20 Children Who Changed History By Making Bold Decisions

Known by some as the "Edison of our times," Maryland native Jack Andraka developed an effective method of detecting early stage pancreatic cancer when he was just 15 years old. For his work, Jack was awarded the grand prize at the 2012 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.

This iconic photo shows six-year-old Ruby Bridges becoming the first black student to integrate a white school in the South in November 1960. Despite intense pushback and protest from hateful mobs, Ruby continued attending school every day and inspired countless other black children to do the same.

Not sleeping for days on end might seem more like a punishment than an achievement, but between December 1963 and January 1964, 17-year-old Randy Gardner kept himself awake for a record 11 days, 25 minutes — and all in the name of science. The sleep deprivation study conducted on Randy by Stanford researchers provided invaluable insight into the effects of sub-optimal sleep on the body.

Beginning at age 12, Malala Yousafzai became a prominent voice for female education in Pakistan against intense suppression from the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, who banned girls from attending school. After surviving an assassination attempt, Malala went on to become one of the world's most important educational activists and earned the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014.

Known as "America's Youngest Ambassador," 10-year-old American schoolgirl Samantha Smith was invited to the Soviet Union by General Secretary Yuri Andropov after writing a letter to him questioning why their two countries were at odds. Following her widely publicized visit, Samantha was credited with helping to ease Cold War tensions across the globe. Sadly, at age 13, the young ambassador was killed in a plane crash in 1985.

At age 15, Farmington, Maine, native Chester Greenwood was out ice skating when he grew frustrated that he couldn't find an effective way to keep his ears warm. After having his grandmother sew tufts of fur between wire loops, the earmuffs were born, and Chester went on to provide jobs in Farmington manufacturing his invention for nearly 60 years.

Most 14-year-olds are content to just watch TV — at that tender young age, Philo T. Farnsworth invented it. Born from an idea he shared with his chemistry teacher, Philo went on to patent the first fully functional all-electronic television system in 1927.

Despite developing an infection as a child that left him blind in both eyes, Louis Braille went on to excel at his studies and earned a scholarship from France's Royal Institute for Blind Youth. While there, Louis expanded upon one of Charles Barbier's methods of shorthand and created a reading and writing system for the blind. Thus, braille was born.

Everyone knows the story of Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on the bus to a white woman, but nine months earlier, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin was arrested for the exact same thing. The resulting court case actually led to the segregation of buses in Alabama being declared unconstitutional, though because she was pregnant out of wedlock at the time, Claudette's contributions weren't acknowledged by civil rights activists.

Is there a more well-known student activist today than Greta Thunberg? Beginning her quest to end climate change at age 15, Greta has made headlines across the globe for her no-holds-barred approach to activism, telling world leader point-blank that they need get their acts together in order to save our planet.

Born into slavery on the island of Réunion just east of Madagascar, Edmond Albius developed a technique for pollinating vanilla when he was just 12 years old. This technique gradually led Madagascar to become the world's chief vanilla producer and is actually still used today.

After escaping from child slavery in his home country of Pakistan, 10-year-old Iqbal Masih went on to become an outspoken opponent of the practice and helped facilitate the release of over 3,000 Pakistani children from bonded labor. Unfortunately, Iqbal's work angered the so-called Pakistani "carpet mafia," and at age 12 he was assassinated while riding his bike with friends.

As the Nazi regime increased its stranglehold on Germany during the early '40s, Sophie Scholl and her fellow members of the White Rose non-violent resistance group sought to enlighten their fellow youths through the distribution of anti-war leaflets. But after being caught distributing the flyers, Sophie was executed by guillotine at age 21.

In China, one young man's compassion was enough to inspire millions. For three years, 18-year-old Xie Xu carried his friend Zhang Chi, who suffers from muscular dystrophy, to school every day. Over that span, Zhang never missed one day of class.

Perhaps the most well-known victim of the Holocaust, Anne Frank and her famous diary provided a heart-wrenching, firsthand account of what life was like hiding from the Nazis. Her words and legacy remain a major touchstone in remembrance of those lost during the Holocaust.

Founded in 1970 by 19-year-old Ira Gessel, the Committee to End Pay Toilets in America was responsible for doing just that. According to Gessel, "When a man's or woman's natural body functions are restricted because he or she doesn't have a piece of change, there is no true freedom."

While a student in high school, Susan Eloise Hinton wrote what would become one the most influential American novels: The Outsiders. In addition to portraying youth-oriented class struggles in a realistic light, the novel is also credited with establishing the YA genre.

While working as a clerk at Sears, a teenaged Peter Roberts developed a quick-release ratchet and attempted to sell the idea to his employer, who immediately shot him down. However, Sears then wound up stealing the concept and made a cool $44 million selling the ratchets, leading Peter to sue the company. He was awarded $5 million.

Decades before he was tragically killed in the 1986 Challenger disaster, Ronald McNair was a nine-year-old boy in Lake City, South Carolina, who was denied access to the segregated Lake City Public Library. Not only did Ronald overcome these prejudices to become a celebrated mission specialist for NASA, but that very same library that turned him away is now named after him.

Like many other life-changing inventions, the ice pop was created totally by accident. At age 11, Frank Epperson (pictured here with his granddaughter years later) unintentionally left a glass of powdered lemonade soda and water with a mixing stick in it out on his porch on a chilly night, thereby creating one of the world's most beloved sweet treats.

Believe it or not, history is filled with countless defining moments and inventions that came about by accident or at the very last minute. Martin Luther King Jr., for example, is fondly remembered for his "I Have A Dream" speech, though, unbelievably, MLK improvised the entire thing on the spot, completely abandoning his notes after one gospel singer asked him to tell the audience about his "dream."

Astonishingly, the tragedy of the Titanic could have been avoided if not for one change in staff. When Second Officer David Blair was removed from the crew, he forgot to hand in his key to the locker that housed the lookout binoculars. As a result, the crew relied on their own eyesight to spot danger ahead, a contingency plan that proved catastrophic.

Infamous for her ignorance, Queen Marie Antoinette was one of the main causes of the French Revolution, as her lavish lifestyle infuriated the struggling working class. Ultimately, this vanity led to the death of her family. Instead of fleeing in a regular carriage Marie demanded a fancier one for her escape, which proved to be slower and allowed the mob to catch up to them.

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States vaporized the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atomic bombs. Initially, America wanted to bomb Kokura, though a young crewman named Kermit Beahan insisted it was too cloudy to see the entire city. What turned out to be a lucky break for Kokura became a tragedy for Nagasaki, the next target on the list.

Famous for his elaborate public appearances, Theodore Roosevelt decided to make a grand speech during his reelection campaign in 1912. As he stood at his podium, someone in the crowd shot Roosevelt in the chest. Miraculously, his 50-page speech, which he'd tucked into his pocket just moments before, blocked the bullet. You better believe this gutsy president then decided to continue delivering his speech as planned!

In 1994, tensions between the United States and North Korea reached a boiling point. After discovering that North Korea had been developing nuclear weapons, Defense Secretary William Perry briefed President Bill Clinton on how to respond. While he had a plan for bombing North Korea's nuclear facility, Perry decided to keep quiet, fearing that Clinton would greenlight the attack. A few days later, a peace settlement was reached.

Before going on vacation in the fall of 1928, Alexander Fleming forgot to clean up his lab. Once he returned, he noticed that some of his Petri dishes were contaminated with a green mold called Penicillium notatum. Following further experimentation, penicillin was born.

In April 1961, the CIA trained Cuban exiles as part of a plan to attack Cuba's Bay of Pigs and overthrow Fidel Castro. Following a failed airstrike, President John F. Kennedy sent in six American fighter planes, only for the pilots to forget to adjust their watches to the Cuban time zone. As a result, the planes arrived an hour too early, and the operation failed miserably.

East German politician Guenter Schabowski enabled the tearing down of the Berlin Wall — and it was all due to lazy reading. When asked during a press conference about travel from East to West Berlin, Schabowski said it would be allowed immediately. Amusingly, he gave this answer because he didn't read an update that included the official answer. Germans on both sides then demanded to have freedom of movement across the border.

On June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was traveling in a motorcade when Bosnian militant Gavrilo Princip threw a bomb under his car. Due to a delayed explosion, the Archduke escaped unharmed, though he remained nearby to visit the victims of the attack at the hospital. Unfortunately, the Archduke's driver made a wrong turn, leading him back to the armed Princip. Ferdinand's assassination kickstarted World War I.

On April 14, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln was scheduled to visit the theatre with his wife Mary, Ulysses S. Grant, and Grant's wife Julia. The outing was cancelled because the women didn't get along, though Lincoln insisted on attending the show as people were expecting him. Needless to say, John Wilkes Booth also visited the theatre and ended Lincoln's life not long after.

In 1955, Rosa Parks was riding on a bus when she was asked to give up her seat in the "colored" section to a white passenger. Her refusal led to her arrest. Parks' decision was truly spontaneous, though she also knew that her local NAACP chapter was looking to protest discriminatory bussing laws. Her act of defiance sparked nationwide protests against racial inequality and made her a symbol of the American civil rights movement.

Every '50s rock fan sorrowfully remembers the 1959 plane crash that took the lives of Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and J.P. Richardson, Jr., aka the Big Bopper. What's particularly tragic is that if Buddy Holly had not convinced the others to take a charter plane so he could get to their next city early and do laundry, the group would've hopped a bus to their next show and survived.

With Cold War tensions at their peak in 1983, Stanislav Petrov was practically on the front lines as he monitored the Soviets' early warning systems. When a sensor indicated that the US had launched missiles toward the USSR, Petrov sensed that something was wrong and decided not to alert his superiors. Petrov's inaction likely prevented a nuclear war — especially since the warning was a false alarm!

As the American Civil War raged on, Confederate general Robert E. Lee sent his troops north in search of supplies. Once the entire Army of Northern Virginia arrived in the Pennsylvanian town of Gettysburg, they were greeted by Union forces — an encounter that changed the tide of the entire war.

While calculus is an integral part of any mathematics syllabus today, advancements in the field would have been made much sooner had it not been for one 13th-century monk. Desperate for paper on which to write his prayers, the monk erased part of an ancient text written by Archimedes, the Greek mathematician. In short, he unknowingly rubbed out the foundations of calculus!

In 1888, John Dunlop's son was struggling to ride his tricycle on a bumpy cobbled street when, suddenly, Dunlop got an idea. He cut a rubber hose and wrapped it around the wheel, thereby making it easier to ride the tricycle on such an uneven surface. Thus, the tire was born!

Carthaginian military leader Hannibal Barca nearly conquered Rome during the Second Punic War, though one poor choice he made while traversing the Alps cost him victory. To prove to his officers that the ground was still solid, Hannibal struck a snowbank — the resulting avalanche wiped out most of his troops.

The storming of Normandy on D-Day was a crucial moment in World War II that led to the Allies' victory. It was also the day that German Field Marshall and tactical mastermind Erwin Rommel (nicknamed Desert Fox) abandoned his post. Why, you ask? Because he decided to take some time off to surprise his wife with a vacation for her birthday — a very costly mistake.

After a Russian contingent captured the Pristina Airport in 1999, NATO peacekeeping forces were called in to block the runways. At the last minute, Commander Mike Jackson refused the order from his superior, telling him, "I'm not going to start the Third World War for you."

The Confederates made plenty of mistakes en route to their Civil War defeat. During the invasion of Maryland in September 1862, Robert E. Lee sent a note outlining battle plans to Maj. Gen. D.H. Hill, who carelessly left it in a cigar box on the ground. Soon after, Union troops found the note and learned of all the plans the Confederates had up their sleeves.

In an attempt to eliminate Fidel Castro, the CIA once hired Marita Lorenz, one of Castro's jaded lovers, to poison him. Lorenz traveled to Cuba and got close enough to kill Castro, though she instead revealed the entire plot to him. While Lorenz decided to abandon her plan of ultimate revenge, these important figures changed the course of history for the purpose of vengeance.