Sun Yat-Sen

(1866 - 1925)

Born to poor farmers in Guangdong Province in 1866, Sun Yat-Sen moved at the age of twelve to Honolulu, where he studied at a British missionary school. After returning to China in 1886, he abandoned the profession of medicine to take up politics. Alarmed at the country’s lack of nationalism and believing that clan solidarities among the Chinese people left them nothing more than “a heap of loose sand,” Sun was instrumental in overturning the Qing dynasty in the revolution of 1911. He is now remembered as the father of modern China.