Inventor who built the world's first rocket fueled by liquid fuel, which he launched successfully for the first time on March 16, 1926. His monograph, A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes, which was published in 1919, is considered one of the classic texts of 20th-century rocket science.
His father nurtured his interest by giving him a microscope, telescope, and subscription to Scientific American.
He only came to be recognized as the founding father of modern rocketry years after his death, during the Space Age, and while he was alive he was often mocked for radical theories of spaceflight.
He married Esther Christine Kisk, a secretary in Clark University's President's office, on June 21, 1924.
He was first interested in space after reading the novel of H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds.
