| JUNE 21 - BIRTHS | |
| Joseph Cyril Bamford | |
(source) |
 Born 21
Jun 1916; died 1 Mar 2001
English inventor and industrialist who invented and manufactured the JCB construction machine with a hydraulically operated shovel on the front and an excavator arm on the back. From the business which bore his initials that he started in a garage in 1945, he became one of Britain's most successful industrialists. He pioneered the backhoe loader concept in Europe, which he first introduced in 1954. He is also credited with the widespread application of hydraulic technology in construction and agricultural equipment. The company he founded now has a global market in heavy plant and agricultural machinery. In 1968, he created a nature reserve in the grounds of the factory which now successfully hosts much wildlife.« |
| Herbert Friedman | |
|
(source) |
Born 21
Jun 1916; died 9 Sep 2000.
American rocket and satellite astronomer who made made seminal contributions to the study of solar radiation. He joined the Naval Research Laboratory in 1940 and developed defense-related radiation detection devices during WW II. In 1949, he obtained the first scientific proof that X rays emanate from the sun. When he directed the firing into space of a V-2 rocket carrying a detecting instrument. Through rocket astronomy, he also produced the first ultraviolet map of celestial bodies, and gathered information for the theory that stars are being continuously formed, on space radiation affecting Earth and on the nature of gases in space. He also made fundamental advances in the application of x rays to material analysis. 
"The
Astronomer's Universe" by Herbert Freidman |
| Donald Culross Peattie | |
(source) |
Born 21
Jun 1898; died 16 Nov 1964
American botanist, naturalist and author who won high critical acclaim for his several books on plant life and nature. After college, he joined the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a botanist in the office of foreign seed and plant introduction. From 1922-3 he worked on frost resistance in tropical plants. In 1926, he left the USDA to free-lance in his own field, writing books and also began a nature column in the Washington Star which ran for 10 years. An example of his writing for lay people, his book Flowering Earth (1939, reprinted 1991) reveals the miracle of plant life. Needing no chemical formulas or botanical glossary, it involves the reader in the vital stories of chlorophyll and of protoplasm, of algae and seaweeds, conifers and cycads.
"Flowering
Earth" by Donald Culross Peattie |
| C. B. Momsen | |
|
(source) |
Born 21
Jun 1896; died 25 May 1967.
Charles Bowers Momsen was an American inventor and U.S. Navy officer who retired with the rank of Vice-Admiral. He created the Momsen Lung, an underwater breathing device for escape from disabled submarines. It was an oblong rubber bag hung from the neck and strapped around the waist. A tube led from the bag to a mouthpiece to inhale oxygen and a return tube to exhale carbon dioxide. A canister of soda lime inside the lung removed poisonous carbon dioxide from exhaled air and then recycled the air with oxygen. This provided air for a gradual ascent that avoided the "bends." He received the Distinguished Service Medal (1933). Today, other methods, such as the Stanke Hood or free ascent, are used.
"The
Terrible Hours: The Greatest Submarine Rescue in History" by
Peter Maas |
| Pier Luigi Nervi | |
(source) |
Born 21
Jun 1891; died 9 Jan 1979.
Italian engineer and architect who gained international recognition for his dramatic designs for large-span structures made possible with the use of reinforced concrete. In the 1940s he developed ideas for a reinforced concrete which allowed him to create structures of "strength, simplicity and grace". His services as an engineering consultant were highly sought as a result of his experimentation with structural concrete. His important works include a prefabricated 309-foot-span arch for the Turin Exhibition Building consisting of a single undulating large-span roof, the UNESCO building in Paris, the cathedral at New Norcia, near Perth, Australia, and as structural engineer for the first skyscraper in Italy, the Pirelli Building in Milan.  Pier
Luigi Nervi, by Ada Louise Huxtable. |
| Norman L. Bowen | |
(source) |
Born 21
Jun 1887; died 11 Sep 1956.
Canadian geologist who was one of the most important pioneers in the field of experimental petrology (i.e., the experimental study of the origin and chemical composition of rocks). He was widely recognized for his phase-equilibrium studies of silicate systems as they relate to the origin of igneous rocks. Bowen's legacy, in addition to the many accurate and precise phase diagrams of the end members of common rock-forming minerals, was the construction of an experimental and theoretical basis for the interpretation and documentation of the diversity of igneous and metamorphic rocks. |
| Arnold (Lucius) Gesell | |
 |
Born 21
Jun 1880; died 29 May 1961.
Arnold (Lucius) Gesell was a U.S. psychologist and pediatrician who pioneered the use of motion-picture cameras (1926) to study the physical and mental development of normal infants and children. His books gave norms for behavior at successive stages of development and were widely read by parents. Gesell was one of the first to attempt a quantitative study of child development, developing his own methods of observation and measurement. Gesell's initial work focused on developmentally disabled children, but he believed that it was necessary to understand normal infant and child development in order to understand nonnormality. He also studied Down's syndrome, cretinism, and cerebral palsy.
"The
Embryology of Behavior" by Arnold Gesell |
| Willem Hendrik Keesom | |
(source) |
Born 21
Jun 1876; died 24 Mar 1956.
Dutch physicist who was a pioneer in cryogenics and was the first to solidify helium under pressure (1926). He was a research assistant for Kamerlingh Onnes working on the liquefaction of helium, and several years later, subsequently succeeded him (1923) as director of the Physics Laboratory at Leiden. In work done with M Wolfke, after studying discontinuities in several properties of helium at very low temperatures (1927) they suggested that it may be due to a phase change. They called the helium above the transitional helium I and the helium below the transition helium II. In 1932, he produced a temperature just two degrees above absolute zero (-272° C or -457.6° F). In 1942 he wrote the book Helium. |
| Max Wolf | |
(source) |
Born 21
Jun 1863; died 3 Oct 1932.
Maximilian Franz Joseph Cornelius Wolf was a German astronomer who founded and directed the Königstuhl Observatory. He used wide-field photography to study the Milky Way and used statistical treatment of star counts to prove the existence of clouds of dark matter. He was among the first astronomers to show that the spiral nebulae have absorption spectra typical of stars and thus differ from gaseous nebulae. His most important contribution was the introduction of photography to discover hundreds of asteroids, the first of which he named Brucia in honor of the donor of his 16-inch double telescope, Catherine Wolfe Bruce. |
| Albert Sauveur | |
(source) |
Born 21
Jun 1863; died 26 Jan 1939.
Belgian-born American metallurgist whose microscopic and photomicroscopic studies of metal structures make him one of the founders of physical metallurgy. In 1891 he began working with the South Chicago works of the Illinois Steel Company where, to follow his ideas, he was provided with a microscope and a room to work in. "This small beginning," Sauveur later wrote, "marked the introduction of metallography into the iron and steel industry of the United States." He is best known for his research on the hardening of steel (1893) that "the properties of steel rails were largely dependent on the dimensions of their microscopical constituents or grain sizes, and that in turn these dimensions resulted chiefly from the finishing temperatures." |
| Charles Thomas Jackson | |
(source) |
Born 21
Jun 1805; died 28 Aug 1880.
American physician, chemist, and pioneer geologist and mineralogist. Jackson's professional career consisted of a series of spectacular claims to the work of others which continued until he finally became insane in 1873. In 1832, during a voyage, he discussed with the portrait painter Samuel Morse the possibilities of electric telegraphy. Morse exhibited his telegraph to Congress in 1837 but had to spend seven years to establish a right to his own invention against Jackson's claim that Morse had stolen it from him. Jackson similarly claimed priority in the idea of use of ether as an anaesthetic, which he had suggested to a dentist, William Morton. Though the effects of ether were somewhat known at the time; it was Morton who made the idea practical. |
| Siméon-Denis Poisson | |
(source) |
Born 21
Jun 1781; died 25 Apr 1840.
French mathematician known for his work on definite integrals, advances in Fourier series, electromagnetic theory, and probability. The Poisson distribution (1837) describes the probability that a random event will occur in a time or space interval under the conditions that the probability of the event occurring is very small, but the number of trials is very large so that the event actually occurs a few times. His works included applications to electricity and magnetism, and astronomy. He is also known for the Poisson's integral, Poisson's equation in potential theory, Poisson brackets in differential equations, Poisson's ratio in elasticity, and Poisson's constant in electricity. |
|
Sitewide search within all Today In Science History pages: Custom Quotations Search - custom search within only our quotations pages: Today in Science History Science Store Click here to browse a selection of Bargain Science and Nature Books |
| JUNE 21 - DEATHS | |
| Laurence Gould | |
(source) |
 Died
21 Jun 1995 (born 22 Aug 1896)
Laurence McKinley Gould was an American explorer and geologist who the first geologist to reach the interior of the Antarctic continent. He travelled to the Queen Maud Mountains, making geological and glaciological surveys. This involved a 2½-month, 1,500-mile dog-sledge journey that left on 4 Nov 1929. In that month, his party climbed Mount Fridtjof Nansen. Gould found layers of sandstone outcrops at the mountain's peak that showed Antartica's geological links with other continents. Gould's name is on several features on the map of Antarctica. Earlier, in 1926 Gould travelled to the Arctic as an expedition geologist. He was second in command on Admiral Byrd's 1929 South Pole expedition.« Cold:
The Record of an Arctic Sledge Journey, by Laurence M.
Gould. |
| William Wilson Morgan | |
(source) |
Died
21 Jun 1994 (born 3 Jan 1906)
American astronomer who, in 1951, provided the first evidence that the Milky Way Galaxy has spiral arms. He spent his entire career at the Yerkes Observatory, including three years as director. Eschewing theory, his research was devoted to morphology, the classification of objects by their form and structure. With Keenan and Kellman, he introduced stellar luminosity classes and the two-dimensional classification of stellar spectra strictly based on the spectra themselves. With Osterbrock and Sharpless he demonstrated the existence of spiral arms in the Galaxy using precise distances of O and B stars obtained from spectral classifications. Morgan invented the UBV system of magnitudes and colors. |
| Sir Gavin de Beer | |
(source) |
Died
21 Jun 1972 (born 1 Nov 1899)
Sir Gavin Rylands de Beer was an English zoologist and morphologist who contributed to experimental embryology, anatomy, and evolution. He refuted the germ-layer theory and developed the concept of paedomorphism (the retention of juvenile characteristics of ancestors in mature adults). From examination of the fossil Archaeopteryx, De Beer proposed mosaic evolution with piecemeal evolutionary changes to explain the combination of bird and reptile features. He was director of the British Museum's Natural History section (1950-60). Applying knowledge of biology (plant pollen) and geology (glaciology) to his study of original documents, he proposed the route taken by Hannibal across the Alps for his attack on ancient Rome. Charles
Darwin : Evolution by Natural Selection (British Men of Science), by
Gavin Rylands De Beer |
| Johannes Stark | |
(EB) |
Died
21 Jun 1957 (born 15 Apr 1874)
German physicist who won the 1919 Nobel Prize for Physics for his discovery in 1913 that an electric field would cause splitting of the lines in the spectrum of light emitted by a luminous substance; the phenomenon is called the Stark effect. |
| Sir D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson | |
(source) |
Died
21 Jun 1948 (born 2 May 1860)
Scottish zoologist and classical scholar noted for his influential workOn Growth and Form (1917, new ed. 1942). It is a profound consideration of the shapes of living things, starting from the simple premise that "everything is the way it is because it got that way.'' Hence one must study not only finished forms, but also the forces that moulded them: "the form of an object is a 'diagram of forces', in this sense, at least, that from it we can judge of or deduce the forces that are acting or have acted upon it.'' One of his great themes is the tremendous light cast on living things by using mathematics to describe their shapes and fairly simple physics and chemistry to explain them. |
| François-Emile Matthes | |
| Died
21 Jun 1948 (born 16 Mar 1874)
Dutch-born American geologist and topographer whose mapping, with marvelous draftsmanship, of some of the most rugged and scenic features of the western United States was instrumental in the establishment of several notable national parks. He came to the U.S.A. in 1891, studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and worked with the U.S. Geological Survey (1896-1947). An authority on glaciers and glaciation, he was chairman of the committee on glaciers of the American Geophysical Union (1932-46), and he developed an international program to study glaciers. During both world wars, he engaged in military geology. |
|
| Alexander Winton | |
(source) |
Died 21 Jun 1932 (born 20 Jun 1860)
Scottish-born American pioneer automobile manufacturer who put thousands of "Winton Sixes" on the road. Beginning as a bicycle manufacturer on Cleveland's West Side, Winton became the designer and developer of high-end automobiles. He produced his first horseless carriage in 1896. Winton's legacy includes more than 100 patents instrumental in the early designs of automobiles and diesel engines. He was also generous in passing the technology along to competitors when safety was an issue. |
| Ferdinand Keller | |
| Died
21 Jun 1881 (born 24 Dec 1800)
Swiss archaeologist and prehistorian who conducted the first systematic excavation of prehistoric Alpine lake dwellings, at Obermeilen on Lake Zürich, Switzerland. In the dry winter of 1853-4, the water-level there dropped to reveal numerous wooden pilings. After farmers found flints, bones, and bronze jewelry under the mud around them. Keller began a thorough examination of the site. His finds included even pieces of cloth, basketry, and netting. Keller declared that the pilings were remaining portions of platforms needed to support dwellings in marshy land about 4000 years ago. He thus initiated the study of similar remains elsewhere in Switzerland and Europe, from which much was learned about Late Stone Age and Bronze Age life. |
|
| Anders Angstrom | |
(source) |
Died
21 Jun 1874 (born 13 Aug 1814)
Anders Jonas Ångström was a Swedish physicist whose pioneering use of spectroscopy is recognised in the name of the angstrom, a unit of length equal to 10-10 metre. In 1853, he studied the spectrum of hydrogen for which Balmer derived a formula. He announced in 1862 that analysis of the solar spectrum showed that hydrogen is present in the Sun's atmosphere. In 1867 he was the first to examine the spectrum of aurora borealis (northern lights). He published his extensive research on the solar spectrum in Recherches sur le spectre solaire (1868), with detailed measurements of more than 1000 spectral lines. He also published works on thermal theory and carried out geomagnetical measurements in different places around Sweden.« |
| Charles Ellet, Jr. | |
(source) |
Died 21 Jun 1862 (born 1 Jan 1810)
American engineer who built the first wire-cable suspension bridge in America (1842) over the Schuylkill River at Philadelphia. Supported by five wire cables on each side, the bridge had a span of 358 feet (109 m) with a 27-ft wide truss-stiffened deck. When he designed and built a bridge over the Ohio River at Wheeling, Va. (1846–49) for the Baltimore & Ohio Railway it was the world's first long-span wire-cable suspension [image right]. The central span of 1,010 feet (308 m) was then the longest ever built. During the Civil War, he had the idea to form the Mississippi Marine Rams fleet by reinforcing the framework of big, old heavy steamboats and using them as rams. The ships usually had the deck lined with cotton bales for added protection. |
| Louis-Jacques Thenard | |
 |
Died
21 Jun 1857 (born 4 May 1777)
French chemist, teacher, and author of an influential four-volume text on basic chemical theory and practice (1813-16). In 1808, he was the first to isolate the element boron in collaboration with Gay-Lussac. His independent achievements included studies of esters (1807), the discovery of hydrogen peroxide (1818), and work in organophosphorus compounds. He also produced a pigment known as Thenard's blue, which is stable at high temperatures and so can be used in porcelain. |
| JUNE 21 - EVENTS | |
| World's first solar sail spacecraft | |
(source) |
In 2005, the world's first solar sail spacecraft placed in orbit to test
controlled flight was launched
on a Volna rocket fired from a Russian submarine submerged in the
Barents Sea. A 825-km quasi-polar orbit was intended for the 112-kg
Cosmos-1
spacecraft
with an eight-petalled solar sail - 650 square metres of a thin aluminium
alloy coated film. The non-profit U.S. Planetary
Society financed the four million dollar project, built in Russia
by the Lavochkin Association and the Space Research Institute of the Russian
Academy. It was designed for experiments in controlled flight while in
orbit, achieved by rotating each sail to change its pitch, to test the
possiblility of propulsion, though very small, provided by the impact of
light radiation.« |
| First civilian space pilot | |
|
In 2004, Mike Melvill became the first civilian to pilot
a craft into space. By flying to 100-km (62 miles) in altitude,
SpaceShipOne
left the Earth’s atmosphere in a sub-orbital space flight. It was built
by Burt Rutan and financed by Paul Allen. It began by riding piggy-back
on its launcher White Knight to 46,000-ft (13.8-km) Then SpaceShipOne
separated, glided briefly and fired its rocket for 80-sec to continue its
trip to the edge of space. For re-entry, the ship's wings could swing into
a new configuration for a 20-min glide back down to Mojave Airport, California.
The 90-min flight ended with a safe landing on the desert airport runway.
The rocket engine fuel was a solid rubber propellant with liquid nitrous
oxide.« |
|
| Seawater conversion plant | |
(source) |
In 1961, the first practical plant
for the conversion of seawater to drinking water was dedicated when President
John Kennedy pressed a switch installed in his office in Washington D.C.
It was built in less than a year at a cost of $1.5 million at Freeport,
Texas by the Dow Chemical Co. The plant was capable of producing about
a million gallons of water a day, supplying fresh water to the city of
Freeport at a cost of about $1.25 per thousand gallons. The plant was opened
8 May 1961, by the Office of Saline Water, U.S. Department of the Interior.
The large-scale evaporation method used then has now been replaced by reverse
osmosis as scientific advances have produced special polymers suitable
for use as filtering membranes. |
| Long-playing records | |
 |
In 1948, the first successful long-playing
microgroove phonograph records were introduced to the public at the Waldorf-Astoria
Hotel in New York City. Made of nonbreakable Vinilyte plastic, and designed
for the new speed of 33-1/3 r.p.m., the records were developed by Dr. Peter
Goldmark of Columbia Records. The 12 inch record could play 23 minutes
per side, as compared to only 4 minutes per side on the earlier 78 rpm
record. The LP was also an improvement by the quietness of its surfaces
and its greatly increased fidelity. The first LP featured violinist Yehudi
Menuhin. Columbia originated the term "LP" itself, which was copyrighted.
Thus, although many other firms could make long-playing records, only Columbia
could make an LP. |
| Computer | |
c. 1948(source) |
In 1948, the first stored-program computer,
the Small-Scale Experimental Machine, SSEM, ran its first program.
Written by Professor Tom
Kilburn, it took 52 minutes to run. The tiny experimental computer
had no keyboard or printer, but it successfully tested a memory system
developed at Manchester University in England. The system, based on a cathode-ray
tube, could store programs. Previous electronic computers had to be rewired
to execute each new problem. The Manchester computer proved theories set
forth by John von Neumann in a report that proposed modifications to ENIAC,
the electronic computer built at the University of Pennsylvania in the
mid-1940s. The report also proposed the use of binary instead of digital
numbers. |
| Ferris wheel | |
(source) |
In 1893, the first Ferris
wheel premiered at Chicago's Columbian
Exposition, America's third world's fair. It was invented by George
Washington Ferris, a Pittsburgh bridge builder, for the purpose of creating
an attraction like the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Each of the 36 cars carried
60 passengers, making a full passenger load of 150 tons. Ferris
didn't use rigid spokes: instead, he used a web of taut cables, like a
bicycle wheel. Supported by two 140 foot steel towers, its 45 foot axle
was the largest single piece of forged steel at the time in the world.
The highest point of the wheel was 264 feet. The wheel and cars weighed
2100 tons, with another 2200 tons of associated levers and machinery. Ferris
died just four years later, at the age of only 38. |
| Tower Bridge | |
(source) |
In 1886, the foundation stone of the Tower
Bridge in London, England was laid (over a time capsule) by the Prince
of Wales. The need to cross the River Thames at this point had become increasingly
urgent for many years, and finally the necessary Act was passed in 1885.
The bridge, designed by
Mr. Wolfe Barry, CB, was completed at a cost of about £1,000,000.
To permit the passage of tall ships between the towers, two bascule spans,
each of 100-ft length, are raised. The side spans to the towers are of
the more familiar suspension type. Pedestrians can traverse a high-level
footway nearly at the top of the towers, even when the bridge is raised.
It was officially opened 30 Jun 1894,
by the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, on behalf of Queen Victoria.« 
[Image: detail from The Opening of Tower Bridge by William Lionel
Wyllie, oil on canvas, 1894.] |
| Rocket patent | |
(USPTO) |
In 1859, Andrew Lanergan, of Boston, Mass., received the first rocket patent
for "an improvement in exhibition rockets" (U.S. No. 24,468). His design
allowed for the fuse (which he called the "match") to be pre-assembled
with the rocket. The outer end of the fuse was packed inside a recess at
the bottom of the rocket and covered with a light seal which could be easily
broken to draw out the fuse when needed. Thus, he claimed a greater safety
from accidental firing by falling cinders or sparks falling on exposed
fuses. |
| Envelope folding machine | |
(USPTO) |
In 1853, the first U.S. patent for a commercially succesful "Envelop-Folding
Machine" was issued to Dr. Russell L. Hawes of Worcester, Mass. (No. 9812).
Three workers could produce
over 12,500 envelopes a day. The self-feeding machine had a series of shaft,
pulleys, cranks, plates and knives and it would "take one sheet of paper
at one time, and carry it forward to impress or form a base, and thus to
retain it until it is carried onward to the finisher, whence it is discharged,
a finished or folded and pasted envelop." A pasting process was incorporated
as part of the machine's cycle. (J.K. Park and C.S. Watson were granted
the first U.S. patent for an envelope folding machine (23 Jan 1849, No.
6055) but it was not used commercially.)« |
| Stereoscope viewer | |
(source) |
In 1838, his discovery of the stereoscopic viewer was described in a paper
by Charles Wheatstone, On some remarkable, and hitherto unobserved,
Phenomena of Binocular Vision, which he read to the Royal Society,
London. This is the visual effect whereby pictures of an object drawn from
slightly different viewpoints for individual eyes could be viewed with
his stereoscope and give the perception of the object in three dimensions.
He read a second
part to this paper on 15 Jan 1852. This principle was later popularized
with photographs
to make stereo view cards. [Ref.:
Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 128, pp. 371-394
and Vol. 142, pp. 1-17.] |
| Reaper patent | |
1885 (source) |
In 1834, Cyrus Hall McCormick received a patent for his reaping
machine, recognized as the first such practical machine. He demonstrated
his machine in 1831 at a public trial in a field near Walnut Grove, Va.
The owner of the field, fearing the machine would rattle the heads of his
wheat, stopped the demonstration, which was then moved to a more level
field on the neighbour's farm. There, the test was impressive, cutting
six acres in a half a day. Although it did the work of six men, it was
very difficult to popularize, and it took until 1841 before McCormick sold
his first two machines. In 1902, the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company
merged with five other leading farm implement manufacturers to form the
International Harvester Company. |
| Boron | |
(source) |
In 1808, the isolation of the element boron was announced*
by French chemist, Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac,
nine days ahead of Englishman Humphry Davy
who independently separated boron and made his announcement on 30 Jun 1808.«
[Image:
Gay-Lussac] |
| First medical degree | |
|
In 1768, the first commencement of a U.S. medical college was held at the
College of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. When the Department of Medicine
it was established in 1765, this was the first medical school in the U.S.
Instruction took place in a wooden building, Surgeon's Hall. The institution
granted ten Batchelor of Medecine degrees its first commencement. Being
alphabetically at the head of the list, John Archer became the first
doctor in the U.S. to receive such a degree. Four of these ten also received
a Doctor of Medicine from the college three years later, in 1771. (The
first Doctor of Medicine was granted in 1770 at King's College, New York,
now Columbia University.)*« |
|
