| APRIL 8 - BIRTHS | |
| Melvin Calvin | |
1986(source) |
 Born 8
Apr 1911; died 8 Jan 1997.
American biochemist who his elucidated the mechanism by which carbon dioxide is incorporated into green plants, for which he received the 1961 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. In the Calvin Cycle, he described the "dark reactions" of photosynthesis occuring through the night turning carbon dioxide into sugar. Using carbon-14 isotope as a tracer, Calvin and his team mapped the complete route that carbon travels through a plant during photosynthesis, starting with absorption of atmospheric carbon dioxide to its conversion into carbohydrates and other organic compounds. The Calvin group showed that sunlight acts on the chlorophyll in a plant to fuel the manufacturing of organic compounds, rather than on carbon dioxide as was previously believed.  "The
Road to Stockholm: Nobel Prizes, Science, and Scientists" by
Istvan Hargittai, James D. Watson |
| Martin Julian Buerger | |
(source) |
Born 8
Apr 1903; died 1986.
U.S. crystallographer and minerologist who made significant contributions to the theory of finding the arrangement of atoms in crystals and devised or improved many of the standard methods, techniques, and instruments of modern crystal-structure analysis. In the 1930s, he revised the powder camera into its present form. He invented the precession method of x-ray diffraction analysis now commonly used for obtaining the unit cell and space group of a crystal. In 1952, the first counter diffractometer designed especially for measuring the intensities of the diffraction from single crystals was built in Buerger's laboratory, which in 1961 was converted into the first automated diffractometer. He wrote a number of books on crystallography. "Elementary
Crystallography: An Introduction to the Fundamental Geometrical Features
of Crystals" by Martin Julian Buerger |
| Jean Prouvé | |
(source) |
Born 8
Apr 1901; died 23 March 1984.
French engineer and builder known particularly for his contributions to the art and technology of prefabricated metal construction. Prouvé was first apprenticed to a blacksmith, and then to a metal workshop. In Nancy in 1923 he opened what would be the first in a string of his own workshops and studios. He produced wrought iron products and began designing furniture. In 1931, he opened the successful "Ateliers Jean Prouvé." He was one of the creators of the first prefabricated building in the world, the 1937 Roland Garros flight club. After WW II, his company mass-produced frame houses for refugees. His company built industrial buildings from aluminum and sent hundreds of aluminum sheds to Africa. He went on to produce other major buildings. "Jean
Prouvé Highlights 1917-1944" by Peter Sulzer |
| Harvey Cushing | |
(source) |
Born 8
Apr 1869; died 7 Oct 1939.
Harvey Williams Cushing was an American surgeon, who was a pioneer of neurosurgery, and studied blood pressure. His clinical contributions are legendary: the use of x-rays in surgical practice, physiological saline for irrigation during surgery, the discovery of the pituitary as the master hormone gland, founding the clinical specialty of endocrinology, the anesthesia record, the use of blood pressure measurement in surgical practice, and the physiological consequences of increased intracranial pressure. He performed the first brain surgery in the U.S. on 21 Feb 1902. "Genius
With a Scalpel: Harvey Cushing" by Justin F. Denzel |
| Herbert Spencer Jennings | |
(source) |
Born 8
Apr 1868; died 14 April 1947.
U.S. zoologist, one of the first scientists to study the behaviour of individual microorganisms and to experiment with genetic variations in single-celled organisms. He wrote his PhD thesis on the morphogenesis of rotiferans (microscopic aquatic organisms), an area of scientific interest he pursued for the next 10 years. The peak of his research and his primary contribution to zoology was his Behaviour of the Lower Organisms (1906). In this study of the reactions of individual organisms and individual response to stimuli, Jennings reported new experimental evidence of the similarity of activity and reactivity in all animals, from protozoans to man. For 40 years of his career Jennings studied the mechanisms of inheritance and variation in single-celled organisms. "Behavior
of the Lower Organisms" by Herbert Spencer, Jennings |
| William Henry Welch | |
(source) |
Born 8
Apr 1850; died 30 April 1934.
American pathologist who played a major role in the introduction of modern medical practice to the U.S. As the first dean of the medical school at Johns Hopkins University (1893-98), Welch revolutionized American medicine by demanding of its students a rigorous study of physical sciences and an active involvement in clinical duties and laboratory work. His students included Walter Reed, James Carroll and Simon Flexner. As an original investigator, With Flexner, he demonstrated (1891-92) the pathological effects produced by diphtheria toxin. In 1892, he discovered Micrococcus albus and its relation to wound fever and of Clostridium welchii (Welch's bacillus), the causative agent of gas gangrene. "William
Henry Welch and the Heroic Age of American Medicine" by
Simon Flexner, James Thomas Flexner |
| August Wilhelm von Hofmann | |
(source) |
Born 8
Apr 1818; died 2 May 1892.
German chemist whose research on aniline, with that of his former student Sir William Henry Perkin, helped lay the basis of the aniline-dye industry. He was the first to prepare rosaniline and its derivatives and researched many other compounds, including the discovery formaldehyde. In the field of organic chemistry, Hofmann is best known for his studies of the organic derivatives of ammonia and phosphine and for his subsequent discovery of the Hofmann degradation reaction. He also developed the Hofmann method of finding the vapor densities, and from these the molecular weights, of liquids. He also helped to popularize the concept of valence (the word comes from his term quantivalence). He founded the German Chemical Society. "The
Chemistry of Vat Dyes (Palette of Color Series)" by Dianne
N. Epp |
| Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard | |
(source) |
Born 8
Apr 1817; died 1 April 1894.
French physiologist and neurologist who was among the first to work out the physiology of the spinal cord. In 1849, he discovered that the sensory, though not the motor, fibres in the spinal cord are crossed. Thus a cut halfway through the cord from one side produces paralysis in the same side of the body but anesthesia in the side opposite to the cut. He also studied the physiological effects of the injection of genital gland extracts. He is a founder of endocrinology. He proved that removal of the adrenal glands always caused death in animals (1856). In important work on internal secretions he showed that the cells come dependent on one another by a mechanism other than the nervous system (1891).  Cours
of Lectures on the Physiology and Pathology of the Central Nervous System,
by Charles Edouard Brown-Sequard. |
| Hugo von Mohl | |
(source) |
Born 8
Apr 1805; died 1 April 1872.
German botanist noted for his research on the anatomy and physiology of plant cells. He was also first to propose that new cells are formed by cell division. He saw that the nucleus of the cell was within the granular, colloidal material that made up the main substance of the cell. In 1846, he named this substance protoplasm (a word invented by the Czech physiologist Jan Evangelista Purkinje to describe the embryonic material found in eggs). He carefully described (1835-39) some details of mitosis in plants, a process he observed in the alga Conferva glomerata. He recorded the appearance of the cell plate between daughter cells. He remarked, "Cell division is everywhere easily and plainly seen...in terminal buds and root tips." |
| Johann Salamo Christoph Schweigger | |
(source) |
Born 8
Apr 1779; died 6 Sep 1857.
German physicist who invented the galvanometer (1820), a device to measure the strength of an electric current. He developed the principle from Oersted's experiment (1819) which showed that current in a wire will deflect a compass needle. Schweigger realized that suggested a basic measuring instrument, since a stronger current would produce a larger deflection, and he increased the effect by winding the wire many times in a coil around the magnetic needle. He named this instrument a "galvanometer" in honour of Luigi Galvani, the professor who gave Volta the idea for the first battery. Seebeck (1770-1831) named the innovative coil, Schweigger's multiplier. It became the basis of moving coil instruments and loudspeakers. |
| David Rittenhouse | |
(source) |
Born 8
Apr 1732; died 26 June 1796.
American astronomer, instrument maker and inventor who was an early observer of the atmosphere of Venus. For observations for the transit of Venus on 3 Jun 1769, he constructed a high precision pendulum clock, an astronomical quadrant, an equal altitude instrument, and an astronomical transit. He was the first one in America to put spider web as cross-hairs in the focus of his telescope. He is generally credited with inventing the vernier compass and possibly the automatic needle lifter. He was professor of astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania. Benjamin Franklin consulted him on various occasions. For Thomas Jefferson he standardized the foot by pendulum measurements in a project to establish a decimal system of weights and measures. "David
Rittenhouse" by Brooke Hindle |
|
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| APRIL 8 - DEATHS | |
| Benjamin Eisenstadt | |
(source) |
 Died
8 Apr 1996; born 27 Dec 1906.
American inventor of Sweet 'n Low artificial sweetener in 1957, and president of the Cumberland Packaging Corporation which manufactured it. The words "Sweet 'n Low" superimposed on a musical staff design became the US Trademark Registration No. 1,000,000. Before that, in the early 1950s, Eisenstadt originated putting sugar into little sanitary paper packets for restaurants. When saccharin became popular in the 1950s, it was available only as a liquid or as tiny effervescent pills. Working with his son Marvin, Eisenstadt created saccharin in a convenient packet form by mixing saccharin with dextrose (a form of glucose) and a few other ingredients to make Sweet 'n Low. (Patent No. 3,625,711). He died aged 89, of complications from bypass surgery. |
| Daniel Bovet | |
(source) |
Died
8 Apr 1992 (born 23 Mar 1907)
Swiss-French-Italian pharmacologist who was awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine "for his discoveries relating to synthetic compounds that inhibit the action of certain body substances, and especially their action on the vascular system and the skeletal muscles." In 1944, Bovet discovered pyrilamine (mepyramine), the first clinically useful antihistamine, which is effective against allergic reactions, by blocking the neurotransmitter histamine. In 1947, a search for a synthetic substitute for curare (a muscle relaxant) led to his discovery of gallamine and other muscle relaxants.« The
Road to Stockholm: Nobel Prizes, Science, and Scientists by
Istvan Hargittai, James D. Watson |
| Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa | |
(source) |
Died
8 Apr 1984 (born 8 Jul 1894)
Russian physicist who was a corecipient of the 1978 Nobel Prize for Physics for his basic strong magnetic field inventions and discoveries in the area of low-temperature physics. He discovered that helium II (the stable form of liquid helium below 2.174 K, or -270.976 C) has almost no viscosity (i.e., resistance to flow). Late in the 1940's Kapitza changed his focus, inventing high power microwave generators - planotron and nigotron (1950-1955) and discovered a new kind of continuous high pressure plasma discharge with electron temperatures over a million kelvin. |
| Fritz von Opel | |
 |
Died
8 Apr 1971 (born 4 May 1899)
German automotive industrialist who took part, with Max Valier and Friedrich Wilhelm Sander, in experiments with rocket propulsion for automobiles and aircraft. On 11 Apr 1928, at Berlin, they tested the first manned rocket automobile. On 30 Sep 1929, von Opel piloted the Opel Sander Rak.1, a glider powered with 16 rockets of 50 pounds of thrust each, and made successful flight of 75 seconds, covering almost 2 miles near Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, Von Opel as pilot. By sponsoring these early tests of rocket-powered transport, Opel popularized the idea of rocket propulsion in Germany. |
| Harold Delos Babcock | |
1952 (source) |
Died
8 Apr 1968 (born 24 Jan 1882)
American astronomer who with his son, Horace, invented the solar magnetograph (1951), for detailed observation of the Sun's magnetic field. With their magnetograph the Babcocks measured the distribution of magnetic fields over the solar surface to unprecedented precision and discovered magnetically variable stars. In 1959 Harold Babcock announced that the Sun reverses its magnetic polarity periodically. Babcock's precise laboratory studies of atomic spectra allowed others to identify the first "forbidden" lines in the laboratory and to discover the rare isotopes of oxygen. With C.E. St. John he greatly improved the precision of the wavelengths of some 22,000 lines in the solar spectrum, referring them to newly-determined standards. |
| Robert Bárány | |
(source) |
Died
8 Apr 1936 (born 22 Apr 1876)
Austrian otologist who won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1914 for his work on the physiology and pathology of the vestibular (balancing) apparatus of the inner ear. The news of this award reached Bárány in a Russian prisoner-of-war camp. He had been captured while attached to the Austrian army as a civilian surgeon and had tended soldiers with head injuries, which fact had enabled him to continue his neurological studies on the correlation of the vestibular apparatus, the cerebellum and the muscular apparatus. Following the personal intervention of Prince Carl of Sweden on behalf of the Red Cross, he was released from the prisoner-of-war camp in 1916 and was presented with the Nobel Prize by the King of Sweden at Stockholm. "The
Road to Stockholm: Nobel Prizes, Science, and Scientists" by
Istvan Hargittai, James D. Watson |
| Frank Stephen Baldwin | |
(source) |
Died 8 Apr 1925 (born 10 Apr 1838)
American inventor best-known for his development of the Monroe calculator. Baldwin began in 1870 to experiment with the design of mechanical calculators. The device was patented and marketed in 1875 (No. 159,244). The improved 1875 machine initiated the development of the second fundamental principle in rotary four-rules calculators which became known as "The Baldwin Principle." Baldwin developed many more calculators during his life. His last model was the forerunner of the Monroe machine. The Monroe Calculator Company was formed in 1912 and was a pioneer in electric adding machines. The Monroe Calculator was used extensively in the 1930's. [Image right: 1902 Baldwin calculator] |
| Roland Eötvös | |
(source) |
Died
8 Apr 1919 (born 27 July 1848)
(baron) Roland Baron von Eötvös was a Hungarian physicist who studied at Heidelberg where he was taught by Kirchhoff, Helmholtz and Bunsen. Eötvös introduced the concept of molecular surface tension and published on capillarity (1876-86). For the rest of his life he concentrated on study of the Earth's gravitational field. He developed the Eötvös torsion balance, long unsurpassed in precision, which gave experimental proof that inertial mass and gravitational mass, to a high degree of accuracy, are equivalent - which later was a major principle of Albert Einstein. |
| Giulio Bizzozero | |
(source) |
Died
8 Apr 1901 (born 20 Mar 1846)
Italian pathologist who discovered the role of platelets in haemostasis and identified the bone marrow as the site of production of blood cells. As professor of general pathology at the University of Turin, made it one of the most important European centres of medical scholarship. Among those who studied or worked in his laboratory were Edoardo Bassini, the surgeon who perfected the operation for inguinal hernia (Bassini's operation); Carlo Forlanini, who introduced therapeutic pneumothorax in treating pulmonary tuberculosis; and Antonio Carle and Giorgio Rattone, who demonstrated the transmissibility of tetanus. Bizzozero also contributed to knowledge of histology and public health, emphasizing the control of malaria and tuberculosis. |
| Jules Quicherat | |
(EB) |
Died
8 Apr 1882 (born 13 Oct 1814)
Jules (-Étienne-Joseph) Quicherat was a French historian and one of the founders of archaeology in France. As a pioneering archaeologist, he was a major force in French scholarship during the 19th century. In 1847, he inaugurated a course of archaeological lectures at the École des Chartes. His students circulated his principles throughout France, recognizing him as the "founder of national archaeology". He wrote on the history of medieval France, and also edited texts of the trial and rehabilitation of Joan of Arc (1841-49). |
| Elisha Graves Otis | |
(source) |
Died
8 Apr 1861 (born 3 Aug 1811)
American inventor of the automatic safety brake for elevators, which later made high-rise buildings practical. Before this invention, elevators of his time were extremely dangerous. In 1852, he was employed at a New York bed factory. He realized the need for a "safety elevator" to move people and equipment safely to the upper floors of the building. He strikingly demonstrated his solution at the Crystal Palace Exposition in New York in 1854. In front of a large crowd, Otis ascended in his new elevator. He called for the elevator's cable to be cut with an axe, but the elevator platform did not fall. The brake he invented used toothed guiderails in the elevator shaft and a spring-loaded bar that automatically caught in the toothed rail if the elevator car if the cable failed. "Otis
Giving Rise to the Modern City: Giving Rise to the Modern City" by
Jason Goodwin |
| Félix Dujardin | |
(source) |
Died
8 Apr 1860 (born 5 Apr 1801)
French biologist and cytologist, noted for his studies in the classification of protozoans and invertebrates, animals he found in "infusoria" - mixtures of water and decaying matter. He was largely self-educated, yet in 1834 he was the first to propose that single-cell animals should be classified in a group by themselves that he called Rhizopoda, but now named protozoans. Dujardin's careful studies of flatworms gave a foundation for the future work of parasitologists. In 1835, he disproved Ehrenberg's theory that tiny animals have the same organs as large ones. Also in 1835, he was the first to describe protoplasm, the jellylike material in animal cells to which he applied the term sarcode (Gr. sari. flesh) to it. This substance was later found in living plant cells. |
| Pierre Prévost | |
| Died
8 Apr 1839 (born 3 Mar 1751)
Swiss physicist who identified the effects of heat could be explained by the flow of a single fluid, as opposed to the two "imponderable fluids" of cold and caloric by Lavoiser. Instead, Prévost recognized that cooling was the loss of heat, not the gain of cold. He believed all bodies contained some measure of heat at any temperature, and that heat would flow from a hotter body to a colder body. Also, he recognized a state of equilibrium for a body that may not be changing its temperature, yet was radiating heat to its surroundings while receiving heat at the same rate from the surroundings. His interpretation, while offered to conform with the caloric theory, remained true when desribed by the kinetic theory (heat is energy of particle motion) of Maxwell seventy years later. |
|
| Georg von Peurbach | |
(source) |
Died
8 Apr 1461 (born 30 May 1423)
Austrian mathematician and astronomer who promoted the use of Arabic numerals (introduced 250 years earlier in place of Roman numerals), especially in a table of sines he calculated with unprecedented accuracy. He died before this project was finished, and his pupil, Regiomontanus continued it until his own death. Peurbach was a follower of Ptolomy's astronomy. He insisted on the solid reality of the crystal spheres of the planets, going somewhat further than in Ptolomy's writings. He calculated tables of eclipses in Tabulae Ecclipsium, observed Halley's comet in Jun 1456 and the lunar eclipse of 3 Sep 1457 from a site near Vienna. Peurbach wrote on astronomy, his observations and devised astronomical instruments. Image: from Epitome of the Almagest . |
| APRIL 8 - EVENTS | ||
| 3D movies | ||
(source) |
In 1953, the first 3D motion picture produced and released by a major company,
Man
in the Dark, opened at the Globe Theater in New York City, starring
Edmond O'Brien. The next 3D
feature movie, The House of Wax, was the first from a major company
in colour and opened only two days later, at the Paramount Theater in NYC.
The idea, however was not new. The first
3D feature film, The Power of Love, made in the U.S. by Perfect
Pictures in 1922, used the familiar method of providing to the audience
spectacles with one red and one green lens to produce the illusion of depth.
The first 3D talking picture in colour, a Russian production of Robinson
Crusoe, was shown in Moscow in Feb 1947. |
|
| Sunspot | ||
(source) |
In 1947, the largest sunspot group recorded was observed on the sun's southern
hemisphere. Its size was estimated at 7 billion square miles, or an area
of 6100 millionths of the Sun's visible hemisphere. Sunspots are areas
of somewhat cooler surface than the surrounding solar gases, and appear
as dark spots on the solar surface. Astronomers measure the sizes of sunspots
as millionth fractions of the Sun's visible area. Typically, a big sunspot
measures 300 to 500 millionths, whereas the entire surface area of the
Earth is only 169 millionths of the solar disk. |
|
| John J. Audubon stamp | ||
(source) |
In 1940, a U.S. 1¢ stamp was issued
commemorating John James Audubon. The stamp
was one of a series of 35 stamps recognizing Famous Americans, including
four other scientists and five inventors. A first day of issue ceremony
was held by the Post Office Department in St. Francisville, Louisiana,
site of the John J. Audubon State Park. He was a self-taught artist and
naturalist who illustrated his ornithological books. He was featured
on a second stamp in 1985 as part of the Great Americans series. His bird
portraits appeared
on four later stamps: Columbia Jay (1963, airmail 1967) Long-billed Curlew
(one of the Four Centuries of American Art series,1998) and most recently
Tanager Birds (American Treasures series, 27 Jun 2002). |
|
| Crawford Long stamp | ||
(source) |
In 1940, a U.S. 2¢ stamp was issued
commemorating physician Dr. Crawford Long,
who first administered inhaled ether anesthetic on 30 Mar 1842 to James
M. Venable, for the removal of a tumor from his neck. The stamp was one
of a series of 35 stamps recognizing Famous Americans. Long's daughter,
Eugenia Long Harper, was presented with the first sheet of the stamp honoring
her father at first day of issue ceremonies held by the Post Office Department
in Jefferson, Ga., where Long had performed the first operation using anesthesia.
(This issue date was chosen by the Post Office Department merely as part
of the overall series being released, and did not correspond to an event
in Long's life.) |
|
| College of forestry | ||
(source) |
In 1898, The first U.S. college of forestry was created at Cornell
University upon the signing of a state law by the New York governor. A
Prussian-born and trained forester, Dr. Bernhard Fernow, was the first
head of the forestry department. Fernow
was devoted to raising the level of professionalism in the care of natural
resources. He had emigrated to the U.S.A. in 1876, published a series of
articles about forestry and helped found the American Forestry Congress
in 1882. Four years later was chief of the new Division of Forestry
in the U.S. Department of Agriculture - a position he resigned to establish
the New York State College of Forestry at Cornell University. He later
organized forestry schools in Pennsylvania and Toronto, Canada. |
|
| Dry-cell patent | ||
(source) |
In 1886, German scientist, Dr. Carl Gassner, was issued a German patent
(No. 37,758) for the first "dry" cell, which used zinc as its primary ingredient.
He encased the cell chemicals in a sealed zinc container. Gassner's battery
was much like the carbon-zinc, general-purpose batteries on the market
today. Gassner also patented his invention in Austria, Belgium, England,
France and Hungary in the same year. A U.S.
patent was issued to Gassner in 1887 (No. 373,064). In America, by
1896, the Nation Carbide Company, later Union Carbide and Eveready, produced
the first consumer dry cell battery.
Two years later, the company made the first D cell. Combined with the invention
of incandescent light bulbs, portable
electric lights became common.« [Image:
The six-inch, 1.5 volt Columbia Dry Cell marketed by NCC in 1896.] |
|
| Milk bottles | ||
|
In 1879, milk was sold in glass bottles for the first time in the U.S.
They were introduced by the Echo Farms Dairy Co. of New York. |
||
| Fire Escape Ladder | ||
|
In 1879, a "Fire Escape Ladder" was patented by black American inventor,
J.R. Winters (No. 214,224)
The
Inventive Spirit of African Americans: Patented Ingenuity,
by Patricia Carter Sluby. |
||
| Margarine | ||
|
In 1873, the first commercially successful margarine manufacturing process
was patented by Alfred Paraf of New York (No. 137,564). When its success
threatened butter sales, federal and state taxes were levied on it. |
||
| Aerosol | ||
|
In 1862, the first aerosol dispenser, an "improved bottle for aerated liquids"
was patented in the U.S. by John D. Lynde of Philadelphia, Penn. (no. 34,894) |
||
| Fire escape | ||
|
In 1766, the first patent was granted for a fire escape: a wicker basket
on a pulley and a chain designed by a London watchmaker. |
||
