Dr Franklin Miles (1845 - 1929)

Medical Entrepreneur. He was the founder and president of the present-day Miles Laboratories in Elkhart IN, which is world famous for the manufacturing and distribution of over-the-counter medical products such as Alka-Seltzer, Flintstone Vitamins, One-A-Day Vitamins, and Bactine. Originally intending to embark in the practice of law, he attended Columbia College in New York NY […]

Dr Franz Carl Achard (1753 - 1821)

Achard was born in Berlin, the son of preacher Max Guillaume Achard, descendant of Huguenot refugees and his wife Marguerite Elisabeth (Rouppert). He studied physics and chemistry in Berlin. He became interested in sugar refining through his stepfather. At the age of 20, Achard entered the “Circle of Friends of Natural Sciences” and met Andreas […]

Dr Frederick Douglas Patterson (1901 - 1988)

Third president of Tuskegee University. Founder of the United Negro College Fund.  Family links:  Spouse:  Catherine Moton Patterson (1909 – 1999)* *Calculated relationship

Dr Gottfried Benn (1886 - 1956)

Poet and Physician. German military surgeon on duty at the execution of Edith Cavell in World War I.  Family links:  Spouse:  Ilse Kaul Benn (1913 – 1995)* *Calculated relationship

Dr James Barry (1970 - 1865)

British Army Surgeon, Folk Figure. Served in the British Army for 40 years, and upon death was discovered to be a woman.  It was reported in the “Manchester Guardian” on August 21, 1865, that James Barry had entered the British Army in 1813, and had passed through the ranks of Assistant Surgeon and Surgeon in […]

Dr Jonas Basanavicius (1851 - 1927)

Lithuanian Statesman. He was the patriarch of the Lithuanian National Movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the first signer of the Lithuanian Declaration of Independence (1918). A physician by profession, Basanavicius was a prolific writer who rallied the Lithuanian nation to national consciousness which resulted in Lithuanian independence being achieved. His […]

Dr Karl G. Henize (1926 - 1993)

Astronaut. Crewmember aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger. Their mission lasted from July 29, 1985, to August 6, 1985. Dr. Henize died of a heart attack while attempting to climb Mount Everest. He was buried on Changste Glacier on Mount Everest. (bio by: Erik Lander) Cause of death: High Altitude Pulmonary Edema

Dr Lorene Lane Rogers (1914 - 2009)

Educator. As President of the University of Texas in the late 1970s, she was the first female head of a major university. Raised in Texas, she obtained a degree in English from North Texas State Teachers College, and was working as a teacher until her husband was killed in an explosion at a New Jersey […]

Dr Mary Jane McLeod Bethune (1875 - 1955)

Dr Milton Friedman (1912 - 2006)

American economist and Nobel Prize Recipient. Born in New York City to Jewish parents immigrated from Hungary, he began developing his economic theories during the Great Depression, received a PhD from Columbia University in 1946, was Prosessor of Economics at the University of Chicago from 1946 to 1976, became a senior research fellow at Stanford […]

Dr Norman G. Baker (1882 - 1958)

Convicted felon, inventor, and charlatan. He was a star mentalist on the vaudeville circuit in the early 1900’s and made a fortune in the 1910’s by inventing the Tangley Calliaphone.  He built KTNT (Know the Naked Truth) radio in Iowa in 1925 and published TNT Magazine, where he made relentless attacks over the air and […]

Dr Patricia Hilliard Robertson (1963 - 2001)

Astronaut. Selected by NASA in June 1998, Dr. Robertson reported for training in August 1998. Astronaut Candidate Training included orientation briefings and tours, numerous scientific and technical briefings, intensive instruction in Shuttle and International Space Station systems, physiological training and ground school to prepare for T-38 flight training, as well as learning water and wilderness […]

Dr Robert Maximilian Wassilij Kempner (1899 - 1993)

Attorney. Prosecutor during the Nuremberg war-crime trials. His parents were the scientists Walter Kempner and Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner, his godfather was Robert Koch. After studying law in Freiburg, Berlin and Breslau he worked as an attorney in Berlin. From 1928 on he worked for the prussian ministry of the interior and tried to charge Hitler for […]

Dr Robert Spitzer (1932 - 2015)

American Psychiatrist, Professor and Author. Spitzer was a psychiatrist who played a leading role in establishing agreed-upon standards to describe mental disorders and eliminating homosexuality’s designation as a pathology. His work on several editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which defines all of the major disorders, became best-sellers. He received […]

Dr Rużar Briffa (1906 - 1963)

Poet. Considered to this day as a major figure in Maltese literature, Rużar Briffa was born in Valletta in 1906 and received his first education at St. Elmo’s Elementary State School and the Valletta Lyceum. Obtaining the matriculation certificate, in 1923 he started teaching at elementary schools, however a year later he decided to further […]

Dr Thomas Neville Bonner (1923 - 2003)

Educator and Author. Thomas Bonnor was the president of Wayne State University in Detroit from 1978-82, where he crafted student-exchange agreements with universities in Germany, Poland, Israel and Costa Rica. Under his leadership, Wayne State became the second university in the U.S. to establish scholarly exchanges with the Chinese Academy of Science. Before that he […]

Dr Verner Winslow Crane (1889 - 1974)

Author, Historian. His writings include “Benjamin Franklin And A Rising People”, “The Southern Frontier, 1670-1732”, and “Franklin’s Letters To The Press, 1758-1775”. Crane was also a noted professor of History at the University of Michigan, and an outstanding authority on the Southeastern Indian frontier. (bio by: K)  Family links:  Spouse:  Jennie May Harris Crane (1890 […]

Dr W.E.B. DuBois (1868 - 1963)

Dr Wendell Phillips Whalum, Sr (1931 - 1987)

Dr Wendell Phillips Whalum, Sr (1931 - 1987)

Dr. Baruch Blumberg (1925 - 2011)

Blumberg was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Ida (Simonoff) and Meyer Blumberg, a lawyer. He first attended the Orthodox Yeshivah of Flatbush for elementary school, where he learned to read and write in Hebrew and to study the Bible and Jewish texts in their original language. (That school also had among its […]

Dr. Ernest Beutler (1928 - 2008)

Born in Berlin, to a Jewish family, his family home was located on Reichskanzlerplatz, renamed “Adolf Hitler Platz” after Hitler’s ascent to power, and then Theodor Heuss Platz after the Second World War. Both of his parents (Alfred and Kaethe, née Italiener) were physicians. His mother, a pediatrician, was in pre-war times the physician to […]

Dr. Ernst F.W. Alexanderson (1878 - 1975)

Alexanderson was born at Uppsala, Sweden, and educated at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and the Technische Hochschule (Technical University) in Berlin, Germany. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1902 and spent much of his life working for the General Electric company. Alexanderson designed the Alexanderson alternator, an early longwave radio transmitter, one […]

Dr. Gottfried Benn (1886 - 1956)

Gottfried Benn was born in a Lutheran country parsonage, a few hours from Berlin, the son and grandson of pastors in Mansfeld, now part of Putlitz in the district of Prignitz, Brandenburg. He was educated in Sellin in the Neumark and Frankfurt an der Oder. To please his father, he studied theology at the University […]

Dr. John Badley (1783 - 1870)

Born in Dudley, Worcestershire, England to a surgeon father, William Badley, of Dudley and Sarah Cox his wife. He studied medicine at Saint Bartholomew’s Hospital in London where he was a favorite pupil of John Abernethy a leading surgeon at the turn of the 18th century and himself a student of Hunter. He was elected […]

Dr. Jose Celso Barbosa (1857 - 1921)

Barbosa (birth name: José Celso Barbosa Alcala) was born in the city of Bayamón, Puerto Rico to parents of African and European ancestry. He received both his primary and secondary education in Puerto Rico. He was the first person of mixed-ethnic ancestry to attend Puerto Rico’s prestigious Jesuit Seminary. After graduating from the Seminary, Barbosa […]

Dr. Nick (1927 - 2016)

Dr. Nick Dr. Nick (George Nichopoulos), died at age 88 in Memphis, Tennessee, according to the Memorial Park Funeral Home and Cemetery. No cause of death was given by the funeral home, which said he died Wednesday. Known as “Dr. Nick,” he treated Elvis Presley for the last decade of his life and was accused […]

Dr. Renato Dulbecco (1914 - 2012)

Dulbecco was born in Catanzaro (Southern Italy) to a Calabrese mother and a Ligurian father. He graduated from high school at 16, then moved to the University of Turin. Despite a strong interest for mathematics and physics, he decided to study medicine. At only 22, he graduated in morbid anatomy and pathology under the supervision […]

Dr. Virginia Apgar (1909 - 1974)

The youngest of three children, Apgar was born and raised in Westfield, New Jersey, graduating from Westfield High School in 1925. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1929, where she studied zoology with minors in physiology and chemistry, and from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons (CUCPS) in 1933. She completed a […]

Driss Chraïbi (1926 - 2007)

Author. Born in El Jadida, Morocco, Chraïbi is considered the father of the modern Moroccan novel. He moved to Paris in 1946,  where he spent most of his life. His many works have been translated into several languages and examined themes such as colonialism, culture clashes, generational conflict and the treatment of Islamic women. They […]