| SEPTEMBER 11 - BIRTHS | |
| Robert Laurel Crippen | |
1979 (source) |
 Born 11
Sep 1937
U.S. astronaut who piloted the first orbital test flight of the U.S. space shuttle program (STS-1, 12-14 Apr 1981). He was the commander of three additional shuttle flights. He first joined the U.S. Air Force Manned Orbiting Laboratory program in Oct 1966, and became a NASA astronaut in Sep 1969. Since then, Crippen has been part of the astronaut support crew for the Skylab 2, 3, and 4 missions, and for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project mission. With NASA, he was Deputy Director (Jul 1987 - Dec 1989) then Director (Jan 1990-Jan 1992) of Shuttle Operations at the John F. Kennedy Space Center. He became the director of Kennedy Space Center (Jan 1992 - Jan 1995), during which time the center carried out 22 shuttle missions.« |
| Gherman Stepanovich Titov | |
(source) |
Born 11
Sep 1935; died 20 Sep 2000.
Russian cosmonaut who was pilot of the Vostok 2 spacecraft on its 6-7 Aug 1961 orbital flight of 25 hrs 18 min. His spacecraft carried life-support equipment, radio and television for monitoring the condition of the cosmonaut, tape recorder, telemetry system, biological experiments, and automatic and manual control equipment. After Yuri Gagarin, Titov was the second human to orbit the Earth but was the first person to orbit more than once, the first to spend more than a day in space, and the first to sleep in space. He died holding the record as the youngest person in space (age 25). Titov was selected for cosmonaut training in 1960. After his spaceflight, Titov held senior positions in the Soviet space programme until his retirement in 1992.«  I
am Eagle, by Gherman S. Titov |
| Ludwig Gross | |
| Born 11
Sep 1904; died 19 Jul 1999.
Austrian-born American physician who showed that leukemia could be caused by a virus. After his first discovery in 1951 of an RNA leukemia virus in mice, the subsequent studies by Gross revealed much about the mode of action of his RNA virus, including the vertical transmission of virus from one generation to the next, the activation of viruses by radiation, and the role of immunity in protection against the agent. His work led other researchers to study the role of viruses in cancer.« |
|
| Harvey Fletcher | |
(source) |
Born 11
Sep 1884; died 1981.
American acoustical engineer who was the first to demonstrate stereophonic sound (1934). He was a trail blazing investigator of the nature of speech and hearing, noted for his contributions in acoustics, electrical engineering, speech, medicine, music, atomic physics, sound pictures, and education. He guided the development of the Western Electric Hearing Aid, the first such device to use vacuum tubes. He developed a group survey method using recorded sound of decreasing volume which has wide acceptance in schools throughout the nation. |
| Sir James Jeans | |
c. 1929 |
Born 11
Sep 1877; died 16 Sep 1946
Sir James Hopwood Jeans was an English physicist, astronomer, and mathematician who was the first to propose that matter is continuously created throughout the universe. He made other innovations in astronomical theory but is perhaps best known as a writer of popular books about astronomy. Died in Dorking, Surrey. |
| Mary Watson Whitney | |
c.1889 (source) |
Born 11
Sep 1847; died 20 Jan 1921.
American astronomer who trained with Maria Mitchell and succeeded her as professor and director of the Vassar College Observatory. As Mitchell had before her, Whitney championed science education the advancement of professional opportunities for women. She developed the astronomy department. Four years before her 1910 retirement, there were 160 students and eight different astronomy courses, including some of the first courses anywhere on astrophysics and on variable stars. During her tenure as director, the Observatory staff published 102 papers in major astronomical journals reporting their work on comets, asteroids, and variable stars. From 1896, photographic plates were used to study and measure star clusters. [Image: Whitney leaning on ladder under the equatorial telescope in the Observatory dome of Vassar College, circa 1889]« |
| Jean-Maurice-Émile Baudot | |
(source) |
Born 11
Sep 1845; died 28 Mar 1903.
French engineer who, in 1874, received a patent on a telegraph code that by the mid-20th century had supplanted Morse Code as the most commonly used telegraphic alphabet. He dedicated his life to the development of a fast-printing telegraph. After successively improved versions, he demonstrated at the International Exhibition of Electronics a perfected model which could transmit six simultaneous messages. The Baudot system was used throughout the world for terrestrial and undersea links for over 70 years. |
| Carl Zeiss | |
 |
Born 11
Sep 1816; died 3 Dec 1888
German industrialist who gained a worldwide reputation as a manufacturer of fine optical instruments. After qualifying in medicine, he began the manufacture of optical instruments, which he knew would be in increasing demand as science and medicine advanced. He spent seven years in the workshops of various European instrument-makers before he founded an optical factory at Jena (1846). He quickly establishing a reputation for products of the highest quality. Twenty years later he went into partnership with Ernst Abbe (1840-1905), who was his advisor on theoretical advances in optics. Abbe further enhanced the reputation of the company and became its sole owner upon the death of Zeiss. |
| Ulisse Aldrovandi | |
| Born 11
Sep 1522; died 4 May 1605
Renaissance naturalist and physician noted for his systematic and accurate observations of animals, plants, and minerals. |
|
|
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| SEPTEMBER 11 - DEATHS | |
| Eric Voice | |
(source) |
 Died
11 Sep 2004 (born 2 Jun 1924)
English nuclear scientist who volunteered to ingest a minute amount of plutonium as part of European research to track plutonium in the body's metabolism. He was one of 12 volunteers aged 26 to 67 who were injected with plutonium between 1992-98. Reuters reported on 8 Aug 1999 that Voice, age 73, had volunteered again to inhale plutonium for further study 18 months earlier. The miniscule dose was a soluble compound of Pu-237, which he regarded as having little risk, and he remained in good health. Sensitive detectors measured how much and where plutonium was retained, in which organs, and how quickly expelled. He was one of the first western scientists to visit Chernobyl after the explosion (1986). He died of unrelated natural causes.« |
| William R. Bascom | |
| Died
11 Sep 1981 (born 23 May 1912)
American anthropologist who served as chairman (1956-57) of the anthropology department and acting director of African studies (1953, 1957) at Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill. |
|
| Norman L. Bowen | |
(source) |
Died
11 Sep 1956 (born 21 Jun 1887)
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. |
| Rudolf Schoenheimer | |
| Died
11 Sep 1941 (born 10 May 1898)
German-American biochemist whose technique of "tagging" molecules with radioactive isotopes made it possible to trace the paths of organic substances through animals and plants and revolutionized metabolic studies. |
|
| R.H. Codrington | |
| Died
11 Sep 1922 (born 15 Sep 1830)
R(obert) H(enry) Codrington was an Anglican priest and anthropologist who made the first systematic study of Melanesian society and culture and whose reports of his observations remain ethnographic classics. |
|
| Sir William Cornelius Van Horne | |
| Died
11 Sep 1915 (born 3 Feb 1843)
U.S.-born Canadian railway official who directed the construction of Canada's first transcontinental railroad. |
|
| Sylvester Graham | |
(source) |
Died
11 Sep 1851 (born 5 Jul 1794)
American physician and inventor of the graham cracker. Perhaps because of concern for his own health, after a long illness, he became interested in human physiology and nutrition, giving lectures in the eastern states, and developing what came to be known as the Graham System, a vegetarian dietetic theory. He advocated use of whole wheat for bread, hard mattresses, open windows, fresh fruits and vegetables, pure drinking water, and cheerfulness at meals Graham’s most ambitious work, Lectures on the Science of Human Life, published in 1839, became a leading text on health reform, but his popularity waned after 1840 and he died in 1851. |
| Thomas Graham | |
(source) |
Died
11 Sep 1869 (born 20 Dec 1805)
Scottish chemist often referred to as "the father of colloid chemistry" who studied the diffusion of gases and in 1833 proposed Graham's Law, which stated that the rate of diffusion of a gas is inversely proportional to the square root of its molecular weight. Later, he extended this work to the diffusion of one liquid into another. He classified solutes into crystalloids (such as salt or sugar), and colloids (such as gum arabic and the finely divided gold suspensions of his colleague, Michael Faraday), which marked the beginning of colloid chemistry. He developed dialysis to separate colloidal solutions from electrolytes. This dialysis technique is now important in medicine. He also invented a compensated pendulum using a bob with a mercury reservoir.« |
| Joseph Nicolas Nicollet | |
 |
Died
11 Sep 1843 (born 24 Jul 1786)
Joseph Nicolas Nicollet was a French mathematician, explorer, and cartographer with an interest in astronomy. He was born in France, but financially ruined by the 1830 Revolution, he left for the U.S. in 1831. He made a private survey of the Mississippi region (1836-7), the results of which he presented in Washington. In 1838, he led a surveying expedition for the U.S. government party mapping out the lakes and waterways of northcentral Minnesota. He stressed to map publishers the importance of elevation marks on published maps. His maps were considered among the most accurate and useful until the surveyors for the great logging companies arrived in Minnesota's vast pine forests. |
| José Mutis | |
| Died
11 Sep 1808 (born 6 Apr 1732)
José (Celestino Bruno) Mutis was a botanist who initiated one of the most important periods of botanical exploration in Spain. |
|
| Joseph-Nicolas Delisle | |
| Died
11 Sep 1768 (born 4 Apr 1688)
French astronomer who proposed that the series of coloured rings sometimes observed around the Sun is caused by diffraction of sunlight through water droplets in a cloud. He also worked to find the distance of the Sun from the Earth by observing transits of Venus and Mercury across the face of the Sun. |
|
| Rudolph Jacob Camerarius | |
(source) |
Died
11 Sep 1721 (born 17 Feb 1665)
German botanist who demonstrated the existence of sexes in plants, which made plants available for studies of genetics and heredity. He demonstrated experimentally the sexuality of plants in Epistolae de Sexu Plantarum (Letter on the Sexuality of Plants, 1694) in which he identified the stamen and pistil as the male and female organs, and the pollen as the fertilizing agent. |
| SEPTEMBER 11 - EVENTS | |
| Mars survey | |
In 1997, the Mars Global Surveyor, launched in Nov 1996, went into an elliptical
orbit around Mars. To drop into a lower orbit the original mission plan
was to use a braking effect by dipping into the upper Martian atmosphere.
The lower orbit was a better position for mapping purposes. However, the
aerobraking method originally planned was suspended for several weeks to
give engineers time to develop more gentle manoeuvers to protect the craft
when a solar array failed to deploy correctly, and was flexing excessively.
It was to spend two years mapping the surface of Mars. |
|
| Deadly lightning strike | |
|
In 1997, lightning killed 19 persons and injured 6 at Andhra Pradesh, India.
(eb) |
|
| Killer bee attack in California | |
|
In 1999, the death of an 83-year-old man stung by a swarm of Africanized
"killer" bees marked the first fatality by that cause in the state of California
(USA). The victim, Virgil Foster, was a bee-keeper, who was mowing his
lawn in Los Angeles County on 31 Aug 1999 when he was stung at least 50
times by the highly aggressive bees. He was not breathing when paramedics
arrived, and then went into cardiac arrest. For two weeks he had been kept
alive on a respirator. Foster's three hives had been taken over by wild
Africanized honeybees. There had been several prior deaths from bee attacks
in other U.S. states as the killer bees continued migrating north, originally
from Brazil.« |
|
| Comet exploration | |
(source) |
In 1985, the International Cometary Explorer (ICE) flew
relatively unscathed through the gas tail of comet P/Giacobini-Zinner,
at a speed of 21 km/sec at its closed approach of some 7,800-km downstream
from the nucleus. The spaceraft found
a region of interacting cometary and solar wind ions, and encountered a
comet plasma tail about 25,000 km wide. Water and carbon monoxide ions
were also identified, which confirmed the "dirty snowball" theory. It had
been launched on 12 Aug 1978, originally named ISEE-3 (International Sun-Earth
Explorer), then renamed ICE when, after completing its original mission
in 1982, it was gravitationally manuvuered to intercept the comet. |
| Heart surgery | |
|
In 1952, the first artificial aortic valve was successfull fitted in the
heart of a 30-yr-old patient. It was made by Dr. Charles A. Hufnagel of
the Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, D.C. The valve
was made of Flexiglas and contained a 3/4" diam. float that rose and slipped
into one of three sockets in the side of the valve sleeve on the heart's
upbeat, when blood was forced into the aorta. |
|
| Phototypesetter | |
|
In 1950, a U.S.-made typesetter that no longer was based on making
metal type was first put public display at the Sixth Educational Graphic
Arts Exposition, in Chicao, Illinois. It was the Intertype Fotosetter Photogtaphic
Line Composing Machine, manufactured by the Intertype Corp. of Brooklyn,
N.Y. The first installation had been made at the plant of Stecher-Traung
Lithograph Corporation in 1949. |
|
| Radioisotopes exported | |
|
In 1947, radioactive isotopes produced from phosphorus-31, arrived at Canberra,
Australia, being the first export of radioisotopes from the U.S. They were
to be used in Australia's X-ray and medical laboratory. Oak Ridge National
Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn., produced the isotopes as a by-product of
the chain reaction in a uranium pile. They travelled by airplane via San
Francisco, California. |
|
| Mobile telephone | |
|
In 1946, the first mobile long-distance car-to-car telephone conversation
took place between Houston, Texas and St. Louis, Missouri. |
|
| Simulcast | |
|
In 1928, General Electric made the first simulcast in Schenectady, New
York, broadcasting a play over radio and TV at same time, The Queen's
Messenger. |
|
| Indian Mound Builders | |
|
In 1925, the Royal tomb of the Indian Mound Builders was unearthed
in Chillicothe, Ohio. |
|
| Wright's new record | |
|
In 1908, in the U.S., Orville Wright established a new flight record of
70 min. aloft. |
|
| Mail chute patent | |
|
In 1883, the first U.S. patent for a mail chute was issued to J.G. Cutler
of Rochester, N.Y. |
|
| Collapsible tube patent | |
|
In 1841, the first U.S. patent for collapsible metal tubes was issued to
an artist, John Rand (No. 2,252). His purpose was as a "mode of preserving
paints, and other fluids, by confining them in close mettalic vessels so
constructed as to collapse with slight pressure, and thus force out the
paint or fluid confined therein through proper openings for that purpose."
The tubes, molded of lead and used to hold oil colours, were provided with
caps to keep them airtight. The idea was later reinvented in 1892 for the
commercial packaging of tootpaste. The first collapsible polythene tubes
were produced in the U.S. for skin-tanning lotion in 1953. |
|
| Charles Darwin sees the Beagle | |
|
In 1831, Charles Darwin and Captain
Robert
Fitzroy travelled from London to Plymouth to inspect the Beagle.
This
was Darwin's first sight of the ship on which he would sail on a voyage
of discovery leading to his famous theory of evolution. |
|
| Heliocentricity accepted | |
|
In 1822, it was announced
by the College of Cardinals that henceforth "the printing and publication
of works treating of the motion of the earth and the stability of the sun,
in accordance with the opinion of modern astronomers, is permitted." When
two weeks pope Pius VII ratified the Cardinals' decree, the Catholic Church
finally officially accepted the Copernican principle that on 22
Jun 1633 Italian scientist Galileo
had been imprisoned for championing. It was not until 1835 that the Vatican
removed Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems
from its list of banned books. Finally 31 Oct 1992, the Catholic Church
admitted that Galileo had been correct.« |
|
