Portrait of Henry Taube

Birthday profile

Henry Taube

Henry Taube, Canadian-American chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2005)

Born
November 30, 1915
Died
November 16, 2005
Zodiac sign
Sagittarius
Birth year
1915

About Henry Taube

Henry Taube (November 30, 1915 – November 16, 2005) was a Canadian-born American chemist who was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for "his work in the mechanisms of electron-transfer reactions, especially in metal complexes." He was the second Canadian-born chemist to win the Nobel Prize, and remains the only Saskatchewanian-born Nobel laureate. Taube completed his undergraduate and master's degrees at the University of Saskatchewan, and his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. After finishing graduate school, Taube worked at Cornell University, the University of Chicago and Stanford University. In addition to the Nobel Prize, Taube also received many other major scientific awards, including the Priestley Medal in 1985 and two Guggenheim Fellowships early in his career (1949 and 1955), as well as numerous honorary doctorates. His research focused on redox reactions, transition metals and the use of isotopically labeled compounds to follow reactions. He had over 600 publications including one book, and had mentored over 200 students during his career. Taube and his wife Mary had three children; his son Karl is an anthropologist at the University of California Riverside.

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

Career and life highlights

The world when Henry Taube was born

Henry Taube was born in 1915. 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 1915

  • Top movieThe Birth of a Nation
  • Best-selling book"The Turmoil" – Booth Tarkington

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentJess Willard defeats Jack Johnson for heavyweight title in Havana
  • Top headlineLusitania sunk by German submarine — 1,198 die
  • Technology milestoneFirst transcontinental telephone call (Bell to Watson)
  • World population~1.75B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderWoodrow Wilson
  • U.S. population98.4M

1915 versus 2026

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

Measure19152026
Gas$0.25$3.45/gal
Movie ticket$0.10$11.95
Population98.4M341 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.