Romanian people who changed the world (and you probably didn’t even know it)
So y’all the first of December is Romania’s birthday!! Well, in simple terms that is, cause what actually happened on the first of December was our Great Union, which finally brought together all of the Romanian territories to form this great(ly overlooked) country. And that happened 100 years ago today!!
To celebrate (and because I am actually an insomniac), I’ve decided to present to you a list of Romanian people who have changed the world, even if just a little bit, cause they actually deserve it and honestly most of them were/are, y’know, pretty okay people who were/are doing their best. So let’s get to this history lesson!! (In no particular order)
1. Ioan Cantacuzino, who was a physician and bacteriologist and who made tremendous progress in his fields of study, leading to treatments for cholera, epidemic typhus, scarlet fever, and tuberculosis. He was also the one who invented the notion of contact immunity. His method of anti-choleric vaccinating is still used where cases of cholera appear.
2. Nicolae Păulescu, who was a physiologist and a professor of medicine and actually the first to discover insulin. There was a whole controversy with the Nobel Prize committee who awarded the prize to those two Canadians, even though Păulescu published his discovery almost two years before that. (We, as a people, are still pretty mad about that but it’s okay, cause Nic here was a kind of a dick with his antisemitic views, even though he was great in his field of study.)
3. Henri Coandă, who was an inventor and pioneer in the field of aerodynamics, who built the experimental aircraft the Coandă-1910, which was described as the world’s first jet. It’s controversial, and the opinions are divided, but nonetheless Henri here also discovered an effect of fluid dynamics named after him, the Coandă effect. He also built other aircrafts, invented a new decorative material for use in construction, named beton-bois, developed a device to detect liquids under ground, useful in petroleum prospecting, and designed a flying saucer.
4. Ana Aslan, who was a biologist and a physician, and who discovered the anti-aging effects of procaine, based on the drugs Gerovital H3 and Aslavital, which she developed. She was a pioneer of geriatrics and gerontology, and she founded the Geriatric Institute of Bucharest in 1952, the first of its kind in the world. She is actually the mother of Gerovital. She also went of a hunger strike to convince her family to let he go to college for medicine.
5. Traian Vuia, who was an inventor and aviation pioneer and who designed, built and tested the first tractor monoplane. He was the first to demonstrate that a flying machine could rise into the air by running on wheels on an ordinary road. He was basically the first human who managed to fly in a machine heavier than air, and he did that in 1906. (If you search the Vuia I and Vuia II y’all are in for a treat, those planes look fucking ridiculous it’s amazing.)
6. Constantin Brâncuși, who was a sculptor, painter and photographer, and a pioneer of modernism. He’s considered one of the most influential sculptors of the 20th century, and was called the patriarch of modern sculpture. He was an incredibly talented human and just overall did amazing work for the art community.
7. George Emil Palade, who was a cell biologist, described as the most influential cell biologist ever, and who laid the foundations of the modern molecular cell biology. He was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine (along with Albert Claude and Christian de Duve) for his innovations in electron microscopy and cell fractionation. His most notable discovery were the ribosomes and the endoplasmatic reticulum, which he first described in 1955.
8. Nadia Comăneci, who was the first gymnast in the world to be awarded a perfect 10.0 at the Olympic Games. She is a five-time Olympic gold medalist, all in individual events, and is now retired. She still is one of the most influential gymnasts of all times, and in 2000 she was named as one of the Athletes of the 20th Century by the Laureus World Sports Academy.
9. Emil Racoviță, who was a biologist, zoologist, speleologist, and explorer, and who was the first biologist in the world to study the arctic life. He was the first Romanian to have gone on a scientific research expedition to the Antarctic, and the first researcher to collect botanical and zoological samples from areas beyond the Antarctic Circle (the results of his research were published in 1900). He was also one of the founders of the field of biospeleology, and he explored over 1400 caves in different European countries.
10. Petrache Poenaru, who was an inventor of the Enlightenment era, and who invented the world’s first fountain pen, which was patented in 1827. He was also a mathematician, physicist, engineer, teacher, as well as a agronomist and zootechnologist.
11. Anastase Dragomir, who was an inventor, and who invented and patented the “catapultable cockpit”, an early form of an ejection seat, in 1929.
12. Elisa Leonida Zamfirescu, who, in 1912, became the first female engineer in Europe. She was at first rejected at an University in Bucharest, because she was a woman, but then went to Germany for studies.
13. Sarmiza Bilcescu, who was the first woman in the world to receive a doctorate in law. She graduated from Law School in Paris is 1890, becoming a doctor in law.
14. Sofia Ionescu-Ogrezeanu, who was a neurosurgeon, one of the first female neurosurgeons in the world. While she was an intern at a hospital in Bucharest, in 1944, she was forced to perform an emergency brain surgery on an injured boy due to lack of sufficient medical staff, during the bombing in Bucharest.
15. Vlad Țepeș, or Vlad Drăculea (hell yeah he’s making the list, my boy Vlad didn’t protect this damn country from the Ottoman Empire for him to just be reduced to this ridiculous vampire persona Stoker created), was a voievod of Wallachia who reigned three times between 1448 and 1476, when he died. He was a member of the Order of the Dragon, where he got the moniker “Dracul” (literally devil in Romanian), and during his rule he was known to be incredibly harsh in his punishments, to discourage any law breaking that was taking place. He also took revenge on the boyars who participated in his father’s and older brother’s murder, who he suspected were also plotting against him. One of his favorite methods of punishment was impaling people (in Romanian “a trage în țeapă”), and there is a story about a cup made from solid gold that stood at a fountain, but nobody dared steal for fear of what would happen to them if Vlad caught them. While his punishments were harsh, it is noted by historians from several sources that “only such cruel acts could secure public order in Wallachia”. He died in battle, fighiting against the Ottomans, and his grave still remains undiscovered.
Other notable Romanians include: Sebastian Stan (y’all know who that is), Anastasia Soare (founder of Anastasia Beverly Hills), Mario Bădescu (Mario Badescu cosmetics), Grigore Antipa (invented the diorama), Ștefan Odobleja (a precursor of modern cybernetics), Marcel Iureș (actor, starred in Mission Impossible, Interview with a vampire, The peacemaker etc), Maria Lucia Hohan (fashion designer), Mircea Eliade (historian and writer of A History of Religious Ideas), George Enescu (famous composer, pianist, violinist, and conductor), Angela Gheorghiu (famous opera singer), Simona Halep (currently number one WTA), Elie Wiesel (Jewish Romanian-American writer and Nobel Peace Prize winner), Eugene Ionesco (Romanian-French playwright), Radu Lupu (one of the greatest contemporary pianists in the world), Adrian Ghenie (contemporary painter), Ilie Năstase (famous tennis player), and the list goes on and on and on.
So here you have it people, a list of Romanians who changed the world, as best they could, with the little they had. Y’all can come yell with me or at me concerning any of these people, you’re all welcome!!!! Hope that you maybe learned some new history stuff today, cause I sure did while I researched this.
Happy Birthday to this mediocre country that I call home!!!! To many more years and hopefully to more good progress!! La mulți ani, România!!
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