Albert Einstein 1879 - 1955

Today, March 28, 2007 is the 128th anniversary of the birth of Albert Einstein one of the greatest astrophysicists of all time and a dominent figure of the 20th Century.

Born in Germany on March 14, 1879 to a Jewish family, Einstein grew up in Gremany but went to college in Switzerland where he remained after college. He later returned to Germany and taught college in Berlin. The rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party was not good for Einstein as he was both Jewish and openly critical of Nazi policies. Prudently, accepting a visiting teaching postion at Princeton University in the United States in 1932 removed him from the Nazi threat but he was considered a threat to the U.S. by J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. Fortunately, the FBI left him alone and he was available as a key figure in the Manhattan Project which built the atomic bomb that helped end World War II in the Pacific.

Einstein died on April 18, 1955, but his contributions to scientific knowledge live on.

Read the entry below about how Einstein's birthday, March 14th, coincides the the math holiday, Pi Day.