Ho Chi Minh

Ho Chi Minh appears on the Vietnamese currency, and his image dominates much of the public space in Vietnam. In 1978, he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. He is invariably referred to as "Uncle Ho" at schools and universities. Baekeland's great-grandson, Anthony Baekeland spent several years in a psychiatric hospital after murdering his mother, Barbara Daly Baekeland; ironically, he suffocated himself with a plastic bag in 1981. In Vietnam today, he is elevated by the Communist government to an almost cult-like status. Baekeland is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York. He wrote, "Not only is cremation good from the point of view of hygiene, but it also saves farmland.". He died of a cerebral hemorrhage in a sanatorium in Beacon, New York.

He wished to be cremated and his ashes buried in urns on three Vietnamese hilltops, each in one of the three main regions of Vietnam (North, Central and South). He sold the General Bakelite Company to Union Carbide in 1939, at his son's prompting, retired, and eventually became a recluse, eating all of his meals from cans and becoming obsessed with developing an immense tropical garden on his Florida estate. This was consistent with other Communist leaders who have been similarly displayed before and since, including Mao Zedong, Kim Il-Sung, and for a time, Josef Stalin, but the "honor" violated Hồ's last wishes. As Baekeland got older, he became more eccentric, getting into fierce battles with his son (and presumptive heir) over salary and other issues. His embalmed body was put on display in a granite mausoleum modeled after Lenin's Tomb in Moscow. Baekeland appeared on the cover of TIME Magazine on September 22, 1924. Hồ died on the late evening of September 2, 1969 at his home in Hanoi at age 79 from multiple health problems including diabetes. Baekeland made Swinburne the chairman of the new Bakelite Limited, his British subsidiary.

His opponents, however, feel that he was not an admirable figure, claiming that he mandated the invasion of South Vietnam that resulted in the deaths of over a million of its citizens. Baekeland visited England in 1916 and met James Swinburne, who almost ten years earlier had coincidentally experimented with and created a material identical to Bakelite only to find that Baekeland had been awarded the patent the day before. To his supporters Hồ Chí Minh is viewed positively as a committed Nationalist and Vietnamese Communist, who fought for a united Vietnamese state. Baekeland became a multimillionaire as a result of the explosion in the manufacture and use of Bakelite. During his presidency, Hồ was the center of a large personality cult in North Vietnam which increased in force after his death and when the former capital of South Vietnam, Saigon (Sàigòn), was captured it was renamed Hồ Chí Minh City within 24 hours. The official name of Bakelite was polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride. During his presidency, North Vietnam attempted disastrous agrarian reforms that resulted in tens of thousands of deaths, as landowners were publicly denounced as landlords and executed (he later repudiated these programs). By controlling the pressure and temperature applied to phenol and formaldehyde, he could produce his dreamed hard moldable plastic: bakelite.

Hồ led the war against the French (1946-1954) and, later, against the United States until his death. Then he turned to developing a binder for asbestos, which at that time was molded with rubber. He was a leading force in trying to re-unite North Vietnam with South Vietnam through infiltration and insurrection during the 1960s. He first produced a soluble phenol-formaldehyde shellac (called "Novolak" that never became a market success). Hồ was almost captured by a group of French Soldiers led by Jean-Etienne Valluy at Viet Bac, but he was able to slip into a camouflaged hole at the last minute. Baekeland began to investigate the reactions of phenol and formaldehyde. He signed an agreement with France which recognized Vietnam as an autonomous state in the Indochinese Federation and the French Union on March 6, 1946 but that compromise did not prevent the war that begun that December between Hồ's forces and the French who tried to re-establish their colonial rule in the country; following the Chinese withdrawal from the North in exchange for French-occupied territories in China. Chemists had begun to recognize that many of the natural resins and fibers were polymers.

Hồ Chí Minh became President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) in 1954 (he had declared himself President on March 2, 1946 but this was not recognised internationally), when he forced Emperor Bao Dai to abdicate. His first objective was to find a replacement for shellac (at that time made from the shells of lac beetles). After adopting the name Hồ Chí Minh (胡 志明), a Sino-Vietnamese name with a common surname (Hồ) and a given name meaning aspiring (Chí) to light (Minh), he returned to Vietnam in 1941 to lead the Viet Minh independence movement, conducting successful military actions against the Japanese occupation forces and later against the French bid to reoccupy the country (1946-1954). When asked why he entered the field of synthetic resins, Baekeland answered "to make money". He later moved to Guangzhou, China, where he founded the Vietnamese Communist Party. Soon it penetrated nearly all branches of industry. He soon helped form the French Communist Party and spent much time in Moscow. Radios, telephones and electrical insulators were made of Bakelite due to its properties of insulation and heat-resistance.

President at the time Woodrow Wilson for help to overthrow the French in Vietnam and to have a free democratic government like the French, but was again denied. Bakelite was the first plastic invented that held its shape after being heated. He asked the U.S. Bakelite took the industry by storm after 1907. Following World War I, as Nguyễn Ái Quốc, he petitioned the great powers at the Versailles peace talks for equal rights in French Indochina but was ignored. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry winning German Adolf von Baeyer had experimented with this material in 1872, but did not complete its development. Hồ embraced Communism while living abroad in England (where he trained as a pastry chef under Escoffier) as well as France from 1915 - 1923. These can be mixed, heated, and then either molded or extruded.

He often went to the public library, read newspapers and paid much attention to the current affairs and political issues. Bakelite was made from phenol (then known as carbolic acid) and formaldehyde. On the other hand, he was very excited with what he learned from a totally different world each day. The invention of Bakelite is considered the beginning of the Age of Plastics. Hồ’s first time abroad was not easy, he worked hard in any job he could find, such as being a cleaner, waiter, cook helper, film developer. Baekeland sold his patent for Velox photographic paper to the president of Kodak, George Eastman, for $750,000. In 1911, Hồ went to the South to Gia Dinh (Saigon) and joined a ship en route to Marseille, France as a cabin-boy. After completing his doctorate at the university of his native city, he emigrated to America in 1889, inspired by the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.

However, his application was rejected. Born in Ghent, Belgium, Baekeland was the son of a cobbler and a maid. Historian Nguyen The Anh has photocopied and published it in his book. Leo Hendrik Baekeland (November 14, 1863 - February 23, 1944) was a Belgian-born American chemist who invented Velox photographic paper (1893) and Bakelite (1907), an inexpensive, nonflammable, versatile, and popular plastic. This document is still preserved at the National Archives of France. Hồ made an application form for a course at the French "Colonial Administrative School" which Hồ filled out right after he arrived in Marseille.

He also received a modern secondary education at a French-style Lycee in Hue, the same alma mater of his later disciples, Pham Van Dong and Vo Nguyen Giap. His father, Nguyễn Sinh Sắc was a Confucian scholar, and Hồ himself received a strong Confucian upbringing. Afraid of repercussions from the Authorities, Hồ went into hiding. His father was convicted after he killed a friend after a drink session.

Hồ had two siblings, his brother Nguyen Tat Dat (or Ca Khiem), a geomancer and traditional herbalist and his sister Bach Lien (or Thanh) who worked as a clerk in the French Army. Following Confucian traditions, he received the name Nguyễn Tất Thành at age 10. Hồ was born in Hoang Tru and grew up in Kim Lien, Nam Dan District, Nghe An Province, Vietnam. .

He was originally named Nguyễn Sinh Cung, is also known as Nguyễn Tất Thành, Nguyễn Ái Quốc (a name used by other individuals as well, means "Nguyen the patriot"), Lý Thụy, Hồ Quang (among others) and is popularly called Bác Hồ (uncle Hồ) in Vietnam. Hồ Chí Minh (meaning "Ho, Enlightened Will") (Chữ nôm: 胡志明) listen^? (May 19, 1890 – September 2, 1969) was a Vietnamese revolutionary and statesman, who later became Prime Minister (1954) and President (1954 - 1969) of North Vietnam. The Macmillan Company. Vision Accomplished? The Enigma of Ho Chi Minh.

1971. Khac Huyen. N. Theia.

Ho Chi Minh: A Life. 2000. Duiker. William J.

Little, Brown and Company. Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and Americans in Vietnam. 1972. Francis Fitzgerald.

New American Library. Ho Chi Minh on Revolution and War, Selected Writings 1920-1966. Fall, ed., 1967. Bernard B.

Arbor House Pub Co. Richard Nixon, Reprint edition (November 1, 1987).No More Vietnam. "When the prison doors are opened, the real dragon will fly out.". Sitting by myself in my room, I would shout as if I were addressing large crowds: "Dear martyr compatriots! This is what we need, this is our path to liberation!" Since then (the 1920s) I had entire confidence in Lenin, in the Third International!".

What emotion, enthusiasm, enlightenment and confidence they communicated to me! I wept for joy. But by reading them again and again finally I was able to grasp the essential part. "In (Lenin's Theses on the National and Colonial Questions) there were political terms that were difficult to understand. But in the face of United States aggression they have risen up, united as one man.".

“The Vietnamese people deeply love independence, freedom and peace. "If the Tiger does not stop fighting the Elephant, the Elephant will die of exhaustion." (referring to Vietnam War). "It is better to sacrifice everything than to live in slavery". But even at those odds, you will lose and I will win." (referring to France and America in their wars in Vietnam).

"You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours. "Nothing is more precious than Independence and Liberty.".