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Otto Hahn is noted for his work on radioactive materials, which in 1938 led to his discovery, with physicist Lise Meitner and chemist Fritz Strassmann, of the process of nuclear fission. In recognition of their work, Hahn and Strassmann received the 1944 Nobel Prize in chemistry, and Hahn, Strassmann, and Meitner received the Fermi Award in 1966. Hahn was born in Frankfurt-am-Main on March 8, 1879, to Heinrich Hahn, a glazier, and Charlotte Giese Stutzmann Hahn. The Hahns' early years in Frankfurt were marked by poverty: according to R. Spence, writing in the Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, the four Hahn boys--Otto, his two brothers and his half-brother from Charlotte's first marriage--"slept in an unheated attic bedroom and took their weekly bath in a tub on the landing." Gradually, Heinrich's business became more successful, and the family attained "middle-class respectability." Otto, who attended the Klinger Realschule, demonstrated some early interest in science, carrying out simple chemical experiments in the family laundry house.
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