IN: The King and I is the fifth musical by the team of composer Richard Rodgers and dramatist Oscar Hammerstein II. It is based on Margaret Landon's novel, Anna and the King of Siam (1944), which is in turn derived from the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in the early 1860s. The musical's plot relates the experiences of Anna, a British schoolteacher hired as part of the King's drive to modernize his country. The relationship between the King and Anna is marked by conflict through much of the piece, as well as by a love to which neither can admit.

Mongkut, King of Siam, was about 57 years old in 1861. He had lived half his life as a Buddhist monk, was an able scholar, and founded a new order of Buddhism and a temple in Bangkok (paid for by his half-brother, King Nangklao). Through his decades of devotion, Mongkut acquired an ascetic lifestyle and a firm grasp of Western languages. When Nangklao died in 1850, Mongkut became king. At that time, various European countries were striving for dominance, and American traders sought greater influence in Southeast Asia. He ultimately succeeded in keeping Siam an independent nation, partly by familiarizing his heirs and harem with Western ways. In 1861, Mongkut wrote to his Singapore agent, Tan Kim Ching, asking him to find a British lady to be governess to the royal children. At the time, the British community in Singapore was small, and the choice fell on a recent arrival there, Anna Leonowens (1831-1915), who was running a small nursery school in the colony. Leonowens was the Anglo-Indian daughter of an Indian Army soldier and the widow of Thomas Owens, a clerk and hotel keeper. She had arrived in Singapore two years previously, claiming to be the genteel widow of an officer and explaining her dark complexion by stating that she was Welsh by birth. Her deception was not detected until long after her death, and had still not come to light when The King and I was written. Upon receiving the King's invitation, Leonowens sent her daughter, Avis, to school in England, to give Avis the social advantage of a prestigious British education, and traveled to Bangkok with her five-year-old son, Louis. King Mongkut had sought a Briton to teach his children and wives after trying local missionaries, who used the opportunity to proselytize. Leonowens initially asked for $150 in Singapore currency per month. Her additional request, to live in or near the missionary community to ensure she was not deprived of Western company, aroused suspicion in Mongkut, who cautioned in a letter, "we need not have teacher of Christianity as they are abundant here". King Mongkut and Leonowens came to an agreement: $100 per month and a residence near the royal palace. At a time when most transport in Bangkok was by boat, Mongkut did not wish to have to arrange for the teacher to get to work every day. Leonowens and Louis temporarily lived as guests of Mongkut's prime minister, and after the first house offered was found to be unsuitable, the family moved into a brick residence (wooden structures decayed quickly in Bangkok's climate) within walking distance of the palace. In 1867, Leonowens took a six-month leave of absence to visit her daughter Avis in England, intending to deposit Louis at a school in Ireland and return to Siam with Avis. However, due to unexpected delays and opportunities for further travel, Leonowens was still abroad in late 1868, when Mongkut fell ill and died. Leonowens did not return to Siam, although she continued to correspond with her former pupil, the new king Chulalongkorn.
QUESTION: what is his major accompolishment
IN: Lewis Wallace (April 10, 1827 - February 15, 1905) was an American lawyer, Union general in the American Civil War, governor of the New Mexico Territory, politician, diplomat, and author from Indiana. Among his novels and biographies, Wallace is best known for his historical adventure story, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880), a bestselling novel that has been called "the most influential Christian book of the nineteenth century." Wallace's military career included service in the Mexican-American War and the American Civil War.

Lewis "Lew" Wallace was born on April 10, 1827, in Brookville, Indiana. He was the second of four sons born to Esther French Wallace (nee Test) and David Wallace. Lew's father, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, left the military in 1822 and moved to Brookville, where he established a law practice and entered Indiana politics. David served in the Indiana General Assembly and later as the state's lieutenant governor, and governor, and as a member of Congress. Lew Wallace's maternal grandfather was circuit court judge and Congressman John Test. In 1832 the family moved to Covington, Indiana, where Lew's mother died from tuberculosis on July 14, 1834. In December 1836, David married nineteen-year-old Zerelda Gray Sanders Wallace, who later became a prominent suffragist and temperance advocate. In 1837, after David's election as governor of Indiana, the family moved to Indianapolis. Lew began his formal education at the age of six at a public school in Covington, but he much preferred the outdoors. Wallace had a talent for drawing and loved to read, but he was a discipline problem at school. In 1836, at the age of nine, Lew joined his older brother in Crawfordsville, Indiana, where he briefly attended the preparatory school division of Wabash College, but soon transferred to another school more suitable for his age. In 1840, when Wallace was thirteen, his father sent him to a private academy at Centerville, Indiana, where his teacher encouraged Lew's natural affinity for writing. Wallace returned to Indianapolis the following year. Sixteen-year-old Lew went out to earn his own wages in 1842, after his father refused to pay for more schooling. Wallace found a job copying records at the Marion County clerk's office and lived in an Indianapolis boardinghouse. He also joined the Marion Rifles, a local militia unit, and began writing his first novel, The Fair God, but it was not published until 1873. Wallace said in his autobiography that he had never been a member of any organized religion, but he did believe "in the Christian conception of God". By 1846, at the start of the Mexican-American War, the nineteen-year-old Wallace was studying law at his father's law office, but left that pursuit to establish a recruiting office for the Marion Volunteers in Indianapolis. He was appointed a second lieutenant, and on June 19, 1846, mustered into military service with the Marion Volunteers (also known as Company H, 1st Indiana Volunteer Infantry). Wallace rose to the position of regimental adjutant and the rank of first lieutenant while serving in the army of Zachary Taylor, but Wallace personally did not participate in combat. Wallace was mustered out of the volunteer service on June 15, 1847, and returned to Indiana, where he intended to practice law. After the war, Wallace and William B. Greer operated a Free Soil newspaper, The Free Soil Banner, in Indianapolis.
QUESTION:
What about his early life is an interesting aspect?