Wangari Maathai

Wangari Muta Mary Jo Maathai (1 April 1940 – 25 September 2011) was a Kenyan environmental  and political activist.She was educated in the United States at Mount St. Mount St. Scholastica and the University of Pittsburgh, as well as the University of Nairobi in Kenya. In the 1970s, Maathai  founded the Green Belt Movement, an environmental non-governmental organization focused on the planting of trees, environmental conservation, and women's rights. In 1986, she was awarded the Right Livelihood Award, and in 2004, she became the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for "her contribution to sustainable development , democracy and peace." Maathai was an elected member of Parliament and served as assistant minister for Environment  and Natural Resources in the government of President Mwai Kibaki  between January 2003 and November 2005. In 2011, Maathai died of complications from ovarian cancer. 

                                                            

Wangari Maathai Quotes

"My inspiration partly comes from my childhood experiences and observations of Nature in rural Kenya. It has been influenced and nurtured by the formal education I was privileged to receive in Kenya, the United States and Germany. As I was growing up, I witnessed forests being cleared and replaced by commercial plantations, which destroyed local biodiversity and the capacity of the forests to conserve water."

From Wangari Maathai's Nobel Lecture, delivered in Oslo, 10 December 2004.

"Anybody can dig a hole and plant a tree. But make sure it survives. You have to nurture it, you have to water it, you have to keep at it until it becomes rooted so it can take care or itself. There are so many enemies of trees."
 

From the article "This Much I Know", The Observer Magazine, 8 June 2008.

Leymah Gbowee

Leymah Roberta Gbowee (born 1 February 1972) is a Liberian peace activist responsible for leading a women's peace movement that brought an end to the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003. This led to the election of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in Liberia, the first African nation with a female president. She, along with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Tawakkul Karman, were awarded the 2011Nobel Peace Prize"for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work.

The Oprah Magazine painted this backdrop:

The Liberian civil war, which lasted from 1989 to 2003 with only brief interruptions, was the result of economic inequality, a struggle to control natural resources, and deep-rooted rivalries among various ethnic groups, including the descendants of the freed American slaves who founded the country in 1847. The war involved the cynical use of child soldiers, armed with lightweight Kalashnikovs, against the country's civilian population. At the center of it all was Charles Taylor, the ruthless warlord who initiated the first fighting and would eventually serve as Liberian president until he was forced into exile in 2003.

                                                           

"Leymah bore witness to the worst of humanity and helped bring Liberia out of the dark. Her memoir is a captivating narrative that will stand in history as testament to the power of women, faith and the spirit of our great country."

                    

                         -Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of Liberia, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize              

Rosa Louise McCauley Parks

Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was an  African-American civil rights Activist, whom the U.S. Congress called "the first lady of civil rights", and "the mother of the freedom movement".

                                                                 

On December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks refused to obey bus driver James F. Blake's order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger. Parks' action was not the first of its kind to impact the civil rights issue. Others had taken similar steps, including Lizzie Jennings in 1854, Homer Plessy, in 1892, Sarah Louise Keys in 1955, and Claudette Colvin  on the same bus system nine months before Parks, but Parks' civil disobedience had the effect of sparking the  Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Parks' act of defiance became an important symbol of the modern Civil Rights Movement and Parks became an international icon of resistance to racial segregation. She organized and collaborated with civil rights leaders, including boycott leader Martin Luther King, Jr., helping to launch him to national prominence in the civil rights movement.

                                                               

At the time of her action, Parks was secretary of the Montgomery chapter of theNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and had recently attended the Highlander Folk School,  a Tennessee center for workers' rights and racial equality. Nonetheless, she took her action as a private citizen "tired of giving in". Although widely honored in later years for her action, she suffered for it, losing her job as a seamstress in a local department store. Eventually, she moved toDetroit, Michigan, where she found similar work. From 1965 to 1988 she served as secretary and receptionist to African-American U.S. Representative John Conyers. After retirement from this position, she wrote an autobiography and lived a largely private life in Detroit. In her final years she suffered fromdementia, and became involved in a lawsuit filed on her behalf against American hip-hop duo OutKast. 

Mayans

                                                                   

The earliest Mayans were probably nomadic hunters and gatherers

By 250 a.d. they had settled into communities

The people traded food, pottery and jewelry

The Mayans people were small the men were about five feet tall and women were around four feet tall

The Mayans used things from the forest to make rope and baskets

The main foods were beans, corn and squash

Mayans huts were made out of logs mud and palm leaves

The Mayans kept dogs as pets raised turkeys for food

The Mayans used a number system based on 20 they were the first to use zero

The Mayans believed in human sacrifice

The Mayans tried to be kind to every one

Around 800 AD, the Mayans abandoned there cites no one knows why this happened

Today many Mayans live in villages in central America

in 1992 Rigoberto menchu tum received the noble peace prize for bringing the Mayan people and the Guatemala government together.

Bermuda Triangle

Located in the Atlantic Ocean, the Bermuda Triangle falls between Bermuda, Puerto Rico and Florida.

The Bermuda Triangle has long been believed to be the site where a number of mysterious plane and boat incidents have occurred.

While it has become part of popular culture to link the Bermuda Triangle to paranormal activity, most investigations indicate bad weather and human error are the more likely culprits.

                                                           

Research has suggested that many original reports of strange incidents in the Bermuda Triangle were exaggerated and that the actual number of incidents in the area is similar to that of other parts of the ocean.

While its reputation may scare some people, the Bermuda Triangle is actually part of a regularly sailed shipping lane with cruise ships and other boats also frequently sailing through the area.

Aircraft are also common in the Bermuda Triangle with both private and commercial planes commonly flying through the air space.

Stories of unexplained disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle started to reach public awareness around 1950 and have been consistently reported since then.

Unverified supernatural explanations for Bermuda Triangle incidents have included references to UFO’s and even the mythical lost continent of Atlantis.

Other explanations have included magnetic anomalies, pirates, deliberate sinkings, hurricanes, gas deposits, rough weather, huge waves and human error.

Some famous reported incidents involving the Bermuda Triangle include:

The USS Cyclops and its crew of 309 that went missing after leaving Barbados in 1918.

The TBM Avenger bombers that went missing in 1945 during a training flight over the Atlantic.

A Douglas DC-3 aircraft containing 32 people that went missing in 1958, no trace of the aircraft was ever found.

சதுரகிரி மலைப்பயணம்

              

                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

 

                                               

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Vanchinathan

Vanchinathan (1886 – June 17, 1911), popularly known as Vanchi, was an Indian Tamil independence activist. He is best remembered for having shot dead Ashe, the Collector of Thirunelveli and having later committed suicide in order to evade arrest.

                                              

Personal life
Vanchinathan was born in 1886 in Shenkottai to Raghupathy Iyer and Rukmani Ammal. His actual name was Shankaran. He did his schooling in Shenkottai and graduated in M.A. from Moolam Thirunal Maharaja College in Thiruvananthapuram. Even while in college, he married Ponnammal and got into a lucrative Government job.

Freedom Movement
On June 17, 1911, Vanchi assassinated Ashe, the district collector of Tirunelveli, who was also known as Collector Dorai. He shot Ashe at point-blank range when Ashe's train had stopped at the Maniyachi station, en route to Madras. He committed suicide thereafter. The railway station has since been renamed Vanchi Maniyachi.

Vanchi was a close collaborator of Varahaneri Venkatesa Subrahmanya Iyer (normally shortened to V.V.S.Aiyar or Va.Ve.Su Iyer), another freedom fighter who sought arms to defeat the British. He trained Bharatha matha Association. Vanchinathan to execute the plan in all perfection. They belonged to Bharatha matha Association.