May 25

© 1997, 1998 by Paul A. Schons

May 25, 1521

The Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Charles V officially declares Martin Luther a criminal and heretic for refusing to recant at the Diet of Worms.

May 25, 1818

The great historian, Jakob Burckhardt was born on this date in Basel Switzerland. His speciality was the history of art and culture. Noted books by Burckhardt are, "Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien", "Weltgeschichtliche Betrachtungen and Historische Fragmente". Burckhardt's work became the model for the writing of cultural history. He studied at the University of Basel and the University of Berlin. The most noted of his teachers was Leopold von Ranke. Burckhardt spent the bulk of his career as Professor of History at the University of Basel in Switzerland.

May 25, 1821

Klemens Fürst von Metternich is appointed Austrian state chancellor. (He had been the foreign minister since 1809.)

May 25, 1848

Annnete von Droste-Hülshoff dies in Meersburg, Germany. She is one of the leading writers of the 19th Century. She is most noted for her poetry, Gedichte (1838) and Das geistliche Jahr (1851). Her novella, Das Judenbuche (1842) is also highly respected.

May 25, 1901

Birth of Carl Wagner in Leipzig, Germany. Wagner was a physical chemist and metallurgist who advanced knowledge in the chemistry of solid state materials.

May 25, 1913

Suicide of Alfred Redl in Vienna, Austria. Redel was head of Austrian army intelligence from 1907 to 1912. Unfortunately for Austria, he had been a spy for the Russian tsar since 1902. During that period Austria had few military secrets from Russia. Redel's activities were discovered in 1913. He took his own life shortly thereafter.

May 25, 1921

Birth of Jack Steinberger. Steinberger immigrated to the United States in 1934 and studied physics at the University of Chicago. He was a professor of physics at Columbia University. In 1988 he shared the Nobel Prize in physics for his work on neutrinos.

May 25, 1923

Death of Hans Goldschmidt in Baden-Baden, Germany. Goldschmidt was a chemist who invented the Goldschmidt reduction process (the alumino-thermic process) which is used in welding along with other applications.

May 25, 1972

Death of Rudolf Dreikurs in Chicago, U.S.A. (born in Vienna, Austria). A psychologist, Dreikurs developed the individual psychology of Alfred Adler and applied it to children. He earned his M.D. at the University of Vienna. He immigrated to the United states in 1937 where he founded the Alfred Adler Institute in Chicago.