I was pretty surprised by some of the names. Some even became multi-millionaires!
(Most of the people listed at this site DID go to high school - but dropped out. Some got their diplomas later. I just wish the site included their birth dates.)
From the site:
"Note: Individuals leave school prior to graduation for a variety of reasons, not just the automatically assumed 'failing grades' or being a 'troublemaker.' Other reasons include a health problem, pregnancy, a need to help the family earn income, a
tragic loss to the family, a need to care for siblings or an ailing parent, frequent relocation, war or natural catastrophe conditions in home country, unresolved problems with teachers or classmates, boredom due to education quality issues, or a desire
to devote full time to an already established or emerging professional career. There are high-school dropouts in the membership of Mensa, the high-IQ organization. Alternative terms for "dropout" used by the military and educational institutions are "non-
high school graduate" and "high-school nongraduate."
"While it is a fact and very important to stress that more opportunities exist for individuals who have at least a high school diploma, the names on these lists also add considerable weight to the discussion of what constitutes markers of human
intelligence and a person's potential worth to society and historically civilization as a whole. These names represent examples of human perseverance, creativity, and in a great many instances genius. These are the most comprehensive lists ever compiled
on this subject, but are by no means complete."
https://www.angelfire.com/stars4/lists/dropouts.html
Some of the more famous people who dropped out of ELEMENTARY school (and never got their diplomas):
George Burns
Eddie Cantor
Andrew Carnegie
Charlie Chaplin
Mark Twain
Sir Noel Coward
Isadora Duncan
Maxim Gorky
Milton Hershey
Groucho Marx
Claude Monet
Sammy Davis Jr.
Gerard Depardieu
Andy Gibb
Billie Holiday
Marcus Loew
Sophia Loren
Rod McKuen
Roger Miller
Yes Montand
Sean O'Casey
Peel
Sidney Poitier
Bill "Bojangles" Robinson
David Sarnoff
Isaac Singer
Red Skelton
John Philip Sousa
Koko Taylor
Cornelius Vanderbilt
Doc Watson
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