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Alexis Carrel was a French surgeon and biologist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1912 for pioneering vascular suturing techniques. He invented the first perfusion pump with Charles A. Lindbergh opening the way to organ transplantation

Carrel received an M.D. (1900) from the University of Lyon. Soon after graduating, he became interested in the repair of blood vessels, and he developed a method to suture them together end-to-end with a minimum of stitches. This technique became essential for many surgical operations, including the transplantation of blood vessels and organs. In 1904 Carrel left France for the United States, working first at the University of Chicago and then at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York City. There he investigated the preservation of living tissues outside the body, keeping organs or tissues alive—in one famous case, for more than 30 years—by circulating tissue-culture fluid through them. During World War I Carrel returned to France, where he helped to develop the Carrel-Dakin method of treating wounds with antiseptic fluids in order to prevent infection. After 1919 he continued his work at the Rockefeller Institute until 1939, when he returned to France. In 1941 he became director of the French Foundation for the Study of Human Problems in Paris. His book Man, the Unknown (1935) expounded many of his religious and social ideas.

Michael Faraday (L) English physicist and chemist (electromagnetism) and John Frederic Daniell (R) British chemist and meteorologist who invented the Daniell cell.
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Madeleine Albright
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Madeleine Albright
United States secretary of state
Alternate titles: Marie Jana Korbel
 
By The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica • Last Updated: Mar 23, 2022 • Edit History
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Mar. 23, 2022, 3:49 PM EDT - NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg paid tribute to Madeleine Albright after her death: "She was a force for freedom, an outspoken champion of NATO, an inspirational colleague and friend."
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Madeleine Albright, née Marie Jana Korbel, (born May 15, 1937, Prague, Czechoslovakia [now in the Czech Republic]—died March 23, 2022, Washington, D.C., U.S.), Czech-born American public official who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (1993–97) and who was the first woman to hold the cabinet post of U.S. secretary of state (1997–2001).


Madeleine Albright
Madeleine Albright
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Born: May 15, 1937 Prague Czech Republic
Died: March 23, 2022 (aged 84) Washington, D.C. United States
Political Affiliation: Democratic Party
Awards And Honors: Presidential Medal of Freedom (2012)
Marie Jana Korbel was the daughter of a Czech diplomat. After the Nazis occupied Czechoslovakia in 1939, her family fled to England. Although she spent most of her life believing that they had fled for political reasons, she learned in 1997 that her family was Jewish and that three of her grandparents had died in German concentration camps. The family returned to Czechoslovakia after World War II, but the Soviet-sponsored communist coup made them refugees again, and by 1948 they had settled in the United States.

Korbel graduated from Wellesley (Massachusetts) College (B.A., 1959) and married Joseph Albright, a member of the Medill newspaper-publishing family. After earning a master’s degree (1968) from Columbia University, New York City, she worked as a fundraiser for Sen. Edmund Muskie’s failed 1972 presidential campaign and later served as Muskie’s chief legislative assistant. By 1976 she had received a Ph.D. from Columbia and was working for Zbigniew Brzezinski, U.S. Pres. Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser.

Madeleine Albright
Madeleine Albright
U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright greeting a boy holding a sign that reads, “We want back home to Kosova.”
U.S. Department of State

During the Republican administrations of U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush in the 1980s and early ’90s, Albright worked for several nonprofit organizations, and her Washington, D.C., home became a salon for influential Democratic politicians and policy makers. She also was professor of international affairs at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., from 1982 to 1993.

After the election of U.S. Pres. Bill Clinton, a Democrat, in 1992, Albright’s political star began to rise, and Clinton named her ambassador to the United Nations in 1993. At the UN she gained a reputation for tough-mindedness as a fierce advocate for American interests, and she promoted an increased role for the United States in UN operations, particularly those with a military component. Her nomination to the position of secretary of state was unanimously confirmed by the Senate in 1997.


During her tenure in office, Albright remained a proponent of military intervention and a forceful champion of both democracy and human rights. Notably, in 1999 she pushed for North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) bombings in Yugoslavia to halt the ethnic cleansing of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo by Yugoslav and Serbian forces. The Kosovo conflict, which some came to call Madeleine’s War, ended after 11 weeks of air strikes, when Yugoslavia agreed to NATO’s terms. Albright was also involved in efforts to end North Korea’s nuclear program, and in 2000 she became the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the country. However, her talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il failed to produce a deal.

With the end of Bill Clinton’s second term in 2001, Albright left government service and founded the Albright Group, a consulting firm based in Washington, D.C. She later supported Hillary Clinton’s presidential bids in 2008 and 2016. In the latter campaign, Albright drew criticism when she said that “there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other,” a sentiment she had often expressed over several decades. However, some believed she was implying that gender was the only consideration when choosing a candidate, and she later clarified her comments.

A frequent columnist on foreign affairs issues, Albright served on the board of directors of the Council on Foreign Relations. Albright wrote a number of books, including The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs (2006), Memo to the President Elect (2008), and Fascism: A Warning (2018). Madam Secretary (2003), Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937–1948 (2012), and Hell and Other Destinations (2020) are memoirs. In 2012 Albright was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen.