You probably didn’t know it but this is the birthday of Friedrich Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt, Prussian traveler and naturalist. He was born September 14, 1769. The Humboldt Current is named for him. His magnum opus Kosmos was the first reasonably accurate encyclopedia of geology and natural history.
He apparently wasn’t much of a people person. His most famous saying is “I despise mankind in all its strata.” On the other hand he probably wasn’t alone.
