5 surprising facts about historical figures

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1. Walt Disney, creator of the icon Mickey Mouse, was actually terrified of mice. It’s commonly believed he created the cartoon mouse character to confront this fear.

2. Martin Luther King Jr was a huge fan of Star Trek. When the African American actress Nichelle Nichols decided to leave the show King managed to convince her to stay by saying “For the first time on television we will be seen as we should be seen every day – as intelligent, quality, beautiful people who can sing, dance, but who can also go into space, who can be lawyers, who can be teachers, who can be professors and yet you don’t see it on television – until now.”

3. Alexander the Great suffered from epileptic fits, at that time known as the ‘sacred disease.’ Other famous epileptics include Pope Pius IX, the roman emperor Caligula and Vladimir Lenin.

4. The founder of the people’s republic of China, Chairman Mao, had a string of failed professions as he grew up. He enrolled and dropped out of a police academy, a soap making school, law school and economics school. In 1917 Mao spent some time working at a university library.

5. The English physicist Isaac Newton who formulated the laws of motion and gravity also had a great passion for alchemy. Newton dedicated years of his life looking for the fabled philosophers stone, believing it to possess the quality to transform base metals into gold.

Do you know any little-known facts about historical figures? Share them below in the comments!