unusual backgrounds. Václav Havel, born in 1936, was a playwright and writer with an interest in human rights. He became the voice of the opposition in Czechoslovakia in the 1980s and President of Czechoslovakia at age 53 after the collapse of the communist regime in 1989. Ronald Reagan, a former actor, union leader, and corporate spokesman, was first elected to public office at 55 when he became Governor of California and was the oldest man to have served as U.S. President until Trump was. Melchora Aquino was an uneducated Filipino peasant woman, the mother of six children, who became an activist in the fight to gain independence from Spain. Known as the Grand Woman of the revolution, she was 84 when the Philippine Revolution broke out in 1896. Marjory Stoneman Douglas's career might also fit. Her first environmental work of note occurred when she was almost 60, at 78 she founded "Friends of the Everglades", and she continued until she was over age 100. Religion A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, a proponent of Gaudiya Vaishnavism, founded the International Society for Krishna Consciousness ( the Hare Krishna movement) in 1966 at the age of 70. Within the final twenty years of his life, Prabhupada translated over sixty volumes of classic Vedic scriptures (such as the Bhagavad Gita and Bhagavata Purana) into the English language. Mary Baker Eddy, born in 1821, founded The Church of Christ, Scientist in 1879 at the age of 58. Augustine of Hippo, as he detailed in the Confessions, was a frequent loser in the battle with lustful passions from the age of 16 to 32. At the age of 31 he converted to Christianity and began to pray to overcome his passions and lust. He eventually went on to lead a life of celibacy and became one of the most influential bishops in the history of the Church. Writing Many writers have published their first major work late in life. Mary Wesley might be a classic example. She wrote two children's books in her late fifties, but her writing career did not gain note until her first novel at 70, written after the death of her husband. At the age of 74, Norman Maclean published his first and only novel, the 1976 best-selling book A River Runs Through It, which fictionalizes Maclean's memories of the early twentieth century in Montana. Harriet Doerr published her first novel at