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Famous people all over the world

Category Archive: Science

Sir Frederick Grant Banting – co-discoverer of insulin

Sir Frederick Grant Banting – co-discoverer of insulin

Sir Frederick Grant Banting – co-discoverer of insulin

Sir Frederick Grant Banting was a Canadian physician and physiologist, one of the discoverers of insulin. In 1923 he and John McLeod were laureates of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Banting became the youngest Nobel Prize winner in Physiology or Medicine Prize – at the time of the award he was 32 years old. Frederick gave half of his part of the Nobel Prize to his assistant Charles Best. In 1934 Frederick was knighted by George V.
World Diabetes Day is celebrated on his birthday – 14 November.
He was a leader in other fields of medical research, including suprarenal cortex, cancer, silicosis, and aviation medicine.
Frederick Grant Banting was born on November 14, 1891 in Alliston, Ontario, Canada. He was the youngest of five children into the family of William Thompson and Margaret Grant Banting.
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Murray Bookchin – radical American sociologist

Murray Bookchin - radical American sociologist

Murray Bookchin – radical American sociologist

Murray Bookchin was a radical American sociologist, political and social philosopher, libertarian socialist, environmentalist, atheist, speaker and writer. A pioneer of the environmental movement, Bookchin was the founder of the social ecology within libertarian socialism. He is the author of more than two dozen books on politics, philosophy, history, issues of urbanization, as well as on environmental issues. His writings on libertarian municipalism, the theory of direct democracy had influenced the Green movement. He was a critic of biocentric theories such as deep ecology, and his criticisms of the green, supporters of New Age ideas such as Charlene Spretnek, were a contribution to the development of the American green movement of the 1990s.
Murray Bookchin was born on January 14, 1921 into a family of Russian Jewish immigrants and since childhood was full of Marxist ideas.
At the age of nine he joined the Young Pioneers, the Communist youth organization.
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Hedy Lamarr – actress and inventor

Hedy Lamarr - actress and inventor

Hedy Lamarr – actress and inventor

Hedy Lamarr was an Austrian and then American film actress popular in 1930-1940 and inventor. She was frequently called the most beautiful woman in motion pictures.
Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler was born on November 9, 1914 in Vienna. She was the only child into the family of Gertrude and Emil Kiesler. Her father was a director of the Bank of Vienna and her mother was a pianist. She grew up in luxury and received an excellent education. Since childhood, she studied music and ballet, was fond of theater and other arts.
At the age of 16 Hedwig left her house, entered drama school, and began to act in films. She made her debut in the German film The Girl in the night club (1930). In the late 1920s Max Reinhardt invited her to Berlin.
Ecstasy (1933), a Czech-Austrian film by Gustav Mahata, brought her world fame. Her nude bathing in a forest lake is innocently enough according the standards of the XXI century, but in 1933 it caused a storm of emotions. The film was banned in several countries and released in rent in a few years with the censor cuts. In the same year she married manufacturer of weapons, Austrian millionaire Fritz Mandl. He was so insanely jealous that he tried to buy up every copy of Ecstasy.
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Johannes Kepler – Stargazer

Johannes Kepler - Stargazer

Johannes Kepler – Stargazer

Johannes Kepler was a German mathematician, astronomer, discoverer of the laws of motion of the planets of the solar system. He was a key figure in Renaissance science.
Johannes Kepler was born on December 27, 1571, in Weil der Stadt, Germany.
Kepler wanted to become a theologian, and after graduation from the University of Tübingen in 1591, he enrolled in its theological faculty. He also studied mathematics and astronomy. After Kepler had spent three years at the university, school officials gave him a position teaching mathematics in Graz, Austria. In addition to teaching, he served as district mathematician.
At the age of 23 Kepler became an official calendar maker. It was a difficult job because certain church holy days had to happen just as a particular star was in a particular spot in the sky.
In 1596 Kepler married Barbara Muehleck, already twice widowed. Of their five children only one boy and one girl reached adulthood.
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Benjamin Banneker – first African American scientist

Benjamin Banneker – first African American scientist

Benjamin Banneker – first African American scientist


Benjamin Banneker was one of the first distinguished African American scientists and mathematicians. He was also an inventor and a writer.
Benjamin Banneker was born on November 9, 1731, in Baltimore County, Maryland. He was the son of an African slave, who had bought his own freedom. His mother was the daughter of an Englishwoman and a free African slave.
The boy had little schooling, but he was fond of reading.
He lived on the farm for nearly all of his life and worked as a tobacco planter.
In 1753 at the age of 22, Benjamin designed and built a wooden clock. It was the first clock of its type. The clock operated successfully until the time of his death.
His father died in 1759 and Banneker lived with his mother and sisters.
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John Deere – inventor of the steel plow

John Deere - inventor of the steel plow

John Deere – inventor of the steel plow

John Deere was an American blacksmith and industrialist, inventor of the steel plow, founder of Deere & Company – the largest agricultural engineering company in the world.
John Deere was born on February 7, 1804 in Rutland, Vermont, into the family of William Rinold Deere, a tailor, and Sarah Yates Deere. William Deer went missing on his way to England in 1808 when John was 4 years old.
After school John Deere briefly attended the University of Magdeburg.
In 1821 he became a pupil of Benjamin Lawrence, a prosperous blacksmith. At age 21 he set up his own shop. Many of his customers were farmers.
He married Demarius Lamb and by 1835 they had four children. Business went bad, Deere had problems with creditors. He sold his business and went to Illinois. His family stayed in Magdeburg.
In Illinois Deere became a blacksmith. In 1837 he developed and released his first commercially successful cast-steel plow.
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Al-Khwarizmi – medieval scientist

Al-Khwarizmi – medieval scientist

Al-Khwarizmi – medieval scientist


Al-Khwarizmi was one of the largest medieval Persian scientists of the IX century, mathematician, astronomer, geographer and historian. He is known as the Father of Algebra.
Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi was born in about 783 in Khiva, Khorezm.
Al-Khwarizmi was born in the era of the great cultural and scientific upsurge. Primary education he received from prominent scientists Maverannahr and Khorezm. At home, he learned the Indian and Greek science, and in Baghdad, he was already good scientist himself.
In 819 Al-Khwarizmi went to Baghdad and lived in the suburb of Kattrabbula. In Baghdad, he spent a considerable period of his life and headed House of Wisdom, which later was called Al-Mamun Academy. House of Wisdom was sort of the Academy of Sciences, where scientists from Syria, Egypt, Persia, Khorasan and Mawerannahr worked. There was a library with a large number of ancient manuscripts, and an astronomical observatory there. Many Greek philosophical and scientific works were translated into Arabic.
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