In 1922, Albert Einstein was staying in a hotel in Tokyo. Without any money to tip a hotel deliveryman, he instead gave him a couple of notes on hotel stationery about happiness and success. While the man was probably unable to read the advice, he recognized their value and held on to them. In October of this year, the deliveryman’s nephew sold the notes for 1.3 million dollars.
The Eureka Moment
Sometimes our best ideas come when we least expect them. For Greek mathematician Archimedes, this happened during a trip to the local baths. The king of Syracuse had put him in charge of finding out how to detect fraud in the manufacture of a golden crown. The king suspected his goldsmith was leaving out some of the gold and substituting it with silver.
World Citizen
Gary Davis was a man with a crazy vision of a world without nations. Albert Einstein was a believer in Gary Davis, and once said Gary was a man devoted to the survival of humanity on earth. As a young man, Davis was an actor on Broadway. He was a rising star until his acting career was interrupted by World War II.