Lebanon's rocket scientists
Although Lebanon is a small country, many of its citizens have gained prominence throughout the world as scientists and inventors.
While it is true that Lebanon is a small country, covering only 10,452 square kilometers and with a population of no more than 5 million, the "Land of the Cedars" has been known throughout ancient and modern times for its inventors and emigrants. It is well known, of course, that the Phoenicians, the ancient residents of Syria and Lebanon, invented the alphabet and spread it to the world. Their boats traveled to Europe and Africa, and according to some theories, the Phoenicians may have even been the first to cross the Atlantic and discover the American continent.
In the modern era, the Lebanese began to emigrate in significant numbers at the beginning of the 18th century, primarily to Europe, the Americas and Africa. Some Lebanese researchers put the number of Lebanese emigrants, including their children and grandchildren, at between 11 and 16 million. These emigrants have included some prominent intellectuals, scholars and inventors. One of the most prominent of these was the thinker and writer Gibran Khalil Gibran (1883-1931), who became popular in the West as a poet and painter after emigrating to the United States and publishing his books in English. He is most known in the West for The Prophet (1923) and is the best-selling poet after William Shakespeare and Lao-Tzu.
