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He scared his grandmother as a newborn -

Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879, and emerged with a "swollen, misshapen head and a grossly overweight body." His grandmother reacted by screaming, "Much too fat! Much too fat!"

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He was a difficult child -

Albert Einstein was the king of tantrums as a child, a fact which included throwing objects.

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He didn’t fail math as a child -

This is a myth. Einstein actually addressed it once and said, “Before I was 15 I had mastered differential and integral calculus.” He did, however, drop out of school when he was 15.

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He renounced his German citizenship -

Albert Einstein renounced his German citizenship when he was just 16 because he considered himself a citizen of the world. He would remain stateless until 1901, when he became a Swiss citizen.

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He married the only aspiring female physicist in college -

Einstein married first wife Mileva Marić, who happened to be the only female student in his physics class at Zürich Polytechnic.

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He was under FBI surveillance -

The FBI had a 1,427-page file on Einstein, mostly focused on his association with pacifist and socialist organizations. Einstein was under surveillance for a total of 22 years.

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He was almost banned from entering the US -

At one point, the then-director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, tried to keep Einstein out of the US, invoking the Alien Exclusion Act, though he was overruled by the U.S. State Department.

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He had an illegitimate child -

In 1902, Mileva Marić gave birth to Einstein’s daughter, Lieserl, out of wedlock while staying with her family in Serbia.

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His first daughter is still a mystery -

No one really knows what happened to Einstein’s first daughter. Some scholars speculate that Lieserl died from scarlet fever in 1903, while others say that she was given up for adoption in Serbia.

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It took him nine years to get a job in academia -

After two years looking for a position in academia, Einstein ended up settling for a job at a Swiss patent office.

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It took him nine years to get a job in academia -

He then went on to do research in his free time, and in 1905 Einstein published four articles, including introductions to the equation E=mc2 and the theory of special relativity. It was not until 1909 that he won a full professorship.

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He gave his wife a list of marital demands -

Einstein gave his first wife, Mileva Marić, a list of “conditions,” as follows:

“A. You will make sure: 1. that my clothes and laundry are kept in good order; 2. that I will receive my three meals regularly in my room; 3. that my bedroom and study are kept neat, and especially that my desk is left for my use only.”

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List of “conditions” -

“B. You will renounce all personal relations with me insofar as they are not completely necessary for social reasons. Specifically, You will forego: 1. my sitting at home with you; 2. my going out or travelling with you.”

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List of “conditions” -

“C. You will obey the following points in your relations with me: 1. you will not expect any intimacy from me, nor will you reproach me in any way; 2. you will stop talking to me if I request it; 3. you will leave my bedroom or study immediately without protest if I request it.”

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List of “conditions” -

And the last one in his list of demands:

“D. You will undertake not to belittle me in front of our children, either through words or behavior.”

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He used his Nobel Prize money in his divorce -

Einstein promised Mileva Marić to pay her the money he’d get if he won the Nobel Prize, in exchange for her giving him a divorce. Einstein ended up winning (and spending) US$32,250.

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He married his cousin -

Einstein’s second wife, Elsa, was his first cousin from his mother’s side. Though they were also second cousins, as Einstein’s father and Elsa’s father were cousins!

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He was a civil rights trailblazer -

Albert Einstein believed in civil rights and free speech. He was essentially a civil rights activist before the civil rights movement.

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His son was institutionalized -

Einstein’s second son, Eduard, was diagnosed with schizophrenia. He ended up being institutionalized for most of his life. Eduard died aged 55, in a psychiatric clinic.

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He was friends with Fritz Haber -

Albert Einstein was friends with German chemist Fritz Haber, dubbed “the father of chemical warfare.” Haber invented chlorine gas, which was used by the Germans in World War I.

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He has a solar eclipse to thank for his fame -

Einstein published his theory of general relativity in 1915, but it was not until May 1919 that a total solar eclipse provided the right conditions to test it. The theory was proven and Albert Einstein became a celebrity overnight.

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He might have had an affair with a spy -

Einstein met Margarita Konenkova in 1935 and they became lovers. Some sources claim that Konenkova was a Russian spy, whose code name was "Agent Lucas," but this has not been confirmed by historians.

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He had a peculiar position regarding the atomic bomb -

When Albert Einstein learned that the Nazis could be developing an atomic bomb, he urged the Allies to build one as well. Though he wasn’t directly involved in the Manhattan Project, he later regretted his support following the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.

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He had a peculiar position regarding the atomic bomb -

“Had I known that the Germans would not succeed in producing an atomic bomb, I never would have lifted a finger,” he said. Einstein went on to become an advocate for nuclear disarmament.

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His IQ actually remains unknown -

No one really knows Einstein’s IQ. Some sources claim that the physicist's IQ was 160, but in reality it was never tested.

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He relaxed by playing the violin -

Einstein started playing the violin at the age of five, and it was his go-to escape when he wanted to refresh his brain. "Music helps him when he is thinking about his theories," his wife, Elsa, said.

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He could have been President of Israel -

When Israeli President Chaim Weizmann died in 1952, Albert Einstein was offered the position. The idea came from then-Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. Einstein eventually refused.

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He corresponded with Sigmund Freud -

Einstein corresponded with the “father of psychoanalysis.” One of his most famous letters was called ‘Why War?’ in which Einstein addressed the question “Is there any way of delivering mankind from the menace of war?”

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He corresponded with Sigmund Freud -

The last paragraph of the letter reads, “To conclude: I have so far been speaking only of wars between nations; what are known as international conflicts. But I am well aware that the aggressive instinct operates under other forms and in other circumstances. (I am thinking of civil wars, for instance, due in earlier days to religious zeal, but nowadays to social factors; or, again, the persecution of racial minorities)." 

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He corresponded with Sigmund Freud -

"But my insistence on what is the most typical, most cruel and extravagant form of conflict between man and man was deliberate, for here we have the best occasion of discovering ways and means to render all armed conflicts impossible,” he added.

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His brain was removed -

Albert Einstein died on April 18,1955. His body was eventually cremated, but before that Princeton pathologist Thomas Harvey removed his brain during his autopsy and stored it in a jar. Numerous studies of his genius brain have been conducted ever since.

Sources: (National Geographic) (History) (UNESCO) (Mental Floss) (Open Culture)

See also: Surprising historical facts that are actually true

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