who were used to support the Confederate war effort. The Trent Affair of late 1861 threatened war with Great Britain. The U.S. Navy illegally intercepted a British mail ship, the Trent, and seized two Confederate envoys; Britain protested vehemently while the U.S. cheered. Lincoln ended the crisis by releasing the two diplomats. In January 1862 Lincoln replaced Simon Cameron with Edwin Stanton as War Secretary.

    General McClellan

    After the Union rout at Bull Run, the first major battle of the Civil War, and the retirement of the aged Winfield Scott in late 1861, Lincoln appointed Major General George B. McClellan general-in-chief of all the Union armies. McClellan’s repeated delays frustrated Lincoln and Congress, as did his position that no troops were needed to defend Washington. Lincoln removed McClellan as general-in-chief in March 1862, after McClellan’s "Harrison’s Landing Letter", in which he offered unsolicited political advice to Lincoln urging caution in the war effort.

    Despite his dissatisfaction with McClellan’s failures, Lincoln was desperate, and restored him to command of all forces around Washington. Two days after McClellan’s return to command, General Robert E. Lee’s forces crossed the Potomac River into Maryland, leading to the Battle of Antietam in September 1862. The ensuing Union victory was among the bloodiest in American history, but it enabled Lincoln to announce that he would issue an Emancipation Proclamation in January. After the Battle of Gettysburg, Lincoln clearly understood that his military decisions would be more effectively carried out by conveying his orders through his War Secretary or his general-in-chief on to his generals.

    Abraham Lincoln and slavery and Emancipation Proclamation

    Lincoln understood that the Federal government’s power to end slavery was limited by the Constitution, which before 1865, committed the issue to individual states. On June 19, 1862, endorsed by Lincoln, Congress passed an act banning slavery on all federal territory. In July, the Confiscation Act of 1862 was passed, which set up court procedures that could free the slaves of anyone convicted of aiding the rebellion. Lincoln discussed a draft of the Emancipation Proclamation with his cabinet.

    However, Copperheads argued that emancipation was a stumbling block to peace and reunification. Lincoln stated that the primary goal of his actions as the U.S. president was that of preserving the Union: My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it

    The Emancipation Proclamation, issued on September 22, 1862, and put into effect on January 1, 1863, declared free the slaves in 10 states not then under Union control. As Union armies advanced south, more slaves were liberated until all three million of them in Confederate territory were freed. Lincoln’s comment on the signing of the Proclamation was: I never, in my life, felt more certain that I was doing right, than I do in signing this paper.

    Enlisting former slaves in the military was official government policy after the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation. By the spring of 1863, Lincoln was ready to recruit black troops in more than token numbers. Lincoln wrote, The bare sight of 50,000 armed and drilled black soldiers on the banks of the Mississippi would end the rebellion at once. Frederick Douglass once observed of Lincoln: In his company, I was never reminded of my humble origin, or of my unpopular color.

    Gettysburg Address (1863)

    With the great Union victory at the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863, and the defeat of the Copperheads in the Ohio election in the fall, Lincoln maintained a strong base of party support and was in a strong position to redefine the war effort, despite the New York City draft riots. The stage was set for his address at the Gettysburg battlefield cemetery on November 19, 1863. The Address became the most quoted speech in American history.

    In 272 words, and three minutes, Lincoln asserted the nation was born not in 1789, but in 1776, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. These principles of liberty and equality for all. The emancipation of slaves was now part of the national war effort. He declared that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

    General Grant

    Meade’s failure to capture Lee’s army as it retreated from Gettysburg, and the continued passivity of the Army of the Potomac, persuaded Lincoln that a change in command was needed. General Ulysses S. Grant’s victories at the Battle of Shiloh and in the Vicksburg campaign impressed Lincoln and made Grant a strong candidate to head the Union Army. He obtained Congress’s consent to reinstate for Grant the rank of Lieutenant General, which no officer had held since George Washington.

    Grant waged his bloody Overland Campaign in 1864. This is often characterized as a war of attrition, given high Union losses at battles such as the Battle of the Wilderness and Cold Harbor.

    Lincoln authorized Grant to target the Confederate infrastructure—such as plantations, railroads, and bridges—hoping to destroy the South’s morale and weaken its economic ability to continue fighting. This strategy allowed Generals Sherman and Philip Sheridan to destroy plantations and towns in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.

    As Grant continued to wear down Lee’s forces, efforts to discuss peace began. Lincoln refused to allow any negotiation with the Confederacy as a coequal. On April 1, 1865, Grant successfully outflanked Lee’s forces in the Battle of Five Forks and nearly encircled Petersburg, and the Confederate government evacuated Richmond. Days later, when that city fell, Lincoln visited the vanquished Confederate capital. On April 9, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox and the war was effectively over.

    Abraham Lincoln and United States presidential election, 1864

    While the war was still being waged, Lincoln faced reelection in 1864. At its 1864 convention, the Republican Party selected Johnson, a War Democrat from the Southern state of Tennessee, as his running mate.

    Lincoln provided Grant with more troops and mobilized his party to renew its support of Grant in the war effort. Sherman’s capture of Atlanta in September and David Farragut’s capture of Mobile ended defeatist jitters. On November 8, Lincoln was re-elected in a landslide, carrying all but three states, and receiving 78 percent of the Union soldiers’ vote.

    …The judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether. 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; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

    Reconstruction Era

    Reconstruction began during the war, as Lincoln and his associates anticipated questions of how to reintegrate the conquered southern states, and how to determine the fates of Confederate leaders and freed slaves. Determined to find a course that would reunite the nation, Lincoln urged that speedy elections under generous terms be held throughout the war. His Amnesty Proclamation of December 8, 1863, offered pardons to those who had not held a Confederate civil office, had not mistreated Union prisoners, and would sign an oath of allegiance.

    The Radicals denounced his policy as too lenient, and passed their own plan, the Wade-Davis Bill, in 1864. When Lincoln vetoed the bill. After implementing the Emancipation Proclamation, which did not apply to every state, Lincoln increased pressure on Congress to outlaw slavery throughout the entire nation with a constitutional amendment. By December 1863, a proposed constitutional amendment that would outlaw slavery was brought to Congress for passage.

    This first attempt at an amendment failed to pass, falling short of the required two-thirds majority on June 15, 1864, in the House of Representatives. After a long debate in the House, a second attempt passed Congress on January 31, 1865, and was sent to the state legislatures for ratification. Upon ratification, it became the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution on December 6, 1865.

    Redefining the republic and republicanism

    As early as the 1850s, a time when most political rhetoric focused on the sanctity of the Constitution, Lincoln redirected emphasis to the Declaration of Independence as the foundation of American political values—what he called the sheet anchor of republicanism. The Declaration’s emphasis on freedom and equality for all, in contrast to the Constitution’s tolerance of slavery, shifted the debate.

    Other enactments

    Lincoln adhered to the Whig theory of the presidency, which gave Congress primary responsibility for writing the laws while the Executive enforced them. He signed the Homestead Act in 1862, making millions of acres of government-held land in the West available for purchase at very low cost. The Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act, also signed in 1862, provided government grants for agricultural colleges in each state. The Pacific Railway Acts of 1862 and 1864 granted federal support for the construction of the United States’ First Transcontinental Railroad, which was completed in 1869.

    In 1861, Lincoln signed the second and third Morrill Tariff, the first having become law under James Buchanan. Also in 1861, Lincoln signed the Revenue Act of 1861, creating the first U.S. income tax which was later changed by the Revenue Act of 1862 to a progressive rate structure.

    In 1862, Congress created, with Lincoln’s approval, the Department of Agriculture. In 1862, Lincoln sent a senior general, John Pope, to put down the Sioux Uprising in Minnesota. Presented with 303 execution warrants for convicted Santee Dakota who were accused of killing innocent farmers. Lincoln is largely responsible for the institution of the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States. In 1863, Lincoln declared the final Thursday in November of that year to be a day of Thanksgiving.

    Assassination and funeral

    Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, while attending a play at Ford’s Theatre as the American Civil War was drawing to a close. The assassination occurred five days after the surrender of Robert E. Lee and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. Booth was a well-known actor and a Confederate spy from Maryland. In 1864, Booth formulated a plan to kidnap Lincoln in exchange for the release of Confederate prisoners.

    After attending an April 11, 1865, speech in which Lincoln promoted voting rights for blacks, an incensed Booth changed his plans and became determined to assassinate the president. Booth formulated a plan with co-conspirators to assassinate Lincoln and Grant at the theater, as well as Vice President Johnson and Secretary of State Seward at their homes. Without his main bodyguard Lincoln left to attend the play Our American Cousin on April 14.

    Lincoln’s bodyguard, John Parker, left Ford’s Theater during intermission to drink at the saloon next door. The now unguarded President sat in his state box in the balcony. Seizing the opportunity, Booth crept up from behind and at about 10:13 pm, aimed at the back of Lincoln’s head and fired at point-blank range, mortally wounding the President. Major Henry Rathbone momentarily grappled with Booth, but Booth stabbed him and escaped.

    After being on the run for 12 days, Booth was tracked down and found on a farm in Virginia, some 70 miles (110 km) south of Washington. After refusing to surrender to Union troops, Booth was killed by Sergeant Boston Corbett on April 26. After remaining in a coma for nine hours, Lincoln died at 7:22 am on April 15. Secretary of War Stanton saluted and said, Now he belongs to the ages.

    President Johnson was sworn in at 10:00 am, less than 3 hours after Lincoln’s death. For his final journey with his son Willie, both caskets were transported in the executive coach United States and for three weeks the Lincoln Special funeral train decorated in black bunting bore Lincoln’s remains on a slow circuitous waypoint journey from Washington D.C. to Springfield, Illinois, stopping at many cities across the North for large-scale memorials attended by hundreds of thousands.

    Poet Walt Whitman composed when Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d to eulogize Lincoln, one of four poems he wrote about the assassinated president.

    Religious and philosophical beliefs

    As a young man, Lincoln was a religious skeptic, or, in the words of a biographer, an iconoclast. Later in life, Lincoln’s frequent use of religious imagery and language might have reflected his own personal beliefs. He never joined a church, although he frequently attended with his wife. Lincoln never made a clear profession of Christian beliefs. However, he did believe in an all-powerful God that shaped events and, by 1865, was expressing those beliefs in major speeches.

    In the 1840s, Lincoln subscribed to the Doctrine of Necessity, a belief that asserted the human mind was controlled by some higher power. When he suffered the death of his son Edward, Lincoln more frequently expressed a need to depend on God.

    The death of his son Willie in February 1862 may have caused Lincoln to look toward religion for answers and solace. He wrote at this time that God could have either saved or destroyed the Union without a human contest. Yet the contest began. And having begun He could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds. On the day Lincoln was assassinated, he reportedly told his wife he desired to visit the Holy Land.

    Historical reputation

    President Lincoln’s assassination increased his status to the point of making him a national martyr. Lincoln was viewed by abolitionists as a champion for human liberty. Lincoln became a favorite exemplar for liberal intellectuals across Europe and Latin America and even in Asia. The high point came in 1922 with the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

    In the 21st century, President Obama named Lincoln his favorite president and insisted on using Lincoln’s Bible for his swearing in to office at both his inaugurations.

    Memory and memorials

    Franklin D. Roosevelt, preparing America for war, used the words of the Civil War president to clarify the threat posed by Germany and Japan. Americans asked, What would Lincoln do?

    The United States Navy Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) is named after Lincoln, the second Navy ship to bear his name.

    *     *     *

    ABRAHAM THE PATRIARCH

    Abraham, originally Abram, is the common patriarch of the three Abrahamic religions. In Judaism, he is the founding father of the Covenant, the special relationship between the Jewish people and God; in Christianity, he is the prototype of all believers, Jewish or Gentile; and in Islam he is seen as a link in the chain of prophets that begins with Adam and culminates in Muhammad.

    The narrative in Genesis revolves around the themes of posterity and land. Abraham is called by God to leave the house of his father Terah and settle in the land originally given to Canaan but which God now promises to Abraham and his progeny. While promises are made to Ishmael about founding a great nation, Isaac, Abraham’s son by his half-sister Sarah, inherits God’s promises to Abraham.

    Abraham purchases a tomb (the Cave of the Patriarchs) at Hebron to be Sarah’s grave, thus establishing his right to the land; and, in the second generation, his heir Isaac is married to a woman from his own kin, thus ruling the Canaanites out of any inheritance. Abraham later marries Keturah and has six more sons; but, on his death, when he is buried beside Sarah, it is Isaac who receives all Abraham’s goods, while the other sons receive only gifts(Genesis 25:5–8).

    Biblical account / Origins and calling

    Terah, the ninth in descent from Noah, was the father of three sons: Abram, Nahor, and Haran. In his youth, Abram worked in Terah’s idol shop. Haran was the father of Lot, and thus Lot was Abram’s nephew. Haran died in his native city, Chaldees. Abram married Sarah (Sarai), who was barren. Terah, with Abram, Sarai, and Lot, then departed for Canaan, but settled in a place named Haran, where Terah died at the age of 205.

    God had told Abram to leave his country and kindred and go to a land that he would show him, and promised to make of him a great nation, bless him, make his name great, bless them that bless him, and curse them who may curse him. Abram was 75 years old when he left Haran with his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and the substance and souls that they had acquired, and traveled to Shechem in Canaan.

    Sarai

    There was a severe famine in the land of Canaan, so that Abram and Lot and their households, traveled to Egypt.

    Abraham and Lot’s conflict

    When they came back to the Bethel and Hai area, Abram’s and Lot’s sizable herds occupied the same pastures. The conflicts between herdsmen had become so troublesome that Abram suggested that Lot choose a separate area, either on the left hand or on the right hand, that there be no conflict amongst brethren. Lot chose to go eastward to the plain of Jordan where the land was well watered everywhere as far as Zoar, and he dwelled in the cities of the plain toward Sodom. Abram went south to Hebron and settled in the plain of Mamre, where he built another altar to worship God.

    Chedorlaomer / Battle of Siddim

    During the rebellion of the Jordan River cities against Elam, Abram’s nephew, Lot, was taken prisoner along with his entire household by the invading Elamite forces. The Elamite army came to collect the spoils of war, after having just defeated the king of Sodom’s armies. Lot and his family, at the time, were settled on the outskirts of the Kingdom of Sodom which made them a visible target.

    Covenant of the pieces

    The voice of the Lord came to Abram in a vision and repeated the promise of the land and descendants as numerous as the stars. Abram and God made a covenant ceremony, and God told of the future bondage of Israel in Egypt. God described to Abram the land that his offspring would claim: the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaims, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites.

    Hagar and Hagar in Islam

    Abram and Sarai tried to make sense of how he would become a progenitor of nations, because after 10 years of living in Canaan, no child had been born. Sarai then offered her Egyptian handmaiden, Hagar, to Abram with the intention that she would bear him a son. After Hagar found she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress, Sarai. Sarai responded by mistreating Hagar, and Hagar fled into the wilderness. An angel spoke with Hagar at the fountain on the way to Shur.

    She then did as she was instructed by returning to her mistress in order to have her child. Abram was 86 years of age when Ishmael was born.

    Sarah

    Thirteen years later, when Abram was 99 years of age, God declared Abram’s new name: Abraham a father of many nations. Abraham then received the instructions for the covenant, of which circumcision was to be the sign. God declared Sarai’s new name:

    Sarah, blessed her, and told Abraham, I will give thee a son also of her. Abraham laughed, and "said in his heart, ‘Shall a child be born unto him that is a hundred years old?And shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear?’" Immediately after Abraham’s encounter with God, he had his entire household of men, including himself (age 99) and Ishmael (age 13), circumcised.

    Three visitors

    Not long afterward, during the heat of the day, Abraham looked up and saw three men in the presence of God. One of the visitors told Abraham that upon his return next year, Sarah would have a son.

    Abraham’s plea / Sodom and Gomorrah and Lot

    After eating, Abraham and the three visitors got up. They walked over to the peak that overlooked the ‘cities of the plain’ to discuss the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah for their detestable sins that were so great, it moved God to action. Because Abraham’s nephew was living in Sodom. Then Abraham turned to God and pleaded decrement ally with Him (from fifty persons to less) that if there were at least ten righteous men found in the city, would not God spare the city? For the sake of ten righteous people, God declared that he would not destroy the city.

    However, Abraham’s nephew, Lot, met with them. A rally of men stood outside of Lot’s home and demanded that they bring out his guests so that they may know (v.5) them. However, Lot objected and offered his virgin daughters who had not known (v.8) man to the rally of men instead.

    They rejected that notion and sought to break down Lot’s door to get to his male guests, thus confirming the wickedness of the city and portending their imminent destruction. He looked out toward Sodom and Gomorrah and saw what became of the cities of the plain, where not even ten righteous (v.18:32) had been found, as the smoke of the land went up as the smoke of a furnace.

    Isaac

    As had been prophesied in Mamre the previous year, Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham, on the first anniversary of the covenant of circumcision. Abraham was an hundred years old, when his son whom he named Isaac was born; and he circumcised him when he was eight days old. Isaac continued to grow and on the day he was weaned, Abraham held a great feast to honor the occasion. During the celebration, however, Sarah found Ishmael mocking; an observation that would begin to clarify the birthright of Isaac.

    Ishmael in Islam § the sacrifice

    Ishmael was fourteen years old when Abraham’s son Isaac was born to Sarah. When she found Ishmael teasing Isaac, Sarah told Abraham to send both Ishmael and Hagar away. She declared that Ishmael would not share in Isaac’s inheritance. Abraham was greatly distressed by his wife’s words and sought the advice of his God. God told Abraham not to be distressed but to do as his wife commanded. God reassured Abraham that in Isaac shall seed be called to thee. He also said that Ishmael would make a nation, because he is thy seed.

    Early the next morning, Abraham brought Hagar and Ishmael out together. He gave her bread and water and sent them away. The two wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba until her bottle of water was completely consumed. In a moment of despair, she burst into tears. After God heard the boy’s voice, and Lord confirmed to Hagar that he would become a great nation, and will be living on his sword. A well of water then appeared so that it saved their lives. Eventually his mother found a wife for Ishmael from her home country, the land of Egypt.

    Binding of Isaac

    At some point in Isaac’s youth, Abraham was commanded by God to offer his son up as a sacrifice in the land of Moriah. Just as Abraham was about to sacrifice his son, he was interrupted by the angel of the Lord, and he saw behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns, which he sacrificed instead of his son. For his obedience he received another promise of numerous descendants and abundant prosperity. After this event, Abraham went to Beersheba.

    Later years / Abraham’s family tree

    Sarah died, and Abraham buried her in the Cave of the Patriarchs (the cave of Machpelah), near Hebron which he had purchased along with the adjoining field from Ephron the Hittite. After the death of Sarah, Abraham took another wife, a concubine named Keturah, by whom he had six sons: Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah. According to the Bible, reflecting the change of his name to Abraham meaning a father of many nations, Abraham is considered to be the progenitor of many nations mentioned in the Bible. Abraham lived to see his son marry Rebekah, (and to see the birth of his twin grandsons Jacob and Esau). He died at age 175, and was buried in the cave of Machpelah by his sons Isaac and Ishmael.

    Religious traditions / Overview

    Abraham is given a high position of respect in three major world faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In Judaism he is the founding father of the Covenant, the special relationship between the Jewish people and God – a belief which gives the Jews a unique position as the Chosen People of God. In Christianity, the Apostle Paul taught that Abraham’s faith in God – preceding the Mosaic Law – made him the prototype of all believers, circumcised and uncircumcised. The Islamic prophet Muhammad claimed Abraham, whose submission to God constituted Islam as a believer before the fact and undercut Jewish claims to an exclusive relationship with God and the Covenant.

    Judaism

    In Jewish tradition, Abraham is called Avraham Avinu our father Abraham, signifying that he is both the biological progenitor of the Jews and the father of Judaism, the first Jew.

    Christianity

    Abraham does not loom as large in Christianity as he does in Judaism and Islam. It is Jesus as the Jewish Messiah who is central to Christianity, and the idea of a divine Messiah is what separates Christianity from the other two religions. In Romans 4; this faith provides him the merit for God having chosen him for the covenant, and the covenant becomes one of faith, not obedience. The Roman Catholic Church calls Abraham our father in Faith in the Eucharistic prayer of the Roman Canon, recited during the Mass. The Eastern Orthodox Church commemorates him as the Righteous Forefather Abraham, with two feast days in its liturgical calendar.

    Abraham in Islam

    Islam regards Abraham as a link in the chain of prophets that begins with Adam and culminates in Muhammad. Ibrahim is mentioned in 35 chapters of the Quran, more often than any other biblical personage apart from Moses. He is called both a hanif (monotheist) and Muslim (one who submits), and Muslims regard him as a prophet and patriarch, the archetype of the perfect Muslim, and the revered reformer of the Kaaba in Mecca.

    Islamic traditions consider Ibrahim (Abraham) the first Pioneer of Islam (which is also called millat Ibrahim, the "religion of Abraham"). In Islam, Abraham holds an exalted position among the Major Prophets and he is referred to as Ibrahim Khalilullah, meaning Abraham the Beloved of Allah. Ibrahim was also mentioned in Quran as Father of Muslims and the role model for the community.

    *     *     *

    ALBERT EINSTEIN

    Albert Einstein (Germany 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of relativity, one of the two pillars of modern physics (alongside quantum mechanics). He is best known to the general public for his mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc2, which has been dubbed the world’s most famous equation.

    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, a pivotal step in the development of quantum theory.

    Near the beginning of his career, Einstein thought that Newtonian mechanics was no longer enough to reconcile the laws of classical mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field. This led him to develop his special theory of relativity during his time at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern (1902–1909), Switzerland. However, he realized that the principle of relativity could also be extended to gravitational fields, and he published a paper on general relativity in 1916 with his theory of gravitation.

    He also investigated the thermal properties of light which laid the foundation of the photon theory of light. In 1917, he applied the general theory of relativity to model the structure of the universe.

    Einstein lived in Switzerland between 1895 and 1914, except for one year in Prague, during which time he renounced in German citizenship in 1896 then received his academic diploma from the Swiss federal polytechnic school in Zürich in 1900. After being stateless for more than five years, he acquired Swiss citizenship in 1901, which he kept for the rest of his life. In 1905, he was awarded a PhD by the University of Zurich.

    The same year, he published four groundbreaking papers during his renowned Annus mirabilis (miracle year) which brought him to the notice of the academic world at the age of 26. Einstein taught theoretical physics at Zurich between 1912 and 1914 before he left for Berlin, where he was elected to the Prussian Academy of Sciences.

    In 1933, while Einstein was visiting the United States, Adolf Hitler came to power. Because of his Jewish background, Einstein did not return to Germany. He settled in the United States and became an American citizen in 1940. On the eve of World War II, he endorsed a Roosevelt alerting him to the potential development of extremely powerful bombs of a new type and recommending that the US begin similar research. This eventually led to the Manhattan Project. Einstein supported the Allies, but he generally denounced the idea of using nuclear fission as a weapon.

    He signed the Russell–Einstein Manifesto with British philosopher Bertrand Russell, which highlighted the danger of nuclear weapons. He was affiliated with the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, until his death in 1955. Einstein published more than 300 scientific papers and more than 150 non-scientific works. His intellectual achievements and originality have made the word Einstein synonymous with genius.

    Early life and education

    Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, in the Kingdom of Württemberg in the German Empire, on 14 March 1879. His parents were Hermann Einstein, a salesman and engineer, and Pauline Koch. In 1880, the family moved to Munich, where Einstein’s father and his uncle Jakob founded Elektrotechnische Fabrik J. Einstein & Cie, a company that manufactured electrical equipment based on direct current.

    The Einsteins were non-observant Ashkenazi Jews, and Albert attended a Catholic elementary school in Munich, from the age of 5, for three years. At the age of 8, he was transferred to the Luitpold Gymnasium where he received advanced primary and secondary school education until he left the German Empire seven years later.

    In search of business, the Einstein family moved to Italy, first to Milan and a few months later to Pavia. When the family moved to Pavia, Einstein, then 15, stayed in Munich to finish his studies at the Luitpold Gymnasium.

    His father intended for him to pursue electrical engineering, but Einstein clashed with authorities and resented the school’s regimen and teaching method. He later wrote that the spirit of learning and creative thought was lost in strict rote learning. At the end of December 1894, he travelled to Italy to join his family in Pavia. During his time in Italy he wrote a short essay with the title On the Investigation of the State of the Ether in a Magnetic Field.

    Einstein always excelled at math and physics from a young age, reaching a mathematical level years ahead of his peers. The twelve year old Einstein taught himself algebra and Euclidean geometry over a single summer. Einstein also independently discovered his own original proof of the Pythagorean Theorem at age 12. His passion for geometry and algebra led the twelve year old to become convinced that nature could be understood as a mathematical structure. Einstein started teaching himself calculus at 12, and as a 14 year old he had mastered integral and differential calculus.

    At age 13, Einstein was introduced to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, and Kant became his favorite philosopher. In 1895, at the age of 16, he took the entrance examinations for the Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zürich. He failed to reach the required standard in the general part of the examination, but obtained exceptional grades in physics and mathematics. On the advice of the principal of the Polytechnic, he attended the Argovian cantonal school (gymnasium) in Aarau, Switzerland, in 1895 and 1896 to complete his secondary schooling.

    In January 1896, with his father’s approval, Einstein renounced his citizenship in the German Kingdom of Württemberg to avoid military service. In September 1896, he passed the Swiss Matura with mostly good grades, including a top grade of 6 in physics and mathematical subjects, on a scale of 1–6. At 17, he enrolled in the four-year mathematics and physics teaching diploma program at the Zürich Polytechnic.

    Einstein’s future wife, a 20-year old Serbian woman Mileva Marić, also enrolled at the Polytechnic that year. She was the only woman among the six students in the mathematics and physics section of the teaching diploma course. Over the next few years, Einstein and Marić’s friendship developed into romance, and they read books together on extra-curricular physics in which Einstein was taking an increasing interest. In 1900, Einstein passed the exams in Maths and Physics and was awarded the Federal Polytechnic teaching diploma.

    Marriages and children

    An early correspondence between Einstein and Marić was discovered and published in 1987 which revealed that the couple had a daughter named Lieserl, born in early 1902 in Novi Sad where Marić was staying with her parents. Marić returned to Switzerland without the child, whose real name and fate are unknown. The contents of Einstein’s letter in September 1903 suggest that the girl was either given up for adoption or died of scarlet fever in infancy.

    Einstein and Marić married in January 1903. In May 1904, their son Hans Albert Einstein was born in Bern, Switzerland. Their son Eduard was born in Zürich in July 1910. The couple moved to Berlin in April 1914, but Marić returned to Zürich with their sons after learning that Einstein’s chief romantic attraction was his first and second cousin Elsa. They divorced on 14 February 1919. Eduard had a breakdown at about age 20 and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. His mother cared for him and he was also committed to asylums for several periods, finally being committed permanently after her death.

    Einstein married Elsa Lowenthal in 1919, after having a relationship with her since 1912. She was a first cousin maternally and a second cousin paternally. They immigrated to the United States in 1933. Elsa was diagnosed with heart and kidney problems in 1935 and died in December 1936.

    Patent office

    After graduating in 1900, Einstein spent almost two frustrating years searching for a teaching post. He acquired Swiss citizenship in February 1901. With the help of Marcel Grossmann’s father, he secured a job in Bern at the Federal Office for Intellectual Property, the patent office, as an assistant examiner – level III. Einstein evaluated patent applications for a variety of devices including a gravel sorter and an electromechanical typewriter. In 1903, his position at the Swiss Patent Office became permanent.

    Much of his work at the patent office related to questions about transmission of electric signals and electrical–mechanical synchronization of time, two technical problems that show up conspicuously in the thought experiments that eventually led Einstein to his radical conclusions about the nature of light and the fundamental connection between space and time.

    First scientific papers

    In 1900, Einstein’s paper Folgerungen aus den Capillaritätserscheinungen (Conclusions from the Capillarity Phenomena) was published in the journal Annalen der Physik. On 30 April 1905, Einstein completed his thesis, with Alfred Kleiner, Professor of Experimental Physics, serving as pro-forma advisor. As a result, Einstein was awarded a PhD by the University of Zürich, with his dissertation "A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions".

    In that same year, which has been called Einstein’s Annus (miracle year), he published four groundbreaking papers, on the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, special relativity, and the equivalence of mass and energy, which were to bring him to the notice of the academic world, at the age of 26.

    Academic career

    By 1908, he was recognized as a leading scientist and was appointed lecturer at the University of Bern. The following year, after giving a lecture on electrodynamics and the relativity principle at the University of Zürich, Alfred Kleiner recommended him to the faculty for a newly created professorship in theoretical physics. Einstein was appointed associate professor in 1909.

    Einstein became a full professor at the German Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague in April 1911, accepting Austrian citizenship in the Austro-Hungarian Empire to do so. During his Prague stay, he wrote 11 scientific works, five of them on radiation mathematics and on the quantum theory of solids. In July 1912, he returned to his alma mater in Zürich. From 1912 until 1914, he was professor of theoretical physics at the ETH Zurich, where he taught analytical mechanics and thermodynamics. He also studied continuum mechanics, the molecular theory of heat, and the problem of gravitation, on which he worked with mathematician and friend Marcel Grossmann.

    On 3 July 1913, he was voted for membership in the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin. Max Planck and Walther Nernst visited him the next week in Zurich to persuade him to join the academy, additionally offering him the post of director at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics, which was soon to be established. (Membership in the academy included paid salary and professorship without teaching duties at the Humboldt University of Berlin.) He was officially elected to the academy on 24 July, and he accepted to move to the German Empire the next year.

    His decision to move to Berlin was also influenced by the prospect of living near his cousin Elsa, with whom he had developed a romantic affair. He joined the academy and thus the Berlin University on 1 April 1914. As World War I broke out that year, the plan for Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics was aborted. The institute was established on 1 October 1917, with Einstein as its director. In 1916, Einstein was elected president of the German Physical Society (1916–1918).

    Based on calculations Einstein made in 1911, about his new theory of general relativity, light from another star should be bent by the Sun’s gravity. In 1919, that prediction was confirmed by Sir Eddington during the solar eclipse of 29 May 1919. Those observations were published in the international media, making Einstein world-famous. On 7 November 1919, the leading British newspaper The Times printed a banner headline that read: Revolution in Science – New Theory of the Universe – Newtonian Ideas Overthrown.

    In 1920, he became a Foreign Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1922, he was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect. While the general theory of relativity was still considered somewhat controversial, the citation also does not treat the cited work as an explanation but merely as a discovery of the law, as the idea of photons was considered outlandish and did not receive universal acceptance until the 1924 derivation of the Planck spectrum by S. N. Bose. Einstein was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 1921. He also received the Copley Medal from the Royal Society in 1925.

    1921–1922: Travels abroad

    Einstein visited New York City for the first time on 2 April 1921, where he received an official welcome by Mayor John Francis Hylan, followed by three weeks of lectures and receptions.

    He went on to deliver several lectures at Columbia University and Princeton University, and in Washington he accompanied representatives of the National Academy of Science on a visit to the White House. On his return to Europe he was the guest of the British statesman and philosopher Viscount Haldane in London, where he met several renowned scientific, intellectual and political figures, and delivered a lecture at King’s College London.

    He also published an essay, My First Impression of the U.S.A., in July 1921, in which he tried briefly to describe some characteristics of Americans, much as had Alexis de Tocqueville, who published his own impressions in Democracy in America (1835). For some of his observations, Einstein was clearly surprised: What strikes a visitor is the joyous, positive attitude to life … The American is friendly, self-confident, optimistic, and without envy.

    In 1922, his travels took him to Asia and later to Palestine,

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