Greta Thunberg was frequently in the news. In January 2020 she criticised politicians and businessmen for ignoring scientists’ warnings to stop using fossil fuels. But not everybody agreed with her. American President Donald Trump said, “‘Doom-mongers are the heirs of yesterday’s foolish fortune tellers” and his Treasury secretary said that, “Thunberg should go study economics before offering advice.”
In the face of climate change deniers like these, Greta, an autistic schoolgirl, refused to give up her fight to save the planet. But she was not the first child to have battled the powers that be in order to change the world.
In this quiz we look at ten children who have changed the world for the better. Some took on the Nazis or other oppressive governments, others campaigned for freedoms we now take for granted. But how many of them do you remember? Have a go at this quiz and let’s see if their names have gone down in history.
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Joan was given men’s clothing by her captors. At first she refused to wear it but at last relented. She was then burned at the stake as a heretic for doing so! She was 19 years old
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Sophie, her brother Hans and their friend Christoph Probst, were executed by guillotine in 1943. She was 21 at the time of her death
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Anne was not captured until August 1944. She was then sent to a concentration camp, where she died 6 months later. Her diary has served as a warning to future generations about the dangers of nationalism
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Segregation in schools had been outlawed by the US government. Still, many schools in the southern USA refused to admit black children. Ruby went to the William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana, and had to be escorted by four federal marshals for an entire year, to ensure her safety
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Anti-nuclear protests were becoming common, which made some Americans take a disliking to Samantha, seeing her as a troublemaker. She died in a plane crash in 1985 when she was just 13. Officially this was an accident, though some believe that Samantha was killed for her anti-nuclear stance
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At the age of 10, Iqbal escaped his slavery. He then went on to help 3,000 Pakistani children free themselves from forced labour. He died in 1995, aged 12. He was shot by, some believe, an assassin employed by the Pakistani carpet industry who relied on child labour
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Om Prakash Gurjar was taken from his family at the age of 5 and forced to work as a farm labourer. He was rescued and, from then on, campaigned to help others in the same situation. He was awarded an international peace prize for his work battling forced slavery, human trafficking and child marriage
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As she rode home from school after taking an exam, a masked gunman boarded Malala’s bus and shouted, "Which one of you is Malala? Speak up, otherwise I will shoot you all”. She did speak up and was shot and severely wounded, but thankfully, she recovered
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The book is a collection of Greta’s speeches made to the UN, the EU, and the World Economic Forum. The title is apt: Greta started campaigning when she was 15 and the world (at least some of us) did indeed listen to her
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The sisters began their campaign when they were 10 and 12 years old
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