Simple machines make work easier for us by allowing us to push or pull over increased distances.
His father, a farmer who was also named Isaac Newton, had died three months before his birth. His mother remarried when Isaac was three years old and left young Isaac in the care of his grandparents. Isaac attended school where he was an adequate student.
Bottom line: Isaac Newton was born on January 4, 1643 (December 25, 1642, in the same year that Galileo died, in the old style Gregorian calendar). His work laid much of the foundation for our modern understanding of the physical universe.