Three Famous Swedes: ABBA, Carl Linnaeus, Alfred Nobel

Three (actually six) famous Swedish people:

ABBA_-_TopPop_1974_5 (Beeld en Geluidwiki CC-BY-SA)

1) ABBA is not one person, but four, two musician couples whose given names start with ABBA, Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, Anni-Frid Lyngstad (women's names in red). Two of their most famous songs are 

Mamma Mia (20,000,000+ hits)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=unfzfe8f9NI

and Dancing Queen (26,000,000+ hits)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFrGuyw1V8s

Enjoy them on YouTube 

Carl_von_Linné (Public Domain)

2) Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) made a very important name-giving system used by scientists all over the world. He invented the binomial system of names for plants and animals. We usually call this the scientific system.

binomial

bi = 2

        (A bicycle has two wheels)

nom = name

        (If Mr. "A" nominates Miss "B", people can vote for this name)

An example of a scientific name:

Bust of Peking Man in Zhoukoudian (Mutt CC-BY-SA)

A) Sinanthropus pekinensis:

A Swedish geologist called Johan Andersson (安特生) came to Zhoukoudian (周口店) in 1921. There he found a very old tooth from an ancient human which he called Peking Man (北京猿人). The scientific name was Sinanthropus pekinensis (Sin= China, anthropus = mankind, pekinensis = pekingese), but later this name was changed to Homo erectus pekinensis.

Alfred Nobel (Public Domain)

3) Alfred Nobel (1833-1896) invented dynamite (矽藻土炸藥, 又稱為黃色炸藥) 

and became very rich by selling weapons. In 1888 Alfred's brother Ludvig died. A French newspaper made a mistake with the name. It said "Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday."

Dr. Nobel wanted to give people a better reason to remember him: he used his money to set up the Nobel Prize. Food for thought: how do YOU want people to remember you? Change your life before it's too late.