Home >> Legendary Mud Puds >> Pioneering Thinkers >> Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was a theoretical physicist best known for his theory of relativity and specifically mass-energy equivalence: E=mc2. His contributions outside of science include tremendous humanitarian efforts as an advocate for civil rights. Einstein is revered by the physics community, and in 1999, Time magazine named him the “Person of the Century.” In popular culture, the name “Einstein” has become synonymous with genius. He is recognized as one of the most influential people in history.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

Being Beneath the Dirt

Although Albert Einstein had early speech difficulties, he was a top student in elementary school. At 10 years old, Albert was introduced to key science, mathematics, and philosophy texts, and he began to understand deductive reasoning at an early age. By the age of 12, he learned geometry from a school booklet, and soon thereafter he began to investigate calculus. In his teens, Einstein clashed with authorities in school and resented the regimen. He later wrote that the spirit of learning and creative thought were lost in strict rote learning.

When Einstein was 15 years old, his father’s business failed, and the family relocated to Italy. Albert had been left behind in Munich, Germany, to finish high school, but he withdrew to join his family, convincing the school to let him go by using a doctor’s note. Rather than completing high school, he decided to apply directly to an institute of higher education in Zurich, Switzerland. Without a school certificate, he was required to take an entrance examination, which he did not pass. The Einstein’s sent Albert to Switzerland to finish secondary school, where he graduated, and then he was finally enrolled in the mathematics program he had applied for earlier.

Branching Out Roots for Balance

Following graduation, Einstein could not find a teaching post. After nearly two years of searching, a former acquaintance helped get him a job as an evaluator of patent applications. While he was working in the patent office, in 1905, Einstein had four papers published in the leading German physics journal, one of which described what later became the well-known expression: E = mc2. All four papers are today recognized as tremendous achievements, and hence, that year is Einstein’s life is known as his “Wonderful Year.”

At the time, however, Einstein’s papers were not noticed by most physicists as being important. Some scientists rejected them. Some of Einstein’s work remained controversial for years. At the age of 26, Einstein was awarded a PhD by the University of Zurich. Einstein continued to work at the patent office, but he did not give up on academia. He continued to write and publish papers, introducing radical new concepts and growing in distinction. Eventually, he became a professor and taught in various European institutions.

Rising like a Surfacing Stem

In 1919, a photograph of a solar eclipse taken by a team of astronomers confirmed one of Einstein’s predictions related to the gravitational deflection of starlight by the Sun. News of this discovery made the headlines, deemed as a “Revolution in Science.” In their excitement, the world media made Albert Einstein world-famous. Two years later, Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics “for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect,” referring to one of his four 1905 papers.

In 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany, and one of the first actions of Hitler’s administration was to remove Jews and politically suspect government employees (including university professors) from their jobs, unless they had demonstrated their loyalty to Germany by serving in World War I. Einstein became a target for German censure for several reasons, one of which was his previous renouncement of German citizenship in order to avoid military service. During World War II, there was a campaign to eliminate Einstein’s work from the German lexicon as unacceptable “Jewish physics.” Activists published pamphlets and even textbooks denigrating Einstein, and instructors who taught his theories were blacklisted.

Reaching Fruition

Einstein’s very visible position allowed him to speak and write frankly, even provocatively, at a time when many people of conscience could only flee to the underground. Einstein flouted the ascendant Nazi movement. He wrote affidavits recommending United States visas for a huge number of Jews from Europe trying to flee persecution. He raised money for Zionist organizations and was in part responsible for the formation, in 1933, of the International Rescue Committee. He also tried to be a voice of moderation in the tumultuous formation of the State of Israel, and braved anti-communist politics and resistance to the civil rights movement in the U.S.

He served a great deal of the later part of his life as a participant in several civil rights groups, including the Princeton chapter of the NAACP. With increasing public demands, his involvement in political, humanitarian, and academic projects in various countries, and his new acquaintances with scholars and political figures from around the world, Einstein transitioned from a leader in physics to an influential civil rights advocate. When the aged W.E.B. Du Bois was accused of being a Communist spy, Einstein volunteered as a character witness, and the case was dismissed shortly afterward. Einstein befriended activists, such as Paul Robeson, with whom he served as co-chair of the American Crusade to End Lynching.

Leaving a Legacy

Albert Einstein has been the subject of or inspiration for many novels, films, and plays. He is a favorite model for depictions of mad scientists and absent-minded professors; his expressive face and hairstyle have been widely copied and exaggerated. In 1999, Albert Einstein was named “Person of the Century” by Time magazine. He is recognized as one of the most influential people in history, as one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century and one of the supreme intellects of all time.

Disclaimer: Mud Puds bios are derived from widely-accepted “truths,” as shared in the Public Domain. In the absence of first-hand accounts, information is presented as: “Factual, as far as we know.”

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Home >> Legendary Mud Puds >> Pioneering Thinkers >> Louis Leakey

Louis Leakey

Louis Leakey was a Kenyan archaeologist and naturalist whose work was important in establishing human evolutionary development in Africa. He also played a major role in creating organizations for future research in Africa and for protecting wildlife there. Having been a prime mover in establishing a tradition of palaeoanthropological inquiry, he was able to motivate the next generation to continue it, notably within his own family, many of whom also became prominent.

Being Beneath the Dirt

Leakey’s parents were British missionaries of the Christian faith in then British East Africa, now Kenya. Young Louis’ earliest home had an earthen floor, a leaky thatched roof, rodents and insects, and no heating system except for charcoal braziers. The facilities slowly improved, and what began as a hut and two tents eventually became a center of activity with a clinic in one of the tents, and later a girl’s school for African women. Leakey grew up, played, and learned to hunt with Africans. He learned to speak their language fluently.

In his childhood, Leakey requested and was given permission to build and move into a hut, which became home to his personal collection of natural objects, such as birds’ eggs and skulls. He developed a keen interest in and appreciation of the pristine natural surroundings in which he found himself. He raised baby animals, later turning them over to zoos. His thirst for scientific observation was somewhat suppressed at age 16, however, when his family returned to Britain. He attended a private boy’s school there for three years and he did not do well; he complained of rules he considered an infringement on his freedom.

Branching Out Roots for Balance

He attended Cambridge University on an academic scholarship, and in 1926 he graduated with high honors in anthropology and archaeology. From 1925 on, Louis lectured and wrote on African archaeological and palaeontological topics. On graduation he was such a respected figure that Cambridge sent him to East Africa to study prehistoric African humans. He excavated dozens of sites, undertaking for the first time a systematic study of the artifacts.

On the strength of his work there he and elsewhere, he obtained a research fellowship at St. John’s College and returned to Cambridge in 1929 to do post-graduate work. Leakey was given the Ph.D. in 1930 at age 27. Leakey led fossil-finding expeditions, continuing to investigate the stone age culture in East Africa. His wife accompanied him during the archaeological studies, as the illustrator for his book, The Stone Age Culture of Kenya Colony. Sick with the couple’s second child on the way, she was unable to complete the illustrations for his second book, Adam’s Ancestors, and Louis convinced another woman, Mary Nicol, to take on the illustration of his book. Leakey’s companionship with the replacement illustrator turned to romance. A month after his second child was born, Leakey asked his wife for a divorce.

Leakey’s good fortune turned as a panel at Cambridge investigated his morals. Grants dried up, coinciding with the questioning of Leakey’s work by a man named P. G. H. Boswell. Leakey invited Boswell to see the sites for himself, and when Boswell arrived, they found that the iron markers Louis had used to mark the sites had been removed by the Luo tribe for use as harpoons and the sites could not now be located. To make matters worse, all the photos Leakey took were ruined by a light leak in the camera. After an irritating and fruitless two-month search, Boswell left for England and immediately published articles that destroyed Leakey’s findings and questioned his competence.

Rising like a Surfacing Stem

Louis and Mary found themselves returning to England in 1935 without positions or any place to stay except Mary’s mother’s apartment. They soon leased a cottage and lived without heat, electricity, or plumbing, fetching water from a well, huddling before a fireplace and writing by oil lantern. They lived happily in poverty for eighteen months at this low point of their fortunes, visited at first only by Mary’s relatives. Leakey gardened for subsistence and exercise. He appealed at last to the Royal Society, who relented with a small grant to continue work on his collection.

Leakey was given a grant in 1936 to write a study of the Kikuyu, the tribe he had grown up with. On a meager two-year salary, he fulfilled the obligations of his position while also partially using grant partially for fossil-hunting. Leakey discoveries began to appear in the newspapers again. When Britain went to war in September, 1939, the Kenyan government drafted Louis into its African intelligence service. His primary task was to supply and arm Ethiopian guerrillas against the Italian invaders of their country. He created a clandestine network using his childhood friends among the Kikuyu. They also hunted fossils on the sly.

Mary continued to find and excavate sites, and their life together became a menage of police work and archaeology. She worked in the Coryndon Memorial Museum (later called the National Museums of Kenya) where Leakey joined her as an unpaid honorary curator in 1941. Meanwhile, Leakey conducted interrogations, analyzed handwriting, wrote radio broadcasts and took on regular police investigations. The white leadership of the King’s African Rifles used him extensively to clear up many cultural mysteries; for example, he helped an officer remove a curse he had inadvertently put on his men.

Reaching Fruition

In January, 1947, Leakey conducted the first Pan-African Congress of Prehistory at Nairobi. Sixty scientists from 26 countries attended, delivering papers and visiting the Leakey sites. The conference restored Louis to the scientific fold and made him a major figure in it. With the money that now poured in Louis undertook the famous expeditions of 1948 and beyond at Rusinga Island in Lake Victoria, where Mary discovered the most complete Proconsul fossil up to that time.

While the Leakeys were at Lake Victoria, the Kikuyu struck at the European settlers of the Kenyan highlands, who seemed to have the upper hand and were insisting on a “white” government of a “white” Africa. Approximately 1 million Kikuyu were being harassed by about 32,000 settlers. In 1949 the Kikuyu formed a secret society, the Mau Mau, which attacked settlers and especially loyalist Kikuyu. During this period his life was threatened and a reward placed on his head. The Leakeys began to pack pistols, termed “European National Dress.” The government placed him under 24-hour guard.

Leakey played the difficult and contradictory role of serving as the settlers’ spokesman and intelligence officer, helping to ferret out bands of guerillas, while at the same time continuing to advocate for the Kikuyu in his book, Defeating Mau Mau and numerous talks and articles. He recommended a multi-racial government, land reform in the highlands, a wage hike for the Kikuyu, and many other reforms, most of which were eventually adopted. Following Leakey’s suggestion, thousands of Kikuyu were placed in re-education camps and resettled in new villages. The state of emergency lasted until 1960. In 1963 Kenya became independent.

Leaving a Legacy

One of Louis Leakey’s greatest legacies stems from his role in fostering field research of primates in their natural habitats, which he understood as key to unraveling the mysteries of human evolution. He personally chose three female researchers, Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Birute Galdikas, who were later dubbed ‘Leakey’s Angels’ and each went on to become important scholars in the field of primatology, studying chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans, respectively.

During his final years Leakey became famous as a lecturer in the United States and United Kingdom. He brought audiences cheering to their feet. He did not personally excavate any longer, as he was crippled with arthritis, for which he had a hip replacement in 1968. He raised funds and directed his family and associates. In Kenya he was an indispensable facilitator for the hundreds of scientists then exploring the East African Rift system for fossils.

Disclaimer: Mud Puds bios are derived from widely-accepted “truths,” as shared in the Public Domain. In the absence of first-hand accounts, information is presented as: “Factual, as far as we know.”

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Home >> Legendary Mud Puds >> Unlikely Heroes >> Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi was a major political and spiritual leader of India and the Indian independence movement. He was the pioneer of Satyagraha – a philosophy that is largely concerned with truth and ‘resistance to evil through active, non-violent resistance’ – which led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. Gandhi is commonly known in India and across the world as the Mahatma, meaning “Great Soul.” In India, he is officially accorded the honor of Father of the Nation.

“Be the change you want to see in the world.”

Being Beneath the Dirt

At the age of 13, Gandhi was married through his parents’ arrangements. Despite his own interests, he followed his parents’ direction to study law and train as a barrister. With little success in establishing a law practice in Bombay, India, he took interest and applied for a part-time job as a high school teacher, but was denied the position. He managed to make a modest living drafting petitions for litigants, but was forced to close down that business when he ran afoul of a British officer. He was imprisoned for many years on numerous occasions.

After closing his business, Gandhi accepted a year-long contract from an Indian firm to a post in South Africa, which was then part of the British Empire, as was India. During the time he spent practicing law in South Africa, Gandhi faced racial discrimination directed at Indians. There, he witnessed firsthand the racism, prejudice, and injustice against Indians in South Africa. Incidents that occurred there served as an awakening to social injustice and help to explain Gandhi’s subsequent social activism. He started to question his people’s status within the British Empire, and his own place in society.

Branching Out Roots for Balance

Upon returning to India from South Africa, where he had enjoyed a successful legal practice, he gave up wearing Western-style clothing, which he associated with wealth and success. Gandhi adopted the practice of weaving his own clothes from thread he himself spun. He wore a traditional dhoti to express the simplicity in his life; he dressed to be accepted by the poorest person in India. He lived simply, organizing a monastic community, called an ashram, which was self-sufficient in its needs. He lived on a simple vegetarian and, later, fruitarian diet.

Rising like a Surfacing Stem

Gandhi’s chosen “weapons” in the fight against injustice were non-cooperation and peaceful resistance, advocating the principle that all violence was evil and could not be justified. He first employed peaceful disobedience in the Indian community’s struggle for civil rights in South Africa. Then, when he returned to India from Africa, he organized poor farmers and laborers to protest against oppressive taxation and widespread discrimination. Gandhi was not the originator of the principle of non-violence, but he was the first to apply it in a political field on such a huge scale. The concept of nonviolence (ahimsa) has a long history in Indian religious thought.

During his time in South Africa, he assisted the Indian community in opposing a bill to deny them the right to vote. He called on his fellow Indians to resist through non-violent means: refusing to register and engaging in other forms of resistance. Though unable to halt the bill’s passage, Gandhi’s campaign was successful in drawing attention to the grievances of Indians in South Africa. A seven-year struggle ensued in which thousands of Indians were jailed (including Gandhi), flogged, or even shot. Because of the harsh methods employed by the South African government in the face of peaceful Indian protestors, the public outcry finally forced the government to negotiate a compromise with Gandhi.

Reaching Fruition

Gandhi’s first major achievements took place in an extremely impoverished area of India. He organized a detailed study and survey of the villages, accounting for the atrocities and terrible episodes of suffering, including the general state of degenerate living. Gandhi established an ashram there, organizing scores of his veteran supporters and fresh volunteers from the region. Building on the confidence of villagers, he began leading the clean-up of villages, building of schools and hospitals, and encouraging the village leadership to undo and condemn many social evils.

Because of his influence in the aforementioned region in India, Gandhi was arrested on the charge of creating unrest. He was ordered to leave the province. Hundreds of thousands of people protested and rallied outside the jail, police stations, and courts, demanding his release. Even during his arrest, Gandhi organized protests and strikes against oppressive taxation and suppression by the British. During this agitation, Gandhi’s followers began to address him as Bapu (Father) and Mahatma (Great Soul).

Leaving a Legacy

Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for the alleviation of poverty, for the liberation of women, and for brotherhood amongst different religions and ethnic groups. Among the most arduously sought objectives was the independence of India from British rule, and one of the non-violent resistance movements that was most successful at upsetting British rule was a protest against the tax on salt, in which Gandhi led thousands of Indians on a 248-mile walk to sea in order to make salt themselves. Britain responded by imprisoning over 60,000 people. The British Government agreed to set all political prisoners free in return for the suspension of the civil disobedience movement.

Gandhi intensified his demand for independence during World War II, when he drafted a resolution calling for the British to Quit India. This was the most definitive revolt by Gandhi and his party, aimed at securing the British exit from Indian shores. Gandhi and his supporters made it clear that they would not support the war effort unless India was granted immediate independence. With mass arrests and violence on an unprecedented scale, Quit India became the most forceful movement in the history of the struggle. While being held under arrest for two years, beginning in 1942, Gandhi suffered the loss of his wife, who passed away after 18 months imprisonment, and he himself nearly died from a severe malaria attack. Still, he refused to call off the struggle. At the end of the war, the British gave clear indications that power would be transferred to Indian hands.

Gandhi never received the Nobel Peace Prize, although he was nominated five times between 1937 and 1948. Decades later, the Nobel Committee publicly declared its regret for the omission, and admitted to deeply divided nationalistic opinion denying the award. Mahatma Gandhi was to receive the Prize in 1948, but his assassination prevented the award. Today, Gandhi is officially honored in India as the Father of the Nation.

Disclaimer: Mud Puds bios are derived from widely-accepted “truths,” as shared in the Public Domain. In the absence of first-hand accounts, information is presented as: “Factual, as far as we know.”

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Home >> Legendary Mud Puds >> Unlikely Heroes >> His Holiness the Dalai Lama

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Tenzin Gyatso is the 14th and current Dalai Lama, a revered spiritual leader among Tibetans. He is head of the Tibetan Government in Exile in Dharamsala, India. A Nobel Peace Prize laureate, he is also the world’s best-known Buddhist monk.

Being Beneath the Dirt

Tenzin Gyatso was the fifth of 16 children born to a farming family in a small and poor settlement of twenty or so families. Only 8 of his siblings survived childhood. Two years after he was born, a search party was sent out to find the new incarnation of the Dalai Lama. He was proclaimed this tulku (rebirth) at age 2, and at the age 15, he was called upon to assume full political power of Tibet.

A year before he was enthroned as Tibet’s Dalai Lama, in 1949, China invaded Tibet. As Tibet’s most important political ruler, the 15-year-old Dalai Lama became the undisputed leader of six million people facing the threat of a full-scale war. Over the next nine years, His Holiness faced the task of evading a full-scale military takeover of Tibet by China while also working to appease the growing unrest among Tibetan resistance fighters against the Chinese aggressors. Following the collapse of the Tibetan resistance movement, in 1959, he was forced to escape into exile. He left Tibet for India and thousands of refugees accompanied him there.

Branching Out Roots for Balance

In exile, he worked to establish the Tibetan Government and to preserve the Tibetan culture. There, in India, the Dalai Lama helped to establish agricultural settlements for ~80,000 Tibetan refugees. He created an educational system to teach children about Tibet’s traditional language, history, religion, and more. His Holiness helped to establish institutions for higher learning as well as monasteries and nunneries.

Meanwhile, he met with the Prime Minister of India, urging India to pressure China into granting Tibet an autonomous government. He also appealed to the United Nations. The Dalai Lama’s continued efforts to preserve the culture of his homeland resulted in U.N. resolutions that required China to respect the human rights of Tibetans and their desire for self-determination.

Rising like a Surfacing Stem

In the United States and other western countries, His Holiness the Dalai Lama has become an influential spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism. Promoting religious harmony and understanding among the world’s major religious traditions, he has met leaders of the Anglican Church as well as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, along with Muslim and Hindu officials. He has met with Pope Paul VI, Pope John Paul II, and Pope Benedict XVI. He has shared interfaith dialogue with a delegation of Jewish teachers and met with the Chief Rabbi of Israel.

Reaching Fruition

In his public speaking, His Holiness has consistently promoted human values such as compassion and forgiveness, while working toward a a peaceful solution to the worsening situation in Tibet. In his address to members of the United States Congress in 1987, he proposed the transformation of Tibet into a zone of peace. In his Five-Point Peace Plan, regarding the future status of Tibet, the Dalai Lama also called for respect for fundamental human rights and democratic freedoms. This proposal urged earnest negotiations on the future of Tibet.

Over 20 years later, protests and crackdowns have put the Tibet issue firmly into the eyes of the international media. Tibet supporters across the world have united in their call for an end to Chinese government oppression. While His Holiness has blamed China for causing “cultural genocide” of his people, the Chinese government has blamed the Dalai Lama for recent accounts of anti-Chinese violence. Because of the restlessness among supporters of a free Tibet, the Dalai Lama has threatened to step down as leader-in-exile of Tibet, in an attempt to bring peace to his homeland.

Leaving a Legacy

Carrying the name of the Dalai Lama, His Holiness acts as the free spokesperson of the Tibetans in their struggle for justice. As a man of peace, he advocates policies of non-violence, even in the face of extreme aggression. His Holiness was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, in 1989, for his non-violent struggle for the liberation of Tibet and efforts for a peaceful resolution. His acceptance speech focused on the importance of the continued use of non-violence and his desire to maintain a dialogue with China to try to resolve the situation. To this day, he is still seeking a mutually beneficial solution between the Tibetans and Chinese.

Disclaimer: Mud Puds bios are derived from widely-accepted “truths,” as shared in the Public Domain. In the absence of first-hand accounts, information is presented as: “Factual, as far as we know.”

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Home >> Legendary Mud Puds >> Athletic Underdogs >> Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali is one of only three boxers to be named “Sportsman of the Year” by Sports Illustrated. He has appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine on 37 different occasions, second only to Michael Jordan. He is regarded as one of the best pound for pound boxers in history.

“Champions aren’t made in the gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them - a desire, a dream, a vision.”

Being Beneath the Dirt

Poor grades were probably the reason for his withdrawal from high school, and even though he re-enrolled, he graduated at the lowest 4% of his graduating class. He later failed the U.S. Armed Forces qualifying test because his writing and spelling skills were sub par. His battles continued when he refused his draft induction into the U.S. Army, while America was at war with Vietnam. When an all-white jury found him guilty of draft evasion, Ali was imprisoned, his boxing license was revoked, and he was stripped of his world championship.

Branching Out Roots for Balance

Ali had a highly unorthodox style for a heavyweight boxer. Rather than the normal style of carrying the hands high to defend the face, he instead relied on foot speed and quickness to avoid punches and carried his hands low. Ali made a name for himself with great hand peed, as well as fast feet and taunting tactics. He was a masterful self-promoter, and his psychological tactics before, during, and after fights became legendary. As an amateur boxer, Cassius Clay (Ali’s given name) won two national Golden Gloves titles and the Light Heavyweight gold medal in the 1960 Summer Olympics. Ali’s record was 100 wins with 5 losses when he ended his amateur career.

Rising like a Surfacing Stem

When he achieved his first championship, defeating the “invincible” Sonny Liston, in 1964, Ali revealed that he was the member of the Nation of Islam. He discarded his surname, Cassius Clay, as other Nation members did, as a symbol of his ancestors’ enslavement. Malcom X announced that clay would be granted his “X,” and on the same night, Elijah Muhammad issued a statement that Clay would be renamed Muhammad (one who is worthy of praise) Ali (forth rightly guided caliph). Joining the Nation of Islam made him one of that era’s most recognizable and controversial figures.

Muhammad Ali’s fight against induction into the U.S. Army inspired hatred among many, but also admiration among some. Support for Ali grew during the 5-year court battle. During his years without a boxing license, Ali supported himself by opening a restaurant chain called Champburger. He also visited colleges, giving speeches across the country. Joe Frazier, who had become champion during Ali’s absence from the ring, often gave financial assistance to Ali during this time. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned his conviction by a unanimous decision, deciding that under the tenets of Islam Ali was a conscientious objector, not a criminal.

Reaching Fruition

As a professional boxer, Ali was 18-0 before meeting beating Liston to become the heavyweight champ, and he successfully defended his title nine times over the course of less than 2 years. He lost his boxing license during what was likely the peak of his career, and after regaining his eligibility, he lost his first bout to Joe Frazier. In a 1974 rematch, Ali knocked out Frazier. He went on to KO George Foreman to win his second heavyweight championship. In 1978, he lost the title to Leon Spinks, and at 36, it was widely believed that Ali’s fighting career was over. However, seven months later, Ali regained the title from Spinks by knockout.

While Ali was renowned for his fast, sharp out-fighting style, he also had a great chin, and displayed a great heart and ability to take a punch, as evidenced in his 1974 fight against George Forman in Zaire, called Rumble in the Jungle. Ali outlasted Forman by retreating to the ropes, inviting Foreman to hit him. Ali’s tactic of leaning on the ropes, covering up, and absorbing ineffective body shots was later termed “The Rope-A-Dope.” By the end of the seventh round, Foreman was exhausted. In the eighth round, Ali dropped Foreman by KO.

Leaving a Legacy

In 1984, Ali discovered he had Parkinson’s disease, a neurological syndrome characterized by tremors, rigidity of muscles and slowness of speech and movement. Despite the disability, he remains a beloved and active public figure. Since his retirement from boxing, Ali has devoted himself to humanitarian endeavors around the globe. He is a devout Muslim, and travels the world over, lending his name and presence to hunger and poverty relief, supporting education efforts of all kinds, promoting adoption, and encouraging people to respect and better understand one another.

Disclaimer: Mud Puds bios are derived from widely-accepted “truths,” as shared in the Public Domain. In the absence of first-hand accounts, information is presented as: “Factual, as far as we know.”

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Home >> Legendary Mud Puds >> Athletic Underdogs >> Diego Maradona

Diego Maradona

Diego Maradona is a former Argentine soccer player. In 2000, Maradona shared the FIFA Player of the Century award with Pelé after finishing first in a FIFA internet poll on the best player of the 20th century. Despite being considered one of the sport’s most controversial figures, he is also recognized as one of history’s greatest soccer players.

Being Beneath the Dirt

Diego Maradona was born to a poor family and lived in a shantytown on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. At age 11, Maradona was spotted by a talent scout while he was playing in his neighborhood club. He made his professional debut in 1976, ten days before his sixteenth birthday. In the later part of his 20-year career as a professional footballer, Maradona suffered ill health and weight gain, intensified by ongoing cocaine abuse.

He dealt with obesity from the end of his playing career until undergoing gastric bypass surgery, and in 2004, he had a major heart attack following a cocaine overdose. Three years later, Maradona was readmitted to the hospital in order to be treated for hepatitis and effects of alcohol abuse. He was released and re-admitted two days later, and then he was later transfered to a psychiatric clinic specializing in alcohol-related problems.

Branching Out Roots for Balance

Maradona was a strategist and a team player, as well as highly technical with the ball. He could manage himself effectively in limited spaces, and would attract defenders only to quickly dash out of the melee, or give an assist to a free teammate. Being short, but strong, he could hold the ball long enough with a defender on his back to wait for a teammate making a run or to find a gap for a quick shot. One of Maradona’s trademark moves was dribbling full-speed as a left wing, and on reaching the opponent’s goal line, delivering lethally accurate passes to his teammates.

Rising like a Surfacing Stem

Maradona played his first World Cup tournament in 1982. His team advanced to the second round with Maradona playing in the first five matches without being substituted, scoring twice. Next, Maradona was transferred to FC Barcelona in Spain for a then world record contract of £5m. There, Maradona experienced a difficult bout of hepatitis, followed by an injury on the playing field, but Maradona’s physical strength and willpower made it possible for him to be back on the pitch after only 14 weeks.

Reaching Fruition

Maradona captained the Argentine national team to victory in the 1986 FIFA World Cup, winning the final in Mexico against West Germany. Throughout the 1986 World Cup, Maradona asserted his dominance and was the most dynamic player of the tournament. He played every minute of every Argentina game, scored 5 goals and made 5 assists. During this competition, Maradona cemented his legendary status with two unforgettable goals in a 2-1 quarter-final win against England.

His first goal, as replays showed, was scored illegally by striking the ball with his hand. The goal stood, much to the wrath of the England players, and the play became known as the “Hand of God,” or “la mano de Dios.” Maradona’s second goal was to be later voted by FIFA as the greatest goal in the history of the World Cup. He picked up the ball in his own half and with 11 touches swiveled around and ran more than half the length of the field, dribbling past five English players. This goal was voted the Goal of the Century in a 2002 online poll conducted by FIFA.

Maradona followed the England game with two more goals in the semifinal against Belgium, including another virtuoso dribbling display for the second goal. In the final, the opposing West German side attempted to contain him by double-marking, but he nevertheless found the space to give the final service to his teammate for the winning goal. Argentina beat West Germany 3-2 in front of 115,000 spectators at the Azteca stadium and Maradona lifted the World Cup trophy as the greatest player in the world after dominating the tournament in a way no other player had ever done before in the history of the World Cup.

Leaving a Legacy

During an international career that included 91 caps and 34 goals, Maradona played in four FIFA World Cup tournaments, leading the Argentina national team to its victory over West Germany in 1986 World Cup, in which he collected the Golden Ball award as the tournament’s best player. He started in 21 consecutive matches for Argentina in four World Cups (1982, 1986, 1990, 1994), and appeared a World Cup-record 16 times as captain of the national team.

Disclaimer: Mud Puds bios are derived from widely-accepted “truths,” as shared in the Public Domain. In the absence of first-hand accounts, information is presented as: “Factual, as far as we know.”

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Home >> Legendary Mud Puds >> Visionary Artists >> Charlie Chaplin

Charlie Chaplin

Charlie Chaplin was one of the most creative and influential personalities in the silent-film era. Not only was he an Academy Award-nominated actor, but also director, writer, producer, and composer. His working life in entertainment spanned over 65 years, from the Victorian stage and music hall in the United Kingdom as a child performer, almost until his death at the age of 88. He built his own Hollywood studio and independently created a remarkable, timeless body of work that remains entertaining and influential.

Being Beneath the Dirt

Charlie Chaplin’s parents were entertainers in the Music Hall tradition. They separated when Charlie was 3 years old, after which time his dad had little contact with his two sons and his mom struggled to maintain a successful career as a singer. The boys lived in desperate poverty, worsened by their mother’s mental illness.

Branching Out Roots for Balance

Chaplin grew up in the environment of the Music Hall, and proved at a young age to have considerable natural stage talent. His principle character was “The Tramp,” a vagrant with the refined manners and dignity of a gentleman. The character wore a tight coat, oversized trousers and shoes, and a derby; carried a bamboo cane; and had a signature toothbrush mustache.

After multiple U.S. tours as an entertainer, Charlie caught the eye of a film producer, Mack Sennett, who hired him for his studio, Keystone Film Company. At Keystone, he developed his tramp character and quickly learned the art of filmmaking. Moviegoers loved this cheerfully earthy new comedian. Chaplin was soon entrusted with directing and editing his own films. He made 34 short films and one feature during his first year in motion pictures.

Rising like a Surfacing Stem

Over time, Chaplin further developed his cinematic skills, adding new levels of depth and pathos to the Keystone-style slapstick. His career evolved from a stringent early production schedule to a more relaxed pace that allowed him to focus on quality. With every success, he gained near-complete artistic control. With his direction and artistic talent at the forefront, Chaplin’s success grew exponentially.

Reaching Fruition

The bold and daring comedian was a risk-taker, and his precarious nature won him both praise and criticism. His relationships with women, for instance, were hyped in the public as being unmanageable. Chaplin’s views on filmmaking differed from others’. Long after sound films, or “talkies,” were introduced popularly in 1927, Chaplin continued to make silent films. Chaplin considered cinema to be essentially a pantomimic art, and stated, “Action is more generally understood than words,” as in the case of his foreign-language speaking audiences.

Chaplin’s political sympathies always lay with the left. Although his silent films made prior to the Great Depression typically did not contain political themes, his 1930s films were openly political. He transitioned into making sound films in 1940, with his controversial picture, The Great Dictator, an act of defiance against German dictator, Adolf Hitler. To some, the film was seen as an act of courage for its ridicule of Nazism; to others, Chaplin’s views (in conjunction with his influence, fame, and status in the U.S. as a resident foreigner) were seen by many as communistic.

Leaving a Legacy

When the first Oscars were awarded in 1929, Chaplin received an honorary Academy Award for his film, The Circus, recognized “for versatility and genius in acting, writing, directing and producing.” His second honorary Academy Award came 44 years later, and was for “the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century.” He came out of his exile to accept his award, and received the longest standing ovation in Academy Award history, lasting a full five minutes.

Disclaimer: Mud Puds bios are derived from widely-accepted “truths,” as shared in the Public Domain. In the absence of first-hand accounts, information is presented as: “Factual, as far as we know.”

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Home >> Legendary Mud Puds >> Visionary Artists >> Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong

Recordings of Louis Armstrong are broadcast and listened to every day throughout the world, and are honored in various forms of media. Most familiar to modern listeners is his ubiquitous rendition of “What a Wonderful World.” The fact that his work remains popular more than three decades since his passing is a testament to the impact he had on the music recording industry, particularly in the jazz genre. More memorable than his songs were his distinct voice and masterful trumpet playing, and more memorable still was his influence as an extraordinary jazz artist with a love for music and life.

Being Beneath the Dirt

Louis Armstrong, a grandson of slaves, was born into a very poor family in New Orleans, Louisiana. His dad abandoned the family when Louis was an infant, leaving Louis in the care of his mother and her relatives. He spent his youth in poverty, in a highly segregated city, at the bottom of the social ladder.

As he transitioned from poverty to wealth, as a virtuoso performer, Armstrong faced devastating circumstances that threatened to end his career early. His troubles with the law included being convicted of marijuana possession. Far worse, he experienced heavy debt and even mob troubles. Armstrong also began to experience problems with his fingers and lips, which were aggravated by his unorthodox playing style. The damage to his embouchure from his high pressure approach to playing is acutely visible in many pictures of Louis from the mid-20s.

Branching Out Roots for Balance

As a result of the adverse circumstances during the depressions of the early 1930s, Louis Armstrong branched out. He left Chicago, where he had been living, and went home to New Orleans, where he was happily welcomed. At that point, he began to seriously hone-in on his vocal style. During periods when he was unable to play the trumpet, he emphasized his singing. Armstrong played around with his vocals, shortening and lengthening phrases, interjecting improvisations, using his voice as creatively as his trumpet.

As his music progressed and popularity grew, his singing also became important. Armstrong was not the first to record scat singing, but he was masterful at it and helped popularize it. Scat singing became a major part of his performances. Plus, with his trumpet set aside for a while, he was able to amend his playing style to allow him to continue his trumpet career. During this time, Armstrong played more than three hundred gigs a year.

Rising like a Surfacing Stem

In his youth and throughout his emergence as a master of the trumpet, he hung out in dance halls in the red lights district, where he listened to the bands playing in the brothels and dance halls. Famous musicians occasionally dropped in to jam. He listened to older musicians every chance he got.

Armstrong’s musicianship began to mature in his late teens, especially through his experience in a riverboat band. At 20, he could read music and he started to be featured in extended trumpet solos, one of the first jazzmen to do this, injecting his own personality and style into his solo turns. His success on the riverboat led to an invitation to join a prominent band in Chicago, where he made sufficient income so that he no longer needed to supplement his music with day labor jobs.

Reaching Fruition

The uniquely gritty coloration of his voice, as with his trumpet playing, became a musical archetype that was much admired and endlessly imitated. His scat singing style was enriched by his matchless experience as a trumpet soloist. His resonant, velvety lower-register tone and bubbling cadences on sides such as “Lazy River” exerted a huge influence on younger white singers such as Bing Crosby.

In 1964, he recorded his biggest-selling record, “Hello, Dolly!” The song went to #1 on the pop chart, making Armstrong (age 63) the oldest person to ever accomplish that feat. In the process, Armstrong dislodged The Beatles from the #1 position they had occupied for 14 consecutive weeks with three different songs.

Leaving a Legacy

Louis Armstrong almost single-handedly created the role of the jazz soloist, taking what was essentially a collective folk music and turning it into an art form with tremendous possibilities for individual expression. Armstrong’s playing was filled with joyous melodies and daring, sophisticated improvisations, honed by constant practice, which extended the range, tone, and capabilities of the trumpet. With his innovations, he raised the bar musically for all who came after him.

The influence of Armstrong on the Development of jazz is virtually immeasurable. Through his playing, the trumpet emerged as a solo instrument in jazz and is used widely today. Armstrong was an innovative performer whose improvised soloing was the main influence for a fundamental change in jazz, shifting its focus from collective improvisation to the solo player and improvised soloing.

Disclaimer: Mud Puds bios are derived from widely-accepted “truths,” as shared in the Public Domain. In the absence of first-hand accounts, information is presented as: “Factual, as far as we know.”

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Home >> Legendary Mud Puds >> Pioneering Thinkers >> Thich Nhat Hanh

Thich Nhat Hanh

As one of the best known Buddhist teachers in the West, Thich Nhat Hanh offers a practice of mindfulness adapted to Western sensibilities. His teachings and practices appeal to people from various religious, spiritual, and political backgrounds. Nhat Hanh is an expatriate Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk, teacher, author, poet and peace activist.

Being Beneath the Dirt

Nhat Hanh, born in central Vietnam in 1926, joined a Zen monastery at the age of 16, studied Buddhism as a novice, and was fully ordained as a monk in his early 20s. Commonly referred to as Thich Nhat Hanh, the title Thích is used by all Vietnamese monks and nuns, meaning that they are part of the Shakya (Shakyamuni Buddha) clan. The Vietnam War confronted the monasteries with the question of whether to adhere to the contemplative life and remain meditating in the monasteries, or to help the villagers suffering under bombings and other devastation of the war. Nhat Hanh was one of those who chose to do both, helping to found the “engaged Buddhism” movement.

Branching Out Roots for Balance

Since the mid 60s, Thich Nhat Hanh has headed a monastic and lay group, called the Order of Inter-Being, teaching the Five and Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings and “Engaged Buddhism.” As a Dharmacharya, or Dharma Teacher, from Master Chân Th?t, Thich Nhat Hanh has combined his deep knowledge of a variety of traditional Zen teachings with methods from Theravada Buddhism, insights from Mahayana Buddhism, and ideas from Western psychology to form his approach to modern meditation practice. He has established monastic and practice centers around the world.

Rising like a Surfacing Stem

During the Vietnam War, he aided his fellow monks in their non-violent peace efforts. He led efforts to help rescue Vietnamese boat people in the Gulf of Siam, but was forced to stop because of the hostility of the governments of Thailand and Singapore. Later, Nhat Hanh founded a grassroots relief organization to rebuild bombed villages, set up schools and medical centers, and resettled families left homeless during the war.

He traveled to the U.S. with the main goal of urging the American government to withdraw from Vietnam. Thich Nhat Hanh urged Martin Luther King, Jr. to publicly denounce the Vietnam War. Despite his efforts to end the violent conflict in Vietnam, the vietnamese government denied Nhat Hanh permission to return to Vietnam as a result of his involvement in the Paris Peace Accords, signed in 1973. Nhat Hanh went into exile in France.

Reaching Fruition

Nhat Hanh traveled to the U.S. a number of times to study comparative religion at Princeton University, and later lecture at Cornell University and teach at Columbia University. In 1967, the same year Dr. King publicly questioned the U.S. involvement in Vietnam, he nominated Thich Nhat Hanh for the Nobel Peace Prize, stating, “I do not personally know of anyone more worthy of [this prize] than this gentle monk from Vietnam. His ideas for peace, if applied, would build a monument to ecumenism, to world brotherhood, to humanity.”

Leaving a Legacy

Thich Nhat Hanh has become an important influence in the development of Western Buddhism. He has published more than 100 books, including more than 40 in English, while also publishing a quarterly Dharma talk in the journal of the Order of Interbeing, the Mindfulness Bell. Nhat Hanh continues to be active in the peace movement, sponsoring retreats for Israelis and Palestinians, encouraging them to listen and learn about each other. He has conducted peace walks attended by thousands of people and he has given speeches urging warring countries to stop fighting and look for non-violent solutions to problems.

Disclaimer: Mud Puds bios are derived from widely-accepted “truths,” as shared in the Public Domain. In the absence of first-hand accounts, information is presented as: “Factual, as far as we know.”

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Home >> Legendary Mud Puds >> Pioneering Thinkers >> Richard St. Barbe Baker

Richard St. Barbe Baker

Richard St. Barbe Baker was an English forester, environmental activist, and author who contributed greatly to worldwide reforestation efforts. As a leader, he founded an organization called the Men of the Trees, active today as the International Tree Foundation, whose many chapters carry out reforestation internationally.

Being Beneath the Dirt

St. Barbe Baker was born into a family that descended from lines of farmers, parsons, and evangelists – with the occasional adventurer amongst his forebears, as well. Since his family’s home was surrounded by a forest, he began to explore the woods at an early age. His interest in the sciences of botany and forestry brought him to inland Canada in 1910, where he lived in rough-hewn conditions, traveling widely on horseback to study the region.

Branching Out Roots for Balance

During his time in Canada and through his forestry studies at Cambridge, he became convinced that the agricultural practices (including the razing of the natural scrub trees) by European settlers were leading to deplorable soil degradation and potential aridity on Canada’s prairies. He realized through observation that deforestation, resulting from the removal of trees without sufficient reforestation, results in soil-loss problems, in declines in habitat and biodiversity, declines in availability of wood for fuel and industrial use, and reduction in quality of life.

Rising like a Surfacing Stem

Working in North Africa, he saw the effects of centuries of land mismanagement. Immediately concerned with the deforestation problems, he set up a tree nursery and founded an organization with Kenya’s Kikuyu people to carry out managed reforestation in the region, utilizing native species. In the regional dialect, the local society was called “Watu wa Miti,” it was a foundation stone for what became an international organization, the Men of the Trees (a translation of the original name). On one occasion, during his reforestation efforts in Africa, an incident occurred in which he defended an African man against abuse by a British official and, thereby running afoul of the Colonial Office, he was discharged from his duties.

Reaching Fruition

On his own again, he attended the First World Forestry Congress in Rome and then went on to work in Palestine and set up a chapter of the Men of the Trees there. St. Barbe Baker won the support of Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith who became the first life member of the Men of the Trees in Palestine. He earned the support of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian leaders for a program to reforest Palestine.

The magnitude of his influence reached every continent. He lectured across America, and worked with President Franklin D. Roosevelt to establish the American Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), said eventually to involve some six-million youths. Even more immense was his challenge of gradually reclaiming the Sahara Desert through the strategic planting of trees. This idea took shape after a 25,000-mile expedition around the Desert (through 24 countries) that he made with a team in 1964.

Leaving a Legacy

St. Barbe Baker’s organization, the Men of the Trees, eventually grew to be known as the International Tree Foundation. Ultimately, there were chapters in over 100 countries. By some estimates, organizations he founded or assisted have been responsible for planting at least 26 trillion trees, internationally. After World War II, a lecture tour into Austria, Germany and other countries launched his concept of an international Green Front to promote the idea of reforestation worldwide.

Disclaimer: Mud Puds bios are derived from widely-accepted “truths,” as shared in the Public Domain. In the absence of first-hand accounts, information is presented as: “Factual, as far as we know.”

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