Today in history @ 27 May

Today in history @ 27 May

Birth Anniversaries

a. American political scientist, diplomat and geopolitical consultant Henry Kissinger (b. 1923) who served as the United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presidential administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. He was a Harvard professor before assuming leadership in U.S. foreign policy. A Jewish refugee who fled Nazi Germany with his family in 1938, he became National Security Advisor in 1969 and United States Secretary of State in 1973. For his actions negotiating a ceasefire in Vietnam, Kissinger received the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize under controversial circumstances, with two members of the committee resigning in protest. Kissinger later sought, unsuccessfully, to return the prize after the ceasefire failed.

b. American pharmacist Caleb Bradham (b. 1867), best known as the inventor of Pepsi.

c. British physicist John Cockcroft (b. 1897) who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1951 for splitting the atomic nucleus with Ernest Walton, and was instrumental in the development of nuclear power.

Death anniversaries

a. German physician and microbiologist Robert Kosch (d. 1910). As the founder of modern bacteriology, he identified the specific causative agents of tuberculosis, cholera, and anthrax. For his research on tuberculosis, Koch received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1905. The Robert Koch Institute is named in his honor.

b. French theologian, pastor and reformer John Calvin (d. 1564). He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism.

c. English physicist, chemist, and inventor Joseph Swan (d. 1914). He is known as an independent early developer of a successful incandescent light bulb.

d. German mathematician, who worked in the fields of topology, complex manifolds and algebraic geometry Friedrich Hirzebruch (d. 2012). He has been described as "the most important mathematician in Germany of the postwar period.

Others

a. 1703 Saint Petersburg (Leningrad) founded by Russian Tsar Peter the Great.