让我再给你举个例子，看看机遇是如何在不知不觉中惠顾那些出类拔萃之辈的。

　　Suppose we do another version of the calendar analysis we did in the last chapter with hockey players.

　　跟我们在之前对曲棍球运动员进行的分析相似，

　　And this time, we'll look at the list of seventy-five richest people in human history.

　　不过，这一次我们详细列出人类历史上最富有的75个人，

　　It includes Queens and Kings and pharaohs from centuries past, as well as those contemporary billionaires, like Warren Buffett and Carlos Slim.

　　你可以从表格当中看到几个世纪之前的女王、国王或者是法老，你也可以从中看到像沃伦.巴菲特和卡洛斯.斯利姆这样的当代亿万富翁。

　　Do you know what's interesting about this list?

　　你知道表格里面有趣的地方在哪儿吗？

　　Of the seventy-five names, an astonishing fourteen are Americans born within nine years of one another in the mid-nineteenth century.

　　在75个人中，有14个美国人，他们都出生在19世纪中期的9个年头之中，这真是让人惊讶！

　　Think about that for a moment.

　　我们只要再仔细推敲，

　　Historians start with Cleopatra and the pharaohs and comb through every year in human history ever since,

　　从克利奥帕特拉和法老的年代开始，梳理人类历史上的每个年份，

　　looking in every corner of the world for evidence of extraordinary wealth,

　　找遍世界上的每一个角落，便能知道，

　　and almost 20 percent of the names they end up with come from a single generation in a single country.

　　在同一个国家，上面20%的名字最终都来自于同一个年代。

　　Here's a list of those Americans and their birth dates.

　　下面是14个出生于19世纪的美国人出生年份列表：

　　The first American is the richest man of all time.

　　位于榜首的是一位美国人。

　　John D. Rockefeller, born in 1839.

　　约翰D.洛克菲勒于1839年出生。

　　The second richest man of all time is also on the list. Andrew Carnegie, born in 1835.

　　排名第二的富人也一直从未落榜，他就是出生于1835年的安德魯.卡内基。

　　The twenty-eighth richest man of all time, Frederick Weyerhaeuser, born in 1834.

　　排名第二十八位弗雷德里克出生于1834年。

　　Number thirty-three of all time, Jay Gould, born in 1836.

　　排名第三十三位的杰.古尔德出生于1836年。

　　The thirty-fourth richest, Marshall Field, born in 1834.

　　排名第三十四位的马歇尔.菲尔德出生于1834年。

　　The thirty-fifth richest, George Baker, born in 1840.

　　排名第三十五位的乔治.贝克出生于1840年。

　　Number thirty-six, Hetty Green, 1834.

　　排名第三十六位的海蒂.葛琳出生于1834年。

　　Number forty-four, James G. Fair, born in 1831.

　　排名第四十四位的危姆斯.G.菲尔出生于1831年。

　　Then Henry Rogers, born in 1840, J. P. Morgan, born in 1837.

　　亨利.H .罗格斯出生于1840年，J . P .摩根出生于1837年。

　　Oliver Payne, born in 1839.

　　奥利弗.佩恩则出生于1839年。

　　George Pullman, born in 1831.

　　乔治普尔曼出生于1831年。

　　Peter Widener born, in 1834.

　　彼得.韦尔登出生于1834年。

　　and Philip Armour, born in 1832.

　　菲利普.阿默尔出生于1832年。

　　What's going on here? The answer becomes obvious if you think about it.

　　这意味着什么？如果你仔细想想，答案就一目了然了。

　　In the 1860s and 1870s, the American economy went through perhaps the greatest transformation in its history.

　　19世纪60年代和70年代，正是美国历史上经济发生最大变革的时代。