Excellent leaders have a certain brilliance in common that propels the masses to embrace change and new approaches. Throughout all of human history, there have always been notable figures in positions of power. The world we live in today is the result of their efforts. Some of history's greatest leaders are profiled below, along with their contributions.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, better known by his pen name, Mahatma Gandhi, is revered as a national hero. Gandhi, a social reformer and leader of the Indian Independence Movement, was the first to introduce the concept of nonviolent resistance, also known as Satyagraha. In 1915, he returned to India after leading a civil disobedience movement among South Africa's Indian population. He boarded a train in India and traveled to different regions to learn about the plight of farmers, peasants, and urban workers so he could organize protests on their behalf. When he took over the Indian National Congress in 1921, he quickly became the organization's most famous leader and a national hero in India. In 1930, he led the Dandi Salt March, and in 1942, he led the Quit India Movement. He also fought for the rights of the untouchables, helping to rebrand them as "Harijan," which means "children of God." Gandhi also contributed extensively to a number of newspapers, and the spinning wheel, which he used to symbolize the importance of independence for India, came to be widely recognized as a symbol of Gandhi and the Indian independence movement.
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela joined the African National Congress in 1944 and fought against the apartheid policies of the ruling National Party beginning in 1948. Between 1956 and 1961, he stood trial on treason charges but was eventually cleared. After the ANC was outlawed in 1960, Nelson Mandela advocated for the organization to establish a military wing. After hearing his proposal on the use of violent tactics in June 1961, the ANC executive decided that its members who wanted to participate in Mandela's campaign would not be prevented from doing so by the organization. Because of this, Umkhonto we Sizwe was established.
Winston Churchill was a statesman, orator, and author from Britain who served as prime minister twice (1940–45 and 1951–55) and led his country to victory in World War II. Despite his meteoric rise to power in national politics prior to World War I, Churchill was widely criticized for making rash decisions during the conflict and in the decade that followed. As a result, he was a political outcast until 1940, when, in response to Adolf Hitler's challenge, he emerged as the leader of a national coalition. After WWII, he helped shape Allied strategy alongside Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin, and after the collapse of the alliance, he warned the West of the expansionist threat posed by the Soviet Union.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is widely considered the most prominent proponent of nonviolence in the United States and one of the greatest nonviolent leaders in history. A greater amount of real progress was made toward racial equality in America by African Americans during the less than 13 years of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s leadership of the modern American Civil Rights Movement, from December 1955 until April 4, 1968. Dr. King, motivated by his Christian faith and the nonviolent teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, led a nonviolent movement in the United States in the late 1950s and '60s to secure civil rights for African-Americans. Martin Luther King Jr. was able to accomplish seemingly impossible goals through the power of words and acts of nonviolent resistance, such as protests, grassroots organizing, and civil disobedience, at a time when others were advocating for freedom by "any means necessary," including violence. He continued to lead campaigns against poverty and international conflict based on the principle that all people, regardless of race or religion, should be treated as equals.
Abraham Lincoln came from humble beginnings. Despite his limited formal education, he had a deep passion for reading and studying. His education consisted primarily of self-study and the use of library books. After enduring a lot of suffering in Kentucky, they all ultimately settled in Illinois, and it was there that he struck out on his own. Lincoln held a number of different jobs as a young man, including those of a shopkeeper, surveyor, and postmaster. At one point in his life, he even made a living by using an axe to split firewood. He soon moved into politics and won a seat in the Illinois Legislature when he was 25. Once his time in Congress was over, he returned to his legal career. Abraham Lincoln ran for the Senate of the United States later on. He lost the election, but his anti-slavery debate stance helped him become a household name across the country. In 1860, Abraham Lincoln ran for president of the United States.
Born to parents of Albanian descent in Skopje in 1910, Mother Teresa of Calcutta is also known as Gonxha Agnes Bojaxhiu. She went to India as a missionary and taught for many years before answering the "call within the call" to "give up all and follow Him into the slums—to serve Him in the poorest of the poor," thus founding the Missionaries of Charity to quench Jesus' thirst for love and save souls. She was beatified on October 19, 2003, by Pope John Paul II, and canonized on September 4, 2016, by Pope Francis.
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) is widely regarded as one of the most effective military commanders in human history. He became famous during the French Revolution (1789–99), and he ruled France twice (1804–14 and 1815) as emperor. Napoleon was first promoted to the rank of captain in the regular army in July 1792, and then to the position of commander of the French army in Italy in 1796 after assisting in the suppression of a royalist insurrection against the revolutionary government in Paris. Numerous victories against the Austrians and Napoleon's marriage to Joséphine de Beauharnais, whose first husband, Alexandre de Beauharnais, was famously guillotined during the Reign of Terror that followed the start of the French Revolution, significantly raised his national profile. Napoleon took office as the first consul in France in November 1799 and used his newfound power to begin constructing a military dictatorship across Europe. He re-established Roman Catholicism as the state religion, reformed the educational system, and oversaw the establishment of the Bank of France, among other achievements.
