Portrait of J. Michael Bishop

Birthday profile

J. Michael Bishop

J. Michael Bishop, American microbiologist and immunologist, Nobel Prize laureate

Born
February 22, 1936
Age in 2026
90
Zodiac sign
Pisces
Birth year
1936

About J. Michael Bishop

John Michael Bishop is an American immunologist and microbiologist who shared the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Harold E. Varmus. He serves as an active faculty member at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where he also served as chancellor from 1998 to 2009. Bishop is best known for his Nobel-winning work on retroviral oncogenes. Varmus in the 1980s, he discovered the first human oncogene, c-Src.

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

The world when J. Michael Bishop was born

J. Michael Bishop was born in 1936. 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 1936

  • #1 song"The Way You Look Tonight" – Fred Astaire
  • Top movieModern Times (Charlie Chaplin)
  • Top TV showBBC Television Service launches
  • Best-selling bookGone with the Wind – Margaret Mitchell

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentJesse Owens wins 4 gold medals at Berlin Olympics
  • Top headlineJesse Owens dominates the Berlin Olympics
  • Technology milestoneBBC launches the world's first regular television service
  • Defining fadSwing dancing
  • Notable inventionSun glasses (mass-produced)
  • World population2.26 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderFranklin D. Roosevelt
  • Sports championNew York Yankees (World Series)
  • U.S. population128.1M

1936 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in J. Michael Bishop's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19362026
Gas$0.19$3.45/gal
Average home$5,100$435,000
Average income$2,900$67,500
Minimum wage$0.25$7.25/hr (federal)
Movie ticket$0.25$11.95
Postage stamp$0.03$0.73
Population128.1M341 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. 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.