Gold Medal
Birth of Wilhelm Heinrich Walter Baade
Historical biography archive · Updated 2026-11-03
Wilhelm Heinrich Walter Baade Biography and Timeline
Follow Wilhelm Heinrich Walter Baade through 7 dated historical records for Germany.
Wilhelm Heinrich Walter Baade, historical timeline
A chronological timeline drawn from matching World History Database records.
7Distinct records
1 of 1Page
1893–1960Years on this page
1893
1931
Death of Wilhelm Heinrich Walter Baade
Emigrates to the USA in 1931
1940
Discovery of Cepheid Stars
Walter Baade recognizes that Cepheids consist of at least two separate populations (classical Cepheids & Type II Cepheids). Classical Cepheids are younger and more massive population I stars, whereas Type II Cepheids are older fainter population. Resolves stars in the centre of the Andromeda galaxy for the first time, which led him to define distinct "populations" for stars (Population I and Population II)
1952
Discovery of Cepheid Stars
Recalculates the size of the known universe, doubling the previous calculation made by Hubble in 1929, announces this finding to considerable astonishment at the 1952 meeting of the International Astronomical Union in Rome
1954
Gold Medal
Winner of the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society
1956
Hubbles Law
It was not until 1956 that Walter Baade corrected the distance scale based on Cepheid variable stars, and ushered in the first accurate measures of the expansion rate
1960
Death of Wilhelm Heinrich Walter Baade
Death of Wilhelm Heinrich Walter Baade
Records, sources and methodology
These dates and descriptions come from the historical_events database. Exact duplicate records have been collapsed. Names are grouped by the country, Name 2 and Name 1 fields; records with missing Name 2 cannot be reliably assigned to an individual biography. Check the underlying sources before formal citation.