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Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

  • Charles DarwinCharles Robert Darwin was born on the 12th of February 1809 at his family's home, The Mount, in Shrewsbury, Shropshire. He was the fifth of six children of…
  • Peter Hedström (sociologist)Peter Hedström arrived in the world on the 14th of July 1955. His birthplace was the small town of Norsjö in Sweden. This northern Swedish setting marked the…
  • Carl LinnaeusCarl Linnaeus was born on the 23rd of May 1707 in the village of Råshult. His father Nicolaus Ingemarsson taught him Latin as a small child.
  • Joseph-Louis LagrangeGiuseppe Luigi Lagrangia was born in Turin on the 25th of January 1736. He grew up as the firstborn of eleven children in a family that had lost most of its…
  • Robert KochHeinrich Hermann Robert Koch entered the world on the 11th of December 1843 in Clausthal, Germany. His father worked as a mining engineer and raised thirteen…
  • Claude Louis BertholletClaude Louis Berthollet entered the world on the 9th of December 1748 in Talloires. This small town sat near Annecy within the Duchy of Savoy.
  • Leonhard EulerPierre-Simon Laplace told his colleagues to read Leonhard Euler, calling him the master of us all. The man he was describing was a Swiss polymath born in…
  • 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…
  • 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…
  • Erik Gustaf GeijerErik Gustaf Geijer entered the world on the 12th of January 1783 at Geijersgården. This family estate sat in Ransäter, a quiet district within the province…
  • 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.
  • 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…
  • Charles XIV JohnJean-Baptiste Jules Bernadotte was born on the 26th of January 1763 in Pau, the capital of Béarn. He entered the army as a private soldier on the 3rd of…
  • Humphry DavyHumphry Davy was born on the 17th of December 1778 in Penzance, Cornwall. He grew up as the eldest of five children to Robert Davy and Grace Millett.
  • Max BornMax Born entered the University of Göttingen in April 1904, stepping into a world dominated by three renowned mathematicians.
  • Dmitri MendeleevDmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev entered the world in 1834 within the village of Verkhnie Aremzyani near Tobolsk. His father Ivan Pavlovich Mendeleev worked as a…
  • Michael FaradayMichael Faraday could not do trigonometry. His mathematical abilities were limited to the simplest algebra. Yet James Clerk Maxwell, the physicist who turned…
  • Joseph FourierJean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier was born on the 21st of March 1768 in Auxerre, Burgundy. His father worked as a tailor and died when Fourier was only nine years…
  • Svante ArrheniusSvante August Arrhenius was born on the 19th of February 1859 at Vik near Uppsala in Sweden. His father Svante Gustav worked as a land surveyor for Uppsala…
  • Thomas TelfordThomas Telford was born on the 9th of August 1757 at Glendinning, a hill farm east of Eskdalemuir Kirk. His father John Telford died shortly after his birth.
  • Pierre-Simon LaplacePierre-Simon Laplace was born on the 23rd of March 1749 in Beaumont-en-Auge, a small village four miles west of Pont l'Évêque.
  • Viktor RydbergAbraham Viktor Rydberg entered the world on the 18th of December 1828 in Gothenburg, Sweden. His father Johan worked as a soldier before becoming a prison…
  • James Samuel ColemanJames Samuel Coleman was born on the 12th of May 1926 in Bedford, Indiana. He spent his early childhood there before moving to Louisville, Kentucky.
  • Jean-Baptiste SayJean-Baptiste Say entered the world on the 5th of January 1767 in the city of Lyon. His father Jean-Etienne Say came from a Protestant family that had moved…
  • Esaias TegnérEsaias Tegnér was born in the village of Tegnaby, where his father took the surname from the local place name. His grandparents on both sides were peasants…
  • Alfred NobelAlfred Bernhard Nobel entered the world on the 21st of October 1833 in Stockholm, Sweden. He was the third son of Immanuel Nobel and Andriette Ahlsell.
  • Louis de BroglieLouis Victor Pierre Raymond, 7th Duc de Broglie, entered the world on the 15th of August 1892 in Dieppe, France. He belonged to a noble family that had held…
  • Mikhail LomonosovIn 1730, a nineteen-year-old fisherman named Mikhail Lomonosov walked one hundred miles from his village of Mishaninskaya to the city of Moscow.
  • Theodosius DobzhanskyTheodosius Dobzhansky entered the world on the 25th of January 1900 in Nemirov within the Russian Empire. His parents were Grigory and Sophia Voinarsky.