School founders

Ponaka Kanakamma (1892–1963) was a social worker, activist and freedom fighter, imprisoned over a year, as a disciple of Mahatma Gandhi, in India. She founded Sri Kasturidevi Vidyalam, a large school for girls in Nellore.

Viola Irene Desmond (July 6, 1914 – February 7, 1965) was a Canadian civil rights activist and businesswoman of Black Nova Scotian descent. In 1946 she challenged racial segregation at a cinema in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia by refusing to leave a whites-only area of the Roseland Theatre. For this, she was convicted of a minor tax violation for the one-cent tax difference between the seat she had paid for and the seat she used, which was more expensive. Desmond's case is one of the most publicized incidents of racial discrimination in Canadian history and helped start the modern civil rights movement in Canada.

Lim Lean Teng (simplified Chinese: 林连登; traditional Chinese: 林連登; pinyin: Lín Lián Dēng) was a successful businessman who established schools in Penang with his wealth. He was born in 1870 in China. He first migrated to Penang, then to British Malaya.

Anthony Bowen (1805-1872), born enslaved in Prince George's County, Maryland, was a resident of Washington, D.C. from 1826 until his death. After earning his freedom in 1830, Bowen became the first African-American employee of the United States Patent Office.

Eliška Krásnohorská (18 November 1847 in Prague – 26 November 1926 in Prague) was a Czech feminist author. She was introduced to literature and feminism by Karolína Světlá. She wrote works of lyric poetry and literary criticism, however, she is usually associated with children's literature and translations, including works by Pushkin, Mickiewicz and Byron.

Iacob Heraclid (or Eraclid; Greek: Ἰάκωβος Ἡρακλείδης; 1527 – November 5, 1563), born Basilicò and also known as Iacobus Heraclides, Heraclid Despotul, or Despot Vodă ("Despot the Voivode"), was a Greek Maltese soldier, adventurer and intellectual, who reigned as Prince of Moldavia from November 1561 to November 1563. He is remembered as a pioneer of the Protestant faith in Eastern Europe, a champion of Renaissance humanism, and a founder of academic life in Moldavia. Active within the Greek diaspora in several countries, he was a student of Hermodorus Lestarchus, and worked as a scribe alongside his cousin, Iakobos Diassorinos. Heraclid forged his genealogy several times, claiming to be a member of the Branković dynasty; he was more reliably related to the Byzantine nobility in Rhodes, and claimed the titular lordship of Samos. In the late 1540s and early '50s, he studied medicine at the University of Montpellier, and married a local. A duelist and alleged infanticide, Heraclid fled over the border with the Holy Roman Empire before he could be executed for murder. He was slowly won over by the Reformation, serving the Protestant princes of the Upper Saxon Circle.

Tsuda Umeko (津田 梅子, born Tsuda Ume (つだ・うめこ); December 31, 1864 – August 16, 1929) was a Japanese educator, Christian, and pioneer in education for women in Meiji period Japan. Originally named Tsuda Ume, with mume or ume referring to the Japanese plum, she went by the name Ume Tsuda while studying in the United States before changing her name to Umeko in 1902.

Theodor Fliedner (21 January 1800 - 4 October 1864) was a German Lutheran minister and founder of Lutheran deaconess training. In 1836, he founded Kaiserswerther Diakonie, a hospital and deaconess training center. Together with his wives Friederike Münster and Caroline Bertheau, he is regarded as the renewer of the apostolic deaconess ministry. His work in nursing was pioneering for Florence Nightingale, who spent a few months in Kaiserswerth in 1850.

Anne de Xainctonge (21 November 1567 – 8 June 1621) was a French religious sister who founded of the Society of the Sisters of Saint Ursula of the Blessed Virgin, the first non-cloistered women's religious community. She was declared Venerable by the Roman Catholic Church in 1991.

Nicolae Iorga (sometimes Neculai Iorga, Nicolas Jorga, Nicolai Jorga or Nicola Jorga, born Nicu N. Iorga; 17 January 1871 – 27 November 1940) was a Romanian historian, politician, literary critic, memoirist, poet and playwright. Co-founder (in 1910) of the Democratic Nationalist Party (PND), he served as a member of Parliament, President of the Deputies' Assembly and Senate, cabinet minister and briefly (1931–32) as Prime Minister. A child prodigy, polymath and polyglot, Iorga produced an unusually large body of scholarly works, consecrating his international reputation as a medievalist, Byzantinist, Latinist, Slavist, art historian and philosopher of history. Holding teaching positions at the University of Bucharest, the University of Paris and several other academic institutions, Iorga was founder of the International Congress of Byzantine Studies and the Institute of South-East European Studies (ISSEE). His activity also included the transformation of Vălenii de Munte town into a cultural and academic center.