Significant people 12RAE
Significant people – Year 12 Religion and Ethics:
“Research widely and select two significant people – One who is considered to have perpetrated grave evil (or is not a good role model) and one an honorable person who is (or was) truly human, true to themselves and true to truth…”
Firstly, let’s look at what makes a hero. This short TED film looks at heroes in literature. Keep in mind some of these points as you research your hero and villain.
Here is the link to the BCE page on Good and Evil.
There’s some great information also on this page: What makes a hero?
Places to look for information:
- Library Catalogue
- Mashpedia http://www.mashpedia.com/ Look under the Wikipedia tab as well as video tabs.
- Encyclopaedias and biographical dictionaries
- Other Internet sources
100 people who changed the world
The names mentioned below are examples of people you could choose to study:
Aung San Suu Kyi – Burmese freedom fighter
Gladys Aylward – missionary to China
Deitrich Bonhoeffer – religious thinker and martyr
Victor Chang – surgeon
Caroline Chisholm – friend to immigrant women
Father Damien – priest to lepers of Molokai
Dalai Lama – religious leader and freedom fighter
Edward “Weary” Dunlop –doctor to prisoners-of-war
Dr John Flynn – the flying doctor
Dian Fossey – saviour of the great apes
Mahatma Gandhi – the pioneer of peaceful resistance
Bill and Melinda Gates (Source 2) – inventor and philanthropist
Sir Bob Geldof – founder of Bandaid
Catherine Hamlin – doctor to women in Ethiopia
Sir Edmund Hillary – Everest explorer and humanitarian
Fred Hollows – eye doctor to the poor
Jesse Jackson – civil rights protester
Joan of Arc – heroic woman martyr
Helen Keller – campaigner for civil rights for the blind
Dr Martin Luther King – pastor, black civil rights campaigner and martyr
John Simpson Kirkpatrick – the man with the donkey at Gallipoli
Eddie Mabo – Torres Strait Islander land rights campaigner
Nelson Mandela – anti-apartheid black leader and political prisoner
Catherine McAuley (Source 2) – founder of the Sisters of Mercy
Sir Douglas Nicholls – aboriginal leader
Florence Nightingale – nurse, the lady with the lamp
Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Kath Walker) – human rights campaigner and environmentalist
Rosa Parks – civil rights protester
Nelson Rockefeller – philanthropist
Mother Teresa – worker with the poor in Calcutta
Oskar Schindler – saviour of Jews in Hitler’s Germany
Dr. Albert Schweitzer – missionary doctor
Shirley “MumShirl” Smith – charity worker
Jim Stynes – humanitarian; Founder of ‘Reach’
Rev. Desmond Tutu – leader
Rev. Dr Sir Alan Walker – founder of Lifeline
Nancy Wake – spy
Oprah Winfrey – philanthropist
25 most evil serial killers of the 20th century
20 of history’s deadliest dictators
The all time worst people in history
Attila the Hun – ruler of the Hunnic Empire
Idi Amin – president of Uganda
Osama Bin Laden – founder of al-Quaeda
Martin Bryant – Port Arthur Massacre
Ted Bundy – serial killer
Oliver Cromwell – ruler of England who massacred Irish Catholics
Jeffrey Dahmer – serial killer
Matilda ‘Tilly’ Devine – criminal; part of the Razor Gang Wars
Adolf Eichmann – Nazi war criminal
Dennis Ferguson – Paedophile
Muammar Gaddafi – leader of Libya
Heinrich Himmler – leading member of the Nazi Party
Adolf Hitler – German leader
Saddam Hussein – President of Iraq
Ivan the Terrible – Ivan IV, ruler of Russia
Jim Jones – People’s Temple cult leader
Ned Kelly – bushranger
Ayatollah Khomeini – leader of Iran
Leopold II of Belgium – ruler of Belgium
Mao Zedong – Chinese ruler, leader of the Cultural Revolution
Mary I of England – Queen of England
Nero – Roman Emperor
Bonnie Parker & Clyde Barrow – Bonnie and Clyde – bank robbers
Pol Pot – Cambodian dictator
Maximilien Robespierre – leader of the French Revolution