Hungarians are a talented and resourceful bunch, and they feature heavily in lists of internationally significant inventors, musicians, artists and sports stars.
The number of these incredible people is astounding given the size of the Hungarian population in the entire world is around 20 million.
This list is far from inclusive – and includes inventors, artists, scientists, athletes, and luminaries in many other fields. However, a few massively talented Magyars who were all born in Budapest went on to accomplish undertakings that shook the planet – literally, in some cases – but exemplifies, along with the other sections, the Hungarian genius! Many of these will surprise you.
Did you know that native Hungarians and scientists of Hungarian origin received a Nobel Prize on more than 20 occasions? Or that the Rubik’s cube is a Hungarian invention?
IGNAZ SEMMELWEIS (1818-1865)
Countless lives were spared thanks to a simple discovery by this hapless Hungarian doctor, now regarded as a brilliant pioneer of antiseptic techniques but vehemently dismissed as crazy in his own time. Born in Buda’s erstwhile Tabán district, Semmelweis became an obstetrician in Vienna, where he noticed that mothers who gave birth in a hospital where autopsies were also being performed had a much higher mortality rate than at another hospital only offering maternity services. Semmelweis realized that if doctors would wash their hands between procedures on different people (dead and alive), patients had a much greater chance of survival. Although Semmelweis’s practice indeed saved lives, he couldn’t explain why during this era before germs were accepted as a cause of disease, and most doctors were offended at the implication of their being unclean. Soon Semmelweis was driven out of Vienna’s medical community, and though he angrily appealed to obstetricians across Europe to adopt his hand-washing regimen, he was ignored and subsequently committed to an insane asylum, where he died after a beating from the guards. Now poor Semmelweis is recognized as a visionary, and is honored at his eponymous Medical History Museum in the Tabán district, while students from around the world study at Budapest’s prestigious Semmelweis University.