Showing results for "The White" in Science & Technology Leaders

Here's a biographical profile of the White brothers who built steamers and trucks and developed a reputation for unique marketing concepts. "The Fight of the Century" took place in 1910, pitting Jack Johnson, the first African American heavyweight boxing champion against Jim Jefferies who was white. The fight was shrouded with racial tension and gave rise to the term "Great White Hope," referring to the need to find a white man capable of defeating the black champion.

Ernest Rutherford, who grew up in colonial New Zealand and came to Cambridge on a scholarship, made numerous revolutionary discoveries, among them the orbital structure of the atom and the concept of the “half-life” of radioactive materials, which led to a massive re-evaluation of the age of the Earth―previously judged just 100 million years old. Above all, perhaps, Rutherford and the young men working under him were the first to split the atom, unlocking tremendous forces―forces, as Rutherford himself predicted, that would bring us the atomic bomb.