Portrait of Alfred Hershey

Birthday profile

Alfred Hershey

Alfred Hershey, American bacteriologist and geneticist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1997)

Born
December 4, 1908
Died
May 22, 1997
Zodiac sign
Sagittarius
Birth year
1908

About Alfred Hershey

Alfred Day Hershey (December 4, 1908 – May 22, 1997) was an American Nobel Prize–winning bacteriologist and geneticist. Shortly after, Hershey accepted a faculty position at Washington University in St. At Washington University, Hershey worked closely with department head Jacques Bronfenbrenner to investigate bacteriophages, or phages—viruses that infect and replicate inside bacteria. Hershey's work on the factors impacting the virus' ability to infect its targets brought him to the attention of fellow phage researchers Max Delbrück and Salvador Luria.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when Alfred Hershey was born

Alfred Hershey was born in 1908. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1908

  • Best-selling book"Mr. Crewe's Career" – Winston Churchill

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentChicago Cubs win World Series
  • Top headlineFord Model T goes on sale — $850
  • Technology milestoneFord Model T — affordable automobile for the masses
  • Defining fadAutomobile craze
  • World population~1.68B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderTheodore Roosevelt
  • U.S. population87.4M

1908 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Alfred Hershey's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19082026
Population87.4M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.