1 / 25 photos Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein and his younger sister Maria, nicknamed Maja, were very close as children. When World War II broke out in Europe in 1939, Maja immigrated to the United States to live with Einstein in Princeton, New Jersey.

As a child Einstein was slow in learning to speak and a poor student, but sought inspiration from playing classical music on the violin and developed a fascination with the science behind a compass.

After receiving his doctorate at age 23, Einstein found employment as a technical expert at a Swiss patent office.

Albert Einstein and his first wife Mileva Maric met while studying at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and were married in 1903. Letters between the couple reveal Maric helped Einstein by looking up scientific data, checking calculations, and copying notes.

Albert Einstein wrote his first scientific paper at 16 years old, published his first scientific paper at 22 years old, and published over 2300 papers in his lifetime.

Although Albert Einstein was born to Jewish parents, and became a supporter of the Zionist movement, he maintained a non-nationalistic and pacifist disposition.

Einstein fell ill with ulcer and liver problems in 1917 while he was separated from his wife Mileva Maric. His cousin Elsa Lowenthal nursed him back to health and the two were wed in 1919.

Albert Einstein congratulates Thomas Edison over a shortwave telephone from Germany, during a celebratory dinner held in the United States for the 50th anniversary of the invention of the electric bulb.

After divorcing his first wife Mileva Maric in February of 1919, Einstein married his cousin Elsa Lowenthal a few months later.

1905 is considered Albert Einstein's 'Miracle Year' because it is the year he published some of his most important scientific papers, which included the theory of relativity E=mc2.

Einstein began playing the violin at 6 years old and once said 'If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music.'

Albert Einstein with director Jacques Feyder and actor Ramon Novarro at the MGM studios in 1931.

After his death in 1955, Einstein was cremated but his brain was removed and preserved by Dr. Thomas Stoltz Harvey for research to better understand what made him a genius.

In 1921 Albert Einstein is awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics 'for his services to Theoretical Physics and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect'.

Einstein fled Nazi Germany in 1933 and went into hiding in England, taking up residence in a small hut in the Norfolk countryside.

Einstein had two sons, Hans Albert (pictured with his son) and Eduard with his first wife Mileva Maric, but saw very little of his sons after his divorce in 1919.

Personal letters between Einstein and his first wife and two sons are released to the public in 2006 and reveal the complex and sometimes strained relationship he shared with his family.

Albert Einstein sits with fellow physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer who followed in his footsteps and took over as senior professor at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study a few years after Einstein resigned.

Albert Einstein was encouraged by his colleague Leo Szilard to pen a letter to President Roosevelt warning of the dangers of a possible German atomic bomb.

Horace Mann, the president of Lincoln University, the first institute to provide higher learning for African-Americans, presents Albert Einstein with an honorary degree in 1946.

The July 1946 issue of Time magazine features an illustration of Albert Einstein alongside his theory of relativity set inside a mushroom cloud of smoke and an atomic explosion.

At 72 years old, Albert Einstein proves he has a sense of humor in this iconic photograph taken in 1951.

Albert Einstein died in 1955 at the age of 76 in Princeton, New Jersey from a ruptured aneurysm in his abdominal aorta.

A 21 foot bronze statue of Albert Einstein was erected in the Washington D.C. National Mall in 1979. The papers in the statue's left hand contain mathematical equations representing Einstein's major contributions to modern science.

Einstein's name and wild-haired image has become a popular representation of genius in the modern world.