Curated playlist

Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class)

VoltaireThe line Voltaire is most quoted for was written in 1906, long after he died.
Giuseppe VerdiComposer Giuseppe Verdi liked to claim peasant roots, but his father, an innkeeper, pushed for his schooling.
James ChadwickJames Chadwick signed up for physics by mistake. He meant to study mathematics, then found the neutron.
Charles DarwinCharles Darwin likened confessing his theory to confessing a murder. He told botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker in 1844.
T. S. EliotT. S. Eliot compared an evening sky to a patient on a surgical table.
Eugène IonescoEugène Ionesco began a theater revolution by studying an English textbook at age 40.
Gioachino RossiniRossini wrote his last opera in his thirties, then never wrote another for 40 years.
Johannes BrahmsComposer Johannes Brahms once cut off a friend's toast in Berlin to raise a glass to Mozart.
Eugène BurnoufEugène Burnouf died in 1852, the same year his Lotus Sutra translation finally appeared in print.
Robert KochRobert Koch announced the cause of tuberculosis in 1882, and hardly anyone reacted.
Felix MendelssohnAt 20, Felix Mendelssohn conducted Bach's St Matthew Passion in Berlin.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowLongfellow used his own body to smother the flames on his wife's burning dress. He wore a beard from then on.
Richard StraussRichard Strauss drove to a concentration camp to plead for his daughter-in-law's grandmother.
Hermann HesseHermann Hesse's biggest audience came after he died. His novels became U.S. paperback bestsellers by the mid-1960s.
Thomas CarlyleA housemaid burned the only draft of Thomas Carlyle's first French Revolution volume. He rewrote it from nothing.
Erwin SchrödingerErwin Schrödinger formulated his wave equation at a Swiss sanatorium in Arosa. He was ill with tuberculosis.
Hendrik LorentzWhen Hendrik Lorentz was buried in 1928, the Dutch phone network fell silent. It stayed quiet for three minutes.
Friedrich HayekThree days before the 1929 Wall Street crash, Friedrich Hayek wrote that no sudden collapse was expected.
August Wilhelm SchlegelAugust Wilhelm Schlegel translated Shakespeare so well that the playwright became a national poet of Germany.
Max PlanckMax Planck called his quantum idea "an act of despair." The cautious physicist launched quantum physics reluctantly.
Werner HeisenbergA spy once carried a pistol to a Werner Heisenberg lecture, ready to shoot him. Moe Berg did not fire.
Carl Friedrich GaussAt nineteen, Carl Friedrich Gauss proved a 17-sided polygon could be drawn with just a compass and straightedge.
Jacob GrimmJacob Grimm and his brother expected their dictionary to take roughly ten years. It was finished in 1961.
Rudolf BultmannRudolf Bultmann told students it hardly mattered what Jesus did in his life.
Alexander von HumboldtAlexander von Humboldt climbed Chimborazo in 1802, gasping and bleeding from his gums.
Sofia GubaidulinaSoviet officials called Sofia Gubaidulina's music "irresponsible." Her work later reached the BBC Proms.
Walter BurkertWhy did the Greeks kill animals at the altar? Scholar Walter Burkert spent his life on that question.
Jan AssmannEgyptologist Jan Assmann later admitted he no longer held his famous theory of monotheism in its original form.
Michael FaradayMichael Faraday turned down a knighthood to stay plain Mr Faraday. He also twice declined to lead the Royal Society.
Elias LönnrotCountry doctor Elias Lönnrot walked into remote forests to hear singers. He turned their ballads into the Kalevala.
Karl JaspersKarl Jaspers hid in Heidelberg through the Nazi years because his wife was Jewish.
George F. KennanGeorge Kennan spent decades disowning the Cold War policy he made famous. Containment, he said, was not military.
Horace VernetHorace Vernet was born inside the Louvre while his parents sheltered there during the French Revolution.
Jean-Auguste-Dominique IngresThe French phrase "violon d'Ingres" comes from a painter's violin. It means a person's second skill.
Pieter GeylDutch historian Pieter Geyl lectured on Napoleon in 1940 and was taken hostage within weeks.
Niels BohrNiels Bohr passed out in the bomb bay of a British plane over Norway. His flying helmet was too small for him to wear.
Vasily ZhukovskyScholars cite Vasily Zhukovsky's 1802 translation of an English elegy as Russian Romanticism's starting point.
Theodor MommsenTheodor Mommsen insisted on checking every Latin inscription against the original stone.
Ronald SymeA 1939 book argued that Rome's first emperor, Augustus, ruled as a cunning autocrat.
Lawrence Alma-TademaAlma-Tadema's painting The Finding of Moses failed to sell at £252 in 1960 but fetched $35,922,500 in 2010.
Max MüllerMax Müller persuaded the East India Company to fund his edition of the Rig-Veda. He worked on it from 1849 to 1874.
John C. FrémontJohn C. Frémont served just 175 days as a U.S. senator. He was in Washington for only twenty-one working days.
Paul HindemithJoseph Goebbels publicly called composer Paul Hindemith an "atonal noisemaker" in December 1934.
Paul DelarochePaul Delaroche stopped showing his paintings in public in 1837, when he was one of France's most celebrated painters.
Erwin PanofskyIn 1934, Erwin Panofsky argued a famous Flemish painting was really a legal contract.
Santiago Ramón y CajalAt eleven, Santiago Ramón y Cajal was jailed for destroying a neighbor's gate with a homemade cannon.
Walther NernstChemist Walther Nernst also invented an electric piano. He built it in 1930 with Bechstein and Siemens.
Anton RubinsteinAnton Rubinstein gave 215 concerts in 239 days on one American tour. The Russian pianist called it slavery.