Timeline: Modern (nonfiction)

Timeline of non-fictional "On This Day in History" items ordered by date from 1900 AD to today.

The Timeline comprises non-fictional "On This Day in History" items.

See also Early Timeline and Middle Timeline

1900s

<gallery> File:Howard Aiken.jpg|link=Howard H. Aiken (nonfiction)|1900 Mar. 8: Physicist and computer scientist Howard H. Aiken born. Aiken will design the Harvard Mark I computer. File:Joseph Bertrand.jpg|link=Joseph Bertrand (nonfiction)|1900 Apr. 5: Mathematician, economist, and academic Joseph Louis François Bertrand dies. Bertrand worked in the fields of number theory, differential geometry, probability theory, economics and thermodynamics. File:Cecilia Helena Payne-Gaposchkin.jpg|link=Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (nonfiction)|1900 May 10: Astronomer and astrophysicist Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin born. Payne-Gaposchkin's doctoral thesis will establish that hydrogen is the overwhelming constituent of stars, and accordingly the most abundant element in the universe. File:Nakaya Ukichiro in 1946.jpg|link=Ukichiro Nakaya (nonfiction)|1900 Jul. 4: Physicist and academic Ukichiro Nakaya born. Nakaya will create the first artificial snowflakes. File:Max Planck 1878.gif|link=Max Planck (nonfiction)|1900 Aug. 18: Max Planck discovers the law of black-body radiation (Planck's law). File:Hedley_Ralph_Marston.jpg|link=Hedley Marston (nonfiction)|1900 Aug. 26: Biochemist Hedley Ralph Marston born. Marston's research into fallout from the British nuclear tests at Maralinga will prove the existence of significant radiation hazards at many of the Maralinga sites long after the tests. File:Haskell Brooks Curry.jpg|link=Haskell Curry (nonfiction)|1900 Sep. 1: Mathematician and academic Haskell Curry born. Curry will be known for his work in combinatory logic. File:Dame Mary Lucy Cartwright.jpg|link=Mary Cartwright (nonfiction)|1900 Dec. 17: Mathematician and academic Mary Cartwright born. Cartwright will do pioneering work in what will later be called chaos theory. File:Hannibal Goodwin.jpg|link=Hannibal Goodwin (nonfiction)|1900 Dec. 31: Priest and inventor Hannibal Goodwin dies. Goodwin invented and patented rolled celluloid photographic film.

File:Alfred Tarski 1968.jpg|link=Alfred Tarski (nonfiction)|1901 Jan. 14: Mathematician and philosopher Alfred Tarski born. Tarski will be a prolific author, contributing to model theory, metamathematics, algebraic logic, abstract algebra, topology, geometry, measure theory, mathematical logic, set theory, and analytic philosophy. File:Elisha Gray.jpg|link=|1901 Jan. 21: Electrical engineer Elisha Gray dies. Gray did pioneering work in electrical information technologies, including the telephone. File:Enrico Fermi 1943-49.jpg|link=Enrico Fermi (nonfiction)|1901 Sep. 29: Physicist Enrico Fermi born. Fermi will be called the "architect of the nuclear age" and the "architect of the atomic bomb". File:Rudolf_Hell_führt_seinen_Wetterkartenschreiber_vor_(Kiel_44.592).jpg|link=Rudolf Hell (nonfiction)|1901 Dec. 9: Inventor and engineer Rudolf Hell born. Hell will invent the Hellschreiber, a pioneering teleprinter system. Shown here: Hell's Wetterkartenschreiber ("weather chart recorder"). File:Robert J. Van de Graaff.jpg|link=Robert J. Van de Graaff (nonfiction)|1901 Dec. 20: Physicist Robert J. Van de Graaff born. Van de Graaff will design design and construct high-voltage Van de Graaff generators.

File:Charles Lindbergh.jpg|link=Charles Lindbergh (nonfiction)|1902 Feb. 4: Pilot and explorer Charles Lindbergh born. At age 25 in 1927 Lindbergh will go from obscurity as a U.S. Air Mail pilot to instantaneous world fame by making his Orteig Prize–winning nonstop flight from Long Island, New York, to Paris. File:Walter Houser Brattain.jpg|link=Walter Houser Brattain (nonfiction)|1902 Feb. 10: Physicist and academic Walter Houser Brattain born. Brattain will share the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956 "for research on semiconductors and the discovery of the transistor effect." File:Jan Tschichold (1963) by Erling Mandelmann.jpg|link=Jan Tschichold (nonfiction)|1902 Apr. 2: Graphic designer and typographer Jan Tschichold born. Tschichold will become a leading advocate of Modernist design, but later condemn Modernist design in general as being authoritarian and inherently fascistic. File:Eberhard_Hopf.jpg|link=Eberhard Hopf (nonfiction)|1902 Apr. 17: Mathematician and astronomer Eberhard Hopf born. Hopf will pioneer ergodic theory and bifurcation theory, and make contributions to partial differential equations, integral equations, fluid dynamics, and differential geometry. File:Karl Popper.jpg|link=Karl Popper (nonfiction)|1902 Jul. 28: Philosopher and academic Karl Popper born. Popper will be known for his rejection of the classical inductivist views on the scientific method, in favor of empirical falsification: A theory in the empirical sciences can never be proven, but it can be falsified, meaning that it can and should be scrutinized by decisive experiments. File:Norman Lorimer Dean with his Dean drive.jpg|link=Norman Lorimer Dean (nonfiction)|1902 Sep. 12: Inventor Norman Lorimer Dean born. Dean will design the Dean drive, which he will promote as a reactionless drive.

File:Electrocuting_an_Elephant.png|link=Electrocuting an Elephant (nonfiction)|1903 Jan. 17: The short film Electrocuting an Elephant is released. It documents the killing of an elephant named Topsy. File:George Gabriel Stokes.jpg|link=Sir George Stokes, 1st Baronet (nonfiction)|1903 Feb. 1: Physicist and mathematician Sir George Stokes, 1st Baronet dies. Stokes made pioneering contributions to fluid dynamics (including the Navier–Stokes equations) and to physical optics. File:Edwin_T._Layton.jpg|link=Edwin T. Layton (nonfiction)|1903 Apr. 7: United States Navy Admiral Edwin Thomas Layton born. Layton will serve as a Naval intelligence officer before and during World War II. File:Marhall Harvey Stone Zurich 1932.jpg|link=Marshall Harvey Stone (nonfiction)|1903 Apr. 8: Mathematician Marshall Harvey Stone born. Stone will contribute to real analysis, functional analysis, topology, and the study of Boolean algebra structures. File:Andrey Kolmogorov.jpg|link=Andrey Kolmogorov (nonfiction)|1903 Apr. 25: Mathematician and academic Andrey Kolmogorov born. Kolmogorov will make significant contributions to the mathematics of probability theory, topology, intuitionistic logic, turbulence, classical mechanics, algorithmic information theory and computational complexity. File:Ruth Ella Moore.jpg|link=Ruth Ella Moore (nonfiction)|1903 May 19: Bacteriologist Ruth Ella Moore born. Moore will publish work on tuberculosis, immunology and dental caries, the response of gut microorganisms to antibiotics, and the blood type of African-Americans. File:Alonzo Church.jpg|link=Alonzo Church (nonfiction)|1903 Jun. 14: Mathematician and logician Alonzo Church born. Church will make major contributions to mathematical logic and the foundations of theoretical computer science. File:John Atanasov.gif|link=John Vincent Atanasoff (nonfiction)|1903 Oct. 4: Physicist, inventor, and academic John Vincent Atanasoff. Atanasoff invented the Atanasoff–Berry computer, the first electronic digital computer. File:George Metesky.jpg|link=George Metesky (nonfiction)|1903 Nov. 2: George P. Metesky born. Metesky will terrorize New York City for 16 years in the 1940s and 1950s with explosives that he plants in theaters, terminals, libraries, and offices. File:John von Neumann.gif|link=John von Neumann (nonfiction)|1903 Dec. 28: Mathematician, physicist, and computer scientist John von Neumann born. Von Neumann will be a key figure in the development of the digital computer, and develop mathematical models of both nuclear and thermonuclear weapons.

File:Walter_Heitler.jpg|link=Walter Heitler (nonfiction)|1904 Jan. 2: Physicist and chemist Walter Heinrich Heitler born. Heitler will make contributions to quantum electrodynamics and quantum field theory, bringing chemistry under quantum mechanics through his theory of valence bonding. File:Renato Caccioppoli.jpg|link=Renato Caccioppoli (nonfiction)|1904 Jan. 20: Mathematician Renato Caccioppoli born. Caccioppoli will contribute to mathematical analysis, including the theory of functions of several complex variables, functional analysis, and measure theory. File:George Salmon.jpg|link=George Salmon (nonfiction)|1904 Jan. 22: Mathematician and Anglican theologian George Salmon dies. Salmon worked in algebraic geometry for two decades, then devoted the last forty years of his life to theology. File:Sir Charles Oatley.jpg|link=Charles Oatley (nonfiction)|1904 Feb. 14: Engineer and inventor Charles William Oatley born. Oatley will develop of one of the first commercial scanning electron microscopes. File:Theodore Geisel (1957).jpg|link=Dr. Seuss (nonfiction)|1904 Mar. 2: Children's author, political cartoonist, illustrator, poet, animator, screenwriter, and filmmaker Theodor Seuss "Ted" Geisel born. Geisel will write and illustrate more than 60 books under the pen name Dr. Seuss, including many of the most popular children's books of all time, selling over 600 million copies and being translated into more than 20 languages by the time of his death in 1991. File:J. Robert Oppenheimer.jpg|link=J. Robert Oppenheimer (nonfiction)|1904 Apr. 22: American physicist and academic J. Robert Oppenheimer born. Oppenheimer's achievements in physics will include the Born–Oppenheimer approximation for molecular wavefunctions, work on the theory of electrons and positrons, the Oppenheimer–Phillips process in nuclear fusion, and the first prediction of quantum tunneling. File:Hans_Bernd_Gisevius.jpg|link=Hans Bernd Gisevius (nonfiction)|1904 Jul. 14: German diplomat and intelligence officer Hans Bernd Gisevius born. Gisevius will be covert opponent of the Nazi regime, and a radical communist; he will serve as a liaison in Zürich between Allen Dulles, station chief for the American OSS, and the German Resistance forces in Germany. File:Pavel Cherenkov.jpg|link=Pavel Cherenkov (nonfiction)|1904 Jul. 28: Physicist and academic Pavel Cherenkov born. Cherenkov will share the 1958 Nobel Prize in physics in 1958 with Ilya Frank and Igor Tamm for their discovery (1934) of Cherenkov radiation. File:Henry Whitehead.jpg|link=J. H. C. Whitehead (nonfiction)|1904 Nov. 11: Mathematician and academic J. H. C. Whitehead born. During the Second World War, Whitehead will work with the codebreakers at Bletchley Park. File:John Ambrose Fleming 1890.png|link=John Ambrose Fleming (nonfiction)|1904 Nov. 16: English engineer John Ambrose Fleming receives a patent for the thermionic valve (vacuum tube).

File:John_D._Strong.jpg|link=John D. Strong (nonfiction)|1905 Jan. 15: Physicist and academic John D. Strong born. Strong will contribute to optical physics: he will be the first to detect water vapor in the atmosphere of Venus, and he will develop optical devices and materials including improved telescope mirrors and anti-reflective coatings. File:Werner Fenchel.jpg|link=Werner Fenchel (nonfiction)|1905 May 3: Mathematician and academic Werner Fenchel born. Fenchel will establish the basic results of convex analysis and nonlinear optimization theory which will, in time, serve as the foundation for nonlinear programming. File:Albert Einstein 1921.jpg|link=Albert Einstein (nonfiction)|1905 Sep. 26: Albert Einstein publishes his first paper on the special theory of relativity. File:Albert Einstein 1921.jpg|link=Albert Einstein (nonfiction)|1905 Nov. 21: Albert Einstein's paper that leads to the mass–energy equivalence formula, E = mc², is published in the journal Annalen der Physik. File:Dalton Trumbo prison 1950.jpg|link=Dalton Trumbo (nonfiction)|1905 Dec. 9: Screenwriter and novelist Dalton Trumbo born. Trumbo will be blacklisted for refusing testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1947; while blacklisted, he will win Academy Awards for two films: Roman Holiday, attributed to a front author, and The Brave One under the pseudonym Robert Rich. File:Piet Hein and H.C. Andersen.jpg|link=Piet Hein (nonfiction)|1905 Dec. 16: Mathematician, author, and poet Piet Hein born. Hein will propose the use of superellipses in architecture; superellipses will become the hallmark of modern Scandinavian architecture. File:Howard Hughes 1940s.jpg|link=Howard Hughes (nonfiction)|1905 Dec. 24: Businessman, investor, aviator, film director, and philanthropist Howard Hughes born. Hughes will be known during his lifetime as one of the most financially successful individuals in the world.

File:San Francisco 1906 earthquake Post-and-Grant-Avenue.jpg|link=1906 San Francisco earthquake (nonfiction)|1906 Apr. 18: An earthquake and fire destroy much of San Francisco, California. File:Abe Reles.jpg|link=Abe Reles (nonfiction)|1906 May 10: New York mobster and hit man Abe Reles born. File:Kurt Gödel.jpg|link=Kurt Gödel (nonfiction)|1906 Apr. 28: Mathematician, philosopher, and academic Kurt Gödel born. Gödel's two incompleteness theorems will have an immense impact upon scientific and philosophical thinking in the 20th century. File:Gordon Welchman.jpg|link=Gordon Welchman (nonfiction)|1906 Jun. 15: Mathematician, cryptographer, and author Gordon Welchman born. During the Second World War, Welchman will develop traffic analysis techniques for breaking German codes. File:Maria Goeppert-Mayer.jpg|link=Maria Goeppert-Mayer (nonfiction)|1906 Jun. 28: Physicist and academic Maria Goeppert-Mayer born. Goeppert-Mayer will develop a mathematical model for the structure of nuclear shells, for which she will be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963, which she will share with J. Hans D. Jensen and Eugene Wigner. File:Philo T Farnsworth.jpg|link=Philo Farnsworth (nonfiction)|1906 Aug. 19: Inventor Philo Farnsworth born. Farnsworthwill make many crucial contributions to the early development of all-electronic television. File:Olga Taussky-Todd.jpg|link=Olga Taussky-Todd (nonfiction)|1906 Aug. 30: Mathematician and academic Olga Taussky-Todd born. Taussky-Todd will contribute to matrix theory (in particular the computational stability of complex matrices), algebraic number theory, group theory, and numerical analysis. File:Vera_Faddeeva.jpg|link=Vera Faddeeva (nonfiction)|1906 Sep. 20: Mathematician Vera Faddeeva born. Faddeeva will pioneer the field of linear algebra; her Computational Methods of Linear Algebra (1950) will be widely acclaimed.

File:Harold Scott MacDonald Coxeter.jpg|link=Harold Scott MacDonald Coxeter (nonfiction)|1907 Feb. 9: Mathematician and academic Harold Scott MacDonald Coxeter born. Coxeter will become of the greatest geometers of the 20th century. File:Solomon Kullback.jpg|link=Solomon Kullback (nonfiction)|1907 Apr. 3: Cryptanalyst and mathematician Solomon Kullback born. Krullback will begin his career with the US Army's Signal Intelligence Service (SIS) in the 1930s; when the National Security Agency (NSA) is formed in 1952, Rowlett will become chief of cryptanalysis, overseeing the research and development of computerized cryptanalysis. File:Richard Sharpe Shaver.jpg|link=Richard Sharpe Shaver (nonfiction)|1907 Oct. 8: Author and illustrator Richard Sharpe Shaver born. Sharpe will write stories in which he claims that he has had personal experience of a sinister, ancient civilization that harbors fantastic technology in caverns under the earth. File:Lord Kelvin by Hubert von Herkomer.jpg|link=William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin (nonfiction)|1907 Dec. 17: Lord Kelvin dies. Kelvin did much to unify the emerging discipline of physics in its modern form.

File:Edward Teller 1958.jpg|link=Edward Teller (nonfiction)|1908 Jan. 15: Theoretical physicist and academic Edward Teller born. Teller will be known colloquially as "the father of the hydrogen bomb", although he will not care for the epithet. File:Myrtle_Bachelder_-_1942.jpg|link=Myrtle Bachelder (nonfiction)|1908 Mar. 13: Chemist and US military officer Myrtle Bachelder born. Bachelder will be responsible for the analysis of the spectroscopy of uranium for the Manhattan Project during the Second World War. After the war, Bachelder will make pioneering contributions to metallochemistry. File:Georgy Voronoy.jpg|link=Georgy Voronoy (nonfiction)|1908 Nov. 20: Mathematician Georgy Voronoy dies. He invented what are today called Voronoi diagrams or Voronoi tessellations. File:Claude Lévi-Strauss receiving Erasmus Prize (1973).jpg|link=Claude Lévi-Strauss (nonfiction)|1908 Nov. 28: Anthropologist and ethnologist Claude Lévi-Strauss born. His work will be key in the development of the theory of structuralism and structural anthropology.

File:Hermann Minkowski.jpg|link=Hermann Minkowski (nonfiction)|1909 Jan. 12: Mathematician and academic Hermann Minkowski dies. He showed that Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity can be understood geometrically as a theory of four-dimensional space–time, since known as the "Minkowski spacetime". File:Richard August Carl Emil Erlenmeyer.jpg|link=Emil Erlenmeyer (nonfiction)|1909 Jan. 22: Chemist and academic Emil Erlenmeyer dies. He contributed to the early development of the theory of structure, formulating the Erlenmeyer rule, and designing the Erlenmeyer flask. File:Nathan Rosen.jpg|link=Nathan Rosen (nonfiction)|1909 Mar 29: Physicist Nathan Rosen born. He will develop the idea of the Einstein–Rosen bridge, later named the wormhole. File:William Stanley.jpg|link=William Stanley (nonfiction)|1909 Aug. 14: Inventor, engineer, and philanthropist William Stanley dies. He designed and manufactured precision drawing and mathematical instruments, as well as surveying instruments and telescopes. File:Nikolay_Bogolyubov.jpg|link=Nikolay Bogolyubov (nonfiction)|1909 Aug. 21: Mathematician and physicist Nikolay Bogolyubov born. His method of teaching, based on creation of a warm atmosphere, politeness, and kindness, will be renowned in Russia as the "Bogolyubov approach". File:Marguerite Perey.jpg|link=Marguerite Perey (nonfiction)|1909 Oct. 19: Physicist and chemist Marguerite Perey born. Perey will discover the element francium while purifying samples of lanthanum.

File:William Shockley.jpg|link=William Shockley (nonfiction)|1910 Feb. 13: Physicist and inventor William Shockley born. He will share the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for the invention of the point-contact transistor. File:Charles Critchfield ID badge.png|link=Charles Critchfield (nonfiction)|1910 Jun. 7: Mathematical physicist Charles Critchfield born. He will work on the Manhattan Project, designing and testing the "Urchin" neutron initiator which provides the burst of neutrons that kick-starts the nuclear detonation of the Fat Man weapon. File:M._S._Bartlett.png|link=M. S. Bartlett (nonfiction)|1910 Jun. 18: Statistician Maurice Stevenson Bartlett born. Bartlett will make contributions to the analysis of data with spatial and temporal patterns, the theory of statistical inference, and multivariate analysis. File:Konrad Zuse (1992).jpg|link=Konrad Zuse (nonfiction)|1910 Jun. 22: Engineer, inventor, and pioneering computer scientist Konrad Zuse born. He will invent the Z3, the world's first working programmable, fully automatic computer. File:Julius Petersen.jpg|link=Julius Petersen (nonfiction)|1910 Aug 5: Mathematician Julius Petersen dies. His famous paper Die Theorie der regulären graphs is a fundamental contribution to modern graph theory. File:Pál Turán.jpg|link=Pál Turán (nonfiction)|1910 Aug. 18: Mathematician Pál Turán born. He will work primarily in number theory, but also contribute to analysis and graph theory. File:Nathan Jacobson.jpg|link=Nathan Jacobson (nonfiction)|1910 Oct. 5: Mathematician Nathan Jacobson born. He will conduct research on the structure theory of rings without finiteness conditions--a subject closely related to the theory of algebras--which will transform the approach to classical results and break ground for solutions to problems inaccessible by previous methods. File:Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar.png|link=Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (nonfiction)|1910 Oct. 18: Astrophysicist, astronomer, and mathematician Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar born. He will share the 1983 Nobel Prize for Physics "for his theoretical studies of the physical processes of importance to the structure and evolution of the stars". File:Louis Slotin.jpg|link=Louis Slotin (nonfiction)|1910 Dec. 1: Physicist Louis Slotin born. He will be fatally irradiated in a criticality incident during an experiment with the demon core at Los Alamos National Laboratory. File:Francis Galton 1850s.jpg|link=Francis Galton (nonfiction)|1911 Jan. 17: Statistician, progressive, polymath, sociologist, psychologist, anthropologist, eugenicist, tropical explorer, geographer, inventor, meteorologist, proto-geneticist, and psychometrician Francis Galton dies. File:Sakata Shoichi.jpg|link=Shoichi Sakata (nonfiction)|1911 Jan. 18: Physicist Shoichi Sakata born. Sakata will contribute theoretical work on the structure of the atom, proposing the Sakata model, an early precursor to the quark model. After World War II he will campaign for the peaceful uses of nuclear power. File:Polykarp Kusch (1955).jpg|link=Polycarp Kusch (nonfiction)|1911 Jan. 26: Physicist and academic Polykarp Kusch born. Kusch will make an accurate determination that the magnetic moment of the electron is greater than its theoretical value, thus leading to reconsideration of—and innovations in—quantum electrodynamics; he will be awarded the 1955 Nobel Prize in Physics for this accomplishment. File:Melvin Dresher.jpg|link=Melvin Dresher (nonfiction)|1911 Mar. 13: Mathematician Melvin Dresher (Dreszer) born. He will contribute to game theory, co-developing the game theoretical model of cooperation and conflict known as the Prisoner's dilemma. File:Heike Kamerlingh Onnes.jpg|link=Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (nonfiction)|1911 Apr. 8: Physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes discovers superconductivity. File:Johannes Bosscha.jpg|link=Johannes Bosscha (nonfiction)|1911 Apr. 1f: Physicist Johannes Bosscha Jr. dies. He made important investigations on galvanic polarization and the rapidity of sound waves; he was one of the first (1855) to suggest the possibility of sending two messages simultaneously over the same wire. File:John Archibald Wheeler 1985.jpg|link=John Archibald Wheeler (nonfiction)|1911 Jul. 9: Theoretical physicist John Archibald Wheeler born. He will link the term "black hole" to objects with gravitational collapse, and coin the terms "quantum foam", "neutron moderator", "wormhole" and "it from bit". File:Klara Dan von Neumann.png|link=Klara Dan von Neumann (nonfiction)|1911 Aug. 18: Computer scientist Klara Dan von Neumann born. She will be one of the world's first computer programmers and coders, solving mathematical problems using computer code. File:George Chrystal.jpg|link=George Chrystal (nonfiction)|1911 Nov. 3: Mathematician George Chrystal dies. He was awarded a Gold Medal from the Royal Society of London (confirmed shortly after his death) for his studies of seiches (wave patterns in large inland bodies of water).

File:Joseph Lister 1902.jpg|link=Joseph Lister (nonfiction)|1912 Feb. 10: Surgeon and scientist Joseph Lister dies. He pioneered antiseptic surgery, performing the first antiseptic surgery in 1865. File:Cesare_Arzelà.jpg|link=Cesare Arzelà (nonfiction)|1912 Mar. 15: Mathematician Cesare Arzelà dies. He contributed to the theory of functions, notably his characterization of sequences of continuous functions. File:Glenn Seaborg.jpg|link=Glenn T. Seaborg (nonfiction)|1912 Apr. 12: Chemist Glenn T. Seaborg born. He will share the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the synthesis, discovery, and investigation of transuranium elements. File:Chien-Shiung Wu 1958.jpg|link=Chien-Shiung Wu (nonfiction)|1912 May 31: Physicist Chien-Shiung Wu born. She will conduct the Wu experiment, which will contradict the law of conservation of parity, proving that parity is not conserved. File:Alan Turing (1930s).jpg|link=Alan Turing (nonfiction)|1912 Jun. 23: Computer scientist, mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst and theoretical biologist Alan Turing born. He will be influential in the development of theoretical computer science, providing a formalization of the concepts of algorithm and computation with the Turing machine. File:Henri Poincaré.jpg|link=Henri Poincaré (nonfiction)|1912 Jul. 17: Mathematician, physicist, and engineer Henri Poincaré dies. He made many original fundamental contributions to pure and applied mathematics, mathematical physics, and celestial mechanics.

File:Gustav Hahn - 1913 Great Meteor Procession.jpg|link=1913 Great Meteor Procession (nonfiction)|1913 Feb. 9: A group of meteors is visible across much of the eastern seaboard of North and South America, leading astronomers to conclude the source had been a small, short-lived natural satellite of the Earth. File:Paul Erdős.jpg|link=Paul Erdős (nonfiction)|1913 Mar. 26: Mathematician and academic Paul Erdős born. Erdős will firmly believe mathematics to be a social activity, living an itinerant lifestyle with the sole purpose of writing mathematical papers with other mathematicians. File:Ernst_Ruhmer,_Technical_World_cover_(1905).jpg|link=Ernst Ruhmer (nonfiction)|1913 Apr. 8: Physicist Ernst Ruhmer dies. Ruhmer invented applications for the light-sensitivity properties of selenium, including wireless telephony using line-of-sight optical transmissions, sound-on-film audio recording, and television transmissions over wires. File:Irving Adler age 75.jpg|link=Irving Adler (nonfiction)|1913 Apr. 27: Mathematician, author, activist, and academic Irving Adler born. Adler will be a plaintiff in the McCarthy-era case Adler vs. Board of Education. File:Maurice Vincent Wilkes.jpg|link=Maurice Wilkes (nonfiction)|1913 Jun. 26: Computer scientist and physicist Maurice Wilkes born. Wilkes will pioneer several important developments in computing, including microcode, symbolic labels, macros, subroutine libraries, and timesharing. File:Jordan Carson Mark.gif|link=J. Carson Mark (nonfiction)|1913 Jul 6: Mathematician Jordan Carson Mark born. Mark will oversee the development of nuclear weapons for the US military, including the hydrogen bomb in the 1950s. File:John Hadji Argyris.jpg|link=John Argyris (nonfiction)|1913 Aug. 1913: Computer scientist, engineer, and academic John Argyris born. A pioneer of computer applications in science and engineering, Argyris will be among the creators of the finite element method. File:Samuel Eilenberg 1970.jpg|link=Samuel Eilenberg (nonfiction)|1913 Sep. 30: Mathematician Samuel Eilenberg born. Eilenberg will co-found category theory with Saunders Mac Lane, and propose the Eilenberg swindle (a construction applying the telescoping cancellation idea to projective modules).

File:Hanna Neumann.jpg|link=Hanna Neumann (nonfiction)|1914 Nov. 12: Mathematician and academic Hanna Neumann born. She will contribute to group theory, co-authoring the important paper Wreath products and varieties of groups (with her husband Bernhard and eldest son Peter), and authoring the influential book Varieties of Groups. File:Yakov Borisovich Zel'dovich postage stamp.jpg|link=Yakov Borisovich Zel'dovich (nonfiction)|1914 Mar. 8: Physicist, astronomer, and cosmologist Yakov Borisovich Zel'dovich born. He will play a crucial role in the development of the Soviet Union's nuclear bomb project, studying the effects of nuclear explosions. File:Dorothy Lewis Bernstein.jpg|link=Dorothy Lewis Bernstein (nonfiction)|1914 Apr. 11: Mathematician Dorothy Lewis Bernstein born. She will be the first woman to be elected president of the Mathematics Association of America. File:Charles Sanders Peirce in 1859.jpg|link=Charles Sanders Peirce (nonfiction)|1914 Apr. 19: Mathematician and philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce dies. He is remembered as "the father of pragmatism". File:Franck Hertz Hg tube.jpg|link=Franck–Hertz experiment (nonfiction)|1914 Apr. 24: The Franck–Hertz experiment, a pillar of quantum mechanics, is presented to the German Physical Society. File:James Van Allen.jpg|link=James Van Allen (nonfiction)|1914 Sep. 7: Physicist and philosopher James Van Allen born. The Van Allen radiation belts will be named after him, following their discovery by his Geiger–Müller tube instruments aboard satellites in 1958. File:Martin Gardner.jpg|link=Martin Gardner (nonfiction)|1914 Oct. 21: Mathematics and science writer Martin Gardner born. His interests will include stage magic, scientific skepticism, philosophy, religion, and literature.

File:André_Lichnerowicz.jpg|link=André Lichnerowicz (nonfiction)|1915 Jan. 21: Physicist and mathematician André Lichnerowicz born. Lichnerowicz will work in differential geometry and mathematical physics. File:Robert Hofstadter.jpg|link=Robert Hofstadter (nonfiction)|1915 Feb. 5: Physicist and academic Robert Hofstadter born. Hofstadter will share the 1961 Nobel Prize in Physics (with Rudolf Mössbauer) "for his pioneering studies of electron scattering in atomic nuclei and for his consequent discoveries concerning the structure of nucleons". File:Albert Einstein 1921.jpg|link=Albert Einstein (nonfiction)|1915 Mar. 15: Theoretical physicist Albert Einstein publishes his general theory of relativity. File:Kodaira Kunihiko.jpg|link=Kunihiko Kodaira (nonfiction)|1915 Mar. 16: Mathematician and academic [[Kunihiko Kodaira]] born. Kodaira will do distinguished work in algebraic geometry and the theory of complex manifolds, winning the Fields medal in 1954. File:Paul Lorenzen.jpg|link=Paul Lorenzen (nonfiction)|1915 Mar. 24: Mathematician and philosopher Paul Lorenzen born. Lorenzen will found the Erlangen School (with Wilhelm Kamlah), and invent game semantics (with Kuno Lorenz). File:Donald_J._Hughes.png|link=Donald J. Hughes (nonfiction)|1915 Apr. 2: Nuclear physicist Donald J. Hughes born. Hughes will be one of the signers of the Franck Report in June, 1945, recommending that the United States not use the atomic bomb as a weapon to prompt the surrender of Japan in World War II. File:Albert Einstein 1921.jpg|link=Albert Einstein (nonfiction)|1915 May 20: Albert Einstein publishes his general theory of relativity. John_Tukey.jpg|link=John Tukey (nonfiction)|1915 Jun. 16: Mathematician and academic John Tukey born. Tukey will make important contributions to statistical analysis, including the box plot. File:Nicholas Metropolis.png|link=Nicholas Metropolis (nonfiction)|1915 Jun. 11: Mathematician and physicist Nicholas Metropolis born. Metropolis will lead the team of researchers which will develop the Monte Carlo method. File:Norman F. Ramsey Jr.jpg|link=Norman Foster Ramsey Jr. (nonfiction)|1915 Aug. 27: Physicist Norman Foster Ramsey Jr. born. Ramsey will be awarded the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physics for the invention of the separated oscillatory field method, which will have important applications in the construction of atomic clocks. File:Clifford Shull 1949.jpg|link=Clifford Shull (nonfiction)|1915 Sep. 23: Physicist and academic Clifford Shull born. Shull will share the 1994 Nobel Prize in Physics with Bertram Brockhouse for the development of the neutron scattering technique.

File:John Crank.jpg|link=John Crank (nonfiction)|1916 Feb. 6: Mathematician and physicist John Crank born. Crank will work on the numerical solution of partial differential equations; his work with Phyllis Nicolson on the heat equation will result in the Crank–Nicolson method. File:Richard Dedekind.jpg|link=Richard Dedekind (nonfiction)|1916 Feb. 12: Mathematician, philosopher, and academic Richard Dedekind dies. Dedekind made important contributions to abstract algebra (particularly ring theory), algebraic number theory and the definition of the real numbers. File:Paul Halmos.jpg|link=Paul Halmos (nonfiction)|1916 Mar. 3: Mathematician and academic Paul Halmos born. Halmos will make fundamental advances in the areas of mathematical logic, probability theory, statistics, operator theory, ergodic theory, and functional analysis (in particular, Hilbert spaces). File:Claude Shannon.jpg|link=Claude Shannon (nonfiction)|1916 Apr. 30: Mathematician, engineer, and information scientist Claude Shannon born. Shannon will be known as "the father of information theory". File:Robert F. Christy Los Alamos ID.png|link=Robert F. Christy (nonfiction)|1916 May 4: Physicist and astrophysicist Robert F. Christy born. Christy will be credited with the insight that a solid sub-critical mass of plutonium can be explosively compressed into supercriticality, a great simplification of earlier concepts of implosion requiring hollow shells.

File:Charles Wright Mills.jpg|link=C. Wright Mills (nonfiction)|1916 Aug. 28: Sociologist and author C. Wright Mills born. Mills will publish widely in popular and intellectual journals, advocating public and political engagement over disinterested observation.

File:Pierre Duhem.jpg|link=Pierre Duhem (nonfiction)|1916 Sep. 14: Physicist, mathematician, and historian Pierre Duhem dies. Durham wrote: "A theory of physics is not an explanation. It is a system of mathematical propositions, deduced from a small number of principles, which have for their aim to represent as simply, as completely and as exactly as possible, a group of experimental laws." File:Jack London 1903.jpg|link=Jack London (nonfiction)|1916 Nov. 22: Author Jack London dies. London was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone.

File:Graham Higman.jpg|link=Graham Higman (nonfiction)|1917 Jan. 19: Mathematician Graham Higman born. In mathematics, Higman will contribute to group theory. During the Second World War he will be a conscientious objector, working at the Meteorological Office in Northern Ireland and Gibraltar. File:Betty Holberton.jpg|link=Betty Holberton (nonfiction)|1917 Mar. 7: Pioneering computer scientist and programmer Betty Holberton born. Holberton will be one of the six original programmers of ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic digital computer, and the inventor of breakpoints in computer debugging. File:Myoglobin John Kendrew.jpg|link=John Kendrew (nonfiction)|1917 Mar. 24: Biochemist and crystallographer John Kendrew born. Kendrew will share the 1962 Nobel Prize for chemistry with Max Perutz for determining the atomic structures of proteins using X-ray crystallography. File:W._T._Tutte.jpg|link=W. T. Tutte|1917 May 14: Mathematician, codebreaker, and academic W. T. Tutte born. During the Second World War, Tutte will make a brilliant and fundamental advance in cryptanalysis of the Lorenz cipher, a major Nazi German cipher system. File:John F. Kennedy moon mission speech.jpg|link=John F. Kennedy (nonfiction)|1917 May 29: Politician John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States, born. File:Georg Frobenius.jpg|link=Ferdinand Georg Frobenius (nonfiction)|1917 Aug. 3: Mathematician and academic Ferdinand Georg Frobenius dies. Frobenius made contributions to the theory of elliptic functions, differential equations, and group theory. File:Derek Taunt.jpg|link=Derek Taunt (nonfiction)|1917 Nov. 16: Mathematician Derek Taunt born. Taunt will work as a codebreaker at Bletchley Park during World War II. Taunt will be assigned to Hut 6, the section in charge of decrypting German Army and Air Force Enigma signals. After his wartime work, he will return to Cambridge, and work on group theory.

File:Georg Cantor 1894.png|link=Georg Cantor (nonfiction)|1918 Jan. 6: Mathematician and philosopher Georg Cantor dies. Cantor invented set theory, a fundamental area of mathematical inquiry. File:Charles-Émile Reynaud.jpg|link=Charles-Émile Reynaud (nonfiction)|1918 Jan. 9: Scientist, inventor, and educator Charles-Émile Reynaud dies. Reynaud invented the Praxinoscope (an improved zoetrope) and was responsible for the first projected animated films. File:Katherine_Johnson_at_NASA_(1966).jpg|link=Katherine Johnson (nonfiction)|1918 Aug. 26: Physicist and mathematician Katherine Johnson born. Johnson will compute orbital mechanics as a NASA employee which will be critical to the success of the first and subsequent U.S. crewed spaceflights; she will also pioneer the use of computers to perform these tasks. File:E. Howard Hunt.jpg|link=E. Howard Hunt (nonfiction)|1918 Oct. 9: CIA officer and author E. Howard Hunt born. Along with G. Gordon Liddy, Hunt will plot the Watergate burglaries and other undercover operations for the Nixon administration. File:Aleksandr Ljapunov.jpg|link=Aleksandr Lyapunov (nonfiction)|1918 Nov. 3: Mathematician and physicist Aleksandr Lyapunov dies. Lyapunov contributed to several fields, including differential equations, potential theory, dynamical systems and probability theory. His main preoccupations were the stability of equilibria and the motion of mechanical systems, and the study of particles under the influence of gravity. File:Madeleine L'Engle.jpg|link=Madeleine L'Engle (nonfiction)|1918 Nov. 29: Writer Madeleine L'Engle born. She will write the Newbery Medal-winning A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels.

File:Alexander Andreevich Samarskii.jpg|link=Alexander Andreevich Samarskii (nonfiction)|1919 Feb. 19: Mathematician and academic Alexander Andreevich Samarskii born. Samarskii will contribute to applied mathematics, numerical analysis, mathematical modeling, and finite difference methods. File:Arthur Stanley Eddington.jpg|link=Albert Einstein (nonfiction)|1919 May 29: Arthur Eddington and Andrew Claude de la Cherois Crommelin view a solar eclipse as a test of [[Albert Einstein (nonfiction)|Einstein's theory of general relativity. File:Henriette_Avram.jpg|link=Henriette Avram (nonfiction)|1919 Oct. 7: Computer scientist and academic Henriette Avram born. She will develope the MARC (Machine Readable Cataloging) format, the international data standard for bibliographic and holdings information in libraries. File:George E P Box.jpg|link=George E. P. Box (nonfiction)|1919 Oct. 18: Statistician and educator George E. P. Box born. He will be called "one of the great statistical minds of the 20th century". File:Gerhard Ringel surfing.jpg|link=Gerhard Ringel (nonfiction)|1919 Oct. 28: Mathematician and academic Gerhard Ringel born. Ringel will be a pioneer of graph theory and contribute significantly to the proof of the Heawood conjecture (later the Ringel-Youngs theorem), a mathematical problem closely linked with the Four color theorem. File:Curt Meyer.jpg|link=Curt Meyer (nonfiction)|1919 Nov. 19: Mathematician Curt Meyer born. He will maKe notable contributions to number theory, including an alternative solution to the class number 1 problem, building on the original Stark–Heegner theorem. File:Clyde Cowan.jpg|link=Clyde Cowan (nonfiction)|1919 Dec. 6: Physicist Clyde Cowan born. Cowan, along with Frederick Reines, will discover the neutrino in 1956; Reines will receive the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1995 in both their names.

File:Isaac Asimov.jpg|link=Isaac Asimov (nonfiction)|1920 Jan. 2: Writer Isaac Asimov born. He will be considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers during his lifetime. File:Moritz Benedikt Cantor.jpg|link=Moritz Cantor (nonfiction)|1920 Apr. 10: Mathematician and historian Moritz Cantor dies. He wrote Vorlesungen über Geschichte der Mathematik, which traces the history of mathematics up to 1799. File:Walter Frederick Morrison.jpg|link=Walter Frederick Morrison (nonfiction)|1920 Feb. 23: Businessman Walter Frederick Morrison born. Morrison will invent the Frisbee. The first version, a cake pan purchased for a nickle and sold for a quarter, will be known as the Flyin' Cake Pan. File:Srinivasa_Ramanujan.jpg|link=Srinivasa Ramanujan (nonfiction)|1920 Apr. 26: Mathematician and theorist Srinivasa Ramanujan dies. He made substantial contributions to mathematical analysis, number theory, infinite series, and continued fractions, including solutions to mathematical problems considered to be unsolvable. File:Gordon Gould.jpg|link=Gordon Gould (nonfiction)|1920 Jul. 17: Physicist and academic Gordon Gould born. He will invent and name the laser. File:Rosalind Franklin.jpg|link=Rosalind Franklin (nonfiction)|1920 Jul 25: Chemist and X-ray crystallographer Rosalind Franklin born. She will make contributions to the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). File:George Tooker.jpg|link=George Tooker (nonfiction)|1920 Aug. 5: Artist George Tooker born. His paintings will depict his subjects naturally, as in a photograph, but the images will use flat tones, an ambiguous perspective, and alarming juxtapositions to suggest an imagined or dreamed reality. File:Ray Bradbury 1959.jpg|link=Ray Bradbury (nonfiction)|1920 Aug. 22: Science fiction writer and screenwriter Ray Bradbury born. The New York Times will call Bradbury "the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream". File:Philip G. Hodge.jpg|link=Philip G. Hodge (nonfiction)|1920 Nov. 9: Materials engineer and academic Philip G. Hodge born. He will study the mechanics of elastic and plastic behavior of materials, contributing to plasticity theory including developments in the method of characteristics, limit-analysis, piecewise linear isotropic plasticity, and nonlinear programming applications.

File:Akiva Yaglom.jpg|link=Akiva Yaglom (nonfiction)|1921 Mar. 4: Physicist, mathematician, statistician, and meteorologist Akiva Yaglom born. He will contribute to statistical turbulence theory and random process theory. File:Harry Daghlian.gif|link=Harry Daghlian (nonfiction)|1921 May 4: Physicist Harry Daghlian born. He will be fatally irradiated in a criticality accident during an experiment with the Demon core at Los Alamos National Laboratory. File:Tom Kilburn.jpg|link=Tom Kilburn (nonfiction)|1921 Aug. 11: Mathematician and computer scientist Tom Kilburn born. Over the course of a productive 30-year career, he will be involved in the development of five computers of great historical significance. File:Niels Bohr.jpg|link=Niels Bohr (nonfiction)|1921 Oct. 18: Niels Bohr introduced his quantum model of the atom. File:Henrietta Swan Leavitt.jpg|link=Henrietta Swan Leavitt (nonfiction)|1921 Dec. 12: Astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt dies. She discovered the relation between the luminosity and the period of Cepheid variable stars. File:Max_Noether_(between_1870_and_1875).jpg|link=Max Noether (nonfiction)|1921 Dec. 13: Mathematician Max Noether dies. Noether contributed to algebraic geometry and the theory of algebraic functions. He was the father of mathematician Emmy Noether.

File:Hing Tong.jpg|link=Hing Tong (nonfiction)|1922 Feb. 16: Mathematician Hing Tong born. He will provide the original proof of the Katetov–Tong insertion theorem. File:Jacobus Kapteyn.jpg|link=Jacobus Kapteyn (nonfiction)|1922 Jun. 18: Astronomer and academic Jacobus Kapteyn dies. Kapteyn conducted extensive studies of the Milky Way using photography and statistical methods to determine the motions and distribution of stars, discovering evidence for galactic rotation. File:Alexander Graham Bell.jpg|link=Alexander Graham Bell (nonfiction)|1922 Aug. 2: Engineer, inventor, and academic Alexander Graham Bell dies. He patented the telephone in 1876. File:Marc_Julia.jpg|link=Marc Julia (nonfiction)|1922 Oct. 22: Chemist Marc Julia born. Julia (along with his colleague Jean-Marc Paris) will discover the Julia olefination reaction in 1973. File:Imre Lakatos.jpg|link=Imre Lakatos (nonfiction)|1922 Nov. 9: Mathematician, philosopher, and academic Imre Lakatos born. He will be known for his thesis of the fallibility of mathematics and its 'methodology of proofs and refutations' in its pre-axiomatic stages of development.

File:Joseph Weizenbaum.jpg|link=Joseph Weizenbaum (nonfiction)|1923 Jan. 8: Computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum born. He will become one of the fathers of modern artificial intelligence. File:Johannes Diderik van der Waals.jpg|link=Johannes Diderik van der Waals (nonfiction)|1923 Mar. 8: Theoretical physicist and academic Johannes Diderik van der Waals dies. He won the 1910 Nobel Prize in physics for his work on the equation of state for gases and liquids. File:Ruy Barbosa 1907.jpg|link=Rui Barbosa (nonfiction)|1923 Mar. 1: Polymath, diplomat, jurist, and politician Rui Barbosa born. He will authorize the destruction of most government records relating to slavery, "erasing the stain" of slavery on Brazilian history, yet preventing any possible indemnization of the former slave-owners. File:Walter Kohn.jpg|link=Walter Kohn (nonfiction)|1923 Mar. 9: Theoretical physicist, theoretical chemist, and Nobel laureate Walter Kohn born. He will develop density functional theory, which will make it possible to calculate quantum mechanical electronic structure by equations involving the electronic density. File:James Dewar.jpg|link=James Dewar (nonfiction)|1923 Mar. 27: Chemist and physicist James Dewar dies. Dewar invented the vacuum flask, which he used in conjunction with extensive research into the liquefaction of gases. File:George Spencer-Brown.jpg|link=George Spencer-Brown (nonfiction)|1923 Apr. 2: Polymath George Spencer-Brown born. Spencer-Brown will write the unorthodox and influential Laws of Form, calling it the "primary algebra" and the "calculus of indications". File:John Venn.jpg|link=John Venn (nonfiction)|1923 Apr. 4: Mathematician and philosopher John Venn dies. Venn invented the Venn diagram, now widely used set theory, probability, logic, statistics, and computer science. File:Armand Borel.jpg|link=Armand Borel (nonfiction)|1923 May 21: Mathematician and academic Armand Borel born. Borel will work in algebraic topology, and in the theory of Lie groups, contributing to the creation of the contemporary theory of linear algebraic groups. File:Lloyd Shapley (1980).jpg|link=Lloyd Shapley (nonfiction)|1923 Jun. 2: Mathematician and economist Lloyd Shapley born. Shapley will define game theory as "a mathematical study of conflict and cooperation." File:Igor Shafarevich.jpg|link=Igor Shafarevich (nonfiction)|1923 Jun. 3: Mathematician and dissident Igor Shafarevich born. Shafarevich will make fundamental contributions to algebraic number theory, algebraic geometry, and arithmetic algebraic geometry. File:Vilfredo Pareto 1870s.jpg|link=Vilfredo Pareto (nonfiction)|1923 Aug. 19: Engineer, sociologist, economist, political scientist, and philosopher Vilfredo Pareto dies. Pareto applied mathematics to economic analysis, asserting that the distribution of incomes and wealth in society is not random and that a consistent pattern appears throughout history, in all parts of the world and in all societies. File:Charles Proteus Steinmetz.jpg|link=Charles Proteus Steinmetz (nonfiction)|1923 Oct. 26: Mathematician and electrical engineer Charles Proteus Steinmetz dies. Steinmetz fostered the development of alternating current, formulating mathematical theories which advanced the expansion of the electric power industry in the United States.

File:Georg Hermann Quincke.jpg|link=Georg Hermann Quincke (nonfiction)|1924 Jan. 13: Physicist and academic Georg Hermann Quincke dies. Quincke conducted prolonged research on the influence of electric forces upon the constants of different forms of matter, modifying the dissociation hypothesis of Clausius. File:John Backus.jpg|link=John Backus (nonfiction)|1924 Mar. 3: Mathematician and computer scientist John Backus born. Backus will invent the Backus–Naur form (BNF) notation to define formal language syntax. File:Harry Lehmann.jpg|link=Harry Lehmann (nonfiction)|1924 Mar. 21: Physicist Harry Lehmann born. Lehmann will contribute to the LSZ reduction formula and the Källén–Lehmann spectral representation. File:John Ashworth Nelder.jpg|link=John Nelder (nonfiction)|1924 Oct. 8: Mathematician and statistician John Nelder born. Nelder will contribute to experimental design, analysis of variance, computational statistics, and statistical theory. He will also be responsible, with Max Nicholson and James Ferguson-Lees, for debunking the Hastings Rarities.

File:Carl Gottfried Neumann.jpg|link=Carl Gottfried Neumann (nonfiction)|1925 Mar. 27: Mathematician Carl Gottfried Neumann dies. Neumann will studied physics with his father, and later worked as a mathematician, dealing almost exclusively with problems arising from physics. File:Alexander Shulgin 2009.jpg|link=Alexander Shulgin (nonfiction)|1925 Jun. 17: Pharmacologist and chemist Alexander Shulgin born. Shulgin will discover, synthesize, and personally bioassay over 230 psychoactive compounds for their psychedelic and entactogenic potential. File:Gottlob Frege.jpg|link=Gottlob Frege (nonfiction)|1925 Jul. 26: Mathematician, logician, and philosopher Gottlob Frege dies. Though largely ignored during his lifetime, Frege's work influenced later generations of logicians and philosophers. File:Martin David Kruskal.jpg|link=David Kruskal (nonfiction)|1925 Sep. 28: Physicist and mathematician Martin David Kruskal born. Kruskal will make fundamental contributions in many areas of mathematics and science, including the discovery and theory of solitons. File:John Logie Baird 1917.jpg|link=John Logie Baird (nonfiction)|1925 Oct. 30: Engineer and inventor John Logie Baird creates Britain's first television transmitter.

File:Abdus Salam 1987.jpg|link=Abdus Salam (nonfiction)|1926 Jan. 29: Theoretical physicist Mohammad Abdus Salam born. Salam will share the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics with Sheldon Glashow and Steven Weinberg for his contribution to the electroweak unification theory. File:Fay Ajzenberg-Selove.jpg|link=Fay Ajzenberg-Selove (nonfiction)|1926 Feb. 13: Nuclear physicist Fay Ajzenberg-Selove born. Ajzenberg-Selove will do important experimental work in nuclear spectroscopy of light elements, authoring annual reviews of the energy levels of light atomic nuclei. File:Heike Kamerlingh Onnes.jpg|link=Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (nonfiction)|1926 Feb. 21: Physicist and academic Heike Kamerlingh Onnes dies. Onnes received widespread recognition for his work, including the 1913 Nobel Prize in Physics for (in the words of the committee) "his investigations on the properties of matter at low temperatures which led, inter alia, to the production of liquid helium". File:Gil Kane.jpg|link=Gil Kane (nonfiction)|1926 Apr. 6: American comic book artist Gil Kane born. Kane will pioneer graphic novels with his books His Name is...Savage (1968) and Blackmark (1971). File:Charles Lindbergh.jpg|link=File:Charles Lindbergh.jpg|link=Charles Lindbergh (nonfiction)|1926 Apr. 13: Charles Lindbergh executes the Post Office Department's Oath of Mail Messengers. File:Charles Lindbergh.jpg|link=File:Charles Lindbergh.jpg|link=Charles Lindbergh (nonfiction)|1926 Apr. 15: Charles Lindbergh opens service on the newly designated 278-mile (447 km) Contract Air Mail Route #2 (CAM-2) to provide service between St. Louis and Chicago (Maywood Field) with two intermediate stops in Springfield and Peoria, Illinois. File:George_Brecht.jpg|link=George Brecht (nonfiction)|1926 Aug. 27: Chemist and composer George Brecht born. Brecht will be a conceptual artist and avant-garde composer, as well as a professional chemist who will work as a consultant for companies including Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Mobil Oil.

File:Marion Tinsley.jpg|link=Marion Tinsley (nonfiction)|1927 Feb. 3: Mathematician and checkers player Marion Tinsley born. Tinsley will be "to checkers what Leonardo da Vinci was to science, what Michelangelo was to art and what Beethoven was to music." File:Gerard_Kitchen_O'Neill.jpg|link=Gerard K. O'Neill (nonfiction)|1927 Feb. 6: Physicist and space activist Gerard K. O'Neill born. O'Neill will invent the particle storage ring for high-energy physics experiment, and the mass driver, a magnetic launcher. In the 1970s, he will develop a plan to build human settlements in outer space. File:David Wheeler.jpg|link=David Wheeler (nonfiction)|1927 Feb. 9: Computer scientist and academic David Wheeler born. He will contribute to the development of the Electronic delay storage automatic calculator (EDSAC) and the Burrows–Wheeler transform (BWT); help develop the subroutine; and will give the first explanation of how to design software libraries. File:Friedrich Reinitzer.jpg|link=Friedrich Reinitzer (nonfiction)|1927 Feb. 16: Botanist and chemist Friedrich Reinitzer dies. In late 1880s, experimenting with cholesteryl benzoate, Reinitzer discovered the properties of what would later be called liquid crystals; although the discovery attracted attention, interest soon faded as no practical uses were found at the time. File:William C. Davidon.jpg|link=William C. Davidon (nonfiction)|1927 Mar. 18: Physicist, mathematician, and activist William C. Davidon born. He will develop the first quasi-Newton algorithm, now known as the Davidon–Fletcher–Powell formula. File:George Plimpton 1993.jpg|link=George Plimpton (nonfiction)|1927 Mar. 17: Journalist, writer, literary editor, and actor George Plimpton born. Plimpton will be famous for "participatory journalism": competing in professional sporting events, playing with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, performing a circus trapeze act, and then recording the experience from the point of view of an amateur. File:Mendel Sachs.jpg|link=Mendel Sachs (nonfiction)|1927 Apr. 13: Theoretical physicist Mendel Sachs born. His work will include the proposal of a unified field theory that brings together the weak force, strong force, electromagnetism, and gravity. File:Charles Lindbergh.jpg|link=Charles Lindbergh (nonfiction)|1927 May 21: Charles Lindbergh touches down at Le Bourget Field in Paris, completing the world's first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean. File:Erik Ivar Fredholm.jpg|link=Erik Ivar Fredholm (nonfiction)|1927 Aug. 17: Mathematician Erik Ivar Fredholm dies. He introduced and analyzed a class of integral equations now called Fredholm equations. Fredholm's work on integral equations and operator theory anticipated the theory of Hilbert spaces. File:Philo T Farnsworth.jpg|link=Philo Farnsworth (nonfiction)|1927 Sep. 7: The first fully electronic television system is achieved by inventor Philo Farnsworth.

File:Hendrik_Antoon_Lorentz.jpg|link=Hendrik Lorentz (nonfiction)|1928 Feb. 4: Physicist and academic Hendrik Lorentz dies. Lorentz shared the 1902 Nobel Prize in Physics with Pieter Zeeman for the discovery and theoretical explanation of the Zeeman effect. File:Gerald Bull 1964.jpg|link=Gerald Bull (nonfiction)|1928 Mar. 9: Engineer Gerald Bull born. Bull will attempt to build artillery guns capable of launching satellites into orbit. File:Charles Lindbergh.jpg|link=Charles Lindbergh (nonfiction)|1928 Mar. 21: Charles Lindbergh is presented with the Medal of Honor for the first solo trans-Atlantic flight. File:Alexander Grothendieck.jpg|link=Alexander Grothendieck (nonfiction)|1928 Mar. 28: Mathematician and theorist Alexander Grothendieck born. Grothendieck will become the leading figure in the creation of modern algebraic geometry. File:Pineapple Primary.jpg|link=Pineapple Primary (nonfiction)|1928 Apr. 10: The Pineapple Primary in Illinois, the culmination of a political campaign which was marked by numerous acts of violence, mostly in Chicago and elsewhere in Cook County. In the six months prior to the primary election, 62 bombings took place in the city, and at least two politicians were killed. File:Eugene Shoemaker.jpg|link=Eugene Merle Shoemaker (nonfiction)|1928 Apr. 28: Geologist and astronomer Eugene Merle Shoemaker born. Shoemaker will be the first scientist to conclude that Barringer Meteor Crater in Arizona, and similar craters, were caused by meteor impact. File:Jacques-Louis Lions.jpg|link=Jacques-Louis Lions (nonfiction)|1928 May 3: Mathematician Jacques-Louis Lions born. Lions will make contributions to the theory of partial differential equations and to stochastic control. File:Bertram Kostant.jpg|link=Bertram Kostant (nonfiction)|1928 May 24: Mathematician Bertram Kostant born. Konstant will be one of the principal developers of the theory of geometric quantization. File:Vera Rubin.jpg|link=Vera Rubin (nonfiction)|1928 Jul. 23: Astronomer and academic Vera Rubin born. Rubin will discover the discrepancy between the predicted angular motion of galaxies and the observed motion, by studying galactic rotation curves. File:Philo T Farnsworth.jpg|link=Philo Farnsworth (nonfiction)|1928 Sep. 23: Inventor Philo Farnsworth demonstrates his electronic television system to the press. File:Hans Weinberger.jpg|link=Hans Weinberger (nonfiction)|1928 Sep. 27: Mathematician and academic Hans F. Weinberger born. Weinberger will contribute to variational methods for eigenvalue problems, partial differential equations, and fluid dynamics.

File:Agner Krarup Erlang.jpg|link=Agner Krarup Erlang (nonfiction)|1929 Feb. 3: Mathematician and engineer Agner Krarup Erlang dies. Erlang invented the fields of traffic engineering, queueing theory, and telephone networks analysis. File:Arthur Scherbius.jpg|link=Arthur Scherbius (nonfiction)|1929 May 13: Electrical engineer and inventor Arthur Scherbius dies. Scherbius invented and patented the famous mechanical cipher Enigma machine.

File:Rabbi Dr. Eliezer (Leon) Ehrenpreis.jpg|link=Leon Ehrenpreis (nonfiction)|1930 May 22: Mathematician, academic, and rabbi Eliezer 'Leon' Ehrenpreis born. Ehrenpreis will prove the Malgrange–Ehrenpreis theorem, the fundamental theorem about differential operators with constant coefficients. File:Kurt Gödel.jpg|link=Kurt Gödel (nonfiction)|1930 Sep. 7: Mathematician Kurt Gödel announced his famous Incompleteness Theorem -- that there are true but unprovable statements in arithmetic -- in a discussion on the foundations of mathematics organized by the Vienna Circle. File:Robin Farquharson.jpg|link=Robin Farquharson (nonfiction)|1930 Oct. 3: Mathematician Robin Farquharson born. Farquharson will write an influential analysis of voting systems in his doctoral thesis, later published as Theory of Voting. File:Hugh Everett III.jpg|link=Hugh Everett III (nonfiction)|1930 Nov. 11: Physicist Hugh Everett III born. Everett will propose the many-worlds interpretation (MWI) of quantum physics.

File:Charles Algernon Parsons.jpg|link=Charles Algernon Parsons (nonfiction)|1931 Feb. 11: Engineer and inventor Charles Algernon Parsons dies. Parsons invented the compound steam turbine, and worked on dynamo and turbine design, power generation, and optical equipment for searchlights and telescopes. File:Auguste Piccard.jpg|link=Auguste Piccard (nonfiction)|1931 May 27: Physicist and explorer Auguste Piccard and his assistant Paul Kipfer take off from Augsburg, Germany in their high-altitude balloon, reaching a record altitude of 15,781 m (51,775 ft). During the flight, Piccard gathers data on the upper atmosphere, including cosmic ray measurements. File:Herbert Wilf.jpg|link=Herbert Wilf (nonfiction)|1931 Jun. 13: Mathematician and academic Herbert Saul Wilf born. Wilf specialized in combinatorics and graph theory. File:Tullio Regge.jpg|link=Tullio Regge (nonfiction)|1931 Jul. 11: Physicist and academic Tullio Regge born. Regge and G. Ponzano will develop a quantum version of Regge calculus in three space-time dimensions now known as the Ponzano-Regge model; this will be the first of a whole series of state sum models for quantum gravity known as spin foam models. File:Thomas Edison.jpg|link=Thomas Edison (nonfiction)|1931 Oct. 18: Inventor, engineer, and businessman Thomas Edison dies. Edison developed the light bulb and the phonograph, among other inventions.

File:Shoshichi Kobayashi.jpg|link=Shoshichi Kobayashi (nonfiction)|1932 Jan. 4: Mathematician and academic Shoshichi Kobayashi Kobayashi. He will work on Riemannian and complex manifolds, transformation groups of geometric structures, and Lie algebras. File:Umberto Eco 1984.jpg|link=Umberto Eco (nonfiction)|1932 Jan. 5: Novelist, literary critic, and philosopher Umberto Eco born. Eco will cite James Joyce and Jorge Luis Borges as the two modern authors who will have influenced his work the most. File:George_Eastman.jpg|link=George Eastman (nonfiction)|1932 Mar. 14: George Eastman dies. Eastman founded the Eastman Kodak Company and popularized the use of roll film, helping to bring photography to the mainstream. File:Amelia Earhart standing under nose of her Lockheed Model 10-E Electral.jpg|link=Amelia Earhart (nonfiction)|1932 May 20: Amelia Earhart departs Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, in her Lockheed Vega on her solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic. After a flight lasting 14 hours, 56 minutes, Earhart lands in Northern Ireland, making her the second person (after Charles Lindbergh) to fly nonstop and alone across the Atlantic.File:Amelia Earhart standing under nose of her Lockheed Model 10-E Electral.jpg|link=Amelia Earhart (nonfiction)|1932 May 21: Amelia Earhart completes her solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic when bad weather forces her to land in Derry, Northern Ireland, after a flight lasting 14 hours, 56 minutes. Earhart is the second person (after Charles Lindbergh) to fly nonstop and alone across the Atlantic. File:Bonus marchers.gif|link=Bonus Army (nonfiction)|1932 Jul. 20: In Washington, D.C., police fire tear gas on World War I veterans, part of the Bonus Expeditionary Force, who attempt to march to the White House. File:Reginald Fessenden.jpg|link=Reginald Fessenden (nonfiction)|1932 Jul. 22: Inventor Reginald Fessenden dies. He performed pioneering experiments in radio, including the use of continuous waves and the early—and possibly the first—radio transmissions of voice and music. File:Bonus marchers.gif|link=Bonus Army (nonfiction)|1932 Jul. 25: In Washington, D.C., troops disperse the last of the "Bonus Army" of World War I veterans. File:John Charles Fields.jpg|link=John Charles Fields (nonfiction)|1932 Aug. 9: Mathematician John Charles Fields dies. He founded the Fields Medal for outstanding achievement in mathematics. File:Amelia Earhart standing under nose of her Lockheed Model 10-E Electral.jpg|link=Amelia Earhart (nonfiction)|1932 Aug. 24: Amelia Earhart completes her non-stop flight across the United States, traveling from Los Angeles to Newark, N.J., in just over 19 hours. She was the first woman to fly nonstop across the US. Earlier in the same year, on 20 May 1932, she accomplished the first solo flight by a woman across the Atlantic Ocean. File:Anne Penfold Street.jpg|link=Anne Penfold Street (nonfiction)|1932 Oct. 11: Mathematician Anne Penfold Street born. She will specialize in combinatorics, authoring several textbooks; her work on sum-free sets will become a standard reference for its subject matter.

File:Donald Sarason 2003.jpg|link=Donald Sarason (nonfiction)|1933 Jan. 26: Mathematician Donald Erik Sarason born. He will make fundamental advances in the areas of Hardy space theory and Vanishing mean oscillation (VMO). File:Paul Sally 2008.jpg|link=Paul Sally (nonfiction)|1933 Jan. 29: Mathematician and academic Paul Sally born. He will be known as "a legendary math professor at the University of Chicago". File:Justin Virgilius Capră.jpg|link=Justin Capră (nonfiction)|1933 Feb 22: Engineer and inventor Justin Capră born. He will design fuel-efficient cars, unconventional engines, aircraft, and jet backpacks. File:City_of_Liverpool_-_Armstrong_Whitworth_Argosy_II,_Registration_G-AACI.jpg|link=1933 Imperial Airways Diksmuide crash (nonfiction)|1933 Mar. 28: The Imperial Airways biplane City of Liverpool crashes after a fire break out. Sabotage will be suspected due the suspicious behaviors of a passenger who seemingly jumped from the aircraft before it crashed. File:Annie Easley.jpg|link=Annie Easley (nonfiction)|1933 Apr. 23: Computer scientist, mathematician, and engineer Annie Easley born. She will be a leading member of the team which develops software for the Centaur rocket stage, and one of the first African-Americans to work as a computer scientist at NASA. File:Leo Szilard.jpg|link=Leo Szilard (nonfiction)|1933 Sep. 12: Leó Szilárd, waiting for a red light on Southampton Row in Bloomsbury, conceives the idea of the nuclear chain reaction.

File:Fritz Haber.png|link=Fritz Haber (nonfiction)|1934 Jan. 29: Chemist Fritz Haber dies. Haber received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his invention of the Haber–Bosch process, a method used in industry to synthesize ammonia from nitrogen gas and hydrogen gas. Haber also did pioneering work in chemical warfare, weaponizing chlorine and other poisonous gases during World War I. File:Marie Curie c1920.jpg|link=Marie Curie (nonfiction)|1934 Jul. 4: Physicist and chemist Marie Curie dies. Curie conducted pioneering research on radioactivity, discovering the elements polonium and radium. File:Leo Szilard.jpg|link=Leo Szilard (nonfiction)|1934 Jul. 4: Leo Szilard patents the chain-reaction design that will later be used in the atomic bomb. File:Hans Hahn.jpg|link=Hans Hahn (nonfiction)|1934 Jul. 24: Mathematician and philosopher Hans Hahn dies. Hahn made contributions to functional analysis, topology, set theory, the calculus of variations, real analysis, and order theory. File:Philo T Farnsworth.jpg|link=Philo Farnsworth (nonfiction)|1934 Aug. 25: Inventor Philo Farnsworth demonstrates his electronic television system to the public at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. File:Willem de Sitter.jpg|link=Willem de Sitter (nonfiction)|1934 Nov. 20: Mathematician, physicist, and astronomer Willem de Sitter dies. Sitter co-authored a paper with Albert Einstein in 1932 in which they discuss the implications of cosmological data for the curvature of the universe.

File:Robert J. Van de Graaff.jpg|link=Robert J. Van de Graaff (nonfiction)|1935 Feb. 12: Physicist and engineer Robert Van de Graaff receives a patent for his Electrostatic Generator design (U.S. No. 1,991,236), able to generate direct-current voltages much higher than the 700,000-V which was the state of the art at the time using other methods. File:Emmy Noether.jpg|link=Emmy Noether (nonfiction)|1935 April 14: Mathematician Emmy Noether dies. Noether made landmark contributions to abstract algebra and theoretical physics. File:Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.jpg|link=Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (nonfiction)|1935 Sep. 19: Scientist and engineer Konstantin Tsiolkovsky dies. Tsiolkovsky was one of the founding fathers of modern rocketry and astronautics.

File:Hindenburg disaster.jpg|link=Hindenburg disaster (nonfiction)|1937 May 6: Hindenburg disaster: The German zeppelin Hindenburg catches fire and is destroyed within a minute while attempting to dock at Lakehurst, New Jersey. Thirty-six people are killed. File:Roger Zelazny 1988.jpg|link=Roger Zelazny (nonfiction)|1937 May 13: Writer Roger Zelazny born. Zelazny will win the Nebula award three times, and the Hugo award six times. File:Vladimir Arnold.jpg|link=Vladimir Arnold (nonfiction)|1937 Jun. 12: Mathematician and academic Vladimir Arnold born. Arnold will help develop the Kolmogorov–Arnold–Moser theorem regarding the stability of integrable systems. File:Amelia Earhart standing under nose of her Lockheed Model 10-E Electral.jpg|link=Amelia Earhart (nonfiction)|1937 Jul. 2: Pilot and author Amelia Earhart disappears. Earhart set many records, wrote best-selling books about her flying experiences, and was instrumental in the formation of The Ninety-Nines, an organization for female pilots. File:Guglielmo Marconi.jpg|link=Guglielmo Marconi (nonfiction)|1937 Jul. 20: Businessman and inventor Guglielmo Marconi dies. Marconi shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Ferdinand Braun "in recognition of their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy". File:Erik Laxmann.png|link=Erik Laxmann (nonfiction)|1937 Jul. 27: Natural scientist, explorer, and clergyman Erik Laxmann dies. Laxmann is remembered today for his taxonomic work on the fauna of Siberia and for his attempts to establish relations between Imperial Russia and Tokugawa Japan.

File:George Ellery Hale.jpg|link=George Ellery Hale (nonfiction)|1938 Feb. 21: Astronomer and journalist George Ellery Hale dies. He discovered magnetic fields in sunspots, and was a leader or key figure in the planning or construction of several world-leading telescopes. File:Kerry Wendell Thornley.jpg|link=Kerry Wendell Thornley (nonfiction)|1938 Apr. 17: Philosopher and author Kerry Wendell Thornley born. In 1962 he will write a manuscript, The Idle Warriors, about his aquaintence Lee Harvey Oswald. File:Edmund Husserl 1910s.jpg|link=Edmund Husserl (nonfiction)|1938 Apr. 27: Mathematician and philosopher Edmund Husserl dies. He argued that transcendental consciousness sets the limits of all possible knowledge. File:Gary Gygax Gen Con 2007.jpg|link=Gary Gygax (nonfiction)|1938 Jul. 27: Game designer Gary Gygax born. He will co-create the pioneering role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) with Dave Arneson. File:Maurice d'Ocagne.jpg|link=Philbert Maurice d’Ocagne (nonfiction)|1938 Sep. 23: Mathematician and engineer Philbert Maurice d’Ocagne dies. He founded the field of nomography, the graphic computation of algebraic equations, on charts which he called nomograms. File:Otto Hahn 1970.jpg|link=Otto Hahn (nonfiction)|1938 Dec. 17: Physicist Otto Hahn discovers the nuclear fission of the heavy element uranium, the scientific and technological basis of nuclear energy.

File:Marguerite_Perey.jpg|link=Marguerite Perey (nonfiction)|1939 Jan. 7: Physicist Marguerite Perey identifies francium, the last element first discovered in nature, rather than by synthesis. File:Carl Louis Ferdinand von Lindemann.jpg|link=Ferdinand von Lindemann (nonfiction)|1939 March 6: Mathematician and academic Ferdinand von Lindemann dies. He proved (1882) that π (pi) is a transcendental number. File:Seamus Heaney 1970.jpg|link=Seamus Heaney (nonfiction)|1939 Apr. 13: Poet, playwright, translator, and lecturer Seamus Heaney born. He will receive the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. File:Stanisław Leśniewski.jpg|link=Stanisław Leśniewski (nonfiction)|1939 May 13: Mathematician, philosopher, and logician Stanisław Leśniewski dies. He posited three nested formal systems, to which he will give the Greek-derived names of protothetic, ontology, and mereology. File:Atomic bombing of Japan.jpg|link=Manhattan Project (nonfiction)|1939 Aug. 2: Albert Einstein writes President F. D. Roosevelt that "some recent work by E. Fermi and L. Szilard ... leads me to expect that the element uranium may be turned into a new and important source of energy in the immediate future. This new phenomenon would also lead to the construction of bombs, and it is conceivable--though much less certain--that extremely powerful bombs of a new type may be constructed." Roosevelt quickly starts the Manhattan Project. File:Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov.jpg|link=Stanislav Petrov (nonfiction)|1939 Sep. 7: Soviet Air Defense office Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov born. Petrov will became known as "the man who single-handedly saved the world from nuclear war" for his role in the 1983 Soviet nuclear false alarm incident.

File:Carbon 14 formation and decay.svg|link=Carbon-14 (nonfiction)|1940 Feb. 27: Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben discover carbon-14. Its presence in organic materials is the basis of the radiocarbon dating method pioneered by Willard Libby and colleagues (1949) to date archaeological, geological and hydrogeological samples. File:Karl_Heinrich_Emil_Becker.jpg|link=Karl Heinrich Emil Becker (nonfiction)|1940 Apr. 8: Weapons engineer and army officer Karl Heinrich Emil Becker takes his own life. Becker promoted the integration of scientific research into military goals, notably advanced weapons design. File:Igor Sikorsky 1914.jpg|link=Igor Sikorsky (nonfiction)|1940 May 24: Igor Sikorsky performs the first successful single-rotor helicopter flight. File:J_J_Thomson.jpg|link=J. J. Thomson (nonfiction)|1940 Aug. 30: Physicist, academic, and Nobel laureate J. J. Thomson dies. Thomson's research in cathode rays led to the discovery of the electron. He also discovered the first evidence for isotopes of a stable element. File:Chiungtze C. Tsen 1932.jpg|link=Chiungtze C. Tsen (nonfiction)|1940 Oct. 1: Mathematician Chiungtze C. Tsen dies. Tsen proved Tsen's theorem, which states that a function field K of an algebraic curve over an algebraically closed field is quasi-algebraically closed (i.e., C1). File:Vito Volterra.jpg|link=Vito Volterra (nonfiction)|1940 Oct. 11: Mathematician and physicist Vito Volterra dies. Volterra was one of the founders of functional analysis, making contributions to mathematical biology and integral equations. File:George Metesky.jpg|link=George Metesky (nonfiction)|1940 Nov. 16: New York City "Mad Bomber" George P. Metesky places his first bomb, at a Manhattan office building used by Consolidated Edison.

File:Andrzej Trybulec.jpg|link=Andrzej Trybulec (nonfiction)|1941 Jan. 29: Mathematician and computer scientist Andrzej Trybulec born. Trybulec will develop the Mizar system: a formal language for writing mathematical definitions and proofs, a proof assistant which is able to mechanically check proofs written in this language, and a library of formalized mathematics which can be used in the proof of new theorems. File:Lazăr Edeleanu.png|link=Lazăr Edeleanu (nonfiction)|1941 Apr. 4: Chemist Lazăr Edeleanu dies. Edeleanu invented the modern method of refining crude oil, was the first chemist to synthesize amphetamine. File:Ray Tomlinson.jpg|link=Ray Tomlinson (nonfiction)|1941 Apr. 23: Computer programmer and engineer Ray Tomlinson born. Tomlinson will implement the first email system on the the ARPANET system, including the "@" separator which is still in use today. File:U-110.jpg|link=German submarine U-110 (1940) (nonfiction)|1941 May 9: The German submarine U-110 is captured by the Royal Navy. On board is the latest Enigma machine which Allied cryptographers later use to break coded German messages. File:Konrad Zuse (1992).jpg|link=Konrad Zuse (nonfiction)|1941 May 12: Engineer, inventor, and pioneering computer scientist Konrad Zuse presents the Z3, the world's first working programmable, fully automatic computer, in Berlin. File:Henri Lebesgue.jpg|link=Henri Lebesgue (nonfiction)|1941 Jul. 26: Mathematician and academic Henri Lebesgue dies. Lebesgue developed a theory of integration which generalizes the 17th century concept of integration (summing the area between an axis and the curve of a function defined for that axis). File:Abe Reles.jpg|link=Abe Reles (nonfiction)|1941 Nov. 12: New York mobster and hit man turned goverment informant Abe Reles falls to his death while under police custody. Despite knotted sheets and other evidence of an escape attempt, there is widespread belief that Reles was murdered to prevent him from testifying. File:Tullio Levi-civita.jpg|link=Tullio Levi-Civita (nonfiction)|1941 Dec. 29: Mathematician and academic Tullio Levi-Civita dies. Levi-Civita gained fame for his work on absolute differential calculus (tensor calculus) and its applications to the theory of relativity, and made significant contributions in other areas.

File:Atomic bombing of Japan.jpg|link=Manhattan Project (nonfiction)|1942 Aug. 13: Major General Eugene Reybold of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers authorizes the construction of facilities that would house the "Development of Substitute Materials" project, better known as the Manhattan Project. File:Plutonium pellet.jpg|link=Plutonium (nonfiction)|1942 Aug. 20: The first visible quantity of a plutonium compound, plutonium(IV) iodate, is isolated by nuclear chemists Burris Cunningham and Louis Werner. File:Sergey Chaplygin.jpg|link=Sergey Chaplygin (nonfiction)|1942 Oct. 8: Physicist, mathematician, and engineer Sergey Chaplygin dies. Chaplygin is known for mathematical formulas such as Chaplygin's equation, and for a hypothetical substance in cosmology called Chaplygin gas, named after him.

File:Nikolai Tesla 1896.jpg|link=Nikola Tesla (nonfiction)|1943 Jan. 7: Electrical engineer Nikola Tesla dies. Tesla made pioneering contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system. File:Jef Raskin holding Canon Cat model.png|link=Jef Raskin (nonfiction)|1943 Mar. 9: Computer scientist Jef Raskin born. He will conceive and start the Macintosh project for Apple in the late 1970s. File:Richard Smalley.jpg|link=Richard Smalley (nonfiction)|1943 Jun. 6: Chemist and academic Richard Smalley born. Along with colleagues Robert Curl and Harold Kroto, he will win the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of a new form of carbon, buckminsterfullerene, also known as buckyballs.

File:Charles_Vernon_Boys.jpg|link=C. V. Boys (nonfiction)|1944 Mar. 30: Physicist Charles Vernon Boys dies. Boys achieved recognition as a scientist for his invention of the fused quartz fibre torsion balance, which allowed him to measure extremely small forces, and is remembered for his careful and innovative experimental work. File:Margaret Eliza Maltby circa 1908.jpg|link=Margaret Eliza Maltby (nonfiction)|1944 May 3: Physicist Margaret Eliza Maltby dies. Maltby contributed to the measurement of high electrolytic resistances and conductivity of very dilute solutions. File:Colossus Mark 2.jpg|link=Colossus computer (nonfiction)|1944 Jun. 1: First successful run of the improved Colossus Mark 2 computer], just in time for the Normandy landings on D-Day. Colossus Mark 2 used shift registers to quintuple the processing speed. File:Port Chicago disaster.jpg|link=Port Chicago disaster (nonfiction)|1944 Jul. 17: The Port Chicago disaster: Munitions detonate while being loaded onto a cargo vessel bound for the Pacific Theater of Operations, killing 320 sailors and civilians and injuring 390 others at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine in Port Chicago, California, United States. File:William James Sidis 1914.jpg|link=William James Sidis (nonfiction)|1944 Jul. 17: Mathematician and anthropologist William James Sidis dies. Sidis became famous first for his precocity and later for his eccentricity and withdrawal from public life. File:Plutonium pellet.jpg|link=Plutonium (nonfiction)|1944 Nov. 6: Plutonium is first produced at the Hanford Atomic Facility and subsequently used in the Fat Man atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. File:George_David_Birkhoff.jpg|link=George David Birkhoff (nonfiction)|1944 Nov. 12: Mathematician George David Birkhoff dies. Birkhoff was one of the most important leaders in American mathematics in his generation.

File:Dmitry_Mirimanoff.jpg|link=Dmitry Mirimanoff (nonfiction)|1945 Jan. 5: Mathematician Dmitry Mirimanoff dies. Mirimanoff introduced (though not as explicitly as John von Neumann later) the cumulative hierarchy of sets and the notion of von Neumann ordinals; although he introduced a notion of regular (and well-founded set) he did not consider regularity as an axiom, but also explored what is now called non-well-founded set theory, and had an emergent idea of what is now called bisimulation. File:Wilhelm Wirtinger.jpg|link=Wilhelm Wirtinger (nonfiction)|1945 Jan. 15: Mathematician Wilhelm Wirtinger dies. Wirtinger contributed to complex analysis, geometry, algebra, number theory, Lie groups and knot theory. File:John Ambrose Fleming 1890.png|link=John Ambrose Fleming (nonfiction)|1945 Apr. 18: Electrical engineer and physicist John Ambrose Fleming dies. Flreming invented the thermionic valve, also known as the vacuum tube. File:Georg_Feigl.jpg|link=Georg Feigl (nonfiction)|1945 Apr. 20: Mathematician Georg Feigl dies. Feigl worked on the foundations of geometry and topology, studying fixed point theorems for n-dimensional manifolds. Feigl was one of the initial authors of the Mathematisches Wörterbuch ("Mathematical dictionary"). File:Officials of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency.jpg|link=Operation Paperclip (nonfiction)|1945 Jun. 20: The United States Secretary of State approves the transfer of Wernher von Braun and his team of Nazi rocket scientists to the U.S. under Operation Paperclip. File:USS Indianapolis (CA-35) underway at sea 27 September 1939 (80-G-425615).jpg|link=USS Indianapolis (CA-35) (nonfiction)|1945 Jul. 16: World War II: The heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis leaves San Francisco with parts for the atomic bomb "Little Boy" bound for Tinian Island. See Manhattan Project. File:Trinity detonation.jpg|link=Manhattan Project (nonfiction)|1945 Jul. 16: Trinity nuclear weapon test: the United States successfully detonates a plutonium-based test nuclear weapon near Alamogordo, New Mexico. See Manhattan Project. File:Harry Daghlian.gif|link=Harry Daghlian (nonfiction)|1945 Aug. 21: Physicist Harry Daghlian is fatally irradiated in a criticality accident during an experiment with the Demon core at Los Alamos National Laboratory. File:Stefan Banach.jpg|link=Stefan Banach (nonfiction)|1945 Aug. 31: Mathematician and academic Stefan Banach dies. Banach was one of the founders of modern functional analysis. File:Harry Daghlian.gif|link=Harry Daghlian (nonfiction)|1945 Sep. 15: Physicist Harry Daghlian dies. Daghlian was fatally irradiated in a criticality accident during an experiment with the Demon core at Los Alamos National Laboratory. File:Klaus Fuchs.jpg|link=Emil Julius Klaus Fuchs (nonfiction)|1945 Oct. 18: The USSR's nuclear program receives plans for the United States plutonium bomb from Klaus Fuchs at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. File:Alexey Krylov 1910s.jpg|link=Aleksey Krylov (nonfiction)|1945 Oct. 26: Mathematician and naval engineer Aleksey Krylov dies. Fame came to Krylov in the 1890s, when his pioneering theory of oscillating motions of the ship became internationally known.

File:ENIAC.jpg|link=ENIAC (nonfiction)|1946 Feb. 15: ENIAC, the first electronic general-purpose computer, is formally dedicated at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. File:Alan Turing (1930s).jpg|link=Alan Turing (nonfiction)|1946 Feb. 19: Mathematician and academic Alan Turing presents the "Proposal for the Development in the Mathematics Division of an Automatic Computing Engine (ACE) to a meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Physical Laboratory (NPL); the proposal was approved at a second meeting held a month later. File:Louis Slotin.jpg|link=Louis Slotin (nonfiction)|1946 May 21: Physicist Louis Slotin is fatally irradiated in a criticality incident during an experiment with the demon core at Los Alamos National Laboratory. File:WAC Corporal rocket at White Sands.jpg|link=WAC Corporal (nonfiction)|1946 May 22: The WAC Corporal becomes the first US rocket to reach edge of space. File:Louis Slotin.jpg|link=Louis Slotin (nonfiction)|1946 May 30: Physicist Louis Slotin dies. He was fatally irradiated in a criticality incident during an experiment with the demon core at Los Alamos National Laboratory. File:Howard Hughes 1940s.jpg|link=Howard Hughes (nonfiction)|1946 Jul. 7: Pilot Howard Hughes nearly dies when his XF-11 reconnaissance aircraft prototype crashes in a Beverly Hills neighborhood.

File:National Security Act long title.jpg|link=National Security Act (nonfiction)|1947 Sep. 18: The majority of the provisions of the National Security Act, which establishes The National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency, come into effect, the day after the Senate confirmed James Forrestal as the first Secretary of Defense. File:Dave_Arneson.png|link=Dave Arneson (nonfiction)|1947 Oct. 1: Game designer Dave Arneson born. He will co-create the pioneering role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons with Gary Gygax. File:Max Planck 1878.gif|link=Max Planck (nonfiction)|1947 Oct. 4: Physicist and academic Max Planck dies. He made many contributions to theoretical physics, and earned fame as the originator of quantum theory. File:Chairman Dies of House Committee investigating Un-American activities.jpg|link=House Un-American Activities Committee (nonfiction)|1947 Oct. 7: The House Un-American Activities Committee begins its investigation into Communist infiltration of the cinema of the United States, resulting in a blacklist that prevents some from working in the industry for years. File:Van meegeren trial.jpg|link=Han van Meegeren (nonfiction)|1947 Nov. 12: Painter and forger Han van Meegeren is convicted on falsification and fraud charges. File:Aleister Crowley.jpg|link=Aleister Crowley (nonfiction)|1947 Dec. 1: Magician and author Aleister Crowley dies. He gained widespread notoriety during his lifetime, as a recreational drug experimenter, bisexual, and an individualist social critic; the popular press denounced him as "the wickedest man in the world" and a Satanist. File:Van meegeren trial.jpg|link=Han van Meegeren (nonfiction)|1947 Dec. 30: Painter and forger Han van Meegeren dies. He was one of the most ingenious art forgers of the 20th century.

File:Chairman Dies of House Committee investigating Un-American activities.jpg|link=House Un-American Activities Committee (nonfiction)|1948 Aug. 25: The House Un-American Activities Committee holds first-ever televised congressional hearing: "Confrontation Day" between Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss. File:Sylvanus Morley.jpg|link=Sylvanus Morley (nonfiction)|1948 Sep. 2: Archaeologist and spy Sylvanus Morley dies. He conducted espionage in Mexico on behalf of the United States during World War I; the scope of these activities only came to light well after his death. File:Tolman and Einstein.jpg|link=Richard C. Tolman (nonfiction)|1948 Sep. 5: Physicist and chemist Richard C. Tolman dies. He made important contributions to theoretical cosmology in the years soon after Einstein's discovery of general relativity. File:Joseph Wedderburn.jpg|link=Joseph Wedderburn (nonfiction)|1948 Oct. 9: Mathematician Joseph Wedderburn dies. He made significant contributions to algebra, proving that a finite division algebra is a field, and proving part of the Artin–Wedderburn theorem on simple algebras.

File:Anita Borg.jpg|link=Anita Borg (nonfiction)|1949 Jan. 17: Computer scientist Anita Borg born. She will found the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology. File:EDSAC.jpg|link=Electronic delay storage automatic calculator (nonfiction)|1949 May 6: EDSAC, the first practical electronic digital stored-program computer, runs its first operation, calculating a table of squares and a list of prime numbers.

File:Nikolai Luzin stamp.jpg|link=Nikolai Luzin (nonfiction)|1950 Jan. 28: Mathematician, theorist, and academic Nikolai Luzin dies. He contributed to descriptive set theory and aspects of mathematical analysis with strong connections to point-set topology. File:Constantin Carathéodory.jpg|link=Constantin Carathéodory (nonfiction)|1950 Feb. 2: Mathematician and author Constantin Carathéodory dies. He pioneered the axiomatic formulation of thermodynamics along a purely geometrical approach. File:Klaus Fuchs.jpg|link=Emil Julius Klaus Fuchs (nonfiction)|1950 Mar. 7: Cold War: The Soviet Union issues a statement denying that Klaus Fuchs served as a Soviet spy. File:Kurt Gödel.jpg|link=Kurt Gödel (nonfiction)|1950 Aug. 31: Mathematician and philosopher Kurt Gödel addresses the International Congress of Mathematicians, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on his work in relativity theory.

File:William Shockley.jpg|link=William Shockley (nonfiction)|1951 Jul 4: Physicist and engineer William Shockley announces the invention of the junction transistor.

File:Hebern_electric_code_machine.jpg|link=Edward Hebern (nonfiction)|1952 Feb. 10: Inventor Edward Hugh Hebern dies. He was a pioneer of rotor encryption machines. File:Alan Turing (1930s).jpg|link=Alan Turing (nonfiction)|1952 Jun. 7: computer scientist, mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst and theoretical biologist Alan Turing dies. He was influential in the development of theoretical computer science, providing a formalization of the concepts of algorithm and computation with the Turing machine.

File:MKUltra proposal.jpg|link=Project MKUltra (nonfiction)|1953 Apr. 13: CIA director Allen Dulles authorizes the mind-control program Project MKUltra. File:Ernst Zermelo 1900s.jpg|link=Ernst Zermelo (nonfiction)|1953 May 21: Logician and mathematician Ernst Friedrich Ferdinand Zermelo dies. His work had major implications for the foundations of mathematics; he is known for his role in developing Zermelo–Fraenkel axiomatic set theory, and for his proof of the well-ordering theorem. File:Edwin Hubble.jpg|link=Edwin Hubble (nonfiction)|1953 Sep. 28: Astronomer and cosmologist Edwin Hubble dies. He discovered the fact that the Andromeda "nebula" is actually another island galaxy far outside of our own Milky Way. File:Robert Andrews Millikan.jpg|link=Robert Andrews Millikan (nonfiction)|1953 Dec. 19: Physicist Robert Andrews Millikan dies. He won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1923 for the measurement of the elementary electronic charge and for his work on the photoelectric effect.

File:Castle_Bravo_mushroom_cloud.jpg|link=Castle Bravo (nonfiction)|1954 Mar. 1: Castle Bravo, a 15-megaton hydrogen bomb, is detonated on Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, resulting in the worst radioactive contamination ever caused by the United States. File:McCarthy Cohn 1954.jpg|link=Army–McCarthy hearings (nonfiction)|1954 Apr. 22: Red Scare: Witnesses begin testifying and live television coverage of the Army–McCarthy hearings begins. File:Enrico Fermi 1943-49.jpg|link=Enrico Fermi (nonfiction)|1954 Nov. 28: Physicist Enrico Fermi dies. He has been called the "architect of the nuclear age" and the "architect of the atomic bomb". File:Sylacauga meteorite, Smithsonian Natural History Museum.jpg|link=Sylacauga (meteorite) (nonfiction)|1954 Nov. 30: In Sylacauga, Alabama, United States, the Hodges meteorite crashes through a roof and hits a woman taking an afternoon nap; this is the only documented case in the Western Hemisphere of a human being hit by a rock from space.

File:Tim_Cochran_Multnomah_Falls_Oregon_July_16_2012.jpg|link=Tim Cochran (nonfiction)|1955 Apr. 7: Mathematician and academic Tim Cochran born. He will contribute to topology, especially low-dimensional topology, the theory of knots and links and associated algebra. File:Albert Einstein 1921.jpg|link=Albert Einstein (nonfiction)|1955 Apr. 18: Physicist, engineer, and academic Albert Einstein dies. He developed the theory of relativity, one of the two pillars of modern physics (alongside quantum mechanics). File:Tim Berners-Lee (2009).jpg|link=Tim Berners-Lee (nonfiction)|1955 Jun. 8: Engineer and computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee born. He will invent the World Wide Web. File:Alexander Fleming.jpg|link=Alexander Fleming (nonfiction)|1955 Aug. 6: Biologist, pharmacologist, and botanist Alexander Fleming dies. Fleming discovered the enzyme lysozyme in 1923, and the world's first broadly effective antibiotic substance benzylpenicillin (Penicillin G) in 1928, for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1945 with Howard Florey and Ernst Boris Chain. File:ENIAC.jpg|link=ENIAC (nonfiction)|1955 Oct. 2: ENIAC retired. After disassembly, parts of the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, the first general purpose electronic computer, were shipped to the Smithsonian for display. File:Hermann Weyl.jpg|link=Hermann Weyl (nonfiction)|1955 Dec. 8: Mathematician, physicist, and philosopher Hermann Weyl dies. He was one of the most influential mathematicians of the twentieth century: his research has major significance for theoretical physics as well as purely mathematical disciplines including number theory.

File:John von Neumann.gif|link=John von Neumann (nonfiction)|1957 Feb. 8: Mathematician, physicist, and computer scientist John von Neumann dies. He was a key figure in the development of the digital computer, and developed mathematical models of both nuclear and thermonuclear weapons. File:Plumbbob Rainier dust.jpg|link=Plumbbob Rainier (nonfiction)|1957 Sep. 19: The US military detonates the Plumbbob Rainier nuclear weapon at the Nevada Test Site. It is the first American underground nuclear bomb test. File:Kyshtym disaster map.png|link=Kyshtym disaster (nonfiction)|1957 Sep. 29: Twenty MCi (740 petabecquerels) of radioactive material is released in an explosion at the Soviet Mayak nuclear plant at Chelyabinsk. See Kyshtym disaster (nonfiction).

File:Sputnik 1.jpg|link=Sputnik 1 (nonfiction)|1958 Jan. 4: Sputnik 1 falls to Earth from orbit. File:Rosalind Franklin.jpg|link=Rosalind Franklin (nonfiction)|1958 Apr. 16: Chemist and X-ray crystallographer Rosalind Franklin dies. Franklin made contributions to the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). File:EDSAC.jpg|link=Electronic delay storage automatic calculator (nonfiction)|1958 Jul. 11: EDSAC, the first practical electronic digital stored-program computer, is shut down, having been superseded by EDSAC 2. File:Herbert Osborn Yardley.jpg|link=Herbert Yardley (nonfiction)|1958 Aug. 7: Cryptologist and author Herbert Yardley dies. Yardley founded and led the Black Chamber, a secret American government cryptographic organization which broke Japanese diplomatic codes, furnishing American negotiators with significant information during the Washington Naval Conference of 1921-1922.

File:Owen Richardson.jpg|link=Owen Willans Richardson (nonfiction)|1959 Feb. 15: Physicist and academic Owen Willans Richardson dies. Richardson won the 1928 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on thermionic emission, which led to Richardson's law. File:Renato Caccioppoli.jpg|link=Renato Caccioppoli (nonfiction)|1959 May 8: Mathematician Renato Caccioppoli takes his own life. Caccioppoli contributed to mathematical analysis, including the theory of functions of several complex variables, functional analysis, and measure theory. File:Klaus Fuchs.jpg|link=Emil Julius Klaus Fuchs (nonfiction)|1959 Jun. 23 Convicted Manhattan Project spy [Emil Julius Klaus Fuchs (nonfiction)|Klaus Fuchs]] is released after only nine years in prison and allowed to emigrate to Dresden, East Germany where he resumes a scientific career. File:Stephen Wolfram.jpg|link=Stephen Wolfram (nonfiction)|1959 Aug. 29: Computer scientist, physicist, and businessman Stephen Wolfram born. Wolfram will do pioneering work in computation, creating Mathematica, Wolfram|Alpha, and the Wolfram Language. File:Aleksandr Khinchin.gif|link=Aleksandr Khinchin (nonfiction)|1959 Nov. 18: Mathematician and academic Aleksandr Khinchin dies. Khinchin was one of the founders of modern probability theory. File:Erhard Schmidt.jpg|link=Erhard Schmidt (nonfiction)|1959 Dec. 6: Mathematician Erhard Schmidt dies. Schmidt made important contributions to functional analysis and modern set theory.

File:Donald_J._Hughes.png|link=Donald J. Hughes (nonfiction)|1960 Apr. 12: Nuclear physicist Donald J. Hughes dies. Hughes was one of the signers of the Franck Report in June, 1945, recommending that the United States not use the atomic bomb as a weapon to prompt the surrender of Japan in World War II. File:Operation Sandblast track.jpg|link=Operation Sandblast (nonfiction)|1960 Apr. 25: The United States Navy submarine USS Triton completes Operation Sandblast, the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe. File:Henry Whitehead.jpg|link=J. H. C. Whitehead (nonfiction)|1960 May 8: Mathematician and academic J. H. C. Whitehead dies. During the Second World War, Whitehead worked with the codebreakers at Bletchley Park. File:Operation Sandblast track.jpg|link=Operation Sandblast (nonfiction)|1960 May 10: The nuclear submarine USS Triton completes Operation Sandblast, the first underwater circumnavigation of the earth. File:Oswald Veblen 1915.jpg|link=Oswald Veblen (nonfiction)|1960 Aug. 10: Mathematician and academic Oswald Veblen dies. Veblen's work found application in atomic physics and the theory of relativity. File:Philo T Farnsworth.jpg|link=Philo Farnsworth (nonfiction)|1930 Aug. 26: Philo Farnsworth is granted a ptent (U.S. 1,773,980) for his television system. This is Farnsworth's first patent, with a description of his image dissector tube, and his most important contribution to the development of television.

File:Erwin Schrödinger (1933).jpg|link=Erwin Schrödinger (nonfiction)|1961 Jan. 4: Physicist and academic Erwin Schrödinger dies. Schrödinger was awarded the 1933 Nobel Prize for Physics for the formulation of the Schrödinger equation. File:Eisenhower in the Oval Office February 1956.jpg|link=Military-industrial complex (nonfiction)|1961 Jan. 17: U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivers a televised farewell address to the nation three days before leaving office, in which he warns against the accumulation of power by the "military–industrial complex." File:Venera 1.jpg|link=Venera 1 (nonfiction)|1961 Feb. 12: Spacecraft Venera 1 launched. It will become the first man-made object to fly-by another planet by passing Venus (although it will lose contact with Earth and not send back any data). File:Yuri Gagarin Vostok1.jpg|link=Yuri Gagarin (nonfiction)|1961 Apr. 12: Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human to travel into outer space and perform the first manned orbital flight (Vostok 1). File:Venera 1.jpg|link=Venera 1 (nonfiction)|1961 May 19: Venera 1 becomes the first man-made object to fly-by another planet by passing Venus (the probe had lost contact with Earth a month earlier and did not send back any data). File:Percy Williams Bridgman.jpg|link=Percy Williams Bridgman (nonfiction)|1961 Aug. 20: Physicist and academic Percy Williams Bridgman Bridgman. He won the 1946 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the physics of high pressures.

File:John Riedl.jpg|link=John T. Riedl (nonfiction)|1962 Jan. 20: Computer scientist and academic John T. Riedl born. Reidl will be a founder of the field of recommender systems, social computing, and interactive intelligent user interface systems. File:Arthur Compton 1927.jpg|link=Arthur Compton (nonfiction)|1962 Mar. 15: American physicist and academic Arthur Compton dies. Compton won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1927 for his 1923 discovery of the Compton effect, which demonstrated the particle nature of electromagnetic radiation. File:Charles Wright Mills.jpg|link=C. Wright Mills (nonfiction)|1962 Mar. 20: Sociologist and author C. Wright Mills dies. Mills published widely in popular and intellectual journals, advocating public and political engagement over disinterested observation. File:Auguste Piccard.jpg|link=Auguste Piccard (nonfiction)|1962 Mar. 24: Physicist and explorer Auguste Piccard dies. Piccard made record-breaking hot air balloon flights, with which he studied Earth's upper atmosphere and cosmic rays, and invented of the first bathyscaphe, FNRS-2, with which he made a number of unmanned dives to explore the ocean. File:Nakaya Ukichiro in 1946.jpg|link=Ukichiro Nakaya (nonfiction)|1962 Apr. 11: Physicist and academic Ukichiro Nakaya dies. Nakaya created the first artificial snowflakes. File:Atlas_Agena_with_Mariner_1.jpg|link=Mariner 1 (nonfiction)|1962 Jul. 22: Mariner program: Mariner 1 spacecraft flies erratically several minutes after launch and has to be destroyed. File:Niels Bohr.jpg|link=Niels Bohr (nonfiction)|1962 Nov. 18: Physicist and philosopher Niels Bohr born. Bohr will make foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, for which he will receive the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. File:Emil Artin.jpg|link=Emil Artin (nonfiction)|1962 Dec. 20: Mathematician Emil Artin dies. Artin worked on algebraic number theory, contributing to class field theory and a new construction of L-functions. He also contributed to the pure theories of rings, groups and fields. File:Wilhelm Ackermann.jpg|link=Wilhelm Ackermann (nonfiction)|1962 Dec. 24: Mathematician Wilhelm Ackermann dies. Ackermann discovered the Ackermann function, an important example in the theory of computation.

File:Tan Lei.jpg|link=Tan Lei (nonfiction)|1963 Mar. 18: Mathematician Tan Lei born. Tan Lei will specialize in complex dynamics and functions of complex numbers, making contributions to the study of the Mandelbrot set and Julia set. File:Petticoat Junction title screen.jpg|link=Petticoat Junction (nonfiction)|1963 Sep. 24: First episode of Petticoat Junction broadcast. File:Klara Dan von Neumann.png|link=Klara Dan von Neumann (nonfiction)|1963 Nov. 10: Computer scientist Klara Dan von Neumann dies. Von Neumann was one of the world's first computer programmers and coders, solving mathematical problems using computer code. File:Aldous Huxley.png|link=Aldous Huxley (nonfiction)|1963 Nov. 22: Writer and philosopher Aldous Huxley dies. Huxley was acknowledged as one of the pre-eminent intellectuals of his time. File:John F. Kennedy moon mission speech.jpg|link=John F. Kennedy (nonfiction)|1963 Nov. 22: United States President John F. Kennedy, 35th President is assassinated.

File:Leo Szilard.jpg|link=Leo Szilard (nonfiction)|1964 May 30: Physicist and academic Leo Szilard dies. Szilard conceived the nuclear chain reaction in 1933, and patented the idea of a nuclear reactor with Enrico Fermi. File:Tatyana_Afanasyeva.jpg|link=Tatyana Afanasyeva (nonfiction)|1964 Apr. 14: Mathematician and theorist Tatyana Afanasyeva dies. Afansayeva contributed to statistical mechanics and statistical thermodynamics, and to mathematical education in the Netherlands.

File:Ranger spacecraft.jpg|link=Ranger 9 (nonfiction)|1965 Mar. 21: NASA launches Ranger 9, the last in a series of unmanned lunar space probes. File:Ranger spacecraft.jpg|link=Ranger 9 (nonfiction)|1965 Mar. 24: NASA spacecraft Ranger 9, equipped to convert its signals into a form suitable for showing on domestic television, brings images of the Moon into ordinary homes before crash landing. File:Edward_Victor_Appleton_(1947).jpg|link=Edward Victor Appleton (nonfiction)|1965 Apr. 21: Physicist and academic Edward Victor Appleton dies. Appleton made pioneering contributions to radiophysics, and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1947 for his seminal work proving the existence of the ionosphere during experiments carried out in 1924. File:Hedley_Ralph_Marston.jpg|link=Hedley Marston (nonfiction)|1965 Aug. 25: Biochemist Hedley Ralph Marston dies. Marston's research into fallout from the British nuclear tests at Maralinga proved that significant radiation hazards existed at many of the Maralinga sites long after the tests. File:Adolf Abraham Halevi Fraenkel.jpg|link=Abraham Fraenkel (nonfiction)|1965 Oct. 15: Mathematician Abraham Fraenkel dies. He contributed to axiomatic set theory, and published a biography of George Cantor. File:Long Shot film still.jpg|link=Long Shot (nuclear test) (nonfiction)|1965 Oct. 29: Long Shot nuclear weapons test in Amchitka, Alaska. It was the largest underground explosion ever detonated by the United States.

File:Palomares H-Bomb Incident.jpg|link=1966 Palomares B-52 crash (nonfiction)|1966 Jan. 17: Palomares incident: A B-52 bomber collides with a KC-135 Stratotanker over Spain, killing seven airmen, and dropping three 70-kiloton nuclear bombs near the town of Palomares and another one into the sea. File:Boris_Podolsky.jpg|link=Boris Podolsky (nonfiction)|1966 Nov. 28: Physicist Boris Yakovlevich Podolsky dies. He worked with Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen on entangled wave functions and the EPR paradox. File:Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer.jpg|link=L. E. J. Brouwer (nonfiction)|1966 Dec. 2: Mathematician and philosopher L. E. J. Brouwer dies. He made contributions to topology, set theory, measure theory and complex analysis; and he founded the mathematical philosophy of intuitionism.

File:Robert J. Van de Graaff.jpg|link=Robert J. Van de Graaff (nonfiction)|1967 Jan. 6: Physicist Robert J. Van de Graaff dies. He designed and constructed high-voltage Van de Graaff generators. File:J. Robert Oppenheimer.jpg|link=J. Robert Oppenheimer (nonfiction)|1967 Feb. 18: American physicist and academic J. Robert Oppenheimer dies. His achievements in physics included the Born–Oppenheimer approximation for molecular wavefunctions, work on the theory of electrons and positrons, the Oppenheimer–Phillips process in nuclear fusion, and the first prediction of quantum tunneling. Oppenheimer has been called the "father of the atomic bomb" for his role in the Manhattan Project. File:Soyuz 1 patch.png|link=Soyuz 1 (nonfiction)|1967 Apr. 22: Soviet space program: Soyuz 1 (Russian: Союз 1, Union 1) a manned spaceflight carrying cosmonaut Colonel Vladimir Komarov is launched into orbit. File:Soyuz 1 patch.png|link=Soyuz 1 (nonfiction)|1967 Apr. 23: Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov dies in Soyuz 1 when its parachute fails to open. He is the first human to die during a space mission. File:John Douglas Cockcroft 1961.jpg|link=John Cockcroft (nonfiction)|1967 Sep. 2: Physicist, academic, and Nobel Prize laureate John Cockcroft dies. He was instrumental in the development of nuclear power. File:Gasbuggy Nuclear device.jpg|link=Project Gasbuggy (nonfiction)|1967 Dec.

10: Project Gasbuggy underground nuclear test detonation in rural northern New Mexico. Its purpose was to determine if nuclear explosions could be useful in fracturing rock formations for natural gas extraction.

File:N1 19 September 1968.jpg|link=N1 rocket (nonfiction)|1969 Jul. 3: The biggest explosion in the history of rocketry occurs when the Soviet N1 rocket explodes and subsequently destroys its launchpad. File:Wacław Sierpiński.jpg|link=Wacław Sierpiński (nonfiction)|1969 Oct. 21: Mathematician and academic Wacław Sierpiński dies. He made important contributions to set theory (research on the axiom of choice and the continuum hypothesis), number theory, theory of functions, and topology. File:Vesto Slipher.gif|link=Vesto Slipher (nonfiction)|1969 Nov. 8: Astronomer Vesto Melvin Slipher dies. He performed the first measurements of radial velocities for galaxies, providing the empirical basis for the expansion of the universe.

File:Explorer_1.jpg|link=Explorer 1 (nonfiction)|1970 Mar. 31: The spacecraft Explorer 1 re-enters the Earth's atmosphere after 12 years in orbit. Explorer 1 was the first satellite launched by the United States. File:Earth Day Flag.png|link=Earth Day (nonfiction)|1970 Apr. 22: The first Earth Day is celebrated. File:Ralph Hartley.jpg|link=Ralph Hartley (nonfiction)|1970 May 1: Electronics researcher Ralph Hartley dies. Hartley invented the Hartley oscillator and the Hartley transform, and contributed to the foundations of information theory. File:Alice Hamilton.jpg|link=Alice Hamilton (nonfiction)|1970 Sep. 22: Physician, research scientist, and author Alice Hamilton dies. Hamilton was a leading expert in the field of occupational health and a pioneer in the field of industrial toxicology. File:Sakata Shoichi.jpg|link=Shoichi Sakata (nonfiction)|1970 Oct. 16: Physicist Shoichi Sakata dies. Sakata contributed theoretical work on the structure of the atom, proposing the Sakata model, an early precursor to the quark model. After World War II he campaigned for the peaceful uses of nuclear power.

File:Theodor Svedberg.jpg|link=Theodor Svedberg (nonfiction)|1971 Feb. 25: Chemist and academic Theodor Svedberg dies. Svedberg was awarded the 1926 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his pioneering use of analytical ultracentrifugation to distinguish pure proteins from one another. File:William C. Davidon.jpg|link=William C. Davidon (nonfiction)|1971 Mar. 8: Peace activists led by physicist and mathematician William Cooper Davidon break into the FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, making off with files. File:Philo T Farnsworth.jpg|link=Philo Farnsworth (nonfiction)|1971 Mar. 11: Inventor Philo Farnsworth dies. Farnsworth made many crucial contributions to the early development of all-electronic television. File:Mars 2 and 3.jpg|link=Mars 2 (nonfiction)|1971 May 19: The Soviet Union launches the Mars 2 spacecraft. The spacecraft will reach Mars, but the landing module will crash after failing to deploy its parachute. File:Mariner 9.jpg|link=Mariner 9 (nonfiction)|1971 May 30: NASA launches the Mariner 9 spacecraft. It will map 70% of the surface of Mars, and study temporal changes in the atmosphere and surface. File:Hanna Neumann.jpg|link=Hanna Neumann (nonfiction)|1971 Nov. 14: Mathematician and academic Hanna Neumann dies. Neumann contributed to group theory, co-authoring the important paper Wreath products and varieties of groups (with her husband Bernhard and eldest son Peter), and authoring the influential book Varieties of Groups. File:Mariner 9.jpg|link=Mariner 9 (nonfiction)|1971 Nov. 14: Mariner 9 enters orbit around Mars. It will map 70% of the surface, and study temporal changes in the atmosphere and surface. File:Mars 2 and 3.jpg|link=Mars 2 (nonfiction)|1971 Nov. 27: The The Mars 2 landing module crashes on Mars after its parachute fails to deploy.

File:Richard Courant.jpg|link=Richard Courant (nonfiction)|1972 Jan. 27: Mathematician Richard Courant dies. He co-wrote What is Mathematics?. File:Maria Goeppert-Mayer.jpg|link=Maria Goeppert-Mayer (nonfiction)|1972 Feb. 20: Physicist and academic Maria Goeppert-Mayer dies. She developed a mathematical model for the structure of nuclear shells, for which she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963, which she shared with J. Hans D. Jensen and Eugene Wigner. File:Hugo Steinhaus.jpg|link=Hugo Steinhaus (nonfiction)|1972 Feb. 25: Mathematician and academic Hugo Steinhaus dies. He "discovered" mathematician Stefan Banach, with whom he made notable contributions to functional analysis, including the Banach–Steinhaus theorem. File:Nixon April-29-1974.jpg|link=Watergate scandal (nonfiction)|1972 June 17: Watergate scandal: Five White House operatives are arrested for burgling the offices of the Democratic National Committee, in an attempt by some members of the Republican party to illegally wiretap the opposition. File:Igor Sikorsky 1914.jpg|link=Igor Sikorsky (nonfiction)|1972 Oct. 26: Aircraft designer Igor Sikorsky dies. He pioneered both helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. File:Mariner 9.jpg|link=Mariner 9 (nonfiction)|1972 Oct. 27: Mariner 9 spacecraft is switched off. During its mission, Mariner map 70% of the surface, and studied temporal changes in the atmosphere and surface.

File:Howard Aiken.jpg|link=Howard H. Aiken (nonfiction)|1973 Mar. 14: Physicist and computer scientist Howard H. Aiken dies. He designed the Harvard Mark I computer. File:Robin Farquharson.jpg|link=Robin Farquharson (nonfiction)|1973 Apr. 1: Mathematician Robin Farquharson dies. He wrote an influential analysis of voting systems in his doctoral thesis, later published as Theory of Voting.

File:Imre Lakatos.jpg|link=Imre Lakatos (nonfiction)|1974 Feb. 2: Mathematician, philosopher, and academic Imre Lakatos dies. He is known for his thesis of the fallibility of mathematics and its 'methodology of proofs and refutations' in its pre-axiomatic stages of development. File:Hans_Bernd_Gisevius.jpg|link=Hans Bernd Gisevius (nonfiction)|1974 Feb. 23: German diplomat and intelligence officer Hans Bernd Gisevius dies. Gisevius was a covert opponent of the Nazi regime, and a radical communist; he served as a liaison in Zürich between Allen Dulles, station chief for the American OSS, and the German Resistance forces in Germany. File:Mariner 10 diagram.jpg|link=Mariner 10 (nonfiction)|1974 Mar. 29: NASA's Mariner 10 becomes the first space probe to fly by Mercury. File:Marguerite Perey.jpg|link=Marguerite Perey (nonfiction)|1974 May 13: Physicist and chemist Marguerite Perey dies. Perey discovered the element francium while purifying samples of lanthanum. File:Clyde Cowan.jpg|link=Clyde Cowan (nonfiction)|1974 May 24: Physicist Clyde Cowan dies. Cowan, along with Frederick Reines, discovered the neutrino in the 1956; Reines received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1995 in both their names. File:Júlio César de Melo e Sousa.png|link=Júlio César de Mello e Souza (nonfiction)|1974 Jun. 18: Mathematician and academic Júlio César de Mello e Souza dies. He is well known in Brazil and abroad by his books on recreational mathematics, most of them published under the pen names of Malba Tahan and Breno de Alencar Bianco. File:Nixon April-29-1974.jpg|link=Watergate scandal (nonfiction)|1974 Jul. 24: Watergate scandal: The United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled that President Richard Nixon did not have the authority to withhold subpoenaed White House tapes and they order him to surrender the tapes to the Watergate special prosecutor. File:Nixon April-29-1974.jpg|link=Watergate scandal (nonfiction)|1974 Jul. 28: Watergate scandal: The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee votes 27 to 11 to recommend the first article of impeachment (for obstruction of justice) against President Richard Nixon. File:Nixon April-29-1974.jpg|link=Watergate scandal (nonfiction)|1974 Jul. 3: Watergate scandal: U.S. President Richard Nixon releases subpoenaed White House recordings after being ordered to do so by the Supreme Court of the United States. File:Philippe_Petit.jpg|link=Philippe Petit World Trade Center walk (nonfiction)|1974 Aug. 11: High-wire artist Philippe Petit performs a high wire act between the twin towers of the World Trade Center. File:Jan Tschichold (1963) by Erling Mandelmann.jpg|link=Jan Tschichold (nonfiction)|1974 Aug. 11: Graphic designer and typographer Jan Tschichold dies. He was a leading advocate of Modernist design, but later condemn Modernist design in general as being authoritarian and inherently fascistic. File:Charles Lindbergh.jpg|link=Charles Lindbergh (nonfiction)|1974 Aug. 26: Pilot and explorer Charles Lindbergh dies. At age 25 in 1927 he went from obscurity as a U.S. Air Mail pilot to instantaneous world fame by making his Orteig Prize–winning nonstop flight from Long Island, New York, to Paris. File:Winfried Otto Schumann.jpg|link=Winfried Otto Schumann (nonfiction)|1974 Sep. 22: Physicist Winfried Otto Schumann dies. He predicted the existence of Schumann resonances, a series of low-frequency resonances caused by lightning discharges in the atmosphere.

File:William_D._Coolidge.jpg|link=William D. Coolidge (nonfiction)|1975 Feb. 5: Physicist and engineer William D. Coolidge dies. He made major contributions to X-ray machines, and developed ductile tungsten for incandescent light bulbs. File:G I Taylor.jpg|link=G. I. Taylor (nonfiction)|1975 Jun. 27: Mathematician and physicist G. I. Taylor dies. He made major contributions to fluid dynamics and wave theory. File:Viking orbiter.jpg|link=Viking 2 (nonfiction)|1975 Sep. 9: Viking program: Viking 2 launched. Following a 333-day cruise to Mars, the Viking orbiter will begin returning global images of Mars. File:Richard Sharpe Shaver.jpg|link=Richard Sharpe Shaver (nonfiction)|1975 Nov. 7: Author and illustrator Richard Sharpe Shaver dies. He wrote stories in which he claims that he had personal experience of a sinister, ancient civilization that harbors fantastic technology in caverns under the earth.

File:Werner Heisenberg.jpg|link=Werner Heisenberg (nonfiction)|1976 Feb. 1: Physicist and academic Werner Heisenberg dies. He introduced the uncertainty principle -- in quantum mechanics, any of a variety of mathematical inequalities asserting a fundamental limit to the precision with which certain pairs of physical properties of a particle can be known. File:Harry Nyquist.jpg|link=Harry Nyquist (nonfiction)|1976 Apr. 4: Engineer and theorist Harry Nyquist dies. He did early theoretical work on determining the bandwidth requirements for transmitting information, laying the foundations for later advances by Claude Shannon, which led to the development of information theory. File:Howard Hughes 1940s.jpg|link=Howard Hughes (nonfiction)|1976 Apr. 5: Businessman, investor, aviator, film director, and philanthropist Howard Hughes dies. He was known during his lifetime as one of the most financially successful individuals in the world. File:Viking orbiter.jpg|link=Viking 2 (nonfiction)|1976 Aug. 7: Viking program: Viking 2 inserted into a 1500 x 33,000 km, 24.6 h orbit around Mars. File:Viking orbiter.jpg|link=Viking 2 (nonfiction)|1976 Sep. 3: Viking program: The Viking 2 spacecraft lands at Utopia Planitia on Mars. File:Pál Turán.jpg|link=Pál Turán (nonfiction)|1976 Sep. 26: Mathematician Pál Turán dies. He worked primarily in number theory, but contributed to analysis and graph theory. File:Viking orbiter.jpg|link=Viking 2 (nonfiction)|1976 Oct 5: Viking program: The Viking 2 orbiter primary mission ends at the beginning of solar conjunction. The extended mission will commence on 14 December 1976 after solar conjunction. File:Pekka Myrberg.jpg|link=Pekka Myrberg (nonfiction)|1976 Nov. 8: Mathematician Pekka Myrberg born. He did fundamental work on the iteration of rational functions (especially quadratic functions), developing the concept of period-doubling. Myrberg's research revived interest in the results of Gaston Julia and Pierre Fatou. File:Viking orbiter.jpg|link=Viking 2 (nonfiction)|1976 Dec. 14: Viking program: The Viking 2 orbiter begins its extended mission.

Optical_fibers.jpg|link=Optical fiber (nonfiction)|1977 Apr. 22: Optical fiber is first used to carry live telephone traffic. File:Gabriel Sudan 1932.jpg|link=Gabriel Sudan (nonfiction)|1977 Jun. 22: Mathematician Gabriel Sudan dies. Sudan discovered the Sudan function, an important example in the theory of computation, similar to the Ackermann function. File:MKUltra proposal.jpg|link=Project MKUltra (nonfiction)|1977 Jul. 20: Project MKUltra: The Central Intelligence Agency releases documents under the Freedom of Information Act revealing it had engaged in mind-control experiments. File:Wow signal.jpg|link=Wow! signal (nonfiction)|1977 Aug. 15: The Big Ear, a radio telescope operated by Ohio State University as part of the SETI project, receives a radio signal from deep space; the event is named the "Wow! signal" from the notation made by a volunteer on the project. File:Hugo Gernsback by Bachrach.jpg|link=Hugo Gernsback (nonfiction)|1967 Aug. 19: Inventor, writer, editor, and publisher Hugo Gernsback dies. Gernsback published the first science fiction magazine, and had a profound influence on the development of science fiction. File:Voyager spacecraft diagram.png|link=Voyager 1 (nonfiction)|1977 Sep. 5: Voyager 1 spacecraft launches. It will visit Jupiter, Saturn, and Saturn's large moon Titan. File:Voyager spacecraft diagram.png|link=Voyager 1 (nonfiction)|1977 Sep. 18: Voyager 1 takes first photograph of the Earth and the Moon together. File:Petrozavodsk phenomenon photo copy.jpg|link=Petrozavodsk phenomenon (nonfiction)|1977 Sep. 20: A series of celestial events occurs, with sightings reported over a vast territory, from Copenhagen and Helsinki in the west to Vladivostok in the east. It is commonly known as the The Petrozavodsk phenomenon after the city of Petrozavodsk in Russia (then in the Soviet Union), where a glowing object which showered the city with numerous rays was widely reported. The nature of the phenomenon is disputed.

File:Kurt Gödel.jpg|link=Kurt Gödel (nonfiction)|1978 Jan. 14: Mathematician, philosopher, and academic Kurt Gödel dies. Gödel's two incompleteness theorems had an immense impact upon scientific and philosophical thinking in the 20th century. File:Gaston_Julia.jpg|link=Gaston Julia (nonfiction)|1978 Mar. 19: Mathematician Gaston Julia dies. Julia devised the formula for the Julia set, which consists of values such that an arbitrarily small perturbation can cause drastic changes in the sequence of iterated function values. Julia's work later proved foundational to chaos theory.

Optical_fibers.jpg|link=Optical fiber (nonfiction)|1978 Apr. 22: Optical fiber is first used to carry live telephone traffic. File:Viking orbiter.jpg|link=Viking 2 (nonfiction)|1978 Jul. 25: Viking program: The Viking 2 orbiter is turned off after returning almost 16,000 images in about 700–706 orbits around Mars.

File:Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station.jpg|link=Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station (nonfiction)|1979 Mar. 28: A coolant leak in the Unit 2 nuclear reactor of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station leads to core overheating and a partial core meltdown. File:1979_Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak_-_map_of_patient_exposure.jpg|link=Sverdlovsk anthrax leak (nonfiction)|1979 Apr. 2: A Soviet bio-warfare laboratory at Sverdlovsk accidentally releases airborne anthrax spores, killing as many as a hundred people. Soviet authorities will cover up the event; all medical records of the victims will be removed in order to hide serious violations of the Biological Weapons Convention. File:Cecilia Helena Payne-Gaposchkin.jpg|link=Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (nonfiction)|1979 Dec. 7: Astronomer and astrophysicist Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin dies. Payne-Gaposchkin's doctoral thesis established that hydrogen is the overwhelming constituent of stars, and accordingly the most abundant element in the universe.

File:Viking orbiter.jpg|link=Viking 2 (nonfiction)|1980 Oct. 11: Viking program: After operating on the surface of Mars for 1316 days (1281 sols), the Viking 2 lander is turned off when its batteries fail. File:Lake Peigneur waterfall.png|link=Lake Peigneur (nonfiction)|1980 Nov. 20: Lake Peigneur drains into an underlying salt deposit. A misplaced Texaco oil probe had been drilled into the Diamond Crystal Salt Mine, causing water to flow down into the mine, eroding the edges of the hole. File:Voyager spacecraft diagram.png|link=Voyager 1 (nonfiction)|1980 Nov. 20: Voyager 1 flies by Saturn, completing its primary mission.

File:Max_Delbrück.jpg|link=Max Delbrück (nonfiction)|1981 Mar. 9: Biophysicist Max Delbrück dies. Delbrück helped launch the molecular biology research program in the late 1930s; his ideas stimulated physical scientists' interest into biology, especially as to basic research to physically explain genes, mysterious at the time. File:Walter_Heitler.jpg|link=Walter Heitler (nonfiction)|1981 Nov. 15: Physicist and chemist Walter Heinrich Heitler dies. Heitler made contributions to quantum electrodynamics and quantum field theory, bringing chemistry under quantum mechanics through his theory of valence bonding.

File:Hugh Everett III.jpg|link=Hugh Everett III (nonfiction)|1982 Jul. 19: Physicist Hugh Everett III dies. Everett proposed the many-worlds interpretation (MWI) of quantum physics. File:Florence Violet McKenzie in WESC uniform.jpg|link=Florence Violet McKenzie (nonfiction)|1982 May 23: Electrical engineer Florence Violet McKenzie dies. McKenzie was Australia's first female electrical engineer, founder of the Women's Emergency Signalling Corps (WESC), and lifelong promoter for technical education for women. File:Haskell Brooks Curry.jpg|link=Haskell Curry (nonfiction)|1982 Sep. 1: Mathematician and academic Haskell Curry dies. Curry is known for his work in combinatory logic.

File:Vera_Faddeeva.jpg|link=Vera Faddeeva (nonfiction)|1983 Apr. 15: Mathematician Vera Faddeeva dies. Faddeeva pioneered the field of linear algebra; her Computational Methods of Linear Algebra (1950) was widely acclaimed. File:Pioneer 10 construction.jpg|link=Pioneer 10 (nonfiction)|1983 Apr. 25: Pioneer 10 travels beyond Pluto's orbit. File:John Bodkin Adams 1940s.jpg|link=John Bodkin Adams (nonfiction)|1983 Jul. 4: Physician, confidence trickster, and suspected serial killer John Bodkin Adams dies. File:Alfred Tarski 1968.jpg|link=Alfred Tarski (nonfiction)|1983 Oct. 26: Mathematician and philosopher Alfred Tarski dies. Tarski was a prolific author, contributing to model theory, metamathematics, algebraic logic, abstract algebra, topology, geometry, measure theory, mathematical logic, set theory, and analytic philosophy.

File:Edwin_T._Layton.jpg|link=Edwin T. Layton (nonfiction)|1984 Apr. 12: United States Navy Admiral Edwin Thomas Layton dies. Layton served as a Naval intelligence officer before and during World War II.

File:Harald Cramér.jpg|link=Harald Cramér (nonfiction)|1985 Oct. 5: Mathematician and statistician Harald Cramér dies. Cramér helped found probability theory as a branch of mathematics, writing in 1926: "The probability concept should be introduced by a purely mathematical definition, from which its fundamental properties and the classical theorems are deduced by purely mathematical operations." File:Gordon Welchman.jpg|link=Gordon Welchman (nonfiction)|1985 Oct. 8: Mathematician, cryptographer, and author Gordon Welchman dies. During the Second World War, Welchman developed traffic analysis techniques for breaking German codes. File:Mir.jpg|link=Mir (nonfiction)|1986 Feb 20: The Soviet Union launches its Mir spacecraft. Remaining in orbit for 15 years, it is occupied for ten of those years.

File:Chernobyl disaster.jpg|link=Chernobyl disaster (nonfiction)|1986 Apr. 29: Chernobyl disaster: American and European spy satellites capture the ruins of the 4th Reactor at the Chernobyl Power Plant. File:Chernobyl disaster.jpg|link=Chernobyl disaster (nonfiction)|1986 May 2: Chernobyl disaster: The City of Chernobyl is evacuated six days after the disaster. File:Jorge Luis Borges.jpg|link=Jorge Luis Borges (nonfiction)|1986 Jun. 14: Short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator Jorge Luis Borges dies. Borges' best-known books, Ficciones (Fictions) and El Aleph (The Aleph), published in the 1940s, are compilations of short stories interconnected by common themes, including dreams, labyrinths, libraries, mirrors, fictional writers, philosophy, and religion.

File:Andy Warhol.jpg|link=Andy Warhol (nonfiction)|1987 Feb 22: Artist Andy Warhol dies. Warhol was a leading figure in the Pop art movement. File:Louis de Broglie.jpg|link=Louis de Broglie (nonfiction)|1987 Mar. 19: Physicist and academic Louis de Broglie dies. De Broglie postulated the wave nature of electrons and suggested that all matter has wave properties. He won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1929, after the wave-like behavior of matter was first experimentally demonstrated in 1927. File:Walter Houser Brattain.jpg|link=Walter Houser Brattain (nonfiction)|1987 Oct. 13: Physicist and academic Walter Houser Brattain dies. Brattain shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956 "for research on semiconductors and the discovery of the transistor effect." File:Andrey Kolmogorov.jpg|link=Andrey Kolmogorov (nonfiction)|1987 Oct. 20: Mathematician and academic Andrey Kolmogorov dies. Kolmogorov made pioneering contributions to the mathematics of probability theory, topology, intuitionistic logic, turbulence, classical mechanics, algorithmic information theory and computational complexity. File:Yakov Borisovich Zel'dovich postage stamp.jpg|link=Yakov Borisovich Zel'dovich (nonfiction)|1987 Dec. 2: Physicist, astronomer, and cosmologist Yakov Borisovich Zel'dovich dies. Zel'dovich played a crucial role in the development of the Soviet Union's nuclear bomb project, associated closely in nuclear weapons testing to study the effects of nuclear explosion from 1943 until 1963.

File:Werner Fenchel.jpg|link=Werner Fenchel (nonfiction)|1988 Jan. 24: Mathematician and academic Werner Fenchel dies. Fenchel established the basic results of convex analysis and nonlinear optimization theory which would, in time, serve as the foundation for nonlinear programming. File:Dorothy Lewis Bernstein.jpg|link=Dorothy Lewis Bernstein (nonfiction)|1988 Feb. 5: Mathematician Dorothy Lewis Bernstein dies. Bernstein was the first woman to be elected president of the Mathematics Association of America.

File:Marhall Harvey Stone Zurich 1932.jpg|link=Marshall Harvey Stone (nonfiction)|1989 Jan. 9: Mathematician Marshall Harvey Stone dies. Stone contributed to real analysis, functional analysis, topology, and the study of Boolean algebra structures. File:William Shockley.jpg|link=William Shockley (nonfiction)|1989 Aug. 12: Physicist and inventor William Shockley dies. Shockley shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for the invention of the point-contact transistor. File:Norman F. Ramsey Jr.jpg|link=Norman Foster Ramsey Jr. (nonfiction)|2011 Nov. 4: Physicist Norman Foster Ramsey Jr. dies. Ramsey was awarded the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physics for the invention of the separated oscillatory field method, which has important applications in the construction of atomic clocks.

File:Pavel Cherenkov.jpg|link=Pavel Cherenkov (nonfiction)|1990 Jan. 6: Physicist and academic Pavel Cherenkov dies. Cherenkov shared the 1958 Nobel Prize in physics in 1958 with Ilya Frank and Igor Tamm for the discovery of Cherenkov radiation, made in 1934. File:Gerald Bull 1964.jpg|link=Gerald Bull (nonfiction)|1990 Mar. 22: Engineer Gerald Bull assassinated. Bull attempted to build artillery guns which could launch satellites into orbit. File:Tim Berners-Lee (2009).jpg|link=Tim Berners-Lee (nonfiction)|1990 Nov. 12: Tim Berners-Lee publishes a formal proposal for the World Wide Web. File:Robert Hofstadter.jpg|link=Robert Hofstadter (nonfiction)|1990 Nov. 17: Physicist and academic Robert Hofstadter dies. Hofstadter shared the 1961 Nobel Prize in Physics (together with Rudolf Mössbauer) "for his pioneering studies of electron scattering in atomic nuclei and for his consequent discoveries concerning the structure of nucleons".

File:Theodore Geisel (1957).jpg|link=Dr. Seuss (nonfiction)|1991 Sep. 24: Children's author, political cartoonist, illustrator, poet, animator, screenwriter, and filmmaker Theodor Seuss "Ted" Geisel dies. Geisel wrote and illustrated more than 60 books under the pen name Dr. Seuss, including many of the most popular children's books of all time, selling over 600 million copies and being translated into more than 20 languages.

File:Nikolay_Bogolyubov.jpg|link=Nikolay Bogolyubov (nonfiction)|1992 Feb. 13: Mathematician and physicist Nikolay Bogolyubov dies. His method of teaching, based on creation of a warm atmosphere, politeness, and kindness, is renowned in Russia as the "Bogolyubov approach". File:John_D._Strong.jpg|link=John D. Strong (nonfiction)|1992 Mar. 28: Physicist and academic John D. Strong dies. Strong contributed to optical physics: he was the first to detect water vapor in the atmosphere of Venus, and he developed optical devices and materials including improved telescope mirrors and anti-reflective coatings. File:Isaac Asimov.jpg|link=Isaac Asimov (nonfiction)|1992 Apr. 6: Writer Isaac Asimov dies. Asimov was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers during his lifetime. File:Gerard_Kitchen_O'Neill.jpg|link=Gerard K. O'Neill (nonfiction)|1992 Apr. 27: Physicist and space activist Gerard Kitchen O'Neill dies. O'Neill invented particle storage rings and the mass drivers; in the 1970s he developed a plan to build human settlements in outer space. File:Mars Observer diagram.png|link=Mars Observer (nonfiction)|1992 Sep. 25: NASA launches the Mars Observer, a $511 million probe to Mars, in the first U.S. mission to the planet in 17 years. The probe will fail eleven months later.

File:Polykarp Kusch (1955).jpg|link=Polycarp Kusch (nonfiction)|1993 Mar. 20: Physicist and academic Polykarp Kusch dies. Kusch made a accurate determination that the magnetic moment of the electron is greater than its theoretical value, thus leading to reconsideration of—and innovations in—quantum electrodynamics; he was award the 1955 Nobel Prize in Physics for this accomplishment.

File:Charles Critchfield ID badge.png|link=Charles Critchfield (nonfiction)|1994 Feb. 12: Mathematical physicist Charles Critchfield dies. Critchfield worked on the Manhattan Project, designing and testing the "Urchin" neutron initiator which provided the burst of neutrons that kick-started the nuclear detonation of the Fat Man weapon. File:George Metesky.jpg|link=George Metesky (nonfiction)|1994 May 23: George P. Metesky dies. Metesky terrorized New York City for 16 years in the 1940s and 1950s with explosives that he planted in theaters, terminals, libraries, and offices. File:Solomon Kullback.jpg|link=Solomon Kullback (nonfiction)|1994 Aug. 5: Cryptanalyst and mathematician Solomon Kullback dies. Krullback began his career with the US Army's Signal Intelligence Service (SIS) in the 1930s; when the National Security Agency (NSA) was formed in 1952, Rowlett become chief of cryptanalysis, overseeing the research and development of computerized cryptanalysis. File:Karl Popper.jpg|link=Karl Popper (nonfiction)|1994 Sep. 17: Philosopher and academic Karl Popper dies. Popper is known for his rejection of the classical inductivist views on the scientific method, in favor of empirical falsification: A theory in the empirical sciences can never be proven, but it can be falsified, meaning that it can and should be scrutinized by decisive experiments. File:Paul Lorenzen.jpg|link=Paul Lorenzen (nonfiction)|1994 Oct. 3: Mathematician and philosopher Paul Lorenzen dies. Lorenzen was the founder of the Erlangen School (with Wilhelm Kamlah) and inventor of game semantics (with Kuno Lorenz).

File:Kh-4b corona.jpg|link=Corona (satellite) (nonfiction)|1995 Feb. 22: The Corona reconnaissance satellite program, in existence from 1959 to 1972, is declassified. File:John_Lighton_Synge.jpg|link=John Lighton Synge (nonfiction)|1995 Mar. 30: Mathematician, physicist, and academic John Lighton Synge dies. Synge was a prolific author and influential mentor, and is credited with the introduction of a new geometrical approach to the theory of relativity. File:Marion Tinsley.jpg|link=Marion Tinsley (nonfiction)|1995 Apr. 3: Mathematician and checkers player Marion Tinsley dies. Tinsley was "to checkers what Leonardo da Vinci was to science, what Michelangelo was to art and what Beethoven was to music." File:Roger Zelazny 1988.jpg|link=Roger Zelazny (nonfiction)|1995 Jun. 14: Writer Roger Zelazny dies. He won the Nebula award three times, and the Hugo award six times. File:John Atanasov.gif|link=John Vincent Atanasoff (nonfiction)|1995 Jun. 15: Physicist, inventor, and academic John Vincent Atanasoff dies. Atanasoff invented the Atanasoff–Berry computer, the first electronic digital computer. File:Alonzo Church.jpg|link=Alonzo Church (nonfiction)|1995 Aug. 11: Mathematician and logician Alonzo Church dies. Church made major contributions to mathematical logic and the foundations of theoretical computer science. File:Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar.png|link=Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (nonfiction)|1995 Aug. 21: Astrophysicist, astronomer, and mathematician Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar dies. Chandrasekhar shared the 1983 Nobel Prize for Physics "for his theoretical studies of the physical processes of importance to the structure and evolution of the stars". File:Olga Taussky-Todd.jpg|link=Olga Taussky-Todd (nonfiction)|1995 Oct. 7: Mathematician and academic Olga Taussky-Todd dies. Taussky-Todd contributed to matrix theory (in particular the co