Born December 21, 1773. Montrose, Angus
[Died] June 10, 1858, London Scottish botanist. After studying medicine in Edinburgh, he became a military surgeon and served in Ireland. In 1798, he visited London and made the acquaintance of J. Banks, then president of the Royal Society. At his recommendation, he joined the Australian Expedition (1801-05) and collected about 4,000 species of plants. After returning home, he classified them and wrote Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae (10). He also showed that the shape of pollen provides a clue to classifying plants. In 1810, he became a librarian in Banks' private library, and in 1820, he was bequeathed Banks' plant collection. In 1827, he became the keeper of the newly established botanical department at the British Museum, and moved Banks' collection there. In the same year, while observing flower fertilization under a microscope, he noticed that small particles emitted from pollen grains floating on the water surface exhibited violent vibrational motion, and he further discovered that small pollen grains and even tiny particles of inorganic matter taken from plant specimens collected 100 years ago exhibited the same motion on the water surface. This phenomenon was subsequently studied in physics and is known today as Brownian motion. In 1831, while studying orchid fertilization, he noticed the presence of a specific structure inside the cell, which he named the nucleus. This discovery increased biologists' interest in the internal structure of cells and became one of the cornerstones of the rise of cytology. Brown
Brown, George Born: November 29, 1818, Edinburgh
[Died] May 9, 1880, Toronto Canadian politician. He emigrated to New York in 1837, and moved to Toronto in 1843. In 1844, he founded the weekly newspaper The Globe (later a daily newspaper). In the paper, he advocated liberal views, separation of church and state, attacked the influence of the Catholic Church, and proposed parliamentary reform based on a system of "representation by population" rather than a system of regional representation for the United Canadian Provincial Assembly of Eastern and Western Canada. Although he was viewed with hostility in Eastern Canada (present-day Quebec), he gained overwhelming support from farmers in Western Canada (present-day Ontario), especially the Clear Grit, and the Globe achieved a period of popularity and influence that marked a turning point in the history of Canadian journalism. He was elected to the United Canadian Provincial House of Commons in 1851 as a representative of the reformists in Western Canada, and in August 1858, he formed a government with A. Dorion for only two days. Although he supported the union of the colonies in North America in principle, he was unable to work with the conservative JA MacDonald. However, his inclusion in the "Grand Coalition Cabinet" in June 1964 together with MacDonald led to the realization of Confederation. Brown
Brown, Gordon Born February 20, 1951. Glasgow. British politician. Prime Minister (in office 2007-10). Full name James Gordon Brown. At the age of 16, he entered the University of Edinburgh on a scholarship and graduated in 1972. After working as a university lecturer and a reporter and editor for Scottish Television, he was first elected to the House of Commons in 1983. He formed a friendship with Tony Blair and led the reform of the Labour Party's political ideology, shifting the party's traditional line of realizing national socialism to a more realistic line of coexistence with the market economy. After the Labour Party won a landslide victory in the 1997 general election, he became Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Blair administration. He implemented reforms such as transferring the power to decide policy interest rates to the Bank of England, and achieved relatively stable growth of the British economy during his ten-year term. After Blair's resignation, he was elected leader of the Labour Party without a vote in 2007 and became Prime Minister. Following the global financial crisis in 2008, he demonstrated international leadership, but was unable to overcome his unpopularity at home, and the Labour Party suffered a crushing defeat in the general election in May 2010. Taking responsibility for losing its number one position for the first time in 13 years, he resigned as party leader and also as Prime Minister. Brown
Browne, Sir Thomas Born: October 19, 1605, London
Died October 19, 1682. Norwich, Norfolk. British physician. One of the greatest masters of prose of his time. He studied classics at Oxford University and medicine at the universities of Montpellier, Padua, and Leiden. After returning to England, he settled in Norwich and wrote Religio Medici (The Religion of Physicians). This book is a personal memoir that strangely combines mystical faith with a skeptical and empirical scientific spirit, but as it was circulated in manuscript form, it was published without permission (1642), so he published the definitive edition himself the following year. His Pseudoxia Epidemica (46) was also well received, but his Latin style was perfected in his Hydriotaphia, Urne-Buriall, and The Garden of Cyrus (both 58). The former is a meditation on the transience of death and human fame while discussing funeral rites in general in relation to an excavated Roman urn, and the latter traces the history of horticulture from the Garden of Eden. Brown
Brown, James Born: May 3, 1933 in Barnwell, South Carolina
[Died] December 25, 2006. Atlanta, Georgia. American singer and composer. One of the most influential figures in the 20th century pop music world, Brown was called "the hardest worker in show business" and "the Godfather of Soul." At the age of 15, he was arrested for theft and sent to a reformatory, where he formed a gospel group with his friends. After his release, he was discovered by rock singer Little Richard and began his musical career. His first single, "Please, Please, Please" (1956), became his breakthrough, eventually selling 3 million copies. He had about 100 singles that made it onto the hit charts, and nearly 50 albums. In the 1960s, he wrote a series of message songs aimed at improving the status of black people against the backdrop of the civil rights movement. His songs such as "Cold Sweat" (1967) sparked the dance boom. With the spread of hip-hop in the 1980s, Brown's songs were once again in the spotlight. In 1986, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Brown
Brown, Henry Kirke Born: February 24, 1814, Leiden, Massachusetts
[Died] July 10, 1886. Newburgh, New York. Henry Kirk Brown. American sculptor. Famous for the "Washington Equestrian Statue" in Union Square, New York. After studying in Boston for three years, he moved to Cincinnati, where he completed his first marble bust in 1837. After moving to Albany, New York in 1840, he studied in Italy for four years from 1842, learning neoclassical sculpture. After returning to the United States in 1846, he began work on the "Washington Equestrian Statue." The work was unveiled on Independence Day, July 4, 1856. He created many equestrian statues, including the "Abramell" (Lincoln Square) and the "Resurrected Angel" (Brooklyn). His nephew, Henry Kirk Bush-Brown (1857-1935), was also a sculptor, known for "The Buffalo Hunt" and busts of General Meade and General Reynolds at Gettysburg. Brown
Brown, Lancelot Born 1716. Kirkhar
Died: February 6, 1783, London, England. A leading figure in 18th-century naturalistic landscaping. Commonly known as Capability Brown. In 1740, he became the gardener for Lord Cobham of Stowe, and while working on naturalistic gardens under W. Kent, he developed his own style while following Kent's non-formal landscaping. His style is characterized by a mellowness, smooth, continuous change, and tranquility, created by scattering large elements such as meandering lakes and streams, groves of trees, and woodlands on a large scale. He also repositioned buildings as design elements on an equal footing with the landscaping, rather than treating them as central elements as had been the case in the past, and built many Palladian-style buildings with his disciple H. Holland, so that they would be placed in a "picturesque" manner and be viewed as objects in the landscape. Examples of this are Croome Court (1751-52) and Claremont House (1769-72). There are nearly 200 examples of gardens, including Doddington Park (64), Blenheim Palace Gardens (63), and Ashburnham (67). Brown
Braun, Wernher von Born: March 23, 1912, Wilsitz
[Died] June 16, 1977. Alexandria, Virginia. Born in Germany to a wealthy aristocratic family, he worked as an assistant to H. Oberth, one of the leading figures in aerospace engineering, while studying at the Technical University of Berlin in 1930. He entered the University of Berlin in 1932 and obtained his doctorate in rocket engine research in 1934. He continued his rocket research with support from the military, and at the end of World War II, he completed the world's first ballistic missile, the V-2. After the war, he became an American citizen (1955) and continued his rocket research at the U.S. Army research laboratory. It was thanks to the efforts of his group that the United States, which had been overtaken by the Soviet Union with the launch of Sputnik, was finally able to save face with the launch of the Explorer. He later held a key position at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), where he worked on the Apollo program and led the development of the Saturn rocket, which successfully sent humans to the moon. In 1972, he retired from NASA and became a senior executive in technology development at Fairchild. Brown
Brown, Peter [Born] Around 1665
[Died] 1735
English philosopher. Entered Trinity College (1682), Fellow (1692), and Headmaster (1699). Warden of Coke and Ross (1710). He first became famous for his criticism of J. Toland's Christianity not Mysterious (1696), but later criticized Locke's idealism and argued that we know spiritual things by analogy with material things, leading to a debate with Berkeley. His major works include Procedure, Extent and Limits of the Human Understanding (1728) and Things Divine and Supernatural Conceived by Analogy with Things Natural and Human (33). Brown
Brown, Herbert Charles Born: May 22, 1912, London, England
[Died] December 19, 2004 Lafayette, Indiana, United States American organic chemist. Moved to the United States at the age of two. Graduated from the University of Chicago in 1936 and became an assistant professor there. Obtained his doctorate in 1938. Became an assistant professor at Wayne University in 1939, and was a professor at Purdue University from 1947 to 1978. During his time as an assistant professor at Chicago, he studied boron and developed a simple and high-yield synthesis method for the boron compound diborane, and discovered sodium borohydride, a versatile reducing reagent. In 1955, he synthesized an organoboron compound by reacting diborane with an organic compound containing a carbon double bond, and developed a series of new synthetic reactions, contributing to the development of organic chemistry. For these achievements, he received the Nichols Medal of the American Chemical Society in 1959, and shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1979 with Georg Wittig. Brown
Brown, Michael S. Born April 13, 1941 in New York, New York. Molecular geneticist. Full name Michael Stuart Brown. Graduated from the University of Pennsylvania (1962) and received his MD from the same university (1966). He met Joseph L. Goldstein at Massachusetts General Hospital, and together they joined the National Institutes of Health (NIH) (1968). Invited to the University of Texas Medical Branch (1971), he became a professor there in 1977 and director of the Center for Genetic Disease Research. He studied the genetic differences between patients with familial hypercholesterolemia and the general population. He discovered that the cause was a defect in the gene that creates a receptor that takes up low-density lipoproteins (LDL) in the blood, which contain cholesterol, into cells, and elucidated the mechanism of cholesterol metabolism. Together with Goldstein, he won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1985. Brown
Brown, Francis Born December 26, 1849 in Hanover, New Hampshire
Died October 16, 1916. Pastor of the Union Church in New York, USA, educator, and Semitic linguist. His father was SG Brown (13-85), president of Hamilton College (1867-81), and his grandfather was F. Brown (1784-1820), president of Hamilton College at the time of the Dartmouth College Incident. After graduating from Dartmouth College and Union Theological Seminary, he studied in Berlin. In 1879, he became a lecturer in biblical linguistics at Union Theological Seminary, an associate professor in 1881, a professor of Hebrew in 1890, and president in 1908. He received honorary degrees from universities in the UK and the US for his achievements in linguistics and lexicology. His main work is Assyrilogy; its Use and Abuse in old Testament Study (85). Brown
Brown, John Born: May 9, 1800, Torrington, Connecticut
[Died] December 2, 1859. Charlestown, Virginia. American abolitionist. Realizing his destiny as an abolitionist, in 1855 he and his four sons entered Kansas, where a dispute arose over whether to make Kansas a slave state or a free state, and carried out guerilla activities. In May of the following year, he massacred five pro-slavery activists in Pottawatomie (→ Pottawatomie Massacre). After being driven out of Kansas, he enlisted the support of abolitionists in the East and planned to build a base for free blacks and fugitive slaves in the mountains of Virginia and Maryland. As part of this, he started the "Brown Uprising" in October 1859, attacked the federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, was arrested, and hanged in December of the same year. After his death, he was revered as a martyr and hero of the abolitionist movement by anti-slavery groups in the North. Brown
Brown, Jim Born February 17, 1936 in St. Simons, Georgia. American football player. Real name James Nathaniel Brown. Known as the greatest running back in NFL history. While attending Syracuse University, he played for the All-American team in football and lacrosse. He was later inducted into the Hall of Fame in both sports. From 1957 to 1965, he played for the Cleveland Browns and set records for rushing yards and total yards gained. These records remained until they were broken by Walter Payton in 1984. He also won the leading rusher title eight times in nine seasons. He also holds the record for average yards gained per carry (5.22 yards). After retiring at the age of 30, he became a movie actor. Brown
Brown, Charles Brockden Born January 17, 1771 in Philadelphia
[Died] February 22, 1810. Philadelphia. American author. Known as the "father of the American novel." He started out as a lawyer, but his natural romantic temperament led him to turn to writing. He published translations and political treatises while working as a magazine editor. Influenced by W. Godwin, he published a succession of horror novels that skillfully depicted the abnormal psychology of humans, modelled on English Gothic novels, becoming the forerunner of Poe and Hawthorne. His main works include Wieland (1798), Ormond (1799), Edgar Huntly (1799), and Arthur Mervyn (1799-1800). Brown
Brown, George Alfred Born: September 2, 1914, London
[Died] June 2, 1985. British politician from Cornwall. Born the son of a truck driver, he participated in the trade union movement and later became a powerful figure in the Labour Party. He was a member of the House of Commons in 1945, joined the cabinet as Minister for Public Works in 1951, and served as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party from 1960 to 1970. He was Economy Minister in the Labour cabinet under H. Wilson in 1964, and Foreign Secretary in August 1966. He was an enthusiastic promoter of the European integration movement, and while serving as Foreign Secretary he visited the six member states of the European Community, and in 1967 submitted an application for Britain's second EC membership. He resigned in March 1968 after clashing with Prime Minister Wilson. He lost the general election in June 1970, and was appointed to the House of Lords. He changed his surname to George-Brown in the same year. Brown
Brown, Ernest William Born: November 29, 1866. Hull
[Died] July 22, 1938. New Haven, Connecticut. American astronomer. Graduated from Cambridge University. Moved to the United States in 1891, and later became a professor at Haverford College (1893) and Yale University (1907). He studied the theory of lunar motion as a three-body problem, and in 1919 completed a lunar position table that was five times more detailed than had been previously published. He also studied the interactions of the Trojan planets, and the gravitational effect of Pluto on Uranus and Neptune. He was a member of the Royal Society (1897) and awarded the Society's Royal Medal in 1898. He was also a member of the National Academy of Sciences (23), and was awarded the Academy's Watson Medal in 1937. Brown
Brown, John Born: 1735. Buncle, Scotland
[Died] October 17, 1788. London. British physician. He argued that all illnesses are caused by an excess or deficiency of the body's reaction (excitability) to external stimuli, and that there are only two ways to treat them: sedation and excitement. He served as president of the Royal College of Physicians twice, but his theory was widely opposed, and he himself became a victim of his own theory by taking too much of two drugs, opium and alcohol, while in debt and poverty, which hastened his death. However, Brown's theory, which viewed vital phenomena as reactions to stimuli and located them in muscles and nerves, had a great influence on the medical world thereafter. Brown
Braun, Karl Ferdinand Born: June 6, 1850 in Fulda, Hesse
Died April 20, 1918. New York. German physicist. Studied at the Universities of Marburg and Berlin, receiving his doctorate in 1872. After graduating from the Universities of Würzburg and Marburg, he became a professor at the University of Tübingen (1885) and the University of Strasbourg (1895). After studying thermodynamics, he discovered a crystal with rectifying properties in 1874, and invented the cathode ray tube in 1897. In 1909, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics along with G. Marconi. He visited America during World War I, and died in captivity after America entered the war. Brown
Braun, Felix Born: November 4, 1885 in Vienna
[Died] November 29, 1973, Klosterneuburg. Austrian poet and novelist. Influenced by Hofmannsthal, he began as an impressionist poet. In addition to collections of poems such as Das neue Leben (1913), he also wrote the novel Agnes Altkirchner (27), which symbolically depicts Austria in the 1910s, and a verse drama. He went into exile in London in 1939. He is considered the leading figure in Austrian poetry after Werfel. Brown
Brown, Samuel Robbins Born: June 16, 1810.
[Died] June 20, 1880.
An American Dutch Reformed missionary. After evangelizing in Macau (1839-47), he came to Japan and opened an English school in Yokohama where he taught English. He published Colloquial Japanese (63). He returned to Japan briefly and came back in 1869 to teach English at the Shubunkan in Yokohama. He also taught theology to Honda Yoichi, Uemura Masahisa, Ibuka Kajinosuke, and Oshikawa Masayoshi, who all became leaders of the Japanese church. He also contributed to the translation of the New Testament into Japanese. Brown
Brown, Alexander Born: 17 November 1764, Balimina
[Died] April 3, 1834. Baltimore. Irish-born American businessman. He emigrated to America in 1800 and became an importer of Irish linen. He established Alexander Brown & Sons, America's oldest trading and banking company, and his four sons also became partners, opening branches all over the world. He also participated in the establishment of the railroad company, the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road. He was one of America's first millionaires. Brown
Brown, John Mason Born July 3, 1900 in Louisville, Kentucky
[Died] March 16, 1969. New York. American theater critic. Graduated from Harvard University. Wrote theater reviews for the New York Evening Post (1929-41) and Saturday Literary Review (1944-55), among others. His major works include Two on the Aisle (38), Broadway in Review (40), and Seeing Things (46). Brown
Brown, Olympia Born January 5, 1835 in Prairie Ronde, Michigan
Died October 23, 1926, Baltimore, Maryland. American woman rights advocate. Ordained as a minister of the Universalist Church in 1863, she became the first female minister in the United States. In 1866, she met Susan B. Anthony, and fought for women's suffrage. She kept her maiden name even after her marriage in 1873. She served as president of the Wisconsin Woman Suffrage Association for 30 years from 1887. Brown
Brown, Nathan Born: June 22, 1807.
[Died] January 1, 1886. Yokohama. American Baptist missionary. While carrying out missionary work in Burma and Assam, he translated the New Testament into Assamese (1848). After returning to the United States, he devoted himself to the abolitionist movement. Later, he came to Japan with J. Goble (73) and founded the Yokohama Baptist Church. He became a member of the New Testament translation committee, but had differences of opinion with other missionaries over the translation, and completed the first Japanese translation of the New Testament on his own (79). Brown
Brown, Hubert Gerald (Rap) Born October 4, 1943, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. A leader in the black movement in the United States. While attending Southern University, he joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and was active in the civil rights movement. In 1967, he succeeded Stokely Carmichael as chairman of SNCC, and led the black struggle in an even more radical direction, openly advocating the need for violence. After being arrested several times, he went into exile. His book was "Die, Nigger, Die!" (1969). Brown
Brown, Ford Madox [Born] 1821.4.16. Curry
[Died] October 6, 1893, London. British painter. After studying in Belgium and France, he settled in London and became involved with the Pre-Raphaelite group. He painted historical and religious paintings with bright colors and realistic techniques, and also illustrated books. He also produced stained glass. His major works include the masterpiece "Labour" (1852-63, Manchester Art Gallery), which took him more than ten years to complete, and the 12 murals for Manchester City Hall. Brown
Brown, Thomas Born January 9, 1778, Karmabreck
[Died] April 2, 1820. Brompton. British philosopher. Belonged to the Scottish School (→ Common Sense Philosophy). Became a professor at the University of Edinburgh in 1810. Influenced by D. Hume, T. Reid, and E. Condillac, he contributed to the establishment of associative psychology. His main work was Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind (4 volumes, 1820). Brown
Brown, Jacob Jennings Born: May 9, 1775 in Bucks, Pennsylvania
[Died]24 February 1828.
American soldier. Secretary of Military Affairs to A. Hamilton from 1798 to 1800. In 1791 he was made a brigadier general in the New York State militia, and in 1892 he served on the New York frontier during the War of 1812. In 1814 he became a brigadier general in the U.S. Army, and attempted an invasion of Canada, winning victories at Chippewa and Niagara, but failing without naval support. Brown
Brown, Alexander Born September 5, 1843 in Glenmore, Virginia
[Died] August 25, 1906.
American historian. He lost his hearing during the Civil War and studied the history of his native Virginia colony. He rejected the traditional British-centered interpretation and emphasized the influence that the liberals within the London Company had on the development of colonial institutions. His main work is The Genesis of the United States (1890). Brown
Browne, Elliott Martin Born January 29, 1900, Geels, Wiltshire
[Died] April 27, 1980. London. British director. He directed many of TS Eliot's works, including the premiere of Murder in the Cathedral in Canterbury in 1935. In 1951, he also staged York's Mysteries, which had not been performed on stage since 1572, and was a central figure in the revival of modern verse drama and religious drama. Brown
Brown, Franklin H. [Born] 1882
[Died] 1973
A physical education director at the YMCA in the United States who introduced volleyball and basketball to Japan and worked to popularize them. He visited Japan in 1913 at the invitation of the Tokyo YMCA and introduced volleyball and basketball to those involved. He is known as a mentor in the sports world in Japan and the Far East. Brown
Brown, Henry Billings Born: March 2, 1836, Southley
[Died] September 4, 1913, Bronxville. American lawyer. Renowned as an authority on maritime law. Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1890 to 1906. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica Concise Encyclopedia About Encyclopaedia Britannica Concise Encyclopedia Information |
