1. By Jackie French Koller
“What If”
By Jackie French Koller
Did you ever stop and think how the world would be if folks had turned out differently?
For instance, what if Ben Franklin1 never tried to fly a kite, or Shakespeare2 never tried to write?

2. What if Einstein3 never used his brain or the Wright brothers4 never tried to fly a plane? What if Lincoln5 never tried to free the slaves, or Susan B. Anthony 6was afraid to make waves?

3. What if Alexander Graham Bell7 was content to just yell?
What if Ford 8never tried
to make a car, or Walt Disney 9never
wished upon a star? What if Beethoven10 never tried to play? What if Mother Teresa11 turned away?

4. What if Babe Ruth12 was afraid to swing a bat
What if Babe Ruth12 was afraid to swing a bat? What if Columbus13accepted that the world was flat? What if Luciano Pavarotti 14 never tried to sing? What if dreams were enough for Martin Luther King? 15

5. What if Jim Thorpe16 never entered the race, or Baryshnikov17 let another dancer in his place? What if Michelangelo18 thought he wasn't good enough, or John Glenn 19feared he didn't have the right stuff?

6. What if all the folks who've changed the world had lived and died and never tried? What if you had a dream and you held it inside and never tried?

7. Ben Franklin Inventor: lightening rod, bifocals, odometer,
Author, satirist
Politician
Diplomat
Printer

8. William Shakespeare He is an author who
wrote 38 plays, 154 sonnets and several other poems.
His work is performed more than any other playwright in the world.

9. Albert Einstein
was a theoretical physicist, philosopher and author who is widely regarded as one of the most influential and best known scientists and intellectuals of all time. He is often regarded as the father of modern physics. He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to Theoretical Physics”

10. Wright Brothers
Wilbur and Orville Wright were two Americans who are generally credited with inventing and building the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight, on December 17, In the two years afterward, the brothers developed their flying machine into the first practical fixed-wing aircraft. Although not the first to build and fly experimental aircraft, the Wright brothers were the first to invent aircraft controls that made fixed-wing powered flight possible.

11. Abraham Lincoln
He was the 16th president of the United States. He successfully led the US through its greatest internal crisis, the American Civil War, preserving the Union. He introduced measures that resulted in the abolition of slavery, issuing his Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and promoting the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution.

12. Susan B. Anthony
She was a prominent American civil rights leader who played a pivotal role in the 19th century women's rights movement to introduce women's suffrage into the United States.

13. Alexander Graham Bell
was an eminent scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator who is credited with inventing the first practical telephone.

14. Henry Ford
was the American founder of the Ford Motor Company and father of modern assembly lines used in mass production. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry. He was a prolific inventor and was awarded 161 U.S. patents.

15. Walt Disney
Disney is famous for his influence in the field of entertainment during the twentieth century. As the co-founder (with his brother Roy O. Disney) of Walt Disney Productions, Disney became one of the best-known motion picture producers in the world,

16. Ludwig van Beethoven

17. Mother Teresa
She is known for her humanitarian work through Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity. It is operating 610 missions in 123 countries, including hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup kitchens, children's and family counseling programs, orphanages, and schools.

18. Babe Ruth

19. Christopher Columbus
was a navigator, colonizer, and explorer whose voyages across the Atlantic Ocean led to general European awareness of the American continents in the Western Hemisphere.

20. Luciano Pavarotti

21. Martin Luther King
was an American clergyman, activist and prominent leader in the African-American civil rights movement, most well-known for his “I Have a Dream” speech.

22. Jim Thorpe
was an American athlete. Considered one of the most versatile athletes in modern sports, he won Olympic gold medals in the 1912 pentathlon and decathlon, played American football at the collegiate and professional levels, and also played professional baseball and basketball.

23. Mikhail Baryshnikov

24. Michelangelo
An Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer.

25. John Glenn
a United States Marine Corps pilot, an astronaut and United States senator who was the first American and third person to orbit the Earth.