19th Century Geniuses

Brilliant minds born in the 19th century

282 Geniuses

19th Century Geniuses

Explore 282 geniuses born in the 19th Century (1800–1899), a transformative era in human knowledge and achievement.

William James Sidis

1898–1944 · United States

The Animate And The Inanimate

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Gilbert N. Lewis

1875–1946 · United States

Covalent bondLewis dot structuresValence bond theoryElectronic theory of acids and basesChemical the

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1838–1918 · United States

The Education of Henry Adams, The History of the United States of America 1801–1817

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Hermann von Helmholtz

1821–1894 · Germany

His mathematics of the eye, theories of vision, ideas on the visual perception of space, color visio

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Ludwig Boltzmann

1844–1906 · Austria

The development of statistical mechanics

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1856–1943 · Croatia

Inventing the Tesla coil, alternating current machinery, and a transatlantic communications system.

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Erwin Schrödinger

1887–1961 · Austria

Schrödinger's cat

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Friedrich Nietzsche

1844–1900 · Germany

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Beyond Good & Evil

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Henri Poincaré

1854–1912 · France

Poincaré conjecture

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1858–1947 · Germany

On the Second Principles of Mechanical Heat Theory (1879)

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Vilfredo Pareto

1848–1923 · Italy

The Pareto Principle

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Wilhelm Ostwald

1853–1932 · LV

Catalysis, Coining the term 'Mole' and HSL and HSV

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Alfred J. Lotka

1880–1949 · United States

The Lotka–Volterra equations

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1828–1907 · United Kingdom

The Ballad of Babe Christabel (1854), War Waits (1855), Havelock's March (1860), and A Tale of Etern

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James Clerk Maxwell

1831–1879 · Scotland

Statistical mechanics • Maxwell's equations • Displacement current • Maxwell relations

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1865–1915 · Poland

Essay on Social Mechanics

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Percy Williams Bridgman

1882–1961 · United States

High-pressure physics • Operationalism • Operational definition

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Satyendra Nath Bose

1894–1974 · India

Bose–Einstein condensateBose–Einstein statisticsBose–Einstein distributionBose–Einstein correlations

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1856–1939 · Austria

Psychoanalysis, including the theories of id, ego and super-ego, oedipus complex, repression, defens

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1847–1931 · United States

The phonograph, the motion picture camera, and early versions of the electric light bulb

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William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin

1824–1907 · United Kingdom

Joule–Thomson effect Thomson effect (thermoelectric) Mirror galvanometer Siphon recorder Kelvin mat

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Theodor Schwann

1810–1882 · Germany

Cell theory, Schwann cells, Pepsin

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Arthur Conan Doyle

1859–1930 · Scotland

Stories of Sherlock Holmes, The Lost World

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Alexander Graham Bell

1847–1922 · Scotland

Invention of the telephone.

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George Bernard Shaw

1856–1950 · Ireland

Man and Superman (1902) Pygmalion (1912) The Doctor's Dilemma (1906) Saint Joan (1923) Caesar an

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Bernhard Riemann

1826–1866 · Germany

Riemann–von Mangoldt formula, Riemann bilinear relations, Cauchy–Riemann equations, Free Riemann gas

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Bertrand Russell

1872–1970 · United Kingdom

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1809–1882 · United Kingdom

The Voyage of the Beagle • On the Origin of Species • The Descent of Man

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Charles Scott Sherrington

1857–1952 · England

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1834–1919 · Germany

Mapping a genealogical tree relating all life forms

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Francis Ysidro Edgeworth

1845–1926 · United Kingdom

Being the founding editor of The Economic Journal.

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Frederick Rossini

1899–1990 · United States

Thermodynamics and the Free Energy of Chemical Substances

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Fyodor Dostoevsky

1821–1881 · Russia

Notes from Underground • Crime and Punishment • The Idiot • Demons • The Brothers Karamazov

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1857–1894 · Germany

Proving the existence of the electromagnetic waves

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Hendrik Lorentz

1853–1928 · Netherlands

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1849–1936 · Russia

Being the founder of modern behavior therapy

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James Anthony Froude

1818–1894 · England

History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada

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James Prescott Joule

1818–1889 · England

First law of thermodynamicsDisproving caloric theory

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John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh

1842–1919 · United Kingdom

Discovery of argon

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John Stuart Mill

1806–1873 · United Kingdom

On Liberty, The Subjection of Women

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Jorge Luis Borges

1899–1986 · Argentina

A Universal History of Infamy (1935), Ficciones (1944), El Aleph (1949), Labyrinths (1962) and The B

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Joseph John Thomson

1856–1940 · United Kingdom

Discovery of the electron

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Julius von Mayer

1814–1878 · Germany

The first law of thermodynamics and Mayer's reagent

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1818–1883 · Germany

The fact that his teachings lead to revolutions in Russia, China, Cuba, Vietnam, and Cambodia.

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Lawrence Joseph Henderson

1878–1942 · United States

The Fitness of the Environment, Henderson–Hasselbalch equation

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1828–1910 · Russia

War and Peace, Anna Karenina, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, The Kingdom of God Is Within You, Resurrecti

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Louis de Broglie

1892–1987 · France

Wave nature of electrons • De Broglie–Bohm theoryde • Broglie wavelength

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Ludwig Büchner

1824–1899 · Germany

Kraft und Stoff

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1867–1934 · Poland

Radioactivity Polonium Radium

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1885–1962 · Denmark

Bohr magneton • Bohr model • Bohr radius • Bohr–Einstein debates • Bohr–Kramers–Slater theory • Bohr

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Oliver Heaviside

1850–1925 · England

Heaviside cover-up method • Heaviside step function • Heaviside condition • Heaviside-Feynman formul

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Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

1881–1955 · France

Co-developing the concept of the noosphere.

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Søren Kierkegaard

1813–1855 · Denmark

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1802–1885 · France

Les Misérables • Ruy Blas • The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

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Macquorn Rankine

1820–1872 · United Kingdom

Rankine scale Laws of thermodynamics Rankine–Hugoniot relation

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Abraham Lincoln

1809–1865 · United States

16th American president Noted for his Emancipation Proclamation (1863) which ended slavery and br

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Alfred Russel Wallace

1823–1913 · United Kingdom

Co-discovery of natural selection, Pioneering work on biogeography, Wallace Line Wallace effect

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Andrew Carnegie

1835–1919 · United States

Founding and leading the Carnegie Steel Company, the Carnegie Library, Carnegie Institution for Scie

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Arnold Sommerfeld

1868–1951 · Germany

Being nominated for the Nobel Prize 84 times but never wining it.

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Dmitri Mendeleev

1834–1907 · Russia

Formulating the periodic table of chemical elements

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1838–1916 · Austria

Mach number • Mach's principle • Shock waves • Mach waves • Mach reflection effects • Mach band

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1815–1864 · England

Laying the foundations for the information age

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George Gore (electrochemist)

1826–1908 · England

His research with phosphorus

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Gustav Kirchhoff

1824–1887 · Germany

Kirchhoff's circuit laws Kirchhoff's law of thermal radiation Kirchhoff's laws of spectroscopy Ki

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Heike Kamerlingh Onnes

1853–1926 · Netherlands

Liquid helium • Onnes-effect • Superconductivity • Virial equation of state

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1887–1968 · France

Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 (1912) • Fountain (1917) • The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelo

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Henry Thomas Buckle

1821–1862 · United Kingdom

History of Civilisation in England

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Justus von Liebig

1803–1873 · Germany

Law of the Minimum and Liebig condenser

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1822–1895 · France

Created the first vaccines for rabies • Cholera vaccine • Anthrax vaccines • Pasteurization

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1807–1873 · Switzerland

Ice age, Polygenism

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Ludwig Wittgenstein

1889–1951 · Austria

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

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1881–1973 · Spain

Painting, drawing, sculpture, printmaking, ceramics, stage design, writing

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Pitirim Sorokin

1889–1968 · Russia

Leaves of a Russian Diar

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R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz

1887–1961 · France

Esotericism, alternative Egyptology

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1813–1883 · Germany

The Ring of the Nibelung

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1811–1899 · Germany

Discovery of cacodyl radical Discoveries of caesium and rubidium Discovery of use of the Bunsen burn

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Robert Andrews Millikan

1868–1953 · United States

Oil drop experiment measuring the charge of the electron • Photoelectric effect • Cosmic ray physics

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Rudolf Clausius

1822–1888 · Germany

Second law of thermodynamics • Originator of the concept of entropy • Clausius-Mossotti relation • C

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Margaret Fuller

1810–1850 · United States

Woman in the Nineteenth Century

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Srinivasa Ramanujan

1887–1920 · India

Landau–Ramanujan constant, Mock theta functions, Ramanujan conjecture, Ramanujan prime, Ramanujan–So

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Thomas Babington Macaulay

1800–1859 · United Kingdom

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1864–1941 · Germany

Third Law of Thermodynamics

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William Stanley Jevons

Marginal utility theoryJevons paradox

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William Kingdon Clifford

1845–1879 · United Kingdom

Clifford algebra

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Christian Doppler

1803–1853 · Austria

Discovering the Doppler effect

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1808–1874 · Germany

Pioneering in the historical investigation of Jesus.

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Émile Durkheim

1858–1917 · France

Being the architect of modern social science

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1859–1938 · Germany

"Phenomenology, epoché (also bracketing, transcendental reduction, or phenomenological reduction), e

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1889–1953 · United States

Hubble sequence • Hubble's law

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1823–1892 · France

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Ernest Hemingway

1899–1961 · United States

A Farewell to Arms and The Old Man and the Sea

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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

1807–1882 · United States

Being the first American to translate Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy

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Herman Hollerith

1860–1929 · United States

Electromechanical tabulation of punched card data

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1859–1952 · United States

Reforming the American educational system.

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1837–1921 · United States

Being an active in the U.S. conservation movement.

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John Maynard Keynes

1883–1946 · England

Changing the theory and practice of macroeconomics and the economic policies of governments

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1820–1893 · Ireland

Atmosphere, physics education, Tyndall effect, diamagnetism, infrared radiation, Tyndallization

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Ludwig Feuerbach

1804–1872 · Germany

The Essence of Christianity

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1864–1920 · Germany

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905)

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1894–1964 · United States

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Oswald Spengler

1880–1936 · Germany

The Decline of the West

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1835–1910 · United States

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer • Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

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Thomas Henry Huxley

1825–1895 · United Kingdom

Evolution, science education, agnosticism

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Wilder Penfield

1891–1976 · United States

Prompting memory recall during surgery via temporal lobe stimulationTreatment of epilepsy by surgery

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1842–1910 · United States

Will to believe doctrine

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William Butler Yeats

1865–1939 · Ireland

Leda and the Swan

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Alfred de Musset

1810–1857 · France

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Benjamin Disraeli

1804–1881 · United Kingdom

Being elected twice as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

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1875–1961 · Switzerland

Analytical psychology • Psychological types • Collective unconscious • Complex • Archetypes • Anima

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Charles Dickens

1812–1870 · England

The Pickwick Papers • Oliver Twist • Nicholas Nickleby • A Christmas Carol • David Copperfield • Ble

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Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve

1804–1869 · France

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Charlotte Brontë

1816–1855 · England

Jane Eyre • Villette

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Évariste Galois

1811–1832 · France

Work on the theory of equations and Abelian integrals

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Felix Mendelssohn

1809–1847 · Germany

grandson of Moses Mendelssohn; student of Carl Zelter; Mendelssohn first appeared in concert at the

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Frédéric Chopin

1810–1849 · Poland

Publishing two polonaises by the age of seven

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Giuseppe Mazzini

1807–1872 · Italy

Italian politician, journalist, and revolutionist.

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1848–1925 · Germany

Begriffsschrift (1879) • The Foundations of Arithmetic (1884) • Basic Laws of Arithmetic (1893–1903)

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1822–1884 · Czech Republic

Creating the science of genetics

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Guglielmo Marconi

1874–1937 · Italy

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1801–1887 · Germany

Weber–Fechner law

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1863–1947 · United States

Founding and leading the Ford Motor Company

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Igor Stravinsky

1882–1971 · Russia

The Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911), and The Rite of Spring (1913)

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Johannes Brahms

1833–1897 · Germany

Hungarian Dance No. 5

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John Henry Newman

1801–1890 · United Kingdom

Anglican priest, poet, and theologian.

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1827–1912 · United Kingdom

Surgical sterile techniques

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1857–1936 · England

Common Sense of the Exact Sciences and History of the Theory of Elasticity

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1878–1968 · Austria

Discovery of protactinium Discovery of nuclear fission

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Martin Heidegger

1889–1976 · Germany

Being and Time (1927)

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Wright brothers

1867–1948 · United States

Inventing, building, and flying the world's first successful motor-operated airplane, the Wright Fly

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1813–1901 · Italy

1. Aida 2. Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves from Nabucco 3. La Donna è Mobile from Rigoletto 4. La

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1852–1926 · Spain

Sagrada Família • Organic Architecture • Innovative Structural Techniques • Symbolism and

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1815–1852 · United Kingdom

The mother of computing science; contributed to the first published computer program; was the first

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Albert Einstein

1879–1955 · Germany

Einstein’s theories of special & general relativity delivered a remarkable transformation in our und

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1880–1930 · Germany

Continental drift theory.

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1811–1874 · United States

American politician, lawyer, and senator.

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1813–1878 · France

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Elizabeth Gaskell

1810–1865 · England

Cranford (1851–53), North and South (1854–55), and Wives and Daughters (1865)

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Frederick Douglass

1818–1895 · United States

Being a proponent of abolishing slavery and giving women the right to vote

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George Villiers, 4th Earl of Clarendon

1800–1870 · United Kingdom

Being British representative at the Congress of Paris which ended the Crimean War.

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1804–1876 · France

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1819–1880 · England

The Mill on the Floss (1860) • Silas Marner (1861) • Romola (1862–1863) • Middlemarch (1871–72) • Da

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Harriet Martineau

1802–1876 · United Kingdom

Illustrations of Political Economy (1834) • Society in America (1837) • Deerbrook (1839) • The Hour

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Henry David Thoreau

1817–1862 · United States

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1819–1868 · France

Foucault pendulum • Foucault's currents • Foucault knife-edge test • Fizeau–Foucault apparatus • Gyr

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1803–1869 · France

Symphonie fantastique and Harold in Italy

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1869–1948 · India

Indian Independence Movement and Nonviolent resistance

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Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

1840–1893 · Russia

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Philip Stanhope, 5th Earl Stanhope

1805–1875 · England

Contributions to cultural causes and for his historical writings

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Sergei Rachmaninoff

1873–1943 · Russia

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Sofya Kovalevskaya

1850–1891 · Russia

Cauchy–Kowalevski theorem and Kovalevskaya top

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Edward Bulwer-Lytton

1803–1873 · England

Vril: the Power of the Coming Race

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E. A. Wallis Budge

1857–1934 · United Kingdom

A History of Egypt from the End of the Neolithic Period to the Death of Cleopatra VII, B.C. 30: Egy

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1802–1856 · Scotland

One of Scotland's most influential Victorian palaeontologists

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1838–1882 · France

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Maria Montessori

1870–1952 · Italy

Founder of the Montessori method of education

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Nathaniel Hawthorne

1804–1864 · United States

Twice-Told Tales (1837–1842) • The Scarlet Letter (1850) • The House of the Seven Gables (1851)

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Orestes Brownson

1803–1876 · United States

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1880–1903 · Germany

Sex and Character

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Ralph Waldo Emerson

1803–1882 · United States

Essays: First Series (1841) and Essays: Second Series (1844)

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1804–1865 · United Kingdom

Member of the Anti-Corn Law League and peace campaigner

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1843–1910 · Germany

Bacterial culture method • Koch's postulates • Germ theory • Discovery of anthrax bacillus • Discove

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Theodore Roosevelt

1858–1919 · United States

Being the 26th president of the United States

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1856–1924 · United States

Used Darwinian evolution logic as a logic platform in his presidency.

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William H. Seward

1801–1872 · United States

Negotiating the Alaska Purchase

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Franklin D. Roosevelt

1882–1945 · United States

Being the 32nd President of the United States

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Alfred M. Mayer

1836–1897 · United States

Experiments with sound.

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Clive Staples Lewis

1898–1963 · United Kingdom

The Chronicles of Narnia • Mere Christianity • The Allegory of Love • The Screwtape Letters • The Sp

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Frederick Matthias Alexander

1869–1955 · Australia

Alexander technique

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1811–1889 · United Kingdom

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1823–1891 · United States

One of fabled "last persons to know everything"

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Thorstein Veblen

1857–1929 · United States

The Theory of the Leisure Class

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William Makepeace Thackeray

1811–1863 · United Kingdom

Vanity Fair, The Luck of Barry Lyndon

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1894–1991 · United States

Dance and choreography

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Edgar Allan Poe

1809–1849 · United States

American writer, editor, and literary critic; best-known for his poem “The Raven” (1845) noted for i

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1822–1911 · United Kingdom

Galton board • Galton distribution • Galton–Watson process • Galton's problem • Galton's whistle

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F. Scott Fitzgerald

1896–1940 · United States

The Great Gatsby (1925) and Tender Is the Night (1934)

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Hans Christian Andersen

1805–1875 · Denmark

"The Little Mermaid" • "The Ugly Duckling" • "The Emperor's New Clothes" • "The Little Match Girl"

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Hippolyte Taine

Being a major proponent of sociological positivism and one of the first practitioners of historicist

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1836–1892 · United States

Being one of America's most infamous financial speculators

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1874–1963 · United States

A Boy's Will, North of Boston

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William Lloyd Garrison

1805–1879 · United States

Editor of The Liberator

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William Tecumseh Sherman

1820–1891 · United States

American general.

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Charlie Spencer Chaplin

1889–1977 · England

The Great Dictator (1940) • Modern Times (1936) • City Lights (1931) • The Kid (1921)

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Giuseppe Garibaldi

1807–1882 · Italy

Italian general, politician and nationalist.

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1807–1870 · United States

American general.

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Alexander Fleming

1881–1955 · Scotland

Discovery of penicillin and Lysozyme

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Alexandre Dumas

1802–1870 · France

The Three Musketeers (1844), The Count of Monte Cristo (1844–1845)

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1833–1896 · Sweden

Benefactor of the Nobel Prize, inventor of dynamite

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Alfred, Lord Tennyson

1809–1892 · England

'In Memoriam,' 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' and 'Idylls of the King'.

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1860–1904 · Russia

Three Sisters, The Cherry Orchard and Uncle Vanya.

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1892–1962 · United States

Compton scattering • Compton wavelength • Compton–Getting effect • Compton generator

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1840–1917 · France

The statue of The Thinker

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Camille Saint-Saëns

1835–1921 · France

Giving his first public recital at age five

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Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour

1810–1861 · Italy

Being a leading figure in the movement towards Italian unification.

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1830–1845 · Romania

Composed concerto at thirteen; died at age fourteen

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1888–1970 · India

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Charles Glover Barkla

1877–1944 · United Kingdom

X-ray scattering • X-ray spectroscopy

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Charles Nicolle

1866–1936 · France

Identifying lice as the transmitter of epidemic typhus.

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Charles-Valentin Alkan

1813–1888 · France

Entered Paris Conservatoire at age 5, youngest ever admission.

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1849–1925 · Germany

Erlangen program • Klein bottle • Beltrami–Klein model • Klein's Encyclopedia of Mathematical Scienc

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Clarence Darrow

1857–1938 · United States

The Scopes "Monkey" Trial

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1840–1926 · France

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1862–1943 · Germany

Hilbert's basis theorem • Hilbert's axioms • Hilbert's problems • Hilbert's program • Einstein–Hil

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David Livingstone

1813–1873 · Scotland

Spreading of the gospel, exploration of Africa, and meeting with Henry Stanley.

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Elizabeth Blackwell

1821–1910 · England

The first woman to qualify as a physician in America; founder of America’s first medical school for

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1882–1935 · Germany

Abstract algebra • Theoretical physics • Noether's theorem • Noetherian ring • Lasker–Noether theore

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Erich Wolfgang Korngold

1897–1957 · Austria

Operas, movie scores, symphonic and chamber music

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Ernest Rutherford

1871–1937 · New Zealand

Discovery of alpha and beta radioactivity • Discovery of atomic nucleus (Rutherford model) • Rutherf

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Florence Nightingale

1820–1910 · England

Pioneering modern nursing

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1811–1886 · Hungary

Performed first major concert at age eleven and was already an accomplished concert pianist by the a

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1883–1924 · Czech Republic

The Metamorphosis • The Trial • The Judgment • The Castle • Contemplation • A Hunger Artist • Letter

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Fritz Albert Lipmann

1899–1986 · Germany

Co-discoverer in 1945 of coenzyme A

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George Washington Carver

1860–1943 · United Kingdom

Improved the agricultural economy of the United States by promoting nitrogen-providing peanuts as an

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George de Hevesy

1885–1966 · Hungary

HafniumRadioactive tracer

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1838–1874 · France

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Georges Lemaître

1894–1966 · Belgium

Theory of the expansion of the universeBig Bang theoryLemaître coordinates

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1893–1981 · United States

Discovery of deuterium and Miller–Urey experiment

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1869–1954 · France

Woman with a Hat (1905) • The Joy of Life (1906) • Nu bleu (1907) • La Danse (1909) • L'Atelier Roug

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Henrietta Swan Leavitt

1868–1921 · United States

Leavitt's law: the period-luminosity relationship for Cepheid variables

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1887–1915 · United Kingdom

Atomic number, Moseley's law

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1854–1926 · United Kingdom

Discovering several species of animals

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Hermann Staudinger

1881–1965 · Germany

Polymer chemistry

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b. 1898 · Australia

Discovery of penicillin's properties

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1888–1993 · Denmark

Analyzed earthquake waves to discover that within our planet’s liquid core, at the earth’s center, t

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Irène Joliot-Curie

1897–1956 · France

Co-discovered how to convert stable chemical elements into ‘designer’ radioactive elements; these ha

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Isambard Kingdom Brunel

1806–1859 · United Kingdom

Building the Great Western Railway

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1818–1883 · Russia

A Sportsman's Sketches • Home of the Gentry • Fathers and Sons • A Month in the Country

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1882–1981 · United States

Missoula Floods hypothesis, overturning uniformitarianism

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1821–1890 · Scotland

Provided the first mechanism accounting for ice ages; said climate change is caused by periodic chan

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1893–1983 · Spain

Painting, sculpture, mural and ceramics

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1897–1967 · United Kingdom

Splitting the atom

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1876–1957 · United States

Being probably the first pianist of note to record on Edison's phonograph

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1831–1907 · Hungary

Joachim Quartet

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Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga

1806–1826 · Spain

Composed a two-act opera at age thirteen

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Karl Landsteiner

1868–1943 · Austria

Development of blood group system, discovery of Rh factor, discovery of poliovirus

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1890–1971 · Australia

X-ray diffractionX-ray spectroscopyX-ray microscopyBubble raftBragg's lawBragg-Gray cavity theoryBra

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1895–2002 · United States

Enterin Saint Petersburg Conservatory at age ten

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1893–1918 · France

Attended Louis Vierne's organ classes at the Paris Conservatoire at age six

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Matthew Fontaine Maury

1806–1873 · United States

The Physical Geography of the Sea (1855)

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Milutin Milanković

1879–1958 · CS

Insolation, Milankovitch cycles

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1861–1912 · United States

XY sex-determination system

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1809–1852 · Ukraine

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Sergei Prokofiev

1891–1953 · Ukraine

Composed an opera at age nine

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1877–1955 · Canada

Avery–MacLeod–McCarty experiment DNA transmits heredity

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1839–1906 · France

Mont Sainte-Victoire (1885–1906) • Apothéose de Delacroix (1890–1894) • Rideau, Cruchon et Compotier

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Percival Lowell

1855–1916 · United States

Martian canals, Asteroids discovered: 793 Arizona (April 9, 1907)

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1824–1880 · France

Discovering that Broca's area of the brain is involved with language.

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1894–1984 · Russia

Superfluidity and Kapitza's pendulum

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Robert G. Ingersoll

1833–1899 · United States

Defending agnosticism.

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1890–1962 · United Kingdom

Fisher's principle, Fisher information, Invented experimental design, devised the statistical concep

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1821–1902 · Germany

Cell theory • Cellular pathology br> Biogenesis br> Virchow's triad

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Santiago Ramón y Cajal

1852–1934 · Spain

Fathering modern neuroscience • Discovery of the neuron • Neuron doctrine • Growth cone • Dendritic

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1888–1973 · Ukraine

Discovered antibiotics made by soil-dwelling bacteria including streptomycin, the first effective tr

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Sergei Winogradsky

1856–1953 · Russia

Nitrogen cycle • Chemoautotrophy • Sulfur-oxidizing bacteria

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Truman Henry Safford

1836–1901 · United States

Calculating prodigy

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Vincent van Gogh

1853–1890 · Netherlands

The Potato Eaters (1885) Sunflowers (1887) Bedroom in Arles (1888) The Starry Night (1889) Portr

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1882–1941 · England

Mrs Dalloway (1925) • To the Lighthouse (1927) • Orlando (1928) • A Room of One's Own (1929) • The W

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Wassily Kandinsky

1866–1944 · Russia

Yellow-Red-Blue

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Josiah Willard Gibbs

1839–1903 · United States

Creating statistical mechanics

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William Henry Perkin

Aniline dye, mauveine, Perkin triangle

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Discovering noble gases

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William Armstrong Fairburn

1876–1947 · United States

English-born American naval architect, marine engineer, chemical engineer, and industrial executive;

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1804–1839 · United States

Mental calculator; child prodigy

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1891–1974 · United Kingdom

Discovery of the neutron • MAUD Committee Report • Manhattan Project

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Winston Churchill

1874–1965 · United Kingdom

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945, during the Second World War, and again from

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Ulysses S. Grant

1822–1885 · United States

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Vincenzo Bellini

1801–1835 · Italy

Norma • La Sonnambula • I Puritani

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1801–1870 · United States

The phrase "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead"

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Herbert George Wells

1866–1946 · United Kingdom

The Time Machine • The Invisible Man • The War of the Worlds • The Island of Doctor Moreau

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Philip Sheridan

1831–1888 · United States

Defeating Robert E. Lee and the South during the Civil War in the United States.

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1898–1972 · Netherlands

Drawing, printmaking

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James Henry Pullen

1835–1916 · England

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1819–1896 · Germany

The Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 7

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Benjamin Bradley (inventor)

1836–1904 · United States

Creating the first boat steam engine

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Jagadish Chandra Bose

1858–1937 · India

Millimeter waves • Radio Crescograph • Contributions to plant biology • Crystal radio • Crystal dete

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1820–1849 · United Kingdom

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

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Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi

1804–1851 · Germany

Jacobi's elliptic functions Jacobian Jacobi symbol Jacobi ellipsoid Jacobi polynomials Jacobi

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Niels Henrik Abel

1802–1829 · Norway

Abel's binomial theorem • Abel equation • Abel equation of the first kindAbelian extension • A

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Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet

1805–1859 · Germany

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Tatyana Afanasyeva

1876–1964 · Ukraine

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1859–1917 · Poland

.mw-parser-output .plainlist ol,.mw-parser-output .plainlist ul{line-height:inherit;list-style:none;

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Manuel António Gomes

1868–1933 · Portugal

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Child prodigies

Kim Ung-yong

Kim Ung-yongSolved calculus as a small child, then chose a quiet career as a civil engineer

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Shakuntala DeviMultiplied two 13-digit numbers in her head in 28 seconds

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Stephen WiltshireAutistic Savant Drawing Entire Cities from Memory — MBE from…

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