Curated category
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- Martin ScorseseMartin Scorsese was born on the 17th of November 1942 in the Flushing neighborhood of Queens. He grew up in the Little Italy section of Manhattan where his…
- Woody AllenAllan Stewart Konigsberg was born on the 30th of November 1935 at Mount Eden Hospital in Bronx, New York City. He grew up in Brooklyn's Midwood neighborhood…
- James M. McPhersonJames Munro McPherson arrived in the world on the 11th of October 1936. His birthplace was Valley City, North Dakota. This small town shaped his early years…
- Quentin TarantinoQuentin Jerome Tarantino was born in Knoxville, Tennessee on the 27th of March 1963. His father Tony Tarantino left the family before his son's birth.
- George LucasGeorge Walton Lucas Jr. was born on the 14th of May 1944 in Modesto, California. He grew up as the son of Dorothy Ellinore Lucas and George Walton Lucas Sr.
- Meryl StreepMary Louise Streep was born on the 22nd of June 1949 in Summit, New Jersey. Her mother Mary Wilkinson Streep worked as an artist while her father Harry…
- Emi NakamuraEmi Nakamura graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University in 2001. Her senior thesis carried the title An Economy with Monetary Business Cycles.
- Thomas JeffersonThomas Jefferson entered the world on the 13th of April 1743, at Shadwell Plantation in Virginia. His father Peter Jefferson was a planter and surveyor who…
- Duke EllingtonOn the 29th of April 1899, Edward Kennedy Ellington entered the world in Washington, D.C., born to James and Daisy Ellington.
- Jean-Paul SartreJean-Paul Sartre was born on the 21st of June 1905 in Paris as the only child of Jean-Baptiste Sartre and Anne-Marie Schweitzer.
- Karl BarthKarl Barth was born on the 10th of May 1886 in Basel, Switzerland. His father Johann Friedrich Barth served as a theology professor and pastor at the…
- Robert Lucas Jr.Robert Emerson Lucas Jr. was born on the 15th of September 1937 in Yakima, Washington. His parents ran an ice creamery there before it failed during the…
- Amy FinkelsteinAmy Nadya Finkelstein was born on the 2nd of November 1973 in New York City. Her parents were both biologists who earned doctorates at The Rockefeller…
- Paul McCartneyPaul McCartney was born on the 18th of June 1942 at Walton Hospital in the Walton area of Liverpool. His mother Mary Patricia Mohin worked as a nurse and…
- Clint EastwoodClinton Eastwood Jr. arrived at Saint Francis Memorial Hospital in San Francisco on the 31st of May 1930. Nurses nicknamed him Samson because he weighed more…
- James Prescott JouleJames Prescott Joule was born on the 24th of December 1818 in Salford. His father Benjamin owned a brewery that provided wealth and stability for the family.
- Saul BellowSolomon Bellows arrived in the world on the 10th of June 1915, within the quiet streets of Lachine, Quebec. His parents had fled Saint Petersburg, Russia…
- Woodrow WilsonIn 1856, a child named Woodrow Wilson stood near the front gate of his family's parsonage in Augusta, Georgia. He was three years old when he heard a…
- John CageJohn Milton Cage Jr. was born on the 5th of September 1912 at Good Samaritan Hospital in downtown Los Angeles. His father, John Milton Cage Sr., worked as an…
- Terrence MalickTerrence Malick was born on the 30th of November 1943 in Ottawa, Illinois. His father Emil worked as a geologist and his mother Irene came from an Irish…
- Elizabeth WarrenElizabeth Ann Herring was born in Oklahoma City on the 22nd of June 1949. Her family lived near the ragged edge of the middle class during her childhood…
- Roger SessionsRoger Huntington Sessions entered the world on the 28th of December 1896 in Brooklyn, New York. His family lineage traced back to Samuel Huntington, a…
- Francis Ford CoppolaFrancis Ford Coppola was born on the 7th of April 1939 in Detroit, Michigan. His father Carmine worked as a flautist with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra…
- Bob IgerRobert Alan Iger was born on the 10th of February 1951 to an Austrian-Jewish family in New York City. He grew up in Oceanside, where he attended Fulton…
- Leonhard EulerLeonhard Euler was born in Basel on the 15th of April 1707 to Paul III Euler and Marguerite Brucker. His father served as a pastor for the Reformed Church…
- Ingmar BergmanErnst Ingmar Bergman was born on the 14th of July 1918 in Uppsala, Sweden. He grew up as the son of a Lutheran minister named Erik Bergman and his wife Karin.
- Joseph PriestleyJoseph Priestley was born in Birstall, West Yorkshire, on the 24th of March 1733. He grew up as the oldest of six children to Mary Swift and Jonas Priestley…
- Kathleen Kennedy (producer)Kathleen Kennedy was born on the 5th of June 1953 in Berkeley, California. Her father Donald R. Kennedy served as a judge and attorney while her mother Dione…
- Ken BurnsKenneth Lauren Burns was born on the 29th of July 1953 in Brooklyn, New York. His mother Lyla Smith Burns worked as a biotechnician while his father Robert…
- Kenneth PomeranzKenneth Pomeranz was born on the 4th of November 1958. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Cornell University in 1980.
- Akira KurosawaOn the 23rd of March 1910, Akira Kurosawa was born in Tokyo to a samurai family. His father Isamu worked as the director of the Army's Physical Education…
- Thomas CarlyleThomas Carlyle was born on the 4th of December 1795 in the village of Ecclefechan, Dumfriesshire. His father James worked as a stonemason before becoming a…
- John Stuart MillJohn Stuart Mill was born on the 20th of May 1806 at 13 Rodney Street in Pentonville, London. His father James Mill, a Scottish philosopher and historian…
- George AkerlofGeorge Arthur Akerlof arrived in New Haven, Connecticut on the 17th of June 1940. His mother Rosalie Clara Grubber was a housewife of German Jewish descent…
- Abraham ReesAbraham Rees entered the world in 1743 within Llanbrynmair, a village nestled in Montgomeryshire. His father Lewis Rees served as an independent minister at…
- Daniel Day-LewisOn a gray afternoon in 1971, fourteen-year-old Daniel Day-Lewis walked past the church parked cars in Greenwich. He held a can of spray paint and felt a…
- Samuel BeckettSamuel Barclay Beckett was born on the 13th of April 1906 in the Dublin suburb of Foxrock. His parents were both thirty-five years old when he arrived, and…
- Esther DufloEsther Duflo was born on the 25th of October 1972 at the Port Royal Hospital in Paris, France. Her father taught mathematics while her mother worked as a…
- Paul KrugmanPaul Robin Krugman was born on the 28th of February 1953 in Albany, New York. He spent his early years moving between upstate cities before settling into…
- Walter CronkiteWalter Leland Cronkite Jr. entered the world on the 4th of November 1916, in Saint Joseph, Missouri. His father was a dentist named Walter Leland Cronkite…
- Marc Isambard BrunelMarc Isambard Brunel arrived into the world on the 25th of April 1769. He was born on a family farm in Hacqueville, Normandy.
- Carl Friedrich GaussOn the 30th of April 1777, Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss was born in Brunswick within the Duchy of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel.
- Jacob GrimmJacob Ludwig Karl Grimm entered the world on the 4th of January 1785 in Hanau, Hesse-Kassel. His father Philipp worked as a lawyer but died while Jacob was…
- Janet YellenJanet Louise Yellen was born on the 13th of August 1946 in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Her father Julius worked as a family physician from the ground floor of their…
- Joan RobinsonJoan Violet Maurice was born in Camberley, Surrey, on the 31st of October 1903. Her father Frederick Maurice had just returned from fighting in the Second…
- Mark GranovetterMark Granovetter stood at the front of Henry Snyder High School in Jersey City, New Jersey, on a day in January 1961. He was the valedictorian of his class…
- Alexander von HumboldtOn the 14th of September 1769, a boy named Alexander von Humboldt drew his first breath in Berlin. His father held the rank of major in the Prussian Army and…
- James BakerJames Addison Baker III arrived at 1216 Bissonnet Street in Houston on the 28th of April 1930. His father James A. Baker Jr held a partnership at the law…
- Edward TellerEde Teller was born on the 15th of January 1908, in Budapest, then part of Austria-Hungary. He grew up in a Jewish family where his father Miksa worked as an…
- Eric Allin CornellEric Allin Cornell arrived in Palo Alto, California on the 19th of December 1961. His parents were finishing their graduate studies at Stanford University…