Viennese Pauper W. A. MozartComposed his first opera, La finta semplice, at the age of 12. |
Corsican Lieutenant Napoleon BonaparteConquered most of Europe and Egypt. Emancipated the Jews throughout Europe. |
Madras Clerk Srinivasa RamanujanAfter failing his school examinations, Ramanujan obtained a position as a clerk in the city of Madras. Before his death at age 32, made fundamental advances in mathematics including Riemann series, the elliptic integrals, hypergeometric series and functional equations of the zeta function. |
Hartford Connecticut Insurance Executive Wallace StevensWon Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1954; best known for "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird". |
Programmed by Eve Astrid Andersson and Philip Greenspun back in the mid-1990s. If you're a nerd, you might find the source code useful.
Original Inspiration: How to Make Yourself Miserable, by Dan Greenburg