Here's something wild: Johann Sebastian Bach, the composer we now consider one of history's greatest musical minds, spent most of his life being famous for the wrong thing. When he died in 1750, people knew him primarily as a virtuoso organist and a guy who could tune harpsichords really well. His compositions? They were already considered old-fashioned.

Bach cranked out music like a factory. He composed at least one cantata every week for years while working as a church music director in Leipzig. That's roughly the equivalent of writing a 20-minute orchestral work every seven days while also teaching, performing, raising 20 children (yes, twenty!), and dealing with a city council that constantly complained he wasn't doing enough. He wrote over 1,000 compositions in total, though many have been lost. The guy once walked 280 miles just to hear the famous organist Dietrich Buxtehude play. That's the 18th-century equivalent of traveling across several states to attend a concert.

His career was actually pretty turbulent. Bach once spent a month in jail because he wanted to quit his job with Duke Wilhelm Ernst. The duke was so offended by Bach's resignation that he had him arrested for being too "stubborn." Bach also got into trouble for bringing a "strange maiden" into the church choir loft (it was his cousin Maria Barbara, who became his first wife). Later, he once got into a sword fight with a bassoon player he'd called a "nanny-goat bassoonist" after a particularly bad performance. Bach didn't suffer mediocrity gladly.

The really mind-blowing part? Bach's music was essentially forgotten for almost 80 years after his death. It wasn't until 1829, when a 20-year-old Felix Mendelssohn conducted a revival of the St. Matthew Passion, that people realized what they'd been missing. Suddenly, everyone understood that Bach hadn't just been writing church music—he'd been writing the mathematical poetry of the universe. His works influenced everyone from Mozart to Radiohead.

Here's the kicker: Bach never traveled more than 200 miles from his birthplace in his entire life. While other composers toured Europe seeking fame and fortune, Bach stayed in small German towns, working day jobs and writing music that would outlive entire civilizations. The man who never saw the ocean created works that feel as infinite as one.