GRE Essay Examples – Flashcards

Mohandas Gandhi studied law (had trouble defending those who were guilty) and came to aggravate for Indian rights both at home and in South Africa. He became a leader of India's independence movement, organizing boycotts against British institutions in peaceful forms of civil disobedience. He was killed by a fanatic in 1948. became leader of the Indian National Congress, advocating a policy of non-violent non-co-operation to achieve independence. His goal was to help poor farmers and laborers protest oppressive taxation and discrimination. He struggled to alleviate poverty, liberate women and put an end to caste discrimination, with the ultimate objective being self-rule for India. he was jailed for conspiracy On his release from prison ., he negotiated with the Cabinet Mission which recommended the new constitutional structure. After independence (1947), he tried to stop the Hindu-Muslim conflict in Bengal, which led to his assisination.

sustained state of political and military tension between the powers of the Western world, led by the United States and its NATO allies, and the communist world, led by the Soviet Union, its satellite states and allies. This began after the success of their temporary wartime alliance against Nazi Germany, leaving the USSR and the US as two superpowers with profound economic and political differences. The Soviet Union created the Eastern Bloc with the eastern European countries it occupied, maintaining these as satellite states. The post-war recovery of Western Europe was facilitated by the United States' Marshall Plan. The United States forged NATO, a military alliance using containment of communism as a main strategy through the Truman Doctrine, in 1949, while the Soviet bloc formed the Warsaw Pact in 1955. The Cold War was so named as it never featured direct military action, since both sides possessed nuclear weapons, and because their use would probably guarantee their mutual assured destruction. Cycles of relative calm would be followed by high tension which could have led to war. The conflict was instead expressed through military coalitions, strategic conventional force deployments, extensive aid to client states, espionage, massive propaganda campaigns, conventional and nuclear arms races, appeals to neutral nations, rivalry at sports events, and technological competitions such as the Space Race. The US and USSR fought proxy wars of various types: in Latin America and Southeast Asia, the USSR assisted and helped foster communist revolutions, opposed by several Western countries and their regional allies;

a period of radical social and political upheaval in France that had a major impact on France and throughout the rest of Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years. French society underwent an epic transformation, as feudal, aristocratic and religious privileges evaporated under a sustained assault from radical left-wing political groups, masses on the streets, and peasants in the countryside.[3] Old ideas about tradition and hierarchy - of monarchy, aristocracy, and religious authority - were abruptly overthrown by new Enlightenment principles of equality, citizenship and inalienable rights. The modern era has unfolded in the shadow of the French Revolution. The growth of republics and liberal democracies, the spread of secularism, the development of modern ideologies, and the invention of total war[5] all mark their birth during the Revolution.

The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917 (March in the Gregorian calendar; the older Julian calendar was in use in Russia at the time). In the second revolution, during October, the Provisional Government was removed and replaced with a Bolshevik (Communist) government.Civil war erupted between the "Red" (Bolshevik), and "White" (anti-Bolshevik) factions, which was to continue for several years, with the Bolsheviks ultimately victorious. In this way the Revolution paved the way for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). While many notable historical events occurred in Moscow and St. Petersburg, there was also a visible movement in cities throughout the state, among national minorities throughout the empire and in the rural areas, where peasants took over and redistributed land

Veteran of WW1, Hitler gained popular support by attacking the Treaty of Versailles and promoting Pan-Germanism, antisemitism, and anticommunism with charismatic oratory and Nazi propaganda. After his appointment as chancellor in 1933, he transformed the Weimar Republic into the Third Reich, a single-party dictatorship based on the totalitarian and autocratic ideology of Nazism. His aim was to establish a New Order of absolute Nazi German hegemony in continental Europe. Hitler's foreign and domestic policies had the goal of seizing Lebensraum ("living space") for the Germanic people. He directed the rearmament of Germany and the invasion of Poland by the Wehrmacht in September 1939, leading to the outbreak of World War II in Europe. Hitler's supremacist and racially motivated policies resulted in the systematic murder of eleven million people, including an estimated six million Jews.

a Russian Orthodox Christian and mystic who is perceived as having influenced the latter days of the Russian Emperor Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, and their only son Alexei. Some people called Rasputin the "Mad Monk",[2] while others considered him a "strannik" (, believing him to be a psychic and faith healer.[2] It has been argued[3] that Rasputin helped to discredit the tsarist government, leading to the fall of the Romanov dynasty in 1917. Contemporary opinions saw Rasputin variously as a saintly mystic, visionary, healer and prophet or, on the contrary, as a debauched religious charlatan. There has been much uncertainty over Rasputin's life and influence as accounts of his life have often been based on dubious memoirs, hearsay and legend.[2] In his homeland he is revered as a righteous man by many people and clerics, among them Elder Nikolay Guryanov.[4]

was a general during the American Revolutionary War who originally fought for the American Continental Army but defected to the British Army. While a general on the American side, he obtained command of the fort at West Point, New York, and plotted to surrender it to the British forces. After the plot was exposed in September 1780, he was commissioned into the British Army as a brigadier general.

was a general during the American Revolutionary War who originally fought for the American Continental Army but defected to the British Army. While a general on the American side, he obtained command of the fort at West Point, New York, and plotted to surrender it to the British forces. After the plot was exposed in September 1780, he was commissioned into the British Army as a brigadier general.s a result, the USSR was rapidly transformed from an agrarian society into an industrial power, the basis for its emergence as the world's second largest economy after World War II.[2] However, the rapid changes saw millions of people sent to correctional labour camps,[3] and deported and exiled to remote areas of the Soviet Union.[3] The initial upheaval in agriculture disrupted food production and contributed to the catastrophic Soviet famine of 1932-1933. In 1937-38, a campaign against alleged enemies of the Stalinist regime culminated in the Great Purge, a period of mass repression against the population in which hundreds of thousands of people were executed. Major figures in the Communist Party such as Trotsky and Red Army leaders, were killed, convicted of participating in plots to overthrow the Soviet government and Stalin.[

an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement.[1] He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent methods following the teachings of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.[2] King has become a national icon in the history of modern American liberalism.[3] In 1964, King became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to end racial segregation and racial discrimination through civil disobedience and other nonviolent means. By the time of his death in 1968, he had refocused his efforts on ending poverty and stopping the Vietnam War. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and Congressional Gold Medal in 2004; Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was established as a U.S. federal holiday in 1986.

a South African politician who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, the first ever to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before being elected President, Mandela was a militant anti-apartheid activist, and the leader and co-founder of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC). In 1962 he was arrested and convicted of sabotage and other charges, and sentenced to life imprisonment. Mandela went on to serve 27 years in prison, spending many of these years on Robben Island. Following his release from prison on 11 February 1990, Mandela led his party in the negotiations that led to the establishment of democracy in 1994. As President, he frequently gave priority to reconciliation, while introducing policies aimed at combating poverty and inequality in South Africa

Galileo's championing of heliocentrism was controversial within his lifetime, when most subscribed to either geocentrism or the Tychonic system.[9] He met with opposition from astronomers, who doubted heliocentrism due to the absence of an observed stellar parallax.[9] The matter was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615, and they concluded that it could be supported as only a possibility, not an established fact.[9][10] Galileo later defended his views in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, which appeared to attack Pope Urban VIII and thus alienated him and the Jesuits, who had both supported Galileo up until this point.[9] He was tried by the Inquisition, found "vehemently suspect of heresy", forced to recant, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest.[11][12] It was while Galileo was under house arrest that he wrote one of his finest works, Two New Sciences, in which he summarised the work he had done some forty years earlier, on the two sciences now called kinematics and strength of materials.[13][14]

The Scarlet Letter is an 1850 romantic work of fiction in a historical setting, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It is considered to be his magnum opus.[1] Set in 17th-century Puritan Boston during the years 1642 to 1649, it tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter through an adulterous affair and struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. Throughout the book, Hawthorne explores themes of legalism, sin, and guilt.

was the first artificial earth satellite. The Soviet Union launched it into an elliptical low Earth orbit on 4 October 1957. The surprise success precipitated the American Sputnik crisis, began the Space Age and triggered the Space Race, a part of the larger Cold War. The launch ushered in new political, military, technological, and scientific developments.

.a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the general theory of relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics.[2][3] Einstein is generally considered the most influential physicist of the 20th century. While best known for his mass-energy equivalence formula E = mc2 (which has been dubbed "the world's most famous equation"),[4] he received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect".[5] The latter was pivotal in establishing quantum theory within physics. He settled in the U.S., becoming a citizen in 1940. he helped alert President Franklin D. Roosevelt that Germany might be developing an atomic weapon, and recommended that the U.S. begin similar research; this eventually led to what would become the Manhattan Project. Einstein was in support of defending the Allied forces, but largely denounced using the new discovery of nuclear fission as a weapon. Later, together with Bertrand Russell, Einstein signed the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, which highlighted the danger of nuclear weapons. Einstein was affiliated with the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, until his death in 1955. Einstein published more than 300 scientific papers along with over 150 non-scientific works.[6][8] His great intelligence and originality have made the word "Einstein" synonymous with genius.[9]

The poem mainly centers on the Greek hero Odysseus (or Ulysses, as he was known in Roman myths) and his journey home after the fall of Troy. It takes Odysseus ten years to reach Ithaca after the ten-year Trojan War.[2] In his absence, it is assumed he has died, and his wife Penelope and son Telemachus must deal with a group of unruly suitors, the Mnesteres (Greek: Μνηστῆρες) or Proci, who compete for Penelope's hand in marriage.

A hardened criminal finds redemption, adopts an orphan, flees a monomaniacal cop, saves lives, encounters misunderstandings and cruelties of all kinds, and finally dies a happy man.

sailed into japan and declares they must open their ports, this led to treaty of kanagawa

1735-1818 Boston patriot and silversmith who, on the night of April 18, 1775, rode to warn the people of Lexington that British troops were coming.

Founder of Facebook, former student of Harvard, and multibillionaire. Subject of a movie called "The Social Network" (directed by David Fincher). Promised $100 million to New Jersey schools. Facebook was recently estimated to be worth around $50 billion dollars.

founder of Apple computers. (1976) started in a garage and in 10 years apple grew into a company of 4000 people. he got fired in 1985 and then he made Pixar Animations and got rehired into apple as CEO.

United States computer entrepreneur whose software company made him the youngest multi-billionaire in the history of the United States (born in 1955) When Bill Gates made his decision to drop out from Harvard, he did not care too much of the result. Gates entered Harvard in 1973, and dropped out two years later when he and Allen started the engine of Microsoft. Many people did not understand why Gates gave up such a good opportunity to study in the world's most prestigious university. However, with size comes power, Microsoft dominates the PC market with its operating systems, such as MS-DOS and Windows. Recently Microsoft has become the biggest software company in the world and consequently Bill Gates becomes the richest man in the world.

(Greek mythology) a tragic king of Thebes who unknowingly killed his father Laius and married his mother Jocasta

A French general, political leader, and emperor of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Bonaparte rose swiftly through the ranks of army and government during and after the French Revolution and crowned himself emperor in 1804. He conquered much of Europe but lost two-thirds of his army in a disastrous invasion of Russia. After his final loss to Britain and Prussia at the Battle of Waterloo, he was exiled to the island of St. Helena in the south Atlantic Ocean.

Card, Orson Scott. A Tom Doherty Associates book. Young Ender Wiggin may prove to be the military genius Earth needs to fight a desperate battle against a deadly alien race that will determine the future of the human race.

narrated 'war of worlds' about an invasion from Mars; people believed this to be true

a group of English boys (Jack, Piggy, Ralph, Roger, Sam, Eric, and Simon), marooned on an island, rapidly turn lawless and bloodthirsty

Leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991. Wanting reform, he renounced the Brezhnev Doctrine, pulled troops out of Afghanastan, supported Glasnost, and urged perestroika; but all this failed., Soviet statesman whose foreign policy brought an end to the Cold War and whose domestic policy introduced major reforms, last Communist leader of the USSR; started giving the people more economic and political freedom

He was the first ruler in the Mongol Empire. They ruled by horseback, and conquering people. Ghengis Khan had great military strategy. One of them was that they wore silk shirts, that way if they got hit with an arrow, it could easily get out of the flesh without puncturing them.

Commander of Confederate Army. Great leader, Lincoln wanted him as the leader of the Union Army

a spanish painter best known for co-founding the Cubist movement and for the wide variety of styles embodied in his work.

postimpressionist painter who modified his style of impressionism to use sharp brush lines and a dreamlike quality

1452-1519, The true Renaissance man, a painter, engineer, scientist, inventor and sculptor. Most famous for the Mona Lisa, great facial expressions, Ginerva de' Benchi, Madonna of the Rocks, and the Last Supper.

Genoese mariner who in the service of Spain led expeditions across the Atlantic, reestablishing contact between the peoples of the Americas and the Old World and opening the way to Spanish conquest and colonization.

A biologist who developed theory of evolution of species (1859). He argued that all living species evolved into their present form through the ability to adapt in a struggle for survival.

This book takes place in France and England during the French Revolution. One of the main characters is Madame Defarge. This novel shows the contrast between innocence and evil taking place in two cities. The author of this book also wrote David Copperfield and Oliver Twist

One of the greatest Victorian authors, his novels often focused on the middle and lower classes. His descriptions of brutal and poor life were vivid and realistic.

16th President - Civil War President - Killed by John Wilkes Booth - wrote emancipation proclamation - gave gettysburg address

British physicist best known for his research on black holes and the big bang theory. He wrote 'A Brief History of Time' (1988). He was paralyzed in 1962 as a result of a motor neuron disease.

In fair Verona, Italy, two families (the Capulets and the Montagues), carry our an ancient feud which appears to have no end in sight. Within that background, Juliet Capulet and Romeo Montague secretly fall in love and marry. Nut their fates tear them apart and their love brinds about their tragic deaths.

A girl confronts evil as her father unsuccessfully defends an innocent black man accused of raping a white woman.

American inventor best known for inventing the electric light bulb, acoustic recording on wax cylinders, and motion pictures. We can learn from the experience of the great inventor Thomas Edison that sometimes a series of apparent failures is really a precursor to success. The voluminous personal papers of Edison reveal that his inventions typically did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly from previous works.

Legendary English hero/rogue who, with his merry band of men, robbed the rich and gave to the poor.

Venetian merchant and traveler. His accounts of his travels to China offered Europeans a firsthand view of Asian lands and stimulated interest in Asian trade.

United States abolitionist born a slave on a plantation in Maryland and became a famous conductor on the Underground Railroad leading other slaves to freedom in the North (1820-1913)

Virginian, patriot, general, and president. Lived at Mount Vernon. Led the Revolutionary Army in the fight for independence. First President of the United States.

We can learn from the experience of the great inventor that sometimes a series of apparent failures is really a precursor to success.

Nine days before the fall of Saigon, he spoke on the resignation of South Vietnamese President Thieu. Soon after, the United States launched a massive helicopter evacuation of tens of thousands of anticommunist South Vietnamese and the last few Americans remaining in the country.

Three days after the bombing of Hiroshima,he warned Japan of further atomic attacks until it surrendered. When no answer came, he authorized the dropping of a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Six days later, Japan surrendered.

Beethoven, the German Composer, began to lose his hearing in 1801 and was entirely deaf by 1819. However, this obstacle could not keep him from becoming one of the most famous and prolific composers in art history. His music, including nine symphonies, five piano concertos, and several senates, forms a transition from classical to romantic composition.

famous work "Impression: Sunrise" was not understood initially, since it seems peculiar for a large amount of blue was used as the major color for sunlight. However, this work eventually earned its reputation and had led to the name for impressionism.

the antibiotic derived from mold, allows doctors to easily treat patients for a variety of ailments previously considered incurable, including pneumonia, tetanus, gangrene, and scarlet fever as well as more mundane illnesses like respiratory and ear infections.

He was a gentle vegetarian who loved animals and despised war, yet he worked as a military engineer to invent advanced and deadly weapons. He was one of the greatest painters of the Italian Renaissance, yet he left only a handful of completed paintings.

After several years' study, he eventually demonstrated that species, however complex seemingly, all evolved by natural selection from simple and preliminary conditions.

This was his way of emphasizing the importance of the distinction between form and idea, and of stressing that the integrity of an idea is more important than the form of its expression.

By miscalculating the circumference of the planet Earth, he thought he could sail to India in 3 months by heading west. Luckily, he ran into the north american continent, which saved him and his crew from starvation.

In the early 1930, Conservative Winston Churchill issued unheeded warnings of the threat of Nazi aggression from his seat in the House of Commons. With German tanks racing across France, Churchill spoke to the British people for the first time as prime minister, and pledged a struggle to the last breath against Nazi conquest and oppression. In the summer of 1940, the democracies of continental Europe fell to Germany one by one, leaving Great Britain alone in its resistance to Adolf Hitler. The Nazi leader was confident that victory against Britain would come soon, but Churchill prophesied otherwise, telling his countrymen that the Battle of Britain would be "their finest hour."

- Helen Keller: The obstacle this Alabama native, born in 1880, had to overcome was being both blind and deaf, the result of a sickness that afflicted her at the age of 18 months. Any sights and sounds she had observed and any words that she had learnt were soon forgotten. Having overcome her own handicaps to become a well-educated college graduate, Helen devoted the rest of her life to helping the blind of the deaf. Helen Keller became one of the most educated women who ever lived in spite of her handicaps and advocated helping others who may be afflicted to reach their full potential. - Nicholas James Vujicic, (born on 4 December 1982) is an Australian preacher and motivational speaker born with Tetra-amelia syndrome, a rare disorder characterized by the absence of all four limbs. As a child, he struggled mentally and emotionally, as well as physically, but eventually came to terms with his disability and, at the age of seventeen, started his own non-profit organization, Life Without Limbs. Vujicic presents motivational speeches worldwide, on life with a disability, hope, and finding meaning in life.

- the glory from achieving a goal can distort ones perception and ability to reason. Julius Caesar was a great military and political leader who achieved his goal of uniting the country under his rule, but his selfishness and lack of insight gradually caused the glory of his victory to dissipate. As a result, he was murdered by his fellow politicians and countrymen, even Brutus whom he loved dearly. Though he succeeded in gaining power and uniting the country, the power and glory of his success blinded him and lead him down a path full of calamity. - Crusades: The Pope and the Crusaders were successful in recapturing Jerusalem and stopping the growth of Islam, but it was also a disaster though they did not see it as one at the time, creating many future problems for the Church, planting seeds of hatred in many Muslim communities, and killing many innocent people. This act of pride and ambition was selfish, brutal, and un-Christian. This colossal mistake has come back to haunt us as many of the problems in the Middle East and terrorism can be related to the mistreating and massacres of the Crusades.

- Google Inc., the popular Internet search engine, is an example of creativity in the internet world. Google has succeeded by innovating its technology and business model. It has a creative idea to identify and solve the problem of assessing the quality of search results by using the number of links pointing to a page as an indicator of the number of people who find the page valuable. Therefore, Google's search results became far more accurate and reliable than those from other companies, and now Google's dominance in the field of Internet search is almost absolute.

- The Fall of Rome (476 AD): Incompetent emperors and military leadership may have played a part in the decline of the empire - American Civil War: Leadership and authority: The southern states rebelled against Lincoln's leadership and denied his authority over them; he was forced to go to war in order to reassert that authority and leadership. - American Black Civil Rights Movement: Rebellion against authority: Rosa Parks, MLK Jr., and Malcolm X were all heroes and rebels against the white establishment - Gandhi: Gandhi was a major political and spiritual leader of India during the Indian independence movement. He was the pioneer of satyagraha resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience, firmly founded upon ahimsa or total non-violence. - William Harvey

- Nicolaus Copernicus was a visionary, multi-talented astronomer, scientist from the renaissance: He was the first person to present the Heliocentric theory and was rejected by the Catholic Church, one of the most powerful political and cultural forces of his age. Not accepting conventional wisdom or societal pressure to conform. - Charles Darwin shocked the world with his theory of evolution as proposed in Origin of Species. He explained that, over time, species adapt to their environment in order to survive and then pass along these acquired traits to future generations in a process known as "natural selection." Although his ideas are widely accepted today, the notion that species could have evolved from an entirely different species caused outrage from those believing that all living creatures were created by God.

- Vietnam War: Power and imperialism: The powerful United States was staging a self-interested, imperial, political intervention in a foreign country; many have argued that it was not our place to do so, and we should have simply let the Vietnamese choose their own form of government. - Same-Sex Marriage Is legalized in France, England and Wales in 2013

- American Civil War: Freedom: One of the major causes of the war was the country's division over the possession of black slaves and some historians see the war as one huge battle for human freedom and independence. - Gandhi: It was through witnessing firsthand the racism, prejudice and injustice against Indians in South Africa that Gandhi started to question his people's status within the British Empire, and his own place in society.

- American Civil War: Violence as a solution: The American Civil War is an historical example of violence being the only apparent solution to an impossible problem - reuniting a divided nation and asserting Lincoln's presidential authority.

- Civic duty: The spoiled Roman citizens began to hire more and more mercenaries to defend their borders - paid soldiers with no personal loyalty to the Empire. The Romans may have been better off if they had defended themselves, instead of paying and trusting outsiders to take care of them. - American Black Civil Rights Movement: Change and Protest: Both violent and non-violent protests, like the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Freedom Riders, and sit-ins were effective in calling attention to the plight of black Americans, and also put economic and social pressure on existing institutions that encouraged racial discrimination. - American Black Civil Rights Movement: Oppression: Segregation was designed to oppress and control African Americans, and it worked for a time, but eventually it became unendurable and led to a form of uprising.

- Wright Brother - Sony Ericsson - Hellen Keller and Miss Sullivan: Miss Sullivan went to great lengths for her pupil, using the manual alphabet to spell the names of objects that Helen could feel with her fingers. She would place her fingers in Helen's palm and spell the names of objects just by changing the position of her fingers. The catalyst was the word water. By a process of association, Miss Sullivan would spill water on Helen's hand and then spell the word water. Helen caught on in time: the finger movement meant the same thing as the liquid she felt. The other doctors had been wrong, Helen could communicate. Miss Sullivan remained her companion, travelling throughout the world to raise money through public appearances for her cause. - Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak - US and Russia: Russia grants Edward Snowden, the American who leaked info about U.S. surveillance, asylum for one year, which angered US. Russia and the U.S. reach an agreement that Syria must provide an inventory of its chemicals weapons and production facilities within a week and either turn over or destroy all of its chemical weapons by mid-2014.

- Martin Luther. King: Racial equality - Gandhi - Nelson Mandela - Galileo - Charles Darwin - Homer - Dante

Mother Teresa, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, dedicated the majority of her life to helping the poorest of the poor in India, thus gaining her the name "Saint of the Gutters." The devotion towards the poor won her respect throughout the world and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. She founded an order of nuns called the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India dedicated to serving the poor. Almost 50 years later, the Missionaries of Charity have grown from 12 sisters in India to over 3,000 in 517 missions throughout 100 countries worldwide.

Lee Kuan Yew was the prime minster of Singapore from 1959 to 1990, making him the longest-serving PM in history. During his long rule, Singapore became the most prosperous nation in Southeast Asia. Once in office, Lee Kuan Yew introduced a five-year plan calling for urban renewal and construction of new public housing, greater rights for women, educational reform and industrialization. His plan also called for a merger of Singapore with Malaysia, and after Malayan prime minister Tunku Abdul Rahman proposed the formation of a federation that would include Malaya, Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak, Lee began to campaign in favor of the effort and to end British colonial rule for good. To show that the people of Singapore were supportive, Lee used the results of a referendum held in September 1962, in which 70 percent of the votes were cast in favor of the proposal. So in 1963, Singapore joined the newly created Federation of Malaysia. In elections held shortly after, the PAP retained its control of Singapore's Parliament, and Lee held onto his post as prime minister. Split With Malaysia Growing tension between Chinese and Malays in the Federation, however, resulted in rioting in Singapore, notably marked by the Prophet Muhammad Birthday Riots, or Sino-Malay riots, of the summer of 1964. A year later, with racial strife continuing, Lee was told by his Malaysian colleagues that Singapore must leave the federation. Lee was passionate about working out a compromise, but his efforts proved fruitless, and he signed a separation agreement on August 7, 1965. The failure of the merger was a serious blow to Lee, who believed that unity was crucial for Singapore's survival. In a televised press conference, he was emotionally drained as he announced the formal separation and Singapore's full independence: "For me, it is a moment of anguish," he said. "All my life ... I believed in Malaysian merger and unity of the two territories. You know that we, as a people, are connected by geography, economics, by ties of kinship ... It literally broke everything that we stood for ... now Singapore shall be forever a sovereign democratic and independent nation, founded upon the principles of liberty and justice and ever seeking the welfare and happiness of the people in a most and just equal society." With the broken union came problems beyond Lee's personal grief: Singapore's lack of natural resources and a limited defensive capability were major challenges. Singapore needed a strong economy to survive as an independent country, and Lee quickly spearheaded a program to transform it into a major exporter of finished goods. He also encouraged foreign investment and made moves to ensure a rising standard of living for workers. When the opposition party decided to boycott Parliament from 1966 onward, the PAP won every seat in Parliament in the elections of 1968, 1972, 1976 and 1980. Later Years and Legacy Lee resigned as prime minister in November 1990 but remained the leader of the PAP until 1992. After 14 years away, Lee's family took its place at the head of the Singapore government once again in the summer of 2004, when Lee's son Lee Hsien Loong took power. In early 2015, Lee Kuan Yew was hospitalized with pneumonia. By early March, he was on a ventilator, in critical condition, and he died soon after, on March 23. Lee has left behind a legacy of an efficiently run country and as a leader who brought prosperity unheard of before his tenure, at the cost of a mildly authoritarian style of government. By the 1980s, Singapore, under Lee's guidance, had a per capita income second only to Japan's in East Asia, and the country had become a chief financial center of Southeast Asia.

Born in 1971 in Texas, Lance Armstrong became a triathlete before turning to professional cycling. His career was halted by testicular cancer, but Armstrong returned to win a record seven consecutive Tour de France races beginning in 1999. Stripped of those titles in 2012 due to evidence of performance-enhancing drug use, Armstrong in 2013 finally admitted to doping throughout his cycling career.