Juana Barraza
Mexico
Date of Birth: Dec 27, 1957
Juana Dayanara Barraza Samperio is a Mexican serial killer known as "La Mataviejitas" (The Little Old Lady Killer). She was sentenced to 759 years in prison for the killing of 16 elderly women. Sentences imposed in Mexican courts are generally served concurrently, but the maximum sentence under...
John Johnson
United States
Date of Birth: 1813 — 1871
John Johnson was born at Saco, Maine, U.S.A. in 1813. He was brought up in New Hampshire and, for a time, worked as an assistant to a jeweller and watchmaker in New York. He formed a business partnership with Alexander Simon Wolcott (1804 -1844), a New York instrument maker.
1839 was the year...
Joseph Nicéphore Niépce
France
Date of Birth: 1765 — 1833
Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, is credited as the inventor of photography. He was a French inventor, who first gained fame, with his older brother Claude Niépce, for their invention of the internal combustion engine. When lithography began advancing he experimented with this new printing technique....
Johann Heinrich Schulze
Germany
Date of Birth: 1687 — 1744
Johann Schulze was a German physician and anatomy professor who made a significant discovery in the development of photography when he observed that silver salts darkened when exposed to sunlight. In 1725, while attempting to create a phosphorescent material by combining a slurry of chalk with...
Johann Zahn
Germany
Date of Birth: 1641 — 1707
Johann Zahn, was inducted into the Silver Hall of Fame, not for his use of silver, but for his studies related to light and his interests in the production of the camera obscura, (latin for dark chamber.) Zahn, a German priest, was the author of Oculus Artificialis Teledioptricus Sive...
Jean Baptiste Claude Odiot
House of Odiot
France
Date of Birth: 1763 — 1850
The House of Odiot was founded in 1690 by Jean-Baptiste Gaspard Odiot but rose to prominence under Jean-Baptiste Claude, Gaspard's grandson. Jean-Baptiste Claude was influenced by classical Greek and Egyptian motifs as expressed in the Directoire and Empire styles.
Odiot purchased many of Henry...
Jean Puiforcat
France
Date of Birth: 1897 — 1945
Founded in Paris in 1820 by Louis-Victor and Emile Puiforcat and their cousin, Puiforcat rose to fame as one of the great French silversmiths. The Puiforcat collection features outstanding designs ranging from classical through Art Deco to modern design. Many of the works were recreated from...
Jonathan Mappin
Mappin & Webb
United Kingdom
Date of Birth: 1775
In 1775, teenager Jonathan Mappin started a small cutlery workshop in Sheffield. Within a year the first Mappin hallmark was recorded at the assay office. But it was under his four great-grandsons who incorporated the business as Mappin Brothers Ltd in the middle of the 19th century. In 1963...
Jabez Gorham
Gorham Manufacturing Company
United States
Date of Birth: 1831
Established in 1831 in Rhode Island, as a coin-silver flatware and jewelery manufacturer, Gorham eventually became one of the largest silversmiths in the world. By the late 1860s, they grossed $1 million in sales per year. Gorham was tremendously successful with flatware patterns like Chantilly,...
Jean Puiforcat
France
Date of Birth: 1897 — 1945
Jean Puiforcat served in WW1. After the war, he apprenticed as a silversmith and a designer. He lived in Paris. He designed in the art deco style. His silver work had smooth surfaces and was based on the geometric series. Ivory, onyx, lapis lazuli and rosewood were used to decorate pieces. He...
Judas Iscariot
Date of Birth: - — 33
The thirty pieces of silver that Judas received for betraying Jesus have become a symbol of greed and betrayal. According to the Gospel of Matthew, Judas agreed to betray Jesus for this sum of money, which was equivalent to the price of an enslaved person at that time. Some scholars believe this...
James J. McKinley
Canada
James H. McKinley and Ernest J. Darragh were contractors providing lumber for a railway being pushed north through the thick Ontario bush. On August 7, 1903 the two partners were walking the right of way scouting for trees suitable for railway ties. As they passed through a rock cut on the banks...
Jaime Lomelin
Mexico
Inducted into the Silver Hall of Fame in 2017
Mr Lomelin spent 36 years at Peñoles where he served as Group Vice President of the metals and chemicals division for four years and subsequently held the position as CEO for 21 years. He brings to the board an invaluable wealth of senior...
John (Jan) II Dobry, John the Good - Duke of Opole
Poland
Date of Birth: 1460 — 1532
In 1526 Tarnowskie Góry in Silesia (southern Poland) was awarded the status of a free mining town, and in 1528, John II the Good, Duke of Opole, issued an ordinance known as the Ordunek Górny, granting the town a series of mining privileges. At the same time a mining authority was also...
Juan Godoy
Chile
Date of Birth: 1800 — 1842
Juan Godoy (1801-1842) was a Chilean prospector who made significant contributions to Chile's mining industry. He was born in the small town of Copiapó and grew up in a family of miners. Juan Godoy inherited his father's passion for mining and began working in the industry at a young...