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 […]

Frederick Banting (1891 - 1941)

Frederick Banting was born on November 14, 1891, in a farm house near Alliston, Ontario. The youngest of five children (Nelson, Thompson, Kenneth and Essie) of William Thompson Banting and Margaret Grant, he attended public and high schools in Alliston. He attempted to enter the army but was refused due to poor eyesight. He then […]

John H. Balsley (1823 - 1895)

John H. Balsley (May 29, 1823 – March 12, 1895) was a master carpenter and inventor, inventing a practical folding wooden stepladder and receiving the first U.S. patent issued for a safety stepladder.  He was born in Connellsville, Fayette County, Pennsylvania to George H. and Sarah (Shallenberger) Balsley. His father was also a carpenter. An […]

Robert C. Baker (1921 - 2006)

A Lansing, New York native, Baker earned a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University in 1943 and then went on to major in Pomology at the university’s College of Agriculture. For his graduate work, Baker took his master’s degree at Penn State University and his doctorate at Purdue University. Baker was a member of the Alpha […]

Benjamin Baker (1840 - 1907)

He was born in Keyford, which is now part of Frome, Somerset in 1840, educated at Cheltenham Grammar School and, at the age of 16, became an apprentice at Messrs Price and Fox at the Neath Abbey Iron Works. After his apprenticeship he spent two years as an assistant to Mr. W.H. Wilson. Later, he […]

Spencer Fullerton Baird (1823 - 1887)

Spencer Fullerton Baird was born in Reading, Pennsylvania in 1823. He became a self-trained naturalist as a young man, learning about the field from his brother, William, who was a birder, and the likes of John James Audubon, who instructed Baird on how to draw scientific illustrations of birds. His father was also a big […]

John Logie Baird (1888 - 1946)

Baird was born at 8am on 14 August 1888 in Helensburgh, Argyll and Bute (then Dunbartonshire), and was the youngest of four children of the Reverend John Baird, the Church of Scotland’s minister for the local St Bride’s church and Jessie Morrison Inglis, the orphaned niece of a wealthy family of shipbuilders from Glasgow.  He […]

Sir Donald Coleman Bailey (1901 - 1985)

Bailey attended Rotherham Grammar School and The Leys School in Cambridge and then studied for a period at Sheffield University.  Bailey was a civil servant in the War Office when he designed his bridge. Another engineer, A.M. Hamilton, successfully demonstrated that the Bailey bridge breached a patent on the Callender-Hamilton bridge, though the Bailey bridge […]

Leo Baekeland (1863 - 1944)

Leo Baekeland was born in Ghent, Belgium, Baekeland was the son of a cobbler and a house maid. He told The Literary Digest: “The name is a Dutch word meaning ‘Land of Beacons.’” He graduated with honours from the Ghent Municipal Technical School and was awarded a scholarship by the City of Ghent to study […]

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 […]

Benjamin T. Babbitt (1809 - 1889)

Benjamin Babbitt was born in Westmoreland, New York on May 1, 1809. His parents were Betsey (Holman) Babbitt, and Nathaniel Babbitt, a blacksmith, tavern owner and ensign in the militia of Oneida County, New York. As a child, he attended public school and worked on the family farm. He “possessed a most ingenious and inquiring […]

William Edward Ayrton (1847 - 1908)

Ayrton was born in London, the son of Edward Nugent Ayrton, a barrister, and educated at University College School and University College, London. He later studied under Lord Kelvin at Glasgow.  Ayrton’s second wife, Hertha Marks Ayrton, whom he married in 1885, assisted him in his research, and became known for her own scientific work […]

William W. Averell (1832 - 1900)

Averell was born in Cameron, New York. As a boy he worked as a drugstore clerk in the nearby town of Bath, New York. He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1855 and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Mounted Rifles. His early assignments included garrison duty […]

Wilbur Olin Atwater (1844 - 1907)

Atwater was born in Johnsburg, New York and grew up in the New England area. He opted not to fight in the American Civil War and instead to pursue an undergraduate degree at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. In 1868, Atwater’s interest in civil engineering and agricultural chemistry led him to enroll in Yale University’s Sheffield […]

Svante Arrhenius (1859 - 1927)

Arrhenius was born on February 19, 1859 at Vik (also spelled Wik or Wijk), near Uppsala, Sweden, the son of Svante Gustav and Carolina Thunberg Arrhenius. His father had been a land surveyor for Uppsala University, moving up to a supervisory position. At the age of three, Arrhenius taught himself to read without the encouragement […]

Edwin Howard Armstrong (1890 - 1954)

Armstrong was born in the Chelsea district of New York City to John and Emily Armstrong. His father was the American representative of the Oxford University Press, which published Bibles and standard classical works. John Armstrong, who was also a native of New York, began working at the Oxford University Press at a young age […]

Louis Armand (1905 - 1971)

Louis Armand was born in Cruseilles, Haute-Savoie, and studied in Annecy and Lyon at the Lycée du Parc. He graduated second in his class from the École Polytechnique (class of 1924), then joined the Corps des Mines and was major from École des Mines. He married his wife, Genevieve Gazel, in 1928.  He joined the […]

Richard Arkwright (1732 - 1792)

Richard Arkwright, the youngest of 13 children, was born in Preston, Lancashire, England on 23 December 1732. His father, Thomas, was a tailor and a Preston Guild burgess. The family is recorded in the Preston Guild Rolls now held by Lancashire Record Office. Richard’s parents, Sarah and Thomas, could not afford to send him to […]

François Arago (1786 - 1853)

Arago was born at Estagel, a small village of 3000 near Perpignan, in the département of Pyrénées-Orientales, France, where his father held the position of Treasurer of the Mint.  Arago was the eldest of four brothers. Jean (1788–1836) emigrated to North America and became a general in the Mexican army. Jacques Étienne Victor (1799–1855) took […]

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 […]

Roy Chapman Andrews (1884 - 1960)

Andrews was born on January 26, 1884, in Beloit, Wisconsin. As a child, he explored forests, fields, and waters nearby, developing marksmanship skills. He taught himself taxidermy and used funds from this hobby to pay tuition to Beloit College. After graduating, Andrews applied for work at the American Museum of Natural History in New York […]

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (1836 - 1917)

Elizabeth Garrett was born on 9 June 1836 in Whitechapel, London, the second of eleven children of Newson Garrett (1812–1893), from Leiston, Suffolk, and his wife, Louisa née Dunnell (1813–1903), from London.  The Garrett ancestors had been ironworkers in East Suffolk since the early seventeenth century. Newson was the youngest of three sons and not […]

Carl David Anderson (1905 - 1991)

Anderson was born in New York City, the son of Swedish immigrants. He studied physics and engineering at Caltech (B.S., 1927; Ph.D., 1930). Under the supervision of Robert A. Millikan, he began investigations into cosmic rays during the course of which he encountered unexpected particle tracks in his (modern versions now commonly referred to as […]

Andre Marie Amphere (1775 - 1836)

Andre-Marie Ampère was born on 20 January 1775 to Jean-Jacques Ampère, a prosperous businessman, and Jeanne Antoinette Desutières-Sarcey Ampère during the height of the French Enlightenment. He spent his childhood and adolescence at the family property at Poleymieux-au-Mont-d’Or near Lyon. Jean-Jacques Ampère, a successful merchant, was an admirer of the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose […]

Florentino Ameghino (1854 - 1911)

Born in Luján, son of Italian immigrants, Ameghino was a self-taught naturalist, and focused his study on the lands of the southern Pampas. He formed one of the largest collections of fossils of the world at the time, which served him as base for numerous geological and paleontological studies. Ameghino was a leading pioneer in […]

Alois Alzheimer (1864 - 1915)

Alois Alzheimer was born in Marktbreit, Bavaria on 14 June 1864. His father served in the office of notary public in the family’s hometown.  Alzheimer attended Aschaffenburg, Tübingen, Berlin, and Würzburg universities. He received a medical degree at Würzburg University in 1886. In the following year, he spent five months assisting mentally ill women, before […]

Alan A. Armer (1922 - 2010)

Alan A. Armer (7 July 1922 – 5 December 2010) was an American television writer, producer, and director.  Born in Los Angeles, Armer received a bachelor’s degree in speech and drama from Stanford University, a master’s in theatre arts from UCLA and an honorary doctor’s degree from California State University, Northridge. After college, Armer started […]

Roone Arledge (1931 - 2002)

Arledge was born the son of a North Carolina lawyer, mother Gertrude, from Polk County NC, who moved to New York City in search of opportunity. Arledge attended Wellington C. Mepham High School on Long Island where he wrestled and played baseball. Upon graduation, he decided that sportswriting was what he wanted to do in […]

George Archainbaud (1890 - 1959)

In the beginning of his career he worked on stage as an actor and manager. He came to the United States in 1915, and started his film career as an assistant director to Emile Chautard at the World Film Company in Fort Lee, New Jersey. In 1917 he made his own directorial debut As Man […]

Michelangelo Antonioni (1912 - 2007)

Antonioni was born into a prosperous family of landowners in Ferrara, Emilia Romagna, in northern Italy. He was the son of Elisabetta (née Roncagli) and Ismaele Antonioni. The director explained to Italian film critic Aldo Tassone:  My childhood was a happy one. My mother… was a warm and intelligent woman who had been a labourer […]