A shipwrecked merchant lost everything, then founded one of history's great philosophies
Around 300 BCE, the Phoenician merchant Zeno of Citium lost his cargo in a shipwreck near Athens. While stranded, he wandered into a bookshop, discovered philosophy, and began studying under Crates the Cynic. He went on to found Stoicism, teaching in the Stoa Poikile ('Painted Porch'), the colonnade from which the school takes its name.