Don't Get Scooped

darklamb:

Balanchine’s School of American Ballet, 1936. (via howtobearetronaut)

(via luckymag)

fuckyeahhistorycrushes:

Lise Mietner (November 17, 1878- October 27, 1968) was an austrian physicist who ran into trouble in the years prior to WW2. The Nazis had passed laws which expelled jews from university positions, and many of Germany’s prominent academics fled the country or were smuggled out by friends in Denmark, England, and the US. As a result, further legislation was passed to keep the remaining academics from emigrating. Mietner didn’t practice judaism, but she was of jewish descent and had to be smuggled out of the country when Austria joined the Nazis to avoid being exposed. She made her escape on an expired passport to Copenhagan, and from there to Sweden.

I’ve been reading about her in Richard Rhodes’ The Making of the Atomic Bomb and I’ve just got a ridiculous science-boner for her. She was an x-ray technician during WW1 and subsequently did some important work in identifying new elements and radioactivity. She was respected in her field, and she’s really something of a hero for me.

I believe all young people think about how they would like their lives to develop… when I did so I always arrived at the conclusion that life need not be easily provided only that it was not empty. And this wish I have been granted.

- Lise Mietner from Richard Rhodes’ The Making of the Atomic Bomb, ch. 9

A more extensive bio.

lizlime:

Jim Henson || September 24, 1936 - May 16, 1990