The success of America as a country is a fact acknowledged widely by all around the globe. However, if one may ponder over the reasons behind the success of this great nation then it would mainly be accounted to two major factors: the people and the various opportunities available to them. America is known for its freedom of choice and place where dreams come true. It is highly successful nation which is famous for its ability to bring out the best in people. American laws, systems, securities and liberties are not perfect but they are the most unusual ones worldwide. They have been around since the inception of the country and are associated with the reason of success. They have improved through various judicial processes over time. Opportunity has been termed as one of the major milestones to success and America has the perfect equation for success.
Having said all that, America has also been extremely fortunate to be blessed with the most gifted set of people. For centuries America has spurned out thousands of gifted individuals belonging to every sect of life who have made their place in history. Many of these individuals have risen from the ashes to great heights and achieved big milestones for both themselves and the great nation which provided them with the opportunity to fly away. This paper will talk in length about seven of these extremely gifted individuals
George Washington:
He was the first person to preside over the United States of America and is also known as one of the founding fathers of the nation. Washington was also the Commander in Chief of the Continental Army when the American Revolutionary War was taking place. The supreme law of the land of the United States of America is governed by the United States Constitution which replaced the Articles of Confederation. George Washington was the president of the convention which drafted this constitution. He won the presidency after a unanimous voting carried out by elector in two elections: 1788-89 and 1792. He was responsible for the building of a country which was strong, financially stable and neutral during the many wars that took place in Europe while also suppressing rebellion and wining the hearts of millions of Americans all over the country. Washington is responsible for the creation of many new forms in government, many of which are still used currently which include the likes of cabinet system and inaugural address. George Washington also set the tradition of having peaceful transitions from one president to another up until Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected that too in his third time. Father of America was the title bestowed upon Washington even when he was alive. He made sure that America does not go to war with the Great Britain and also made sure that there exists peace and profitable trade for a decade by signing the Jay Treaty in the year 1795 even though he faced a lot of opposition from the Jeffersonians. When he was not satisfied with the Continental Congress in 1787 Washington became the president of the Constitutional Convention that came up with the new federal government to rule the United States of America. He was the unanimous winner of the first presidential elections of the United States that took place in 1789 yet he tried his utmost to make sure there is unification of the rival factions of the country’s government. He was in full favor of the programs by Alexander Hamilton which paid off all the debts of the nation and the state and which made there a plan for an effective tax system is implemented and he also was the creator of the national bank while he faced a lot of opposition from Thomas Jefferson.
Abraham Lincoln:
He was the 16th president of the United States if America. Lincoln was the president of the country when it was going through its bloodiest war and its biggest moral, political and constitutional crisis i.e. the Civil War. This was he also preserved the Union, while abolishing slavery, modernizing the economy and strengthening the federal government of America. The North side of the country was the reason for his election as they zealously rallied behind the Union after the Fort Sumter Confederate attack which happened in 1861 on the 12th of April. Lincoln’s main concentration was on the political and military aspect of the entire war scenario. His main goal was to make sure that the nation is unified. He was responsible for the unilateral suspension of the Habeas corpus and he arrested and also temporarily detained a lot of people who had either anti-war or secessionist views in the Border States without any fair trial. Lincoln was the one responsible for averting British intervention by defusion of the Trent Affair in the end of the year 1861. He had complex strategies which mainly focused on freeing the slaves in the Emancipation Proclamation in the year 1863. He used the Army to protect slaves who had escaped. He was also in fair of the Border States outlawing slavery and was in association in pushing the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in Congress. This permanently made sure that slavery is now outlawed. Lincoln was also in a position to closely supervise the war effort specifically the top generals which also include his most successful general Ulysses S. Grant. Lincoln was responsible for making the main decisions when the war strategy of the Union was concerned. During Lincoln’s time the Navy established a naval blockade which closed down the normal trade of South, helped in establishing their control over Kentucky and Tennessee while also gaining authority over the Southern river system by the use of gunboats. Lincoln also tried a lot of times to capture Richmond which the capital of the Confederate every time a general of his was unsuccessful Lincoln would substitute him with another until finally Grant was successful in 1865.
Thomas Edison:
Thomas Alva Edison was an American innovator and representative. He created numerous gadgets that enormously impacted life as far and wide as possible, including the phonograph, the film cam, and a durable, useful electric light. Named "The Wizard of Menlo Park", he was one of the first creators to apply the standards of large scale manufacturing and substantial scale cooperation to the methodology of innovation and in view of that, he is regularly credited with the production of the first mechanical exploration laboratory.
Edison was a productive innovator, holding 1,093 US licenses in his name, and additionally numerous licenses in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. More critical than the quantity of Edison's licenses was the broad effect of his creations: electric light and force utilities, sound recording, and movies all settled major new businesses around the world. Edison's creations helped mass correspondence and, specifically, information transfers. These incorporated a stock ticker, a mechanical vote recorder, a battery for an electric auto, electrical force, recorded music and films.
Jonas Edward Salk
Salk was an American therapeutic scientist and virologist. He found and created the first fruitful inactivated polio antibody. Conceived in New York City to Jewish folks, he went to New York University School of Medicine, later deciding to do restorative research as opposed to turning into a honing doctor.
In 1947, Salk acknowledged an arrangement to the University Of Pittsburgh School Of Medicine. In 1948, he attempted an undertaking supported by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis to focus the quantity of distinctive sorts of polio infection. Salk saw a chance to develop this undertaking towards creating an antibody against polio, and, together with the gifted examination group he collected, dedicated him to this work for the following seven years. The field trial set up to test the Salk immunization was, as per O'neill, "the most expand project of its kind ever, including 20,000 doctors and general wellbeing officers, 64,000 school staff, and 220,000 volunteers." Over 1,800,000 school kids joined in the trial. When news of the antibody's prosperity was made open on April 12, 1955, Salk was hailed as an issue "specialist" and the day very nearly turned into a national occasion. As far and wide as possible, a prompt hurry to inoculate started, with nations including Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, West Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Belgium wanting to start polio inoculation fights utilizing Salk's antibody.
Martin Luther King. Jr:
He was an American pastor, humanitarian, leader as well as activities in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is very famous for the role that he played in advancing the rights of the civilians by utilizing non-violent techniques of civil disobedience whose roots were derived from his Christian beliefs. King used to be a Baptist minister before becoming an activist of civil rights in the early stages of his career. He was responsible for leading the Montgomery Bus Boycott which occurred in 1955 and also was in association with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) which happened in 1957, King served as their president. King tried, in vain, to lead a movement against the segregation that happened in Albany, Georgia in the year 1962. He also tried with the SCLS to lead non violent protests in Alabama in Birmingham that also attracted the attention of state television when the brutal response to this protest by the police appeared in the news coverage. King was also the one who organized the March on Washington in 1963 which the venue of King delivering his world famous “I have a Dream” speech. After this only did King establish his reputation of being in the top tier American orators. King also received a Nobel Peace Prize for battling the inequality of races by the help of non violence in 1964. SCLC and King organized marches from Selma to Montgomery in 1965 and the year after that he moved the marches up north to Chicago so as to work on segregated housing. King also decided to talk about poverty and Vietnam War in his 1967 speech which is known as “Beyond Vietnam” where King let goes of several of his allies. King was assassinated in 1968 when he was in the mists of the national occupation of Washington D.C. which would have been known as the “Poor People’s Campaign”.
Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs is known as the “modern day hero. He is an inspiration to many, as an entrepreneur, as a leader, as an innovator and as a manager. He is the creator of revolution in technology by making smart phones which seem magical, iPads and MacBooks. It is Steve Jobs that made technology a great part of everyday life which a lot of people cannot live without.
The unique thing about his accomplishments is that even his rivals strive to be like him and consider him an ideal. Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt said in a recent interview that the hero in tech industry is Steve Jobs and every technological person should aspire to be a percentage of what he was. Steve Jobs remain a hero for both, Eric Schmidt and Tim Cook who is the current CEO of apple.
According to Tim Cooks, Apple will carry the values which Steve Jobs had for the company as his vision was far beyond the years he was the CEO and he was alive. Tim Cook stated that even the current projects of Apple which are under process today, after the death of Steve Jobs, have great influence over them and every project has an idea behind it which can relate to the great legacy Jobs left behind for the company which makes him a true hero.
His major accomplishments include taking Apple to new heights with his innovative products like iMac, iPhone, iPad and iPod. In 1998 he came up with MacWorld 98, and later that year he introduced iMac to the world. By introducing iPod, he shook the music world and Apple started dominating the portable music player industry. His most important accomplishment was the iPhone in 2007, which changed the game for the mobile industry and introduced a smart phone like no other. In 2010, he came up with the iPad, which exceeded people’s wildest expectations from a tablet computer and that is a product which has been widely copied in the world and different companies try to copy iPhone and iPads , but Apple remains the leader in every sphere which is the major accomplishment of Steve Jobs.
Barrack Obama:
Barack Hussein Obama is the current President of the United States. He is the forty fourth President overall and the first African American in the office. Obama was born in Hawaii, and got his education from the prestigious institutes like Columbia University and Harvard Law School. He was a group coordinator in Chicago in the witness of gaining his law degree. He functioned as a lawyer and taught at the University of Chicago Law School.
In 2004, Obama got national consideration amid his battle to speak to Illinois in the United States Senate with his triumph in the March Democratic Party essential, his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July, and his race to the Senate in November. He started his presidential battle in 2007 and, after a nearby essential fight against Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2008; he won sufficient delegates in the Democratic Party primaries to get the presidential assignment. He then crushed Republican candidate John Mccain in the general decision, and was introduced as president on January 20, 2009. Nine months after his race, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
Bibliography
Adkins, J. (2009). Thomas Edison. DK.
Andrews, P. (2010). Whom am I? : the story of Barrack Obama. Ujuzi Books.
Carson, B. (2012). America the beautiful : rediscovering what made this nation great. Mich. : Zondervan,.
Irving, W., Guttmann, A., & Sappenfield, J. A. (1982). Life of George Washington. Twayne Publishers.
Isaacson, W. (2011). Steve Jobs. Simon & Schuste.
Rappaport, D., & Collier, B. (2001). Martin's big words : the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Hyperion Books for Children.
Sandburg, C. (1954). Abraham Lincoln : the prairie years and the war years. Harcourt, Brace.
Sherrow, V. (1993). Jonas Salk. Facts On File.
Shippen, K. B. (1950). Passage to America; the story of the great migrations. Harper.
