Albert Szent-Györgyi

Albert Szent-Györgyi is the next important historical figures in Hungary. Everyone alive today is grateful for Albert Szent-discovery of Györgyi's vitamin C since he was a science genius, secret agent, and anti-war activist. He led a life fuller than most. Szent-Györgyi studied medicine at Budapest's Semmelweis University. He was born into a distinguished Hungarian family that has produced generations of scientists, but his promising career was cut short when he was called to duty as an army physician in World War I. Szent-Györgyi shot himself in the arm and claimed it was enemy fire to gain medical leave because he was horrified by the savagery of the Great War. Szent-Györgyi excelled academically and was awarded research places at major universities. After receiving his PhD from Cambridge, he returned home to work at the University of Szeged.

Here, Szent-Györgyi worked with an unknown organic acid (sometimes using paprika), which turned out to be essential vitamin C. For this discovery, he was awarded the 1937 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. In order to aid Hungary's resistance organization during World War II, Szent-Györgyi traveled to Cairo in 1944 under the guise of giving a scientific lecture when he was actually meeting with the Allies for top-secret negotiations. Szent-Györgyi made significant advancements in the study of cancer and muscles after immigrating to the United States in the late 1940s. He was naturalized as an American citizen in 1955 and rose to prominence as a Vietnam War protester in the 1960s.