Early Life/ education
- Born December 19, 1953 in Morrison, Illinois
- Parents: Reverend Silas Franklin Millikan and Mary Jane Andrews
- Attended High School in Maquoketa, Iowa
- Attended Oberlin College in Ohio in 1886
- He taught physics at Oberlin for two years after he graduated in 1891
- In 1893 he began doctoral work at Columbia University
- He accepted a faculty position at University of Chicago and became a professor in 1910
- In 1921 he became a director of Norman Bridge Laboratory of Physics at California Institute of Technology