| JUNE 28 - BIRTHS | |
| Klaus von Klitzing | |
(source) |
 Born 28
Jun 1943
German physicist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1985 for his discovery, made in 1980, of the quantized Hall effect. Under appropriate conditions the resistance offered by an electrical conductor is quantized; that is, it varies by discrete steps rather than smoothly and continuously. His experiments enabled other scientists to study the conducting properties of electronic components with extraordinary precision. His work also aided in determining the precise value of the fine-structure constant and in establishing convenient standards for the measurement of electrical resistance. |
| F. Sherwood Rowland | |
(source) |
Born 28
Jun 1927
American chemist who shared the 1995 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with chemists Mario Molina and Paul Crutzen for research on the depletion of the Earth's ozone layer. Working with Molina, Rowland discovered that man-made chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) propellants accelerate the decomposition of the ozonosphere, which protects the Earth from ultraviolet radiation from the sun. |
| Robert S. Ledley | |
(source) |
Born 28
Jun 1926
 American
physicist
and radiologist
who invented the ACTA (Automatic Computerized Transverse Axial) diagnostic
X-ray scanner, the
first whole-body computerized tomography (CT) machine (U.S. patent
no. 3,922,552) which revolutionized medical diagnosis. The ACTA can make
a three-dimensional analysis of all organs and parts
of the body in a series of cross-section images using thin X-ray beams
and high power computer processing of the collected data. Using the ACTA,
diagnosis of tumours, infection or bleeding is possible even deep within
large organs, and it can give improved radiation therapy for cancer. The
framework could be tilted to give results from planes other than vertical.« [Image
right: The first model of the Whole Body Computerized Tomograph used at
Georgetown University Hospital 1974-1978. (source)]
 Cross-sectional
anatomy: An atlas for computerized tomography, by Robert
Steven Ledley. |
| Maria Goeppert Mayer | |
(source) |
Born 28
Jun 1906; died 20 Feb 1972.
German physicist who shared one-half of the 1963 Nobel Prize for Physics with J. Hans D. Jensen of West Germany for their proposal of the shell nuclear model. (The other half of the prize was awarded to Eugene P. Wigner of the United States for unrelated work.) In 1939 she worked at Columbia University on the separation of uranium isotopes for the atomic bomb project. In 1949, she devised the shell nuclear model, which explained the detailed properties of atomic nuclei in terms of a structure of shells occupied by the protons and neutrons. This explained the great stability and abundance of nuclei that have a particular number of neutrons (such as 50, 82, or 126) and the same special number of protons. Maria
Goeppert Mayer, by Joseph P. Ferry. |
| Ashley Montagu | |
| Born 28
Jun 1905; died 26 Nov 1999.
British American anthropologist noted for his works popularizing anthropology and science. |
|
| Bertram Eugene Warren | |
| Born 28
Jun 1902
American crystallographer whose X-ray studies contributed to an understanding of both crystalline and noncrystalline materials and of the transition from the amorphous to the crystalline state. |
|
| Henri-Léon Lebesgue | |
| Born 28
Jun 1875; died 26 July 1941.
French mathematician whose generalization of the Riemann integral revolutionized the field of integration. He was maître de conférences (lecture master) at the University of Rennes until 1906, when he went to Poitiers, first as chargé de cours (assistant lecturer) of the faculty of sciences and later as... |
|
| Alexis Carrel | |
(source) |
Born 28
Jun 1873; died 5 Nov 1944.
French scientist, surgeon, biologist, who received the 1912 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for developing a method of suturing blood vessels. He moved to the United States in 1905. As a member of the staff of the Rockefeller Institute, he did notable work on the problem of keeping tissue alive after removal from a living organism. The most famous example was a piece of tissue from the heart of a chicken embryo, which was kept alive from 1912 to 1946, at which time the experiment was deliberately ended. Techniques developed by Carrel have made possible the surgical transplantation of blood vessels and body organs. |
| Sir Robert Jones | |
(source) |
Born 28
Jun 1857; died 14 Jan 1933.
English orthopaedic surgeon who has been called the founder of modern orthopaedic surgery.* He was a nephew of Hugh Owen Thomas and became one of his apprentices in Liverpool. On 22 Feb 1896, Jones published the first report of the clinical use of an X-ray to locate a bullet in a wrist, for which equipment was provided by Oliver Lodge. Jones co-founded medical associations, including the British Orthopaedic Society and orthopaedic hospitals. During WWI, he led the orthopaedic section of the British Forces. Jones advocated tendon transplantation, bone grafting, and other conservative, restorative procedures. "Time stood still," it has been said, when Jones operated. He wrote several important books on orthopaedics.« The
Life of Sir Robert Jones, by Frederick Watson. |
| Paul Broca | |
(source) |
Born 28
Jun 1824; died 9 July 1880.
French surgeon who was closely associated with the development of modern physical anthropology in France and whose study of brain lesions contributed significantly to understanding the origins of aphasia, the loss or impairment of the ability to form or articulate words. His research was largely devoted to the comparative study of the craniums of the various human races. He established (1861) that the seats of articulate speech were in the left frontal region of the brain, now known as the convolution of Broca. This was the first time an anatomical link had been made between a location and in the brain and its function. He founded the anthropology laboratory at the École des Hautes. |
|
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| JUNE 28 - DEATHS | |
| Vannevar Bush | |
(source) |
 Died
28 Jun 1974 (born 11 Mar 1890)
American electrical engineer and administrator who and oversaw government mobilization of scientific research during World War II. At the age of 35, in 1925, he developed the differential analyzer, the world's first analog computer. It was capable of solving differential equations. He put into concrete form that which began 50 years earlier with the incomplete efforts of Babbage, and the theoretical details developed by Kelvin. This machine filled a 20 x 30 foot room. He innovated one of the largest growing media in our time, namely hypermedia as fulfilled in the Internet with hypertext links. |
| Robert Porter Allen | |
(source) |
Died
28 Jun 1963 (born 24 Apr 1905)
American author and conservationist recognized for saving the whooping crane from extinction by discovering (1955) the nesting ground of the sole remaining flock near the Arctic Circle. He was a leader in having whooping crane habitats in Texas and Canada proclaimed as refuges. He helped establish a working protective plan for flamingos and recommended methods of saving the small surviving colonies of roseate spoonbills, thus helping to perpetuate the species. His monographs on the whooping crane, the roseate spoonbill, and the American flamingo are the standard authoritative works on these species. [Listen to the whooping crane call] |
| Sir John Isaac Thornycroft | |
(source) |
Died
28 Jun 1928 (born 1 Feb 1843)
English naval architect and engineer who founded the Thornycroft shipbuilding company, in 1864 with a shipyard on the River Thames. He was only 19 when he built his first steam launch. By 1877, he built the first modern torpedo boat for the Royal Navy. In 1877, he patented an air-lubricated hull that could skim, rather than cut through, the water. He also designed water-tube boilers for torpedo boats as well as one of the earliest ship stabilizers. During WW I, he built warships including 29 destroyers and flotilla leaders, 3 submarines and coastal torpedo speedboats, which could skim over minefields. He pioneered the use of oil fuel for the Royal Navy. Steam powered lorries were a manufacturing off-shoot of his shipyard (1896) which led to a major new business building petrol-engined lorries (from 1902).« [Image: Detail from a Vanity Fair caricature, 1905.] |
| Hermann M. Biggs | |
(source) |
Died
28 Jun 1923 (born 29 Sep 1859)
Hermann Michael Biggs was an American physician who pioneered the use of bacteriological studies in the field of public health for the prevention and control of contagious diseases. From 1884 he learnt about current advances in bacteriology by visiting Europe. In 1892, he was appointed the first director of a new Division of Pathology, Bacteriology and Disinfection within the New York City Department of Health - the first municipal bacteriological laboratory in the U.S. - to address the scare of cholera from immigrants arriving at the harbour. He became general medical officer of New York City (1901) and then commissioner of health for the state of New York (1914). The measures he developed for public health spread through the nation. The
Sanitarians: A History of American Public Health, by
John Duffy |
| Maria Mitchell | |
 |
Died
28 Jun 1889 (born 1 Aug 1818)
First American professional woman astronomer, born Nantucket, Mass. While pursuing an amateur interest, on 1 Oct 1847, she gained fame from the observation of a comet which she was first to report. She was also the first female member of the American Association of Arts and Sciences. She died at age 70 in Lynn, Mass.
Maria
Mitchell: A Life in Journals and Letters, by Henry Albers. |
| George Hadley | |
| Died
28 Jun 1768 (born 12 Feb 1685)
English physicist and meteorologist who first formulated an accurate theory describing the trade winds and the associated meridional circulation pattern now known as the Hadley cell. |
|
| JUNE 28 - EVENTS | |
| Liver transplant | |
Dr. Fung (source) |
In 1992, a 35-year-old man at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
became the world's first recipient of a baboon liver transplant.
Dr. John Fung
with colleagues Drs. Andreas Tzakis and Satoru Todo performed the transplant
operation. The patient was dying from hepatitis B. Although the patient
died from a brain hemorrhage 71 days after the historic surgery, the field
of xenotransplantation,
or cross-species transplantation, was advanced considerably. A second xenotransplant
operation was made on 10 Jan 1993 on a 62-year-old man who lived 26 days
with the baboon’s liver. No further xenotransplants are currently planned
there, but xenotransplantation research remains a major focus of investigation
at the university. |
| Satellite | |
(source) |
In 1965, the first commerical telephone conversation over a satellite took
place over Early Bird I between America and Europe. It had capacity
for 240 voice circuits or one black and white TV channel. Positioned
to serve the Atlantic Ocean region, Early Bird provided commercial
communications service between North America and Western Europe. It exceeded
its 18 months designed in-orbit life by 2 additional years. (It was later
renamed as Intelsat I.) By 1 Jul 1969, three Intelsat satellites
in geostationary orbit provided full global coverage. Only 19 days after
Intelsat
III became operational, Neil Armstrong and the Apollo 11 crew made
their historic first landing on the moon, watched by 500 million people
back on Earth. |
| Polio vaccine | |
(source) |
In 1961, the American Medical Association backed the Sabin polio vaccine
over the Salk vaccine. In 1957, in an effort to improve upon the
killed Salk vaccine, Albert Bruce Sabin began testing
a live, oral form of vaccine in which the infectious part of the virus
was inactivated (attenuated). This vaccine
became available for use in 1963. The Sabin oral vaccine is often administered
on a sugar cube. The advantages of a live, oral vaccine are its long-lasting
immunity, and the lower cost because sterile syringes and needles are not
necessary. A major disadvantage is that it cannot be used for patients
with compromised immune systems because it is a live virus and can cause
disease in these patients. |
| Mackinac Bridge | |
(source) |
In 1958, the Mackinac
Bridge, the world longest suspension bridge, was dedicated. Ceremonies
began on 24 Jun with the first "Governor's
Walk" across the bridge. (It had opened to traffic on 1 Nov 1957.)
This bridge joins the upper and lower peninsulas of the state of Michigan,
reducing the crossing time, from a couple of hours, to just 10 minutes.
Ceremonial groundbreaking
took place at the St. Ignace end of the bridge on 7 May 1954, and on the
opposite shore at Mackinaw City the next day. Meanwhile caissons and superstructures
were assembled as far away as Indiana, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Including
approaches, the total length is 26,444-ft, needing 34 bridge support foundations.
The main span is 3,800-ft long. |
| Atomic reactor | |
|
In 1956, the first atomic reactor built for private research began operations
in Chicago, Ill. |
|
| Aerial tramway | |
(source) |
In 1938, an aerial tramway, the first in North America, was dedicated
in Franconia, N.H. The tramway
was built to lift skiers from Franconia Notch to the 4,200-foot summit
of Cannon Mountain on the north face. In 1933, the Richard Taft Trail was
cut on the north face of Cannon. This was popular with the Boston-area
ski clubs. The state of New Hampshire decided in the late 1930's to build
an aerial tramway that would serve the Taft and its sister trails. The
site was chosen,
in part, because sufficient electric power was already in place in Franconia
Notch. The tramway's wooden cabins held 28 skiers. The present
tram, constructed in 1982, carries 70 skiers. The area is owned and operated
by the state of New Hampshire. |
| Virus crystallized | |
(source) |
In 1935, the first virus in crystalline form was reported. Professor Wendell
Stanley (1904-1971) received a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1946 for
his work
on the tobacco mosaic virus, begun in the 1930s and which he crystallized
in 1935. The demonstration
of the molecular properties of the virus gave impetus to a new research
approach in virology: the study of viruses as large molecules. This was
a departure from the predominant view of viruses as infectious agents causing
disease. |
| Rocket mail | |
 |
In 1928, Austrian Friedrich Schmiedl launched his first experimental rocket.
The design he first used was not successful. However, by 9 Sep1931, he
started the world's first official postal rocket-mail service between two
Austrian towns. A parachute provided a safe landing. His rocket-mail service
continued until 16 Mar 1933 when laws prohibited the civilian use of explosives
(including his rocket fuel.) |
| Saxaphone | |
(source) |
In 1846, Adolphe Sax was awarded
a patent for the saxophone.
He had invented the instrument in the mid 1840's by combining the clarinet's
single reed and mouthpiece with a widened oboe's conical bore. His first
saxophones were of wood. Although he soon switched to brass, they remain
classified as a woodwind instrument. Sax patented many new instruments,
but although they were adopted by French army bands, he had no factory
production and made little profit, yet he spent ten years in court protecting
his patents. The first saxophone production in the U.S. began in 1888 when
Charles Gerard Conn of Elkhart, Indiana, made brass instruments for military
bands. They had two octave keys, and descended down only to B-flat.*« |
| Fluorine | |
(source) |
In 1886, Henri Moissan's discovery of fluorine
gas was announced at the Paris Academy of Science, two days after his first
successful experiment to isolate the element, which he tested with silicon
to find it burst into flame. "One can indeed make various hypotheses on
the nature of the liberated gas; the simplest would be that we are in the
presence of fluorine, but it would be possible, of course, that it might
be a perfluoride of hydrogen, or even a mixture of hydrofluoric acid and
ozone sufficiently active to explain such vigorous action as this gas exerts
on crystalline silicon." This conservative announcement was read to the
Academy by Debray, for Moissan
was not then a member. The president appointed a committee to check the
discovery.* |
| Cholera | |
(source) |
In 1832, the first American case of a cholera
epidemic was reported in New York City. Previously, Europe and the Americas
were unaffected by the
First
Cholera Pandemic of 1817 when cholera,
long endemic to the Indian subcontinent, spread to Arabia, Syria, and southern
Russia. This abated in the early 1820's, but a new cholera cycle began
in 1826. It invaded the British Isles in Oct 1831. Canada was struck shortly
before cholera reached New York. Cholera was a horrible disease, spread
through fouled water. Its victims
died after hours of cramps, diarrhea, and vomiting. Crowded into unsanitary
slums, the poor suffered most. Many of the city's elite fled to the countryside.
In America, the disease's hold broke by Dec 1832. [Image:
Detail from an 1883 wood engraving in Life Magazine; the spectre
of "cholera" floats across the ocean from Europe.] |
