ALBERT EINSTEIN

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) was born in Germany. When he was in high school, his father’s business failed and his family moved to Milan, Italy. Einstein had to stay behind because German law required compulsory military service after finishing high school. Einstein wanted to join his family in Italy. His high school mathematics teacher wrote a letter saying that Einstein could have a nervous breakdown without his family and also that there was nothing left to teach him. Eventually, Einstein was asked to leave the school because of his disruptive behavior. Popular folklore says he left because of poor grades in Latin and Greek, but
his grades in those subjects were fine.

Einstein was visiting the United States when Hitler came to power, so he accepted a position at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, becoming a U.S. citizen in 1940. Although a lifelong pacifist, he wrote a letter to President Roosevelt warning of ominous advances in German nuclear research. This led to the creation of the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb and tested it in New Mexico in 1945.