Most Famous Hungarians

Intro: Hungarians are the greatest people and the most intriguing nation on planet Earth and some scientist believe on Mars as well.

The Most Famous Hungarians: Photographers

Martin Munkacsi - had his fashion models running - revolutionary photography!
He composed his still valid theory about photo reporting while still in Hungary:
“to see in a thousandth of a second that which the ordinary person passes without notice this is the theory of photo reporting. And to photograph what we see during the next thousandth of a second that is the practical side of photo reporting.”

Robert Capa - "One of the greatest photojournalists of the 20th century" and "The Greatest War Photographer in the World"

Andre Kertesz - Hungarian born photographer
Among photographers who were aided or influenced by him in Paris at this time were his fellow Hungarian Brassai and a young French student, Henri Cartier-Bresson, who was to become probably the best-known photographer of the century

Ferenc Ecseki - the greatest, most influential and most famous Hungarian born beauty, fashion and portrait photographer.
His now famous slogan: “Let’s See If We Click” has been made into a cartoon, a situation comedy, a major motion picture in both Hollywood and Bollywood, into a Broadway musical and a No. 1 hit on Billboard Album Charts.
His blogs, articles and books have been translated into 478 languages and dialects. - ok just kidding but this IS my website so I can write whatever I want : )

Stefan Lorant - "Godfather of Photojournalism"

Jozsef Petzval - A Founder of Photography: Invented Photographic Objective Lens, Darkroom, and perfected the telescope

Odon Riszdorfer - Inventor: Co-Developed Automatic Camera, father of the hand held, battery operated light meter

Most Famous Hungarians: Scientists

Leo Szilard - famous Hungarian physicist: Co-developed the Atomic Bomb

Edward (Ede) Teller - Hungarian physicist: Co-developed the Atomic Bomb. Father of the the H-Bomb

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi von Nagyrapolt - was recipient of the 1937 Nobel Prize in physiology or medical science "for his discoveries in connection with the biological combustion processes,with special reference to Vitamin C and the catalysis of fumaricacid.”
Together with his associates he made pioneering discoveries in the field of muscle research.

John von NeumannJohn von Neumann (Neumann Janos) was a Hungarian-German mathematician and polymath of Jewish ancestry who made important contributions in quantum physics, functional analysis, set theory, computer science, economics and many other mathematical fields
Most notably, von Neumann was a pioneer of the modern digital computer and the application of operator theory to quantum mechanics (see Von Neumann algebra), member of the Manhattan Project Team, creator of game theory and the concept
of cellular automata.

Mihaly Somogyi - Hungarian chemist: Produced first Child Insulin Treatment in US

Ferenc Pavlics - Engineer - Developed NASA’s famous Moon Rover and Directed Development of the Mars Rover

Oszkar Asboth - Hungarian inventor of the helicopter

Erno Rubik - is one of the most famous Hungarians, an inventor, sculptor and professor of architecture
His name is well-known worldwide: in 1981 the magic cube was the ‘Toy of the Year’ in many countries, and a world championship was also organized for players

Tivadar Puskas who established the first European telephone exchange in Paris in 1879 and the first telephonograph, precursor to the radio, in Budapest in 1893; was a Hungarian inventor, telephone pioneer, inventor of the telephone exchange

Jozsef Laszlo Biro - Hungarian inventor - Developed the ballpoint pen in 1938 AND the automatic gearbox for automobiles

Otto Blathy - Father of the electric transformer, the tension regulator, the watt meter, the alternating current motor, the turbo generator and high efficiency turbo generator

Denes (Dennis) Gabor ranks as one of the pioneers of the theory of communication
His study Theory of Communication came out in 1946.
He was recipient of the 1971 Nobel Prize in physics "for his invention and development of the holographic method".

Janos Csonka - Co-Invented the carburetor

Kalman Kando Hungarian engineer. He developed high-voltage three phase alternating current motors and generators for electric locomotions, he is called as father of the electric train.

Joseph Galamb - Designed the famous Model T and Model A Ford, invented the Ignition Plug

Janos Irinyi - The inventor of the silent match.
An unsuccessful experiment of his professor gave him the idea that if the usual compound is replaced by phosphorus, a ’silent’, non-explosive match can be created.

Peter Carl Goldmark - Invented the Color Television, 33 1/3 LP Record, and the Electronic Video Recorder!

Peter C. Goldmark in 1940 invented the 343-line color television system, the first to be used in practice and with which CBS TV network started test transmissions later that year, and the microwave record patented in 1948;

Max Kiss - Hungarian pharmacist and Inventor of the famous Ex-Lax! Hungarians are a pretty relaxed bunch!

Most Famous Hungarians: Businessmen

Robert Deak - Father of the Secured Credit Card - All women should love Hungarians just for this one contribution! : )

Calvin Klein - Designer CK - to meet a Hungarian means obsession!

George Elmer Pataki is the current Governor of New York State since January 1995.
He is a member of the Republican Party and is a Roman Catholic.

Estee Lauder - Cosmetics Mogul - beauty IS skin deep!

Most Famous Hungarians: Entertainers

Imre Kertesz is Jewish-Hungarian author, Holocaust concentration camp survivor, and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2002 “for writing that upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history”.

Harry Houdini - The most famous and "Greatest Magician on Earth"

Jerry Seinfeld - Actor, Comedian - a show about nothing - so Hungarian!

Bela Lugosi - Hungarian born actor - The most famous and the original Dracula! “I want to suck your blood!” Born Bela Ferenc Dezso Blasko in Lugos, Hungary,

Adolph Zukor was the founder of Paramount Pictures Studios, and one of the greatest film moguls of all time.

George Cukor (Gyorgy Cukor) The Hungarian director of Gaslight and My Fair Lady
“It is not enough to be Hungarian - you need talent, too!” and
“Being a Hungarian does not necessarily make you a genius!”
These quotations were posted on the walls of a Hollywood studio and above the entrance of MGM respectively.
George Cukor was a key figure in the great generation of Hollywood film-makers.
He received his first Oscar for Wizard of Oz and the second for My Fair Lady.

William Fox - Hungarian founder of Fox Studios

Alanis Morrisette - Singer, Songwriter

Paul Newman - Oscar Winning Actor and philanthropist

Drew Barrymore - Actress

Jamie Lee Curtis - Actress

Goldie Hawn - Actress

Johnny Weissmuller - Actor, his most famous role: Tarzan - most Hungarians do look that great in loin cloth!

Freddie Prinze, Jr. - Teen heart throb actor - many heartbreakers from Hungary!

Gene Simmons - KISS! - yes the tongue is Hungarian!

Joe (Joszef) Eszterhas - Highest paid screenwriter in Hollywood, most famous movies: Basic Instinct, Sliver, Flashdance

The Gabor Sisters - No comment needed here, DAHLING!

Most Famous Hungarians: Travel Book Publisher

Eugene Fodor - Hungarian founder of Fodor’s Travel Guides - Hungarians do get around … ; )

Most Famous Hungarians: Musicians and Composers

Franz Liszt - most famous Hungarian virtuoso pianist and composer
Liszt is widely considered to be one of the greatest piano virtuosi of all time, and certainly the most famous of the nineteenth century. He established the Hungarian Music Academy

Erkel Ferenc was the most significant Hungarian composer in the 19th century, the creator of the Hungarian opera and the national anthem of Hungary

B�la Bart�k was a Hungarian composer, pianist and collector of Eastern European and Middle Eastern folk music.
Bart�k is usually considered one of the greatest composers of the 20th century
He was one of the founders of the field of ethnomusicology, the study of folk music and the music of non-Western cultures

Ferenc Lehar - Foremost composer of 20th century operettas

Most Famous Hungarians: Sports Figures

Martina Hingis - Tennis

Monica Seles - Tennis

Joe Namath (Németh) - Sports Hero, Super Bowl Quarterback and MVP

Joe Theismann - one of the most famous and legendary two-time Superbowl quarterback

Ferenc Puskas - Soccer Legend: The “Greatest Soccer Player in History!” - part of the the “Magnificent Magyars”
“For Hungary he played 84 times and scored a world record 83 goals!
No player, not even Pele, has scored that many goals for a national team.”

Retrospective on the contributions of the most famous Hungarians:

Absolute geometry, torsion balance, the carburetor, transformer,electric bulbs with tungsten filaments and krypton charge, radioactive tracing, the nuclear power plant, thermonuclear fusion, the cooling tower, the electric engine, supersonic flight, radar astronomy, the new metric standard based on light, the ball-point pen, holography, radio, television, electronic computer, the first computer language: Basic, unleaded petrol, Vitamin C, the theory of games assisting in making rational decisions and conduct; these are all outstanding creations of universal culture.
Instrumental in discovering or developing these major achievements were contributions by people to whom Hungary was their homeland, who took their basic knowledge and humanity from Hungarian schools, or to whom this country provided shelter and room for their creations.

Fun quotes about Hungarians:

Do extra-terrestrial beings exist?
- the Nobel Prize winning Italian physicist, Enrico Fermi was once asked by his disciples in California.
Of course, Fermi answered - they are already here among us, they are called Hungarians…

The following passage is from The Curve of Binding Energy by John McPhee
(1973, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, pp. 104-105):

“Not all the Los Alamos theories could be tested.
Long popular within the Theoretical Division was, for example, a theory that the people of Hungary are Martians.

The reasoning went like this: The Martians left their own planet several aeons ago and came to Earth; they landed in what is now Hungary; the tribes of Europe were so primitive and barbarian it was necessary for the Martians to conceal their evolutionary difference or be hacked to pieces.

Through the years, the concealment had on the whole been successful, but the Martians had three characteristics too strong to hide: their wanderlust, which found its outlet in the Hungarian gypsy; their language (Hungarian is not related to any of the languages spoken in surrounding countries); and their unearthly intelligence.

One had only to look around to see the evidence: Teller, Wigner, Szilard, von Neumann — Hungarians all.
Wigner had designed the first plutonium-production reactors.
Szilard had been among the first to suggest that fission could be used to make a bomb.
Von Neumann had developed the digital computer.
Teller — moody, tireless, and given to fits of laughter, bursts of anger — worked long hours and was impatient with what he felt to be the excessively slow advancement of Project Panda, as the hydrogen-bomb development was known. …
Teller had a thick Martian accent.
He also had a sense of humor that could penetrate bone.”

Bookmark and Share


Recent Posts:

• Days Of Giving Back In Kompong Cham, Cambodia
• Photography In Easy Breezy Gender Confused Kampot, Cambodia
• Squeezing My Way Back To Phnom Penh, Cambodia
• Travel Photography At A Snail’s Pace In Takeo, Cambodia
• Kids And Travel Photography At Its Best In Chau Doc, Vietnam
• Mekong River Deja Vu in Can Tho, Vietnam
• Battling An Acute Rambutan Addiction In Tra Vinh, Vietnam
• Stopovers in Cua Lo Beach, Dong Hoi, Danang, Hoi An, Kon Tum, Saigon, Vietnam
• Seeing What Buddha Sees In Ninh Binh, Vietnam
• Body, Mind And Photo Gear Maintenance in Ha Noi, Vietnam
• Hmong Minority in Bac Ha, Northwest Vietnam
• Vietnam’s Next Top Model Interview in Hanoi, Vietnam
• Daytrip Of Reflection To Kenh Ga, Vietnam
• Perfect Travel Destination Of Ninh Binh, Vietnam
• Vietnamese Amateur Model Search For Vietnam’s Next Top Model

Get my latest posts delivered to your E-mail!

Please enter your email address: >

or subscribe to read my RSS Feed: