Charles Freer Andrews, born on 12 February 1871, was
a priest of the Church of England. A Christian missionary, educator and social
reformer in India, he became a close friend of Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma
Gandhi and identified with the cause of India's independence. He was
instrumental in convincing Gandhi to return to India from South Africa, where
Gandhi had been a leading light in the Indian civil rights struggle.
Abraham Lincoln, born on 12 February 1809, was an
American statesman and lawyer who served as the 16th president of the United
States (1861–1865) and died in office upon his assassination. Lincoln led the
nation through its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis in the
bloody American Civil War. He preserved the Union, abolished slavery,
strengthened the federal government, and modernized the U.S. economy.
Charles Darwin, born on 12 February 1809, was an
English naturalist, geologist and biologist, best known for his contributions
to the science of evolution. His proposition that all species of life have
descended over time from common ancestors is now widely accepted, and
considered a foundational concept in science. In a joint publication with
Alfred Russel Wallace, he introduced his scientific theory that this branching
pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection,
in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial
selection involved in selective breeding. Darwin has been described as one of
the most influential figures in human history, and he was honoured by burial in
Westminster Abbey.
Dayanand Saraswati, born on 12 February 1824, was an
Indian philosopher, social leader and founder of the Arya Samaj, a reform
movement of the Vedic dharma. He was the first to give the call for Swaraj as
"India for Indians" in 1876, a call later taken up by Lokmanya Tilak.
Denouncing the idolatry and ritualistic worship prevalent in British India at
the time, he worked towards reviving Vedic ideologies. Subsequently, the
philosopher and President of India, S. Radhakrishnan called him one of the
"makers of Modern India", as did Sri Aurobindo.
