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March 18 in German History
--------------------------------- March 18, 1690
Birth of Christian Goldbach in Königsberg,
Germany (now in Russia). A mathematician, Goldbach
accomplished significant work in the theory of curves,
infinite series and the integration of differential
equations. But he is most known for the development of a
number theory now called "Goldbach's conjecture".
March 18, 1733
Birth of Friedrich Nicolai in Berlin,
Germany. Nicolai was one of the leaders of the Aufklärung
(enlightenment) movement in Germany. By profession he was
a book dealer and writer. He edited the influential journals,
Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek, and Briefe, die
neueste Literatur betreffend. He worked with Gotthold
Lessing and Moses Mendelssohn on the latter. His Briefe
über den jetzigen Zustand der schönen Wissenschaften in
Deutschland (1755) criticized Johann Gottsched, Johann
Bodmer and Johann Breitinger. Nicolai also wrote novels.
Among them was a satire on Goethe's novel Die Leiden des
jungen Werthers which he titled Die Freuden des Jungen
Werthers (1755).
March 18, 1796
Birth of Jakob Steiner in Utzenstorf
Switzerland. Steiner discovered inversive geometry and is
considered one of the greatest geometers of modern times. He
discovered the "Steiner surface", and developed the
"Steiner theorem" and the "Poncelet-Steiner
theorem". His most noted work is Systematische
Entwickelung der Abhängigkeit geometrischer Gestalten von
Einander (1832). The chair of geometry was established
for him at the University of Berlin and he occupied that
chair from 1834 until his death in 1863.
March 18, 1798
Birth of Franz (changed to Francis) Lieber
in Berlin. Lieber was a political philosopher who studied at
the University of Jena. He encountered political difficulties
in Germany and emigrated to the United States in 1827. In
America he undertook the first edition of Encyclopedia
Americana. He was a professor at the University of South
Carolina and Columbia College. Seeing a need for a code for
the conduct of soldiers for the protection of civilians he
wrote Code for the Government of Armies in the Field (1863)
for the Union army. Many of his ideas were later adapted to
international agreements regulating conduct in war.
March 18, 1813
Birth of Friedrich Hebbel in Wesselburen,
Germany. Friedrich Hebbel was a dramatist, who brought
Hegelian ideas of morality, process and development into his
plays. Among his noted plays are Judith (1840), Genoveva
(1841), Maria Magdalena (1843), Herodes und
Mariamne (1850), Agnes Bernauer (1852) and Gyges
und sein Ring (1854).
March 18, 1858
Birth of Rudolf Diesel in Paris, France.
March 18, 1886
Birth of Kurt Koffka in Berlin, Germany.
Koffka worked with Wolfgang Köhler and Max Wertheimer at the
University of Giessen to develop a holistic approach to
psychology which is known as "gestalt psychology".
In 1927 Koffka accepted an appointment at Smith College in
the United States, where he remained for the rest of his
life, teaching and promoting his concept of holistic
psychology.
March 18, 1886
Birth of Leopold Zunz in Detmold, Germany.
Zunz was a historian of Jewish literature and led in bringing
scientific rigor to the field. In his Zur Geschichte und
Literatur he integrated Jewish literature with European
literature and politics.
March 18, 1929
Birth of Christa Wolf in Landsberg,
Germany.
March 18, 1953
The West German Bundestag ratifies the war
reparations agreement with Israel.
March 18, 1961
Franz Josef Strauß becomes the head of the
conservative Bavarian political party, the CSU. He would be a
key figure in German national politics until his death in
1988.
March 18, 1980
Death of Erich Fromm in Muralto,
Switzerland (born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany). Fromm
earned his doctorate at the University of Heidelberg and
trained in Psychoanalysis at the University of Munich. In
1933 he immigrated to the United States where he taught at
Columbia University, Bennington College and New York
University. Fromm started as a Freudian but gradually
concluded that social factors outweigh many of Freud's
concepts of drives. Books by Fromm include Man for Himself
(1947), Psychoanalysis and Religion (1950), The
Art of Loving (1956) and The Crisis of Psychoanalysis (1970).
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