“A pen is to me as a beak is to a hen.” – J.R.R. Tolkien.

J. R. R. Tolkien Biography

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, known as J.R.R. Tolkien, was born on 3 January 1892 in Bloemfontein in what was then called the Orange Free State but which is now part of South Africa. He is best known for his high fantasy works of fiction which take place in the prehistoric world Tolkien created.

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When Tolkien was only three years old, he took a family trip to England that was supposed to be temporary. Unfortunately, however, his father died of rheumatic fever in Africa and was never able to see them again. His family had little to no income after his father’s death, so Tolkien’s mother sent him to live with her parents in Birmingham, England. Whilst growing up in Birmingham, and later in a Worcestershire village called Sarehole, he enjoyed exploring and later used these childhood experiences as a backdrop to write his fiction against.

Tolkien’s mother Mabel taught her children at home, and Ronald (as Tolkien was referred to at home), was an extremely bright student. He liked to draw landscapes and foliage, but what he most enjoyed learning were languages and his mother taught him basic Latin at a young age. Ronald could fluently read and write from around the age of four. His mother encouraged him to read quite a bit and he especially enjoyed Fairy Books written by Andrew Lang whose influences can be seen in his writings.

Mabel died in 1904 when Ronald was only 12 years old. She had acute diabetes which was untreatable because insulin would not be discovered until 20 years later.  After his mother’s death, he attended King Edward School in Birmingham where he and a few of his friends formed a secret society known as the “Tea Club and Barrovian Society”, or T.C.B.S for short. After leaving the school, all the members remained in contact, and in December 1914 they had a meeting which would lead to Tolkien’s interest in poetry.

In 1911, J R R Tolkien attended university at Exeter College, Oxford. At first, he studied classics but changed his path to study English literature, graduating with first class honors in his finals.

When he was 16 years old, he met Edith Brett who was three years older than him. He loved her for a long time and on his 21st birthday he wrote to her. There were a few complications in- between, but in 1916 they were married. They would have four children together and Tolkien was very close to each of them.

Three days after their wedding, on 5 June 1916, Tolkien had to go to France to serve in the First World War. There were many times when he had the potential to be killed, but because he suffered from health issues he was often removed from combat. Throughout the war, Tolkien was weak and emaciated, spending most of his time alternating between hospitals. While he was recovering, he started to write what he called The Book of Lost Tales which represented an attempt to create a mythology for England, but ultimately he would never complete the project.

In 1920, J R R Tolkien left the army with the rank of lieutenant and entered civilian life. His first job as a civilian was at the Oxford Dictionary where he worked on the history and etymology of words, particularly those with a Germanic origin starting with the letter W. After this, he had a position as reader in English at the University of Leeds, becoming the youngest professor at the college.

In 1937, his most well-known work, The Hobbit was published, which quickly received critical acclaim and he was nominated for the Carnegie Medal as well as earning a prize from the New York Herald Tribune. While World War I was said to be the war to end all wars, unfortunately, another one loomed. In the lead up to World War II, Tolkien was selected to be a code breaker and in 1939 he was told to prepare to serve in th...

“I have ways of making money that you know nothing of” – John D. Rockefeller

For a man who was never president nor a world-changing inventor, it is surprising to many that the name John D Rockefeller continues to echo all the way from the 19th century through to the present.  But whereas he may not have been a pivotal political figure, John D Rockefeller was one of the most important and powerful businessmen in nineteenth and early twentieth-century America and it was his vast wealth and the way that he utilized it that would cement his place in history.

Born on 8 July 1839 in Richford, New York,

John Davison Rockefeller was part of a large family, although at the time the

Rockefellers were not known for being particularly wealthy. The family moved

many times throughout John’s young life before they finally ended up in

Cleveland, Ohio.

John D Rockefeller began his forays into business at the young age of 16 when he began work as a bookkeeper, and by the time he was 20 he had already begun to enter into several business partnerships, specifically in the energy sector. Refined oil was on the rise as an energy source overtaking whale oil as the primary source of energy for heating and lighting during the middle of the 19th century.

Kerosene was superior to whale oil in many

ways, not the least of which was its ease of acquisition as it did not require long

costly sea voyages nor dangerous harvesting from an increasingly difficult to

find marine mammal. Rockefeller founded his first oil company, Standard Oil, in

1870 and after he retired as the official head of the company in 1897, he remained

its primary shareholder.

Through this new oil empire which was satisfying an ever-increasing demand from the American public for kerosene and gasoline, John D. Rockefeller became the wealthiest person in the country and perhaps even the world. At the peak of his power, John D Rockefeller controlled 90% of all oil in the United States, and Standard Oil had a near-total monopoly in refined oil products. The company also made huge technological leaps when it came to oil refinery and also made vast improvements in how such a complex corporate organisation should be structured.

Although electricity and the light bulb

replaced oil as a source of lighting in the early 20th century, the

demand for gasoline increased exponentially as the motor car became

increasingly within the grasp of the working man.  The internal combustion engine allowed those

who controlled the oil industry to not only maintain but expand their vast

wealth.

Because of his near-total monopoly on oil and his extreme wealth John D Rockefeller was able to gain significant control over the railroad industry as well as this was required to move his oil around the country. With this control and the improved efficiency with which Standard Oil could move oil around the country, Rockefeller was able to supply it more cheaply leading to an even greater increase in demand.

Like mythological King Midas, when it came to

Rockefeller even things that might at first seem disastrous ended up being

beneficial to him.  In 1911 the Supreme

Court ruled against Standard Oil for being in violation of new antitrust laws

and the company was broken up into over 30 separate entities. Some of the new

companies that were formed as a result of this are still familiar today. Brand

names such as Exxon-Mobil and Chevron are among the highest-grossing

oil-producing and distributing companies in the world.

Whilst the breakup of a company might have hurt other men,

“A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.” – Alexander Hamilton.

Alexander Hamilton was one of the founding fathers of the United States of America. He was heavily involved in promoting the US Constitution in addition to founding the nation’s financial system, The US Coast Guard, and the New York Post.

Alexander Hamilton was born on 11 January 1757 in the British West Indies in the Caribbean, on the island of St. Kitts and Nevis. He was cared for by an older cousin as a child, due to the death of his mother and the fact that his father had abandoned them, and then afterward, by an affluent merchant family.

Unfortunately, because Hamilton’s parents had not been legally married, the church of England did not allow Alexander or his brother James to be members of the church, or to have an education in the church school. Instead, they had private tutoring and classes in a school managed by a Jewish headmistress. He was also partially self-taught thanks to his family library which contained 34 books.

Alexander Hamilton became a clerk at an export store and during this continued to enjoy reading which later led to an interest in writing. However, it wouldn’t be long before he sought a life away from the island and eventually moved to New York.

Early on it was easy to see that he had the potential for success due to his intelligence, and a group of local men from New York City sponsored him to travel and pursue education.

For his formal education, Alexander Hamilton went to Kings College which is now Columbia University and he decided to stay in the original 13 colonies.

In 1764, there was much dispute about the New York region being divided. This dispute between New York and New Hampshire later resulted in the state of Vermont. Throughout this time, arguments went back and forth about who the territory belonged to but Alexander Hamilton was an advocate of Vermont becoming a state in its own right.

In 1774 a clergyman for the Church of England called Seaberry, published some pamphlets which promoted the Loyalist cause. Alexander Hamilton responded anonymously, which was the start of his political writings. He was a long-time supporter of the revolutionary cause even before the war and in 1775, Hamilton was credited for saving the Loyalist college president Myles Cooper from a mob by giving a speech to the mob long enough for Cooper to escape.

Following his graduation, Alexander Hamilton was influential in the American Revolutionary War, and became involved with a militia and enjoyed combat and command of soldiers in particular. He worked with George Washington on several missions to communicate plans to Washington’s generals, but the more he worked with him the less chance he got to be involved in the fighting. Hamilton’s desire to return to combat and command began to intensify as the war was winding down as he knew he would have fewer and fewer opportunities for military glory. He even threatened Washington, stating that he would resign if he did not get his desired command. In 1781, Washington relented and assigned Hamilton to be commander of a New York infantry battalion.

Once the war was over, Alexander Hamilton was elected to represent the Congress of the Confederation from New York. After this, he started to work in law, as well as establishing the Bank of New York which eventually became one of the oldest functioning banks in US history, being in business independently for over 220 years. It is known today as BNY Mellon.

Alexander Hamilton felt dissatisfied with the present national government and desired for the Philadelphia convention to create a new constitution. He was very active in Philadelphia and wrote the majority of the Federalist papers, which even now are the single most important source to interpret the Constitution. He did not do this alone, however, as the Federalist papers began as a series of es...

“There is no greater harm than that of time wasted.” – Michelangelo

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was born on 6 March 1475 in the village of Caprese, which is in Tuscany, Italy, approximately 100km to the east of Florence. His family was in the banking business and so while not affluent, they certainly weren’t poor. His father, Leonardo, was also a magistrate in Caprese. He and his wife Francesca Neri had five sons, of which Michelangelo was the second, and shortly after he was born, the family moved back to their home city of Florence. During this period, though, his mother became ill and so Michelangelo stayed for a while with a family of stonecutters.

Michelangelo attended grammar school in Florence but academic study was not high on his list of interests and he soon became interested in watching what the local painters and sculptors were doing. His father too realised that his second son would not follow in his footsteps to enter the finance business and so he arranged for him to be apprenticed to Domenico Ghirlandaio a well known Florentine painter when Michelangelo was still only thirteen years old.

In 1489, only a year after starting his apprenticeship, Ghirlandaio arranged for him to spend time at the palace of Florence’s Medici ruler Lorenzo the Magnificent, in order for him to study the sculptures in the palace’s gardens. This was an extraordinary opportunity for Michelangelo as it gave him access to not only the sculptures but also to the elite ruling class of Florence as well as poets, painters, and sculptors. He also studied anatomy and had direct access to cadavers to help him, which is more than likely what led to Michelangelo’s sculpting style which includes incredible detail of the musculature of the human body.

After Lorenzo’s death in 1492, Florence was thrown into political turmoil and so Michelangelo fled 100km north to the city of Bologna, where he continued his studies. He returned to Florence to begin work as a sculptor three years later.

After selling one of his sculptures to Cardinal Riario of San Giorgio he found the Cardinal to be so impressed with his work that he was invited to Rome which is where Michelangelo made his home and would live and work for the rest of his life.

While in Rome and still at the age of only twenty-five, he created one of his first masterpieces. Commissioned by a representative of King Charles VIII of France, Cardinal Jean Bilheres de Lagraulas, the Pieta, a sculpture of Mary holding the dead body of Jesus is carved from a single piece of marble and the lifelikeness of the work is still astonishing today. It is currently housed in a position of prominence at St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. It is also the only work which bears Michelangelo’s name as he signed it after overhearing people claiming it was a work by another sculptor.

Michelangelo was now starting to become a bit of a star in the world of art and was commissioned by the new Pope Julius II to build him a tomb, which was designed to consist of 40 statues. Excited at the prospect of such a huge undertaking, Michelangelo spent eight months quarrying the marble, only to find that when he returned to Rome to start work, the Pope had lost interest and had turned his attention to a rebuild of St. Peter’s church. Frustrated, Michelangelo left Rome for Florence.

Whilst there, between 1501 and 1504, Michelangelo created his next great masterpiece that would become one of the enduring symbols of Florence. Now considered to be probably the world’s greatest sculpture, Michelangelo’s David is a nude statue of the biblical hero David which stands seventeen feet tall. It can currently be seen in the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence, Italy.

Pope Julius had not finished with Michelangelo though and had him returned to Rome, where he was required to turn his attention away from sculpting and towards painting when he asked him to d...

“I ought to be jealous of the tower. She is more famous than I am.” – Gustave Eiffel.

Gustave Eiffel was born on 15 December 1832 in the city of Dijon, the historical capital of the Burgundy region of France. His family name is Bönickhausen and that is the name under which his birth was registered, but the family took the name Eiffel from the name of the mountains near to where they emigrated from in Germany. Gustave’s surname though, was not formally changed until 1880.

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Although close to his parents, his mother especially, due to their work commitments, Gustave lived with his grandmother. His mother sold her business in 1843 and retired.

Although fairly successful with his education, he didn’t take it seriously enough in his early years as he found it boring. However, he learned a lot about chemistry and mining from Jean-Baptiste Mollerat who was his uncle, and who owned a large chemical works and his friend Michel Perret who was a chemist. Due to their influence and that of some of his teachers, Gustave Eiffel went on to attend college at Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, specialising in chemistry. He graduated in 1855, and Gustave’s mother bought him a season ticket to the World’s Fair, the second of which took place in Paris that same year.

Gustave Eiffel’s first paid job was as secretary to Charles Nepveu who was a railway engineer. Nepveu’s business went bankrupt shortly afterward but some parts of it were acquired by other companies and as Nepveu became managing director of two factories in Paris, he gave Eiffel the job of heading up his research department. Nepveu won a contract to design and build a railway bridge over the river Garonne and Gustave Eiffel eventually took over the project when Nepveu resigned in 1860. As the project was completed on time, Eiffel started to make a name for himself and started to win promotions within the company, but unfortunately, it went into decline and Eiffel resigned in 1865.

He set himself up as an independent engineer and won a number of important contracts including the construction of two railway stations and a number of locomotives for the Egyptian government. He also worked on the iron work for the exhibition hall which was to be used for the 1867 Exposition Universelle. Gustave Eiffel’s work led to him learning a lot about the properties of cast iron.

He continued working on lucrative projects, some overseas and some in France, including two viaducts which were used on the line to Bordeaux from Lyon. One of his overseas contracts was for prefabricated sections of a building which was shipped over to Chile and became the Church of San Marcos in Arica.

Gustave Eiffel entered into a partnership in 1868 with Theophile Seyrig forming a company with him called Eiffel et Cie. The company worked on more lucrative and important contracts in the railway industry, including terminal buildings and bridges and in 1878 Gustave’s reputation was firmly established at that year’s Exposition Universelle as he was responsible for the construction of several buildings at the exposition as well as exhibiting models of work that he and his company had completed in the past.

The following year, Gustave Eiffel’s partnership with Seyrig came to an end and Eiffel renamed the company Compagnie des, Etablissements Eiffel. The company worked on a number of bridges over the next couple of years and continued to further establish Eiffel’s name in the field. It was during this time that he started to work with some of the people who would be involved in the Eiffel Tower project.

In 1881, Gustave Eiffel became involved in the construction of his first World renowned tourist attraction when he was contacted by Auguste Bartholdi, the designer of the Statue of Liberty.

“You may all go to Hell, and I will go to Texas” – Davy Crockett.

There is probably not a person in America

who was a child in the mid-1950s who can’t still sing the theme song to the TV

show Davy Crockett.  “Born on a

mountaintop in Tennessee, greenest state in the land of the free.  Raised in the woods so he knew every

tree.  Killed him a bear, when he was

only 3.” Sales of coonskin caps like the character of Davy Crockett wore were

huge.  But who was this he? 

Davy Crockett was a real person, who led a

very interesting life.  He was descended

from French Huguenots, one of whom served in King Louis XIV’s Household Troops.

His father, John fought at the Battle of Kings Mountain during the American

Revolutionary War.

Davy Crockett himself served in the

military as well and was also elected to Congress before famously dying at the

Battle of the Alamo.

He was born on 17 August 1786 in Greene

County, Tennessee, the middle child of 9. 

It’s easy to say he was meant to be a frontiersman, having been taught

by his father to shoot his rifle at the tender age of eight. He loved to go hunting,

but his father insisted he go to school when he became a teenager although

school lasted less than a month as he ran away following an altercation with

the school bully.

Davy Crockett did return a few years later at age 15 to help pay off debts his father owed, first to Abraham Wilson and then John Canady. His father had told him he was free to leave but he decided to stay in John Canady’s employ for a further four years during which time he fell in love with John Canady’s niece Amy Summer, who unfortunately for Davy was engaged to be married to Canady’s son, John.

Just before he turned 20, Davy Crockett married his first wife, Mary Finley, known as Polly, and they moved to a small farm.  They had three children but sadly Mary died in 1815.  Crockett then married a widow called Elizabeth Patton who already had two children, with the couple going on to have two more children of their own.

Davy Crockett’s military career began during the War of 1812 when he enlisted as a scout with a company of mounted riflemen. Serving under Colonel John Coffee, he preferred to hunt wild game rather than kill Creek warriors, staying with the company until December 1813.

Crockett reenlisted and was given the rank

of third-sergeant in the Tennessee Mounted Gunmen with the aim of helping

Andrew Jackson drive the British out of Spanish Florida although he saw little

action. He served out his term, returning home in December 1814.

During 1817 Davy Crockett entered public office for the first time when he became a commissioner of Lawrence County following which he became a justice of the peace.  As he was also now running several businesses he found that he no longer had the time required to dedicate to public office and so resigned as Justice of the Peach in 1819. In 1821 he stepped down as commissioner and successfully ran for a seat in the Tennessee House of Representatives.   Only a few weeks later, the Tennessee River flooded and destroyed his business.

Davy Crockett first ran for the US Congress in 1825, a bid that was unsuccessful but in 1827 he did win and was also re-elected for the 1829-31 session. During this session, Crockett introduced a resolution to abolish the United States Military Academy at West Point and also opposed President Jackson’s 1830 Indian Removal Act. However, his opposition was not popular with his own district and so he lost the election of...

“The most important tool of my trade was a mirror” – Lana Turner

Lana Turner was one of the most famous women of the 20th century. She was a Hollywood actress, sex symbol, pinup girl and a film, theatre and television icon who had one of the longest and most illustrious careers of any professional actress, a career that spanned almost 50 years and turned her into one of Hollywood’s highest-paid stars and is an example of what many consider to be the fulfillment of the American Dream as she started with nothing and ended up with the world at her feet.

Lana Turner was born on 8 February 1921 in the small mining town of Wallace, Idaho as Julia Jean Turner and was known as Judy by many of her childhood friends.  She showed an obvious interest in the performing arts even as a toddler performing dance routines for anyone who would watch her.

The family struggled to make ends meet in Idaho and so when Judy was only six years old they relocated to San Francisco. Things changed after this move though as her mother and father soon separated and when Turner was only around 9 years old in 1930, her father was found bludgeoned to death having been robbed of some money he had won in a craps game. His death affected Turner deeply and she commented on the great sense of loss in her life and her need to grow up too quickly. She also occasionally commented on how difficult things were, remembering that it would be common for her to only have crackers and milk to live on for most of the week.

As happens on occasion her fortunes changed by

accident when at the age of 15 she was spotted by the publisher of the

Hollywood Reporter, William R. Wilkerson buying a soda at the Top Hat Malt Shop

on Sunset Boulevard having skipped a lesson at the Hollywood High School she

was attending in Hollywood, California.

After gaining consent from her mother to follow

up on an offer from Wilkerson to get into the movie industry she was referred

by Wilkerson to Zeppo Marx who in turn passed her on to the movie director

Mervyn LeRoy and he immediately signed her to a $50 per week contract with

Warner Brothers. This was on 22 February 1937 when Turner had only just

celebrated her 16th birthday. It was LeRoy who suggested she change

her name to Lana.

Lana Turner starred in her first role in the

film They Won’t Forget in 1937 in which she played a murder victim. This role

would be the start of a movie career that regularly saw Lana appearing as a

woman of intrigue and mystery but also set the tone for her physical appearance

as she was required to wear a tight form-fitting sweater in the movie. Something

that she was embarrassed about at the time, even sinking lower and lower down

into her seat at the movie’s premiere noting that it was the first time she had

ever seen herself walk.

Later in 1937, she followed LeRoy from Warner

Brothers to MGM where he had been hired as an executive and signed a new

contract worth $100 per week. During her early MGM career, she worked alongside

Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland and even screen-tested for the part of Scarlett

O’Hara in Gone with the Wind, a part which eventually went to Vivien Leigh.

However, despite her career starting to take off in the late 1930s, it truly

blossomed in the 40s and 50s when she was widely considered one of the most

beautiful actresses in Hollywood.

During the 1940s she starred in such films as, Ziegfeld Girl, a musical in which she had a lead role opposite James Stewart, Hedy Lamarr, and

“That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind” – Neil Armstrong

Neil Armstrong had flying in the blood one might say. Born in Ohio on 5 August 1930, Neil Armstrong attended his first aviation event at the Cleveland air races at the ripe old age of only two. By the age of six, he had taken his first ride in a plane when he and his father flew in a Ford Trimotor in Warren, Ohio. During high school he started to take flying lessons, getting his flight certificate on his sixteenth birthday which was before he even got his driver’s license.

However, this was not the only area in which Neil Armstrong excelled, as he also demonstrated exemplary leadership, character, and academic prowess by achieving the rank of Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts, even being awarded a Distinguished Eagle Scout Award. He studied Aeronautical Engineering at Purdue, the university he had chosen to attend, even though he had been accepted into MIT.

Everyone knows that Neil Armstrong is famous for being the first man to step foot on the moon, but he achieved much more than that before he even joined NASA.

He was a naval officer and flew missions in the Korean War while stationed on the aircraft carrier USS Essex flying the Grumman F9F Panther. Despite his extreme flying proficiency and his love for his chosen vocation, his plane was taken down by an anti-aircraft cable during a low-level bombing mission in 1951. The cable sliced off a large section of the wing and although Neil Armstrong managed to get the aircraft back into friendly territory, he was forced to eject and was picked up by his flight school roommate in his jeep. In total, he flew 78 missions over Korea with his last one being on 5 March 1952.

After the Korean War, he went back to Purdue to finish his degree and during this time he met Janet Elizabeth Shearon and the couple were married on 28 January 1956. They went on to have three children together: Eric, Karen, and Mark, although unfortunately, Karen was soon diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour and died at the age of two. Following a marriage that lasted 38 years, Neil and Janet divorced in 1994 having been separated since 1990. Neil would meet his second wife Carol in 1992. They married on 12 June 1994.

During his time at college, Neil Armstrong was never far away from aviation and became president of the Purdue flying club. Following his graduation, he became a test pilot with the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics at Edwards Air Force Base, reporting for duty on 11 July 1955.

During his time there Armstrong piloted a number of different aircraft types including the North American F-100 Super Sabre, the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II, and the Boeing B-29 Superfortress among others. Having piloted multi-engined propeller-driven aircraft as well as fast jets, he also flew the rocket-powered aircraft, the Bell X-1B and the North American X-15, which he flew seven times reaching speeds of up to 6420 km/h or Mach 5.74.

In June 1958 Neil Armstrong began participating in the US Air Force Man in Space Soonest program which was soon replaced by Project Mercury, a civilian program run by NASA. The goal was to try to find smart, capable, and accomplished pilots who possessed the necessary attributes to enable them to become astronauts.

Although Neil Armstrong was not part of the first group selected by NASA for the astronaut corps, he was quickly picked up in the second group which was selected in 1962 for a new project called Gemini with Armstrong being selected as commander of Gemini 8 thus becoming the first civilian in space as he had resigned his Air Force commission on 21 October 1960.

“Women, like men, should try to do the impossible. And when they fail, their failure should be a challenge to others” – Amelia Earhart

Born on 24 July 1897 at her grandfather’s home in Atchison,

Kansas, Amelia Mary Earhart was the daughter of Samuel Stanton Earhart, a claims

officer for the Rock Island Railroad and his wife Amy. She grew up with her

sister Grace Muriel Earhart, who was affectionately known as Pidge and was two

years Amelia’s junior with the two of them known to regularly go off exploring

around their local neighbourhood, climbing trees and even hunting rats with a

rifle.

In 1904 at the age of around 7, Amelia, with her uncle’s

help, fixed a home-made ramp to the roof of the tool shed. Using a wooden box

as a sled, Amelia described her first trip off the end of the ramp to her sister

as “just like flying” even though up to that point she had never seen an aircraft.

That changed though after her father was transferred to Des Moines in Iowa in 1907, although the children didn’t move there permanently until 1909. During the intervening period, the girls were homeschooled by their mother with the help of a governess and Amelia remembered being very fond of reading lots of books in the family library where she spent many hours. When they did join their parents in Des Moines, it would be the first time that the two sisters received any formal education, with Amelia Earhart entering the seventh grade at the age of 12.

Amelia Earhart saw her first aircraft at the 1907 Iowa State Fair and Amelia’s father tried and failed to get the two sisters to take a ride but Amelia was more interested in the merry-go-round, describing the rickety old biplane as “a thing of rusty wire and wood and not at all interesting.”

Although finances seemed to be improving following the move to Des Moines, things took a turn for the worst as Edwin’s drinking turned into alcoholism and this led to him being forced to retire in 1914. He intended to recover from his addiction and sought treatment, but the railroad wouldn’t have him back. Around the same time, Amelia Earhart’s grandmother Amelia Otis died leaving a considerable estate that was put into trust to protect it from Edwin’s drinking. Amelia described this period of her life as the end of her childhood as the Otis house and contents were sold off.

Following an attempt by Edwin to return to work, a proposed move to Springfield, Missouri came to nothing and so Amy took the two girls to live with friends in Chicago where Amelia eventually enrolled at High Park High School as it had the best to offer in terms of its science classes, which Amelia had expressed an interest in but unfortunately her time there wasn’t a happy one. Amelia Earhart graduated in 1916 and started to look up to women who had found success in predominantly male roles, keeping a scrapbook about their exploits in fields such as mechanical engineering, law and film production.

Although Amelia Earhart began a college course at the Ogontz School in Rydal, Pennsylvania, she soon dropped out and visited her sister in Toronto during Christmas 1917 where she witnessed wounded soldiers returning home from war. This moved her to train as a nurse’s aide with the Red Cross and began working at the Spadina Military Hospital in Toronto where she prepared food and handed out prescription medication.

As the Spanish Flu took hold in 1918 and reached Toronto, Amelia Earhart’s nursing duties became more intensive but this ultimately led to her being hospitalised herself suffering from pneumonia and sinusitis. She underwent a number of small operations designed to resolve the sinusitis problem which were unsuccessful and she...

“All I know is just how to make people laugh” – Stan Laurel

Born on 16 June 1890 in Ulverston, Lancashire, England, Arthur

Stanley Jefferson, known later to the world as Stan Laurel, was the son of a

theatre manager from Bishop Auckland called Arthur Jefferson and an actress

from Ulverston called Margaret. He was born in his grandparents’ house and

spent a lot of time with his grandmother Sarah growing up as both of his

parents were very busy with theatre life.

Stanley was initially educated at King James I Grammar

School in Bishop Auckland before he moved with his parents to Glasgow, where he

attended Rutherglen Academy.

Growing up around the theatre, it was natural for him to become

involved and at the age of 16, he gave his first professional performance in pantomime

and music hall, during which he adopted one of his famous comedy devices, the

humble bowler hat.

By the time he turned 20 Stan Laurel joined the acting troupe of Fred Karno, the pioneer of slapstick, and toured the USA. During this time he was, for a short time, an understudy to one of the other actors in the troupe, the one and only Charlie Chaplin.

The First World War had begun whilst Stanley was in the USA and

although he registered for military service on 5 June 1917, he was never called

up due to deafness and his status as a resident alien.

In 1921, he met his future long-term comedy partner, Oliver Hardy when they both appeared in the film The Lucky Dog. At this point in time though, neither of them knew what the future would hold for them.

Around the same time, Stan Laurel met Mae Dahlberg and the pair stayed together for around six years although they were never married. It was she that suggested that he change his stage name, which at the time was Stanley Jefferson. She said that it was unlucky due to it having thirteen letters, and so Stanley settled on the name Laurel. Shortly afterward, he landed his first film contract and appeared alongside Mae in the film Mud and Sand in 1922. The contract didn’t last long due to a reorganisation at the Universal studio, but it was enough for Stanley to decide to leave the theatre and concentrate on film making.

His next contract was for 12 films with Joe Rock although

one stipulation was that Mae Dahlberg was not allowed to be in any of them as

Rock thought that she was having a negative effect on Laurel’s career. She wasn’t

going to go away lightly though, and her meddling prompted Rock to offer her

cash and a one-way ticket back to her home in Australia, which she accepted in

1925. The 12 films were all 2-reelers. Produced during 1924 and 1925 they

included West of Hot Dog, The Snow Hawk and The Sleuth.

On 13 August 1926, Stan Laurel married his first wife Lois

Nelson and their daughter, also called Lois was born on 10 December the

following year. The couple would then go on to have a son whom they called

Stanley in May 1930 but unfortunately, he was born two months premature and

only lived for nine days. Laurel and Lois would go on to divorce in December

1934.

Stan Laurel’s next contract was with the Hal Roach studio where he met up again with Oliver Hardy who was working on a film called Yes, Yes, Nanette under the name of Babe Hardy. Stan Laurel had initially signed with Hal Roach with the intention of writing and directing but when Oliver Hardy was injured and hospitalised, Stan filled in for him. When Hardy returned to work,