| JULY 1 - BIRTHS | |
| Alfred G. Gilman | |
(source) |
 Born 1
Jul 1941
Alfred Goodman Gilman is an American pharmacologist who shared the 1994 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with American biochemist Martin Rodbell for their separate research in discovering molecules called G proteins, which are intermediaries in the multistep pathway cells use to react to an incoming signal, such as a hormone or neurotransmitter. Gilman and his co-workers used genetic and biochemical techniques to identify and purify the G protein. |
| Gerald Maurice Edelman | |
(source) |
Born 1
Jul 1929
American biochemist whose contributions in elucidating the chemical structure of antibodies won him (with Rodney Porter) the Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology in 1972. Edelman studied the structure of human immunoglobulin. He first split this large molecule into smaller portions, by reducing and splitting the disulfide bonds. Edelman proposed that the molecule contained two kinds of polypeptide chains: light and heavy. From such studies, Porter proposed a structure for the antibody immunoglobulin G (IgG) in 1962. Edelman aimed to work out the complete amino-acid sequence of IgG. As it contained 1330 amino acids it was by far the largest protein then attempted. By 1969 he announced the complete sequence. |
| Norman Wingate Pirie | |
(source) |
Born 1
Jul 1907; died 29 Mar 1997.
British biochemist and virologist who collaborated with Frederick Bawden to demonstrate that the genetic material found in viruses is RNA. Together they obtained about a dozen viruses, or strains of viruses, in semi-crystalline or even crystalline form, including tobacco mosaic virus (TMV). Pirie demonstrated that the preparations contained small amounts of phosphorus and showed conclusively that all contained ribonucleic acid (RNA). This contradicted the early views of Wendell Stanley (a later Nobel laureate), who believed viruses consisted entirely of protein. Bawden and Pirie realized that RNA might be the infective component of viruses; but they were unable to confirm this experimentally, and it was left until 1956 for others to establish. |
| Jean Dieudonné | |
(source) |
Born 1
Jul 1906; died 29 Nov 1992.
French mathematician and educator known for his writings on abstract algebra, functional analysis, topology, and his theory of Lie groups. Dieudonné was one of the two main contributors to the Bourbaki series of texts. He began his mathematical career working on the analysis of polynomials. He worked in a wide variety of mathematical areas including general topology, topological vector spaces, algebraic geometry, invariant theory and the classical groups. |
| Amy Johnson | |
(source) |
Born 1
Jul 1903; died 5 Jan 1941.
Pioneering British female aviator who first achieved fame as a result of her attempt (1930) to set a record for solo flight from London to Darwin, Australia, although she missed that record by three days. She took up flying in 1928, and also showed talent for mechanics. By 1930 she had qualified as both a pilot and a ground engineer. Flying a De Havilland Moth, Johnson set out to beat Bert Hinkler's record for flying to Australia. Though she did not beat the record, she made it to Australia, and was given a hero's welcome. She was the first woman to make the trip. The Daily Mail gave her a £10,000 prize. Johnson made other long-distance flights. While on a flying mission for the Air Ministry, 5 Jan 1941, she disappeared over the Thames estuary. |
| Louis Blériot | |
 |
Born 1
Jul 1872; died 2 Aug 1936.
French aviator who made the world's first over-the-ocean flight in a heavier-than-air craft. As a successful inventor of automobile lights and accessories, he had his own funds available to turn his interest in aviation. After experimenting with gliders and light-engine airplanes of various designs, on 25 Jul 1909 he flew across the English Channel from Calais to Dover, piloting his Blériot XI, a monoplane with a 28-h.p. engine in 37 minutes. Blériot made the historic crossing after Lord Northcliffe, the owner of the Daily Mail, offered £1,000 to the first successful pilot. |
| Karl von Vierordt | |
(source) |
Born 1
Jul 1818; died 22 Nov 1884.
German physician and professor of medicine who invented the sphygmograph (1854), the first instrument to trace a human pulse by a non-invasive measurement of blood pressure. His method of using weights and a mechanical balance was crude, but did establish the principle that blood pressure could be measured by finding the counter pressure needed to balance the arterial pulsation. In 1852, he developed a technical method by which blood cells could be counted (though too tedious to gain widespread use). Vierordt also devised the hemotachometer to monitor the speed of blood flow. He made spectrographic analyses of haemoglobin solutions, bile, and urine and also studied respiration and sound conduction.«  |
| Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis | |
(source) |
Born 1
Jul 1818; died 13 Aug 1865.
German-Hungarian physician who discovered the cause of puerperal ("child bed") fever and introduced antisepsis into medical practice. While originally a student of law, he attended an anatomy lecture with a friend, resulting in Semmelweis changing his career. He observed that puerperal fever killed as many as 3 out of 10 of the offspring of mothers who gave birth in hospitals, yet it was rare among mothers who delivered at home. Against the prejudice of other doctors, Semmelweis proposed they were themselves transmitting the disease themselves. Semmelweis insisted that those working under him wash their hands in strong chemicals between patient examinations, with the result that deaths from fever were significantly reduced.  The
Doctors' Plague: Germs, Childbed Fever, and the Strange Story of Ignac
Semmelweis, by Sherwin B. Nuland. |
| Jean-Victor Poncelet | |
(source) |
Born 1
Jul
1788; died 22 Dec 1867.
French mathematician and engineer whose study of the pole and polar lines associated with conic led to the principle of duality. While serving as an engineer in Napoleon's 1812 Russian campaign as an engineer, he was left for dead at Krasnoy, but then captured. During his imprisonment he studied projective geometry and wrote a treatise on analytic geometry. Released in 1814, he returned to France, and in 1822 published Traité des propriétés projectives des figures in which he presented his fundamental ideas of projective geometry such as the cross-ratio, perspective, involution and the circular points at infinity. As a professor of mechanics (1825-35), he applied mechanics to improve waterwheels and was able to double their efficiency.« |
| Georg Christoph Lichtenberg | |
(source) |
Born 1
Jul 1742; died 24 Feb 1799.
German physicist and satirical writer, best known for his aphorisms and his ridicule of metaphysical and romantic excesses. At Göttingen University, Lichtenberg did research in a wide variety of fields, including geophysics, volcanology, meteorology, chemistry, astronomy, and mathematics. His most important were his investigations into physics. Notably, he constructed a huge electrophorus and, in the course of experimentations, discovered in 1777 the basic principle of modern xerographic copying; the images that he reproduced are still called "Lichtenberg figures." These are radial patterns formed when sharp, pointed conducting bodies at high voltage get near enough to insulators to discharge electrically, or seen on persons struck by lightning. |
| Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz | |
(source) |
Born 1
Jul 1646; died 14 Nov 1716.
German philosopher, mathematician, and political adviser, important both as a metaphysician and as a logician and distinguished also for his independent invention of the differential and integral calculus. Through meeting with such scholars as Christian Huygens in Paris and with members of the Royal Society, including Robert Boyle, during two trips to London in 1673 and 1676, Leibniz was introduced to the outstanding problems challenging the mathematicians and physicists of Europe. Leibniz's independently discovered differential and integral calculus (published 1684), but became involved in a bitter priority dispute with Isaac Newton, whose ideas on the calculus were developed earlier (1665), but published later (1687). The
Early Mathematical Manuscripts Of Leibniz, by Gottfried
Wilhelm Leibniz. |
|
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 |
| JULY 1 - DEATHS | |
| Edward Joseph Hoffman | |
(source) |
 Died
1 Jul 2004 (born 1 Jan 1942)
American biomedical physicist who achieved international recognition in the science field of medical imaging. In 1974, working with Michael E Phelps and others, he co-invented the PET Scanner (Positron Emission Tomography) which is used to detect cancers and other diseases. Hoffman further developed its use for quantitative measurements. A patient is prepared for a PET scan with an injection of slightly radioactive material such as molecules designed to mimic glucose as they travel through the body. Since cancerous tissues consume glucose, the scanner can then detect their location. PET technology can also be employed in the diagnosis of cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer's disease. Today, some 1,500 scanners are in use.« |
| Forrest Edward Mars | |
(source) |
Died
1 Jul 1999 (born 1904)
American candy manufacturer who led Mars Inc., one of the world's largest confectionery companies. After helping to develop the Milky Way bar for his father's candy-making business, he established his own company in Europe in the 1930s, successfully marketing a version of Milky Way called the Mars Bar; he went on to create M&Ms. When he merged his confectionery firm with father's (1964), it became the world's largest candy manufacturer. Details of Mars' life, including his birthday, are a closely guarded corporate secret within Mars Inc., a secretive company. |
| R. Buckminster Fuller | |
(EB) |
Died
1 Jul 1983 (born 12 Jul 1895)
Richard Buckminster Fuller was a U.S. engineer and architect who developed the geodesic dome, the only large dome that can be set directly on the ground as a complete structure, and the only practical kind of building that has no limiting dimensions (i.e., beyond which the structural strength must be insufficient). Fuller also invented a wide range of other paradigm-shifting machines and structural systems. He was especially interested in high-strength-to-weight designs, with a maximum of utility for minimum of material. His designs and engineering philosophy are part of the foundation of contemporary high-tech design aesthetics. He held over 2000 patents. Photo: R. Buckminster Fuller shown with a geodesic dome constructed as the U.S. pavilion at the American Exhange Exhibition, 1959. |
| C.P. Snow | |
(EB) |
Died
1 Jul 1980 (born 15 Oct 1905)
Baron C(harles) P(ercy) Snow was a British former physicist, turned novelist and government administrator. In 1959, C.P. Snow gave a controversial lecture called The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution claiming there were two cultures - the literary intellectuals and the scientists, who didn't understand each other and didn't trust each other. The split was not new; Snow noted that in the 1930s, literary theorists had begun to use the word "intellectual" to refer only to themselves. He illustrated this gap by asking a group of literary intellectuals to tell him about the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which he called the scientific equivalent of 'Have you read a work of Shakespeare?'" Since then, debate about this polarization has continued. |
| Laurens Hammond | |
(source) |
Died
1 Jul 1973 (born 11 Jan 1895)
American businessman and inventor of the electronic Hammond organ (patented 24 Apr 1934). Fascinated by science, Hammond patented his first invention, an automobile transmission, while barely a teenager. In 1909, he sold his idea for an inexpensive yet sensitive barometer, and in 1920, he sold his design for a "tickless" clock. In 1933, he stripped an old piano leaving only the keyboard action to use as a controller. He experimented with various different ways of generating sound until he found the one that sounded best - the tonewheel generator, with which he founded the Hammond Organ Company. During WW II, Laurens helped design guided missile controls with patents for bomb guidance. |
| Sir Lawrence Bragg | |
(source) |
Died
1 Jul 1971 (born 31 Mar 1890)
Australian-born British physicist and X-ray crystallographer, who at the early age of 25, shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1915 (with his father, Sir William Bragg). Lawrence Bragg formulated the Bragg law of X-ray diffraction, which is basic for the determination of crystal structure: n[lambda] = 2dsin[theta] which relates the wavelength of x-rays [lambda], the angle of incidence on a crystal [theta], and the spacing of crystal planes d, for x-ray diffraction, where n is an integer (1, 2, 3, etc.). Together, the Braggs worked out the crystal structures of a number of substances. Early in this work, they showed that sodium chloride does not have individual molecules in the solid, but is an array of sodium and chloride ions. |
| Edwin G. Boring | |
(source) |
Died
1 Jul 1968 (born 23 Oct 1886)
Edwin Garrigues Boring was an American psychologist who was first recognized for his experimental work but later known as a historian of psychology. When the U.S. entered WW I, Robert M. Yerkes recruited Boring to help test the intelligence of draftees. In 1922, he was invited to Harvard, where he began a long and productive career as director of the psychological laboratory (1924-49). To free psychology from its status as part of the Dept. of Philosophy, Boring succeeded in establishing a separate Dept of Psychology (1934). Upon retirement, he was appointed Edgar Pierce Professor Emeritus and continued to teach classes until he was nearly 71. Throughout his life, he wrote textbooks and edited professional journals. |
| Roscoe Pound | |
(EB) |
Died
1 Jul 1964 (born 27 Oct 1870)
American jurist and chief advocate of "sociological jurisprudence" who was first active as a botanist and educator. He followed his B.A. in botany with studies in law. Meanwhile, he served as director of the Nebraska state botanical survey (1892-1903), during which time he discovered a rare fungus, subsequently named Roscopoundia. Having been admitted to the Nebraska bar, Pound turned to the practice of law, and eventually became a leader in the reform of court administration in the United States. |
| Harriet Quimby | |
(EB) |
Died
1 Jul 1912 (born 1 May 1875?)
American aviator, the first female pilot to fly across the English Channel. Although she was the first American woman to become a licensed pilot, her career as a pilot lasted a mere 11 months. On 16 Apr 1912 she left England in a 50-hp monoplane lent to her by Louis Blériot. She headed for France in a plane she had never flown before and a compass she had just learned how to use. Despite poor visibility and fog, Quimby landed 59 minutes later near Hardelot, France. Upon landing, she was greeted by the local residents, but the Titanic sinking just days earlier, limited reporting of Quimby's achievement in the world press. She died the same year, when she lost control of her plane at a flying exhibition near Quincy, Mass. |
| Sir William Henry Flower | |
(source) |
Died
1 Jul 1899 (born 30 Nov 1831)
British zoologist who made significant contributions to comparative anatomy and clarification of the classification of mammals, including carnivores (1869), rhinocerosces (1875), and edentates (1882). He was superintendent, and subsequently followed Sir Richard Owen as director of Natural History Departments of the British Museum of Natural History (1884-98). Flower's innovations in museum displays greatly improved their educational value to the public. His main research interest dealt with marsupials, primates and especially whales, through which he was the first to demonstrate that lemurs are primates. Further, in thorough anthropological studies, he recorded detailed measurements of over 1,300 human skulls.« Essays
on Museums and other subjects connected with natural history by
William Henry Flower (reprint) |
| Otto von Abich | |
(source) |
Died
1 Jul 1886 (born 11 Dec 1806)
Otto Wilhelm Hermann von Abich was a German geologist. His early work was on spinels and other minerals. Later, he made special studies of fumaroles, of the mineral deposits around volcanic vents, and of the structure of volcanoes. He was a supporter of volcanistic theory, and was noted for his explorations in Asia. After moving to Russia in 1843, until his retirement, he made studies that ranged among minerology, petrography, paleontological stratigraphy, tectonics, and economic geology. He developed the anticlinal theory of oil prospecting. The mineral now called clinoclasite (basic copper arsenate) was originally named Abichite after him. |
| Henri-Étienne Sainte-Claire Deville | |
(source) |
Died
1 Jul 1881 (born 11 Mar 1818)
French chemical researcher who invented the first economical process for producing aluminum. His early work began in his own laboratory with research of turpentine. By 1849, Deville turned to inorganic chemistry, and synthesized nitrogen pentoxide. A few years later, he developed a process to extract aluminum metal from its compounds based on the use of sodium. By thus replacing the use more costly potassium, Deville changed aluminium from a laboratory curiosity to a commercial product. His metallurgical studies extended also to platinum and other minerals. |
| Charles Goodyear | |
(source) |
Died
1 Jul 1860 (born 29 Dec 1800)
American inventor who baked rubber mixed with sulphur and discovered the vulcanization process which made rubber practical as a commercial product. Previously, rubber was of limited use since it froze hard in winter and sticky in summer. After years of persistent experimentation, Goodyear had created a tough, cured compound, able to withstand heat and stress. Sadly, he was a poor businessman, unable to profit from his invention or effectively patent it abroad. The "vulcanized" name was applied by English rubber pioneer Thomas Hancock, using the sugggestion of a friend to name the process after Vulcan, the Roman god of fire. Nor was Goodyear ever connected to the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. which was named in his honour.« The
Goodyear Story: An Inventor's Obsession and the Struggle for a Rubber
Monopoly, by Richard Korman. |
| JULY 1 - EVENTS | |
| Defibrillators on American aircraft | |
(source) |
 In
1997, American Airlines became the first United States air carrier to
place
automatic external defibrillators on its fleet of 700 aircraft. AEDs
are thus available to give immediate coronary care to in-flight heart-attack
victims. Since seconds count, many lives have been saved by restoring the
natural rhythm of their heart beats. The airline was the first public entity
in the United States to do mass deployment of AEDs, and trained over 22,000
flight attendants on the use of the defibrillator. On 18 Feb 1998, their
first passenger was saved when he collapsed on an aircraft after rushing
to catch a connecting flight. On 12 Apr 2004, The U.S. Federal Aviation
Administration required AEDs to be on commercial passenger aircraft of
a certain size.«
[The 1 Jul 1997 date was given in testimony to a U.S. Congress House Aviation Subcommittee hearing by Dr. David K. McKenas that American Airlines was first to "On July 1st, 1997... place ... AEDs, on its fleet." A later press release by American Airlines gives another date: "The program was turned on May 1, 1997."] |
| X-ray | |
(source) |
In 1934, the first X-ray
photograph of the whole body taken in a one-second exposure, using
ordinary clinical conditions such as would exist at an average hospital,
was made at Rochester, N.Y. The one-piece radiograph was made by Arthur
W. Fuchs of the Eastman Kodak Company. A selective filter was used for
the first time, and the film size was 32"x72". It was exhibited by the
Chicago Roentgen Society at the Century of Progress Exhibition in Chicago,
Illinois.* |
| Lincoln Highway | |
(source) |
In 1913, the Lincoln Highway Association was formed in the U.S. to promote
a coast-to-coast road
to be known as the Lincoln
Highway*.
This idea was originated by Carl Fisher (who was responsible also for the
Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Miami Beach resort). He, and fellow
industrialists Frank Seiberling and Henry Joy, envisioned an improved,
hard-surfaced road
stretching almost 3,400 miles from New York on the east coast to San Francisco
on the west coast, by the shortest practical route. The Association
encouraged private and corporate donations to help fund the road. The need
for good roads led to the federal government building roads and the creation
of numbered U.S. routes in the 1920s. 
The
Lincoln Highway: Coast to Coast from Times Square to the Golden Gate,
by Michael Wallis et al. |
| Automatic bread plant | |
 |
In 1910, the first completely automatic bread baking plant in the U.S.
was opened by the Ward Baking Company of Chicago, Illinois.*
Neither the dough nor the bread was touched by human hand until it exited
at the wrapping machine. With several plants, this was one of the largest
baking companies
at the beginning of the 20th century. A 1915 publication described
their Bronx, N.Y. plant's operation: flour was winnowed to remove impurities,
piped to huge tanks to be combined with water and other ingredients and
allowed to stand for a time to "ripen." Next, the dough travelled to large
mixers, was kneaded, allowed to rise in a huge trough, then mechanically
split into loaf pans, conveyed slowly through an oven and wrapped.« |
| U.S. Standards Bureau | |
(source) |
In 1901, the U.S. National Bureau of Standards became effective*.
It had been established under an Act of Congress (31 Stat. 1449) approved
3 Mar 1901 that expanded the functions of the Office of Standard Weights
and Measures, previously part of the Coast and Geodetic Survey. Its duties
included the custody of the standards; comparison of standards; construction
of standards; testing and calibration of standard measuring apparatus;
and determination of physical constants and the properties of materials
which are of great importance to scientific or manufacturing interests.
The Bureau became the National Institute of Standards and Technology (N.I.S.T)
in 1988.« |
| Linotype machine | |
(source) |
In 1886, the first Linotype machine to be put into commercial use in the
U.S. was installed at the Tribune newspaper of New York City*.
Its success was immediate. At the close of 1886, a dozen of them were at
work at the Tribune*.
A decade later thousands of linotype machines were in use around the world.
The work of at least three men hand-setting type could be done by one operator
at a keyboard who could cast a line of type at a time. It was for that
capability that Whitelaw Reid, editor of the New York Tribune, gave
the Linotype its name. Ottmar Mergenthaler
invented, patented and continued to improve the machine.« [Image:
from an 1889 magazine article.] |
| First U.S. zoo | |
(source) |
In 1874, the Philadelphia
Zoo, the first zoological gardens in the U.S. opened to the public
in Philadelphia, Penn.* It
was originally chartered by the Pennsylvania state legislature on 21
Mar 1859 as the Zoological Society of Philadelphia whose core purpose
was to oversee "the purchase and collection of living wild and other animals"
and "for the instruction and recreation of the people." Rumors of a civil
war made it a difficult time for private undertakings, and delayed the
opening. After much preparation at home and abroad, the Philadelphia Zoo
opened on 1 Jul 1874 with several hundred native and exotic specimens on
the grounds of Solitude,
the last estate in the area to be owned by the Penn family. In 1875, this
was the first U.S. zoo to exhibit a male Indian rhinoceros.
[Image: Indian rhinoceros, from an Arbuckle Coffee trade card, 1890] |
| Evolution theory | |
Darwin Wallace |
In 1858, the Wallace-Darwin theory of evolution was first published at
the Linnaean
Society in London*. The
previous month Charles
Darwin received a letter from Alfred
Wallace, who was collecting specimens in the East Indies. Wallace had
independently developed a theory of natural selection - which was almost
identical to Darwin's. The letter asked Darwin to evaluate the theory,
and if worthy of publication, to forward the manuscript to Charles
Lyell. Darwin did so, almost giving up his clear priority for he had
not yet published his masterwork The Origin of Species. Neither
Darwin nor Wallace were present for the oral presentation
at the Linnaean Society, where geologist Charles Lyell and botanist Joseph
Hooker presented both Wallace's paper and excerpts from Darwin's unpublished
1844 essay. |
| Inoculation | |
 |
In 1796, the first experiment with smallpox inoculation was made by Dr
Edward
Jenner of Berkeley, England. He treated both arms of eight-year-old
James Phipps. Jenner had previously vaccinated the boy with cowpox in May,
with the result that he was not harmed by the otherwise deadly smallpox
material. |
