Portrait of C. P. Snow

Birthday profile

C. P. Snow

C. P. Snow, English chemist and author (died 1980)

Born
October 15, 1905
Died
July 1, 1980
Zodiac sign
Libra
Birth year
1905

About C. P. Snow

Charles Percy Snow, Baron Snow was an English novelist and physical chemist who also served in several important positions in the British Civil Service and briefly in the UK government. He is best known for his series of novels known collectively as Strangers and Brothers, and for "The Two Cultures", a 1959 lecture in which he laments the gulf between scientists and "literary intellectuals". In the 1957 New Year Honours he was knighted, having the honour conferred by Queen Elizabeth II on 12 February, and was created a life peer, as Baron Snow, of the City of Leicester, on 29 October 1964. The two became friends, worked together in the civil service and wrote versions of each other into their novels: Snow was the model for the college dean, Robert, in Cooper's Scenes from Provincial Life sequence.

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

The world when C. P. Snow was born

C. P. Snow was born in 1905. 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 1905

  • Best-selling book"The Marriage of William Ashe" – Mrs. Humphry Ward

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentChristy Mathewson pitches 3 shutouts in the World Series
  • Top headlineEinstein publishes theory of special relativity
  • Technology milestoneEinstein's "miracle year" — E=mc²
  • World population~1.65B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderTheodore Roosevelt
  • U.S. population83.2M

1905 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in C. P. Snow's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19052026
Population83.2M341 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.