Von Neumann was born in Budapest to a well-to-do, cultured, jolly family. Budapest “at the time was the sixth-largest city in Europe, prosperous and growing, with the world’s first underground subway. Its literacy rate was over 90%. More than 25% of the population was Jewish, including the von Neumanns, although John von Neumann paid little attention to his Jewishness except as a source of jokes.
