Born: July 25, 1920, London, EnglandDied: April 16, 1958, London Rosalind Elsie Franklin was a British physical chemist whose groundbreaking research led to the discovery of the double-helix structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), a molecule found in all living cells that contains the genetic material passed from one generation to the next. Franklin died four […]
Born: Jan 16, 1932, San Francisco, California, U.S.Died: Dec 26, 1985, Rwanda Dian Fossey was an American zoologist, whose field studies of wild gorillas in the Virunga Mountains of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, formerly Zaire) served to dispel many myths about the violent and aggressive nature of gorillas. Born in
Born: May 15, 1857, Dundee, Tayside [nowin Dundee], ScotlandDied: May 21, 1911, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. Mina Stevens was an American astronomer who pioneered in the classification of stellar spectra.Mina Stevens was educated in public schools and at the age of 14 she was a teacher as well as student. In May 1877, she married James
Born: Jan 23, 1918, New York, U.S.Died: Feb 21, 1999, Chapel Hill, N.C. Gertrude Belle Elion was an American chemist and Nobel Prize winner, born in New York City. Elion received an M.S. degree from New York University and began her long tenure (1944-1983) at the Burroughs Wellcome pharmaceutical company at the height of World
Born: July 24, 1897, Atchison, Kansas, U.S.Died: July 2, 1937, near Howland Island,central Pacific Ocean Amelia Earhart was an American aviator, noted for her flights across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and her attempt to fly around the world. She was born in Atchison, Kansas, and educated at Columbia University and Harvard Summer School. In
Born: Nov. 7, 1867, Warsaw, Poland, Russian EmpireDied: July 4, 1934, near Sallanches, France Marie Curie was a Polish-born French chemist who, with her husband Pierre Curie, was an early investigator of radioactivity. Radioactivity is the spontaneous decay of certain elements into other elements and energy. The Curies shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in physics
Born: Dec 5, 1896, Prague, Czech.Died: Oct 20, 1984, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.Born: Aug 15, 1896, Prague, Czech.Died: Oct 26, 1957, St. Louis, Mo., U.S. American biochemists, husband-and-wife team whosediscovery of a phosphate-containing form of the simple sugar glucose, and its universal importance to carbohydrate metabolism, led to an understanding of hormonal influence on the interconversion
Born: November 19, 1956, Elmira, New York, U.S. Eileen Marie Collins is an American astronaut and pilot, who in 1999 became the first woman to command a space shuttle mission. In a 1995 mission Collins had become the first female pilot of the space shuttle.Collins was born in Elmira, New York. She graduated from Elmira
Born: May 27, 1907, Springdale, Pennsylvania, U.S.Died: April 14, 1964, Silver Spring, Md. Rachel Louise Carson was an American marine biologist, author of widely read books on ecological themes. Born in Springdale, Pennsylvania, and educated at the former Pennsylvania College for Women and Johns Hopkins University, she taught zoology at the University of Maryland from
Born: Dec. 11, 1863, Dover, Delaware, U.S.Died: April 13, 1941, Cambridge, Mass. Annie Jump Cannon was an American astronomer, born in Dover, Delaware, and educated at Wellesley and Radcliffe colleges. She was an assistant at the Harvard College Observatory from 1897 until 1911, when she was appointed curator of astronomical photographs. She was responsible for
Born: August 12, 1919, Davenport, Cheshire, England Burbidge is an English-born American astronomer and first woman to be appointed director of the Royal Greenwich Observatory. She made notable contributions to the theory of quasars (quasi-stellar sources), to measurements of the rotation and masses of galaxies, and to the understanding of how chemical elements are formed
Born: February 3, 1821, Counterslip, Bristol, Gloucestershire, EnglandDied: May 31, 1910, Hastings, Sussex Elizabeth Blackwell was a British-American physician and first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States. Born near Bristol, England, Blackwell and her family moved to New York City when she was 11 years old, after a fire had destroyed
Born: July 19, 1817, Knox county, Ohio, U.S.Died: Nov. 8, 1901, Bunker Hill, Kan. Mary Ann was an organizer and chief of nursing, hospital, and welfare services for the western armies under the command of General Ulysses S. Grant during the American Civil War.Mary Ann grew up in the houses of various relatives. She attended
Born: June 7, 1909, Westfield, New Jersey, U.S.Died: Aug. 7, 1974, New York Apgar was an American physician, anaesthesiologist, and medical researcher who developed the Apgar Score System, a method of evaluating an infant shortly after birth to assess its well-being and to determine if any immediate medical intervention is required.Apgar graduated from Mount Holyoke
Born: May 16, 1718, Milan, Habsburg crown land[now in Italy]Died: January 9, 1799, Milan Agnesi was an Italian mathematician and philosopher, considered to be the first woman in the Western world to have achieved a reputation in mathematics.Agnesi was the eldest child of a wealthy silk merchant who provided her with the best tutors available.