Kirk
Born 22 July 1888; died 22 Aug 1950.
American geologist and geomorphologist who pioneered in explaining the forces that molded the present landforms of arid climates. Through his studies inhydrology,
Selman Waksman
Born 22 July 1888; died 16 Aug 1973
Selman Abraham Waksman, was a Ukrainian-born (Priluka) American biochemist who was one of the world's foremost authorities on soil microbiology. After the discovery of penicillin, he played a major role in initiating a calculated, systematic search for antibiotics among microbes. In 1939, Dubos, a previous student pointed out a bacteria-killing agent in a soil microorganism. He introduced the term antibiotic, "against life." In 1943, he isolated streptomycin from a mold he had known and studied early in his life. His consequent discovery of this antibiotic streptomycin, the first specific antibiotic effective against tuberculosis, earned him the 1952 Nobel Prize.
Gustav Hertz
Born 22 July 1887; died 30 Oct 1975.
German quantum physicist who, with James Franck, received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1925 for the Franck-Hertz experiment, which confirmed the quantum theory that energy can be absorbed by an atom only in definite amounts and provided an important confirmation of the Bohr atomic model. He was a nephew of Heinrich Hertz. Although he fought on the German side in World War I, being of Jewish descent, he was forced to resign his professorship (1934) when Hitler took power. From 1945 he worked in the Soviet Union, and then in 1955 was a professor of physics in
Gregor Mendel
Born 22 July 1822; died 6 Jan 1884.
Original name (until 1843) Johann Mendel. Austrian pioneer in the study of heredity. He spent his adult life with the Augustinian monastery in Brunn, where as a geneticist, botanist and plant experimenter, he was the first to lay the mathematical foundation of the science of genetics, in what came to be called Mendelism. Over the period 1856-63, Mendel grew and analyzed over 28,000 pea plants. He carefully studied for each their plant height, pod shape, pod color, flower position, seed color, seed shape and flower color. He made two very important generalizations from his pea experiments, known today as the Laws of Heredity. Mendel coined the present day terms in genetics: recessiveness and dominance.
Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel
Born 22 July 1784; died 17 Mar 1846.
German astronomer. In 1809, at the age of 26, Bessel was appointed director of Frederick William III of
James Geddes
Born 22 July 1763; died 19 Aug 1838.
Civil engineer, lawyer and politician, born in
Pierre Lyonnet
Born 22 July 1708; died 10 Oct 1789
Dutch naturalist and engraver who skillfully dissected insects and made detailed illustrations of their anatomy. He also had a career as an official codebreaker. In 1738 he entered the service of the States General as an administrator of secret expenses and as a code-clerk. In his leisure he turned to natural history. He believed that nature was a cipher that could be interpreted by tracing every detail of its perfect design. He designed a simple microscope which had each lens suspended at the end of a series of ball and socket joints over a small mahogony dissecting table mounted on a post above a wooden base with small drawers containing his instruments. After preparing engravings for several books written by others, he produced his own treatises.« [Other sources list his birth year as 1706 and others as 1707.]