Richard Buckminster Fuller was born on July 12, 1895 in Milton, Massachusetts. His distinguished New England lineage included his aunt, the well-known transcendental feminist Margaret Fuller. The family’s history in America dated back to Bucky’s great, great, great, great grandfather British Navy Lt. Thomas Fuller who traveled to the American Colonies in 1630. His grandson Reverend Timothy Fuller graduated from Harvard (as did all Fuller men until Bucky) in 1760 and was a delegate to the Federal Constitutional Assembly. His son, Timothy Fuller Jr. was born in 1778 and was a founding member of Harvard’s Hasty Pudding Club.

Like previous generations of Fuller men, Bucky’s father, Richard Buckminster Fuller Sr., graduated from Harvard, but he was the first Fuller male in eight generations who did not become a minister or lawyer. So, it would seem that Bucky’s future path was established well before he was born. As a Fuller man, he was expected to graduate from Harvard and become a minister or a lawyer.  Bucky, however, had other ideas, and nothing could be farther from his life path than those two professions. Over the course of his life he increasingly chastised organized religion (not spirituality) and our competitive corporate system, which he felt was controlled by greedy lawyers.

Bucky was a headstrong person who knew what he wanted and was willing to take enormous risks to achieve his goals, which were comprehensive and included the welfare and success of all life on the planet he named Spaceship Earth. He was so determined to be his own person that he even chose the way that his name was written.

The extended Fuller family spent much of the summer at their retreat on Bear Island in Maine’s Penobscot Bay, and the tradition was that everyone was required to sign the guest register when they arrived at the island. As a young child, Bucky experimented with his yearly entry on the register.  One year he signed “Richard B. Fuller,” and another R. B. Fuller.”  He also tried “Richard (Bucky) Fuller,” and finally decided on what he felt was most sophisticated - “R. Buckminster Fuller.”

Despite the fact that he was a highly respected and honored global elder who had been presented with hundreds of awards and dozens of honorary degrees, he insisted that everyone call him “Bucky.”

The period from Bucky’s birth in 1895 through 1927 was a time of experimentation and learning. He extended himself and his environment outward in search of limits; often learning from the painful lessons most people would categorize as failure.

It was also a time of youthful exuberance and disappointment. Fuller suffered the loss of his father, graduated from Milton Academy, twice enrolled at and was expelled from Harvard University and worked as an apprentice millwright in Canada.

In the ensuring years, he served as an officer in the Navy during World War I, married Anne Hewlett and experienced the birth and untimely death of their first daughter. As a businessman, he held managerial positions in several diverse corporations and organized his own construction company. He used that company, Stockade Systems, to attempt establishing and propagating a radical new form of construction that failed financially after a few years. As a result of that endeavor, by 1927 he had lost all his money as well as the investments of his friends and family.

Bucky’s life was never easy.  Being born extremely nearsighted with such poor eyesight, everything seemed a blur without thick glasses.  This was only one of the physical challenges he had to overcome. He was also small for his age, and, yet he was able to fulfill his dream of playing quarterback for Milton Academy football team and trying out for that position at Harvard. He might have made the Harvard team had he not suffered a severe knee injury during freshman practice. That injury would torment him for the rest of his life and result in a slight limp and frequent use of a cane to walk.

During the first half of his life, Bucky's mental prowess was as much an impediment as an asset. He was endowed with an insatiable curiosity and the ability to expand his perspective as he grasped new ideas. This led him to continually challenge his elders and teachers.  He did not feel that he was more intelligent, but he constantly questioned tradition and asked why things were done a certain way or why people believed as they did.

Not really knowing what to do with this impudent youth, adults tried to impress the importance of the lessons he and other children were being taught, but they did not answer his questions. When Bucky persisted, he was punished and sometimes isolated from his peers. Thus, he found himself experiencing society's outermost edge -- outlaw / rebel territory.

It was only years later that Bucky came to realize that most creative genius is found outside the boundaries of "common sense.”  He began to notice the importance of society's "outlaws and rebels" challenging the norm. Even though acknowledged leaders and media eventually came to embrace and honor him, Bucky was, in fact, an outlaw challenging most of what our institutions accept as reality.

Bucky's initial experiences on the rebel outlaw fringe were not very rewarding. In 1927, at the age of thirty-two, he found himself penniless with a wife and newborn child to support. Having been expelled from Harvard twice, he had no formal education beyond high school, and his primary business venture, Stockade Building Systems, had failed because he decided to construct buildings using a radical new construction method rather than simply trying to make money building wood frame buildings like other contractors. In the course of attempting to make sense rather than make money, Bucky squandered his own savings as well as the investments of friends and family.

It was that 1927 crisis that led him to consider turning his sole asset (a small life insurance policy) into money for his wife and newborn daughter.  Suicide would give them some money as well as eliminate the one person he felt was causing them the greatest pain and suffering - himself.

1895 - Richard Buckminster Fuller is born in Milton, Massachusetts.

1899 - Enters kindergarten where he builds the first octet truss using dried peas and toothpicks.
Is diagnosed as nearsighted, gets his first glasses and sees objects clearly for the first time in his life.

1904 - Enters Milton Academy, Lower School.

1910 - Bucky’s father, Richard Buckminster Fuller Sr. dies.

1913 - Graduates from Milton Academy and enters Harvard University (Class of 1917).

1914 - Expelled from Harvard and sent to be an apprentice millwright in remote Canadian mill.

1915 - Reinstated at Harvard and expelled for a second time.

Takes a job with Armour & Co in New York.

1917 - Enlists in Navy Reserve.
Marries Anne Hewlett.

1918 - Promoted to lieutenant and assigned as aide to admiral commanding all transports in the Atlantic during World War I.
First child, Alexandra, born.

1919 - Appointed Communications Officer on the USS George Washington and supervises President Wilson having the first ever transatlantic radiotelephone conversation (from France to the United States).

1922 - Alexandra dies in his arms just prior to her 4th birthday. Bucky feels responsible for her not having better housing and he begins his lifelong quest to provide excellent shelter for all people.
Begins working as an entrepreneur, founding Stockade Building Corporation, manufacturing buildings with a revolutionary new technology.

1926 - Is fired as president of Stockade Systems when the company is consistently unprofitable because Bucky has chosen to build good buildings rather than make a profit.

1927 - Second child, Allegra, born.
Considers himself a failure and contemplates suicide. Has mystical experience in which he is told that he does not have the right to kill himself and that he will only speak the truth from then on. Dedicates himself to the service of all humanity.
Writes and privately publishes first book, 4D Timelock.