23 Uneducated People Who Changed The Course Of Humanity

Education is important. But sometimes, some people learn what they have to learn long before they are supposed to graduate. These people drop out and continue to learn in their own way. Some of them don’t even have formal education at all.

For a gifted and dedicated personality, not even lack of education is an impediment.

1. Wright Brothers, the inventors of the first airplane

Both the Wright brothers didn’t graduate high school. But when you want to fly for real, you go ahead and do it anyway.

 

2. Jane Goodall, the groundbreaking primatologist

There was a time when we thought that only humans were capable of thought and self-awareness. Jane Goodall observed Chimps and found out that even apes use tools.

The whopper is that Jane didn’t have any formal science education. She just went on the field and made friends with the chimps, studying them deeply.

 

3. David Bowie, the legendary musician

One of the most influential musicians to have ever lived, he never had an in-depth musical education. He only took beginner’s lessons in saxophone. That’s it.

 

4. Michael Faraday, one of the greatest scientists of all time

Faraday was born dirt poor and had no formal education at all. But when he started working for a bookbinder, he read up on a lot of science from the books he bound. He even offered to become an assistant to various scientists, but they all refused.

Then he took the matter into his own hands and discovered electromagnetism, invented the bunsen burner, discovered benzene, and made the first electric motor and generator, becoming one of the most important scientists of all time.

 

5. Srinivas Ramanujan, one of the most talented mathematicians to ever exist

Srinivas Ramanujan never had any formal education in mathematics. He was entirely self-taught in advanced mathematics because he derived most of the theorems himself. He discovered many new theorems, but most of them were dismissed because nobody believed that they could be done.

But he did become one of the greatest mathematicians to ever live, and his genius is compared to Isaac Newton.

 

6. Steve Irwin, the crocodile hunter

Steve Irwin was educated only until high school. After that, everything he knew about wildlife and wild animals came from his parents and experience.

 

7. John Rockefeller, the successful businessman

Rockefeller dropped out of school when he was 16 with the dreams of making $100,000 dollars before he died. He went on to amass a personal fortune of over $200 million by the time he was 60.

 

8. John Glenn, legendary US astronaut

Astronaut John Glenn could not finish his college education and went on to join the US Navy and became a war hero. Then he became the first American to go into space.

 

9. Gregor Mendel, the man who discovered genetics

Mendel was a priest, not a scientist. But he figured out how genetics worked. He used to plant flowers in the monastery and experimented by breeding different colored ones to see the outcome. That’s how he found out how genetics worked.

But no one believed him because he didn’t have a formal science degree.

 

10. Mary Anning, the paleontologist who discovered dinosaurs

Remember that tongue twisting rhyme – she sells seashells by the seashore? It is inspired by Mary Anning, who collected seashells, and then found dinosaur fossils. She tried to spread awareness about this discovery but no one really acknowledged it.

She is the reason dinosaurs were discovered.

 

11. Benjamin Franklin, the co-author of the Declaration of Independence of the USA

Benjamin Franklin contributed to drafting the Declaration Of Independence when the United States achieved independence.  He dropped out of school when he was just 10.

 

12. Jimi Hendrix, the greatest guitar player of all time

When you learn music, in its advanced stages, you are expected to learn how to read music too. Jimi Hendrix didn’t know how to read music at all, but he composed some of the most seminal forms of rock and roll.

 

13. Donald Harden, the man who broke the Zodiac killer’s code

The zodiac killer was a notorious killer who was never caught. He left behind cryptic notes after he killed his victims. The police never were able to crack these coded texts, and in helplessness published them so that anyone could take a crack at it.

A school teacher named Donald Harden cracked it because of which the Zodiac Killer stopped killing.

 

14. Quentin Tarantino, the director of Pulp Fiction and Inglorious Basterds

Tarantino dropped out of school when he was just 15 and worked in a video store and learned his skill of directing from the movies he saw there. He didn’t even have any formal education in filmmaking.

 

15. Mark Twain, the funniest writer to ever live

Mark Twain didn’t have any formal education either. At the age of 11, he took up an apprenticeship. By the time he was an adult he worked as a printer and spent a lot of time in public libraries.

That’s where he read a lot of books before he became a steamboat pilot.

 

16. Sir Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Galactic

Richard Branson dropped out of school when he was 16. He established Virgin records, a hugely successful music company. It wasn’t long before he made forays into private space travel.

 

17. Anton Van Leeuwenhoek, the man who created the field of microbiology

Leeuwenhoek made his own microscopes by making his own lenses. And under these lenses he observed the first microorganisms, busting the myth that people grew because of spontaneous generation.

 

18. John McConnell Black, one of the greatest biologists to have lived

He was trained as a reporter, but after his 40s, he decided to study the plants of Australia. As a result, he documented more than 2000 species of plants. Just because he dedicated his life to something he cared for.

 

19. Frederick Douglas, the man who educated the slaves

Slaves in the US were not legally allowed to read and write. But that didn’t hold back Frederick Douglas. He first taught himself to read and write and then passed on this knowledge among the other slaves

He became so proficient in languages that he became a bestseller author and an influential leader among the slaves.

 

20. Henry Ford, the founder of Ford automobiles

Can you believe that Henry Ford never had formal school education? He practically invented the assembly line – the reason products can be made so quickly in factories today.

 

21. Sequoyah, the first and only person to create a language out of scratch

Sequoyah is the only person in history who came up with a new technique of writing all by himself. He didn’t even have any education whatsoever. Because of him, the Native Americans could read and write better than the European settlers.

 

22. Jerrie Mock, the first woman to go around the world in a plane

Jerrie was a college dropout and took only 750 hours of flying lessons before embarking on a daring trip around the world. She became the first woman to accomplish this daunting task.

 

23. Ed Ricketts, the man who defined ecosystem

His work on the coast life system is the basis of the theory of ecology and ecosystem. But because he didn’t have a formal education, he never got any Nobel Prize.

As a wise man once said,

It does not matter how slow you go, as long as you do not stop.

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