Buckminster Fuller

Richard Buckminster Fuller was born July 12, 1895, and spent three decades as an inventor and theorist on the margins before the geodesic dome made him impossible to ignore. Expelled from Harvard in his first year, he went on to publish more than 30 books, secure 28 U.S. patents, and popularize terms like "Dymaxion" and "tensegrity" that entered the language of design. He served as World President of Mensa from 1974 to 1983, collected honorary doctorates and medals from the Franklin Institute to the American Institute of Architects, and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan in February 1983. He died four months later, on July 1, having turned structures and systems into a vocabulary for seeing the world whole.