📁 Tragedies
Sad endings, lost work, and tragic fates
Discover how Max Theiler tamed yellow fever by passing the virus through 100 generations of mice, c…
In 1944, a wartime blackout gave Walter Baade the dark skies needed to discover two star types, ins…
In 1847 Vienna, Dr. Semmelweis discovered unwashed hands were killing mothers. His simple chlorine …
In 1800, William Herschel used a prism and a thermometer in the dark to discover infrared radiation…
Discover how Calmette and Guérin spent 13 years forcing tuberculosis bacteria to adapt to a bile-po…
In 1887, a stray pane of glass accidentally revealed the photoelectric effect when Heinrich Hertz d…
In 1900 Havana, Walter Reed used a simple hut experiment to prove mosquitoes spread yellow fever, s…
How a Dutch doctor in 1897 Java cured paralysis by watching chickens eat rice scraps, overturning g…
How the Wright brothers used a wooden wind tunnel and a simple twist to master aerodynamics, turnin…
In 1860s London, surgeon Joseph Lister used sewage-treating carbolic acid to kill invisible germs, …
How a 1747 shipboard experiment by James Lind used simple comparison to cure scurvy and launch mode…
How Paul Ehrlich's relentless numbering system led to compound 606, the first targeted chemotherapy…