Today in History – December 10, 1964 – Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The title of his Nobel lecture was “The Quest for Peace and Justice”. Martin Luther King, Jr. attended segregated public schools in Georgia, graduating from high school at the age of fifteen; he received the B. A. degree in 1948 from Morehouse College, a distinguished Historically Black College in Atlanta from which both his father and grandfather had graduated. After three years of theological study at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania where he was elected president of a predominantly white senior class, he was awarded the B.D. in 1951. He completed his doctorate in theology at Boston University in 1955. King was a member of the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In 1957, he and other black ministers founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom — 28 August 1963 — saw more than 250,000 protesters; here King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. In 1964, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act.

At the age of thirty-five, Martin Luther King, Jr., was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize. When notified of his selection, he announced that he would turn over the prize money of $54,123 to the furtherance of the civil rights movement. For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s resources on Martin Luther King and community service learning. Or visit our Engineering Diversity or Broadening Participation in Computing Portal community sites.

Also on this date, Albert Einstein is awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921 and Robert S. Mulliken the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1966.

Albert Einstein entered the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich to be trained as a teacher in physics and mathematics in 1896. In 1901, the year he gained his diploma, he acquired Swiss citizenship and, as he was unable to find a teaching post, he accepted a position as technical assistant in the Swiss Patent Office. In 1905 he obtained his doctorate. Einstein’s well chronicled research includes Special Theory of Relativity (1905), Relativity (English translations, 1920 and 1950), General Theory of Relativity (1916), Investigations on Theory of Brownian Movement (1926), and The Evolution of Physics (1938). Among his non-scientific works, About Zionism (1930), Why War? (1933), My Philosophy (1934), and Out of My Later Years (1950) are perhaps the most important. In the 1920′s, Einstein embarked on the construction of unified field theories, although he continued to work on the probabilistic interpretation of quantum theory.

In the 1920′s, Einstein embarked on the construction of unified field theories, although he continued to work on the probabilistic interpretation of quantum theory. Einstein received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics “for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect.

Robert Mulliken earned a B.Sc. Degree in 1917 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass., and a Ph.D. degree at the University of Chicago, Ill., in 1921. He was an American physicist and chemist, primarily responsible for the early development of molecular orbital theory, i.e. the elaboration of the molecular orbital method of computing the structure of molecules. Robert Mulliken received the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1966.

For related curricular resources, visit the Nuclear Engineering Education and the Chemical Engineering Education disciplinary communities.

This date also marks the one-millionth Model T Ford assembled in 1915. The Ford Model T (colloquially known as the Tin Lizzie and the Flivver) was an automobile produced by Henry Ford’s Ford Motor Company from 1908 through 1927. The model T set 1908 as the historic year that the automobile came into popular usage. It is generally regarded as the first affordable automobile, the car that “put America on wheels”; some of this was because of Ford’s innovations, including assembly line production instead of individual hand crafting.

For related curricular resources on Henry Ford and automotive engineering. Or visit the Manufacturing Engineering Education, the Industrial Engineering Education and the Mechanical Engineering Education disciplinary communities.