Curated playlist
1885 births
- Ezra PoundEzra Pound cut T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land by about half. Eliot called the edits proof of Pound's critical genius.
- Geertruida de Haas-LorentzIn 1925, Geertruida de Haas-Lorentz predicted the London penetration depth in superconductors.
- Stith ThompsonA University of Wisconsin undergraduate once wrote a thesis called "The Return from the Dead in Popular Tales and Ballads." The student was Stith Thompson, an American folklorist. Admirers later described him as "America's most important…
- George S. PattonA reporter once heard George S. Patton say that winning in combat took "blood and brains." The reporter began calling him "blood and guts," and the nickname followed Patton for the rest of his life. Soldiers under his command sometimes…
- Muriel LesterMuriel Lester gave up university to live in poverty in London's East End. Japan knew her as "Mother of World Peace."
- Princess Alice of BattenbergPrincess Alice of Battenberg, who after her marriage was known as Princess Andrew of Greece and Denmark, once faced a German general in occupied Athens. He asked whether there was anything he could do for her. She answered, "You can take…
- Hermann WeylMathematician Hermann Weyl fled Germany in 1933 after once refusing to leave. His wife was Jewish.
- Eugène MinkowskiPsychiatrist Eugène Minkowski paid for a thousand copies of his own book. No publisher would take it at first.
- Hermann HothHermann Hoth was sentenced to 15 years for war crimes but walked free on parole in 1954.
- Niels BohrNiels Bohr passed out in the bomb bay of a British plane over Norway. His flying helmet was too small for him to wear.