• George Bernard Shaw
    • aw (26 July 1856 _ 2 November 1950) George Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin, the son of a civil servant. His education was irregular, due to his dislike of any organized training. After working in an estate agent's ...
    • Jonas Salk, M.D.
    • .D. (October 28, 1914 _ June 23, 1995) Jonas Salk was born in New York City. His parents were Russian-Jewish immigrants who, although they themselves lacked formal education, were determined to see their children succ...
    • Henry Dunant
    • ant (May 8, 1828 - October 30, 1910) Jean Henri Dunant was a Swiss businessman and humanitarian who founded the Red Cross movement. He was awarded the first Nobel Peace Prize in 1901. A man deeply religious in the Ca...
    • Captain James Cook
    • ook (October 27, 1728 - February 14, 1779) James Cookwas a British explorer and navigator. He made three voyages to the Pacific Ocean, in which its main shorelines were discovered. Cook was also a map maker.At the age...
    • Pablo Picasso
    • sso (1881—1973) Pablo Picasso was born inMalaga, Spain in 1881. He is one of the most famous artists in the world. When he was young he amazed friends by drawing a perfect picture without lifting his pencil or looking a...
    • Anton van Leeuwenhoek
    • oek (October 24, 1632 _ August 30, 1723) Antony van Leeuwenhoek was an unlikely scientist. A tradesman of Delft, Holland, he came from a family of tradesmen, had no fortune, received no higher education or university...
    • Eric Ambler
    • ler ( June 28, 1909 - October 22, 1998) English author widely regarded with Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene as one of the pioneers of stories of espionage and crime. Ambler published 19 novels under his own nam...
    • Nadir Shah
    • hah (October 22, 1688 - June, 1747) Nadir Shah (Nadir Qoli Beg) was a Shah of Persia who ruled 1736-1747 and who was the founder of the Afshari dynasty. He has sometimes been described as the Persian Napoleon. Nader Sh...
    • Noah Webster
    • ter (October 16, 1758_ May 28, 1843 ) Noah Webster was born in Hartford, Connecticut onOctober 16, 1758. He spent his youth on his family's small farm, and at the age of 15 he entered Yale College in 1774. At the outbr...
    • Charles Babbage
    • age (December 26, 1791_ October 18, 1871) Charles Babbage was born inLondon on December 26, 1791, the son of Benjamin Babbage, aLondon banker. As a youth Babbage was his own instructor in algebra, of which he was ...
    • Primo Conti
    • nti (October 16, 1900 - November 12, 1988) Primo Conti  was an Italian futurist artist. Many of his works are housed in the Museo Primo Conti ( http://www.fondazioneprimoconti.org ) in the Villa le Coste at Fie...
    • Virgil
    • gil (October 15, 70 B.C._ September 21, 19 B.C.) Publius Vergilius Maro, known as Vergil or Virgil, was bornOctober 15, 70 B.C., in the northern Italian town ofAndes, just outside the city now known asMantua. His f...
    • Oscar Wilde
    • lde (16 October 1854 _ 29 November 1900) Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born at 21Westland Row, Dublin, on16 October 1854. His father was an eminent eye and ear specialist; his mother wrote under the pen-name ...
    • Jon Postel
    • el (August 6, 1943 - October 16, 1998) Jon Postel was the Director of ISI's Computer Networks Division. The division has 70 staff members working on about 10 projects, including the NSF sponsored Routing Arbiter, and DARPA...
    • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
    • dra (October 9, 1547- April 23, 1616) Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra,Spain's greatest literary figure, was born in Alcalá de Henares, a small university town near Madrid, where he was baptized in the church of San...
    • Che Guevara
    • ara (May 14, 1928—October 9, 1967) Ernesto Rafael Guevara de la Serna, commonly known as Che Guevara , was an Argentine-born Marxist revolutionary and Cuban guerrilla leader. Guevara was a member of Fidel Castro's &q...
    • Rudolf Ludwig Karl Virchow
    • ‎ ‎ Rudolf Ludwig Karl Virchow was a German doctor, pathologist, biologist, and‎politician. Virchow studied medicine inBerlin at the mil...
    • Lars Valerian Ahlfors
    • ors ‎ (April 18, 1907 - October 11, 1996)‎ Lars Valerian Ahlfors was a Finnish mathematician, remembered for his work‎in the field of Riemann surfaces [?] and his text on complex analysis.‎ He was born in Helsinki, th...
    • John Abercrombie
    • John Abercrombie was a Scottish physician and‎ philosopher. The son of the reverend George Abercrombie of‎Aberdeen, he was educated at the Univ...
    • Gustave Whitehead
    • ead ‎ (January 1, 1874 - October 10, 1927) ‎ Gustave Albin Whitehead, born Gustav Albin Weißkopf‎, was a German-American aviation pioneer.‎ His first flight was made on August 14 1901 in Connecticut when he fl...
    • Svante Arrhenius
    • us ‎ (February 19, 1859 – October 2, 1927)‎ Svante August Arrhenius wasthe son of Svante Gustaf Arrhenius and Carolina Christina Thunberg. His ancestors were farmers; his uncle became Professor of Botany and Rector o...
    • Hitoshi Kumano-Go
    • -Go (4 Oct 1935 - 24 Aug 1982) Hitoshi Kumano-Go was educated in the standard way for gifted students inJapan at this time. Before entering university he studied at Taikyu Senior High School, graduating in 1958. Ente...
    • Graham Greene
    • ene (October 2, 1904- April 3 , 1991 ) Henry Graham Greene was born on October 2, 1904 in Berkhamsted, England. He had a difficult childhood, and he attempted suicide on a number of occasions. His therapist s...
    • Dominique François Jean Arago
    • ago (26 Feb 1786 -2 Oct 1853) François Arago was a French physicist who was eduand later from Paris. Known for his republican views, Arcated in Perpignan and at theÉcole Polytechnique, Paris, where, at the ag...
    • Denis Diderot
    • rot ( October 5, 1713 - July 31, 1784) Denis Diderot was the most prominent of the French Encyclopedists. He was educated by the Jesuits, and, refusing to enter one of the learned professions, was turned adrif...
    • Boris Yakovlovic Bukreev
    • reev ‎ (September 6, 1859 - October 2, 1962) ‎ Boris Yakovlovic Bukreev was a Russian mathematician who worked in the areas of complex functions and differential equations. In 1889, Bukreev became a professor of m...
    • Saint Francis of Assisi
    • isi (1182 _ October 3, 1226) ‎Francis was born in 1182, the son of a wealthy cloth merchant. His early years were frivolous, but an experience of sickness and another of military service were instrumental in leading h...
    • William Jones
    • nes (September 28, 1746 - April 27, 1794) Sir William Jones was a British philologist and student of ancient India, particularly known for his discovery of the Indo-European languages family. Jones was born in Londo...
    • Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot
    • not (25 September 1725 - 2 October 1804) Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot was a French inventor who built what may have been the world's first self-propelled mechanical vehicle or automobile. Cugnot was born in Poid, Meuse, Lor...
    • Emile Zola
    • ;mile Zola (April 2, 1840 - September 29, 1902) Émile Zola was an influential French novelist, the most important example of the literary school of naturalism and a major figure in the political liberalization...
    • Edward Sa’id
    • ’id (November 1, 1935 – September 24, 2003) Edward Wadie Said was a well-known literary theorist and critic. He was also an outspoken Palestinian activist. Said was born in Jerusalem into the Anglican faith, but spen...
    • Sigmund Freud
    • eud ‎ (May 6, 1856 - September 23, 1939) ‎Austrian psychiatrist, founder of psychoanalysis. Born inMoravia, he lived most of his life in Vienna, receiving his medical degree from theUniv. ofVienna in 1881. His medic...
    • Paul Tillich
    • ch (20 August 1886-22 October 1965) German-American theologian. Tillich'sSystematic Theology (1951-1964) defines religion as the most ultimate of all human concerns, identifies god with the ground of all being, and t...
    • Martin Heidegger
    • er (26 September 1889-26 May 1976) Martin Heidegger,German philosopher studied at University of Freiburg under Edmund Husserl. Professor atFreiburg in 1928. Heidegger was one of the central figures of the existenti...
    • James Hardy Wilkinson
    • son ‎ (27 September 1919 - 5 October 1986) Jim Wilkinson won a Foundation Scholarship to Sir Joseph Williamson'sMathematical School, Rochester at the age of 11. At the age of 16 he won a scholarship to Trinity Colle...
    • George Santayana
    • na (16 December 1863-26 September 1952) Philosopher, poet, literary and cultural critic, George Santayana is a principal figure in Classical American Philosophy. His naturalism and emphasis on creative imagination w...
    • Georg Simmel
    • mel (March 1, 1858 - September 28, 1918) Georg Simmelwas born the youngest of seven children onMarch 1, 1858 inBerlin. His father was a prosperous Jewish businessman who had converted to Christianity and died when Ge...
    • Georg Freiherr von Vega
    • ega (23 March 1754 -26 September 1802) The parents of Jurij Vega (Georg is the German version of his name) were poor farmers, his father dying when Jurij was 6 years old. He attended school in Ljubljana until the a...
    • Eugen S
    • n Sänger ‎ (September 22, 1905 - February 10, 1964)‎ Eugen Sänger, first studied civil engineering at theUniversity of Technology in Graz, but after reading Oberth's book about space travel he changed to t...
    • Decimus Burton
    • rton (30 September 1800-December 1881) Decimus Burton was a prolific English architect and garden designer, particularly associated with projects in the classical style in London parks, including buildings at ...
    • Jean -Pierre Serre
    • Jean-Pierre Serre was educated at the Lycée de Nimes and then the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris from 1945 to 1948. Serre was awarded his doctorate from the Sorbonne in 1951. F...
    • Jean Piaget
    • et (August 9, 1896 - September 16, 1980) Jean Piaget was born in Neuchâtel (Switzerland) .He died in Geneva. He was the oldest child of Arthur Piaget, professor of medieval literature at the University, and of Rebecc...
    • William Seward Burroughs
    • ghs (Jan 28 1857 - Sep 14 1898) William Seward Burroughs, inventor of the first workable adding machine, was born in rural New York in 1855. In the 1870s he was working as a bank clerk at the Cayuga County National Ba...
    • Stefano degli Angeli
    • Stephano Angeli studied mathematics at the University of Bologna. He taught literature, philosophy and theology at Ferrara from 1644, and then transferred to Bologna in 1645 where he came und...
    • Sarah Frances Whiting
    • ng (August 23, 1847 – September 12, 1927) Sarah Frances Whiting, US physicist and astronomer, was the instructor to several astronomers, including Annie Jump Cannon. Whiting graduated from Ingham College in 1865. Sh...
    • John Harvard
    • rd (29 November 1607 - 14 September 1638) John Harvard was baptized on 29 November 1607, in St Saviour's Southwark, the second son of Robert Harvard, butcher, and his second wife Katherine, the daughter of Thomas Rogers...
    • Ivan Petrovich Pavlov
    • ov (14 September 1849 – 27 February 1936) Ivan Pavlov was born in a small village in central Russia. His family hoped that he would become a priest, and he went to a theological seminary. After reading Charles Darwin,...
    • Irène Joliot-Curie
    • ie (September 12, 1897 – March 17, 1956) Irène Curie , born in Paris, September 12, 1897, was the daughter of Pierre and Marie Curie , and since 1926 the wife of Frédéric Joliot. After having started her studies a...
    • Albert Schweitzer
    • zer (January 14, 1875-September 4, 1965) Albert Schweitzer was born into an Alsatian family which for generations had been devoted to religion, music, and education. His father and maternal grandfather were ministers; ...