10 celebrities who would not have been born if their parents had not decided to have many children

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

First-borns, as a rule, are smarter and more talented than the next children in the family, scientists say. The reason for this is the smaller amount of attention and parental resources that go to the younger ones: if there is an opportunity to invest a lot of effort and time in the first or second child, then the third and fourth are not so lucky. And the fifth? Seventh? Seventeenth? Here are the people without whom the history of mankind would have been different, all of them are far from being the first to be born to their parents, who nevertheless managed to raise geniuses and winners.

1. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria in 1756. The genius composer was the youngest, the seventh child, born into the family of the musician Leopold Mozart and his wife Anna Maria. Five children died in infancy. Mozart grew up and was brought up with his sister Maria Anna, who began studying music before her brother.

The father, a violinist and composer, early discerned abilities in his son and daughter and studied a lot with both, and not only music. Thanks to Leopold, both received an excellent education at home, as well as the opportunity to see the world and show themselves: from a young age, Mozart was known as a talented musician-prodigy and delighted listeners, including the skills mastered with the help of his father, for example, to play the harpsichord with blindfolded.

2. Thomas Edison

Thomas Alva Edison was born in 1847 in Ohio, the seventh child of Samuel Ogden Edison and Nancy Matthews Elliott. In the future, a successful inventor, Edison hardly studied even at school - a few months after enrollment, young Thomas was taken to home school at the request of teachers. It is now assumed that the boy had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

His mother, a former school teacher, successfully taught young Edison to read and write, studied mathematics with him, and most importantly, did not interfere with exploring the world: the boy grew up extremely inquisitive. As he grew older, Edison worked hard to secure himself the opportunity to pay for chemical and physical experiments and maintain a laboratory: the Edison family could not boast of wealth.

3. Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin

It is believed that the great Russian biologist and breeder was the seventh child in the Michurin family - the older brothers and sisters did not live up to adulthood. Ivan Vladimirovich was born in 1855 into a nobleman's family and spent his childhood on an estate in the Ryazan province. Mother, Maria Petrovna, died when her son was four years old. The fate and interests of the boy were largely determined by his father, Vladimir Ivanovich. Michurins, senior and junior, did a lot of gardening and apiary, Ivan from early childhood fell in love with spending time among plants and already at a young age mastered many of the techniques familiar only to experienced gardeners.

After his father fell seriously ill, Ivan was placed in the care of his aunt, Tatyana Ivanovna. With his studies at the gymnasium, Michurin did not work out - he was expelled for "disrespect to the authorities." Even in his youth, Ivan Vladimirovich moved to the city of Kozlov (present-day Michurinsk), which he almost never left.

4. Alexey Arkhipovich Leonov

The fate and career of a Soviet cosmonaut could have been completely different, if not for the circumstances associated with his family and his childhood. Alexey was born in 1934 in the village of Listvyanka (now the Kemerovo region), he was the eighth child in the family. When the boy was three years old, his father, Arkhip Alekseevich, was repressed - he spent two years in prison. Mother, Evdokia Minaevna, moved to relatives, a family of eleven lived in a small room in the barracks.

Fortunately, his father was rehabilitated, in 1939 he returned to his family, and in 1947 the Leonovs, including Alexei, ended up in Kaliningrad. Leonov Jr. graduated from the Military Aviation School. The career of the future hero began, the peak of which will be space flights. Alexey Leonov is the first person in history to go into outer space.

5. Johann Sebastian Bach

The great German composer was born in 1685, becoming the eighth child of Johann Ambrosius Bach and his wife Maria Elisabeth. Family tradition predetermined the future profession: many representatives of this family found vocation in music.

When Johann was nine, his mother died, and soon the boy lost his father. The future composer was brought up in the house of his older brother, Johann Christoph, who, of course, was also a musician. He taught the boy to play the organ and the clavier, ensured his studies at the gymnasium, and then at the vocal school named after St. Michael. Bach Jr. made connections and interesting acquaintances in the world of music, entered the service of the Duke of Weimar as a court musician, and then received the post of organist in the church.

6. Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn

Rembrandt, the great Dutch painter, was born in 1606 in a wealthy family of miller Harmen Gerritson van Rijn. He was the eighth child of his father and mother Niltgen. The boy was educated first at school, then at Leiden University, and then became a student of Jacob van Svanenbürch. In the work of Rembrandt, a significant role is assigned to plots on a religious theme - there are reasons for this. His father was a parishioner of the Dutch Reformed Church, his mother was a Catholic.

7. Walter Scott

Born in 1771, Walter Scott, the future poet and writer, creator of historical novels, became the ninth child in the family. In total, six out of thirteen children survived to adulthood. Father, also Walter (Walter), was a wealthy successful lawyer, mother, Ann Rutherford, the daughter of a professor of medicine. In early childhood, the boy suffered an illness that made him lame in his right leg.

Walter Scott spent his youth on his grandfather's farm, and his aunt taught him to read, she also introduced the boy to many Scottish fairy tales and legends, which would later form the basis of his work. Relatives early saw the abilities of the future writer, his wonderful memory and lively mind. Scott was given an excellent education, he graduated from college, then the University of Edinburgh and received the title of lawyer, however, became famous not as a lawyer Walter Scott, but in a different role.

8. Nikolay Fedorovich Gamaleya

One of the founders of Russian microbiology, Nikolai Gamaleya was born in 1859 in Odessa. He was the twelfth child in the family, his father was a retired colonel and belonged to an old noble family. Nikolai received his first education in a private gymnasium. Nikolai Fedorovich graduated from Novorossiysk University with a PhD in Natural Sciences, and then entered the third year of the Military Medical Academy in St. Petersburg, from which he graduated with the title of a doctor. During the same period, the young doctor was selected to work in Paris, in the laboratory of Louis Pasteur. Gamaleya devoted his life to researching infections and finding ways to fight them.

9. Nikolay Ivanovich Pirogov

Nikolai Pirogov is rightfully considered an innovator and pioneer in medical science, he was called a "wonderful doctor". He was born in 1810 into the family of a military treasurer, Major Ivan Ivanovich Pirogov and Elizaveta Ivanovna, a representative of the old Novikov merchant family. This was the thirteenth child in the family. Nikolai received his primary education at home, then studied at a private boarding school, but was soon forced to leave him due to the financial difficulties of the family. He studied medical science thanks to the help of a family friend, Professor Mukhin, who, being aware of the situation of the Pirogovs, helped the young man a lot and in general infected him with love for his profession. Pirogov's name is associated with a huge contribution to the development of medicine in Russia; he became the founder of the Russian school of anesthesia and military field surgery, and in addition - an outstanding teacher.

10. Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev

Chemist, physicist, geologist, economist, encyclopedist - creator of the periodic table of chemical elements, father-in-law of Alexander Blok - became the seventeenth child born to Ivan Pavlovich and Maria Dmitrievna Mendeleev. It happened in 1834. Eight children died in infancy. In his letters to his home, Dmitry Ivanovich later called himself "the last one", addressing his mother with deep respect and deference.

His father, the director of the Tobolsk gymnasium and the schools of the Tobolsk district, died when Dmitry Ivanovich was only thirteen, and his mother took over the management of both the family and the work of her brother's small glass factory, at the expense of which the Mendeleevs lived. The family was helped by Ivan Pushchin - among his acquaintances Ivan Pavlovich had many exiled Decembrists. Noticing the extraordinary abilities of her youngest son, Maria Dmitrievna left Siberia for Moscow - with him and her youngest daughter, but she did not have a chance to see his success: his mother died through a few weeks after Dmitry Mendeleev was enrolled in the university.

The tenth child in the family was Hildegard of Bingen, a medieval nun whose music made it onto CDs.