Stephen Hawking was born on January 8, 1942, in England. While many people remember the famous theoretical physicist in his wheelchair, he did not use one for the first part of his life. He grew up in St Albans as a normal boy and had no signs of being a genius.
If the name “Stephen Hawking” immediately brings to your mind the image of a spectacled genius seated in his wheelchair, it is only natural. That’s how most of us think of the man who spent the bulk of his lifetime in a wheelchair. For more than a quarter of his life, however, English theoretical physicist Hawking didn’t require one. That came later.
Born on January 8, 1942 — with the world still embroiled in a war like no other — Hawking was the eldest of four siblings. He grew up in St Albans, England as a normal boy, a teen, and a young man, with nothing extraordinary to mark him out as a wunderkind.