On December 19, 1742 (Gregorian Calendar), Swedish Pomeranian pharmaceutical chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele was born. Scheele is best known for his discovery of oxygen and other chemical elements.
On December 11, 1843, Robert Koch, the founder of modern bacteriology, was born. He is known for his role in identifying the specific causative agents of tuberculosis, cholera, and anthrax and for giving experimental support for the concept of infectious disease. As a result of his groundbreaking research on tuberculosis, Koch received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1905.
On September 24, 1501, Italian Renaissance mathematician, physician, astrologer and gambler Gerolamo Cardano was born. He wrote more than 200 works on medicine, mathematics, physics, philosophy, religion, and music. But, he is best known for his gambling that led him to formulate elementary rules in probability, making him one of the founders of probability theory.
On September 23, 63 BC, Gaius Octavius aka Imperator Caesar Divi F. Augustus, founder of the Roman Empire and first Emperor was born. The Roman Empire as a follow up of the former Roman Republic existed for almost four centuries, before it was divided up into Western and Eastern Roman Empire. While the western port deceased to exist in the 5th century AD, the eastern part continued to prosper for almost a millenium until the Ottoman invasion in the 15th century. Thus, at least for half of a millenium, Rome was the undisputed ruler of the western hemisphere and the man who laid the foundations of this empire was Gaius Octavius, who was a great-nephew and heir Gaius Julius Caesar. It was Caesar, who shattered the cornerstones of the Roman Republic after the Civil War, when he became dictator for a lifetime, but it was Gaius Octavius who succeeded to establish an empire and a dynasty.
On August 17, 1586, German theologian, author, and mathematician Johann Valentin Andreae was born. He claimed to be the author of the Chymische Hochzeit Christiani Rosencreutz anno 1459 (1616, Strasbourg, the Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz), one of the three founding works of Rosicrucianism, a philosophical secret society said to have been founded in late medieval Germany by Christian Rosenkreutz. Rosicrucianism holds a doctrine or theology "built on esoteric truths of the ancient past", which, "concealed from the average man, provide insight into nature, the physical universe and the spiritual realm."
On June 10, 1955, the laying of the foundation stone of the European Organization for Nuclear Research Laboratory (CERN) was performed by Felix Bloch, the organization's first President. Since 1955, numerous essential experiments were executed, leading to significant contributions in the world of physics and to our daily lives.
On May 28, 1807, Swiss paleontologist, glaciologist, and geologist Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz was born, who is considered a prominent innovator in the study of the Earth's natural history. He was the first to scientifically propose that the Earth had been subject to a past ice age.
On April 30, 1777, German mathematician and physical scientist Carl Friedrich Gauß was born. He who contributed significantly to many fields, including number theory, algebra, statistics, analysis, differential geometry, geodesy, geophysics, electrostatics, astronomy and optics. He is often referred to as Princeps mathematicorum (Latin, "the Prince of Mathematicians") as well as "greatest mathematician since antiquity".
On February 1, 1944, physician and medical researcher Oswald Avery together with his colleagues Colin MacLeod and Maclyn McCarty announced that DNA is the hereditary agent in a virus that would transform a virus from a harmless to a pathogenic version. This study was a key work in modern bacteriology.
On November 11, 1493, Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, aka Paracelsus, famous Renaissance physician, botanist, alchemist, astrologer, and general occultist was born.