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Isaac Newton has been described as the father of modern science. What is less well known is that he had mental health problems. Here, the authors aim to review the literature on his problems and life to see if he was a mental health recovery hero.

The paper reviewed all the published papers on Newton's mental health problems, as well as many of the biographies written on him.

Scholars of Newton have focussed most of their attention on Newton's breakdown of 1693. This has been attributed to mercurialism or paranoid psychosis. The more likely explanation is depression or bipolar disorder. Personality factors are also critical in understanding Newton; he had a troubled upbringing and problems in relating to others. The latter enabled him to focus exclusively on his research and experiments and may have contributed to his greatness.

The authors have brought to bear their insights as a professional historian and as a clinical psychologist, giving this paper a unique perspective from previous uni‐disciplinary reviews.

This article provides a cameo of Winston Churchill, said by many to have been the greatest Englishman who ever lived, largely due to his leadership during the Second World War. Since his death in 1965, much more has become known about his lifelong battle with depression, his ‘Black Dog’, however it now seems more likely that he suffered with bipolar disorder. This article argues that his mental illness may in fact have led to him being a better leader. Championed in 2006 in a statue by Rethink and most recently by the Time to Change campaign, he is a true recovery hero.

Florence Nightingale was one of the most influential women of the 19th century. She is most closely associated with the Crimean War and the subsequent development of the nursing profession. Before shewent to the Crimea, she had experienced episodes of depression. While in the Crimea she contracted brucellosis and although she returned to England a national heroine, she lived the life of an invalid for several decades. Despite her physical and mental health problems, she produced over 200 reports, pamphlets and books, not just on nursing, but on a wide variety of other topics. This phenomenal productivity has led some authors to suggest that she may have had bipolar disorder.

The paper reviews Darwin's health problems and suggests they may have been a “creative malady”.

The authors look at Darwin's upbringing, his career and achievements, evidence for mental illness and his status as a historical recovery hero.

In addition to the published literature, Darwin himself acknowledged that his health problems enabled him to dedicate his life to his scientific research.

The authors combine their perspectives as a historian and psychologist to interpret the literature on Darwin's illness.

The urban population in the developing world will double by the year 2030 increasing the pressure in the housing sector that already suffers from the lack of adequate and affordable housing. Egypt, similar to most countries in the developing world, witnesses a huge deficit in the housing units needed for low-income groups. Since the mid Nineteen Seventies, the Egyptian government adopted and implemented a variety of low-cost housing development strategies including: site and services schemes, core housing projects, partially completed housing units in apartment blocks, and totally finished housing projects. The huge informal housing sector in Egypt has proved the ability of the low-income groups to build for their own-selves. Thus, the incremental housing approach was one of the approaches that were adopted by the Egyptian government to solve the housing problem. Ebny Baitak or “Build Your House” is an incremental housing approach and one of the approaches undertaken by the Ministry of Housing, Utilities, and Urban Development within the National Housing Program to solve the housing problems of low-income groups in Egypt. This paper discusses the recent Egyptian experience in encouraging the participation of low-income groups in the construction process of their own houses through an incremental housing program “Ebny Baitak project”. The paper also derives the implications that could be learned from this experience towards better application in the future.