| JUNE 26 - BIRTHS | |
| Robert C Richardson | |
|
 Born 26
June 1937.
American physicist who (with Douglas Osheroff and David Lee) was awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize for Physics for their discovery of superfluidity in the isotope helium-3. As helium is reduced in temperature toward almost absolute zero, a strange phase transition occurs, and the helium takes on the form of a superfluid. The atoms had until that point had moved with random speeds and directions. But as a superfluid, the atoms then move in a co-ordinated manner!  |
| Yoshiro NakaMats | |
(source) |
Born 26
June 1928
Japanese inventor who holds over 3,000 patents, making him the world's most prolific inventor. (Thomas Alva Edison is a distant second with 1,093). NakaMats invented the floppy disk in 1950 at the Imperial University in Tokyo. After six of Japan's leading corporations turned him down, he granted the sales license for the disk to IBM. Dr. NakaMats interests are wide as reflected in his patents, which also include the CD and digital watch. Other patents range from a "Putting training device for golfers" to an "Apparatus for converting radiant energy such as light or heat directly into turning force" or an "Energy system for applying mixed hydrogen and gasoline to an engine." |
| Lyman Spitzer, Jr. | |
(source) |
Born 26
June 1914; died 31 Mar 1997
American astrophysicist who advanced knowledge of physical processes in interstellar space and pioneered efforts to harness nuclear fusion as a clean energy source. He made major contributions in stellar dynamics and plasma physics. He founded study of the interstellar medium (gas and dust between stars from which new stars are formed). Spitzer studied in detail interstellar dust grains and magnetic fields as well as the motions of star clusters and their evolution. He studied regions of star formation and was among the first to suggest that bright stars in spiral galaxies formed recently. Spitzer was the first person to propose the idea of placing a large telescope in space and was the driving force behind the development of the Hubble Space Telescope. |
| Sir Frederic Williams | |
(source) |
Born 26
June 1911; died 11 Aug 1977.
British electrical and electronics engineer who, with Tom Kilburn, invented the Williams tube, a cathode-ray tube using the persistence of the image on the phosphor screen for data storage. This made possible the random access memory that launched the digital computer age. As the Chair in Electrotechnics at Manchester University, he incorporated this invention into the Mark I computer, the world's first stored-program digital electronic computer to be commercially produced during the early 1950's. |
| Roy J. Plunkett | |
(source) |
Born 26
Jun 1910; died 12 May 1994.
American chemist and inventor of Teflon (the DuPont trademark name for Polytetrafluoroethylene or PTFE). His discovery, while working for DuPont, was accidental. On 6 Apr 1938, Plunkett found that a tank of gaseous tetrafluoroethylene (CF2CF2) had polymerized to a white powder. During WW II this new polymer was applied as a corrosion-resistant coating to protect metal equipment used in the production of radioactive material. DuPont released its trademarked Teflon coated nonstick cookware in 1960. |
| William P Lear | |
Lear in 1952 (source) |
Born 26
June 1902; died 14 May 1978
American who taught himself electrical engineering and is best known for the Lear Jet Corporation he founded, the world's first mass-producer of business jet aircraft. Beginning in 1930, over a 20 year period, he secured more than 100 patents for aircraft radios, communications and navigation equipment. Lear's other inventions include the miniature automatic pilot for aircraft, the first commercial automobile radio, and the eight-track stereo tape player. |
| Willy Messerschmitt | |
(source) |
Born 26
June 1898; died 15 Sep 1978
German aircraft engineer and designer, born Frankfurt-am-Main. Messerschmitt. He studied at the Munich Institute of Technology, and in 1926 joined the Bayerische Flugzeugwerke as its chief designer and engineer. In 1938 the company became the Messerschmitt-Aitken-Gesellschaft, producing military aircraft. His Me109 set a world speed record in 1939, and during World War 2 he supplied the Luftwaffe with its foremost types of combat aircraft. In 1944 he produced the Me262 fighter, the first jet plane flown in combat. |
| Paul Niggli | |
|
Born 26
June 1888.
Swiss mineralogist who originated the idea of a systematic deduction of the patterns in the internal structure of crystals by means of X-ray data. He supplied a complete outline of methods that have since been used to determine these patterns. There are 230 possible different internal patterns for different crystals. Because the patterns describe a three-dimensional arrangement, they are known as space groups. Niggli also developed a notation that described the individual space groups, and co-authored a definitive set of tables describing them. |
| (5th) Earl of Carnarvon | |
|
Born 26
June 1866; died 5 April 1923.
The 5th Earl of Carnarvon (George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert) was a British egyptologist. He first dabbled in archaeology as a small boy, digging in the park at his ancestral home, Highclere Castle. Sent to Egypt for health reasons, he found a new fascination in the relics of the past. He funded and participated in excavations from 1907, until his association with Howard Carter and the discovery of King Tutankhamun's tomb on 27 Nov 1922.
 "The
Tomb of Tut.Ankh.Amen: Discovered by the Late Earl of Carnarvon and Howard
Carter: The Annexe and Treasury" by Howard Carter |
| Adolf Bastian | |
 |
Born 26
June 1826
German ethnologist and world traveler. He is known for his theory that throughout humankind there are certain elementary ideas (Elementargedanken ) that are universal among all peoples. On the other hand, cultural traits, folklore, myths, and beliefs of various ethnic groups are characteristic of the individual culture in which they have appeared (Volkergedanken). He was the first director of the Berlin Ethnological Museum and established the Berlin Anthropology Society. |
| Lord Kelvin (William Thomson) | |
|
Born 26
June 1824; died 17 Dec 1907
Born as William Thomson, he became an influential physicist, mathematician and engineer who has been described as a Newton of his era. At Glasgow University, Scotland, he was a professor for over half a century. The name he made for himself was more than just a temperature scale. His activities ranged from being the brains behind the laying of a transatlantic telephone cable, to attempting to calculate the age of the earth from its rate of cooling. In 1892, when raised to the peerage as Baron Kelvin of Largs, he had chosen the name from the Kelvin River, near Glasgow.
 Degrees
Kelvin: A Tale of Genius, Invention, and Tragedy, by
David Lindley |
| Charles Messier | |
|
Born 26
June 1730; died 12 Apr 1817
French astronomer who discovered 15 comets. He was the first to compile a systematic catalog of "M objects." The Messier Catalogue (1784), containing 103 star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies. (In Messier's time a nebula was a term used to denote any blurry celestial light source.) He established alphanumeric names for the objects (M1, M2, etc.), which notation continues to be used in astronomy today. |
|
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 26 - DEATHS | |
| Karl Landsteiner | |
(source) |
 Died
26 June 1943 (born 14 June 1868)
Austrian immunologist and pathologist, who received the 1930 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the major blood groups and development of the ABO system of blood typing that much reduced risk and made blood transfusion a routine medical practice. Such blood type analysis proved useful also in genetic and legal applications. He first reported that blood had types in 1901. The basis of these types are specific proteins called antigens that are found on the surface of the red blood cells and anti-bodies found in the plasma. He also discovered the Rh factor which explained some complications of pregnancy and birth when the Rh factor of the mother and baby do not match. |
| Ralph Modjeski | |
(source) |
Died
26 June 1940 (born 27 Jan 1861)
Polish-born American bridge designer and builder, outstanding for the number, variety, and innovative character of his projects. His first major commission was the design and construction of a seven-span bridge with railway and highway over the Mississippi River, at Rock Island, Illinois. Later, he developed a set of standard bridges designs for the Northern Pacific Railroad. He remains outstanding for the large number, variety and innovation of America's finest major bridges for which he was chief or consulting engineer. The longest cantilevered bridge in the world, the Quebec City Bridge, was completed when he took over its re-design following a 1907 failure that killed 75 workers. He was chief engineer of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.« A
man who spanned two eras: The story of bridge engineer Ralph Modjeski,
by Jozef Glomb. |
| Sir Jonathan Hutchinson | |
(source) |
Died
26 June 1913 (born 23 July 1828)
English surgeon and pathologist who made a lifelong study of congenital syphilis. He was surgeon at the London hospital (1859-83) and professor of surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons (1879-83). He recorded observations made during his vast clinical experience in over 1,200 medical articles. His name remains associated with a number of medical terms, including Hutchinson's triad (the three symptoms of congenital syphilis which he first described.) He was first to identify a certain inflammatory disease, then known as "Hutchinson's disease"), but now known as sarcoidosis, as named by the Norwegian dermatologist Cæsar Peter Møller Boeck (1845-1917). Hutchinson was knighted in 1908.« |
| Sir Edward Sabine | |
 |
Died 26 June 1883 (born 14 Oct 1788)
Physicist, astronomer, and explorer, born in Dublin. He was commissioned in the Royal Artillery, and reached the rank of major-general before retiring in 1877. As an explorer, the party's astronomer, he joined the expedition of John Ross to find the Northwest Passage (1818). He also went with Parry on an Arctic expedition (1819-20). Through experiments using a pendulum at different global locations, he determined the shape of the Earth (1821-3). Sabine also studied the earth's magnetic field, and on 6 Apr 1852 announced the link between sunspots and irregular geomagnetic variations. |
| Sir Gilbert Blane | |
(source) |
Died
26 June 1834 (born 1749)
Scottish physician who, when head of the Navy Medical Board, requied (1795) a diet including lemon juice on navy vessels, which vitually eliminating scurvy and its significant lost manpower due to sickness of sailors. The value of citrus juice had been established by James Lind, with his Treatice on Scurvy (1754). Blane also improved sanitary conditions in the Navy by providing supplies of soap and medicines, and was involved with designing rules that were precursors to modern quarantine conditions. He required every surgeon in the service to make regular returns or journals of the state of health and disease onboard their ship. In 1829, he established a prize medal as an incentive for the surgeon producing the best journal.« Scurvy:
How a Surgeon, a Mariner, and a Gentlemen Solved...,
by Stephen Bown. |
| Samuel Crompton | |
|
Died
26 June 1827 (born 3 Dec 1753)
British inventor, born in Firwood, Lancashire (near Bolton). In 1779, during the Industrial Revolution, he invented the "spinning mule" to spin continuous, strong, fine yarn which was a boon for the manufacturers of cotton cloth. It was called a "mule" because it was a hybrid of the ideas of Richard Arkwright and James Hargreaves. Spinning had come of age from a home occupation to factory production. |
| Joseph Montgolfier | |
|
Died
26 June 1810 (born 1740)
French ballooning pioneer, with his younger brother, Étienne. An initial experiment with a balloon of taffeta filled with hot smoke was given a public demonstration on 5 Jun 1783. This was followed by a flight carrying three animals as passengers on 19 Sep1783, shown in Paris and witnessed by King Louis XVI. On 21 Nov 1783, their balloon carried the first two men on an untethered flight. In the span of one year after releasing their test balloon, the Montgolfier brothers had enabled the first manned balloon flight in the world. |
| David Rittenhouse | |
(source) |
Died
26 June 1796 (born 8 Apr 1732)
American astronomer, instrument maker and inventor who was an early observer of the atmosphere of Venus. For observations for the transit of Venus on 3 Jun 1769, he constructed a high precision pendulum clock, an astronomical quadrant, an equal altitude instrument, and an astronomical transit. He was the first one in America to put spider web as cross-hairs in the focus of his telescope. He is generally credited with inventing the vernier compass and possibly the automatic needle lifter. He was professor of astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania. Benjamin Franklin consulted him on various occasions. For Thomas Jefferson he standardized the foot by pendulum measurements in a project to establish a decimal system of weights and measures. "David
Rittenhouse" by Brooke Hindle |
| Gilbert White | |
|
Died
26 June 1795 (born 18 Jul 1720)
English cleric and pioneering naturalist, known as the "father of English natural history." Over the course of 20 years of his observations and two colleagues' letters, he studied a wide range of flora and fauna seen around his hometown of Selborne, Hampshire. In 1789, he published this studious work. His book The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne contained observations of nature drawn from life. The book has been in print continuously since 1789, and is the fourth most published book in the English language.
The
Natural History of Selborne, by Gilbert White |
| JUNE 26 - EVENTS | |
| Human genome | |
(source) |
In 2000, the completion of a working draft reference DNA sequence
of the human genome was announced
at the White House by President Bill Clinton, and representatives from
the Human Genome Project (HGP) and the private company Celera Genomics.
Clinton stated that even greater discoveries would follow from the working
draft. As a draft, it contained some gaps and errors, but represented about
95% of all genes. HGP expected to use it as a scaffold for generating the
high-quality reference genome sequence within three years. This provides
knowledge to link genes with particular diseases, of the influence of genetics
and to help discover new treatments. |
| C N Tower | |
 |
In 1976, the CN tower in Toronto, Canada, the world's tallest self-supporting
structure, opened to the public. At a height of 1815 feet 5 inches
it is the tallest free-standing structure in the world. The tower construction
began 6 Feb 1973 and was completed 40 months later in 1976. The three legs
and central core were built hollow to ensure flexibility in winds, using
reinforced
concrete and post-tensioned steel. In
1995, the CN Tower was classified as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern
World by the American Society of Civil Engineers. |
| Bar code | |
|
In 1974, at 8:01 a.m., a package of Wrigley's chewing gum with a
bar code printed on it passed over a scanner at the Marsh Supermarket,
Troy, Ohio, and became the first product ever logged
under the new Universal Product Code (UPC) computerized recognition system.
Invented by IBM, and approved for use in 1973, the UPC is a 12-number bar
code representing the manufacturer's identity and an assigned product number.
Within nanoseconds, this information is read with a laser beam moving at
around 10,000 inches per second and transfers it to the store's database
computer for price lookup and inventory management*. |
|
| Yellow Fever Commission | |
|
In 1900, Surgeon-General George M. Sternberg formed a commission to fight
against the cause and spread of the deadly yellow fever disease. Dr.
Walter Reed was appointed officer-in-charge. Reed had previously investigated
malaria and typhoid outbreaks. At the time, many scientists including Sternberg
believed that yellow fever spread by direct contact with an infected person
or with infected objects like clothing, However, the culprit was found
by the commission's research to be a mosquito-borne agent, that it was
sub-microscopic, and too small to isolate. Yellow fever is now known to
be caused by a virus. |
| Benz patents gas auto in U.S. | |
(source) |
In 1894, the first U.S. patent for a gasoline-driven automobile was issued
to Karl Benz of Germany. [Image:
Karl Benz] |
| Fluorine | |
(source) |
In 1886, Henri Moissan
isolated the element fluorine
for the first time, after many unsuccessful attempts. His work had been
interrupted four times by serious poisoning. His apparatus consisted of
two platinum-iridium electrodes sealed into a platinum U-tube containing
an electrolyte solution of dry potassium acid fluoride in anhydrous hydrofluoric
acid chilled with methylene chloride to a temperature of -23º. The
ends were closed with fluorspar screw caps covered with a layer of gum
lac. Electrolysis produced a gas at the anode. When Moissan tested it with
silicon, it immediately burst into flame, which he regarded as a test for
fluorine gas. Two days later, his discovery was announced at the Academy
of Science, Paris.* |
| The Bicycle | |
(source) |
In 1819, The first US patent for a velocipede, a predecessor of the bicycle,
was issued to William K. Clarkson Jr. of New York. Little information remains
available, however, because a fire at the Patent Office in 1836 destroyed
the patent record, and it was not restored. The photo shows the Draisine
design of the period (Europe, 1816). Bicycles were introduced to the US
also in 1819 and were manufactured by David and Rogers in Troy, NY. |
| Cast iron plow | |
|
In 1797, Charles Newbold, born Chesterfield, NJ (1780),
was issued the first US patent for a cast-iron plow, at a time when the
cast iron plow of James Small had to be imported from Scotland. On Newbold's
plow the share, landslide and moldboard were cast in one piece, then wooden
handles and beam added. Local farmers, though, rejected its use, fearing
the iron might poison the soil! Eventually it was the improvements made
by others that brought successful cast iron then steel plows to market. |
| Smallpox inoculations in U.S. | |
 |
In 1721, the first smallpox inoculations in America
were given in Boston by Dr. Zabdiel
Boylston when a smallpox epidemic struck Boston, Mass. Reverend
Cotton Mather, who lived in Boston, had previously heard from a slave of
the practice being used in Africa. Of all the doctors Mather had urged
to try it, Zabdiel Boylston, was the first doctor courageous enough to
use the procedure. |
| Toothbrush | |
|
In 1498, the bristle toothbrush was invented
in China. Coarse hairs taken from the back of a hog’s neck were used for
the bristles, attached at right angles to a bone or bamboo handle (similar
to the modern type). The best bristles came from hogs
raised in the colder climates of China and Siberia, where the animals grew
stouter and firmer hair. Since 3000 BC, ancient civilizations had been
cleaning teeth with a "chew-stick" by using a thin twig with a frayed end.
[Note: A 17th century Chinese
encyclopedia (source) claims
that the year was 1498 for the invention of the toothbrush but the
date 26 June needs a confirming source.] |
|
