Imagine being the first human to see things that others in the world have never seen and trying to convince others around him that the invisible organisms are real. That person is Anthony van Leeuwenhoek. Leeuwenhoek was born in 1632 in the city of Delft, Netherlands. By day, he made a living by selling clothes. By night, he made lenses used in microscopes and telescopes, which were invented by fellow Dutch during his times. Unlike others in this field, Leeuwenhoek never went to university, was not a trained scientist. Despite the lack of training, he taught himself to make lenses with a skill that no one else could match. His lenses could magnify objects up to 270 times. In his day, his instruments were unrivaled. But Leeuwenhoek was not just a good microscope maker, he was also an outstanding microscopist. Even though he was an amateur, he conducted his experiments with scientific methods. He was incredibly curious about everything around him. One day, his curiosity took him to explore one drop of lake water. What he saw took him by surprise. That one drop of water was teeming with life. He became the first person to see microorganisms. From then on, almost every thing he saw, he became the first human to see it. By the time he died at the age of 90, he, an amateur, had become one of the Royal Society’s most famous members. Due to his suspicious attitude, he never shared or taught his lens-making technique to anyone. In one letter, he complained that students were more interested in money or reputation than making discoveries. His bias almost destroyed his legacy because when others looked through their inferior microscopes, they saw nothing, so the interest in microbiology declined. It would be a century and a half later until new discoveries were again made in the field of microbes.