1901 births

Linus Carl Pauling ( PAW-ling; February 28, 1901 – August 19, 1994) was an American chemist, biochemist, chemical engineer, peace activist, author, and educator. He published more than 1,200 papers and books, of which about 850 dealt with scientific topics. New Scientist called him one of the 20 greatest scientists of all time. For his scientific work, Pauling was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954. For his peace activism, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962. He is one of five people to have won more than one Nobel Prize (the others being Marie Curie, John Bardeen, Frederick Sanger, and Karl Barry Sharpless). Of these, he is the only person to have been awarded two unshared Nobel Prizes, and one of two people to be awarded Nobel Prizes in different fields, the other being Marie Curie.Pauling was one of the founders of the fields of quantum chemistry and molecular biology. His contributions to the theory of the chemical bond include the concept of orbital hybridisation and the first accurate scale of electronegativities of the elements. Pauling also worked on the structures of biological molecules, and showed the importance of the alpha helix and beta sheet in protein secondary structure. Pauling's approach combined methods and results from X-ray crystallography, molecular model building, and quantum chemistry. His discoveries inspired the work of Rosalind Franklin, James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins on the structure of DNA, which in turn made it possible for geneticists to crack the DNA code of all organisms.In his later years, he promoted nuclear disarmament, as well as orthomolecular medicine, megavitamin therapy, and dietary supplements, especially ascorbic acid (commonly known as Vitamin C). None of his ideas concerning the medical usefulness of large doses of vitamins have gained much acceptance in the mainstream scientific community. He was married to the American human rights activist Ava Helen Pauling.

René Jean Pleven (French pronunciation: [ʁəne pləvɛ̃]; 15 April 1901 – 13 January 1993) was a notable French politician of the Fourth Republic. A member of the Free French, he helped found the Democratic and Socialist Union of the Resistance (UDSR), a political party that was meant to be a successor to the wartime Resistance movement. He served as prime minister twice in the early 1950s, where his most notable contribution was the introduction of the Pleven Plan, which called for a European Defence Community between France, Italy, West Germany, and the Benelux countries.

Unni Torkildsen (14 August 1901 – 20 June 1968) was a Norwegian actress.

Johan Christian Falkenberg (8 October 1901 – 12 July 1963) was a Norwegian épée and foil fencer. He competed at three Olympic Games.During the Second World War, Falkenberg was a member of the Norwegian resistance movement, leading Milorg districts 22, 23, 40 and 41 from 1943 onwards. For his service, Falkenberg was awarded the Defence Medal 1940–1945, as well as French and British decorations.

Erling Asbjørn Kjellsby (7 July 1901 - 20 February 1976) was a Norwegian organist and composer.

Anton Jervell (14 June 1901 – 29 December 1987) was a Norwegian physician, politician and organizational leader.
He was born in Kristiania, a son of tax man Jakob Anton Jervell and Marie Andrea Simers. He graduated as cand.med. in 1925, and as dr. med. in 1936. He served as manager of the Vestfold Hospital from 1947. He was appointed professor at the University of Oslo, serving from 1957 to 1971. His research was primarily on heart diseases. He was decorated Knight of the Order of St. Olav in 1967.

William Alexander Kirkland (September 15, 1901, Mexico City, Mexico – c. 1986) was a leading man in Hollywood during the early sound era as well as a stage actor who starred in productions of the Group Theatre in New York.

Hans Grundig (February 19, 1901 – September 11, 1958) was a German painter and graphic artist associated with the New Objectivity movement.
He was born in Dresden and, after an apprenticeship as an interior decorator, studied in 1920–1921 at the Dresden School of Arts and Crafts. He then studied at the Dresden Academy from 1922 to 1923. During the 1920s his paintings, primarily portraits of working-class subjects, were influenced by the work of Otto Dix. Like his friend Gert Heinrich Wollheim, he often depicted himself in a theatrical manner, as in his Self-Portrait during the Carnival Season (1930).He had his first solo exhibition in 1930 at the Dresden gallery of Józef Sandel. He made his first etchings in 1933.
Politically anti-fascist, he joined the German Communist Party in 1926, and was a founding member of the arts organization Assoziation revolutionärer bildender Künstler in Dresden in 1929.
Following the fall of the Weimar Republic, Grundig was declared a degenerate artist by the Nazis, who included his works in the defamatory Degenerate Art exhibition in Munich in 1937. He expressed his antagonism toward the regime in paintings such as The Thousand Year Reich (1936). Forbidden to practice his profession, he was arrested twice—briefly in 1936, and again in 1938, after which he was interned in Sachsenhausen concentration camp from 1940 to 1944.
In 1945 he went to Moscow, where he attended an anti-fascist school. Returning to Berlin in 1946, he became a professor of painting at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts. In 1957 he published his autobiography, Zwischen Karneval und Aschermittwoch ("Between Shrovetide carnival and Ash Wednesday"). He was awarded the Heinrich Mann Prize in Berlin in 1958, the year of his death.

Eduard Bargheer (25 December 1901 – 1 July 1979) was a German painter and printmaker. His early oeuvre had a close affinity to Expressionism.

Jay Jostyn (December 13, 1901 – June 25, 1976) was an actor in the era of old-time radio. He is best known for portraying the title role in Mr. District Attorney on radio. An article in Radio-TV Mirror in 1952 reported, "He is so generally believed to be a real life lawyer that he frequently receives mail from listeners inviting him to move to certain cities where they feel crimes are going unsolved."