Public Figures & Cultural Luminaries

Sciences & Discovery

42

🕯️ 975

Lise Meitner

Lise Meitner

Austria

7 November 1878 – 27 October 1968 (89 years old)

Austrian-Swedish nuclear physicist who co-discovered nuclear fission and formulated its theoretical explanation using E = mc², opening the atomic era, honored by chemical element 109 (meitnerium).

Cambridge, United Kingdom

42 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

1,794

🕯️ 92

Otto Hahn

Otto Hahn

Germany

1879 – 1968 (89 years old)

German chemist regarded as the 'father of nuclear chemistry' who discovered nuclear fission with Fritz Strassmann in 1938.

Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Germany

1,794 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

27

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Henry Dale

Sir Henry Hallett Dale

Great Britain

1875 – 1968 (93 years old)

English pharmacologist who won the 1932 Nobel Prize in Medicine for identifying acetylcholine as the neurotransmitter of the parasympathetic and voluntary nervous systems, and formulated 'Dale's Principle' of neuronal transmission.

Cambridge, United Kingdom

27 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

25

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Lev Landau

Лев Давидович Ландау

🌐 Azerbaijan

1908 – 1968 (60 years old)

Legendary Soviet theoretical physicist whose genius spanned superfluidity, superconductivity, Fermi liquid theory, and plasma physics, authoring the monumental Course of Theoretical Physics.

Moscow, Russia

25 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

1,896

🕯️ 118

Yuri Gagarin

Юрий Алексеевич Гагарин

Russia

1934 – 1968 (34 years old)

Soviet cosmonaut who became the first human to journey into outer space and orbit the Earth aboard Vostok 1 in 1961.

Moscow, Russia

1,896 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

3,725

🕯️ 154

Howard Florey

Howard Walter Florey, Baron Florey

Australia

1898 – 1968 (69 years old)

Australian pathologist and pharmacologist who transformed penicillin from a laboratory curiosity into a mass-produced, lifesaving antibiotic.

Marston, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom

3,725 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

25

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Hermann J. Muller

Hermann Joseph Muller

United States

1890 – 1967 (76 years old)

American geneticist who won the 1946 Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering that X-ray radiation induces artificial genetic mutations, launching radiation genetics and leading the global scientific crusade against nuclear fallout.

Indianapolis (Indiana), United States

25 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

1,799

🕯️ 82

J. Robert Oppenheimer

Julius Robert Oppenheimer

United States

1904 – 1967 (62 years old)

Theoretical physicist and wartime director of the Los Alamos Laboratory, revered as the 'father of the atomic bomb'.

St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands

1,799 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

4,394

🕯️ 83

Georges Lemaître

Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître

Belgium

1894 – 1966 (71 years old)

Belgian Catholic priest, astronomer, and cosmologist who proposed the Big Bang theory of the universe.

Liège, Wallonia, Belgium

4,394 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

21

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Homi Jehangir Bhabha

होमी जहांगीर भाभा

India

1909 – 1966 (56 years old)

Indian nuclear physicist widely acclaimed as the father of the Indian nuclear program, who formulated India's three-stage nuclear power strategy and founded TIFR.

Chamonix, France

21 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

24

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Homi J. Bhabha

Homi Jehangir Bhabha

India

1909 – 1966 (56 years old)

Visionary Indian nuclear physicist acclaimed as the 'Father of the Indian Nuclear Programme', who formulated the relativistic electron-positron scattering formula (Bhabha Scattering) and designed India's three-stage nuclear power strategy.

Chamonix (Haute-Savoie), France

24 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

3,084

🕯️ 96

Sergei Korolev

Сергей Павлович Королёв

Ukraine

1907 – 1966 (59 years old)

Legendary Soviet 'Chief Designer' who orchestrated the launches of Sputnik 1, the first dog Laika, and Yuri Gagarin.

Moscow, Russia

3,084 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

38

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Guillermo Gonzalez Camarena

Guillermo González Camarena

Mexico

1917 – 1965 (48 years old)

Mexican electrical engineer who invented the chromoscopic adapter for television equipment in 1940, creating an early color television transmission system later adopted by NASA on Voyager missions.

Mexico City, Mexico

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Sciences & Discovery

26

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J. B. S. Haldane

John Burdon Sanderson Haldane

Great Britain

1892 – 1964 (72 years old)

Brilliant British-Indian polymath who co-founded population genetics, formulated 'Haldane's Rule' on hybrid sterility, co-conceived the Primordial Soup theory for the origin of life, and famously quipped that God possessed 'an inordinate fondness for beetles'.

Kakinada (Andhra Pradesh), India

26 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

3,276

🕯️ 92

Rachel Carson

Rachel Louise Carson

United States

1907 – 1964 (56 years old)

American marine biologist and conservationist whose landmark book Silent Spring launched the global environmental movement.

Rockville, Maryland, United States

3,276 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

4,340

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Norbert Wiener

Norbert Wiener

United States

1894 – 1964 (69 years old)

MIT mathematical child prodigy who founded cybernetics, feedback systems, and automated control theory.

Sandwich, New Hampshire, United States

4,340 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

31

🕯️ 970

Niels Bohr

Niels Henrik David Bohr

Denmark

7 October 1885 – 18 November 1962 (77 years old)

Danish physicist whose quantum model of the atom and Principle of Complementarity founded atomic physics and the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, winning the 1922 Nobel Prize.

Copenhagen, Denmark

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Sciences & Discovery

29

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Erich von Tschermak

Erich Tschermak von Seysenegg

Austria

1871 – 1962 (90 years old)

Austrian agronomist and plant breeder who independently rediscovered Mendel's principles of heredity in 1900 and applied Mendelian genetics to crop breeding, developing disease-resistant high-yield hybrid wheat, barley, and oat strains.

Vienna, Austria

29 Full Record →