Demitri Mendeleev
Daniel Arzola
Background
Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleyev was born on February 8, 1834, in the Siberian town of Tobolsk in Russia. His father, Ivan Pavlovich Mendeleyev, went blind around the time his final son was born, and died in 1847. The scientist's mother, Mariya Dmitriyevna Kornileva, worked as the manager of a glass factory to support herself and her children. When the factory burned down in 1848, the family moved to St. Petersburg.
Education
Mendeleyev attended the Main Pedagogical Institute in St. Petersburg and graduated in 1855. After teaching in the Russian cities of Simferopol and Odessa, he returned to St. Petersburg to earn a master's degree. Mendeleyev continued his studies abroad, with two years at the University of Heidelberg.
Contribution to Science
Mendeleev's greatest contribution to science is the Periodic Table of Elements, which says the properties of basic elements repeat periodically when they are arranged by their atomic number. He made the discovery in 1869 during his work on the award-winning textbook on chemistry basics.