Historical figures in Cambridge
The atlas holds 46 people and 99 moments here, from 1564 to 2018. The most recorded lives are John Maynard Keynes, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Charles Darwin. Among them Writers, Political Leaders and Scientists, across the Cold War and the Interwar Period.
Notable people
Lawrence Bragg
from 1909 to 1938
4 moments here
Australian-born British physicist and X-ray crystallographer. Bragg shared the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics with his father, William Henry Bragg, for…
Lee Kuan Yew
from 1946 to 1947
2 moments here
Singaporean barrister and statesman who co-founded the People’s Action Party and served as Singapore’s first prime minister from 1959 to 1990.…
Lev Landau
in 1930
1 moment here
Soviet theoretical physicist Lev Davidovich Landau was born in Baku, educated in Baku and Leningrad, and undertook formative research travel in…
Lord Byron
in 1805
1 moment here
George Gordon Noel Byron, 6th Baron Byron (1788–1824), was a British poet, peer, and political speaker.…
Ludwig Wittgenstein
from 1911 to 1951
7 moments here
Austro-British philosopher whose work in logic, language, mathematics, and mind shaped twentieth-century analytic philosophy.…
Manmohan Singh
in 1957
1 moment here
Indian economist, academic, civil servant, finance minister and prime minister of India from 2004 to 2014.…
Mario Vargas Llosa
in 1977
1 moment here
Peruvian novelist, journalist, essayist, and political figure. Vargas Llosa lived and worked across Peru, Bolivia, Spain, France, the United Kingdom,…
Maurice Wilkins
from 1935 to 1978
2 moments here
New Zealand-born British physicist and biophysicist whose career ran from solid-state physics and wartime atomic research to X-ray diffraction…
Muhammad Iqbal
from 1905 to 1906
2 moments here
Muhammad Iqbal (1877–1938) was a South Asian philosopher, poet, lawyer, and political figure.…
Niels Bohr
in 1911
1 moment here
Danish theoretical physicist whose work on atomic structure and quantum theory earned the 1922 Nobel Prize in Physics.…
Octavio Paz
in 1969
1 moment here
Mexican poet, essayist, editor, and diplomat whose international postings and teaching appointments connected Mexico City, the United States, Europe,…
Peter Paul Rubens
in 1629
1 moment here
Flemish Baroque painter, designer, humanist, collector, and diplomat. Rubens was born at Siegen, spent formative years in Cologne and Antwerp, worked…
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
in 1893
2 moments here
Russian Romantic composer whose career ranged from civil-service work and conservatory teaching in Saint Petersburg and Moscow to international…
Rajiv Gandhi
from 1962 to 1965
2 moments here
Rajiv Gandhi was an Indian aircraft pilot and politician who served as prime minister of India from 1984 to 1989.…
Sri Aurobindo
in 1890
1 moment here
Sri Aurobindo (Aurobindo Ghose) was an Indian nationalist, philosopher, poet, and yogi. His documented movements run from childhood in Bengal and…
Srinivasa Ramanujan
from 1914 to 1917
3 moments here
Indian mathematician whose documented life moved between Tamil Nadu, southern India, England, and back to India.…
Stephen Hawking
from 1966 to 2018
4 moments here
English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author whose work on singularities, black-hole thermodynamics, and Hawking radiation reshaped modern…
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
from 1936 to 1982
2 moments here
Indian-American astrophysicist whose work established the Chandrasekhar limit and ranged across stellar structure, stellar dynamics, radiative…
Sydney Brenner
from 1953 to 1986
3 moments here
South African-born molecular biologist whose career moved from Johannesburg and Oxford to Cambridge, California, Singapore and other scientific…
Tunku Abdul Rahman
in 1925
1 moment here
Malaysian statesman, UMNO leader, chief minister of the Federation of Malaya, and first prime minister of Malaya and Malaysia.…
Virginia Woolf
from 1900 to 1928
3 moments here
English novelist, essayist, critic and publisher; a central figure in modernist literature and the Bloomsbury Group.…
William Makepeace Thackeray
in 1829
1 moment here
English novelist, illustrator, journalist, lecturer, and editor, best known for Vanity Fair.…
Moments
- 1929 Ethics lecture Ludwig Wittgenstein
- 1930 Research visit to Cambridge Lev Landau
- 1930 Stays with Eddington in Cambridge Albert Einstein
- 1931 King's College undergraduate studies Alan Turing
- 1932 Begins doctoral study at Newnham College Dorothy Hodgkin
- 1935 Fellowship at King's College Alan Turing
- 1935 Physics studies at St John's Maurice Wilkins
- 1936 Stop in Cambridge with Lalitha Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
- 1937 Death in Cambridge Ernest Rutherford
- 1938 Cavendish Professor at Cambridge Lawrence Bragg
- 1939 Return to Cambridge Alan Turing
- 1944 Return to Trinity College Bertrand Russell
- 1944 Final return to Cambridge Ludwig Wittgenstein
- 1946 Cambridge undergraduate studies Abdus Salam
- 1946 Ising-model conference report Lars Onsager
- 1946 Return to Cambridge John Maynard Keynes
- 1946 Moral Sciences Club poker meeting Ludwig Wittgenstein
- 1946 Visit to Cambridge Lee Kuan Yew
- 1947 Cambridge sabbatical return Alan Turing
- 1947 Doctoral study at Cambridge Allan MacLeod Cormack
- 1947 Matriculation at Fitzwilliam Lee Kuan Yew
- 1950 Move to Storey's End Ludwig Wittgenstein
- 1951 Fulbright research at the Cavendish Laboratory Lars Onsager
- 1951 Death at Storey's End Ludwig Wittgenstein
- 1952 Birth in Cambridge Douglas Adams
- 1953 Return to St John's College Abdus Salam
- 1953 Visits DNA model in Cambridge Dorothy Hodgkin
- 1953 Visit to the DNA model Sydney Brenner
- 1954 Marriage during Cambridge doctoral study Alan MacDiarmid
- 1956 Joined the MRC molecular-biology unit Sydney Brenner
- 1957 Economics studies at Cambridge Manmohan Singh
- 1962 Ninth Pugwash Conference at Cambridge Hideki Yukawa
- 1962 Joins Trinity College Rajiv Gandhi
- 1965 Eddington Memorial Lecture John Eccles
- 1965 Leaves Trinity College Rajiv Gandhi
- 1966 PhD and fellowship at Gonville and Caius Stephen Hawking
- 1969 Simón Bolívar Professorship at Cambridge Octavio Paz
- 1971 Entered St John's College Douglas Adams
- 1974 Graduated from Cambridge Douglas Adams
- 1975 Return to Cambridge as reader Stephen Hawking
- 1977 Simón Bolívar Professor at Cambridge Mario Vargas Llosa
- 1978 Eddington Memorial Lectures Maurice Wilkins
- 1982 Eddington centenary lectures Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
- 1986 Director of the Molecular Genetics Unit Sydney Brenner
- 1988 Dirac Memorial Lecture Abdus Salam
- 1993 Research fellowship at Cambridge Kim Dae-jung
- 1994 Newton Institute lecture series Stephen Hawking
- 1999 Speech at University of Cambridge Jiang Zemin
- 2018 Death at home in Cambridge Stephen Hawking