Notable orphans and foundlings include world leaders and entertainers
I never knew that.  Please acquaint me with this phenomenon.
An orphan is someone whose parents are dead, unknown, or have abandoned him or her.
How do they go from being an orphan to being a world leader/  Seems like quite a climb from their starting position.
The orphan train movement transported orphans to larger cities and foster homes.
I have not heard of the orphan train.  Is this a real train that they ride on or some sort of literary invention?
Orphan Train
The Orphan Train Movement was a supervised welfare program that transported orphaned and homeless children from crowded Eastern cities of the United States to foster homes located largely in rural areas of the Midwest. The orphan trains operated between 1854 and 1929, relocating about 200,000 orphaned, abandoned, abused, or homeless children.
Three charitable institutions, Children's Village (founded 1851 by 24 philanthropists), the Children's Aid Society (established 1853 by Charles Loring Brace) and later, the New York Foundling Hospital, endeavored to
List of orphans and foundlings
Notable orphans and foundlings include world leaders, celebrated writers, entertainment greats, figures in science and business, as well as innumerable fictional characters in literature and comics. While the exact definition of orphan varies, one legal definition is a child bereft through "death or disappearance of, abandonment or desertion by, or separation or loss from, both parents". According to the United Nations, the definition of an orphan is anyone that loses one parent, either through death or abandonment.
Figures