Neil Armstrong
At 02:39 UTC on Monday July 21, 1969, Armstrong opened the hatch, and at 02:51 UTC began his descent to the lunar surface. The Remote Control Unit controls on his chest kept him from seeing his feet. Climbing down the nine-rung ladder, Armstrong pulled a D-ring to deploy the Modular Equipment Stowage Assembly (MESA) folded against Eagle's side and activate the TV camera, and at 02:56:15 UTC he set his left foot on the surface. (source: wikipedia)
First he uncovered a plaque with written:
"Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon, July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind."
Then, after describing the surface dust as "very fine-grained" and "almost like a powder," six and a half hours after landing, Armstrong stepped off Eagle's footpad and declared
"That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind."
Btw, as suggested by 
For more see: https://steemit.com/life/@belgarath/interesting-people-20-neil-armstrong-giant-leap
Deng Xiaoping
Deng story is worthy of an action movie. His first stint at power came in the '60 when Mao recognised his intellect and organisational skills. He later was purged during the Cultural Revolution as his ideas on self-interests did not resonate well with Mao. In '73 he was again elevated to power from Premier Zhou Enlai to a top-most post in the politburo. After Zhou's death the Gang of Four purged him again.
His real chance came in 1977, upon Mao's death the Gang of Four was itself purged and Deng was again called to power.
This time he acted ruthlessly and swiftly: he destroyed his opponents and put restrictions on unapproved organizations. When he felt secure enough, started new economic policies that opened China to international trade and investments. He made peace with Japan and normalised relations with Russia and the US. He also supervise the restitution of HK from Britain.
His policies are responsible for the current economic inequality in China, but he is also responsible for the fastest improvement in the quality of life of the largest (both in terms of magnitude and number of people) amount of people in history.
The success in Economic Reforms under the slogan of
"Poverty is not socialism. To be rich is glorious."
where not accompanied by the same successes on the social side. In 1989, Deng Xiaoping’s authoritarian leadership faced opposition culminating with the demonstrations at Tiananmen Square. Though the worldwide criticism he stayed in power and picked his successors. Deng died on February 19, 1997, at age 92.
For more videos see: https://steemit.com/life/@belgarath/interesting-people-19-deng-xiaoping-the-man-who-changed-china
Isaac Asimov
In 1964 Isaac Asimov, wrote this for the New York World's Fair and made some predictions for 2014, 50 years ahead.
“The world of A.D. 2014 will have few routine jobs that cannot be done better by some machine than by any human being. Mankind will therefore have become largely a race of machine tenders. Schools will have to be oriented in this direction…. All the high-school students will be taught the fundamentals of computer technology will become proficient in binary arithmetic and will be trained to perfection in the use of the computer languages
This is quite true already and is the current expectation of the consequences of the combination of AI, robotics and 3D printing in the near future. The second part unfortunately is not true enough and this will have big consequences, social and economic.
"Gadgetry will continue to relieve mankind of tedious jobs. Kitchen units will be devised that will prepare ‘automeals,’ heating water and converting it to coffee; toasting bread; frying, poaching or scrambling eggs, grilling bacon, and so on. "
This is also almost true: coffee machines are ubiquitous and automatic food preparation is also a reality (for instance Thermomix, which is great btw)
“Communications will become sight-sound and you will see as well as hear the person you telephone. The screen can be used not only to see the people you call but also for studying documents and photographs and reading passages from books. Synchronous satellites, hovering in space will make it possible for you to direct-dial any spot on earth, including the weather stations in Antarctica.”
This is 100% correct
“Vehicles with ‘Robot-brains’ … can be set for particular destinations … that will then proceed there without interference by the slow reflexes of a human driver.”
He got the timing a bit wrong but we are almost there
“Wall screens will have replaced the ordinary set; but transparent cubes will be making their appearance in which three-dimensional viewing will be possible.”
First correct, second ... not yet.
“An experimental fusion-power plant or two will already exist in 2014. Large solar-power stations will also be in operation in a number of desert and semi-desert areas”
Also correct
“… by 2014, only unmanned ships will have landed on Mars, though a manned expedition will be in the works and in the 2014 Futurama will show a model of an elaborate Martian colony.”
Curiosity Rover landed in 2011 ... very good. And Elon Musk is starting to invest in sending ppl to Mars next year.
“Robots will neither be common nor very good in 2014, but they will be in existence.”
This is 30% right... no human robot yet
“The appliances of 2014 will have no electric cords, of course, for they will be powered by long- lived batteries running on radioisotopes.”
Also no mini nuclear plant in our phones yet...
For more see: https://steemit.com/life/@belgarath/interesting-people-18-isaac-asimov-predicting-the-future
Steve McCurry
Russia is about to invade Afganistan, the country is in disarray and a youg and unknown photographer decided to enter the country to document what is happening. Steve came back with rolls of film sewed in his jacket and became instantaneously famous.
He is one of the most known live photographer, worldwide famous for this picture
And for many others: https://steemit.com/photography/@belgarath/great-pictures-6-horror-of-kuwait-war
David Chaum
Blind Signatures, 1982 - One the fundamental primitives of Cryptocurrencies
DigiCash, 1990 - First Cryptocurrency company
First Crypto Payment, 1994
Mix Networks, 1981 - Precursor to Tor
DC-Net, 1988 - Precursor to Dissent
Secure Voting System, 1981
Pret a Voter, Punchscan and Scantegrity, 1994 - Various Voting Applications
Pls note the precocity: Bitcoin started in 2009, Ethereum in 2015 and most of the hyped recent projects are of the past 3-4 years only.
This is one of the most important figure in the Crypto world who was directly involved or inspired many of the tools we enjoy today.
Thank you David Chaum!
Massimo Bottura
Osteria Francescana, Modena was awarded a space among the top 5 best restaurant in the world since 2010. It was #2 in 2015, #1 in 2016 and #2 in 2017.
Despite this Massimo is a personable, humble person who loves to talk about when he was stealing food from his grandmother. He was ostracized by the italian food community for his modernity until reaching world fame and 3 michelin stars. But he venture on.
Tim Berners Lee
Today there are 3.5bn users (the actual number can be seen here in real time) of the internet and a penetration of roughly 45%. Facebook has 2bn monthly active users. Messenger and Watsappp process 60bn messages per day.
But it all started with an idea:
"I just had to take the hypertext idea and connect it to the Transmission Control Protocol and domain name system ideas and—ta-da!—the World Wide Web”
Berners-Lee wrote a proposal in March 1989. In 1990 created the World Wide Web, built the first Web browser and the first Web server, CERN HTTPd.
On 6 August 1991 info.cern.ch went on line, it was the world's first web site.