1976 - Lars Onsager died.

Onsager was a Norwegian-American physical chemist who was awarded the 1968 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of the Onsager reciprocal relations. These relations express the relationships between forces and flows in thermodynamic non-equilibrium systems. Onsanger reciprocal relations are often considered the 'fourth' law of thermodynamics.

1889 - Dirk Coster was born.

U.S. Geological Survey

Coster was a Dutch physicist who co-discovered the element hafnium with George Charles von Hevesy. He used x-ray spectroscopy to analyze zirconium ore to search for the missing element number 72. They named the element hafnium because the discovery took place in Copenhagen and the Latin name for Copenhagen is Hafnia.

1882 - Robert Hutchings Goddard was born.

NASA

Goddard was an American physicist who was a pioneer of rocketry. He designed and launched the world's first liquid fueled rocket. He was frequently ridiculed for his theories and claims during his lifetime, but his accomplishments would earn him the distinction of the Father of Modern Rocketry.

1880 - William Lassell died.

Wikimedia Commons

Lassell was an English amateur astronomer. He built his own observatory and telescope in Liverpool and discovered Triton, Neptune's largest moon. He also discovered two moons of Uranus, Ariel and Umbriel. He independently discovered the moon Hyperion of Saturn.

1879 - Peyton Rous was born.

Rous was an American pathogist that was was awarded half the 1966 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his discovery of cancer causing viruses. He discovered that a malignant tumor growing on a chicken could be transferred to another chicken by exposing the bird to a cell-free filtrate.