Rudolf Christian Karl Diesel was born on March 18, 1858 in Paris, France. He was a German inventor and mechanical engineer, famous for the invention of the diesel engine. He is the second of three children of Elise (née Strobel) and Theodore Diesel. His parents were Bavarian immigrants living in Paris. Theodor Diesel, a bookbinder by profession, left his hometown of Augsburg, Bavaria, in 1848. He met his daughter of a Nuremberg merchant, in Paris in 1855 and became a leather goods manufacturer there. Rudolf spent his early childhood in France, but following the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, his family (like many other Germans) was forced to leave. They settled in London, France. Before the war ended, however, Diesel's mother sent 12-year-old Rudolf to Augsburg to live with his aunt and uncle Barbara and Christoph Barnickel, to learn fluent German and to visit the Royal County Trade School, where his uncle taught mathematics. . At the age of 14, Rudolf wrote a letter to his parents stating that he wanted to become an engineer. After finishing his basic education at the top of his class in 1873, he enrolled in the newly formed Augsburg Industrial School. Two years later, he received a merit scholarship from the Royal Bavarian Polytechnic in Munich, which he accepted against the wishes of his parents, who would have preferred to see him start working. One of Diesel's professors in Munich was Carl von Linde. Diesel was unable to graduate with his class in July 1879 because he fell ill with typhus. While waiting for the next exam date, he gained practical engineering experience at the Sulzer brothers' machine factory in Winterthur, Switzerland. Diesel graduated in January 1880 with academic honors and back... half the work... open until the following week. He discovered 200,000 German marks in cash and a series of financial statements indicating that their bank accounts were virtually empty. In a diary that Diesel took with him on the ship, a cross indicating death was drawn for the date September 29, 1913. After Diesel's death, the diesel engine underwent many developments and became a very important replacement for the steam piston engine in many applications. Because the diesel engine required a heavier and sturdier structure than a gasoline engine, it was not widely used in aviation. However, the diesel engine spread to many other applications, such as stationary engines, submarines, ships, and, much later, locomotives, trucks, and modern automobiles. Diesel engines are most often found in applications where there are high torque requirements and low rpm requirements.