Štefánik, Milan

Milan Štefánik, in full Milan Rastislav Štefánik, (born July 21, 1880, Košariská (Kosaras), Austria-Hungary [now in Slovakia]—died May 4, 1919, near Bratislava, Czechoslovakia [now in Slovakia]), Slovak astronomer and general who, with Tomáš Masaryk and Edvard Beneš, helped found the new nation of Czechoslovakia in 1918–19.

After study at the University of Prague, from which he received a doctorate of philosophy in 1904, Štefánik went to Paris. Joining the staff of the astronomical observatory at Meudon, he served on scientific expeditions to Africa, the Americas, and Oceania. Becoming a naturalized French citizen, he joined the army after the outbreak of World War I and eventually was drawn to the Czechoslovak liberation movement. Encouraged by the French government, he was sent on military and political missions to the United States, Russia, Italy, and other Allied powers. In 1918 he became minister of war in the provisional Czechoslovak government. The following year he perished in an airplane crash.