American geneticist (died 1912)

Nettie Stevens

Nettie Maria Stevens was an American geneticist who discovered sex chromosomes. In 1905, soon after the rediscovery of Mendel's paper on genetics in 1900, she observed that male mealworms produced two kinds of sperm, one with a large chromosome and one with a small chromosome. When the sperm with the large chromosome fertilized eggs, they produced female offspring, and when the sperm with the small chromosome fertilized eggs, they produced male offspring. The pair of sex chromosomes that she studied later became known as the X and Y chromosomes.

Born

1861

July 7

Died

1912

Era

1860s

Country

—

About

Nettie, in brief

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Life timeline

Key dates

1861 Born
1912 Died

Also on July 7

What else happened on this day, through history

1124 The city of Tyre falls to the Venetian Crusade after a siege of nineteen weeks.
1456 A retrial verdict acquits Joan of Arc of heresy 25 years after her execution.
1520 Spanish conquistadores defeat a larger Aztec army at the Battle of Otumba.
1534 Jacques Cartier makes his first contact with aboriginal peoples in what is now Canada.

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The world in 1912

When Nettie departed

april 10 RMS Titanic sets sail from Southampton, UK, on her maiden and only voyage.
april 14 The British passenger liner RMS Titanic hits an iceberg in the North Atlantic and begins to sink.
april 15 The British passenger liner RMS Titanic sinks in the North Atlantic at 2:20 a.m., two hours and forty minutes after hitting an iceberg. Only 710 of 2,224 passengers and crew on board survive.
april 16 Harriet Quimby becomes the first woman to fly an airplane across the English Channel.

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Same-day contemporaries

Also born on July 7

Asia O'Hara 1982– American drag performer Eiji Tsuburaya 1901–1970 Japanese director and producer (born 1901) Erik Zabel 1970– German cyclist and coach Erwin Bumke 1874–1945 Polish-German jurist and politician (born 1874) Ezzard Charles 1921–1975 American boxer (died 1975) Félicien Rops 1833– Belgian painter and illustrator (died 1898) Gian Carlo Menotti 1911–2007 Italian-American playwright and composer (born 1911) Gottfried von Cramm 1909– German tennis player (died 1976) Gustav Mahler 1860–1911 Austrian composer and conductor (died 1911)

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Same-year contemporaries

Also born in 1861

Georges Méliès 1861–1938 French actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (died 1938) Gerald Strickland 1861–1940 1st Baron Strickland, Maltese lawyer and politician, 4th Prime Minister of Malta (born 1861) Henri Mathias Berthelot 1861– French general during World War I (died 1931) Maximilian von Spee 1861–1914 Danish-German admiral (born 1861) Pierre Duhem 1861– French physicist, mathematician, and historian (died 1916) Victor Horta 1861– Belgian architect, designed Hôtel van Eetvelde (died 1947) William Attewell 1861–1927 English cricketer (born 1861)

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More to explore

Nettie's birthday July 7 Nettie's zodiac Cancer When Nettie departed 1912