| JUNE 19 - BIRTHS | |
| Viktor Ivanovich Patsayev | |
(source) |
 Born 19
Jun 1933; died 29 Jun 1971.
Soviet cosmonaut, design engineer on the Soyuz 11 mission, in which he, mission commander Georgy Dobrovolsky, and flight engineer Vladislav Volkov remained in space a record 24 days and created the first manned orbital scientific station by docking their spacecraft with the unmanned Salyut station launched two months earlier. Soyuz 11 was guided automatically to 100 m, then hand-docked to the Salyut 1 scientific station. Equipment aboard Salyut 1 included a telescope, spectrometer, electrophotometer, and television. The crew checked improved on-board spacecraft systems in different conditions of flight and conducted medico-biological research. They died in cabin depressurization of Soyuz 11 during its return trip to earth. |
| Raymond Noorda | |
(source) |
Born 19
Jun 1924; died 9 Oct 2006.
American electrical engineer, known as "the father of computer networking" because he was primarily responsible for making widespread the business use of networked personal computers (PC's). He did not invent the local area network (LAN) by which computers share files and printers through interlinked nodes. However, as chief executive of Novell Inc (1983-94), his organization and marketing turned the company's NetWare brand software into the first major PC network operating system. It linked even previously incompatible computers, whether IBM-compatible, Apple or Unix. To establish standardization in the industry, he believed in working with competitors, for which he coined the term "co-opetition."« |
| Aage N. Bohr | |
(search) |
Born 19
Jun 1922
Aage Niels Bohr is a Danish physicist, son of physicist Niels Bohr. They both contributed to the building of the atomic bomb during WW II. As his Nobel-winning father had done before him, Aage Bohr shared the 1975 Nobel Prize for Physics with Ben R. Mottelson and James Rainwater "for the discovery of the connection between collective motion and particle motion in atomic nuclei and the development of the theory of the structure of the atomic nucleus based on this connection." The theory helped explain many nuclear properties by showing that nuclear particles can vibrate and rotate so as to distort the shape of the nucleus from the expected spherical symmetry into an ellipsoid. |
| Paul J. Flory | |
(source) |
Born 19
Jun 1910; died 9 Sep 1985.
American physical chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1974 for his investigations of synthetic and natural macromolecules. He researched commercially successful polymers, the processes by which polymers form, and their properties in bulk and in solution. Flory showed how an understanding the sizes and shapes of these flexible molecules is important to establish relationships between their chemical structures and their physical properties. |
| Sir Ernst Boris Chain | |
(source) |
Born 19
Jun 1906; died 12 Aug 1979.
German-born British biochemist who shared the 1945 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Sir Alexander Fleming and Howard Walter Florey (later Baron Florey) for their work on penicillin. In 1928, Fleming had made the initial discovery of the antibiotic effect of penicillin. Being Jewish, Chain fled Nazi Germany to England in 1933. His varied research included phospholipids, snake venoms, tumour metabolism and lysozymes. From 1939, he worked with Florey on natural antibacterial agents produced by microorganisms, leading to their isolation, purification and determination of the chemical structure of penicillin. They performed the first clinical trials of the antibiotic. Chain's mother and sister perished in the Holocaust of WW II.«  The
Mold in Dr. Florey's Coat: The Story of the Penicillin Miracle,
by Eric Lax. |
| Sir Cyril Norman Hinshelwood | |
(source) |
Born 19
Jun 1897; died 9 Oct 1967.
British chemist who worked on reaction rates and reaction mechanisms, particularly that of the combination of hydrogen and oxygen to form water, one of the most fundamental combining reactions in chemistry. For this work he shared the 1956 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with Soviet scientist Nikolay Semyonov. Other important chain reactions are the combustion of carbon monoxide and of hydrocarbons. When it seemed that almost all reactions were chain reactions, one might believe the simpler mechanisms previously thought of were exceptions. But Hinshelwood found substances which could simultaneously react in two ways, one part reacting by a chain mechanism and at the same time the rest reacting in the old-fashioned way. |
| Emile Haug | |
1913 (source) |
Born 19 Jun 1861; died 28 Aug 1927.
Gustave-Émile Haug was a French geologist and paleontologist known for his contributions to the theory of geosynclines (trenches that accumulate thousands of metres of sediment and later become crumpled and uplifted into mountain chains). From the position of the Alp he theorized that geosynclines form between stable continental platforms. He showed that geosynclinal subsidence accompanies marine regressions on the continental platform and that geosynclinal uplift accompanies marine transgressions on the continental platform. His Traité de géologie (1907-11), rapidly became an indispensible reference work. He also produced important works on the fundamentals of paleotology, stratigraphy and tectonics. [Image right: from Traité de géologie shows a vertical sandstone blade, about 50m high, called The Man of Tanaron.] |
| Silvanus Phillips Thompson | |
(source) |
Born 19
Jun 1851; died 12 Jun 1916.
British physicist and historian of science. He was a recognised authority upon electricity, magnetism and acoustics and his writings are numerous including Elementary Lessons in Electricity and Magnetism published in 1881 which ran through some 40 editions and reprints. He was also known for contributions in electrical machinery, optics, and X rays. In 1884, he published his epoch-making work Dynamo-electric Machinery: a Manual for Students of Electrotechnics. Practically every designer of electrical machines gleaned his first information on the subject from this work. His lectures to the Royal Institution on Light, visible and invisible in book form and Polyphase Electric Currents and Motors were published in 1896. |
| Antonio Abetti | |
(source) |
Born 19
Jun 1846; died 20 Feb 1928
Italian astronomer who was an authority on minor planets. At first a civil engineer, he became an astronomer at the University of Padua (1868-93), with an interest in positional astronomy and made many observations of small planets, comets and star occultations. In 1874, Abetti went to Muddapur, Bengal, to observe the transit of Venus across the sun's disk where his use of a spectroscope was the first use of this kind. Later, he became director at the Arcetri Observatory and Professor of astronomy at the University of Florence (1894-1921). The observatory had been founded by G. B. Donati in 1872, and Abetti equipped it with a new telescope. He was active there after retirement, until his death, and was followed by his son Giorgio. |
| William Henry Webb | |
| Born 19
Jun 1816; died 30 Oct 1899.
American naval architect, one of the most versatile and successful shipbuilders of his day, who in 1889 established and endowed the Webb Institute of Naval Architecture at Glen Cove, N.Y. Webb began shipbuilding in 1836 and by 1869 had more tonnage to his credit than any other American builder. He was innovative and varied in his designs. |
|
| Friedrich Wilhelm Adam Sertürner | |
(source) |
Born 19
Jun 1783; died 20 Feb 1841.
German chemist who discovered morphine (1806) while trying to isolate the portion of opium that caused sleep. He named the bitter white crystalline alkaloid after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams.When his initial reports of the drug's properties were challenged, he engaged the help of three friends in test taking the drug themselves. After this delay, the medicinal values of morphine were recognized in his lifetime. Subsequently, Sertürner became insane in mid-life, though he lived to age 57. Morphine is among the most important naturally occurring compounds, being of use in the treatment of pain and other calming effects. Unfortunately, addiction is a possible side effect. Its discovery established alkaloid chemistry. |
| Blaise Pascal | |
(source) |
Born 19
Jun 1623; died 19 Aug 1662.
French mathematician, physicist, child prodigy. He laid the foundation for the modern theory of probabilities. In hydrodynamics he formulated what came to be known as Pascal's law of pressure, and invented the syringe and hydraulic press. Pascal invented the first digital calculator to help his father with his work collecting taxes. He worked on it for three years (1642-45). The device, called the Pascaline, resembled a mechanical calculator of the 1940s. This, almost certainly, makes Pascal the second person to invent a mechanical calculator for Schickard had manufactured one in 1624. He died at the young age of 39 having been sickly and physically weak through life. Autopsy showed he had been born with a deformed skull. |
|
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| JUNE 19 - DEATHS | |
| Allan Beckett | |
(source) |
 Died
19 Jun 2005 (born 4 Mar 1914)
English engineer who designed the Mulberry Harbours - the floating roadways and their anchors - which enabled landing of vehicles and equipment on the Normandy beaches following D-Day in WW II. Various prototypes designs from different engineers were tested in a howling gale at Cairn Head, Scotland. Whereas the rival designs failed, his lozenge-shaped bridge spans connected by spherical bearings survived days of stormy weather without breaking apart or washing away. The "Kite" style of anchors he devised used the force of currents to bury themselves more securely in the seafloor. After the war, he designed major port developments and projects for flood protection, around the world, from Aden to New Zealand.« |
| Belding H. Scribner | |
(source) |
Died
19 Jun 2003 (born 18 Jan 1921)
Dr. Belding Hibbard Scribner was an American physician who invented the Scribner shunt, making long-term kidney dialysis possible. The dialysis machine, which filters the blood of kidney disease patients, as originally developed by Dr. Willem J. Kolff, used glass tubes that were inserted into veins and arteries. These were painful and could not be used indefinitely because of progressive damage to the blood vessels. Scribner's key contribution (1960) was the shunt, a device implanted in a patient that allowed doctors to tap into their blood vessels and keep them on dialysis indefinitely. Scribner also led a team that developed the "artificial gut," a method using a catheter to provide nourishment to patients who have lost their stomachs and intestines. |
| Ian Donald | |
(source) |
Died
19 Jun 1987 (born 27 Dec 1910)
English physician who first successfully applied ultrasound reflection imaging for medical diagnosis. He had become familiar with sonar during service in WW II, and first tested the idea of probing organs with ultrasound on 21 Jul 1955, when he investigated specimens of tumours from human organs with an industrial ultrasonic metal flaw detector. After a period of development, he later he used ultrasound in a life-saving diagnosis of a huge, easily removable, ovarian cyst in a woman who had been diagnosed by others as having inoperable stomach cancer. He published the Investigation of Abdominal Masses by Pulsed Ultrasound in The Lancet (7 Jun 1958). The next year, he extended its use to investigate fetal growth during pregnancy.*« |
| Pierre Montet | |
| Died
19 Jun 1966 (born 27 Jun 1885)
French Egyptologist who conducted major excavations of the New Empire (c. 1567-c. 525 BC) capital at Tanis, in the Nile Delta, discovering, in particular, funerary treasures from the 21st and 22nd dynasties. |
|
| James Bertram Collip | |
(source) |
Died
19 Jun 1965 (born 20 Nov 1892)
Canadian biochemist who co-discovered insulin. He worked with Frederick Banting and Charles Best to refine a method of removing and purifying insulin. Working with the bovine pancreas, Collip produced insulin in a form which permitted clinical use. Together with his other contributions in endocrinology, including his isolation of the parathyroid hormone and establishing a bioassay for measuring serum calcium., he stands as a major figure in Canadian medical history. The
Discovery of Insulin, by Michael Bliss. |
| Donald Forsha Jones | |
(source) |
Died
19 Jun 1963 (born 16 April 1890)
American geneticist and agronomist whose hybridization methods for corn (maize) enabled an agricultural revolution. Prior methods of single-cross hybridization had disappointing results. In 1917, he invented the double-cross method of hybrid seed production, which solved a problem in producing useful strains that were uniform, true-breeding, while still vigorous and able to give greater yield. Earlier researchers obtained "pure lines" from self-pollination to eliminate the variable results of open-pollinated seeds, then investigated single crosses made between two such pure lines. For double-cross hybrids, Jones used two single-cross strains. By 1959, more than 95% of U.S. corn crops used hybrid seeds, producing twice the yield of 1929.« |
| B. F. Isherwood | |
| Died
19 Jun 1915 (born 6 Oct 1822)
Benjamin Franklin Isherwood was a U.S. naval engineer who, during the American Civil War, greatly augmented the U.S. Navy's steam-powered fleet. |
|
| Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire | |
| Died
19 Jun 1844 (born 15 Apr 1772)
French naturalist who established the principle of "unity of composition," postulating a single consistent structural plan basic to all animals as a major tenet of comparative anatomy, and who founded teratology, the study of animal malformation. |
|
| Sir Joseph Banks | |
 |
Died
19 Jun 1820 (born 13 Feb 1743)
(Baronet) British explorer and naturalist, and long-time president of the Royal Society, known for his promotion of science. As an independent naturalist, Banks participated in a voyage to Newfoundland and Labrador in 1767. He successfully lobbied the Royal Society to be included on what was to be James Cook's first great voyage of discovery, on board the Endeavour (1768-71). King George III appointed Banks adviser to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. Banks established his London home as a scientific base (1776) with natural history collections he made freely available to researchers. In 1819, he was Chairman of committees established by the House of Commons, one to enquire into prevention of banknote forgery, the other to consider systems of weights and measures. |
| Alexander Dalrymple | |
| Died
19 Jun 1808 (born 24 Jul 1737)
Scottish geographer, first hydrographer of the British Admiralty and proponent of the existence of a vast, populous continent in the South Pacific, which he called the Great South Land. |
|
| Nicolas Lémery | |
(source) |
Died
19 Jun 1715 (born 17 Nov 1645)
French chemist and pharmacist who prepared a comprehensive dictionary of pharmaceuticals in the Pharmacopée universelle (1697) and the Traité des drogues simples (1698). He also gave popular lectures on chemistry. His Traité de l'antimoine (1707), contains the results of his investigation into the properties and preparations of mineral antimony. His chemistry textbook, Cours de chymie (Paris, 1675), went through 31 editions by 1756. He classified compounds as animal, vegetable or mineral in origin, and explained chemical activity in mechanistic terms (ex. he supposed that "spiky" atoms were associated with acidity and porous atoms with alkalinity, the two fitting together when a chemical reaction took place). |
| Diego de Torres Villarroel | |
| Died
19 Jun 1770 (born c.1693)
mathematician and writer, famous in his own time as the great maker of almanacs that delighted the Spanish public, now remembered for his Vida, picaresque memoirs that are among the best sources for information on life in 18th-century Spain. While young, his career encompassed being a dancer, musician, bullfighter, poet, lock picker, and seller of patent medicines. Later, upon reading a book on solid geometry, he turned to mathematics. In 1721 he wrote his first almanac, and in 1726 he was made professor of mathematics at the University of Salamanca. |
|
| JUNE 19 - EVENTS | |
| Alaska pipeline | |
In 1977, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline began carrying oil from the Arctic Ocean
to Prince William Sound. |
|
| First woman in space | |
(source) |
In 1963, Soviet cosmonaut
Valentina Tereshkova returned to Earth after spending nearly three days
as the first woman in space. She had been interested in parachute jumping
when she was young, and that expertise was one of the reasons she was picked
for the cosmonaut program. She became the first person to be recruited
without experience as a test pilot. On 16 Jun 1963, Tereshkova was launched
into space aboard Vostok 6, and became the first woman to travel
in space. Her radio name was "Chaika," Russian for "seagull." Her flight
made 48 orbits of Earth. Tereshkova never made a second trip into space.
She became an important member of the Communist Party and a representative
of the Soviet government. |
| Cheerios | |
(source) |
In 1941, Cheerios whole grain oat cereal was invented
to provide a more convenient and better tasting alternative to cooked oatmeal.
Each piece of the O-shaped cereal is 1/2-inch diameter, and weighs .0025
ounce. Each little "O" puffs itself out, like popcorn, as it explodes from
the barrel of a puffing gun at high temperature. It was first called Cheerie
Oats when General Mills invented it, but that name had to be changed
in 1945, to avoid a conflict with a competitor who suggested they had exclusive
rights to use the word "oats" in a commercial name. |
| Movie of sunspots | |
|
In 1934, the first movie of the sun (other than of eclipses) was made at
the McMath-Hulbert Observatory at Pontiac, Mich. Using a Spectroheliokinematograph,
Robert R. McMath took moving pictures of solar prominenences or sun spots. |
|
| Photocell operated doors | |
|
In 1931, installation was completed on the first commercial doors operated
by photoelectric cell. A magic eye controlled automated swinging doors
between the kitchen and main dining room of Wilcox's Pier Restaurant in
West Haven, Conn. |
|
| Pupin's telephony patent | |
|
In 1900, Michael Pupin was granted a U.S. patent for long distance telephony. |
|
| Edison patent | |
(source) |
In 1888, Thomas A. Edision, with co-inventor Ezra T. Gilliland were granted
a patent for
"Railway Signaling" (U.S. No. 384,830). The invention related to signalling
systems for communicating between stations and moving trains by induction
from the telegraph wires to the roofs of the cars. In such a system, transmitters
were vibrators operated by keys to send signals upon the line, and receivers
were telephone receivers connected to the ground. The patent was for an
innovation to increase the quickness, rapidity and clearness of the vibrations.
By making the transmitted vibrations as short and distinct as possible,
they may be more clearly reproduced at the receiver. |
| Melodeon | |
|
In 1849, the melodeon was granted a patent to C. Austin of Concord, N.H.
(U.S. No. 6,543). This was a small reed organ, with treadle-operated bellows
to draw air through the reeds. |
|
| Electric mine | |
|
In 1841, an underwater torpedo operated by electric current was described
by its inventor, Samuel Colt of Hartford, Conn., in a letter to U.S. President
John Tyler. The invention was a combination of Robert Fulton's stationary
torpedo and Prof. Robert Hare's galvanic current. Colt proved his mines
could sink ships with a demonstration on 4 Jul 1842 sinking the gunboat
Boxer
in New York Harbor, and another on the following 18 Oct which sank
the 300-ton brig Volta. By 13 Apr 1843, He was called upon to demonstate
to the President and his Cabinet, and Colt blew up a schooner on the Potomac
River by an electric main from a distance of five miles. |
|
| City gas | |
(source) |
In 1816, the laying of pipes by the Gas
Light Company of Baltimore was approved by the City Council in the
first city ordinance of its kind in the U.S. That year, artist and entrepreneur
Rembrandt Peale went to England to learn about gas lighting, then
displayed his "Ring of Fire" gas-powered light in his Baltimore museum
on the corner of Baltimore and Holiday Streets. Peale’s successful demonstration
of the power and value of gas led to a plan to light the streets of the
city, and the first gas company in America was born - the Gas Light Company
of Baltimore. The first public gas street light was lit on 17
Feb 1817.
[Image: A lamp
(from 1920-30's) kept burning on the site that Peale first constructed
his in 1817.] |
| Eratosthenes | |
(source) |
In 240 BC, Eratosthenes,
a Greek astronomer
and mathematician,
estimated the circumference of the earth. As the director of the great
library of Alexandria, he read in a papyrus book that in Syene, approaching
noon on the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, shadows of temple
columns grew shorter. At noon, they were gone. The sun was directly overhead.
However, a stick in Alexandria, far to the north, could cast a pronounced
shadow. Thus, he realized that the surface of the Earth could not be flat.
It must be curved. Not only that, but the greater the curvature, the greater
the difference in the shadow lengths. By measurement
on the ground and application of geometry, he calculated the circumference
of the earth. |
