Evariste Galois was the father of modern algebra. He was born in France in 1811, and died of gunshot wounds twenty years and seven months later. He was still a minor when his brief, turbulent life ended.

Galois began his career in mathematics by failing the École Polytechnique's entry exam twice because his answers were so odd. He was accepted into the École Normale, only to be expelled when he attacked the director in a letter to the papers. A few months later, he was arrested for making a threatening speech against the king.

He was acquitted, but then he was right back into jail after he illegally wore a uniform and carried weapons. He spent the next nine months writing mathematics. Then, as soon as he got out, he was devastated by an unhappy love affair. I guess it'd be fair to say he was a typical bright young teenager. Still, his talents as a mathematician were known. He did publish some material, and luminaries like Gauss, Jacobi, Fourier, and Cauchy all knew of him.

For some murky reason - most likely underhanded police work - he was challenged to a duel on May 30th, 1832. It was a duel he couldn't win but which he couldn't dodge either. On May 29th, he wrote and wrote. That day and night he gathered the hundred or so pages of mathematics he'd produced during his short life. He wrote a long cover letter organizing, explaining and expanding upon the work. Then and there, he set down what proved to be the very foundations of modern algebra and group theory. Some of the theorems in that package weren't proved for a century. He faced death with a cool desperation, reaching down inside himself and getting at truths we do not know how he found.

[Source: http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1475.htm]