Buzz
As children, many of us dream big about what we'll achieve by the time we grow up. But if we had known what challenges lay ahead, we might have lost our enthusiasm as kids, possibly even abandoning our goals. Yet, there are a few exceptional youngsters who didn't have to wait until adulthood to accomplish feats that most people can only dream of.
10. Brian Zimmerman
Throughout history, many young monarchs have ascended to power before reaching adulthood. While Brian Zimmerman didn’t wield as much authority as these young rulers, he earned his position through hard work rather than inheritance. In 1983, at just 11 years old, Zimmerman successfully ran for mayor of Crabb, Texas, an unincorporated town with a population of 225 at the time. His campaign gained traction with compelling rhetoric like: “The mayor isn’t there to sit and worry about keeping his job. He’s there to do what’s best for the people.”
Sadly, Zimmerman was unable to fulfill his main campaign promise of preventing Crabb from being swallowed up by the neighboring larger communities. However, he did gain national attention, and his story was even turned into a film, Lone Star Kid, starring James Earl Jones and produced by Ron Howard. That would have been a consolation if Zimmerman had been interested in the spotlight. In fact, he downplayed his appearance on Good Morning, America, remarking, “I’m not jumping up and down.” One would think that someone who becomes a successful politician would seek out as much publicity as possible.
Tragically, Zimmerman passed away from a heart attack in 1996 at the age of 24.
9. Saugat Bista
On December 12, 2014, the film Love You Baba (“Father”) premiered in Nepal, marking the extraordinary directorial debut of Saugat Bista, who was just seven years old at the time. This made him the youngest director in history to direct a professionally produced, theatrically distributed feature film, a feat officially recognized by Guinness World Records.
The film is marketed with a rather generic description, claiming it’s a drama ‘about a father and a daughter. A story with ups and downs of life and how a father struggles to fulfill all small desires of a motherless child.’ It's hard to imagine how such a premise could resonate with a seven-year-old boy, let alone how the finished product could turn out to be as professionally filmed and produced as this 138-minute feature.
Aside from the heavily advertised fact that this seemingly costly movie was directed by a child (it was shot on 35mm film, which alone can cost tens of thousands of dollars for a film of this length), the reception appeared to be positive. The Cinema Times reported that when the film was shown to critics, some were seen with ‘weepy eyes.’ Typically, when someone Bista’s age makes a movie, the only tears shed are from parents dreading the viewing experience.
8. Thomas Gregory
Since Captain Matthew Webb first swam across the English Channel in 1875 without assistance, completing the roughly 34 kilometers (21 miles) between England and France has become a prestigious challenge for athletes. The journey is both grueling and perilous. Tragically, out of the many who’ve attempted it, six have lost their lives in the process, even with safety crews accompanying them.
You wouldn’t think a child would be permitted to attempt such a feat. However, in 1988, Thomas Gregory, a young boy from the UK, set out from France to swim to Shakespeare Beach at the age of just 11. Just two weeks before, a 20-year-old swimming expert had tragically died during a similar attempt.
With a crossing time of about 11.75 hours, Gregory became the youngest person to ever swim the English Channel, beating the previous record-holder’s time by nearly three hours and surpassing the age of the former record-holder by almost three months. When Gregory reached Dover, his first words were that he wanted to sleep for two full days, which might be one of the most relatable statements in sports history.
7. Suhas Gopinath
Suhas Gopinath launched his company under far more challenging conditions than many other young entrepreneurs, and his business has since expanded greatly. At the age of 17, he became the youngest CEO of a multinational company. He founded the company when he was just 14 years old.
During the early days of the Internet, Gopinath was a young boy in Bangalore, India, who chose to skip school to spend time at a local Internet cafe. There, he taught himself how to navigate the online world. Internet access was costly in India at that time, so Gopinath worked as a clerk at the cafe without pay just to afford using the Internet.
Eventually, Gopinath had the idea of reaching out to automotive companies, claiming they needed websites to do business with his company. Since they didn’t yet have websites, he offered to build one for $500, or $750 if they needed it urgently. By 2000, he had done enough web development to establish Globals Inc. Within three years, the company had gone multinational. Despite his growing fame as a businessman in India, his parents insisted that he complete his college education.
6. Louis Braille
Though we’ve already discussed Louis Braille’s groundbreaking system of writing for the blind, we haven’t highlighted the immense achievement it was for a man who had been blinded at just three years old by an accident with leatherworking tools. At the age of 10, Braille was accepted into the Royal Institute for Blind Youth, an elite school for the blind in Paris. His exceptional intellect earned him a full scholarship to the prestigious institution.
In 1821, Braille attended a lecture at the school by Captain Charles Barbier, a retired army officer. Barbier had devised a system of raised dots to help soldiers read and write messages in the dark of night. However, Barbier’s system was clunky, the French language had too many symbols to be effectively translated, and the army showed little interest in it. Frustrated by the embossed lettering system used at his school, 13-year-old Braille took an interest in Barbier's dot system and began working to improve it.
There are conflicting reports about whether Braille dedicated all of his spare time and vacations for two or three years to perfecting his system. However, the determined young man was still very much a teenager when he completed his Braille system. He then presented it to his school director, Sebastian Guillie, his classmates, and the general public. While Braille’s system garnered admirers during his lifetime, including King Louis Philippe, it was allegedly kept out of the school curriculum for many years due to concerns from sighted teachers that the newly educated blind would compete with them for jobs.
5. Kieron Williamson
The world of art is often where we see child prodigies, with stories of talents like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who was composing symphonies at just four years old. However, even among art prodigies, Kieron Williamson’s success is extraordinary.
At the age of seven, in 2009, Williamson was already selling his paintings for at least £900 each. By 2014, he was selling out art exhibitions in minutes for £400,000 and had over 10,000 subscribers to his newsletter. By the age of 13, his art had already made him a millionaire, and his parents had become his employees.
His artwork often features charming, countryside scenes: sailboats, geese, houses surrounded by trees with leaves turning colors in the fall, and more. These paintings are soft and stylized, and it’s easy to imagine them displayed in a hotel lobby.
Williamson is not only a more skilled artist than most adults, but he also shows a keen sense of marketability in his choice of subjects. However, in an interview, he shared that his main goal is to buy some land so he can raise some cows and paint them. It seems he’s not making these decisions for commercial gain—he simply enjoys these subjects.
4. Willie Johnson
While it is a tragedy that wars exist and sometimes are necessary, it becomes especially heartbreaking when children are caught in the middle. One such example is the horrifying use of child soldiers by Joseph Kony. However, even during the US Civil War, it was common to place many children in dangerous situations, such as acting as drummer boys. Many of these young boys displayed such incredible bravery that they were awarded the Medal of Honor, the highest military award in the United States.
The youngest recipient in that group was 11-year-old Willie Johnson, a member of the 3rd Vermont Infantry. During the Seven Days Battles in 1862, his unit was being pushed back by the Confederate Army. Johnson remained composed, stayed at his post while playing the drums for an orderly retreat, and was the last to leave his position. President Abraham Lincoln personally awarded him the Medal of Honor. He was one of about 48 soldiers under the age of 18 to receive the distinction.
By the 20th century, the use of child soldiers was thankfully abolished in the US military. The youngest Medal of Honor recipient in that century was 17-year-old Jack Lucas, who saved his fellow soldiers during the Battle of Iwo Jima. With any luck, Willie Johnson’s record will stand unchallenged.
3. Marjorie Gestring
In 2008, a major controversy arose regarding the ages of the members of the Chinese gymnastics team, with questions about whether they were under too much pressure at such a young age. Even if the reports claiming that He Kexin was only 14 were true, she would have still been around a year older than 13-year-old Marjorie Gestring when she embarked on a journey to Europe to compete in the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
The spirit of the era was captured by the ship Gestring traveled on, which was aptly named the SS America. She faced additional pressure as well, as Katherine Rawls had defeated her during the Olympic trials, and Gestring had to compete against the defending champion, Dorothy Poynton-Hill, in the main event.
Gestring rose to the challenge, delivering an outstanding performance in springboard diving that made her the youngest athlete to win an Olympic gold medal. This marked the start of her long and successful career as a diving champion, with eight titles at the American Athletic Union. However, she was unable to qualify for a second appearance at the US Olympic team.
Surprisingly, Gestring’s youth was not as exceptional as it might first appear. Not only was she just slightly younger than China’s Fu Mingxia, the 1992 gold medalist in platform diving, but she was also not the youngest medalist at the 1936 Olympics. That honor went to swimmer Inge Sorenson from Denmark, who won a bronze medal at the age of 12.
2. Jake Marcionette
One of the key reasons for the success of Christopher Paolini’s bestselling Eragon series was that he was only 17 when he completed the first book’s final draft. While Jake Marcionette may not have matched Paolini’s professional sales figures yet, he certainly makes Paolini appear quite elderly in comparison when it comes to age. Only time will reveal whether Marcionette eventually surpasses Paolini in terms of sales as well.
In 2012, at just 12 years old, Marcionette decided to pursue writing seriously and sought out an agent. Rather than following the conventional method of submitting queries, he took an unconventional approach by cold-calling agents. By 2013, his persistence paid off, as he secured both an agent and a publishing deal with Penguin’s Young Readers Group.
By 2014, his book Just Jake (the first installment of a planned series) was ready for release. Just Jake is a humorous, semi-autobiographical illustrated book that seemed to be perfectly timed for the market. It quickly climbed onto the New York Times best-seller list in the same year it was published.
1. Victor De Leon III
Back in 2005, video games hadn't yet become the massive cultural force they are today. YouTube was still in its early days, long before thousands of people could earn a living by posting videos of themselves playing games. It was also years before Roger Ebert made his controversial statement that video games would never be considered art, sparking a widespread debate.
However, 2005 was the year that Victor De Leon III from New York made history by becoming the youngest signed professional player for Major League Games at the age of seven. His achievement generated so much buzz that a documentary was created about him, and he even appeared on 60 Minutes. That same year, he earned enough to cover his future college expenses.
To his family, it likely seemed destined to happen. De Leon had been playing games since he was just two years old. By the time he was four, he was already competing in tournaments and winning them. It raised some eyebrows when he entered Halo tournaments well before the legal age, considering the game's M for Mature rating. Yet, with a family full of competitive gamers, it wasn't too surprising that during a 2005 Chicago Tournament with over 550 participants, he came in second place—to his own uncle.
