Sun Yat-sen

Founded the Revive China Society in Honolulu in 1894 with no institutional backing, and sustained a 20-year revolutionary exile (1895-1911) organizing across Asia, North America, and Europe -- traveling to Japan 12 times and Southeast Asia 43 times to fundraise and organize before the Qing dynasty's fall.

Trained and practiced as a physician before turning to revolutionary politics full-time.

In October 1896, he was lured into the Chinese Legation in London by Qing officials planning to smuggle him back to China for execution; he was released only through the intervention of a former professor, and published his own account of the episode, Kidnapped in London, within weeks.

After the 1911 Revolution succeeded, he voluntarily ceded the provisional presidency to Yuan Shikai to preserve national unity.

Rather than retreat into private life after his brush with execution in London, he used the episode itself -- publishing his own English-language account within weeks -- to build international sympathy for the Chinese revolutionary cause.

Converting a personal crisis into a deliberate, dated piece of international publicity is the basis for the profile's opportunity_sensing score. Opportunity Sensing