Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was only eight years old when he wrote his first symphony! I’ve never heard it, and I don’t know anyone who has.
At 18, Alexander the Great of Macedonia expanded his territory to almost two million square miles. Guess what, though: Macedonia no longer exists. Not so “Great” now, I guess, huh, Alex?
Bill Gates was just 20 when he dropped out of Harvard College to start Microsoft. Some people just don’t have what it takes to make it at Harvard.
Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook at the age of 19, and he has yet to apologize.
At 15, Bobby Fisher earned the title of “youngest chess grandmaster in history.” It’s likely he was still a virgin at that point, which would make him the “least-sex-having chess grandmaster in history.” Ouch.
Mary Shelley was a mere 19 years old when she wrote Frankenstein. She lived for 15 years after that and never got around to writing Frankenstein 2, leaving me to pick up the slack.
Edgar Allen Poe published his first book at 18. And look how he turned out…
At 26, Albert Einstein published a series of five papers that would challenge how everyone, except for me, thought about the universe. Five is not that many papers when you really think about it (Frankenstein 2 is at least twice that) and plus a lot of his theories are up for debate (He claims that e = mc2, but I personally have never been able to prove that).
Louis Braille invented the braille writing system when he was only 15. Let’s see him hop in the boxing ring with me, though…
Nadia Comăneci became an Olympic gymnast at age 14. I was only five when I decided to win the Olympics someday, so I had the idea way before she did.
The Beatles were only in their early 20s when they played The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. Ed Sullivan was sixty-two at the time, which is pretty old… So…
In the mid 17th century, a math-loving Frenchman mastered Euclidean geometry at only 12 years old. Seven years later, he invented the first mechanical calculator. His name? No idea.
Theodore Roosevelt became the youngest U.S. president at 42, even though you’re allowed to become president at 35. What was he doing in those years in-between? We may never know what he was hiding…
Jordan Romero of California climbed to the summit of Mt. Everest when he was only 13 years old, and he has yet to speak out about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
It’s easy to let stories of early success bring you down, but it’s important to remember that many people don’t do their best work until late in life. I am 31, for example, and have only just now started the first draft of Frankenstein 2.