Pau Casals had a great passion, music, a hobby, smoking a pipe, and a great ideal, world peace.

Pau Casals

Ramon Llull, the first universally famous Catalan writer, was born in Mallorca almost 700 years ago. At that time, the most important buildings were cathedrals and castles, because the most powerful people were religious or kings and their nobles. Outside the castles life was very hard and dangerous: the peasants, servants and slaves worked without machines and only lived to serve the king.

Ramon Llull

“We are not the only beings on the planet with personalities, minds, and above all, emotions”

Jane Goodall

Today, all over the world, Gaudí is seen as a genius, the creator of landmarks that have become world heritage: Park Güell, the Pedrera, Casa Batlló or the Sagrada Família. Millions of tourists visit Barcelona every year to see Gaudí’s work close up.

Gaudí

I am sure that for many of you the best footballer in the world is called Messi. Yet, the Barça player is young and still has plenty of his career to go. Before him there was a footballer that many consider the greatest sportsman in history. He was born Edson Arantes do Nascimento, but everyone knows him as Pelé. As he was black, many people also called him “the black pearl”. Others knew him as “O Rei”, in Portuguese, which is the language spoken in his native Brazil.

Pele

Getting into university and gaining scientific knowledge was not easy for women for centuries. However, last century a girl born in Poland became the most famous woman scientist in history. Over time, and overcoming all sorts of obstacles, she had extraordinary success: two Nobel prizes, one in physics and one in chemistry.

Curie

Miquel Biada (1789-1848) was born in Mataró but travelled around half the world doing business and setting up companies. Towards the end of his life he went back to Mataró with the aim of making the first train line in Catalonia.

Miquel Biada

Sometimes unexpected things happen to us that are hard to understand or accept. Today I want to tell you the story of a girl who only lived until she was 15 but who is known all over the world. And do you know why? Because, even though she had to live through a completely unjust situation, she never lost hope and wrote all her experiences down in her personal diary. All of us who have read that diary love and remember Anne Frank.

Anne Frank

Nelson Mandela (1918-2013) spent 27 years in prison because he did not agree with the abusive domination of the whites. Yet, he ended up becoming the first black president of South Africa and established new laws so that blacks and whites would have the same rights and obligations. When he was small, people called him Rolihlahla, which means “he who shakes tree branches”, a way of saying “troublemaker”.

Nelson Mandela

Charles Darwin was born in a small town in England. He was a very inquisitive child who never stopped asking questions about the things he observed. He collected beetles, plants and all sorts of things. Over time he found the answer to a great enigma: we humans are the result of a process of evolution that began millions of years ago. This was a very shocking idea during his time, but today it is accepted as fact by the scientific community.

Charles Darwin

Joan Miró understood that colours were a vocabulary, a language without words that opens our minds to new ways of seeing the world.

Joan Miro

Have you ever wondered what it must be like to fly a plane? Today we present a woman who knew what she wanted to do from a young age: she dreamed of being a pilot. And she achieved it! Maria Pepa Colomer (1913-2004) was the first Catalan woman (and the first woman in Spain) to fly a plane. And she did so when she was only 17.

La República

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