Birth Locations – Page 156 – The Exasperated Historian

17) Eduard Einstein

17) Eduard Einstein

The Oft Forgotten Son of One of the Most Well-Known Scientists of the 20th Century

Born: 28 July 1910, Zurich, Switzerland

Died: 25 October 1965, Zurich Switzerland

Tete, as his mother called him, was the second son and third child between Albert Einstein and his wife Mileva Marić. Albert and Mileva separated in 1914 and were divorced in 1919, and according to the Einstein website, both Eduard and his brother suffered from the divorce (by then their older sister Lieserl had completely disappeared from the historical record and had most likely died).

Eduard showed much promise in school and was brilliantly talented in his studies. He wanted to study medicine and become a psychiatrist.

However, in 1930, Eduard began to suffer from his first psychiatric episodes, and was soon diagnosed with Schizophrenia. He was twenty years old. Despite his mother doing everything in her power to care for him, Eduard was sent to a psychiatric institution in 1932. He would be in and out of the sanatoriums for the rest of his life, and the costs were insurmountable. Mileva continued to do everything she could to help him.

His father, stepmother, brother, and Hans's family would move to the United States in the 1930's. Mileva passed away in 1948. Eduard would spend the next nine years in and out of the sanatorium or staying with foster families. He passed away in 1965 in the sanatorium.

I was introduced to the story of Eduard in the same way I learned of his mother Mileva; the book Caught by Margaret Peterson Haddix. If you are interested in historical fiction or are looking for a new Young Adult series to read I highly recommend The Missing series.

Badges Earned:

Find a Grave Marked

Located in my Personal Library:

Caught by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Sources:

http://www.einstein-website.eu/biographies/einsteineduard_content.html

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/155669544/eduard-einstein

http://haddixbooks.com/book/caught/

17) Elizabeth Blackburn

She researches and teaches, so take that those who say if you can't do, teach.

Born: 36 November 1948, Hobart, Australia

Former President of Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

Elizabeth was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2009 with two others. According to the Nobel Prize website, Elizabeth was awarded the prize, "For the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase."

She holds a PhD from Cambridge University. Elizabeth was also a former member of the President's Council of Bioethics and The Stem Cell Research Advisory Panel for the state of California.

Elizabeth and her husband have one son together.

Badges Earned:

Located In My Personal Library:

Women in Science by Rachel Ignotofsky

Sources:

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2009/blackburn/facts/

https://www.salk.edu/scientist/elizabeth-blackburn/

16) Saint Lawrence

16) Saint Lawrence

Not much is known about the man when he was alive, but today his feast day is celebrated across the globe

Born: c 225 AD, Hispania (Present-Day Spain)

Died: 10 August 258 AD, Rome, Roman Empire (Present-Day Italy)

Feast Day: 10 August

He was martyred soon after the death of Pope Sixtus II in the early centuries of Christianity. According to church doctrine, Lawrence oversaw all the material possessions of the church and oversaw the distribution of alms to the poor. At that time, the Roman Empire didn't think too highly of Christianity (or monotheists in general) and so Emperor Valerian oversaw the persecution of not only the pope but many others including Lawrence.

The legend continues that after the death of the pope, Lawrence was ordered to turn over the church's vast riches. Lawrence presented the poor and lame members of the church and said they were the true treasures. The Romans didn't think too highly of this little display and so Lawrence was burned to death (or more accurately grilled--which is why he's associated with the gridiron). He also supposedly told his captors that he was done on one side and should be turned over!

Today he is one of the patrons of Rome and is invoked and prayed to by a wide variety of folk including: cooks, librarians, archivists, and tanners. He is also the patron of the same folk.

His head is a church relic and is on display in the Vatican (pictures on his Find a Grave profile).

Badges Earned:

Find a Grave Marked

Sources:

https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-lawrence/

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/95157010/saint_lawrence

16) Valentina Tereshkova

16) Valentina Tereshkova

The First Woman to Ever Go to Space (And the Youngest)

Born: 6 March 1937, Bolshoye, Soviet Union (Present-day Russia)

Cosmonaut and the first woman to ever go to space; in 1963 she orbited the Earth forty-eight times and spent approximately seventy hours in space.

Valentina didn’t have much formal schooling and her parents were a tractor driver and a textile worker.

She became a parachute jumper and that skill led to her being chosen as a cosmonaut. Valentina had been working in a textile mill and was parachuting for fun on the side when she was chosen for the astronaut program. Four women were selected for the program but only Valentina was ever sent to space.

Her 1963 flight was the only one she ever went to space for but afterward she was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union and became a Soviet Union spokesperson.

Valentina's husband was a fellow cosmonaut and their oldest—a daughter named Elena— was subjected to medical testing as she was the first child born of two parents who had both been in space.

Badges Earned:

Located In My Personal Library:

The Only Woman by Immy Humes

The Six: The Untold Story of America's First Women Astronauts by Loren Grush

Women in Science by Rachel Ignotofsky

Sources:

https://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/whos_who_level2/tereshkova.html

15) Leigh Searl

There isn't a ton of information on her out there, but what is out there is inspiring as all get out

Founder & CEO of America’s Career Force—a non-profit that connects military spouses with jobs across the US as they move around under their spouse’s assignment.

In fifteen years as a military spouse she moved eleven times.

Leigh is a University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate with a degree in behavioral sciences and pre-law. She later graduated with her Juris Doctor from Concord Law School.

Sources:

http://americascareerforce.org/about

15) Wilhelm Krützfeld

He is Proof That Not all Germans During World War II were Monsters

Born: 9 December 1880, Seedorf, German Empire (Present-day Seedorf, Germany)

Died: 31 October 1953, Berlin, Germany

Wilhelm was a local police chief in Berlin during the now infamous Kristallnacht. On that night Wilhelm entered history as a decent human being when he ordered his officers to save the New Synagogue in Berlin from being badly burned or destroyed. He was able to do this by citing a law that stated historic buildings could not be destroyed.

On that night, the Synagogue was lit on fire, but before it could be completely burned down, Wilhelm made the people attacking the Synagogue back off. He then called the Fire Department and demanded they come rescue the building. Remember, at this point in time there was an actual ban in place that stated the Fire Department could not save Jewish buildings that had been lit on fire (joy) however the firemen came anyway and saved New Synagogue. One door was slightly damaged otherwise the building survived intact.

After Kristallnacht, the New Synagogue was given a 24/7 police protection.

That's pretty much the extent of what we know about Wilhelm, but nevertheless he deserves a place of honor on this list.

Note:

When researching a source to use for those who wanted to know more about the New Synagogue, I looked at the Wikipedia page for the building. According to Wikipedia (I know) the real man behind saving the Synagogue was Otto Belgardt, and Wilhelm simply covered up for him. In either case, Wilhelm was instrumental in helping save the Synagogue throughout the rest of the war. Also note, when you Google Otto the first result is about multiple officers and the second is that same Wikipedia page.

Sources:

https://www.tracesofwar.com/sights/41174/Plaque-Wilhelm-Kr%FCtzfeld.htm

14) Rosalind Franklin

14) Rosalind Franklin

DNA and The Science of Sexism in the Workplace

Born: 25 July 1920, Notting Hill, London, United Kingdom

Died: 16 April 1958, Chelsea, London, United Kingdom

Geneticist who discovered the structure of DNA and then had the credit taken away from her by two men who later won the Nobel Prize. They won the award four years after she passed away from ovarian cancer.

Rosalind earned her PhD from Cambridge in 1945. She spent three years learning x-ray techniques in Paris following her higher degree. Once she returned to London she worked on one research team while another man worked another however the man left and did nothing on his research team for months while Rosalind continued her own work. When the man returned, he mistook Rosalind for just a research assistant (of course) when they were actually in fact peers.

This mistake isn’t surprising seeing as women were not even allowed in the university dining rooms at the time.

Rosalind x-ray photographed the structures of DNA (definitively proving they were made up of a helical structure) and the man (still refusing to name him) showed one of her pictures to one of the men who would win the Nobel (he saw her helical pictures and suddenly figured out it was a double helix and then won the Nobel—yeah).

Due to all the confusion on who published what when there is still debate on whether Rosalind figured it out first. After her work on DNA ended she moved on to studying the polio virus and the tobacco mosaic virus before she fell ill with cancer and died at the young age of only thirty-seven. She never married nor had children.

Badges Earned:

Find a Grave Marked

Rejected Princess

Located in My Personal Library:

The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History Edited By Bonnie G Smith

Time Magazine's 100 Women of the Year (Rosalind appears in the 1953 article, "Rosalind Franklin")

Women in Science by Rachel Ignotofsky

Who Knew? Women in History: Questions That Will Make You Think Again by Sarah Herman

The Who, the What, and the When: 65 Artists Illustrate the Secret Sidekicks of History by Jenny Volvovski, Julia Rothman, and Matt LaMothe

Sources:

https://www.sdsc.edu/ScienceWomen/franklin.html

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rosalind-Franklin

Rosalind Franklin

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/5858699/rosalind-elsie-franklin

14) Albert Camus

The Second Youngest Recipient for the Nobel Prize in Literature

Born: 7 November 1913, Drean, Algeria

Died: 4 January 1960, Villeblevin, France

Okay, to be honest, I mostly included him on my list because he was a philosopher who first thought of the "Absurdism" movement and that name is just amazing. He was also a journalist and playwright whose works verged into the political on occasion.

His childhood was rough, with his father killed in World War I and his mother suffering a stroke after being shocked by the news of her husband's death. While in school he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and the disease would stick with him the rest of his life.

He worked as a member of the resistance during World War II in France.

Albert was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957. He was killed in a car accident three years later.

Badges Earned:

Find a Grave Marked

Located In My Personal Library:

Princesses Behaving Badly by Linda Rodriguez McRobbie

Where Are They Buried? How Did They Die? by Tod Benoit

Sources:

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1957/camus/biographical/

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/2232/albert-camus

13) Henrietta Lacks

13) Henrietta Lacks

She was more than just her cells

Born: 1 August 1920, Roanoke, Virginia, United States of America

Died: 4 October 1951, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America

Henrietta was a mother, wife, and cervical cancer patient whose immortal cells have saved millions of lives since they were "legally" taken in 1958.

Her cells were collected unethically and without her permission. At the time, Johns Hopkins was one of the few hospitals that would treat poor African Americans and so Henrietta had practically no choice but to go there.

Henrietta was diagnosed with cervical cancer after complaining of vaginal bleeding and started undergoing radium treatments, but before the treatments could start her doctor took some of the cells retrieved during her biopsy to use for his own experiments. He “technically” had permission to do this because she signed off on it—however Henrietta was not literate enough to understand what she was signing off on. Her cells were the first cancer cells in the world to not die in a petri dish—instead they continued to replicate over and over again.

Today the HeLa cells are used for research purposes in hormones, viruses, toxins, drugs, and more. They were instrumental in helping create the polio vaccine and have been used to study the human genome and much more.

If you go to the Johns Hopkins website (article linked below) they literally admit that they knew what they did was wrong but didn’t do anything about it until Rebecca Skloot’s tell all book came out in 2013. Her book highlighted the fact that scientists and others were getting rich off the HeLa cells and subsequent discoveries while Henrietta’s five children and husband were living in worse than abject poverty. Luckily that changed after the book came out and the family is receiving financial help now.

A Law & Order Episode loosely based on the story of Henrietta and her family’s plight was released in 2010 entitled “Immortal”.

In late 2022, news broke that a memorial to Henrietta would be erected in her hometown of Roanoke, Virginia, in the same place a Robert E Lee memorial once stood (but had been previously vandalized and removed).

Badges Earned:

Find a Grave Marked

Featured in My Library:

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Sources:

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/henriettalacks/index.html

http://rebeccaskloot.com/the-immortal-life/

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1628344/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/henrietta-lacks-virginia-hometown-to-build-her-statue-where-robert-e-lee-once-stood-180981383/

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/11698761/henrietta-lacks

13) Mike Rowe

Primarily known for Dirty Jobs, this Television Host is so much more

Born: 18 March 1962, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America

Mike is best known for being the host of the Discovery Channel's show Dirty Jobs, but his performance career actually began in 1984 when he faked his way into the Baltimore Opera to meet girls. In 1990 he joined QVC after a bet with a friend. He was hired after being able to talk about a pencil for a solid eight minutes. However, Mike was fired three years later after getting caught making fun of products.

This sentence from the biography on his official website is one of my favorite sentences of all time: "Thanks to QVC, Mike became practiced at the art of talking for long periods without saying anything of substance, a skill that would serve him well as a TV host" (Bio linked below under sources). Dirty Jobs would take Mike to all fifty states and he would practice over three hundred professions. He has also done the narration for hundreds of documentaries on a range of subjects.

In 2008, Mike launched mikeroweWORKS, originally designed as a PR campaign to shed light on trade jobs, it is now so much more. Since then, Mike has become a champion of trade jobs and talks about how our country frequently devalues not just the jobs themselves but also the industry in general. He inspires kids and adults across the nation to step into a "dirty" job that might have once turned their noses at it. Today, mikeroweWORKS provides scholarships and other valuable assets to people in the trade industry.

As someone who has a brother in the skilled trade industry, I not only appreciate celebrities who showcase the importance of having people in these industries, but also because they seem to be more down to earth and willing to help the little guy. Thanks Mike Rowe!

(PS. his mom is amazing and you should definitely follow her Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/About-My-Mother-199314090763089/ )

Sources:

https://mikerowe.com/about-mike/bio/