History@Portsmouth

University of Portsmouth's History Blog

Tag Archives | United States

Peter Misch 5

Peter Misch (1909-1987): a holocaust survivor in wartime China

  On 8 December 2021 our own Dr Rudolph Ng, Lecturer in Global History, presented a fascinating paper tracing the extraordinary journey of a young geologist who fled Nazi Germany in 1936 and then taught for a decade in wartime China, before making a successful postwar academic career in the United States. If you missed the paper, we have a recording available, so do get in touch with one of us (rudolph.ng@port.ac.uk, robert.james@port.ac.uk, fiona.mccall@port.ac.u) Misch’s narrow escapes from the Holocaust and the Japanese invasion of China (1937), his capture by the Chinese Nationalists (1942), and the impending Communist takeover in China (1946) highlight the tumultuous reality of academic pursuits in […]

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International Women’s Day 2021: Katherine Johnson: Mathematician at NASA

To celebrate International Women’s Day, we are delighted that UoP history graduate Ian Atkins has written this profile of pioneering NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson. For International Women’s Day I have chosen to write about Katherine Johnson, NASA mathematician, most famous for her work in calculation of the trajectory for manned space orbits, and subsequent lunar expeditions.[1] Johnson was born in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia on the 26th August 1918. She was the youngest of four children, her mother a teacher and her father an all-purpose odd job man.[2] Katherine had always excelled at maths and was ahead of her class from an early age. Margot Lee Shetterly indicates that […]

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