May 12

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  1803: Chemist and academic Justus von Liebig born. Von Liebeg will make pioneering contributions to organic chemistry, especially agricultural and biological chemistry; he will be known as the "Father of the fertilizer industry".

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  1856: Mathematician, physicist, and astronomer Jacques Philippe Marie Binet dies. He made significant contributions to number theory, and the mathematical foundations of matrix algebra.

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  1857: Mathematician Oskar Bolza born. He will be known for his research in the calculus of variations; his work on variations for an integral problem involving inequalities will later became important in control theory.

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  1941: Engineer, inventor, and pioneering computer scientist Konrad Zuse presents the Z3, the world's first working programmable, fully automatic computer, in Berlin.

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  2014: Painter, sculptor, and set designer H. R. Giger dies. He gained fame for his work on the film Alien.

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  2017: Art critic and alleged supervillain The Eel escapes from The Nacreum using a surfboard controlled by a bespoke gnomon algorithm.