The clemency campaign to spare a Jewish-American couple convicted of espionage failed to prevent their execution at Sing Sing prison on June 19, 1953. The Rosenbergs were the only two American civilians to be executed for espionage-related activity during the Cold War. Stan considered the prosecution of the Rosenbergs as the height of McCarthy Era hysteria. 

Rejected by Nature as too speculative, Enrico Fermi's "Attempt At a Theory of Beta Rays" was published in Italian and German journals. It introduced key concepts such as derivation of the shape of the electron energy spectrum, the expression of the decay constant, the selection rules for scalar and vector interactions, and the expression of the “ft” values.

Wolfgang Pauli postulated the existence of a neutral, light-weight particle that could save the fundamental law of the conservation of energy. Enrico Fermi later named it "neutrino" and gave it a central role in the theory of beta decay. It would be 25 years before neutrinos were confirmed experimentally.

Wu received her elementary education at a school for girls founded by her father, then was sent to a boarding school in Suzhou for preparatory studies. Her teachers kindled her growing interest in science.

Rustad was the second of three children of Louis Lars Rustad and Edith E. Swanson. He was baptized at the Christ Lutheran Church in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Ruby was the second child of second-generation Russian Jewish parents from New York City and Albany. His father was a traveling salesman and marketing innovator in the silver ware industry.. 

Wu was born in the town of Liuhe, Taicang in Jiangsu province, China, into a family that highly valued education. Her father, an engineer who encouraged women's equality, was a notable activist during the 1911 revolution that modernized the country.