In 1908, Einstein became a lecturer at the University of Bern after submitting his Habilitation thesis: Consequences for the constitution of radiation following from the energy distribution law of black bodies. The following year, he became a professor of physics at the University of Zurich.

By 1909, Einstein was finally recognized as a leading scientific thinker. He was appointed a full professor at the Karl-Ferdinand University in Prague in 1911. That same year, Einstein was able to make preliminary predictions about how a ray of light from a distant star, passing near the Sun, would appear to be bent slightly, in the direction of the Sun. This led to the first experimental evidence his theory. About 1912, Einstein began a new phase of his gravitational research. Einstein called his new work the general theory of relativity.

Einstein returned to Germany in 1914.There he accepted a research position in the Prussian Academy of Sciences with a chair at the University of Berlin. Einstein published, in 1915, the definitive version of general theory. When British eclipse expeditions, in 1919, confirmed his predictions, Einstein was idolized by the popular press.

In 1921, Einstein made his first visit to the United States to raise funds for the planned Hebrew University of Jerusalem. But there, he also received the Barnard Medal during his visit and lectured on relativity. At the age of forty-two, he received the Nobel Prize for his work, from 1905, on the photoelectric effect.

He made his last major scientific discovery on the association of waves with matter in 1924. Yet he continued to receive awards: the Copley Medal of the Royal Society in 1925 and the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1926. At age forty-nine, he had a physical collapse brought on through overwork. However, he made a full recovery, taking things with stride throughout 1928.

A third visit to the United States, in 1932, was followed by the offer of a post at Princeton. The idea was that Einstein would spend seven months a year in Berlin, five months at Princeton. Einstein accepted and left Germany in December 1932 for the United States. The next month the Nazis came to power in Germany and Einstein was never to return there. He applied and was granted permanent residency in the United States in 1935. In 1940, Einstein became a citizen of the United States.

He made many contributions to peace during his life. In 1944, he made a contribution to the war effort by hand writing his 1905 paper on special relativity and putting it up for auction. It raised six million dollars.

After being hospitalized in 1949, Einstein began writing his will the next year. He left all his scientific papers to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. After the death of the first president of Israel in 1952, the government offered Einstein the position. He politely declined.

One week before his death, Einstein signed his last letter. It was a letter in which he agreed that his name should go on a manifesto urging all nations to give up nuclear weapons. On the day of his death, in Trenton, New Jersey, at 4:00 PM, April 18, 1955, he was cremated and his ashes were scattered in an undisclosed place.

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