| JANUARY 28 - BIRTHS | |
| Robert William Holley | |
(source) |
 Born 28
Jan 1922; died 11 Feb 1993.
American biochemist who shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1968 with Marshall Warren Nirenberg and Har Gobind Khorana. The three scientists independently conducted research that helped to decipher the genetic code chemically and explain how the genetic information stored in the DNA of a cell controls the synthesis of proteins, the building blocks of cells. |
| Luther George Simjian | |
(source) |
Born 28
Jan 1905; died 23 Oct 1997.
Turkish-born American whose over 200 inventions included the TelePrompter, a self-posing portrait camera, automatic postage metering equipment, and an indoor golf practice range. In WW II, his Range Estimation Trainer provided a simulator for pilots to learn to identify aircraft types, their distance and speed. It used synchronized moving mirrors, controlled lighting and a miniature airplane to present various speeds, lighting, and angles. From 1939, he held 20 patents for an early form of an automated teller machine, and in 1960 his Bankograph (US patent No. 3,079,603) was given a trial by New York's First National City Bank (now CitiBank). It was able to take deposits, photograph the money and issue a receipt showing those images.«  |
| Dame Kathleen Lonsdale | |
(source) |
Born 28
Jan 1903; died 1 Apr 1971.
(née Yardley) British crystallographer who developed several X-ray techniques for the study of crystal structure. Her experimental determination of the structure of the benzene ring by x-ray diffraction, which showed that all the ring C-C bonds were of the same length and all the internal C-C-C bond angles were 120 degrees, had an enormous impact on organic chemistry. She was the first woman to be elected (1945) to the Royal Society of London.  Kathleen
Lonsdale: A biographical memoir, by Dorothy Crowfoot
Hodgkin. |
| Auguste Piccard | |
(EB) |
Born 28
Jan 1884; died 24 Mar 1962.
Swiss-born Belgian physicist notable for his exploration of both the upper stratosphere and the depths of the sea in ships of his own design. In 1930 he built a balloon to study cosmic rays. In 1932 he developed a new cabin design for balloons and in the same year ascended by balloon in a pressurised gondola to 16,916 m (55,000 feet). On later flights he reached 72,000 feet. He coined the word bathyscaphe for his navigable deep-diving vessel. Between
Earth and Sky, by Auguste Piccard. |
| Jean-Felix Piccard | |
 |
Born 28
Jan 1884; died 28 Jan 1963.
Swiss-born American chemical engineer and balloonist who conducted stratospheric flights for the purpose of cosmic-ray research. His first balloon ascent (1913) was with his twin brother, Auguste Piccard. With his wife, on 23 Oct 1934, he made the first successful stratosphere flight through clouds, ascending to a height of 11 miles (18 km). In 1936, Piccard flew the first successful plastic film balloon, which he invented and developed, the precursor of the plastic film balloon for high altitude experiments still used for scientific purposes. In 1937, he made an ascent of 11,000 feet (3,350 m) to test a metal gondola attached to a cluster of 98 balloons. He also developed a frost-resistant window for balloon gondolas and an electronic system for emptying ballast bags. |
| Eugène Dubois | |
(source) |
Born 28
Jan 1858; died 16 Dec 1940.
Dutch anatomist and geologist who discovered the remains of Java man, the first known fossil of Homo erectus. Dubois was the first person to ever deliberately search for fossils of human ancestors. Only a handful of fossil humans had already been discovered, and those were by chance. Dubois joined the Dutch Army as a medical officer, and used spare time from his medical duties to search for fossils, first in Sumatra and then in Java. He searched on the banks of the Solo River, with two assigned engineers and a crew of convict labourers to help him. After lesser finds, in Oct 1891 he found an intact skullcap, the fossil which would be known as Java Man, and in Aug 1892, an almost complete left thigh bone, was found about 10m away. |
| Sir T.W. Edgeworth David | |
c. 1916 (source) |
Born 28
Jan 1858; died 28 Aug 1934.
Sir T(annatt) W(illiam) Edgeworth David was a Welsh-born Australian geologist who produced an extensive study of the geology of Australia, including the first geological map of the Sydney-Newcastle Basin. He also researched the evidence of major glaciations in Australia of the Upper Paleozoic time (from 345- to 225- million years ago). In 1897, he drilled to a depth of 340-m at Funafuti Atoll in an effort to verify Darwin's theory of the formation of coral atolls. Whereas his results supported Darwin's ideas, they were short of absolute proof. He served as scientific officer of the Shackleton Antarctic Expedition from 1907-9, and led the party that first reached the southern magnetic pole on 16 Jan 1909, which was on land at that time.« |
| William Seward Burroughs | |
(source) |
Born 28
Jan 1855; died 15 Sep 1898.
American inventor of the first recording adding machine and pioneer of its manufacture. It was because Burroughs began his career as a bank clerk that he was inspired to invent such a mechanical device. On 10 Jan 1885 he submitted his first patent (issued 399,116 on 21 Aug 1888) for his "calculating machine," In 1886, Burroughs and several St. Louis businessmen formed the American Arithmometer Co. to market the machine. Burroughs was dissatisfied with the durability of this first model. His 1892 patent not only improved the machine but added a printer. The company later became Burroughs Corporation (1905) and eventually Unisys. |
| Jean Antoine Villemin | |
(source) |
Born 28
Jan 1827; died 6 Oct 1892.
French physician who proved tuberculosis to be an infectious disease, transmitted by a specific microorganism from humans and cows to rabbits. As an army doctor he observed that healthy young men from the country developed tuberculosis while living in the close quarters of the barracks. He was aware that glanders, a similar disease in horses, was transmitted by inoculation. So he inoculated a rabbit with tuberculous material from a deceased human patient, tuberculous lesions were found in the rabbit three months later. Before Villemin, many scientists believed that TB was hereditary. In fact, some stubbornly held on to this belief even after Villemin published his results (1867), until the agent Mycobacterium tuberculosis was identified by Robert Koch (1882). |
| Charles-Marie de La Condamine | |
(source) |
Born 28
Jan 1701; died 4 Feb 1774.
French naturalist and mathematician who became particularly interested in geodesy (earth measurement). He was put in charge by the King of France of an expedition to Equador to measure a meridional arc at the equator (1735-43). It was wished to determine whether the Earth was either flattened or elongated at its poles. He then accomplished the first scientific exploration of the Amazon River (1743) on a raft, studying the region, and brought the drug curare to Europe. He also worked on establishment of a universal unit of length, and is credited with developing the idea of vaccination against smallpox, later perfected by Edward Jenner. However, he was almost constantly ill and died in 1773, deaf and completely paralyzed. |
| Johannes Hevelius | |
(source) |
Born 28
Jan 1611; died 28 Jan 1687.
German astronomer, who studying in Leiden and established his own observatory on the rooftops of several houses. From four years' telescopic study of the Moon, using telescopes of long focal power, Hevelius compiled Selenographia ("Pictures of the Moon", 1647), an atlas of the Moon with some of the earliest detailed maps. A few of his names for lunar mountains (e.g., the Alps) are still in use, and a lunar crater is named for him. Hevelius is today best remembered for his use of "aerial" telescopes of enormous focal length and his rejection of telescopic sights for stellar observation and positional measurement. He catalogued 1564 stars in Prodromus Astronomiae (1690), discovered four comets, and was one of the first to observe the transit of Mercury. |
| Giovanni Alfonso Borelli | |
(source) |
Born 28
Jan 1608; died 31 Dec 1679.
Italian physiologist and physicist who was the first to explain muscular movement and other body functions according to the laws of statics and dynamics. Borrelli was a mathematician during the first two decades of his career. In 1658, he published Eculidus restitutus. In 1649, he published a work on malignant fevers. He carried out an important investigation of volcanoes. He also contributed to the medical and the biological sciences. In Pisa, he carried out extensive anatomical dissections. His De motu animalium (Rome, 1680) was an attempt to extend to biology the rigorous analytical and geometrical method developed by Galileo in the field of mechanics. In astronomical work, he was the first to suggest the idea that comets travel in a parabolic path. |
|
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| JANUARY 28 - DEATHS | |
| Julian W. Hill | |
1987 (source) |
 Died
28 Jan 1996 (born 4 Sep 1904)
Julian Werner Hill was a U.S. research chemist who discovered cold drawing, a technique of strengthening polymer fibers by stretching. Julian Hill and Wallace Carothers had been building long polymer chains by a reaction of a carboxylic acid with an alcohol to give an ester in a device called a molecular still. While removing a sample of the resultant product from the still, Hill observed that the molten polymer could be drawn into fibers. He then made an important and unexpected discovery - that after being cooled, these pliable filaments could be stretched or "cold drawn" to form very strong fibers. Further tests on the sample showed that it had a molecular weight of over 12,000, far higher than any previous polymer. |
| Helen Hogg | |
(source) |
Died
28 Jan 1993 (born 1 Aug 1905)
Helen Battles Sawyer Hogg (neé Sawyer) was a Canadian astronomer who located, catalogued and measured the distances to variable stars in globular clusters (stars with cyclical changes of brightness found within huge, dense conglomerations of stars located in the outer halo of the Milky Way galaxy). Her interest in astronomy was spurred when she witnessed a total eclipse of the sun in 1925. Alongside her career work, she was also foremost in Canada in popularizing astronomy, about which she wrote a column in the Toronto Star for thirty years. She was the first woman to become president of the Royal Canadian Institute. In 1989, the observatory at the National Museum of Science and Technology in Ottawa was dedicated in her name.« |
| Klaus Fuchs | |
1960 (source) |
Died
28 Jan 1988 (born 29 Dec 1911)
(Emil) Klaus (Julius) Fuchs was a German-born physicist and spy who was arrested and convicted (1950) for giving vital American and British atomic-research secrets to the Soviet Union. He studied at Kiel and Leipzig, and escaped from Nazi persecution to Britain in 1933. Interned on the outbreak of WW II, he was released and naturalized in 1942. From 1943 he worked with the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, U.S., on the atom bomb, and in 1946 became head of the theoretical physics division at Harwell, UK. In 1950 he was sentenced to14 years' imprisonment for disclosing nuclear secrets to the Russians. After 9 years in prison, he was released to East Germany where he worked at a nuclear research centre until his retirement in 1979. |
| Christa Corrigan McAuliffe | |
(NASA) |
Died
28 Jan 1986 (born 2 Sep 1948)
American teacher who was chosen to be the first private citizen in space. Aboard the space shuttle Challenger, she was one of the seven astronauts killed when the rocket exploded 73 seconds after takeoff. The death of McAuliffe and her fellow crew members in the 1986 space shuttle Challenger disaster was deeply felt by the nation and had a strong effect on the U.S. space program. Space shuttle flights were suspended until 1988. An independent U.S. commission blamed the disaster on unusually cold temperatures that morning and the failure of the O-rings, a set of gaskets in the rocket boosters. |
| Ronald E. McNair | |
(source) |
Died
28 Jan 1986 (born 21 Oct 1950)
Ronald E(rwin) McNair was an American physicist and astronaut who was the second African American to fly in space.He had been fascinated by space since childhood, when as early as in elementary school he talked about the Sputnik satellite. McNair was nationally recognized for his work in the field of laser physics, including chemical and high-pressure lasers. In 1978, he was one of 35 applicants selected from a pool of 10,000 for NASA's space shuttle program. He was assigned as a mission specialist on the Feb 1984 flight of the shuttle Challenger, during which he orbited the earth 122 times. Sadly, on his second trip, on the morning of 28 Jan 1986, McNair with six other crew members died in an explosion shortly after launching aboard the Challenger. |
| Jean-Felix Piccard | |
| Died
28 Jan 1963 (born 28 Jan 1884)
Swiss-born American chemical engineer and balloonist. See birth entry above. |
|
| Sir Michael Foster | |
(source) |
Died
28 Jan 1907 (born 8 Mar 1836)
English physiologist and educator who introduced modern methods of teaching biology and physiology that emphasize laboratory training. As Foster's Royal Society obituary said, "He insisted that practical work, carried on by the student himself, illustrative of the facts on which the lecture was based, must immediately follow the lecture. (In this he was following principles used by Huxley). The physiology of each organ must be dealt with as a whole in the lecture, and the practical work must be so arranged as to bring home to the student all of the points of each lecture at the time. His ideal laboratory would be of sufficient size to provide each student with his own working place, both in the histological and in the chemical department at the same time." |
| Johannes Hevelius | |
| Died
28 Jan 1687; born 28 Jan 1611
German astronomer. See birth entry above. |
|
| Giuseppe Fiorelli | |
(source) |
Died
28 Jan 1896 (born 8 Jun 1823)
Italian archaeologist whose systematic excavation at Pompeii helped to preserve much of the ancient city as nearly intact as possible and contributed significantly to modern archaeological methods. Fiorelli's initial work at Pompeii was completed in 1848. With his next excavations at Pompeii (1860), he pioneered his meticulous method of studying archaeological strata; observation, recording, preservation (including building a museum), and reporting were its fundamental features. In particular he studied the materials and building methods utilized at Pompeii. It was his idea to pour liquid plaster into the spaces left by decomposed bodies in the beds of ashes to produce casts representing the original victims. |
| Karl Adolf Agardh | |
(source) |
Died
28 Jan 1859 (born 23 Jan 1785)
Swedish botanist and mathematician whose Synopsis alagarum Scandinaviae of 1817 presented a new systematic survey of all algae. Working with Schelling, whom he met at Karlsbad mineral springs, he studied the algae found in the hot springs. Algardh revealed the life cycle of these algae. Later, he expanded his field from taxonomy to writing on plant physiology and plant anatomy. He gave up this career when, in 1834, he was appointed the bishop in Karlstad.« |
| Thomas Tredgold | |
(source) |
Died
28 Jan 1829 (born 1788)
English railway engineer and writer. Starting as a cabinet-maker, he studied architecture and engineering, and by 1823 started private practice as a civil engineer. His book Elementary Principles of Carpentry (1820) was the first serious manual on the subject, including the strength of timber. He also wrote manuals on the Strength of Cast Iron (1821), extending the investigations of Thomas Young, heating of buildings, and The Steam Engine: its invention and progressive improvement. (1827). Five years before the first passenger train began service, his book on railways, Practical Treatise on Rail-Roads and Carriages (1825), also assessed the economic value of this 19th century breakthrough technology over that of canals and roads.«  |
| JANUARY 28 - EVENTS | |
| Nuclear weapons workers' health | |
(source) |
In 2000, after decades of denial, a U.S. government study
conceded that cancer and premature deaths of workers at 14 nuclear weapons
plants since WW II were caused by radiation and chemicals. Energy Secretary
Bill Richardson said "This is the first time the government is acknowledging
that people got cancer from radiation exposure in the plants." Since the
mid-1960's, ignoring epidemiological studies, the government had denied
any such link. In Jul 1999, the government accepted that a lung disease
of some workers was caused by breathing beryllium dust. President Clinton
ordered a broader study of the effects of radiation and chemicals at nuclear
weapons plants. He signed
a compensation bill on 30 Oct 2000.« |
| Balloon flight | |
(source) |
In 1998, Andy Nelson and navigator Bertrand Piccard, in the Breitling
Orbiter II set the world record for endurance at nine days and
17 hours - or, to be exact, 233 hours and 55 minutes. But the journey was
stopped when they were not allowed to over-fly China. The preparation took
more than four years with a team of 13 people. Bertrand is the grandson
of the balloon flight pioneer, Auguste Piccard.
With Brian Jones, Bertrand accomplished the first complete non-stop round-the-world
flight
on 21 Mar 1999 in the Breitling Orbiter 3. |
| Moon bounces wire photo | |
 |
In 1960, the first wire photograph transmitted by radio waves bounced off
the moon was sent between Hawaii and Washington, D.C., by the U.S. Navy,
using 84-ft diameter parabolic antennas. The image was of the aircraft
carrier
Hancock with sailors on deck forming the words "Moon Relay."
Two admirals also exchanged messages by teletype. The system operated in
the ultra-high frequency range around 400-MHz, which would not be affected
by ionospheric disturbances or geomagnetic storms. It required that
the moon be within sight of both the transmitting and receiving station,
which time varies from a few hours up to 12 hours*.
On 10 Jan 1946, the U.S. Army Signal Corps
reflected a radar signal off the moon's surface.« |
| Atomic power | |
(source) |
In 1958, the first privately-owned thorium-uranium atomic reactor to supply
power began construction at Buchanan, N.Y. The Consolidated Edison Company's
Indian
Point 1 nuclear generating station was the first designed to utillize
uranium-235 supplemented with thorium-232. It was designed by the Babcock
and Wilcox Co., and built at a cost of $100 million on the site of a former
amusement park. Its pressurized water
reactor
produced 275,000 kW of power for part of the New York metropolitan area.
The Indian
Point 1 operating licence was dated 26 Mar 1962. It began generating
power on 16 Sep 1962. It was shut down on 31 Oct 1974.because it lacked
an emergency cooling system for the reactor core.« [Image:
Indian Point Unit 1 reactor at centre of picture, with one of the other
two Indan Point reactors behind it.] |
| Ski tow rope | |
(source) |
In 1934, the first ski
tow rope in the U.S., built by Robert Royce, was used for the first
time in Woodstock, Vermont to enable snow skiers to easily reach the top
of the mountain. His idea was based on one he had heard was operating since
1932 in Shawbridge, Quebec. The Woodstock tow rope was built by David Dodd
of South Newbury in less than 2 weeks for under $500. About 2500 feet of
7/8-in manilla rope was spliced in a loop, passed over pulleys and around
a wheel attached to a Model T ford engine. The tow rope ran 900-ft up the
hill, easily hauling up to 5 skiers holding on to it up the slope in a
minute. The enthusiasts enjoyed
riding the tow rope up the hill, adding to the thrill of the downhill journey.«
[Image:
from an early advertisement for another ski tow that opened in New Hampshire
the following year.] |
| First GB speeding fine | |
 |
In 1896, the first speeding fine was handed
out to a British motorist. Walter Arnold of East Peckham in Kent, was caught
doing 8 mph in a 2 mph built up zone, and was fined
one shilling. That speed limit had been in force since 1865 when the Locomotive
Act (Red Flag Act) introduced a speed limit of 2 mph in built up zones
(meaning towns and villages) and 4 mph elsewhere. The speed limit was raised
to 20 mph in 1903, and to 30 mph within built up areas in 1934, which it
has remained ever since.« [Image:
A modern speed limit sign, as it might now show a 2 mph limit.] |
| Benz patent | |
(source) |
In 1886, German engineer Karl Benz received the world’s first patent (DRP.
No. 37435) for a practical internal combustion engine powered automobile,
a carriage-like three-wheeler with tubular framework, mounted on a Benz-designed,
one-horsepower, one-cylinder engine with tiller steering and a buggy-like
seat for two. The engine was a refinement of the four-stroke engine designed
by Nikolaus Otto (another German), who had refined his from Lenoir's two-stroke
engine. Though the motorwagen was awkward and frail, it incorporated some
essential elements that would characterize the modern vehicle: electrical
ignition, differential, mechanical valves, carburetor, engine cooling system,
oil and grease cups for lubrication, and a braking system. |
| First telephone exchange | |
(source) |
In 1878, the first commercial telephone
exchange in the U.S. was installed at New Haven, Connecticut, and served
21 subscribers connected by a single strand of iron wire. For the first
six weeks, the exchange was not operated at night. Instead of "hello,"
the first experimental shout was "Ahoy, ahoy." The first operator was George
W. Coy. A Bell
franchise had been awarded for New Haven and Middlesex Counties to Coy
on 3 Nov 1877, paid for by incorporating as a company with two financial
partners. Coy improvised his first crude switchboard, using carriage bolts,
handles from teapot lids and bustle wire. The concept of interconnecting
phone wires had been tried before by three other men, but none of these
men attempted commercial telephone operations. |
| Street gas lights | |
(source) |
In 1807, London's Pall Mall became the first street
of any city to be illuminated by gaslight.
By 1823 nearly 40,000 lamps had been installed in 215 miles of London streets.
Earlier, in 1804, Frederick Albert Windsor, a German entrepreneur, demonstrated
and lectured on gas light at the Lyceum Theatre in London. His main interest
in gas was for street lighting. Windsor acquired a house in Pall Mall,
London and on 4 Jun 1807, the King's birthday, he exhibited lights and
a gas-lit transparency along the walls. In 1809-10, Windsor established
the first public gas company, The Gas Light and Coke Company, which remained
in existence until the company was nationalized in 1948. |
| Neptune | |
(source) |
In 1613, Galileo may have unknowingly
viewed the undiscovered planet of
Neptune.
His observing records show a "star" that doesn't appear in modern star
catalogues.When it happened to be very near Jupiter, he thought
it was just a star. On two successive nights he actually noticed that it
moved slightly with respect to another nearby star. But on the subsequent
nights it was out of his field of view. Had he seen it on the previous
few nights Neptune's motion would have been obvious to him. Unfortunately,
cloudy skies prevented obsevations on those few critical days. Since Galle
made his acknowledged discovery on 23 Sep 1846, Neptune has only completed
about one orbit around the Sun, which takes 164 years and 280 days.
Galileo:
A Life, by James Reston |
