Portal:Bavaria/Selected biography/2
Rudolf Christian Karl Diesel (German pronunciation: [ˈʁuːdɔlf ˈkʁɪstjan ˈkaʁl ˈdiːzəl]; March 18, 1858 – last seen alive September 29, 1913) was a French/German inventor and mechanical engineer, famous for the invention of the diesel engine.
Diesel was born in Paris, France in 1858 as the second of three children to Theodor and Elise Diesel. Diesel's parents were German-born immigrants living in France. Theodor Diesel, a bookbinder by trade, had left his home town of Augsburg, Kingdom of Bavaria, in 1848. He met his wife, Elise Strobel, daughter of a Nuremberg merchant, in Paris in 1855 and himself became a leathergoods manufacturer there.