Skip to content
Curated category

Naturalized citizens of the United States

  • Albert EinsteinWhen Albert Einstein was five and sick in bed, his father brought him a compass. The trembling needle, always pointing the same way, convinced the boy that…
  • Alfred HitchcockAlfred Hitchcock was born on the 13th of August 1899 above a greengrocer's shop at 517 High Road in Leytonstone, Essex. By the time he died in 1980, his…
  • Rupert MurdochRupert Murdoch kept a bust of Lenin in his rooms at Oxford. The young man from Melbourne who would one day own hundreds of newspapers, television channels…
  • Nikola TeslaNikola Tesla was born on the 10th of July 1856 in Smiljan, a village then in the Military Frontier of the Austrian Empire and now in Croatia.
  • Elon MuskElon Reeve Musk sold a video game he wrote himself at age twelve for approximately $500. The game was called Blastar, built in BASIC, and sold to a magazine…
  • Joel EmbiidJoel Hans Embiid was born on the 16th of March 1994 in Yaoundé, Cameroon. He grew up playing volleyball and soccer before switching to basketball at age 15.
  • Enrico FermiEnrico Fermi paced off the distance that strips of paper were blown by a blast wave on the 16th of July 1945, and from that simple measurement he calculated…
  • 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.
  • Saul BellowSaul Bellow was born Solomon Bellows on the 10th of June, 1915, in Lachine, Quebec, to parents who had fled Saint Petersburg two years earlier, carrying with…
  • Patrick EwingPatrick Aloysius Ewing Sr. was born on the 5th of August, 1962, in Kingston, Jamaica, one day before his home country declared independence.
  • Salman RushdieSalman Rushdie was born on the 19th of June 1947 in Bombay, in British India, into a world on the verge of shattering and remaking itself.
  • Hakeem OlajuwonHakeem Abdul Olajuwon did not pick up a basketball until the age of 15. He was a soccer goalkeeper in Lagos, Nigeria, a city he would later describe as "very…
  • Ryan ReynoldsRyan Rodney Reynolds chose not to get paid for Deadpool to make sure the film would actually get made. That detail, small as it sounds, tells you almost…
  • W. H. AudenW. H. Auden died on the 29th of September 1973 in a Vienna hotel room, a few hours after reading his poems aloud at the Palais Pálffy.
  • Henry KissingerHenry Kissinger arrived in New York City on the 5th of September, 1938, a 15-year-old Jewish refugee who had fled Germany with his family just weeks before.
  • John von NeumannJohn von Neumann once told a colleague that the second incompleteness theorem had struck a harder blow to mathematics than even its discoverer believed.
  • Ewan McGregorEwan Gordon McGregor was born on the 31st of March 1971 in Perth, Scotland, and grew up in the nearby town of Crieff. He left school at 16 to work as a…
  • Helena BlavatskyHelena Blavatsky preferred to be known by three letters: HPB. The sobriquet came from her friend Henry Steel Olcott, and it stuck to a woman who spoke…
  • Igor KokoškovIgor Kokoškov was 24 years old when he became the youngest coach in Yugoslavian basketball history. That milestone alone would be remarkable.
  • Vladimir NabokovVladimir Nabokov arrived in the United States in May 1940 aboard the SS Champlain, a Russian exile who spoke three languages and had already written nine…
  • Arnold SchwarzeneggerArnold Alois Schwarzenegger arrived in the United States in October 1968 at age 21, speaking little English and carrying little money.
  • Shawn LevyShawn Adam Levy was born on the 23rd of July 1968 in Montreal, Quebec. He grew up in a Jewish family with two sisters named Jodi and Debby.
  • Eugene WignerEugene Paul Wigner once quipped that he never expected to see his name in the newspapers "without doing something wicked" - yet in 1963, the Nobel Committee…
  • Lupita Nyong'oLupita Amondi Nyong'o was born on the 1st of March 1983 in Mexico City, the daughter of a Kenyan political science lecturer and a woman who would one day…
  • Junot DíazJunot Díaz was born on the last day of 1968, in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, to Rafael and Virtudes Díaz. He was the third of seven children.
  • Isaac AsimovIsaac Asimov wrote or edited more than 500 books, and on top of that he sent an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards. He once said the only thing about…
  • Joseph SchumpeterJoseph Alois Schumpeter was born on the 8th of February, 1883, in Triesch, a small town in Habsburg Moravia, in what is now the Czech Republic.
  • George SorosGeorge Soros was born György Schwartz on the 12th of August 1930 in Budapest, into a prosperous Jewish family that would spend the next decade and a half…
  • Lorne MichaelsLorne Michaels once offered The Beatles $3,000 to reunite on live television. He made the offer in front of a studio audience, on a brand-new NBC show…
  • Dikembe MutomboDikembe Mutombo Mpolondo Mukamba Jean-Jacques Wamutombo arrived in Washington, D.C. in 1987 speaking almost no English. He had grown up in Kinshasa, attended…
  • Toni KukočToni Kukoč grew up in Split, Croatia, where his father played football as a goalkeeper for a lower-ranked local club. Young Toni possessed excellent motor…
  • Franco ModiglianiFranco Modigliani was born on the 18th of June 1918 in Rome, into a Jewish family headed by a pediatrician father. He died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in…
  • Roland EmmerichRoland Emmerich was born on the 10th of November 1955 in Stuttgart, West Germany. He grew up in the nearby town of Sindelfingen while his father Hans ran a…
  • Jürgen KlinsmannJürgen Klinsmann was born on the 30th of July 1964 in Göppingen, Germany. His family moved to Stuttgart when he was a teenager.
  • Kurt GödelKurt Friedrich Gödel, born on the 28th of April 1906 in Brünn, Austria-Hungary, died in Princeton Hospital on the 14th of January 1978, weighing so little…
  • Heinrich SchliemannHeinrich Schliemann claimed that at the age of seven he had announced he would one day excavate the city of Troy. The boast came from a poor pastor's son in…
  • Wernher von BraunWernher von Braun helped carry humanity to the Moon, yet more people died building his most famous weapon than were ever killed by it.
  • Lorenzo Da PonteLorenzo Da Ponte was born Emanuele Conegliano on the 10th of March 1749, the Jewish eldest son of a widower in Ceneda, a small town in the Republic of Venice.
  • Vlade DivacVlade Divac began playing basketball in his home town Prijepolje for the team KK Elan. He started his professional career in Yugoslavia with Sloga from…