| JANUARY 1 - BIRTHS | |
| Edward Joseph Hoffman | |
(source) |
 Born 1
Jan 1942; died 1 Jul 2004.
American biomedical physicist who achieved international recognition in the science field of medical imaging. In 1974, working with Michael E Phelps and others, he co-invented the PET Scanner (Positron Emission Tomography) which is used to detect cancers and other diseases. Hoffman further developed its use for quantitative measurements. A patient is prepared for a PET scan with an injection of slightly radioactive material such as molecules designed to mimic glucose as they travel through the body. Since cancerous tissues consume glucose, the scanner can then detect their location. PET technology can also be employed in the diagnosis of cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer's disease. Today, some 1,500 scanners are in use.« |
| Jule Gregory Charney | |
(source) |
Born 1
Jan 1917; died 16 Jun 1981.
American meteorologist who, working with John von Neumann, first introduced the electronic computer into weather prediction (1950) and improved understanding of the large-scale circulation of the atmosphere. The entire Oct 1947 issue of the Journal of Meteorology published his Ph.D. dissertation, (UCLA, 1936) Dynamics of long waves in a baroclinic westerly current. It emphasized the influence of "long waves" in the upper atmosphere rather than the existing practice of emphasis on the polar front. It also simplified analysis of perturbations of these waves using mathematically rigorous methods that yielded useful physical interpretation. He helped the U.S. Weather Bureau set up (1954) a numerical weather prediction unit.  The
Atmosphere a Challenge: The Science of Jule Gregory Charney, by
Richard S. Lindzen |
| Satyendra Nath Bose | |
(source) |
Born 1
Jan 1894; died 4 Feb 1974
Indian mathematician and physicist who collaborated with Albert Einstein to develop a theory of statistical quantum mechanics, now called Bose-Einstein statistics. In his early work in quantum theory (1924), Bose wrote about the Planck black-body radiation law using a quantum statistics of photons, Plank's Law and the Light Quantum Hypothesis. Bose sent his ideas to Einstein, who extended this technique to integral spin particles. Dirac coined the name boson for particles obeying these statistics. Among other things, Bose-Einstein statistics explain how an electric current can flow in superconductors forever, with no loss. Bose also worked on X-ray diffraction, electrical properties of the ionosphere and thermoluminescence. |
| Ernest Jones | |
(source) |
Born 1
Jan 1879; died 11 Feb 1958.
Welsh psychoanalyst who introduced psychoanalysis into Great Britain and North America. His admiration for Sigmund Freud's approach to neurosis led him to learn German to read Freud's work. This led to a lifelong association with Freud from 1908. Jones founded the International Journal of Psychoanalysis (1920), and was its editor for two decades. In 1925, he founded and was director of the London Clinic of Psycho-Analysis. When the Nazis invaded Austria in 1938, Jones went to Vienna to enable Freud's escape with his family to London. He published extensively, including a definitive three-volume biography of Freud (1953-57). His interests included chess, and as a youth, figure skating about which he later wrote a textbook. Ernest
Jones: Freud's Alter Ego, by Vincent Brome. |
| Albert Hoyt Taylor | |
(source) |
Born 1 Jan 1874; died 11 Dec 1961.
American physicist and radio engineer, known as the "father of navy radar" whose work laid the foundation for U.S. radar development. In Sep 1922, with Leo C. Young, he proposed the detection of intruding ships by transmitting a curtain of high-frequency radio waves across harbour entrances, or between ships, with a receiver to detect disturbances caused by ships moving in the electromagnetic field. Taylor became superintendent of the Radio Division at the newly-established Naval Research Laboratory (1923-45). In 1934, he directed Robert Page to experiment with pulsed high-frequency radio signals for aircraft detection. In 1937, the first 200-MHz shipboard radar was installed. He also investigated ionospheric effects. The
Invention That Changed the World: How a Small Group of Radar Pioneers
Won the Second World War, by Robert Buderi. |
| Alexander Stanley Elmore | |
(source) |
Born 1
Jan 1867; died 4 Mar 1944.
British technologist who with his brother Francis Edward Elmore, jointly developed flotation processes to separate valuable ore, such as copper, from the gangue (worthless rock) with which it is associated when mined. In 1898, they obtained a patent for the first practical equipment (British patent No. 21,948). Pulverized ore is mixed with water and brought into contact with thick oil. The oil entraps the metallic constituents, which are afterwards separated, and gangue passed away with the water. They installed their equipment at mines in north Wales, northern England, and at the Broken Hill lead and zinc mines in Australia. Today, flotation methods remain vital in the mining industry, processing millions of tons of ores each year.  |
| Marcellin Boule | |
(source) |
Born 1
Jan 1861; died 4 July 1942.
French paleontologist, geologist and physical anthropologist who made the first complete reconstruction of a Neanderthal skeleton (La Chapelle-aux-Saints, France, 1908). His report on Neanderthal anatomy was the most complete report since the species was first discovered in 1856. He believed they were a separate species, not a human ancestor, but evolutionary dead-end. He published one of the first illustrations of Neanderthals. His description of them as a shuffling, bent-kneed, and hairy creature capable of "rudimentary intellectual abilities" became stereotypical. New research in the 1950s corrected this view, when the arthritic condition of the individual was recognized. He wrote Les Hommes fossiles (1921; Fossil Men). |
| Michael Joseph Owens | |
(source) |
Born 1
Jan 1859; died 27 Dec 1923.
American glass manufacturer who invented the automatic glass bottle making machine that revolutionized the industry. His mechanization of the glass-blowing process eliminated child labor from glass-bottle factories. He took out patents in 1895 on a glass molding machine capable of crude results. In1903, he formed the Owens Bottle Machine Company. By the next year his continuing improvements led to patents on a machine capable to producing four bottles per second. Owens' machines could be built with from six to twenty arms, each blowing a bottle. He expanded with a factory in England in 1905. He retired from management in 1919 to focus on inventing, and eventually held 45 U.S. patents.« |
| William Thomas Councilman | |
(source) |
Born 1
Jan 1854; died 26 May 1933.
American pathologist, remembered for his contribution in a monograph on amoebic dysentery (1891) which described detailed observations of it and its parasite. His post-M.D. (1878) work included many autopsies, sparking his interest in pathology. He studied in Europe (1880-83), where pathology was more advanced than in the U.S. In his first significant research, he confirmed Laveran's discovery of the sporozoan parasite that causes malaria, Plasmodium malariae (1893-94), and upon returning home, was the first in the U.S. to describe and picture it. Councilman also did research on diphtheria, cerebrospinal meningitis, nephritis, and smallpox. He was the principal founder of the American Association of Pathologists and Bacteriologists. |
| Sir James George Frazer | |
(source) |
Born 1
Jan 1854; died 7 May 1941.
Scottish anthropologist , folklorist, classical scholar, and author of The Golden Bough, a study in Comparative Religion, which traced the evolution of human behavior. This vast collection of savage and civilized beliefs and customs, myth, magic, religion, ritual, and taboo is considered among the greatest works of anthropology. It was named after the golden bough in the sacred grove at Nemi, near Rome. It began as two volumes in 1890 and became 12 volumes by 1915. He did no field work; his research was library-based. Although still considered a storehouse of ethnographic information, his theories belong in history rather than current ideas of anthropology. His notions of totemism were subsequenty destroyed by Lévi-Stauss. |
| Eugène Anatole Demarcay | |
(source) |
Born 1
Jan 1852; died 1904
French chemist who spectroscopically discovered the element europium (1901) in material carefully separated from samarium magnesium nitrate. His study of terpenes and ethers helped the perfume industry. Despite the loss of an eye in a explosion while studying nitrogen sulphides, he continued vacuum studies of volatility of metals at low temperatures and pressures. He designed a machine to reach low temperatures by compressing gases and then allowing them to expand. Using high temperature spark spectra from platinum electrodes he produced bright lines to study rare earths. His separation method for rare earths used fractional crystallization in aqueous solution. When asked by the Curies, he used spectroscopy to verify the existence of radium. |
| Rodolfo Amadeo Lanciani | |
(source) |
Born 1
Jan 1847; died 21 May 1929.
Italian archaeologist, who was an authority on the ancient topography of Ostia and Rome. He published a 1:1,000-scale map of classical, medieval, and modern Rome in Forma Urbis Romae (1893-1901). This definitive atlas plots streets and structures of ancient Rome against those of the modern city (c. 1900) in a second color. Several parts of the maps are dated and no longer considered correct, but other parts retain their value and some parts show ruins no longer visible in to the normal visitor in Rome. The University of Rome appointed him as director of excavations (1875). He discovered many important antiquities at Rome, Tivoli, and Ostia. He became professor of Roman topography at that university in 1878. The
Ruins and Excavations of Ancient Rome, by Rodolfo Amedeo. |
| Samuel Cunliffe Lister | |
(source) |
Born 1
Jan 1815; died 2 Feb 1906.
(1st Baron Masham of Swinton) was an English inventor of successful wool-combing and waste-silk spinning machines. The demand for wool that resulted from less expensive products stimulated the Australian wool trade. By 1856, he had several mills in Yorkshire, and abroad. He also created machines to use "chassum," comprising damaged cocoons, remnants or fibres previously rejected as waste in silk-spinning. By 1867, after ten years in development, eventually those machines made him a further fortune. In 1867, he introduced velvet power looms for making piled fabrics. His inventiveness included a 1848 patent for automatic compressed air brakes for railways. The textile manufacturing company he established in 1838 exists today. |
| Charles Ellet, Jr | |
Wheeling, 1885 (source) |
Born 1
Jan 1810; died 21 Jun 1862.
American engineer who built the first wire-cable suspension bridge in America, across the Schuylkill River at Fairmont, Penn. In 1849 the 1,010 foot span suspension bridge he built across the Ohio River at Wheeling , WV was the longest of its kind in the world. He also built the "Mountain Top Track" across the summit of the Blue Ridge at Rock Fish Gap, VA in 1854. Advocate of the battering ram as a naval war vessel; he was commissioned a colonel by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Ellet converted nine steam ships into ramming vessels and led them into the victorious Federal attack upon the Confederate fleet at the Battle of Memphis on the Mississippi River, 6 Jun 1862. He died from a pistol ball shot to the knee during the battle. Charles
Ellet, Jr., the engineer as individualist, by Gene D
Lewis. |
| Charles Alexandre Lesueur | |
(source) |
Born 1
Jan 1778; died 12 Dec 1846.
French naturalist and artist who is remembered for high quality natural history illustrations. He travelled to Australia under Nicolas Baudin on a scientific expedition (1800-04) and returned to France with collection of over 100,000 zoological specimens, including some 2,500 new species. In 1815, he began an association with William Maclure on a scientific excursion to the principal islands of the Lesser Antilles to make a study of the geology, followed by further work in the U.S. revising Maclure's geological maps. From 1816-37, while living in the U.S., he explored the Mississippi Valley. Lesueur followed a particular interest in ichthyology. He made the first scientific study of the archaeological prehistoric mounds in vicinity of New Harmony, Indiana. |
| John Wilkins | |
(source) |
Born 1
Jan 1614; died 19 Nov 1672.
English churchman and scientist who was one of the founders and the first secretary of the Royal Society, London. He wrote for the common reader the Discovery (1638) and the Discourse (1640) which showed how reason and experience supported Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo rather than Aristotlian or literal biblical doctrines. In 1641, he anonymously published a small but comprehensive treatise on cryptography. In Mathematical Magick (1648) he described and illustrated the balance lever, wheel, pulley, wedge and screw in a part called "Archimedes or Mechanical Powers" and in a second part "Daedalus or Mechanical Motions" such strange devices as flying machines, artificial spiders, a land yacht, and a submarine.« |
|
Today in Science History Science Store Browse a selection of Bargain Science and Nature Books |
| JANUARY 1 - DEATHS | |
| Eugene Paul Wigner | |
(source) |
 Died
1 Jan 1995 (born 17 Nov 1902)
Hungarian-born American physicist who won the 1963 Nobel Prize for Physics (jointly with Maria Goeppert Mayer and Johannes Hans Jensen) for his insight into quantum mechanics, for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry principles. He made many contributions to nuclear physics and played a prominent role in the development of the atomic bomb and nuclear energy. The
Recollections of Eugene P. Wigner, by Eugene Paul Wigner,
Andrew Szanton. |
| Grace Murray Hopper | |
(source) |
Died
1 Jan 1992 (born 9 Dec 1906)
(née Grace Brewster Murray) American mathematician and rear admiral in the U.S. Navy. She pioneered the development of computer technology. Her ideas contributed to the first commercial electronic computer, Univac I, and naval applications for COBOL (co-mmon b-usiness o- riented l-anguage). With a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Yale University (1934), she taught mathematics (Vassar, 1931-43), before she joined the Naval Reserve. In 1944, she was commissioned as a Lieutenant (Junior Grade) 1944, assigned to the Bureau of Ordnance where she became involved in the early development of the electronic computer. For more than four decades, she was a leader in computer applications and programming languages. Grace
Hopper: Admiral Of The Cyber Sea, by Kathleen Broome
Williams. |
| Sir Gilbert Roberts | |
Severn Bridge (source) |
Died
1 Jan 1978 (born 18 Feb 1899)
British civil engineer who pioneered new designs, construction methods and use of high-tensile steels for several major bridges including the 3,300-foot (1,006-metre) Firth of Forth Road bridge in Scotland, one of the longest in the world. He also designed the Severn Bridge, crossing the River Severn near Bristol, England (1966) 3240-foot span with 400-foot towers. It has an aerodynamic steel box girder, inclined hanger cables to provide added damping and an orthotropic steel deck. His work includes designs for Auckland Harbour (N.Z.), Volta River (Ghana), Bosphorus (Turkey) and Humber bridges; and radio telescopes, goliath cranes and other steel structures. He gained his experience as an engineer during WW II developing all-welded ships. |
| Alfred Ely Beach | |
(source) |
Died
1 Jan 1896 (born 1 Sep 1826)
American inventor and editor of Scientific American magazine which reported on technology developments and patents in the 19th-century. It is still published today, one of the world's leading science magazines. Beach himself invented a tunneling shield and built the pneumatic tube subway which propelled a carriage by means of air pressure generated by huge fans. The tunnel was short - one block - so it operated as a demonstration (1870-73), with one station and train car. In 1856 he won First Prize and a gold medal at New York's Crystal Palace Exhibition. Beach had invented a typewriter for the blind, resembling the modern typewriter in the arrangement of its keys and typebars, but embossed its letters on a narrow paper strip instead of a sheet. |
| Heinrich Hertz | |
(source) |
Died
1 Jan 1894 (born 22 Feb 1857)
Heinrich (Rudolf) Hertz was a German physicist who was the first to broadcast and receive radio waves. He studied under Kirchhoff and Helmholtz in Berlin, and became professor at Bonn in 1889. His main work was on electromagnetic waves (1887). Hertz generated electric waves by means of the oscillatory discharge of a condenser through a loop provided with a spark gap, and then detecting them with a similar type of circuit. Hertz's condenser was a pair of metal rods, placed end to end with a small gap for a spark between them. Hertz was also the first to discover the photoelectric effect. The unit of frequency - one cycle per second - is named after him. Hertz died of blood poisoning in 1894 at the age of 37. The
Creation of Scientific Effects, by Jed Z. Buchwald. |
| Ephraim Ball | |
| Died
1 Jan 1872 (born 12 Aug 1812)
American inventor and manufacturer whose "Ball's Ohio Mower" (patented 1 Dec1857) was the first widely successful of the two-wheeled flexible or hinged bar mowers, which greatly influenced the change from single driving-wheel machines to those with double drivers. His first invention was a turn-top stove. In 1840 he established a foundry for making ploughs. The "Ball's Blue Plough" he invented sold well. In 1851, he joined with others to form a larger company with factories at Canton, Ohio. His "Ohio Mower" (1854), "World Mower and Reaper," and "Buckeye Machine" (1858) sold extensively. Thereafter his "New American Harvester," produced up to10,000 of these machines annually (1865). Nevertheless, he died impoverished.« |
|
| Martin Heinrich Klaproth | |
(source) |
Died
1 Jan 1817 (born 1 Dec 1743)
German chemist who as a founder of analytical chemistry discovered uranium (1789), zirconium (1789), cerium (1803), and contributed to the identification of others. Although he did not isolate them as pure metal samples, he was able to recognize them as new elements. He apprenticed at age 16, to an apothecary. After reading chemistry at Hanover, he settled in Berlin (1771) and started his own apothecary shop (1780). By the late 1780, he was Europe's leading analytical chemist. Klaproth found ways of treating particularly insoluble compounds, took care to avoid contamination from his apparatus, and significantly insisted on reporting "small" weight discrepancies in analytical work as consistent results. He spread the ideas of Antoine Lavoisier. The
Formation of the German Chemical Community, 1720-1795, by
Karl Hufbauer. |
| Louis-Jean-Marie Daubenton | |
(source) |
Died
1 Jan 1800 (born 29 May 1716)
French naturalist who was a prolific pioneer in the fields of comparative anatomy and paleontology. Daubenton completed many zoological descriptions (including 182 species of quadrupeds for the first section of Georges Buffon's work Histoire naturelle, 1794-1804). His dissections contributed to productive studies in the comparative anatomy of recent and fossil animals, plant physiology, and mineralogy. He conducted agricultural experiments and introduced Merino sheep to France. In 1793, he became the first director of the Museum of Natural History in Paris. |
| Johann Bernoulli | |
(source) |
Died
1 Jan 1748 (born 6 Aug 1667)
Swiss mathematician (also known by first name Jean) who is noted for his discovery of the exponential calculus (1691). The previous year, he had found the equation of the catenary. Johann's first publication was on the process of fermentation in 1690, but from the next year, he studied and taught mathematics of the rest of his life, becoming professor of mathematics at Basle after his brother Jacques. He was the first to use "g" to represent the acceleration due to gravity. He applied the then new calculus to the measurement of curves, to differential equations, and to mechanical problems. He introduced the famous brachistochrome problem. "Archimedes of his age" was inscribed on his tombstone. The mathematician Daniel Bernoulli was his son. |
| JANUARY 1 - EVENTS | |
| Metric system adoption in Guyana | |
(source) |
In 2003, Guyana switched
to the metric system as the legal measurement system instead of the imperial
system. The change was guided by the National Metrication Committee and
the Metrication Division of the Guyana National Bureau of Standards, which
was responsible for the public education aspect of the programme and to
provide technical support to industry, regulatory bodies, local government,
commercial and educational institutions. A Legal sub-sector committee effected
necessary changes to existing legislations that needed to be converted
from imperial units. Guyana is situated in the north-east mainland of South
American mainland. It has some ocean coast between Venuzuela to the west
and Suriname to the east.« |
| Greenwich Electronic Time | |
 |
In 2000, Greenwich Electronic Time - known
as GeT - was initiated in Britain to act as an international standard for
all electronic commerce. All e-mail messages and e-commerce transactions
already carry a "time stamp" based on Co-ordinated Universal Time - the
modern equivalent of GMT. Most computer clocks have software which converts
e-mail and message dates into local time. The move will provide a single
time standard for worldwide Internet traders and users around the world
in the same way that Greenwich Mean Time has helped travellers to keep
time since 1884. [Image: Greenwich
Royal Observatory] |
| Snail extinction | |
(source) |
In 1996, the last member of the snail species Partula turgida (the
Polynesian Tree Snail) died
at the London Zoo. A protozoan disease
of the digestive gland is thought to have been responsible for the extinction
of this last individual of the species. Numerous field surveys failed to
find extant populations of this species in the wild (the South Pacific
island of Raiatea in the Society Island chain, about 5000-km south of Hawaii).
Residents of Raiatea began importing
predatory snails from Florida in 1986 to eat another kind of pest snail,
but the predators attacked the native snails. By 1991 they had driven the
species to the brink of extinction. Scientists captured the last known
P.
turgida individuals to try to save them through captive breeding.«
[Image:
Polynesian tree snail of a different species in the Partula genus,
shown on a test tube for scale] |
| Furthest galaxy | |
|
In 1995, an article was published
in the Astrophysical Journal Letters about the most distant galaxy
yet discovered,
named 8C 1435+63. With a red shift of z=4.25, it was estimated to
be 15,000 million lightyears away and appeared soon after the birth of
the universe. The sharpest image of the galaxy was obtained using the world's
largest optical telescope, the 10-m W.M. Keck telescope on the top of Mauna
Kea, Hawaii, by scientists
from the University of California, Berkeley. It was discovered in 1994
by English astronomers who detected its unusual pattern of strong radio
emissions, but at first only a fuzzy image in visible light. Later galaxy
distance records include: in 1995, 6C 0140+326, z=4.41*
and in 1999, TN
J0924-2201 z=5.19.« |
|
| International ozone agreement | |
(source) |
In 1989, the Montreal Protocol, an international agreement
(adopted 16 Sep 1987) to reduce the use of ozone-depleting substances,
came into force. Ecological and health damage results from a depleted ozone
layer as more UV-B radiation can reach the Earth’s surface. Results include
increased rates of skin cancers and eye cataracts, reduced plant and fishing
yields and other adverse effects on terrestrial and ocean ecosystems, weakened
immune systems, and more damage to plastics. The international treaty intends
to protect the ozone layer by phasing out the production of halogenated
hydrocarbon substances believed to be responsible for ozone depletion.
It has proved to be a very successful international agreement.« [Image:
the largest ozone hole ever recorded, Sep 2000, exposed all the Antartic
and reached the southern tip of Argentina.] |
| Coordinated Universal Time | |
(source) |
In 1972, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)
was adopted
worldwide. UTC is determined
from six primary atomic clocks that are coordinated by the International
Bureau of Weights and Measures located in France. The abbreviation - UTC
- was chosen as an international compromise between the initials of the
English language form "coordinated universal time" and the French "temps
universel coordonné." Time zone boundaries as used by nations are
drawn according to political considerations. Leap seconds are added to
UTC periodically, about once each 18 months, so the highly accurate atomic
clock time matches the time measured by Earth's rotation, which is very
slightly variable due to tidal forces with the Moon.« [Image:
some of the world's time zones shown relative to UTC.] |
| Fluoridation | |
 |
In 1967, the first fluoridation law in the U.S. went into effect in Connecticut,
requiring fluoridation of public water supplies serving 20,000 or more
population, to prevent dental caries. The water fluoridation
era began
in 1945 when the cities of Newburgh, New York, and Grand Rapids, Michigan,
began adding sodium fluoride to their public water systems. This followed
the work done (1930-1943) by Frederick S. McKay, a Colorado dentist, who
related brown stains (mottling) on his patients’ teeth to low dental caries
due to the source of their drinking water containing high levels of naturally
occurring fluoride. By the early 1940s, H. Trendley Dean had determined
the ideal level of fluoride in drinking water to reduce decay without mottling. |
| Cigarettes | |
(source) |
In 1966, effective on this day, all US cigarette packages began carrying
the health warning: Caution: Cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your
health. This resulted from landmark federal legislation enacted in
1965 that required health warnings on cigarette packages. In 1984, the
law was amended to require one of four warning labels
in most cigarette-related advertising (U.S.
Code, Title 15, Chapter 36, Sec. 1333.) |
| Electric power plant | |
(source) |
In 1963, the first U.S. electric power plant to use hyperbolic-shaped cooling
towers was placed in commercial service at Ashland, Kentucky by the Kentucky
Power Company. It was designed to cool 120,000 gallons of water per minute.*
The first unit at Big Sandy Plant opened with a 260-megawatt power capacity.
The location was chosen to be close to the coal mines that fuel it. In
1969, a second unit opened adding another 800-megawatt of power production.
A hyperbolic-shaped cooling tower provides
a natural draft that cools the water from the power plant's steam condensers
at a much lower operating cost than mechanical draft cooling towers. Air
enters at the bottom level, which has an open diagonal column structure.
[Image:
Hyperbolic cooling towers at Big Sandy Plant, 1963, showing coal fuel pile,
and train sidings.] |
| Coast-to-coast colour telecast | |
(source) |
In 1954, the first colour telecast
originating from the west coast of the U.S. showed the Tournament of Roses
parade hosted by Don Ameche in Pasadena, California. It was viewed by the
audiences of the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) network in 21
cities (with remaining cities showing the program in black and white).
NBC had made the first live colour coast-to-coast live telecast from the
east coast two months earlier, on 3 Nov 1953, from its WNBT-TV station
(now WNBC) in
New York City. It was sent across country to Burbank, California, using
radio relay circuits provided by the Bell Telephone Company.
* |
| Mobile colour TV units | |
(source) |
In 1954, the first colour mobile television units in the U.S. were placed
in service by station WNBT of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) to
cover the Tournament of Roses Parade. Two units, each three-colour capable,
with complete audio and video control on board, were mobilized aboard large
motor vans. Each truck was 35-ft long, 8-ft wide and 10.6 ft high. One
camera was crane-mounted. A new logo was introduced to accompany the colour
broadcasts. Black and white TV mobile units were already well established
for outdoor events, having begun operation on 12 Dec 1937 by the W2XBT
station of NBC using a microwave link to a tower transmitter on the Empire
State Building.* |
| Pay television | |
(source) |
In 1951, the first pay
television in the U.S. started test transmissions to a limited group
of subscribers in Chicago, Illinois for 90 days. The broadcast signal was
scrambled, and could be viewed by those people having the "key signal"
sent to them by telephone. The first day's full-length features, each priced
at $1, began in the afternoon with April Showers with Jack Carson,
followed by the Bing Crosby movie Welcome Stranger and then Homecoming
with Clark Gable and Lana Turner. The service, provided by Zenith Radio
Corporation (KS2KSBS), was tested by 300 families chosen from 51,000 applicants.
The company sold*
over 2,000 program views in the first month, yet not enough to sustain
the commercial venture. |
| Colour newsreel | |
1971 (source) |
In 1948, the first U.S. motion picture newsreel in colour was taken at
the Tournament of Roses and the Rose Bowl Game, Pasadena, California. Warner
Brothers-Pathe started showing this first colour newsreel to theatre audiences
on 5 Jan 1948. It was made using the Cinecolor process.* |
| ENIAC | |
(source) |
In 1946, ENIAC, the first U.S. computer was finished by John Mauchly and
J. Presper Eckert. It was built at the Moore School of Engineering, University
of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, based on ideas developed by John
Atanasoff of Iowa State College. Though not the first ever computer,
ENIAC is regarded
as the first successful, general digital computer. It weighed over 27,000
kg (60,000 lb), and contained more than 18,000 vacuum tubes. A staff of
six technicians replaced about 2000 of the tubes each month. Many of ENIAC's
first tasks were for military purposes, such as calculating ballistic firing
tables and designing atomic weapons. Since ENIAC was initially not a stored
program machine, it had to be reprogrammed for each task.
ENIAC:
The Triumphs and Tragedies of the World's First Computer, by
Scott McCartney. |
| Flea Lab | |
(source) |
In 1939, a Flea Laboratory opened in San Francisco, California at the University
of California's Hooper Foundation for Medical Research. It was the first
of its kind in the U.S. The building was a two story concrete structure
designed to be flea-tight, and rodent-tight. Air-conditioning kept the
interior at a constant temperature. This event came a century after fleas
first made a name for themselves. The first U.S. flea circus opened in
early Jan 1838, which was billed as an "Extraordinary Exhibition of the
Industrious Fleas." Patrons at 187 Broadway, New York City, for an admission
of 50 cents, could attend performances at times from 11am to 3pm and 5pm
to 9pm.* |
| Microfilm news | |
(source) |
In 1936, the Herald Tribune of New York began microfilming its current
issues from this date, becoming the first U.S. newspaper to make a current
record of its publication. The previous year the New York Times
had microfilmed its back-issues for the years 1914-27, but had not yet
started processing its current issues in this form.*
[Image: microfilm image of a 1934 issue of the Herald Tribune] |
| Wirephoto | |
(source) |
In 1935, Wirephoto(tm) by AP News(R) was invented. It enabled the transmission
of photographs by wire to member newspapers. The photo was wrapped around
a drum. The drum was then rotated as a light-sensitive photocell moved
over the image picking up brightness differences. The photocell created
voltages that were amplified and sent by telephone lines to the subscribing
newspapers. At the receiving end, a piece of photographic paper spun around
on a cylinder within a light-tight enclosure. The intensity of a pinpoint
of light focused on the paper varied with the signal being picked up by
the originating machine. The paper was then processed in a darkroom in
the same way as a normal photographic print.* |
| Air-conditioning | |
(source) |
In 1928, the first high-rise office building
in the world with air-conditioning installed during construction - the
Milam
Building - opened in San Antonio, Texas. The 21-story building has
almost 250,000 square feet of floor area.*
The air-conditioning was designed by the Carrier Engineering Corporation
to provide 300 tons of refrigeration capacity with chilled water, piped
to air-handling fans serving all floors. Smaller buildings such as stores
and theatres already had air conditioning installed, but the high-rise
required preparing in advance the design to incorporate ducts and air-handling
and control equipment planned with the structure. At the time it opened,
it was also the tallest brick and concrete-reinforced structure in the
United States. |
| Ink paste | |
(USPTO) |
In 1924, the first U.S.patent for ink paste was issued to Frank Buckley
Cooney of Minneapolis, Minn. (No. 1,479,533). Paste ink was designed to
be rendered fluid for use by the addition of water, so that "a very satisfactory
writing fluid is provided free of suspended matter and other imperfections."
Thus ink could be packaged in collapsible lead vending tube in highly concentrated
form. This also had the benefit of reducing shipping costs. Four fluid
ounces of paste would produce one gallon of ink after dilution, free from
the suspended matter associated with concentrated ink in the form of powders
or tablets. It was manufactured as Cooney's Ink Paste, from 10 Feb 1923,
by the Standard Ink Co in the same city.* |
| Blood transfusion | |
WWII(source) |
In 1916, blood
that had been stored and cooled was used for the first time in a blood
transfusion performed
by the R.A.M.C. The procedure was very successful. Blood transfusions
had been made previously, but this demonstrated the value of cooling to
store blood. Until 1913, direct transfusion was the only technique practiced,
despite being a difficult and time-consuming method, requiring trained
personnel and was impractical for as a procedure in sudden emergencies.
In the last two years of World War I, British surgeons benefitted from
knowledge derived in the U.S. Use of blood collected and stored in advance
of the need as casualties arrived facilitated transfusions as needed. [Image:
blood transfusion was a mature procedure to treat casualties in World War
II]
Blood:
An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce,
by
Douglas Starr. |
| Aspirin tablet | |
(source) |
In 1915, Aspirin was made available for the first time in tablet
form. The pills were manufactured by Bayer pharmaceuticals in Germany.
The medicine
had previously been used in powder form. Salicin, the parent compound of
the salicylate drug family had been isolated from willow bark in 1829.
From 1875, sodium salicylate was used as a commercial pain reliever, despite
side effects such as bleeding of the stomach lining. In 1897, Felix Hoffman,
a German chemist working for Bayer, found a suitable, less acidic medication
- acetylsalicylic acid - marketed by Bayer under the name "Aspirin". It
has since become the biggest selling drug in the world as an analgesic
(anti-pain), anti-inflammatory, and antipyretic (fever-reducing) medication.
Aspirin:
The Remarkable Story of a Wonder Drug, by Diarmuid Jeffreys. |
| Ninth planet | |
|
In 1909, London astronomers hinted of sightings of a planet beyond Neptune. |
|
| Motor car registration | |
|
In 1904, the Motor Car Act 1903 came into force
in Britain, requiring the registration
of motor vehicles with the local council. A motor car licence cost £1,
a motor cycle licence cost 5 shillings, and the vehicles were to display
registration marks in a prominent position. The first registration marks
consisted of one letter and one number. The first (A1) was issued by London
County Council. Driving licences were introduced, on sale for five shillings
at a Post Office, though no driving test was required at this time. The
Act also raised the speed limit to 20mph (or 10mph by the Local Government
Boards), and introduced heavy fines for speeding and reckless driving.
Fines were also introduced for driving unlicensed vehicles.« |
|
| Transpacific cable | |
(source) |
In 1903, the first transpacific cable
from the U.S. was landed at Honolulu, Hawaii and the first message
was telegraphed to President Theodore Roosevelt in Washington. Cable
Ship Silvertown had laid 2,620 miles of cable since leaving San
Francisco, California, on 14
Dec 1902. The ship had arrived a few days earlier, on 26 Dec 1902,
but bad weather held up the splicing on of the intermediate and shore ends.
Public use began on 5 Jan 1903.*
Since 1898, when Hawaii had been annexed to the U.S., news took a week
to arrive by steamship; now communication took seconds. After Nov 1951,
newer communications superceded this cable, which now lies abandoned on
the bottom of the Pacific, after almost fifty years or service. [Image
right: source] |
| Radio broadcast | |
(source) |
In 1902, the first radio broadcast demonstration
in the U.S. was given by Nathan B. Stubblefield. His voice was the first
to be carried on the air-waves ("wireless" - without any wires used for
the transmission). At Fairmont Park, Philadelphia, he gave a public exhibition
in which he transmitted his voice to a receiver a mile distant from the
transmitter. He kept the details of the invention secret
until he was issued a patent (U.S. No. 887,357) and gave another demonstration
on 30 May 1902. He was unable to obtain a suitable buyer for his invention,
thus no distribution, and received little notice for being the first to
have accomplished a voice radio broadcast.* |
| X-rays | |
(source) |
In 1896, German scientist, Wilhelm Röntgen announced
his discovery
of x-rays. He sent copies of his manuscript and some of his x-ray photographs
to several renowned physicists and friends, including Lord Kelvin in Glasgow
and Henre Poincare in Paris. Four days later, on 5 Jan 1896, Die Presse
published the news in a front-page article which described the discovery
and suggested new methods of medical diagnoses might be made with this
new kind of radiation. One day later, the London Standard cabled
the news to other countries around the world about the "a light which for
the purpose of photography will penetrate wood, flesh, cloth, and most
other organic substances." It printed the first English-language account
the next day. |
| Manchester Ship Canal | |
(source) |
In 1894, the Manchester Ship Canal in north-west England opened to its
first traffic. Manchester was no longer dependent
on the railway to transport
its goods and supplies between the city and the ocean. Construction started
on 11 Nov 1887 and the canal
was completely filled with water in Nov 1893. Its chief engineer and designer
was Edward Leader Williams. On 21 May 1894, Queen Victoria knighted him
at the official opening. Despite
being 40 miles (60 km) inland, Manchester became at one time Britain's
third busiest port. Although now traffic is greatly reduced, the waterway
remains the world's eighth-longest ship canal, only slightly shorter than
the Panama Canal.« [Image
left: Construction on the Manchester Ship Canal near Latchford, Warrington,
1890; right:
On 1 Jan 1894, Samuel Platts’ steam yacht, the Norseman led a procession
of 71 ships from Latchford to the terminal docks at Salford.]
100
Years of the Manchester Ship Canal, by T. Gray. |
| Municipal health laboratory | |
In 1888, the first municipal health laboratory in the U.S. was established
in Providence, Rhode Island. It was run by Dr
Charles V. Chapin,
a pioneer epidemiologist, assisted by Dr Gardner T. Swarts as the Medical
Inspector. (It was preceded by some experimental work in the previous month.)*
The lab's primary purpose was the analysis of food and water, but when
spurred by a typhoid epidemic, it turned to the study of micro-organisms.
Chapin was was one of the first people to recognize the link between spread
of contagious disease and people living in filth
- such persons use very little soap and water and allow their faces, hands,
belongings and dwellings to become and remain smeared with mucus, saliva,
pus and other infectious material. |
|
| State Agricultural Experimental Station | |
(source) |
In 1876, work began at the first regularly organized
state agricultural experimental station
in the U.S. It was located in Middleton, Connecticut, having been approved
20 Jul 1875, with an appropriation of $2,800 being approved 1 Oct 1865.
The first director was Wilbur
Olin Atwater,
who served until 9 Apr 1877. Assistance had been offered in the form of
$1,000 from Orange Judd, owner of the American Agriculurist, and
the free use of the chemical laboratory of Orange Judd Hall at Wesleyan
University at Middletown was provided by its trustees.*
Important discoveries have come out of research at the station, including
vitamin A (in 1913), hybrid corn, the first soil fungicide (1889) and a
fungus to control gypsy moth populations. [Image:
Wilbur Olin Atwater, the first director] |
| Metric system | |
(source) |
In 1872, the metric
system was officially introduced
throughout the German Empire.*
(Since 1795, the metric system had been the standard in France. A committeee
from the French Academy used a decimal system and defined the meter to
be one 10-millionths of the distance from the equator to the Earth's Pole.
For the metric unit of mass, the gram was defined as the mass of one cubic
centimeter of pure water at a given temperature.) By act Congress, the
use of the metric system was legalized in the U.S. (1866), but was not
made obligatory. On 20 May 1875, the Treaty of the Meter was signed by
twenty countries, including the United States, at the International Metric
Convention. |
| Fire engine | |
(source) |
In 1853, the first successful
U.S. steam fire engine
began service in
Cincinnati, Ohio, named the Uncle Joe Ross after the city councilman
who championed it. Four horses pulled the three-wheeled, five-ton carriage.
It propelled up to six water streams, 1-3/4" diam., up to 240 ft range.
Inventors Abel Shawk and Alexander Latta, took nine months to build it
in their workshop at a cost of $10,000*.
Its boiler was similar to a locomotive boiler, and had the capacity of
the six biggest double-engine hand pumpers. (The first attempt in the U.S.
to build a steam fire engine had failed. Paul Rapsey Hodge gave it a public
test in New York, on 27 Mar 1841, but the engine was abandoned. Its 8-ton
weight was too heavy, and its fire showered sparks.) [Images:
Miles Greenwood, first chief of the city’s paid fire department; a later
Latta fire engine (source)] |
| Iron pile lighthouse | |
(source) |
In 1850, the lamp was lit at the first iron pile lighthouse in the U.S.
built on Minot's
Ledge, Mass., just outside the Boston Harbor. The loss of 40 ships
there in 1832-41, showed a light was badly needed. Some favored a granite
tower like England's famed Eddystone Light, but Capt. William H. Swift
of the Topographical Department, who planned the lighthouse, chose an iron
pile tower (an open, spidery structure drilled into the rock) as more practical
to build on the mostly submerged ledge. Built for about $39,000 in 1847-49,
it was the first lighthouse in the U.S. to be exposed to the ocean's full
fury. It was feared to be unsafe by its keepers, who reported it swayed
badly in storms. The structure was swept away in a great gale on 16 Apr
1851.* |
| Ethyl radical | |
(source) |
In 1833, Robert Kane, a 24-year-old Irish chemist,
published a paper
in which he was the first to propose the existence of the -C2H5
ethyl radical (Dublin Journal of Medical and Chemical Sciences,
which he founded). His idea was initially "a subject of amusement and ridicule
among the chemical circles" of Dublin. A year later, when similar ideas
were proposed by Justus Liebig, the authority of that great German chemist
gave credibility to the concept, and Kane eventually received the credit
for it. By the age of 22, he had already written a book, Elements of
Practical Pharmacy, and was a professor of chemistry at Dublin's Apothecaries'
Hall. His research spanned inorganic, organic, physical, biological and
applied chemistry.« |
| Ceres | |
(source) |
In 1801, Italian astronomer, Guiseppe Piazzi
of Palermo, discovered
the first and largest asteroid,
1 Ceres, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Piazzi proposed
the name Ceres Ferdinandea, in honour of Sicily's patron Roman goddess,
and his patron, the king. It revolves around the Sun in 4.6 yrs, with diameter
about 960 km (600 miles). This sighting followed that of the planet Uranus
(1781) by the British astronomer William Herschel (1783-1822). Piazzi's
discovery provided a body between the orbit of Mars and Jupiter fitting
the so-called "Titius-Bode's law." German astronomer Johann Olbers later
found more of these bodies now called "asteroids" or "minor bodies of Solar
System". Over a thousand such objects are now known. |
