Portrait of Karl Barry Sharpless

Birthday profile

Karl Barry Sharpless

Karl Barry Sharpless, American chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate

Born
April 28, 1941
Age in 2026
85
Zodiac sign
Taurus
Birth year
1941

About Karl Barry Sharpless

Karl Barry Sharpless (born April 28, 1941) is an American stereochemist. He is a two-time Nobel laureate in chemistry, known for his work on stereoselective reactions and click chemistry. Sharpless was awarded half of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his work on chirally catalysed oxidation reactions", and one third of the 2022 prize, jointly with Carolyn R. Bertozzi and Morten P. Meldal, "for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry". Sharpless is the fifth person (in addition to two organizations) to have twice been awarded a Nobel prize, along with Marie Curie, John Bardeen, Linus Pauling and Frederick Sanger, and the third to have been awarded two prizes in the same discipline (after Bardeen and Sanger). While at Stanford, Sharpless discovered Sharpless asymmetric epoxidation, which was used to make (+)-disparlure. In 2001 he was awarded a half-share of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on chirally catalyzed oxidation reactions (Sharpless epoxidation, Sharpless asymmetric dihydroxylation, Sharpless oxyamination).

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

Karl Barry Sharpless timeline

  1. Sharpless was awarded half of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his work on chirally catalysed oxidation reactions", and one third of the 2022 prize, jointly with Carolyn R.
  2. In 2001 he was awarded a half-share of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on chirally catalyzed oxidation reactions (Sharpless epoxidation, Sharpless asymmetric dihydroxylation, Sharpless oxyamination).

The world when Karl Barry Sharpless was born

Karl Barry Sharpless was born in 1941. 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 1941

  • #1 song"Chattanooga Choo Choo" – Glenn Miller
  • Top movieCitizen Kane
  • Best-selling bookThe Keys of the Kingdom – A.J. Cronin

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentJoe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak
  • Top headlineJapan bombs Pearl Harbor — United States enters World War II
  • Technology milestoneFirst commercial television broadcasts (CBS, NBC)
  • Defining fadVictory gardens
  • Notable inventionAerosol spray can
  • World population2.30 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderFranklin D. Roosevelt
  • Sports championNew York Yankees (World Series)
  • U.S. population133.4M

1941 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Karl Barry Sharpless's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19412026
Gas$0.19$3.45/gal
Average home$5,500$435,000
Average income$3,400$67,500
Minimum wage$0.30$7.25/hr (federal)
Movie ticket$0.25$11.95
Postage stamp$0.03$0.73
Population133.4M341 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. 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.