| JUNE 2 - BIRTHS | |
| Pete Conrad | |
(NASA) |
 Born 2
Jun 1930; died 8 Jul 1999.
Charles Peter Conrad, American astronaut, was the third man to walk on the moon during the Apollo 12 mission (14-24 Nov, 1969). He had other experience in space on Gemini 5 (launched 21 Aug 1965, logging a new space endurance record of 8 days), on Gemini 11 (launched 18 Sep 1966, first orbit rendezvous and docking), and the Skylab 2 mission (1973). After service as a U.S. Navy test pilot, Conrad had been selected in 1962 to join NASA's second group of astronauts. On 14 Feb1996, Conrad was a crew member for a record-breaking flight around the world in a Lear jet. He died at age 69 from internal injuries after he crashed on his motorcycle.« [Image: Conrad from Skylab2 crew photo.]  Rocketman:
Astronaut Pete Conrad's Incredible Ride to the Moon and Beyond,
by Nancy Conrad, et al. |
| Eric Voice | |
(source) |
Born 2
Jun 1924; died 11 Sep 2004.
English nuclear scientist who volunteered to ingest a minute amount of plutonium as part of European research to track plutonium in the body's metabolism. He was one of 12 volunteers aged 26 to 67 who were injected with plutonium between 1992-98. Reuters reported on 8 Aug 1999 that Voice, age 73, had volunteered again to inhale plutonium for further study 18 months earlier. The miniscule dose was a soluble compound of Pu-237, which he regarded as having little risk, and he remained in good health. Sensitive detectors measured how much and where plutonium was retained, in which organs, and how quickly expelled. He was one of the first western scientists to visit Chernobyl after the explosion (1986). He died of unrelated natural causes.« |
| Clair Cameron Patterson | |
(source) |
Born 2
Jun 1922; died 5 Dec 1995.
U.S. geochemist who in 1953 made the first precise measurement of the Earth's age, 4.55 billion years. He pioneered in three major areas of geochemical research. (1) He provided the first reliable ages of the earth and meteorites (1962), using analysis of the isotopic compositions and concentrations of lead in terrestrial materials and meteorites. This has been a benchmark for researchers. (2) He established the patterns of isotopic evolution of lead on earth, by analysis of critical rocks, sediments and waters of the planet. Thus he created a powerful tool for identifying, tracing and evaluating the nature of the major geochemical reservoirs in the crust, mantle, and oceans. (3) He studied environmental lead pollution. |
| Edwin J. Shoemaker | |
(source) |
Born 2
Jun 1907; died 15 Mar 1998.
American inventor and engineer who created the recliner chair and started the La-Z-Boy furniture company to manufacture it. He learned some drafting through correspondence school lessons, and by 1925 he held his first patent - a band saw guide. In 1928, he and his cousin Edward M. Knabusch made a reclining porch chair out of some wooden slats. It would automatically reclined as a sitter leaned back. Since it was a seasonal item, his sales prospects improved by adding plush upholstery for year-round indoor use. He planned and designed a manufacturing facility (opened Nov 1941) which utilized the mass-production methods of Detroit's automotive industry. By the 1960s, he created a model incorporated rocking together with reclining.« |
| Robert Morris Page | |
(source) |
Born 2 Jun 1903; died 15 May 1992.
American physicist who invented the technology for pulse radar while employed at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. From pioneering work with early radio leaders, Dr. Page conceived and developed circuitry and components in the 1930's for early pulse radar systems which used short bursts of electromagnetic radiation to detect and locate distant objects. During WW II, this invention was vital to the Allies for detection of enemy planes, ships, and other targets. After the war, Page continued research into peacetime applications of radar, airborne radio and other fields of electronics. He held sixty-five patents for innovations in these fields, now applied in navigation, weather forecasting, astronomy, automation and related technical fields.« The
Origin of Radar, by Robert Morris Page. |
| Henry Joseph Round | |
(source) |
Born 2
Jun 1881; died 17 Aug 1966.
English electronics engineer whose numerous inventions contributed to the development of radio communications. He joined the Marconi Company in 1902, and for his earliest work he devised the elements of direction-finding equipment. Round became Chief of Marconi Research in 1921. He was a prolific inventor. Amongst other inventions he designed the Straight Eight Gramophone Recording System, a large audience public address system which was used to relay King George's speech at the Wembley Exhibitions. A talking picture system he invented was used to record sound on to film during the 1930's cinema boom. In total he produced 117 patents. The last was "Pressure Wave Transmission Arrangements" (1964), at age 83. |
| Max Rubner | |
(source) |
Born 2
Jun 1854; died 27 Apr 1932
Physiologist who showed the available energy content of food was the same whether the material was consumed organically or merely burned (1894). He determined that no single type of food produced energy, but that the body variously made ready use of carbohydrates, fats and proteins. In 1883, he used geometry to compare metabolic rates of animals of different sizes. Thus, if an animal is N times taller than another, it has surface area N2 greater and mass N3 greater. Thus total metabolic rate (dependent on heat loss over surface area, N2), would be proportional to M2/3. Specific metabolic rate (the energy burnt M2/3, per unit of mass, M) would be proportional to M1/3. It took 50 years before this simple explanation was improved. |
| Jesse Boot | |
 |
Born 2
Jun 1850; died 13 Jun 1931.
(1st Baron Trent) English chemist who founded Boots Company, Ltd. At 13 he inherited his father's herbalist shop, and in 1877 opened his first chemist's shop in Nottingham. In 1880, under the "Boots Cash Chemists" slogan, Boot advertised herbal preparations, household products and basic remedies at reduced prices. That year, the business extended to Lincoln and Sheffield. In 1888, Boots Pure Drug Company Ltd. began production of simple pharmaceuticals. He began large-scale drug manufacture (1892), and soon after the turn of the century was controlling the largest pharmaceutical retail trade in the world, with over a thousand branches by 1931. He donated land and development support for Nottingham University. |
| Sir Edward Albert Sharpey-Schafer | |
(source) |
Born 2
June 1850; died 29 Mar 1935
English physiologist and inventor of the prone-pressure method (Schafer method) of artificial respiration adopted by the Royal Life Saving Society as standard life-saving procedure. In 1894, with George Oliver, he demonstrated the action of a specific hormone - adrenaline (epinephrine), an extract of the adrenal gland - on blood vessels and muscle contraction. Upon injection into normal animals it produced a striking elevation in blood pressure. This stimulated interest in the study of the nature and functions of hormones. Later, it was adrenaline that was the first hormone to be isolated and crystallized. |
| Nils Gabriel Sefström | |
(source) |
Born 2
Jun 1787; died 30 Nov 1845.
Swedish chemist who discovered the element vanadium. He examined iron ore after a mine manager had pointed out an interesting test. He was told, if a batch of was treated with hydrochloric acid and a black powder appeared, then the iron would be brittle. By further study he found this was not always true, for sometimes a black powder appeared from iron that was not brittle (1831). By analysis of the powder, although similar to chromium or uranium, he determined it was a new element. Sefström named it vanadium after a Norse goddess. An earlier, but tentative, discovery had been made in 1801 by Andrés Manuel del Río, a Spanish mineralogist who lacked confidence in his discovery of a new element that he named erythronium. This was later found to be the same as vanadium. |
|
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| JUNE 2 - DEATHS | |
| John Frank Stevens | |
(source) |
 Died
2 Jun 1943 (born 25 Apr 1853)
American civil engineer and railroad executive who, as chief engineer of the Panama Canal from late 1905 to April 1907, laid the basis for that project's successful completion. He was recognized as the world's foremost railway civil engineer when he arrived on the Isthmus in 1905. The fundamental problem that he faced was one of restoring confidence and morale. A yellow fever epidemic, followed by the unexpected resignation of the first Chief Engineer, John F. Wallace, had made the Canal Zone a scene of chaos and hysteria. He found no order, no plan on the job. He planned the main features of the waterway and lobbied openly in May and June 1906 for a high-level, lock-type canal. On 29 Jun 1906, the President's signature put into that plan into law. |
| Sir William Boog Leishman | |
(source) |
Died
2 Jun 1926 (born 6 Nov 1865)
British physician who studied tropical diseases in India (1890-97) as an army officer. In 1900, he determined a protozoon to be the disease agent for kala-azar, a disease now sometimes known as leishmaniasis. Later, he developed a vaccine against typhoid fever used during WW I that was believed to have reduced the incidence of the disease. Kala Azar or Black Fever probably existed for centuries in Bengal and China, but the first recognized outbreak was in Jessore, India (1824). It caused the deaths of 750,000 people in 3 years. His first original contribution to science was the development of an easy method to stain blood for malaria parasites, to examine cells from the spleen of a soldier who had died of kala-azar. It is still used today. |
| Sir John Hawkshaw | |
(source) |
Died
2 Jun 1891 (born 1811)
British civil engineer noted for his work on the Charing Cross and Cannon Street railways, with their bridges over the River Thames, and the East London Railway, which utilized Sir Marc Isambard Brunel's Thames Tunnel. He was a mining engineer in Venezuela (1831-34) and later, the chief engineer of the Manchester and Leeds Railway (1845-50). With Sir John Wolfe-Barry, he built the inner District line of London underground railroad. He also designed the bridge over Narmada River, India, was engineer of Amsterdam ship canal (1862) and wrote a report on the route chosen for the Suez Canal (1863). He was an engineer on the original Channel Tunnel project (1872-86), and he also constructed the Severn Tunnel (1887) for GWR. |
| JUNE 2 - EVENTS | |
| British sturgeon | |
(source) |
In 2004, a 2.75-meter sturgeon weighing 120 kg was caught
in Swansea Bay off the coast of Wales by Robert Davies. Sturgeons are extremely
rare in British waters, so this catch was interesting, but by a statute
dating back to King Edward II the 14th century the fish had to be offered
to the Crown if caught in Britain. When Buckingham Palace told him he could
"dispose of it as he saw fit," he it auctioned at Plymouth fish market
for £700, but the local police
confiscated it as a protected species under British law. Eventually, the
fish was donated as a specimen for the collection at the Natural History
Museum in London. (In other parts of the world where sturgeon are caught,
their eggs are sold as an extravagant food - caviar.)« |
| VTOL plane | |
(source) |
In 1954, the first test of a VTOL airplane takes place when a Convair XFY-1
Pogo demonstrated a vertical takeoff and landing.
It was known as a "Tail Sitter," but as prototype to test the concept,
its glory flared, and faded in a matter of months. The XFY-1 was a prototype
of a point-defense interceptor fighter intended for the Navy. The sole
virtue was that it didn't need a runway, for the XFY-1 was built to sit
upright on its tail, and take off straight up, using enormous contra-rotating
propellers on its nose. After takeoff, a Tail Sitter changed from helicopter
style vertical flight to airplane by simply pushing over from the vertical
ascent to conventional horizontal flight. In landing, the process was reversed
to land on its tail. It was too difficult to fly. |
| Velveeta | |
(source) |
In 1928, Kraft's Velveeta Cheese was invented. It was packaged
using the 1921 invention of a tinfoil lining that could house the cheese
inside a wooden box. Its special cooking properties quickly caught on.
When melted, it was as smooth as velvet (hence its name), and it would
never curdle when heated. Make this dip for a Sunday football game or any
specialIt replaced canned cheese. James L. Kraft founded J.L Kraft Bros.
cheese factory in Stockton, Illinois in 1914. He introduced the company's
first cheese in tins a year later. In 1917, Kraft cheese in tins was accompanying
WWI soldiers to foreign fronts. |
| Radio patent | |
(source) |
In 1896, the first radio patent was issued to Guglielmo Marconi in England
for his wireless telegraphy apparatus (U.K. 12,039) for "Improvements in
Transmitting Electrical Impulses and Signals, and in Apparatus Therefor."
Improvements are given in a later Marconi patent, No. 7,777 of 1900. [Image:
Figure from Marconi's first wireless specification.] |
| Edison patent | |
|
In 1895, Thomas A. Edison received one of his many patents on the Phonograph
(U.S. No. 541923). |
|
| Sextuplex Telegraph | |
|
In 1891, Thomas A. Edison was issued a patent for a "Sextuplex Telegraph"
(U.S. No. 453,601), four years to the day after the application date. A
second application made that same day for a similar device was not issued
until 1894. |
|
| Hydroelectricity | |
(source) |
In 1889, a hydroelectric power plant generated alternating current electricity
which was for the first time made available to consumers at a significant
distance from its origin. A 13 mile power line linked the Willamette Falls
Electric Co. power plant to Portland, Ore. Two 300 h.p. Stilwell &
Bierce waterwheels together drove a single phase, 720 kilowatt generator.
It was not the first hydroelectric power plant, for one had been demonstrated
in Appleton, Wisc., 30 Sep 1882 with a small dynamo. Rather, it is the
use of alternating current that is significant, for this makes possible
long-distance transmission that overcomes the problems of direct current.
AC generators driven by steam power had been in use elsewhere since 1886. |
| Electric elevated railway | |
|
In 1883, the first electric elevated railroad
in the U.S. had its trial trip. It was built around the outer edge of the
main exhibition building of the Chicago Railway Exposition. The 3 ft guage
track was 1,552 ft long, with tight curves at each end of radius 56 ft.
The line began operation on 9 Jun 1883, with trains hauled by The Judge,
a 15 h.p. electric locomotive. In less than a month, it made 1,588 trips,
carried 28,805 passengers, and ran overall 446 miles before the exhibition
closed on 23 Jun 1883. It was demonstrated by the Electric Railway Company
which was incorporated in the State of New York in the spring of 1883 with
a capital of $2,000,000 to develop the patents and inventions of Thomas
Edison and Stephen D. Field. |
|
| First telephone twang | |
(source) |
In 1875, Alexander Bell and his assistant Thomas Watson had been working
on the "harmonic telegraph". In the transmitter room, Watson had been trying
to free a reed that had been too tightly wound to the pole of its electromagnet,
when it produced a twang. Bell, who had been working in the receiving
room heard the twang. He realized that now his dream of speech transmission
must be a possibility, for the complex overtones and timbre of the twang
he
had just heard had a lot in common with the sound of the human voice. The
next day, they continued tinkering on their experiment, anxious to achieve
more ambitious results. [Image:
diagram of earlier device under test in Winter 1873] |
| Cable cars | |
(source) |
In 1873, ground was broken on San Francisco's Clay Street for the world's
first cable-powered railroad. Andrew
Smith Hallidie was the English-American inventor of the cable railway.
He had previously installed rope-ways at Californian mines to carry ore
in iron buckets across canyons. He adapted
the same system to the haul street cars up the hills of the city, using
an endless, moving underground wire rope to which a car could be attached
to, or released from, at will. A company was formed in 1872, and Clay Street
was selected as a suitable location to test the idea. The cable railway
was constructed from the intersection of Clay and Kearny Streets to the
crest of the hill, a distance of 2,800-ft, making a rise of 307-ft. |
| Donati comet | |
(source) |
In 1858, the Donati Comet was first seen and named after its discoverer,
Giovanni
Battista Donati, at Florence. It was the second-brightest comet of
the nineteenth century It reached perihelion on 30 Sep 1858. When nearest
the earth on 9 Oct 1858, it was about 0.5 AU away, and had developed a
scimitar-shaped triple tail. At that time, its very prominent dust tail
had with an apparent length of 50°, more than half the distance from
the horizon to the zenith, a linear distance of over 72 million km (about
45 million mi). It was the first comet to be photographed.
With an orbital period estimated at more than 2000 years, it will not return
until about the year 4000. An astronomical unit, AU, equals 93 million
miles, the Sun-Earth distance. [Image:
Donati Comet over Paris.] |
| Sewing machine | |
|
In 1857, the first practical U.S. chain-stitch sewing machine was patented
by a farmer, James E. A. Gibbs of Mill Point, Va. It was a single-thread,
twist-loop, rotary hook design (U.S. No. 17,427). In the same year, he
formed
the Willcox & Gibbs Sewing Machine Co. with James Willcox, who arranged
for its manufacture. Gibbs had invented
his own model out of curiosity in 1855, after seeing a newspaper illustration
of a sewing machine. When Gibbs saw a tailor's Singer sewing machine, he
thought it was too heavy, complicated, and expensive. Willcox and Gibbs
sold their chainstitch sewing machine,
on a simple iron-frame stand with treadle, for approximately $50, which
was half the price of anything similar.« |
|
| Publishing "Principia" | |
 |
In 1686, the publication of Newton's Principia was arranged in London
at the Royal Society. The minutes of the meeting record that the astronomer
Edmund Halley would "undertake the business of looking after it and printing
it at his own charge." |
