Albert Einstein, one of the greatest scientists of all time, was a German-born physicist known for developing the theory of relativity with the mathematical formula E=mc2. He was also awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921 for his contributions to theoretical physics
In the last half of Einstein’s life, he suffered from several medical issues including digestive system problems, gall bladder inflammation, stomach ulcers, liver cirrhosis, and intestinal pain. He underwent surgery to remove cysts in 1948 when he was 69 years old, and it was during the procedure that it was discovered he had an abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA)…Click Here To Continue Reading>> …Click Here To Continue Reading>>
An aortic aneurysm often develops in the lower abdomen, which can cause constant pain in the area as the aorta balloons. The method to fix the medical issue back then isn’t as advanced as it is today. Einstein’s doctor reinforced the blood vessel wall with cellophane, which was the best solution at that time. However, there was still the risk of the aorta rupturing.
In 1955, Einstein was working on a speech in his office when he experienced chest and abdominal pain. He was brought to Princeton Hospital where doctors said that he needed to undergo surgery to repair a ruptured blood vessel in his aorta. However, Einstein refused, saying, “I want to go when I want to go. It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share; it is time to go.” He died on April 18, 1955, at 76 years old, just a day after going to the hospital. Before his death, he left specific instructions for his body to be cremated and the ashes scattered at an undisclosed location, as he didn’t want people from “worshipping” his dead body.
Albert Einstein’s last wishes
Photo via Wikimedia Commons
Einstein’s body was cremated on April 20 in a strictly private ceremony. Just a day later, Einstein’s son, Hans Albert, was shocked and incensed to read an article in The New York Times, saying his father’s brain had been removed during the autopsy.
Hours after Einstein’s death, Dr. Thomas Harvey conducted an autopsy, and it was then that he retrieved the scientist’s brain. Furthermore, he removed the eyeballs and gave them to Dr. Henry Abrams, Einstein’s optometrist. Einstein’s family didn’t give the pathologist permission to do so, nor did they know this had been done before the article was published.
Einstein’s family was deeply unhappy and they demanded that Dr. Harvey return the brain. However, Dr. Harvey convinced Hans Thomas that studying his father’s brain would benefit the scientific community, and he promised that the findings would be published in reputable scientific journals.
The public was interested in whether Einstein’s brain had certain structural differences from other people’s brains that made him a genius. Despite being outraged at what Dr. Harvey did, Hans Thomas eventually agreed to what the pathologist wanted to do on the condition that the brain would only be used for scientific studies. READ FULL STORY HERE>>>CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING>>>
What did Dr. Harvey do to Einstein’s brain?
Pathologist Thomas Harvey (1912 – 2007) holds the brain of theoretical physicist Albert Einstein in a jar, Kansas, 1994. Harvey performed the autopsy on Einstein in 1955, and retained parts of the brain for scientific study. (Photo by Michael Brennan/Getty Images)
Shortly after acquiring Einstein’s brain, Princeton Hospital let go of Dr. Harvey for his controversial and unauthorized actions during the autopsy. He then headed to the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia where he cut Einstein’s brain into hundreds of pieces and preserved most of the pieces in celloidin, a compound used for embedding specimens for microscopy. Other pieces were placed in two jars that he kept in his basement.
Unfortunately, Dr. Harvey didn’t have the expertise to study Einstein’s brain. As a pathologist, he was adept at performing postmortem examinations, but he wasn’t a brain doctor. He sent some samples to some neuropathologists to study, but he made his own observations as well. Since the public had knowledge that Dr. Harvey had the famous scientist’s brain, the media often hounded him for information or updates about what was happening with the studies, but he was evasive and said that the results would be published “soon.” The first study published was in 1985, 30 years after Einstein’s death.
Meanwhile, Dr. Harvey’s life went into shambles. His marriage fell apart and he moved to Wichita, Kansas, and then later to Weston, Missouri. He kept the jars with pieces of Einstein’s brain with him, concealed in a box with a beer cooler on top. In 1988, Dr. Harvey lost his medical license after failing a competency test. Afterward, Dr. Harvey moved from location to location, still keeping the jars with him. By the end of his life, it’s reported that he lived in a small apartment where he kept the jars in a closet. He eventually gave the jars to a pathologist at the University Medical Center of Princeton in 1998. Harvey died in 2007.
Where are the pieces of Einstein’s brain today?
Pieces of Einstein’s brain are in different parts of the United States. Harvey sent slides to doctors and scientists who may have kept the specimens for themselves. It’s also known that the jars Harvey kept for himself are now in Princeton. The National Museum of Health and Medicine in Maryland also has 350 slides in possession, which they bring out for exhibits from time to time. However, there is one place where Einstein’s brain is permanently displayed — the Mütter Museum. As for Einstein’s eyeballs, they are believed to be stored in a safety deposit box in New York City, though no one knows for sure.
The Mütter Museum, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is a medical history museum with thousands of artifacts, including specimens, medical instruments, and models. It was only in 2011 that the museum was given Einstein’s brain slides. When Harvey had the slides made after he left Princeton, he went to the University of Pennsylvania to a lab technician, Marta Keller, who was renowned for making slides of specimens. Some of the slides were given to William Ehrich, a well-known neuropathologist in the state who worked at Philadelphia General Hospital.
Ehrich stored the slides until he died in 1967. Ehrich’s wife then passed the slides to another pathologist at Philadelphia General Hospital, Allen Steinberg, who gave them to Ehrich’s former student, neuropathologist Lucy Rorke-Adams. For years, she had the box of slides on her work desk but in 2011, she decided that it was best if they were donated to the Mütter Museum. “I think the time has come to turn them over to the College and the Mütter Museum as they are a part of medical history,” Rorke-Adams said.
Today, visitors at the museum can view 46 slides of Einstein’s brain and even see one slide under a magnifying lens. Each slide has a sliver of the brain that measures about 20 to 50 microns (0.02 mm to 0.05 mm) thick. The specimens of Einstein’s brain are one of the highlights of the museum, but, as he explicitly didn’t want his body to be worshipped after his death, we suspect Einstein’s ghost is very, very cross.
Gen. Diya was crossed examined at the Human Rights Violation Commission (HRVIC) on the coup plan 1997 to overthrow Gen. Sanni Abacha, He bluntly denied the fact that he was part of the plan but he admitted he knew about the plan. He further explained that he was afraid of being killed by the Coup Master Planner if he revealed the plan.
Gen. Diya Oladipo then was appointed as Chief of Defense Staff. He was appointed Chief of General Staff in 1993 and Vice Chairman of the Provisional Ruling Council in 1994. In 1997 Diya and dissident soldiers in the military allegedly planned to overthrow the regime of Sani Abacha. The alleged coup was uncovered by forces loyal to Abacha, and Diya and his cohorts were jailed. Diya was tried in a military tribunal, and was given the death penalty. READ FULL STORY HERE>>>CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING>>>
Nigeria has seen the rise and fall of many military regimes since she became a sovereign state in 1960 and this, at every turn, has altered the direction of the country.
A second coup since independence which happened on July 29, 1966, would see to the brutal death of Nigeria’s Supreme Commander, General J.T.C Aguiyi-Ironsi (the nation’s 1st military head of state) and his friend, Lieutenant Colonel Francis Adekunle Fajuyi, who was the sitting and 1st Military Governor of the Western Region…Click Here To Continue Reading>> …Click Here To Continue Reading>>
Aguiyi-Ironsi was a guest at the Government House, Ibadan, as he came to hold a meeting with traditional rulers in the Western region. Ironsi arrived Ibadan the previous day and unknowingly, he met his death during the counter-coup which is generally believed to be a retaliation to the January 15th 1966 coup in which prominent Northerners in power were killed.
The Northerners were believed to hold a grudge since the first coup as they lost leaders including Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa (Nigerian Prime Minister) and Sir Ahmadu Bello (Sardauna of Sokoto and Premier of the Northern Region). They tagged it an ‘Igbo Coup’ as no Eastern casualty was recorded in both the military and public service as even the West lost Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola in the coup. READ FULL STORY HERE>>>CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING>>>
This counter-coup of July 29, 1966, led by General Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma was tagged the bloodiest coup by many in the history of Nigeria. Ironsi and Fajuyi’s death which still remains a controversial debate among historians because how they were killed isn’t clear but both bodies were found in a bush in outskirts of Ibadan. Read a comprehensive account of how Aguiyi-Ironsi was killed here.
Aside from the Head of State and Western Military governor, many other casualties were recorded in the army and most killed or maimed were Easterners, particularly Igbos. This will be one of the many reasons the country would go into a civil war the following year as the Eastern region tried seceding.
54 years after, we remember this gruesome act done in the Brown Roof City and how much has happened or changed since then.
General Sani Abacha is perhaps Nigeria’s most enigmatic head of state. He reigned from 1993 until his death in 1998. General Abacha was born in Kano state, northern Nigeria on September 20, 1943. He hails from Kanuri in Borno state.
He passed out of the Nigerian Military Training Centre in Kaduna where he proceeded to Mons Officer Cadet School in Aldershot, England before being commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant in 1963.
He is held by some as Nigeria’s most successful coup plotter. When he was still a Second Lieutenant with the 3rd Battalion in Kaduna, he took part in the July 1966 Nigerian counter-coup from the conceptual stage. He could well have been a participant in the Lagos or Abeokuta phases of the coup the previous January as well…Click Here To Continue Reading>> …Click Here To Continue Reading>>
Abacha fought for Nigeria in the country’s civil war against Biafran secessionists continuing to rise through the army ranks.
He was instrumental in the 1983 Nigerian coup d’état which brought General Muhammadu Buhari to power as well as the August 1985 coup which removed him from power. He announced the coup which removed the government of Shehu Shagari.
When General Ibrahim Babangida was named President of Nigeria in 1985, Abacha was named Chief of Army Staff. He was appointed Minister of Defence in 1990. With Babangida’s resignation, an interim government headed by civilian President, Ernest Shonekan was formed.
Sani Abacha became the first Nigerian soldier to attain the rank of a full General without skipping a single rank in 1993. In the same year, he moved for the ultimate.
Shonekan resigned and transferred power to Sani Abacha in a move widely believed to be another bloodless coup. In September 1994, he issued a decree that placed his government above the jurisdiction of the courts, effectively giving him absolute power. Another decree gave him the right to detain anyone for up to three months without trial.
Abacha is noted for helping restore peace and democracy to Sierra Leone and Liberia after the civil wars.
On his administration of the Nigerian state proper, he established The Petroleum Trust Fund aimed to address major economic issues facing the country at the time. Between 25-100km of urban road in major cities such as Kano, Gusau, Benin, Funtua, Zaria, Enugu, Kaduna, Aba, Lagos, Lokoja, and Port Harcourt was planned to be constructed each. A N27.3bn contract was awarded for road rehabilitation in the first quarter of 1996.
There was a restructuring of major insurance companies that supported SMEs across the entire country.
Abacha mandated the PTF to publicise its accounts as it was the second-largest public corporation at the time. In 1997, the account of PTF showed that it disbursed N24.3bn on roads, N21.2bn on security, N7.8bn on health, and N3bn on other projects. Other disbursements include N2.2bn on water supply, N936m on food supply and N476m on education. It realized a total of N1.049bn from various investment activities.
It’s curious the sums which emerged after his death that he stashed in overseas accounts as the Abacha administration became the first to record unprecedented economic achievements overseeing an increase in the country’s foreign exchange reserves from $494 million in 1993 to $9.6 billion by the middle of 1997. READ FULL STORY HERE>>>CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING>>>
He also reduced the external debt of Nigeria from $36 billion in 1993 to $27 billion by 1997. His Petroleum (Special) Trust Fund is also hailed for infrastructural projects and interventionist programmes in education, water and health.
His wife is credited with setting up the National Hospital in Abuja viewed as Nigeria’s foremost national hospital, which was initially set up as a hospital for women and children before its upgrade.
Nonetheless, Abacha was ruthless with groups he considered hostile to his administration between 1993 and 1998. There was a crackdown on the civil rights groups, media and pro-democracy groups.
It was also under him that Nigeria became a perpetual importer of petroleum products as the refineries packed up. The emergence of the ‘foul fuel’ which damaged car engines and released a repugnant smell was in his time.
General Sani Abacha earned the title ‘Thug of the Year’ from Time magazine in 1995 after the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa. Abacha developed the habit of working only at night. Availing himself to be seen publicly rarely while being averse to granting interviews.
The events of his death on June 8, 1998, at the presidential villa in Abuja are murky and while the official account is that he suffered a heart attack, other accounts say he was in the company of two Indian sex workers flown in from Dubai when he died. He was buried on the same day, according to Muslim tradition, without an autopsy. This fueled speculation that he may have been murdered by political rivals via poison.
Foreign diplomats, including United States Intelligence analysts, believed that his drink or fruit (apple) was laced with a poisonous substance while in the company of prostitutes.
Abacha was married to Maryam Abacha with whom he had had seven sons and three daughters.
In March 2014, the United States Department of Justice revealed that it had frozen more than $458 million believed to have been illegally obtained by Abacha and other corrupt officials.
On 7 August 2014, the United States Department of Justice announced the largest forfeiture in its history: the return of $480 million to the Nigerian government.
Stashed sums in other accounts have been discovered with the Nigerian government working to have the funds returned.
