King Khufu built the great pyramid of Giza as a memorial to himself.
Following the death of his favourite wife, Arjumand, due to childbirth difficulties Jahan, the Shah of India, built the Taj Mahal as a mausoleum over her grave.
Qin Shihuang was initially responsible for the largest manmade structure in the world, the Great Wall of China.
The story is told about Louis Pasteur, the pioneer of immunology. Living at a time when thousands of people were dying every year from rabies he was about to experiment on himself, following years of working on a vaccine, when a nine-year-old boy was bitten by a rabid dog. The boy's mother pleaded with Pasteur to try the vaccine on her son. Over ten days Pasteur injected the boy – and he lived.
No doubt Louis Pasteur could have chosen from a multitude of epitaphs but he asked for three words to be etched on his tombstone: JOSEPH MEISTER LIVED!
What will be your legacy?
