Time Line
Albert Einstein
1879 - In Ulm, Germany, Albert Einstein is born to a Hermann and Pauline Einstein.
1884 - Beginning his quest to investigate the world, Albert receives his first compass from his father which he is fascinated with.
1889 - At age 10, Albert begins teaching himself about math and science. He was able to learn more on his own than in school.
1894 - At age 15, Albert stays in Munich to finish the school year as the Einsteins move from Munich to Pavia, Italy. After lasting only a term on his own, Albert then follows his family to Pavia.
1895 - Albert wanted to skip high school by going to a technical university but failed the arts portion of the entrance exam to the Swiss Polytechnic University. His family then sent him to Aarau, Switzerland to finish high school.
1896 - After graduating from high school when he was 17, Albert enrolls at the ETH (the Federal Polytechnic) in Zurich.
1898 - Mileva Maric, a Hungarian classmate at the ETH, captured Albert's eye and he falls in love with her.
1899 - By age 30, Albert had completed the most significant portion of his research for the basis of his theories.
1900 - Albert recieves his diploma from ETH.
1901 - Albert is granted Swiss citizenship. Unemployed, he searches for work. Mileva becomes pregnant shortly after she and Albert meet in northern Italy for a tryst. In the fall, Albert finds work as a tutor in Schaffhausen, Switzerlandr. Mileva, pregnant with their first child, moves three miles up the river to Stein Am Rhein. She then moves to Hungary to give birth to their baby at her parent's home. Albert moves to Bern.
1902 - Mileva gives birth to a baby girl in January, Lieserl, whom they eventually put up for adoption. She reportedly becomes ill and then all record of her disappears. Shortly after Albert takes a job at the Swiss Patent Office, Alberts father Hermann Einstein becomes ill and dies.
1903 - In January, Albert and Mileva were married.
1904 - Mileva gives birth to their first son, Hans Albert.
1905 - "Annus Mirabilis" -- Einstein's "Miracle Year": his Special Theory of Relativity is born. Einstein, submits his Paper on June 30th, "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" to the leading German physics journal. At age 26, Albert formulates the equation E=mc2, as he applies his theory to mass and energy. The basis for this Paper was written when he was only 16 years old. Albert also wrote two other papers this same year. The second was the theory of relativity and the third, concerned statistical mechanics.
1906 - As Albert continues to live in Bern, he becomes an Examiner at the Swiss Patent Office.
1907 - Einstein starts applying the laws of gravity to his Special Theory of Relativity.
1908 - Einstein became a lecture at the University of Bern.
1909 - Einstein quits his job at the patent office where he worked.
1910 - Albert and Mileva's second son Eduard is born.
1911 - Albert is given a full professorship at the German University when he and his family move to Prague. Albert discovers that he is the youngest to attend the invitation-only Solvay Conference in Brussels, the first world physics conference.
1912 - When the Einsteins move to Zurich, Albert is given a position as a professor of Theoretical Physics at the ETH. Albert is allowed to do all of the research that he wants while at the University.
1913 - Einstein begins works on his new Theory of Gravity.
1914 - At the Kaiser Wilhelm Institutein Berlin, Einstein becomes director and professor of theoretical physics at the University of Berlin. The family moves there in April, but Mileva and the sons return to Zurich after 3 months. Proceedings for their divorce begin. In August, World War I begins.
1915 - The General Theory of Relativity research is completed by Einstein.
1916 - Einstein published the theory of Relativity.
1917 - Einstein collapses and, near death, falls seriously ill. Luckily, Elsa, his cousin nurses him back to health. His first paper on cosmology is published.
1919 - Albert divorced his first wife Mileva and marries his cousan Elsa. On May 29, Einstein's General Theory of Relativity is proved to be correct by a solar eclipse.
1921 - The Nobel Prize in Physics for the photoelectric efect is awarded to Albert.
1927 - Albert attends his fifth Solvay Conference and with Bohr, begins developing the Foundation of Quantum Mechanics.
1928 - Einstein starts pursuing his idea of a unified field theory.
1932 - While at age 53, Einstein is at the height of his fame. However, he begins to feel the heat of Nazi Germany because he is identified as a Jew. This is part of the reasond that Albert wrote the letter to President Roosevelt in 1939. He was concerned that Nazi Germany would have a sole power of distruction.
1933 - Together, Albert and Elsa set sail for the United States. They find settlement in Princeton, New Jersey, where he assumes a post at the Institute for Advanced Study.
1936 - Due to a brief illness, Elsa dies.
1939 - World War II begins. Albert, warning of the possibility of Germany's building an atomic bomb and urges nuclear research, writes a famous letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It would not be for two more years before the United States started large-scale atimic reasearch.
1940 - Albert finally receives his title as an American citizen but he is allowed to retain his citizenship as a Swiss.
1941 - As a result of Alberts letter to President Roosevelt, the automic research project, "Manhatten", is started.
1945 - Albert becomes chairman of the Emergency Committe of Automic Scientists as a result of the United States using the atomic bomb against the Japanese.
1948 - Albert begins to suffer from health problems attributed to a heart aneurysm.
1949 - Mileva dies.
1953 - Albert announced his Unified Field Theory and renounced The Quantum Theory.
1955 - Due in part to failing health over the last couple of years, and his refusal to have surgery on his weakened heart artery, Albert Einstein dies from a heart attack on April 18. At his request, his brain is donated to science and his body is cremated and the ashes spread over a near by river.