| JULY 14 - BIRTHS | |
| Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson | |
(source) |
 Born 14
July 1921; died 26 Sep 1996.
British chemist, joint recipient with Ernst Fischer of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1973 for "for their pioneering work, performed independently, on the chemistry of the organometallic, so called sandwich compounds." |
| Jay Forrester | |
(source) |
Born 14
July 1918
Jay W(right) Forrester is a U.S. electrical engineer and management expert. In 1944-51 he supervised the building of the Whirlwind computer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for which he invented the random-access magnetic core memory, the information-storage device employed in most digital computers. He also studied the application of computers to management problems, developing methods for computer simulation. |
| Paul Walden | |
(source) |
Born 14
July 1863; died 24 January 1957.
Paul Walden was a Latvian chemist who, while teaching at Riga, discovered the Walden inversion, a reversal of stereochemical configuration that occurs in many reactions of covalent compounds (1896). Due to this discovery, Walden's name is mentioned almost in all textbooks on organic chemistry published throughout the world. Walden revealed autoracemization and put the foundations to electrochemistry of nonaqueous solutions. Walden is also known for Walden's rule, which relates the conductivity and viscosity of nonaqueous solutions. |
| Florence Bascom | |
(credit) |
Born 14
July 1862; died 18 Jun 1945.
Florence Bascom was an American geologist and teacher. She was the first woman to receive a doctorate from Johns Hopkins University. Two years later she launched the geology department at Bryn Mawr. Bascom was the first woman to work as a geologist for the U.S. Geological Survey and to be made a fellow of the Geological Society of America. Bascom was an expert in crystallography, mineralogy, and petrography. She is known for inventing techniques that used microscopic analysis in the study of the oil-bearing rocks. She died at age 82.  |
| Fred L. Maytag | |
(source) |
Born 14
July 1857; died 26 Mar 1937.
Frederick Louis Maytag was an American industrialist who with three other men in 1893 started a farm implement business in Newton, Iowa. They made threshing machine, band-cutter and self-feeder attachments invented by one of the founders, George Parsons. By 1902, the firm was the world's largest manufacturer of threshing machine feeders. However, the company later moved into the production of washing machines due to the seasonal nature of the farm industry. Its first washing machine was the Parson's Pastime hand-powered wood tub (1907-08). By 1909, Maytag took charge of his own industry, the Maytag Company to maintain his control of quality in the planning and production of washing machines.« |
| Charles Benjamin Dudley | |
(source) |
Born 14
July 1842; died 21 Dec 1909.
American chemical engineer who was an early supporter of standardisation and material testing in industry. From 1875, as a chemist for the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, he researched the metallurgy of steel rail tracks because their breakage was a serious hazard at that time. When he discovered enormous variation in the quality of steel and published his results (1878), the manufacturers were at first uncooperative. However, Dudley insisted on continuing testing, and rigorous standards for fuels, lubricants, paints, lighting devices and various mechanical parts of locomotives and rolling stock. He co-founded (1898) the American Society for Testing and Materials, and was its president from 1902 until his death.« |
| Johannes Peter Müller | |
1857 (source) |
Born 14
July 1801; died 28 Apr 1858.
German physiologist and anatomist, one of the greatest of 19th century who, with Magendie, is credited for establishing the science of physiology in its modern form. His famous discovery of the principle of specific nerve energies (1826) when he was able to show that sensory nerves impulses, however stimulated, will be interpreted in the same way. For example, any stimulation of the optic nerve results in a sensation of light, whether light is really involved or not. His major work, Handbuch der Physiologie des Menschen für Vorlesungen, (Elements of Physiology, in 2 vols.) was published in 1833-40. His broad pathology studies included hermaphroditism, embryology, echinoderms, fishes, lmph, chyle, the blood and the voice.« |
| Jean Baptiste André Dumas | |
1879 (EB) |
Born 14
July 1800; died 10 Apr 1884.
Dumas was a French pioneer in organic chemistry. Propounding new theories of relationships between organic compounds, he laid the foundations for Kekulé's later work. In 1823, working with Jean-Louis Prévost, Dumas showed that urea is transported by the blood. Together in 1824-25, they repeated Lazarro Spallanzani's filtration experiments, thus confirming the necessity of spermatozoa for fertilization, and described cleavage in a frog egg. In 1833, with the determination of nitrogen in organic compounds, he established quantitative organic analysis. Two decades ahead of Mendeléev, in 1851, he sought to establish an order among elements by their properties. In 1848 he moved into politics, becoming Master of the Mint in 1868. |
| James Scott Bowerbank | |
(EB) |
Born 14
July 1797; died 8 Mar 1877
A British naturalist and paleontologist, Bowerbank at 15 began his initial career was at his father's whisky distillery "Bowerbank & Sons". Educated by the famous Dr. Kelly, he took an early interest in science (mainly microscopy, entomology, palaeontology and the study of sponges). He has been most remembered for A Monograph of the British Spongidae (1864-82). Bowerbank also pursued mathematics, botany, astronomy and paleontology. He was the honorary secretary and president of the Paleontological Society, and was one of the founding members of the Royal Microscopical Society and of the Zoological Society. |
| George Green | |
Gravestone (source) |
Born 14
July 1793; died 31 May 1841.
George Green was an English mathematician, born near Nottingham, who was first to attempt to formulate a mathematical theory of electricity and magnetism. He was a baker while, remarkably, he became a self-taught mathematician. In March 1828 he published An Essay on the Application of Mathematical Analysis to the Theories of Electricity and Magnetism. He became an undergraduate at Cambridge in October 1833 at the age of 40. Lord Kelvin (William Thomson) subsequently saw, was excited by the Essay. Through Thomson, Maxwell, and others, the general mathematical theory of potential developed by an obscure, self-taught miller's son heralded the beginning of modern mathematical theories of electricity. |
| Joseph Lakanal | |
(source) |
Born 14
July 1762; died 14 Feb 1845.
Educator who reformed the French educational system during the French Revolution. He was a respected scientist of the time, and observed the development of the telegraph by Ignace Chappe. On 2 Jul 1793 Joseph Lakanal filed a report to the legislature on Chappe's behalf, requesting officially that the mayors of the three communities where the first telegraphs were being erected would be ordered to take measures for the protection of the telegraphs. On 25 Feb 1795, Joseph Lakanal defined on behalf of the French Revolution an "educational utopia" which would "put an end to inequalities of development that affected a citizen's capacities for judgment." |
| Ferdinand II | |
(source) |
Born 14
July 1610; died 24 May 1670.
Fifth grand duke (granduca) of Tuscany, a patron of sciences, whose rule was subservient to Rome. Ferdinand II de' Medici was Grand Duke from 1621. He encouraged scientific studies, and he protected Galileo and the Accademia del Cimento (1657 - 1667). He also devised a sealed thermometer which, unlike Galileo's open one, was not affected by changes in air pressure. It was to him that Galileo dedicated the lens with which he had discovered the satellites of Jupiter and he also made him a gift of the armed lodestone. J. W. Blaeu dedicated to him one of his globes of the fifth type. Ferdinand II was also a patron of Robert Dudley. |
| JULY 14 - DEATHS | |
| Raymond Loewy | |
(source) |
 Died
14 July 1986 (born 5 Nov 1893)
French-born American inventor and design engineer, known as the "Father of Streamlining." Famous examples of his designs include the Studebaker1947 Starlight Coupe, the 1953 Starliner Coupe and the 1961 Avanti - designs that generated a public interest and acceptance far out of proportion to the company's relative size in the industry; the 1947 line of Hallicrafter radio receivers that conveyed a crisp precision far ahead of their time; the 1929 Gestetner duplicating machine, the 1934 Sears Coldspot Refrigerator and the S-1 Steam locomotive for the Pennsylvania Railroad - all landmark designs influential in establishing higher design standards in their respective design areas. He also designed such smaller items as toothbrushes, razors, furniture and the Coca Cola Bottle. |
| Richard von Mises | |
(source) |
Died
14 July 1953 (born 19 Apr 1883)
Austrian-American mathematician and aerodynamicist who notably advanced statistics and the theory of probability. Von Mises' contributions range widely, also including fluid mechanics, aerodynamics, and aeronautics. His early work centred on aerodynamics. He investigated turbulence, making fundamental advances in boundary-layer-flow theory and airfoil design. Much of his work involved numerical methods and this led him to develop new techniques in numerical analysis. He introduced a stress tensor which was used in the study of the strength of materials.Von Mises' primary work in statistics concerned the theory of measure and applied mathematics. His most famous, yet controversial, work was in probability theory.  Theory
of Flight by Richard von Mises |
| Maurice de Broglie | |
(source) |
Died
14 July 1960 (born 27 Apr 1875)
(6th duke) (Louis-César-Victor-) Maurice de Broglie was a French physicist who made many contributions to the study of X rays. While in the navy (1895-1908), he first distinguished himself by installing the first French shipboard wireless. From 1912, his chief interest was X-ray spectroscopy. His "method of the rotating crystal" was an application of Bragg's "focussing effect" to eliminate spurious spectral lines. De Broglie discovered the third L absorption edge (1916), which led to the exploration of "corpuscular spectra." During 1921-22, he worked with his brother Louis to refine Bohr's specification of the substructure of the various atomic shells. He also did pioneer work in nuclear physics and cosmic radiation. |
| Sir (Walter) Baldwin Spencer | |
(source) |
Died
14 July 1929 (born 23 Jun 1860)
English biologist and anthropologist, the first trained and experienced scientist to enter the field of Australian anthropology. He made several expeditions to central and northern Australia (1894-1926), making representations on Aboriginal welfare to the Australian parliament in 1913. In 1912 he collected more than 200 bark paintings which he presented to the National Museum of Victoria, together with his ethnographic collection, in 1917. Spencer’s interpretation of Aranda society came under criticism at the time and his paternalistic conclusions are unacceptable to later scholars. His writings and pictorial records constitute, however, a unique and valuable archive of Aboriginal society. He returned to England in 1927. |
| Sir William Perkin | |
 |
Died
14 July 1907 (born 12 Mar 1838)
English chemist and inventor, Sir William Henry Perkin, in his youth was enthused about chemistry by attending public lectures by Faraday. While experimenting to synthesize quinine from a coal tar chemical, Perkins mixed aniline and sodium dichromate and unexpectedly found a dense colour - he named as aniline purple - which he extracted with alcohol. He had discovered the first artificial dye. Textiles of his era were coloured from natural sources; his was a valuable alternative. At the age of 18, he patented the dye. His father invested in his efforts to manufacture the dye. It went on sale in 1857, and it became popular in France. By age 23 he was fathering a new synthetic organic chemical industry. He continued synthesis research. He was knighted in 1906. |
| Sir Arthur Thomas Cotton | |
(source) |
Died
14 July 1899 (born 15 May 1803)
British engineer whose life-work was constructing irrigation, navigation canals and dams for water storage in Southern India, saving thousands from famine and promoting local economy. He joined the Madras engineers in 1819, fought in the first Burmese war (1824-26) and began his ambitious irrigation project (1826-62). He built dams on several rivers, transforming the drought-stricken Tanjore district into the richest part of the state of Madras. His ambitious masterplan was not completed in his lifetime, but his ideas anticipated projects that were subsequently taken up. In the present time, India's goal of a National Water Grid confronts the problem of increasingly scarce water. Cotton founded the Indian school of hydraulic engineering.« |
| Alfred Krupp | |
(source) |
Died
14 July 1887 (born 26 Apr 1812)
German manufacturer of steel and armaments who was known as "The Cannon King." At an early age, in 1826, he inherited his father's small cast-steel works at Essen, which he expanded by 1843 to 100 workers making steel springs and machine parts. In 1859, he won a Prussian government contract to make 312 cannon. Developing this line of business, he became the largest steel maker in Europe. In 1862, he began making steel with the Bessemer process. His cannon were used in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. After this, he acquired control of the supply of German coal and Spanish iron-ore. His artillery business grew to 21,000 employees. His descendants continued the business and armed the Germans in WW II.«  The
Arms of Krupp: The Rise and Fall of the Industrial Dynasty that Armed Germany
at War, by William Manchester. |
| Augustin Jean Fresnel | |
| Died
14 July 1827 (born 10 May 1788)
French physicist who first investigated the effect of interference of light, with results known as Fresnel fringes. This decisively work, together with further experiments with polarized light supported Thomas Young's wave theory of light Fresnel advanced the wave theory by identifying light as transverse waves rather than the longitudinal waves previously assumed by Young and Huygens. His pioneering work in optics included showing that white light is composed of a spectrum of innumerable wavelengths ranging from red to shorter violet wavelenths. In 1819, he improved the optical system of lighthouses by replacing metal reflectors with revolutionary stepped lenses of his design.« |
|
| JULY 14 - EVENTS | |
| First Mars close-up photo | |
(source) |
In 1965, the Mariner 4 satellite sent a transmission of the first
close-up
photograph
of Mars. It consisting of 8.3 dots per second of varying degrees of darkness.
The transmission lasted for 8.5 hours and depicted the regions on Mars
known as Cebrenia, Arcadia, and Amazonis. The satellite was 134 million
miles away from earth and 10,500 miles from Mars. The 574-pound spacecraft
had been launched at 9:22am on 28 Nov 1964, from Cape Canaveral, FL, by
a two-stage Atlas-Agena D rocket. In addition to its camera with digital
tape recorder (about 20 pictures), it carried instruments for studying
cosmic dust, solar plasma, trapped radiation, cosmic rays, magnetic fields,
radio occultation and celestial mechanics. |
| Rhino tank | |
(source) |
In 1944, General Omar Bradley inspected the invention
of Sgt. Curtis G. Culin, the heavy steel, tusklike prongs welded on the
front of a Sherman tank in the 2nd Armored Division. During the Normandy
campaign in France, the advance of the U.S. Sherman tanks had been seriously
obstructed
by the local terrain (called bocage
in French). Hedgerows between small fields were tall, very thickly overgrown
banks. Only with the prongs, dubbed the Rhinoceros, could the tanks ram
through without the front end rising high and exposing their vulnerable
underbelly to shells from the enemy hidden by hedgerows. Impressed by the
demonstration, Bradley ordered emergency construction of many more using
steel beams from the German beach defenses.« [Image
right: Typical hedgerow of the bocage (source)
] |
| George Washington Carver National Monument | |
(source) |
In 1943, George Washington Carver was honored
by U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt dedicating $30,000 for a National
Monument to his accomplishments. The area of Carver's childhood near
Diamond Grove, in southwest Missouri has been preserved as a park, with
a bust of the agricultural researcher, instructor, and chemical investigator.
This park was the first designated national monument to an African American
in the United States. In 1850-65, Diamond was a typical "crossroads village"
near a diamond-shaped grove of trees not far from the Carver farm in Newton
County. Also called Diamond Grove, it consisted of a general store, a combination
blacksmith shop and post office, and a church that served as a schoolhouse
during the week. |
| German Sterilization Law | |
(source) |
In 1933, a sterilization law was passed in Nazi Germany, known as Gesetz
zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses (Law for the Prevention of
Genetically Diseased Offspring), to be effective 1 Jan 1934. Any German
was a target if suffering from any of the following mental conditions that
were expected to be hereditary: congenital mental deficiency, schizophrenia
or manic-depressive insanity. Other expected herediatry conditions included:
epilepsy, Huntington’s chorea, blindness, deafness, any severe hereditary
deformity or even severe alcoholism. Within a few years, up to an estimated
400,000 Germans were involuntarily sterilized in pursuit of this national
goal of "racial hygiene," to eliminate handicapped descendants. Most
operations, often by female tubal ligations or male vasectomies, were done
in 1934-37. [Image: Propaganda
poster showing the financial burden to society of hereditary disabilities.
Text translates as "You are sharing the load! A genetically Ill Individual
Costs Approximately 50,000 Reichmarks by the Age of Sixty."]
Racial
Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis, by Robert Proctor.
 Booklist
for German Eugenics |
| Liquid-Fuel Rocket | |
 |
In 1914, the first patent for a liquid-fueled rocket design was granted
to Dr Robert Hutchins Goddard. His first rocket reached a height of 12.5
metres. |
| Corkboard | |
 |
In 1891, the first US patent was issued for pure corkboard to John T. Smith
of Brooklyn, NY. Manufacture was begun in Brooklyn in 1894 by Stone and
Duryea. Cork covering was produced first, followed by the manufacture of
pure corkboard. (No. 456,068) He described a process whereby to subject
"cork in a more or less fine state in a closed vessel to heat, so as to
melt and volatilize the resinous matter contained in it, permitting some
of the vapor to escape from the vessel and cementing the cork particles
together by the condensation of the remaining vaporized resinous matter."
The patent commented on the value of the product in life-preservers for
being less dense and more waterproof after this treatment. |
| Spring tape measure | |
(source) |
In 1868, Alvin J. Fellows of New Haven, Connecticut recieved the first
U.S. patent for a spring tape measure. The tape measure was enclosed in
a circular case with a spring click lock to hold the tape at any desired
point. (No.
79,965). Earlier, a machine to print ribbon for the supple sewing tape
measures had already been patented on 3 Sep 1847, after four years of research
by the French fashion designer, Lavigne. Further, however, Sheffield, England
claims to be not just the home of stainless steel, but also where the spring
tape measure was invented. |
| Dynamite | |
(source) |
In 1867, Alfred Nobel demonstrated dynamite for the first time at a quarry
in Redhill, Surrey. In 1866 Nobel produced
what he believed was a safe and manageable form of nitroglycerin called
dynamite. He established his own factory to produce it but in 1864 an explosion
at the plant killed Nobel's younger brother and four other workers. Deeply
shocked by this event, he now worked on a safer explosive and in 1875 came
up with gelignite. Other inventions followed including ballistite, a form
of smokeless power, artificial gutta-percha and a mild steel for armour-plating. |
| US World's Fair | |
(source) |
In 1853, the first US World's Fair opened in New York. Born of a desire
to recreate and, if possible, surpass the British Crystal Palace exhibition
of 1851, it was promoted by New York businessmen, including Horace Greeley.
Modeled after London's impressive structure, the iron and glass New
York Crystal Palace was an octagonal
form, with Greek-cross superstructure abutting a round dome at the center
and tall minarets at the outer angles. The building housed 4,854 exhibitors,
of whom about half came from 23 foreign nations. The roof of the ill-fated
Crystal Palace leaked and heavy rains ruined exhibits and soaked visitors.
Delays, poor management and dwindling attendance caused the exposition
to close with a substantial loss. |
| Manufactured ice | |
 |
In 1850, the first public demonstration of ice made by refrigeration in
the U.S. took place during a dinner at the Mansion House, Apalachicola,
Dr. John Gorrie produced blocks of ice the size of bricks. He installed
his system in the U.S. Marine Hospital in Apalachicola. He obtained the
first mechanical freezer patent on 6 May 1851, for an "improvement in the
process for the artificial production of ice." |
| Priestley's laboratory destroyed | |
(source) |
In 1791, chemist Joseph Priestley's
laboratory, home and library in Birmingham were burned to destruction by
a mob of people angry at his support of the French Revolution. Within a
few years, on 7 Apr 1794, he forever left England and travelled to the
United States. Priestley discovered oxygen nearly 20 years earlier, on
1 Aug 1774. |
