Alfred Nobel Last Will and Testament

Download a free copy of the last will and testament of Benjamin Franklin.

• Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was an American statesman, inventor, philosopher, author, soldier, scientist and political activist. He is credited, among other things, with inventing the lightning rod, bifocals, and the Franklin stove. He established the first public library and the first fire department in the United States. F
• ranklin became a newspaper editor, printer, and merchant in Philadelphia and became very wealthy writing and publishing Poor Richard's Almanack and The Pennsylvania Gazette.
• From 1775 to 1776, Franklin was the Postmaster General under the Continental Congress and from 1785 to 1788, the President of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania.
• Toward the end of his life, Benjamin Franklin became one of the most prominent figures endorsing the abolition of slavery.

Biographical material taken from Wikipedia.com.

Download a free copy of the Last Will and Testament of Charles Darwin (1809-1882).

• Charles Darwin was an English naturalist who determined that all species of life on Earth descended and evolved from common ancestors, and proposed the scientific theory that this pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection. He published his evidence for this theory in an 1859 book called On the Origin of Species.
• In modified form, Darwin's discovery is today the unifying theory of the life sciences, explaining the biodiversity found on our planet.
• Darwin is buried in Westminster Abbey, close to John Herschel and Isaac Newton, clearly exemplifying his status and importance as a scientist, and the esteem in which he was held in his own lifetime.

This is a copy of the Last Will of the maestro Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519).

• Leonardo was an Italian painter, sculptor, architect and engineer, musician, scientist, mathematician, inventor, botanist, anatomist, and cartographer. He is considered the archetypal Renaissance man, and is perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have existed. A brilliant artist and inventor, his use of logic and empirical methods were unusual for his time.
• To the average person, Leonardo has always been known primarily as a painter. His most famous works, the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, are the most reproduced and most parodied paintings of all time. His drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also an instantly recognizable cultural icon, having been reproduced on everything from the Euro to T-shirts.
• In addition to the brilliance of his artistic endeavours, Leonardo's drawings show that he conceptualized prototypes for the helicopter, the tank, concentrated solar power, a calculator, the double hull, and a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics. He also invented an automated bobbin winder and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire, and these devices were manufactured during his lifetime.
• As a scientist, he greatly advanced the state of knowledge in the fields of anatomy, civil engineering, optics, and hydrodynamics.

Source: Wikipedia.org

Download a free copy of the Last Will and Testament of Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957).

• Wilhelm Reich was an Austrian born psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, known as one of the most radical figures in the history of psychiatry.
• Reich worked with Sigmund Freud in the 1920s and was a respected analyst for much of his life, focusing on character structure rather than on individual neurotic symptoms. He believed that neurosis is rooted in the physical, sexual, economic, and social conditions of the patient, and promoted adolescent sexuality, the availability of contraceptives, abortion, and divorce, and the importance for women of economic independence.
• In 1947, Reich was living in the US when the Food and Drug Administration obtained an injunction to stop the sale of his 'orgone accumulators'. Charged with contempt for violating the injunction, he was sentenced to two years in prison, and in August 1956, several tons of his publications were burned by the FDA, arguably one of the worst examples of censorship in U.S. history.
• He died in jail of heart failure just over a year later, days before he was due to apply for parole.
  
  Biographical information obtained from Wikipedia.org.

Download this free copy of the Last Will and Testament of Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895).

• T. H. Huxley was an English biologist and anthropologist who specialized in comparative anatomy.
• He was also an educator and an advocate of agnosticism. In fact, he coined the term.
• Huxley's very public support of Charles Darwin's evolutionary naturalism earned him the nickname "Darwin's bulldog".