12 incredible things you never knew about Albert Einstein, one of history's most iconic scientists

On April 17, 1955, Einstein experienced an abdominal aortic aneurysm, resulting in internal bleeding. Upon being offered surgery, he said: "I want to go when I want. It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share, it is time to go. I will do it elegantly."

He died the following day.

Dr. Thomas Stolz Harvey was the doctor who carried out the autopsy of Einstein, but no paperwork was ever found assigning Harvey to the procedure. The autopsy was performed illegal.

Seven hours after Einstein's death, Harvey set about removing Einstein's brain — despite his final wishes stating to be cremated with his brain intact — and kept it for himself, but no one knows why.

You can read the full story story here on Business Insider.

In 1935, the "Ripley's Believe It Or Not!" newspaper published an article headlined "Greatest living mathematician failed in mathematics," and the claim is still passed around to this day.

Einstein never failed maths. He was shown the article and laughed: "I never failed in mathematics. Before I was 15 I had mastered differential and integral calculus."

The young Einstein was actually at the top of most of his classes and far exceeded the expectations of his teachers.

Liersel Einstein was the first child of Albert and his first wife, Mileva Maric. The only record of Liersel is in correspondence letters between her parents.

She was born out of wedlock in January 1902 and was not spoken of much. She's thought to have died September 1903 from scarlet fever.

Liersel is believed to have been born with mental disabilities and was last mentioned in a letter from Albert to Mileva, dated 19 September 1903, which suggested they were planning on giving her up for adoption before her death. "As what is the child registered?" asked Einstein. "We must take precautions that problems don't arise for her later."

Albert eventually married Elsa, but they actually started dating while Albert was still married to his first wife, Mileva.

Einstein's divorce from Mileva wasn't finalised until 1919, seven years after he started dating his cousin.

Einstein's work on his famous theory of relativity isn't what won him the Nobel prize, it was his "services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect."

As part of the divorce settlement, the couple agreed that the money from the prize he anticipated he would win would go into a savings account for their sons, Hans and Eduard.

The money was eventually used to buy three houses in Zurich — one for Mileva to live in, and two others as investments.

Not only did the doctor who illegally performed Einstein's autopsy steal his brain, he also stole his eyes. He gave the eyes to Einstein's eye doctor, Henry Abrams. They are kept in a safety deposit box in New York City to this day.

Stuart Freeborn, the movie makeup artist who created Yoda, modelled the jedi's face on his own, but added wrinkles inspired by Einstein to Yoda's eyes to denote wisdom and intelligence

"God does not play dice with the universe" is one of Einstein's most famous and somewhat cryptic quotes.

His reference to God often causes people to assume he was religious — he wasn't. He was using God as a metaphor. In a letter he wrote in 1954, he said:

I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.

And when Einstein said "does not play dice," he was referring to the unpredictable nature of subatomic particles in quantum physics.

In short, the quote aims to outline how weird quantum mechanics is as a theory. You can read more on Tech Insider.

Despite all his other talents and achievements, music was what made Einstein happiest. He never travelled without his violin and once said: "Life without playing music is inconceivable for me. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music. I get most joy in life out of music.”