| MAY 21 - BIRTHS | |
| Bengt Ingemar Samuelsson | |
(source) |
 Born 21
May 1934
Swedish biochemist, corecipient with fellow Swede Sune K. Bergström and Englishman John Robert Vane of the 1982 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. The three scientists were honoured for their isolation, identification, and analysis of numerous prostaglandins, a family of natural compounds that influence blood pressure, body temperature, allergic reactions, and other physiological phenomena in mammals. Samuelsson was credited as the leading scientist in the biochemistry of prostaglandins since 1965 and for the current knowledge of the prostaglandin tree with all its branches. Samuelsson and his associates had also clarified the biochemical processes by which the various prostaglandins are formed and metabolized. |
| Robert A. Good | |
(source) |
Born 21
May 1922; died 13 Jun 2003
American surgeon, a pioneer of modern immunology who performed the world's first successful human bone marrow transplant (1968) from his sister to a 4-month-old baby boy with an inherited immune disorder. From age 6, Good wished to become a doctor because his father died of cancer. While a junior undergraduate he suffered but recovered from a poliolike disease. He identified the thymus and the tonsils as crucial organs of the immune system in humans. He helped establish that problems with the body's immune response were more common than had been thought and were actually a frequent basis of serious diseases. His research also led to the identification of T-cells and B-cells. In 1987 he helped establish the National Bone Marrow Registry.« |
| Andrey Dmitriyevich Sakharov | |
(source) |
Born 21
May 1921; died 14 Dec 1989.
Soviet nuclear physicist, an outspoken advocate of human rights in the Soviet Union. At the end of World War II, Sakharov returned to pure science and the study of cosmic rays. Two years later, he began work with a secret research group on the development of the hydrogen bomb, and he is believed to have been principally responsible for the Soviets' success in exploding their first thermonuclear bomb (1954). With I.E. Tamm, he proposed controlled thermonuclear fusion by confining an extremely hot ionized plasma in a torus-shaped magnetic bottle, known as a tokamak device. He became politically more active in the 1960s, campaigned against nuclear proliferation, and from 1980 to 1986, he was banished and kept under police surveillance. |
| Glenn Curtiss | |
(source) |
Born 21
May 1878; died 23 Jul 1930.
Glenn (Hammond) Curtiss was a pioneer in the development of U.S. aviation whose aircraft were widely used during World War I. That the Wrights made the first powered flights has generally been accepted, but the achievements of Curtiss spanned several decades and took the airplane from its wood, fabric and wire beginnings to the forerunners of modern transport aircraft. Curtiss made his first flight on his 30th birthday, 21 May 1908, in White Wing, a design of the Aerial Experiment Association, a group led by Alexander Graham Bell. White Wing was the first plane in America to be controlled by ailerons instead of the wing-warping used by the Wrights. It was also the first plane on wheels in the U.S. |
| Hans Berger | |
(source) |
Born 21
May 1873; died 1 Jun 1941.
Psychiatrist who recorded the first human electroencephalogram (EEG). In 1929, he devised a system of electrodes which he attached to his son's skull, and connected to an oscillograph. This gave a recording of brain waves - the rhythmic changes in electric potentials. The most prominent of these rhythms he labelled "alpha waves" and "beta waves." |
| William C. Coleman | |
|
(source) |
Born 21
May 1870; died 2 Nov 1957
American inventor and industrialist. |
| Edward Charles Jeffrey | |
| Born 21
May 1866; died 19 Apr 1952.
Canadian-American botanist who worked on the morphology and phylogeny of vascular plants. |
|
| Willem Einthoven | |
| Born 21
May 1860; died 29 Sep 1927.
Dutch physiologist who was awarded the 1924 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the electrical properties of the heart through the electrocardiograph, which he developed as a practical clinical instrument and an important tool in the diagnosis of heart disease. |
|
| Édouard (-Jean-Baptiste) Goursat | |
(source) |
Born 21
May 1858; died 25 Nov 1936.
French mathematician and theorist whose contribution to the theory of functions, pseudo- and hyperelliptic integrals, and differential equations influenced the French school of mathematics. The Cauchy-Goursat theorem states the integral of a function round a simple closed contour is zero if the function is analytic inside the contour. Cauchy had established the theorem with the added condition that the derivative of the function was continuous. In 1891, he wrote Leçons sur l'intégration des équations aux dérivées partielles du premier ordre. Goursat's best known work is Cours d'analyse mathématique (1900-10) which introduced many new analysis concepts. |
| Gustav Lindenthal | |
| Born 21
May 1850; died 31 Jul 1935.
Austrian-born American civil engineer known for designing Hell Gate Bridge across New York City's East River. |
|
| Charles Edwin Bessey | |
(source) |
Born 21
May 1845; died 25 Feb 1915.
American botanist who created the first U.S. undergraduate botanical experimental laboratory at Iowa State University, where he held several positions (1870-84) and inaugurated the systematic study of plant morphology in the U.S. He devised a classification of angiosperm (flowering plant) taxa based on Candolle's theory of differentiation to emphasize the evolutionary divergence of primitive forms. He moved to become Dean of Agriculture at the University of Nebraska (1884-1915). While in Nebraska, he started a tree planting experiment (1902) that initiated the Nebraska National Forest, the first man-made national forest in the world. He helped influence federal legislation to preserve the giant sequoia trees in California.«  Science
With Practice: Charles E. Bessey and the Maturing of American Botany,
by Richard A. Overfield. |
| Nils Christofer Dunér | |
(source) |
Born 21
May 1839; died 10 Nov 1914.
Swedish astronomer who studied the rotational period of the Sun. Over almost 50 years, his career spanned both classical astronomy and astrophysics. Although his PhD thesis had been theoretical (the orbit of asteroid Panopea), Dunér mostly worked as an observer. The most outstanding observing astronomer in Swedish 19th century astronomy, he is mostly known for his introduction of new astrophysical techniques. In 1867-75, he made 2679 micrometer measurements of 445 double and multiple stars. After publishing his catalogue of double star measurements in 1876, Dunér turned to spectroscopy. Dunér first specialized in observing the spectra of red stars and later, he made a series of measurements of the doppler shift caused by solar rotation. |
| Mary Anning | |
 |
Born 21
May 1799; died 9 Mar 1847
English fossil collector who made her first significant discovery at the age of 11 or 12 (sources differ on the details), when she found a complete skeleton of an Ichthyosaurus, from the Jurassic period. The ten-meter (30 feet) long skeleton created a sensation and made her famous. Anning's determination and keen scientific interest in fossils derived from her father's interest in fossil hunting, and a need for the income derived from them to support her family after his death. in 1810. She sold large fossils to noted paleontologists of the day, and smaller ones to the tourist trade. In 1823, Anning made another great discovery, found the first complete Plesiosaurus. Later in her life, the Geological Society of London granted Anning an honorary membership. |
| Gustave-Gaspard Coriolis | |
(EB) |
Born 21
May 1792; died 19 Sep 1843.
French engineer and mathematician who first described the Coriolis force, an effect of motion on a rotating body, of paramount importance to meteorology, ballistics, and oceanography. Whereas pressure differences tend to push winds in straight paths, winds follow curved paths across the Earth. In 1835, Coriolis first gave a mathematical description of the effect, giving his name to the Coriolis force. While air begins flowing from high to low pressure, the Earth rotates under it, thus making the wind appear to follow a curved path. In the Northern Hemisphere, the wind turns to the right of its direction of motion. In the Southern Hemisphere, it turns to the left. The Coriolis force is zero at the equator. |
| Francis Egerton Bridgewater | |
| Born 21
May 1736; died 8 Mar 1803.
(Earl) Founder of British inland navigation, whose canal, built from his estates at Worsley to the city of Manchester, is called the Bridgewater canal. |
|
| Albrecht Dürer | |
| Born 21
May 1471; died 6 Apr 1528.
German artist who published a book on geometric constructions (1535) using a straight-edge and compass. Although designed to enable artists better represent a natural three-dimensional scene on a canvas, Dürer included careful proofs to establish the validity of the constructions. In this respect, it could be regarded as the oldest surviving text on applied mathematics. He also wrote on the proportions of the human body. |
|
|
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| MAY 21 - DEATHS | |
| Archie Fairley Carr | |
(source) |
 Died
21 May 1987 (born 16 June 1909)
American biologist who was recognized as the foremost authority on turtles. He was most noted for his pioneering work in studying sea turtles. He classified 79 species and subspecies of turtles. Extensive work at Tortuguero and Ascension Island earned him the title of "Turtle Man." His work also dispelled the myths and folklore about turtles. From his extensive studies of migratory, nesting, mating, and nutritional habits of turtles he was able to locate the optimal areas for turtles to live and breed. His consistent effort for the conservation of turtles helped to increase their population throughout the world. Carr invented the "five dollar tag" to tag turtles. He published several hundred articles and for the Time Life Books series on natural history of Africa. |
| Sir Geoffrey De Havilland | |
(source) |
Died
21 May 1965 (born 27 Jul 1882)
English aircraft designer, manufacturer, and pioneer in long-distance jet flying. In 1909, he constructed his first machine and through trial and error and taught himself to fly. Since then De Havilland has been carried aloft by more than fifty aircraft. Notable were the DH-2 fighter of World War I, and the DH-4 light bomber. He established the new De Havilland Company at Stag Lane near London in 1920, beginning the long line of DH commercial and sport aircraft. De Havilland's triumph in World War II was the Mosquito light bomber, the fastest aircraft of its time. In 1943, he was one of the first to make jet-propelled aircraft, producing the Vampire jet fighter. De Havilland led the world in entering the era of jet passenger flight with its first turbine powered aircraft, the Comet in 1949. |
| James Franck | |
| Died
21 May 1964 (born 26 Aug 1882)
German-born American physicist who shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1925 with Gustav Hertz for research on the excitation and ionization of atoms by electron bombardment that verified the quantized nature of energy transfer. |
|
| Hugo (Marie) de Vries | |
| Died
21 May 1935 (born 16 Feb 1848)
Dutch botanist and geneticist who introduced the experimental study of organic evolution. His rediscovery in 1900 (simultaneously with the botanists Carl Correns and Erich Tschermak von Seysenegg) of Gregor Mendel's principles of heredity and his theory of biological mutation, though considerably different from a modern understanding of the phenomenon, resolved ambiguous concepts concerning the nature of variation of species that, until then, had precluded the universal acceptance and active investigation of Charles Darwin's system of organic evolution. |
|
| Rodolfo Amadeo Lanciani | |
(source) |
Died
21 May 1929 (born 1 Jan 1847)
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. |
| Hideyo Noguchi | |
| Died
21 May 1928 (born 24 Nov 1876)
Japanese bacteriologist who first discovered Treponema pallidum, the causative agent of syphilis, in the brains of persons suffering from paresis. He also proved that both Oroya fever and verruga peruana could be produced by Bartonella bacilliformis; they are now known to be different phases of Carrion's disease, or bartonellosis. |
|
| Williamina Paton Stevens Fleming | |
| Died
21 May 1911 (born 15 May 1857)
(née Stevens) American astronomer who pioneered in the classification of stellar spectra. |
|
| August Kundt | |
| Died
21 May 1894 (born 18 Nov 1839)
August (Adolph Eduard Eberhard) Kundt was a German physicist who developed a method for determining the velocity of sound in gases and solids. |
|
| Gaston Planté | |
| Died
21 May 1889 (born 22 Apr 1834)
French physicist who produced the first electric storage battery, or accumulator, in 1859. In an improved form, his invention is widely used in automobiles. |
|
| Christian Jürgensen Thomsen | |
(source) |
Died
21 May 1865 (born 29 Dec 1788)
Danish archaeologist whose designation of the Stone, Iron and Bronze Ages became widely accepted. He was the first curator of the National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen (1816). He classified the specimens in this tripartite way, on the basis of the material used in making weapons and tools, while he was organising the museum exhibits to show man's progressive cultural and technological development in Europe. It was adopted as the basis of chronological schemes elsewhere in the world by generations of archaeologists. In 1841, he established the first ethnographic museum. In 1849, he became director of the National Museum. He was one of the first to open collections to the public free of charge in the interests of popular education.« |
| Georg von Reichenbach | |
| Died
21 May 1826 (born 24 Aug 1772)
German maker of astronomical instruments who introduced the meridian, or transit, circle, a specially designed telescope for measuring both the time when a celestial body is directly over the meridian (the longitude of the instrument) and the angle of the body at meridian passage. By 1796 he was engaged in the construction of a dividing engine, a machine used to mark off equal intervals accurately, usually on precision instruments. |
|
| William Nicholson | |
/Nicholson_William(1795-1815)Thm.jpg)
(source) |
Died
21 May 1815 (born 1753)
English chemist who discovered the electrolysis of water (2 May 1800), the first observation of a chemical reaction caused by electricity. In his life, he was a hydraulic engineer, inventor, translator, and scientific publicist. He invented a hydrometer, an instrument for measuring the density of liquids (1790). In 1800, while he and Anthony Carlisle were investigating Volta's new voltaic pile battery, they stumbled upon the effect of electric current passing through water. Bubbles formed at the submerged ends of the wires. The gases turned out to be oxygen at the positive wire, and hydrogen at the negative. Water was broken down by electricity. This has become an important process with other compounds in the chemical industry.« |
| Carl Wilhelm Scheele | |
(source) |
Died
21 May 1786 (born 9 Dec 1742)
(also Karl) Swedish chemist who discovered oxygen in 1772. Scheele, a keen experimenter, worked in difficult and often hazardous conditions. In his only book, Chemical Observations and Experiments on Air and Fire (1777), he stated that the atmosphere is composed of two gases, one supporting combustion, which he named "fire air" (oxygen), and the other preventing it, which he named "vitiated air" (nitrogen). Due to delay in his publication, he lost priority to Priestley's discovery of oxygen in 1774. Scheele discovered many substances, such as chlorine (1774), manganese (1774), tungsten (1781), molybdenum (1782), glycerol, hydrocyanic (prussic) acid, citric acid, hydrogen sulphide and hydrogen fluoride. He also discovered a process resembling pasteurization. |
| Niccolò Zucchi | |
(source) |
Died
21 May 1670 (born 6 Dec 1586)
Italian astronomer who, in approximately 1616, designed one of the earliest reflecting telescopes, antedating those of James Gregory and Sir Isaac Newton. A professor at the Jesuit College in Rome, Zucchi developed an interest in astronomy from a meeting with Johannes Kepler. With this telescope Zucchi discovered the belts of the planet Jupiter (1630) and examined the spots on Mars (1640). He also demonstrated (in 1652) that phosphors generate rather than store light. His book Optica philosophia experimentalis et ratione a fundamentis constituta (1652-56) inspired Gregory and Newton to build improved telescopes. |
| Hieronymus Fabricius ab Aquapendente | |
| Died
21 May 1619 (born 20 May 1537)
Italian surgeon, an outstanding Renaissance anatomist who helped found modern embryology. |
|
| MAY 21 - EVENTS | |
| Love Canal | |
In 1980, President Carter declared
a state of emergency at Love Canal in Niagra Falls, New York. The property
had been a dumping site for Hooker Chemicals and Plastics. In 1981, plans
were made to evacuate 710 families. The evacuation was ordered after a
study reported that 30 percent of the residents in the area had suffered
chromosome damage caused by the toxic chemicals leaking through the ground
into their homes. |
|
| Pogo Stick patent | |
|
In 1955, George B. Hansburg of Walker Valley, N.Y. was issued a U.S. patent
for his invention of an improved pogo stick (No. 2,793,036). The device
provides amusement as a person rides a vertical pole while standing on
foot-rests, with a spring-loaded assist to enable hopping.« |
|
| Lucite | |
|
In 1936, commercial production of Lucite was begun in the U.S. by DuPont
in Wilmington, Del. Lucite is their trademark name for the plastic (polymethyl
methacrylate) that is crystal clear. Lucite is also highly non-conducting
and has low moisture absorption. Other manufacturers in the world now use
other names for this plastic,
including Perspex and Plexiglass.*« |
|
| Automatic electric stock quotation board | |
|
In 1929, the first automatic electric stock quotation board was put into
operation by Sutro and Company of New York City. This was the first major
advance in market information since the Edison ticker. The board was able
to display the open, high, low and last prices of each stock listed, and
automatically shifted the figures as changes were made. It was the first
of a network of electrically posted black boards serving the securities
industry, activated by a central transmitting station via telegraph lines.
The system eventually reached over 700 brokerage offices from coast to
coast. It was made that year by the Teleregister Corporation (which changed
name in the 1960's due to mergers to become the Bunker Ramo Corp.)*« |
|
| Daylight Saving Time | |
(source) |
In 1916, Daylight Saving Time was introduced
in Britain as a war-time measure to save fuel. The idea began when a London
builder, William Willett, presented
a scheme of shifting the clock to better use the hours of daylight in summer.
He campaigned and published a brochure
on the subject in 1907 (in which his proposal was to adjust the clocks
in four weekly adjustments of 10-mins). When Parliament did consider a
Daylight Saving Bill, to implement a seasonal one-hour change, it failed
for lack of support. However, a little more than a year after his death
after his death, the idea was finally adopted
during WW I for wartime fuel savings. Now most of the countries
in the northern hemisphere use a form of daylight saving time.«
Seize
the Daylight: The Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Savings Time,
by David Prerau. |
| Removeable tyre rims | |
|
In 1906, Louis Henry Perlman of New York City applied for a patent for
his invention of the demountable tyre-carrying rim on this day, similar
to those used on today's cars, but wider. The patent was issued 4 Feb 1913
(U.S. No. 1,052,270).*« |
|
| First U.S. motor car speed limit | |
|
In 1901, the first U.S. State motor car legislation was an act to regulate
the speed of motor vehicle, passed in Connecticut. A limit was established
of 12 mph within city limits and 15 mph outside, which were higher than
the 8 mph city and 12mph country speeds in the bill as originally presented.
Also, the car driver was required to reduce speed upon meeting or passing
a horse-drawn vehicle, and if necessary, to stop to avoid frightening the
horse.*« |
|
| Electric railway device | |
|
In 1895, black american inventor W.B. Purvis was issued a patent for a
"Magnetic Car Balancing Device." In his life, Purvis held other patents
for electric railway devices (1894, 1897), and he also patented ten paper
bag machines (1884-94). Other patents were issued to him for a bag fastener
(1882), a hand stamp (1883) and a fountain pen (1890).
The
Inventive Spirit of African Americans: Patented Ingenuity,
by Patricia Carter Sluby. |
|
| Manchester Ship Canal | |
(source) |
In 1894, in England, the Manchester Ship Canal in north-west England was
officially opened by Queen Victoria. She knighted its chief engineer and
designer, Edward Leader Williams. 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, the canal
was completely filled with water in Nov 1893, and its first traffic
passed on 1 Jan 1894. 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:
Barton swing road bridge and swing aqueduct carrying the Bridgewater Canal
over the Manchester Ship Canal; right:
On the commercial opening day, 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. |
| First U.S. research institute building | |
|
In 1894, the first building of the Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology
was dedicated. The Wistar Institute had been established on 20 Jul 1891,
becoming the first research institute in the U.S. with funds provided by
General Isaac Jones Wistar in memory of Caspar Wistar. It was incorporated
22 Apr 1892.*« |
|
| First U.S. railroad using the telephone | |
|
In 1877, a trial test of a telephone was given in the Pennsylvania Railroad
Company shops by associates of Alexander Graham Bell. The company was impressed
by the demonstration and became the first to make a permanent installation.*« |
|
| Moving sidewalk proposed in New York City | |
|
In 1873, the idea of a "travelling sidewalk" for rapid transit along Broadway
in New York City was printed in The New York Times. Its inventor
proposed to build two sidewalks, one in each direction, continually moving
at 19 mph. How pedestrians would embark or disembark was not disclosed,
although reportedly, the inventor had a satisfactory solution. The
article continued with whimsical predictions of a traveller's experience.
In fact, it was never built. In 1893, however, a moving sidewalk was successfully
installed at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago to move people
from place to place in the fairgrounds. It had two parallel platforms,
the first moved at 3 mph. Riders could then step onto a 6 mph conveyor.
There was a moving sidewalk, the trottoir roulant at the 1900 World
Fair in Paris.« |
|
| First public aquarium | |
|
In 1853, the Aquatic Vivarium, the world's first public aquarium, was opened
in Regent's Park, London, the inspiration of an English self-taught naturalist,
Philip Henry Gosse, who wrote popular illustrated books on nature, and
especially marine biology. He invented the institutional aquarium when
he opened the Aquatic Vivarium.* |
|
| U.S. Federal dry docks | |
|
In 1829, the cornerstone was laid for the a dry dock, at Boston, Mass.,
on which construction had started in Jun 1827. This project, together with
another at Norfolk, Virginia, were authorized by act of Congress on 28
Mar 1827. Their construction used piles as foundations, and were built
of stone faced with cut granite. The Boston dry dock was completed in 1833,
and the Norfolk dry dock the following year.*« |
|
| First bicycle used in U.S. | |
|
In 1819, the first bicycle in the U.S. was seen in New York City. Such
bicycle velocipedes or "swift walkers" had been imported that same year.
Shortly thereafter, on 19 Aug 1819, the city's Common Council passed a
law to "prevent the use of velocipedes in the public places and on the
sidewalks of the city of New York."* |
|
