Curated category
1887 births
- Alvin HansenAlvin Harvey Hansen was born on the 23rd of August 1887 in Viborg, South Dakota, the son of a farmer. He died in 1975 having done more to shape American…
- Marcel DuchampMarcel Duchamp walked into a New York exhibition hall in 1917 and submitted a urinal for display. He had signed it with a pseudonym, "R.
- Le CorbusierLe Corbusier insisted that "a house is a machine to live in," a maxim that would unsettle architects for a century. The man who wrote it was born…
- Chiang Kai-shekChiang Kai-shek was born on the 31st of October 1887, in Xikou, a small town in Fenghua, Zhejiang, about 30 kilometers west of central Ningbo.
- Marc ChagallMarc Chagall spent nearly a century alive on earth, and almost every one of those years was spent either fleeing something or painting it.
- Erwin SchrödingerErwin Schrödinger was born on the 12th of August 1887 in Vienna, and by the time he died on the 4th of January 1961, he had left behind an equation that…
- Sheila Kaye-SmithSheila Kaye-Smith was born on the 4th of February 1887 in St Leonards-on-Sea, near Hastings, in Sussex. She spent most of her life in that county, writing…
- Mamoru ShigemitsuMamoru Shigemitsu walked with a cane and an artificial right leg to the deck of a battleship on the 2nd of September 1945 and signed the document that ended…
- Lutz Graf Schwerin von KrosigkLutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk holds a strange and troubling distinction: he was the finance minister of Germany from 1932 all the way to 1945, outlasting…
- Nikolai VavilovNikolai Vavilov carried a pet lizard in his pocket through the halls of the Petrovskaya Agricultural Academy. That small, eccentric detail captures something…
- Edwin MuirEdwin Muir was born on the 15th of May 1887 at the farm of Folly in Deerness, a parish in Orkney, and in his own words he arrived in Glasgow in 1901 feeling…
- Pieter GeylPieter Geyl spent thirteen months inside Buchenwald concentration camp with a half-finished argument in his pocket. The Dutch historian had written an…
- Prince Naruhiko HigashikuniPrince Naruhiko Higashikuni held the office of Japanese prime minister for exactly 54 days. He took power on the 17th of August 1945, two days after Emperor…
- Jim ThorpeJim Thorpe walked past a high jump pit one day at Carlisle Indian Industrial School, still wearing his street clothes, and leaped 5 feet 9 inches , clearing…