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Curated category

20th-century American engineers

  • Albert EinsteinOn the 14th of March 1879, Albert Einstein was born in Ulm within the Kingdom of Württemberg. His parents were Hermann Einstein and Pauline Koch.
  • Nikola TeslaNikola Tesla was born on the 10th of July 1856 in the village of Smiljan. This location sat within the Military Frontier of the Austrian Empire, now part of…
  • Elon MuskElon Reeve Musk was born on the 28th of June 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa. His mother Maye was a model and dietitian born in Saskatchewan, Canada.
  • Roger B. ChaffeeRoger Bruce Chaffee arrived in the world on the 15th of February 1935. His birthplace was Grand Rapids, Michigan. The family had moved there from Greenville…
  • Ed White (astronaut)Edward Higgins White II was born on the 14th of November 1930, in San Antonio, Texas. His father Edward Higgins White Sr.
  • Stuart RoosaStuart Allen Roosa was born on the 16th of August 1933 in Durango, Colorado. He grew up in Claremore, Oklahoma, where he attended Justus Grade School and…
  • Gus GrissomVirgil Ivan Grissom was born in the small town of Mitchell, Indiana, on the 3rd of April 1926. His father worked as a signalman for the Baltimore and Ohio…
  • Alan ShepardAlan Bartlett Shepard Jr. was born on the 18th of November 1923, at 64 East Derry Road in Derry, New Hampshire. His father worked in the Derry National Bank…
  • Thomas EdisonIn 1862, a fifteen-year-old Thomas Edison stood on the tracks near Port Huron, Michigan. He watched a runaway train approach three children who could not…
  • Jon KleinbergJon Michael Kleinberg was born in 1971 in Boston, Massachusetts. His father Eugene worked as a mathematics professor at SUNY Buffalo.
  • Jack SwigertJohn Leonard Swigert Jr. was born on the 30th of August 1931, in Denver, Colorado to parents Dr. John Leonard Swigert Sr. and Virginia Anne Swigert.
  • Neil ArmstrongNeil Alden Armstrong was born on the 5th of August 1930 in rural Washington Township, Auglaize County, Ohio. His father worked as an auditor for the state…
  • Robert SeamansRobert Channing Seamans Jr. was born on the 30th of October 1918 in Salem, Massachusetts. He attended Lenox School in Lenox, Massachusetts before earning a…
  • David ScottDavid Randolph Scott was born on the 6th of June, 1932 at Randolph Field near San Antonio, Texas. His father Tom William Scott served as a fighter pilot in…
  • Henry FordHenry Ford was born on the 30th of July 1863 in a farmhouse located at the intersection of Ford and Greenfield Roads. His father William Ford had emigrated…
  • Robert R. GilruthRobert Rowe Gilruth was born on the 8th of October 1913 in Nashwauk, Minnesota. He moved to Duluth when he was nine years old and graduated from Duluth…
  • Thomas J. Kelly (aerospace engineer)Thomas Joseph Kelly was born on the 14th of June 1929 in Brooklyn, New York. He grew up in Merrick, a middle-class neighborhood where parents compared their…
  • Arthur Samuel (computer scientist)Arthur Lee Samuel entered the world on the 5th of December 1901 in Emporia, Kansas. He walked away from the College of Emporia with a degree in 1923.
  • Deke SlaytonDonald Kent Slayton was born on the 1st of March 1924, on a farm near Leon, Wisconsin. His family home lacked electricity and indoor plumbing during his…
  • Hans Albert EinsteinHans Albert Einstein entered the world on the 14th of May 1904 in Bern, Switzerland. His father worked as a clerk at the Swiss Federal Institute of…
  • Samuel C. PhillipsSamuel Cochran Phillips entered the world on the 19th of February 1921 in Springerville, Arizona. His father worked as an electrician while his mother taught…
  • Claude ShannonClaude Elwood Shannon was born on the 30th of April 1916 in a hospital near Petoskey, Michigan. His family lived in the small town of Gaylord where he spent…
  • Joseph Francis SheaJoseph Francis Shea was born on the 5th of September, 1925, in the Bronx borough of New York City. He grew up as the eldest son in a working-class Irish…
  • James IrwinJames Benson Irwin was born on the 17th of March 1930 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His parents were James William Irwin and Elsa Mathilda Irwin.
  • William AndersWilliam Alison Anders was born in Hong Kong on the 17th of October 1933. His father served as a United States Navy lieutenant during the Second Sino-Japanese…
  • Jensen HuangJensen Huang arrived in Oneida, Kentucky, as a ten-year-old boy with long hair and heavily accented English. He was an undersized Asian immigrant who…
  • Ronald Evans (astronaut)Ronald Ellwin Evans Jr. was born on the 10th of November 1933, in St. Francis, Kansas. His father Clarence served in the Navy during World War II.
  • Harrison StormsHarrison Allen Storms, Jr. grew up in Wilmette on Chicago's North Shore during the 1920s and 1930s. His father worked as a traveling salesman while young…
  • Jerome WiesnerJerome Bert Wiesner was born on the 30th of May 1915 in Detroit, Michigan. He grew up in Dearborn as the son of Jewish immigrants from Silesia.
  • Igor SikorskyIgor Sikorsky was born on the 25th of May 1889 in Kiev, Russian Empire. He grew up as the youngest of five children in a household filled with intellectual…
  • Wernher von BraunWernher von Braun was born on the 23rd of March 1912, in the small town of Wirsitz within the Province of Posen. His father served as Minister of Agriculture…
  • Cynthia DworkCynthia Dwork received her Bachelor of Science in Engineering from Princeton University in 1979. She graduated Cum Laude that year and earned the Charles Ira…
  • Maxime FagetMaxime Allen Faget entered the world on the 26th of August 1921 in Stann Creek Town. This location sat within British Honduras before becoming Dangriga…
  • Abe SilversteinAbraham Silverstein entered the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in 1925. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering by 1929.
  • Wat MisakaWataru Misaka grew up in a basement apartment on 25th Street in Ogden, Utah. His family lived between a bar and a pawn shop during the early 1930s.