Famous people surrounded by controversy?

Question

has anyone read or heard of someone famous(except music and movie stars, but more like inventors, pioneers, discoverers, etc.) that influenced the world in some areas, but their life was surounded by controversy of some sort.
Thank you.

Answer 1

Look up the pioneer/inventor of broadcast radio and the guy who promoted AC electricity against Edison who wanted DC. Both famous, both won, both unknown. Former had a PBS show on him and others in early radio.
Look-up the guy who was instrumental in making the atomic bomb and turned against its use and further development and lost his clearance, etc., Oppenheimer.
Check out Gandhi's life and controversies.
Might look at the guy who spoke up for plate tectonics and separation of a single continent, even named it Godwanna, which we use today, but not having mechanism, could not "prove" it.

Answer 2

Dr. Benjamin Spock
Linus Pauling
Alan Turing
Thorstein Veblen

Answer 3

Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt comes to mind.

When he died at this Warm Spring, GA, retreat, he was with his mistress Lucy Mercer, while Elanor was in Washington.

Lucy Mercer, his former mistress, was with him at the time of his death. In his latter years at the White House, Roosevelt was increasingly overworked and his daughter Anna Roosevelt Boettiger had moved in to provide her father companionship and support. Anna had also arranged for her father to meet with the now widowed Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd. When Eleanor heard about her husband's death, she was also faced with the hurtful news that Anna had been arranging these meetings with Lucy and that Lucy had been with Franklin when he died.

Answer 4

Socrates, Percy and Mary Shelley (author of Frankenstein)

Answer 5

Copernicus and Galileo were both excommunicated by the Church for their scientific discoveries. Galileo recanted and was allowed back in. Copernicus didn't. For people back then, that was very much a controversy.