Template:On This Day (nonfiction)/May 12

• 

  1803: Chemist and academic Justus von Liebig born. Von Liebeg will make pioneering contributions to organic chemistry, especially agricultural and biological chemistry; he will be known as the "Father of the fertilizer industry".

• 

  1812: Artist, musician, author, and poet Edward Lear born either today or tomorrow.

• 

  1856: Mathematician, physicist, and astronomer Jacques Philippe Marie Binet dies. He made significant contributions to number theory, and the mathematical foundations of matrix algebra.

• 

  1857: Mathematician Oskar Bolza born. He will be known for his research in the calculus of variations; his work on variations for an integral problem involving inequalities will later became important in control theory.

• 

  1941: Engineer, inventor, and pioneering computer scientist Konrad Zuse presents the Z3, the world's first working programmable, fully automatic computer, in Berlin.

• 

  2014: Painter, sculptor, and set designer H. R. Giger dies. He gained fame for his work on the film Alien.